Issue #4: Rich Kids

Hey, gang.

1979 was an awesome year. Walter Hill's The Warriors had hoodlums shooting each other dead in crowded movie theaters. Seminal English post-punk band Wire released their magnum opus, 154. A couple of ill-matched neurotics got drunk at a Columbus Day party and accidentally conceived another baby.

Me.

Also, Robert Altman executive-produced a movie that no one ever talks about.

Boy, that lobby card sure doesn't pique your interest. Fuck.

So, right, the movie was Robert M. Young's Rich Kids. It's the story of Franny Philips (Trini Alvarado), a 12 year-old girl whose well-meaning parents (John Lithgow, Kathryn Walker) are dancing around the issue of their pending divorce. Unfortunately, Franny understands perfectly well what's going on thanks to the insight of her sympathetic classmate, Jamie (Jeremy Levy). As the situation at home worsens, Franny distracts herself with pre-adolescent sexual curiosity and recurring visits to Jamie's father's incredible bachelor pad. Lessons are learned, parents eat shit, and life goes on.

It's not a stellar movie, but I'm mildly obsessed by it.... Let's explore that.

  
#1: The Location

Rich Kids is set entirely in Manhattan. And this isn't post-Disney, post-9/11 Manhattan -- this is fucking 1979, son. The locations used are jaw-dropping. Franny's Upper West Side brownstone; a neighborhood Italian restaurant with built-in bocce ball court; the posh progressive school the kids attend, or the aforementioned (Asian-themed) bachelor pad -- the film is seemingly built to stir envy in anyone whose childhood wasn't spent among the upper-class environs of '70s NYC.

Ralph D. Bode's cinematography seals the deal, and ensures that Rich Kids is, if nothing else, an amazing document of retro urban privilege.

#2: The Stewardess

This one is easy. There's a hot actress named Diane Stilwell playing a manipulative stewardess who's dating Jamie's dad (Terry Kiser).

She's cute, that's all. (I like the bangs, OK? Fuck off.)

#3: The Heart

Well, I'm kind of a sucker.

Yes, Judith Ross's script is a little rigid (though, kudos for the legit use of profanity); Lithgow doesn't exactly have to flex his acting chops; and Jeremy Levy comes across like "Silver Spoons"-era Jason Bateman's effete Jewish clone. All that aside, there's an old-school earnestness here that, frankly, provides a welcome 100-minute refuge from modern life.

Really, you know, I dig that Franny's parents unabashedly love her... just like I dig that the kids share their first kiss in front of a giant advent screen that's tuned-in to some shitty "late show" B-horror flick.

Plus, Jamie's dad has pet piranhas. I'm only human. 

Rich Kids is currently available on Netflix's streaming service. Check it out.


See you soon!

Issue #3: Godzilla Is Real

Hey, gang.

Godzilla haunts my dreams.

That's the original theater poster for Toho's 1954 masterpiece, Gojira.

Thanks to 50+ years of (awesome) bullshit, a lot of people don't realize that Godzilla's first adventure was actually, you know, a serious movie.

Here's a synopsis:

Japan gets butt-fucked by a nuclear-powered, fire-breathing dinosaur. Some awesome dude with an eye-patch invents a big metal ball called the oxygen destroyer that... destroys oxygen, but also dissolves flesh like that Mad Scientist Monster Lab toy from the late '80s. That thing was fucking cool!

When I was little, I had a re-occuring nightmare involving a day at the beach with my immediate family. Our picnic was routinely interrupted by ground tremors, followed by roars, followed by this EXACT sight:

Well, there weren't any Japanese peasants in my dream -- usually it was just my parents, my siblings and an Igloo cooler full of Five Alive juice and Hydrox -- but you get the gist.

I was terrified!

Not as terrified as Easter '85 when I peed the bed and woke up at 2 am to find that there was a Masters of the Universe figure in my egg basket that I'd never seen before.

Spikor.

My mom made a pretty fucked-up face when, pee-drenched, I suggested that maybe she should let me stay up and open the toy. And she probably could've handled the situation better than wringing her hands in convulsive despair and screaming, "Shit on my life!Shit on YOU!"

Kidding! She just hit me, and then made me take a bath while she changed my sheets.

By the way, Spikor looked like... this!

Pretty dope, but those boots are really clashing with that loincloth.


See you soon!

PS - Did you notice the blonde kid in that Monster Lab ad? Yeah, he was in both Return of the Living Dead, Part II AND the 1988 remake of The Blob. Rad!

Issue # 2: Straight Outta Hawthorne

Hey, gang.

You ever think about Sandahl Bergman? I do.

I also think about the Beach Boys.

Thanks to a dominating, manipulative father, the Wilson brothers (Brian, Dennis, and Carl) were emotionally retarded and utterly unprepared for life. Mercifully, they happened to be musically gifted, as well.

So, have you ever heard their 1965 release, Beach Boys' Party!?

Legend has it that each copy came with a free bag of official Beach Boys potato chips. I guess that was all you needed for an instant party in 1965.

Some chips.

Beach Boys' Party! was a "live-in-the-studio" LP featuring twelve tracks of raucous... fun. Girlfriends and well-wishers filled the studio, laughing and participating in a loose (possibly drunken) "jam session". It wasn't really spontaneous, but it was a reasonable facsimile of spontaneity.

Among the tracks were three (!) Beatles covers, which is excessive considering that the Beach Boys had two #1 singles and a dozen other hits by '65. Obviously, the record didn't require a Lennon/McCartney homage to garner interest.

But supposedly Carl and Brian were huge Beatles fans.

Oh, and they covered Dylan, too.

See, the album's true highlight, aside from Mike Love's receding hairline, was the inclusion of a medley: "I Get Around" and "Little Deuce Coup". The boys were able to shift effortlessly into their trademark dick-melting harmonies, thus cutting through the inherent campiness of a giggling white bread nerd-orgy -- and the result is magical.

Check it out.

I have more to say about the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, but it can wait.


See you soon!

Issue #1

Hey, gang.

My name's C.P. and this is a blog. I think I'm probably a decade late to this party, but that's never stopped me before. I'm a fucking wild man.

And here's a picture of Kristy Swanson.

Some things that are important to me:

- Getting 10+ hours of sleep.
- Allergic to cats.
- Rowdy Roddy Piper action figures.
- Tension headache.
- Music.
- Genie pants.
- Proofreading.

I'm really into Donald Duck right now, too.


See you soon!