In Bed With The Bomb

I recently watched my DVD of the great documentary The Atomic Café, a stunning compilation of newsreels, television broadcasts and other mixed media about the birth of the atomic bomb and tests conducted in the West Coast desert for its development.

The soundtrack to the film is a fascinating combination of country swing and folk songs all concerning the threat of communism, the bomb, and the threat of an impending nuclear war. I normally sandwich this film in between viewings of Kiss Me Deadly and A Boy and His Dog, but that’s another story.

I wrote a poem about the film and while it’s not as contemplative as I’d liked it to be, it’s close to expressing the anxiety that ran through every American at the time. I call it In Bed With The Bomb.

In Bed With The Bomb

I was just a gleam in a physicist’s eye
the final solution from a 12 o’clock high
blowing to bits to a teeny weenie
no people atoll in my radioactive bikini

I’m in bed with the bomb
I’m about to kingdom come
drop it now, stop it how?
duck and cover, my atomic lover

Then I lost my nuclear virginity
on a hot summer’s day in a place called Trinity
caught the atomic dose
in Los Alamos
a sleepy hollow
like Castle Bravo

Got the Manhattan Project in my pocket
hydrogen, neutron, can you fuel this rocket?
shield your eyes and drop the bomb
radiation bath fries in the napalm

Waving it around like a loaded gun
take a look around now everybody’s got one
you think the answer to it all is a mushroom cloud
I’d rather see your corpse wrapped up in a shroud

I’m in bed with the bomb
I’m about to kingdom come
drop it now, stop it how?
duck and cover, my atomic lover

Well, it’s not Phil Ochs but it’s not The Weirdos, either (“we don’t really want it but we got it anyway”). Since there was so much bluegrass in the movie I decided to play my mandolin hardcore punk style to give it an urgent, bluegrass tempo. Here’s the link to the “chune”:

Andy Seven Ltd. · In Bed With The Bomb

Now Playing ABSOLUTELY FREE on You Tube - Pyromaniacs On Parade

Lately in my sojourns on You Tube I've noticed a few horror-based thrillers that all employ the device of the house fire trauma. This is not an easy trick to pull off, as in they all seem to have the house still standing after the fire and in pretty good shape. The films listed below aren't particularly good, but they're swell trash worth at least one view and definitely chuckle worthy, so let's get started:

Picture Mommy Dead (1966): A teen variant on the old William Castle movies, where the halfway sane person gets bullied into believing they're still crazy and going crazier by the minute (see Strait-Jacket or The Night Walker). Is it as good as Castle? No, but it's still pretty camp.

Susan Shelley (Susan Gordon) returns to the home where she witnessed her mother's fiery death three years earlier, an experience that drove her to madness to a convent-based sanitarium. While she was committed in the institution her father (a buttoned-up Don Ameche) ran off with the governess (Martha Hyer) and married her.

Ameche went bankrupt spending all of his wife's money and has to sell out most of the property at home. Unfortunately he cannot sell the home, as Susan is the legal heir to the property. These details are explained laughably by a highly abrasive Wendell Corey, who speaks in a sort of crotchety William S. Burroughs-style voice.

Susan also happens to know where the late Mrs. Shelley's extremely expensive necklace is hidden, as selling would mean paying off Papa Ameche's extremely sizable debt, but Susan's shock from the fire blacked out her memory of the necklace's whereabouts.

Most of the film is spent with Hyer and brother-in-law Anthony (a hammy Maxwell Reed) scheming on ways to drive poor Susan into mental infirmity so they can have her locked away again and take over the family fortune. There are many scenes involving falcons, phoenixes, and other aviary imagery.

Mommy Dead isn't a great horror film but it's a decent time waster and a genuine oddity. The role of Mommy is played by a silent Zsa Zsa Gabor, who hasn't got any dialogue to utter. It's also funny her hair's dyed red to obviously symbolize fire. And when was the last time you saw a movie featuring the Mattel Scoo-Ba-Doo beatnik doll?

How Awful About Allan (1970): Curtis Harrington directed this Henry Farrell adaptation from his novel. If the name Henry Farrell sounds familiar to you, it should. He's the writer of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, and the next two films with Mr. Harrington, What's The Matter With Helen? and Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?

