In the nineteen-seventies, people were so desperate for entertainment that sometimes they’d host “baby fights” at private homes, where two babies of similar ages would be dumped onto an ugly bedspread and forced to battle for dominance. The winner took home Similac and a college savings bond. Fortunes were won and lost in off-license betting. Here I am, about to destroy someone named Sarah, as an anorexic ref looks on, powerless to help.
I am back from my first trip to glorious Bend, OR, where I went on a comedy pilgrimage to see Emo Philips. Although it took seven hours to drive there and back, and we got pulled over in Redmond for looking weird, and we had curly fries and vodka for dinner, and we sat with a retiree couple who were just glad to be out of the house, we knew it was all worth it when the emcee took the stage and said “I’ll bet you can’t wait for your headliner, Elmo Philips!”
Emo is, dare I say it, even more dashing at 50 than he was at 30, and his jokes are as surreal and mean-spirited as ever. He has gained approximately 3 pounds, so you can no longer see his hipbones rub together when he walks. He was kind enough to chat with us in greenroom afterwards, although I mostly just talked nonsense at him. I’m petitioning to bring him to Portland in July for a show. He’s aching to join us in our pinko outcast majesty, and I believe he has an inkling that he might well serve as our king.
Crispin Glover was in town at the Clinton Street Theatre last weekend, presenting the oddest film I’ve seen for awhile, called “What is It?” It deals with Crispin’s rejection of the censorship involved in corporate backing, and his continuing interest in the “aesthetic of discomfort.” Almost all of the actors in the film have Down’s Syndrome, and although both Shirley Temple and a minstrel performer are in it, there is zero tap dancing, which I consider a tease. Crispin is on tour presenting his movie, which for various reasons is unreleasable, alongside his slide show presentations and readings from some of his books.
The evening started oddly when Crispin headed out onto the stage and immediately fell off the one-foot drop at the Clinton Street, hard. The audience held its breath, but when the actor sprung up and started reading from Ratcatching, we laughed in relief that he had executed a pratfall. Later, when he told us that he had really fallen and hurt his elbow, we felt badly. We didn’t know any better. We’re just an audience.
All in all, it was kind of nice being in a small room with Crispin and letting him make a world. He’s interested in Victorian novels, cut-ups, madness, films, sex, and animal skinning. Here’s a reading from the event from an unpublished book, Round My House.
For no reason, I’d like to point out one of my favorite Crispin trivia facts- He was George McFly in the first Back to the Future movie, but declined to be in the rest of the series. When the director opted to make up another actor in prosthetics to imitate the appearance of the original George, Crispin successfully sued for trademark violation. No matter what the pod people think, you can’t steal another person’s face without their permission, both written and verbal.
Emo Philips is making a rare Oregon appearance in January, and as a star of this caliber, you have probably guessed that he’ll be performing at Joker’s in Bend, OR. Please let me know if you would like to hop into a middle-aged Volvo on January 24th and go see the man ripped off by Hot Topic in live person, and we’ll make an evening of it, or as long as it takes us to post bail.
Modern postscript: Please thank my 2006 Sony Clie for these crappy photos! I loved that thing. Maybe as much as I love my iPhone.
Here is the bank of capsule toy machines in Singapore, with a child pretending to fight a cutout robot. They are the sophisticated, collectible cousins of the machines that sell useless crap in American supermarkets. The uselessness of the toys is not different, nor their inevitable fate as something unpleasant to step on in the dark. There are some “rare” toys that are more desirable, and entire sets can be bought at stores at huge markups, just to keep from having to pump dollar coins into the machines. There is a large box next to the arcade of toy machines to collect empty capsules for reuse. Here are some of the most special displays.
Sure, every kid wants a trinket of Dig Dug, a game from when his parents were in elementary school.
How can you think that the sound of a dog barking is How How?” This is one of the capsule toys that doubles as a cell-phone trinket, for the 8 year old that wants to distinguish himself apart from just having a Nelly ringtone.
Please note some of the things the frogs say as they are driving their vehicles: “I love surfing!” and “I am No. 1!” That’s what it is to be an American.
Why would a child want an automatically sliced wooly Mammoth steak?
A capsule machine from my favorite weird Sanrio imitator, San-X. That bunny is also a mummy, or possibly he’s just horribly injured.
This one is a panda machine operated by another, tiny panda, and it reads “Let’s try to find our future!” If my future involves evil dual Panda overlords, I don’t want to find it.
Little boys still like sex, right?
When lucky dragons attack! Holy Shit!
Step right up and get your Golden Dinosaur!
Jack Skellington’s career keeps on going in Asia, just like Roy Clark’s does in Branson, MO.
This one was so mysterious that I had to plunk three dollar coins in. What was it? Am I really gonna get a hunched-over, vomiting cellphone charm?
And that’s exactly what I got. This one is vomiting up a tiny Flying V guitar, which makes him the “Rock” Hackman. If you are what you eat, surely you are what you later vomit up.
Bizarre small-world postscript: A friend was in Tokyo a week later, and met Hackman’s designer, who sent me another a Hackman capsule. She explained that Hackman comes in twos, because when you are sick, your friend will come to your aid.
Farin Urlaub – Sumisu
For the Halloween season, enjoy this German pop song by Farin Urlaub about the Smiths, set to a video about Nosferatu. And Morrissey. So, it’s a German song about a British band, and the title is “Smiths” in Japanese. Welcome to the new world order. You know, the British invented Goth, but the Germans have really perfected it.
When I got to the Boiler Room for five minutes of open mike time, I sat down at a table with two other gentlemen. One of them was kind of familiar. I assumed it was someone I had seen do stand-up. He was drinking a three-olive Martini, which I thought was a little Pearl District for Old Town. I was sitting with Oscar winner Gus Van Sant, his suitcases, and his PA. He was talking moviemaking with his compatriot.
I was excited that the man behind a Drugstore Cowboy might see my five minutes of stand-up. Maybe he’d be impressed by a joke I was telling in German. Maybe he’d write a fantasy biography of my life, casting Nick Cave as my husband, and change my life forever.
When our long-suffering emcee Kevin Michael-Moore launched into a version of The Girl From Ipanema where said girl is legally blind, my new famous friend found his legs and left, his companion carrying his bags.
It was clear after his departure that every other comic had also noticed who it was, and had prepared a joke for him. Instead, we just told them to each other, like usual.