(DIS)COMFORT VIEWING IN LA

George Nickle is a fantastic writer (among many, many other skills and talents) who is currently making it happen in LA.  We have been friends since our college days a NCSA where we discovered our mutual affection for extremely bad movies.  Over the years, we've turned our love for these films into something of a, for lack of a better word, feud.  When we do find the time to spend together, we use it to continue our cinematic assault on each other with one ultimate winner.  He sent this piece to me following my last trip to LA.  It perfectly sums up our times together.  I know you will enjoy! 
 

(DIS)COMFORT VIEWING IN LA

by

George Nickle

 

 

My best friend Randy came to visit me in LA to celebrate the big 5 oh. He’s got his own amazing blog here on Queeratorium, so I am sure he will tell you all about our exciting week. And while he will probably go on about the barely missed car crashes, smog and creepy bouncer that kept him from taking me up on my offer of the drink of his choice at Ed Wood Jr’s favorite bar (yup, it is still there, right beside the studio where he shot Plan 9 from Outer Space), I’m going to tell you about our Truly Terrible So Bad It’s Good film festival.

 

A quick refresher on the rules: No fast-forwading, no matter how bad it gets. No looking away. We choose in turn. One for Randy, one for me. And at least one film has to star either Sybil Danning, Morgan Fairchild or Linda Blair.  The last requirement must be fulfilled. And fulfilling it this time led to... The Unspeakable.

 

Randy brought a few films and I had a few on hand too. We really didn’t go out of our way to stock up, since this time we were doing it in LA and thought that there might be a few things that kept us out of the house a little more than they do in Sophia, NC.

Our last film fest had been in October and it was heavy on 1970s Made for TV Movies. The worst of which has better writing than most any 100 million dollar studio feature today, so it had been pretty harmless and lots of fun. Randy had the last choice (Bad Ronald!) So this time I went first.

Night Of The Creeps on blu-ray. A good, solid 1980s flick about space slugs that turn people into zombies. Fun, but not as fun as we remembered. Randy followed-up with Tucker and Dale vs Evil and boy it was good! If you haven't seen it, go get it now!

I do have to say, its quality made me worry a bit.  I thought it was high time to hit the boulevard. We’re talking Angel! “High School Honor Student by Day. Hollywood  Hooker by Night.” One of my favorite films from childhood.  It’s got hookers, Rory Calhoun, Dick Shawn in a dress, a necrophilic killer with serious mommy issues and the one-and-only Susan Tyrrell as a hard-as-nails dyke with a heart.

Life was good. Then it was Randy’s turn again. Now he’d been telling me about Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives for some time. He really liked it and it had pissed off all sorts of people (apparently “trannies” is not PC). That alone was reason enough for excitement.  

I didn’t like it. It sort of made me angry. Now it is well known that I still consider the gay film Issues 101 to be the second worst film ever shown in our film festival. Besting even The Visitor and beaten only by Battlefield Earth (which I chose in terrible retaliation to Issues 101). Let me be clear, Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives is no Issues 101. It wasn’t terrible it just pissed me off. I’m sick of seeing gay men put on dresses then act like the worst stereotypes of womanhood. I know it is supposed to be like the classic grindhouse revenge flicks, but we are not far enough along to see men in dresses cowering as manly men beat them to death. Even if the surviving trannies return for revenge, which they do, they already lost me.  So I chose another of my 1980s classics, Screwballs. Sure it is puerile and does not come near the classic it is a rip-off of, Porky's, but it: 1) is never boring (again, the most offensive thing a film can be) , 2) has characters named Purity Busch & Bootsie Goodhead and 3) had the best line of the entire fest (girl asks the school tramp Bootsie if she is dating her brother. Bootise replies “Probably. What’s his name?”). Even Randy admits that, but oh no there were titties!

 

 

And so Randy plotted revenge. During one of our 5 or so holy pilgrimages to Amoeba (www.amoeba.com) Randy unearthed a foul work in my most detested genre (musicals) by the name of  The Unsinkable Molly Brown. I had to talk some sense into him. If he showed that then, on only the 3rd night of his week long stay, it would mean 4 days of retaliatory strikes that neither of us could take. We agreed to hold off, it would be his last choice on the last night. That gave me time to plot my response.

