some previous costumes:
ThisKevin
the adventures of Kevin Maher, writer-comedian
Join us for an exciting, literary event like no other….
An evening with GENRE BUSTERS: Writers who refuse to phone it in
Saturday, September 11 @ 8pm
(preface: KEVIN GEEKS OUT is a monthly video-variety show which showcased off-beat film and TV clips around a given topic. The shows featured guest speakers, experts, performances, as well as themed-snacks, trivia and prizes. This K.G.O. was devoted to the subject of SHARK CINEMA, it was hosted by Kevin Maher and Matthew Glasson, as “Kevin & Matt Geek Out About Sharks“)
July’s GEEK OUT was a massive success, we crammed dozens of clips into a 2-hour show for a packed house. It was a great crowd and a fun night. Thanks to everybody who took part in the evening. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s what you missed….
MORE AFTER THE JUMP — a lot more…
My wife has written a wonderful novel. It’s called I’LL BECOME THE SEA (you can buy it here.)
It’s a Romance Novel. Strike that — it’s being marketed as a Romance Novel. And while it does have some traditional elements found in a Romance story, please understand, there’s a lot going on in this book, including family violence, urban school decay, Jungian psychology and heavy metal.
I love it for the same reason I love David Goodis and Jim Thompson books: they used pulp crime-novels to write deeply personal stories with existential ideas.
I never talk about this, but I keep track of everything I read and at the end of each calendar year, I would nominate THE BOOK OF THE YEAR. An imaginary award given to whatever book had the most impract on me.
Here’s the thing — any book ever written could be nominated. (But I had to read it that year.)
From there it’s like any award, there’s politics and in-fighting (did I mention I am the only one on the committee, but I will debate myself from time to time.)
If I were to give an actual award, it would be a sticker made to look like the big foam hand with the extended finger to convey “this is #1”! The same way books get an “Oprah’s book club” sticker, I’d have a BOOK OF THE YEAR sticker with that hand.
Now let’s get to the actual list. These are the best books I read between the years of 1996 – 2009. (Read the whole thing, or skip ahead to the end for a surprise.) Lastly, please keep in mind this is not necessarily a list of recommended reading, it’s just that the timing was right — these books spoke to me, because they connected with my then-current situation and where my head was at. I don’t know that “The Best of Temp Slave” would mean as much to me today as it did 11 years ago.
1996: THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
The best required reading from my junior year of college. I was totally swept up in this unflinching story of Hollywood in the 1930’s. West is a lean, mean writer and he gets at the loneliness of desperate people. There’s one scene that describes a sad sack sitting naked on the toilet, crying his eyes out waiting for the bathtub to fill-up. It’s a brutal story that doesn’t pull any punches and I couldn’t put it down. The John Schlessinger movie is visionary, but I prefer the book’s intimacy. (Does that make sense? Sorry, I rarely write about literature.)
I got this book for Christmas in ’97, at the time I was temping at a handbag company, during my lunch break I’d sit in my Mom’s car and read this fragmented novel about a failed politician whose career is ruined when his military history comes to surface. Also, he may or may not murdered his wife. The structure is unlike anything I’d read before, and it dealt with big ideas about history, memory and alcoholism. I can’t do the book justice, but it’s Tim O’Brien’s best character-driven novel.
“‘I am alone and miserable: man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.'” ~ The Monster, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
As a pre-teen boy with premium movie channels I had access to all the mature-audience entertainment that 1980’s cable had to offer. I watched everything from Hardbodies to Once Upon a Time In America (the long version). At school my friends would swap stories of seeing late-night nudity, graphic murders and gross-yet-mesmerizing sex scenes. But there was one movie where even the most permissive parents drew the line: Bachelor Party, a raunchy comedy about a bunch of guys having one last blowout before Rick (Tom Hanks) marries Debbie (Tawny Kitaen).
I managed to see this film when I was 12, and it was no wonder Moms and Dads didn’t want their kids seeing it. Bachelor Party features all kinds of debauchery: a girl-on-girl sex show with whips and vibrators, party balloons made from condoms, a donkey snorts cocaine, one party guest mistakenly screws a transvestite, a Hindu pimp threatens to have a man’s testicles cut-off, and a stuffy mother-in-law-to-be mistakes a man’s 13-inch penis for a foot-long hot-dog. (Not to mention half-a-dozen signature gags shamelessly lifted from National Lampoon’s Animal House, and a gratuitous musical performance by Adrian Zmed!) But the most perplexing
scene (for 12-year-old me) comes when Debbie and her friends check-up on the groom. The group is led by Ilean; a dour divorcee who just knows Rick is two-timing Debbie. To gain access to the luxurious Parkview hotel, the bachelorettes go undercover as (what else?) trashy prostitutes. But in a case of mistaken identity, the Hindu pimp’s henchman sends them to a different party. The girls are cornered by a half-dozen Japanese businessmen in their underwear. The amorous foreigners don’t understand English and won’t take “No” for an answer. The girls escape to a bedroom, closing the French doors to temporarily hold-off their aggressive suitors. Feeling responsible, Ilean tells Debbie and the girls to make a run for it. After they’ve fled, Ilean throws herself on the mattress with glee, ready to be ravished by six horny Japanese Johns (one of whom yells “Banzai!”)