How Awful About Allan, starring Anthony Perkins, is not as good as any of the films listed above. It's a TV movie and looks it, plus the story isn't terribly involving. It starts with a house fire which killed Allan's father and disfigured his sister, played by Julie Harris. Allan loses most of his eyesight in the fire, with his sanity gone as well, leaving him institutionalized.

Out of the institution and back at home, Perkins is perpetually angry about his blindness, cussing and yelling at Harris in every other scene. It doesn't help that Harris rented out a room to a boarder which Perkins swears is stalking him, a bizarre claim given that Perkins can barely see.

The standout scene in the film is when Perkins loses his shit and steals his sister's car, tearing down the main road, careening wildly all over the place, uprooting trees and knocking over mailboxes with a completely perplexed look on his face. Pretty funny stuff!

It's nice to know that Harrington eventually made better films with Farrell after this one because this film was a hard one to get through. Joan Hackett is the only saving grace in this one. Not one of Perkins' better crazy guy roles!

Cure For Pain: The Mark Sandman Story (2011): No, not another horror thriller, but a film which can be seen in its entirety on You Tube. Directed by Robert Bralver as a labor of love, the film charts the short life of the man behind the legendary band Morphine. Being a major Morphine fan I couldn't wait to see this film.

To those not familiar with the sound of Morphine, they were a three-piece consisting of baritone & tenor saxophones played in tandem, a slide two-string bass guitar and drums. Somehow it worked on a Tom Waits "Swordfishtrombones" level. In fact, it helps a lot to listen to latter day Waits to figure out what Morphine were up to.

Bralver's documentary goes into Sandman's childhood with his troubled siblings, nomadic post-teen years, and going up to his early days playing in Treat Her Right. Both ex-girlfriends and former band mates are interviewed with somewhat less than saintly accounts of the occasionally arrogant musician.

But let's be honest, you're watching it for the great Morphine music and his great singing and playing, which he delivers in spades. The film spends a little too much time recalling his last days playing at an Italian mountainside festival where the air might have been too thin to allow proper breathing for him. A lot of detail is paid to this sad episode.

Again, this is a film that deserves a quick view but isn't terribly gripping, partially hindered by the film's wobbly time line. During the first half of the film it's difficult to figure out what time period people are discussing, because it goes from Treat Her Right days back to his childhood and back again. It can get pretty confusing. Tighter editing and sequencing would have helped.

Still and all, it's pretty great that a Mark Sandman documentary exists, and there are parts that get pretty exciting, but I wonder if that's just something a CD would have accomplished, and a lot quicker, too.

Series 7: The Contenders (Canada, 2001)

The opening scene to Series 7: The Contenders shows a pregnant woman with poorly dyed hair marching into a convenience store with a pistol in her hand shooting an old man to death. After blowing him away, she turns to the cashier and asks, “Hey, do you have any bean dip?”

Looking like a cross between The Hunger Games and Trailer Park Boys, Series 7: The Contenders is a comedic faux-reality show about six contestants killing each other for mysterious prizes. The longest reigning contender is Dawn (Brooke Smith), a pregnant woman expecting to pop any second going after random strangers picked Powerball lottery style. The six contenders include a professional nurse, a 72 year old shut-in, a teenage girl who’s a gun nut, an unemployed family man and Dawn’s high school boyfriend Jeff (Glenn Fitzgerald) from their goth club days.

What Dawn doesn’t realize, of course, is that killing Jeff is a futile effort because he’s seriously ill from testicular cancer, biding his time until the virus claims his soul. But somehow that doesn’t seem to be terribly important because Dawn has to uphold her champion killer status.

Series 7: The Contenders carries the slogan “REAL PEOPLE in REAL DANGER in a FIGHT FOR THEIR LIVES” filmed in that garish “Cops” style we’ve come to know and love so much. Guns are handed to all six contenders by production crew members in ski masks. If the contenders refuse them, as in the case of family man Tony Reilly, they’re hunted down in an OJ Simpson-style high speed chase down the freeway and beaten mercilessly.