So we proceeded with Birdemic: Shock and Terror (the worst porn film I ever saw, Batdude, had better acting & special effects), Barbarella (count how often Jane gets hit on the head, has sex and changes outfits), The Doberman Gang and The Warrior and the Sorceress (name one other film that has a lizard as a political advisor & a four-breasted chick who shoots poisoned tentacles from her navel!). All pretty standard stuff for our film fests.

 

 

Then we took a trip to Cinefile (www.cinefilevideo.com) where Randy found Deep Red (not as gory as expected and too damn artsy), The Possession of Joel Delaney (shocking for what seems to be a pro 1% message and really discomforting nudity) and The Possessed (a 1977 OK TV movie staring Harrison Ford!). I got The Naked Cage. Every film festival should have a women in prison flick, don’t you think?

 

Then we realized that the requirement hadn’t been met!  No Sybil, Linda or Morgan had been seen. I had paid a dollar for a Linda Blair film co-starring David Hasselhoff, but I also had a little number from 1979 with Morgan Fairchild and Tom Selleck, Jerry Reed, Barbara Mandrell and a whole bunch of other country music stars (including, weep for us, Ray Sevens). Yes, it fulfilled the requirement, and yes it did have Morgan in a shocking duel-role (one which had her crooning a country ditty) but it was mind-numbingly bad, slow, cornpone “humor” of the worst kind. We try to refer to it only as “The Unspeakable”, but I tell you now, it is called Concrete Cowboys and it is evil.

 

So there we were on the night before Randy was set to return to NC and The Unsinkable Molly Brown was infecting my living room. It was pretty damn tough, but I have to say that this one is a matter of taste. It is a well made movie and probably even tolerable to those who actually like

musicals. Maybe The Unspeakable had numbed me, but I survived. Still, surviving was no excuse to be nice. I could have chosen to retaliate with Loose Screws (the sequel to Screwballs), but that would have been expected. I went a different rout. A more pretentious rout. A post-apocalyptic (how appropriate is that?!), long, boring, incomprehensible rout. I chose Zardoz!

Let me tell you, even after Morgan singing, terrible killer bird effects, Jane’s psychedelic space outfits and Bootsie Goodhead’s extended topless scene pressed against the window of a van, almost 2 hours of Sean Connery in a red diaper will wear you down. Sweaty, swarthy, excessively hairy and
flabby Sean in a red diaper playing with crystals and reordering society.

21 films and we are still trying to decide which is the worst of the worst. Despite our best efforts to do harm to each other it is probably The Unspeakable (aka Concrete Cowboys). Chosen only for our love of Morgan. It is the first time she ever let us down.  I’m already on the lookout for entries for the next film festival. If nothing else, I have my DVD of Loose Screws ready to spin and make Randy squirm!

THE END

TO LIVE AND (NEARLY) DIE IN LA

My friend George Nickle sent me an awesome piece for the blog.  It's about the very special nature of our relationsiop.  But it needs an introduction so I decided to dig deep and find a piece I wrote some time ago.  George's piece will follow.

TO LIVE AND (NEARLY) DIE IN LA

By:  Randy Gillis

 

For my 50^th birthday my friend George and his partner invited me to spend the week with them in Los Angeles.  I leapt at the chance.  I needed to get away from South, just for a bit.  It had been 7 years since my last visit and within 20 minutes of landing I was overwhelmed with the same realization that I’m sure a lot of people have when visiting LA; holy shit I’m fat.  If I thought I was hefty in NC, it was confirmed with a stylish brutality one can only find in West Hollywood.  It hit me 7 years earlier when I asked George why he had taken me to a children’s clothing store on our shopping day.  He informed me, as gently as he could, that we were indeed in an adult clothing store.  It was a cloud over the rest of the visit.  This time I was prepared.  I owned my fatness, jumped into Walmart’s best (baggy cargo shorts that fall tastefully below the knee and a classic though roomy tee-shirt from their “big boy” collection) and dove in.  It was the time of my life.