scene (for 12-year-old me) comes when Debbie and her friends check-up on the groom. The group is led by Ilean; a dour divorcee who just knows Rick is two-timing Debbie. To gain access to the luxurious Parkview hotel, the bachelorettes go undercover as (what else?) trashy prostitutes. But in a case of mistaken identity, the Hindu pimp’s henchman sends them to a different party. The girls are cornered by a half-dozen Japanese businessmen in their underwear. The amorous foreigners don’t understand English and won’t take “No” for an answer. The girls escape to a bedroom, closing the French doors to temporarily hold-off their aggressive suitors. Feeling responsible, Ilean tells Debbie and the girls to make a run for it. After they’ve fled, Ilean throws herself on the mattress with glee, ready to be ravished by six horny Japanese Johns (one of whom yells “Banzai!”)
My tween-brain could not understand.
But 17 years later, I attended my first ever Bachelor party — at a fancy Manhattan hotel (not unlike the film’s Parkview Hotel.) The groom didn’t want anything excessive, so in lieu of getting our own “chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers” we watched Bachelor Party. As an older, wiser man, I could finally understand Ilean’s defining moment: it’s funny because that uptight man-hater wants to be gang-banged by a bunch of dudes. (Bonus points for the racism.)
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Tom Hanks (Rick) rarely speaks of his early work like Bachelor Party or the made-for-TV anti-role-playing-game propaganda Mazes and Monsters. Today he is a respectable actor who enjoys moon-themed entertainment and WW2 dramas.
Writer-Director Neal Israel would go on to direct The Adventures of Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen: The Case of the Sea World Adventure and episodes of Shasta McNasty, The Love Bat: The Next Wave and Fast Times (the TV series based on Fast Times at Ridgemont High.)
Deborah Foreman (Ilean) is best known for playing Elizabeth Lubbock on the Growing Pains spin-off Just the Ten of Us, where her character must’ve had sex with Bill Kirchenbauer at least 8 times.
This essay originally appeared as part of the excellent collection: I LOVE BAD MOVIES, volume II. (Though I would not necessarily call Bachelor Party a bad movie.)
Since moving to Brooklyn in 1997 I’ve met alternative comedians, downtown performance artists, alcoholic poets, content generators, flaky folk-rockers, the list goes on and one. One of the most slippery of all walks of life is anyone who calls himself an “independent filmmaker.” I could tell you some awful stories, but that’s for another post. Today I’m going to share something that’s truly exciting and it was made by a writer-director who can deliver. (Don’t take my word for it, just watch this trailer and see for yourself.)
Jeremy Carr‘s LUCID is like a David Lynch Batman movie, if Batman weren’t in it.
Just think of the money you’ve spent on seeing bad movies over the years. Now here’s your chance to put ten bucks towards a great movie that needs some help. The producers are raising funds to finish shooting LUCID, you can join the online fundraiser on Kickstarter. Every pledge helps — seriously.
Learn more about the project here and see what you’ll get by pledging: you can get an on-screen credit, a copy of Jeremy’s short film ICE CREAM ANTS (featuring me as The Drunkard — pictured above, this is one of my favorite roles), and a few people will get this cool T-shirt:
If you’re crazy about movies, help this one get made. You won’t regret it.
When Tobe Hooper revisited the Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the 1986 sequel, he said the movie was the anti-John Hughes movie. I don’t know what the hell that means, but he proved the point with this poster, huh?
Thanks everyone who attended Friday’s Kevin & Matt Geek Out About Sharks. It’s amazing that a 2-hour video variety show doesn’t have enough time for all the footage we wanted to show. In talking about JAWS as a pop culture force, we looked at some parodies and rip-offs. But there was also a series of visual references that came out of the film’s success, seen in this dialogue of sorts between two horror film-makers.
We’ll start with Wes Craven: In his 1977 version of The Hills Have Eyes, audiences witnesses brutal violence and carnage on screen. After a particularly gruesome attack, we see the remains of a trailer, in the background there’s a ripped poster of a shark (reportedly a poster of JAWS, but I’m not sure.)
Craven seemed to be saying “That’s just a movie. THIS is real horror.” (View this clip and more after the jump…)