Series 7 takes place in Newburg, Connecticut, Dawn’s home town. We see her being driven into town in a cab looking at the Motel 6 with its cheery light box cheering her on, “GOOD LUCK DAWN!” While she’s in the cab she asks the driver to take her to all five contenders’ homes, where she crank calls them, “I’m watching you right now. You’re dead meat”.

Returning to her mother’s house where she’s refused entry until she pulls out her piece, her mother reprimands her by saying, “How dare you show your face around here? You wouldn’t even shave your armpits for your sister’s wedding!”

Lindsay Berns, the 18 year-old gun nut won’t give Katniss any sleepless nights, in fact she’s pretty air-headed (“My boyfriend picked out this bullet proof vest for me. I’m still a virgin, by the way.”) After almost experiencing death in a golf course shoot-out with Franklin the grizzled old shut-in she rebels against her parents by finally putting out for her boyfriend.

And by the way, all the usual gross reality show clichés are in full force: “I’m doing this for my kids!” “TURN THE CAMERA OFF, DAMMIT! TURN IT OFF RIGHT NOW!”

When Dawn finally meets up with her ex-boyfriend Jeff she tells him that she won’t kill him, but ironically Jeff asks her to kill him by lethal injection to put him out of his misery. Before their reunion we’re treated to a bad student film of the couple in their goth finest acting out to Joy Division’s smarmy “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. I thought they looked a lot cooler in goth drag, but there you go.

In the meantime, an anonymous note is sent to all of the contenders suggesting that they can be freed from the TV show if they all meet at the Wicks ‘N Sticks booth at the local shopping mall. Franklin the shut-in sees Lindsay and clubs her to death with his metal cane as her parents and boyfriend passively look on. After he’s done beating her he’s shot sniper style by Connie, who set the trap in the first place. Pissed that she's been scooped on several kills, Dawn chases Connie to her condo. Unfortunately, once she traps Connie and closes in for the kill her water breaks, placing her in a compromising position. Connie the nurse ends up assisting Dawn in the birthing process, saying, “I’m going to save the baby and then I’m going to kill you”.

Once the baby’s born, however, it’s taken away from Dawn by the show’s producers and told she can’t get her baby back until she kills Connie and Jeff. Connie goes to the hospital where Dawn’s staying at and goes to Jeff’s room to kill him with another lethal injection, not realizing Jeff has a gun by his bed. Once Jeff has finally killed his first contender he loses his death wish and decides to have a final showdown with Dawn.

But hold the phone, instead of killing each other, Jeff and Dawn beat the crap out of the camera crew – yay! – and run away, becoming fugitives reunited by love. The final climax falls to shit, though, completely ruined by a shitty re-enactment sequence where Dawn’s killed in a movie theater (???) by Jeff’s ex-wife. Why the final scene was played by different cast members doesn’t make a bit of sense and totally ruins the climax. Oh well, most of it was pretty good anyway.

Series 7: The Contenders is the perfect antidote to all those shitty contest shows we’ve all been subjected to. Once you see it you’ll never hear “Love Will Tear Us Apart” the same way again.

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Hollywood biographer David Stenn’s documentary “Girl 27” is probably the most disturbing film I’ve seen in awhile. It’s the report of a true incident in 1937 of movie extra Patricia Douglas raped at an MGM Pictures sales convention. Because MGM at the time was to Hollywood what General Motors was to Detroit, there were a lot of people who didn’t want to step up and admit any wrong-doing by MGM.

What makes “Girl 27” so disturbing isn’t the rape itself but the behavior by everyone following the incident, which is shockingly abusive and negligent. Everyone around her did everything in their power to wash their hands of Douglas, from the defending attorney – who ducked out of not one, not two, but three hearings for his client, to her mother, who was paid off in money, property and even horses to shut up. Douglas died during the making of the film, and even her estranged daughter callously recalls telling the crematorium that she didn’t want her mother’s ashes in an urn and didn’t even want to pay $25 for a cardboard box to put them in. Even after death the ugly disrespect continued.

When Douglas does speak to the camera about her rape, a word she wouldn’t even use, and its aftermath, she explains her manic depression, made all too justifiable in light of the fact that absolutely no one cared to stand up for her at any time in her life, or even death, save Mister Stenn. “Girl 27” is the ultimate horror film, where corruption prevails and the victim is abused by selfishness and greed even within their own bloodline.