The first near-death experience happened on the first night.  George was at the wheel and as we approached the intersection of Fountain and Vista, a kid in an SUV decided that red lights are for the little people and bolted across the intersection.  We barely missed him and the car in the lane next to us plowed into his backside (this is West Hollywood after all) spinning him around 360 degrees and into the car on the other side of the intersection.  Now, considering that I was the only representative from Sophia, NC in the car, I think my reaction was perfectly within reason.  As George impassively watched this play out, I screamed once, grabbed my ears, attempted to get saved (there are no atheists in LA traffic) and threw up a little.  We also had to find an all-night upholsterer to help remove George’s car seat from my ass.  He was a nice guy who comforted me by saying I was not the most bizarre case he’d seen (this is West Hollywood after all).

The next night was birthday night and we met up with some college friends, Kelly and Murray, who rode in on Murray’s motorcycle.  Kelly asked if I would like to ride on back of the motorcycle to Baby Cakes NYC (a vegan desert place) for after dinner treats.  At that point my mother’s spirit invaded my body and said yes faster than West Hollywood has rear-ended “collisions.”  I put on Kelly’s helmet which had “bad girl” written on the side. 



It was AWESOME!   I was cruising West Hollywood on the back of a hot guys bike (Murray, I totally mean that in a friendly way) and I was nearing a religious experience. I was like the Grinch’s goofy dog with my tongue flapping in the wind and my tail wagging.  It was one of my best birthdays ever.

The second near-death experience happened at Runyon Canyon.  When George suggested hiking, I enthusiastically said yes without considering the soon-to-be crystal clear difference in the definition we each have of “hiking.”  And don’t be fooled by the comments at the Runyon Canyon website.  This is no “easy hike,” or “super-short jaunt.”  This is Everest baby.  Sure, it lulls you in with a gradual incline at the beginning but by the time you reach the point of no return it’s a vertical climb to your own death. 


The crowds were the number one complaint about this mountain and I have to admit I’ve never seen so many people (each with a dog) apparently born without sweat glands.  I, on the other hand, was sweating like a hog and breathing like a horse.  Of course the crowds didn’t bother me.  I seemed to get a wide berth as I trudged along.  It’s kind of like seeing a rhinoceros plodding toward his secret burial ground and you try to avoid it because you just don’t want to get involved.  There was a point near the top when even the dogs avoided me.  To my credit, after roughly 45 minutes, 2 wellness checks, a mule team (thanks to George’s impeccable planning) a few leather straps and a strategically placed grappling hook, I MADE IT!  And the view was spectacular.  It was totally worth the angina, blurred vision and slight urinary incontinence.

The following days brought great times, from the beaches at Malibu to the Getty, from Chinatown to down town LA, from a totally vegan chili cheese burger at Doomies (that was amazingly close) to the Farmers’ Market to…..Rough Trade Leather and Gear.  Well, you know I had to go in.  The name alone made it impossible to resist.  It simply confirmed what I knew deep down already.  I just can’t afford a fetish.  My god, the prices!  Exotic sex, like everything else nowadays, is for the rich.  I did pick up a pair of handcuffs from the bargain bin.  I felt like I had to buy something, you know, just to be polite.

And no trip to LA would be complete without a shame-filled visit to The Pleasure Chest, the world’s most infamous porn store.  I was rather proud of how well I handled it.  Well, compared to my first visit 7 years ago when I was greeted at the door by a fully leather-clad dominatrix walking her two “slaves,” (one male and one female) on leashes.  I remember looking at my friends and, with a panicked glare, asked if we should call the authorities.  I calmed down after they explained what was really going on.  This time I was filled with questions.  “What’s this for?  What’s that for?  What’s THAT for?” I asked.  I found it all quite fascinating.  The best part of it was being around and seeing people who didn’t seem to be ashamed, people who hadn’t allowed sex to be ruined for them.  I found that to be quite amazing and, in a strange way, comforting.

But the closest near-death experience happened at George’s house.  Even with an agenda packed full, we were able to continue our bad movie brawl.  We managed to get in about 21 films.  LA traffic is nothing.  Runyon Canyon coronaries are child’s play.  I saw the true face of death and its name is…..SCREWBALLS.