"Paul Smith: Gentleman Designer"

To be perfectly honest the world of menswear hasn’t seen too many designers of utter genius. Rei Kawakubo (Comme Des Garcons) and Burberry immediately come to mind, Kenneth Cole comes close, but for the most part the most brilliant work has been largely reserved for women’s fashions. Then there’s the work of Sir Paul Smith, letting us in on what makes him tick in a recent French television documentary. Every thing he says and does in this doc can serve as a valuable lesson in fashion design.

Originally from the town of Nottingham, Paul Smith opened a boutique with his future wife Pauline, a fashion student from the Royal College of Art. She pretty much steered him in the right path of design, which helped build his name by combining vintage British tailoring with colorful and occasionally flamboyant fabrics, lining choices, notions and unique finishing. Because he started with average, white shirting material, he decided that the only way to stand out from the pack was by jazzing up the finishing and implementing unconventional colored buttoning, never forgetting his trademark multicolored stripes emblem, looking like some unholy psychedelic bar code. The Paul Smith approach from Day One was to continue the tradition of British tailoring with enough weird tweaks to keep it new and eccentric.

Shown in his Covent Garden office with thousands of books, toys and swatch boards surrounding his desk, Smith works in his headquarters on 20 Kean Street, a five-story building which also houses his assistant designers, art and marketing staff. Smith even takes time out to goof off with his vintage Mr. Machine toy – I’ve got one, too! Anyway, he’s shortly seen conducting an office meeting with designers and managers about the focus and concept of his new line, using of course vintage rock album covers. But dig the bizarre choices!

Example Number One are photographs of Sixties era Frank Zappa(!) wearing an occasional suit, looking smart and dapper, but not without Smith mentioning that Zappa also wore a gorilla-fur coat. The point being made is that in Rock & Roll smart tailoring goes hand in hand with the unexpected. His head designer Simon steps up and shows custom printed textiles influenced by album cover art.

Example Number Two is The Stone Poneys, Linda Ronstadt’s pre-solo folk band with Smith pointing out cool folk-rock style, mixing vintage beatnik with then current acid rock looks as a target design. This style at the time consisted of heavy coats, tight striped pants and furry hats, a style best popularized by John Philips of The Mamas and The Papas, among others.

Example Number Three, if it wasn’t weird enough, is Kraftwerk and the Kraut Rock look in general. Kraftwerk's tailored and dapper looks from "The Man Machine" and "Trans-Europe Express" are held up as examples of clean lines and fine-line tailoring. The bottom line, Rock & Roll has always been about style and fashion. My blog title last year said it all: “Once Rock Stars Looked Like Models But Now Models Look Like Rock Stars”.

Coming from most designers, the whole R&R fashion rigmarole would sound like so much chin music – John Varvatos, great fan that he is, can get tiresome with his fandom, but Smith is the real deal. Smith talks about his youth in Notting Hill, sleeping on floors with legendary blues musicians like Zoot Money and Grahame Bond.

British rock style in the Sixties, Sir Paul explains, put a twist on traditional British dandyism by incorporating women’s fabrics for men’s tailoring at bespoke tailors on Savile Row. As a result, sometimes bands were ripped off by the tailors when they used old curtain fabric rather than real material, passing it off as psychedelic enough to be cool. Smith proudly shows off designs he made for bands like Led Zeppelin (trousers for Jimmy Page!) and Pink Floyd.

Not above clowning around in front of the camera and or his staff, Smith even advises his Paris Fashion Week models (including Andrej Pejic and a frightened-looking Miles McMillan) that it’s okay to look happy and even smile when walking down the runway. The down to earth attitude about fashion includes modeling, where it’s stressed that models need to look interesting rather than gorgeousperfect.

A designer as celebrated as Paul Smith could very easily just rest on his laurels and take himself seriously like less-successful designers (he has 200 stores in Japan alone), but what makes Smith so cool is his restless search for inspiration and lack of propriety in an art and industry increasingly ceremonial to the point of atrophy. In this regard, Smith might very well be one of the most Rock & Roll designers in an industry rampant with imposters.