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 Dissecting Brains On Film11 by Vic Stanley
Flipping Switch" and other poetry by Claire Richards
Tattoo Who?" by Stately Wayne Manor
"Sex With Animals" by Sally Eckhoff
CELLULOID VOID w/D. Salem!, R. Palmer, C. Ledbetter, C. Widener
AUDIO DEPRAVATION w/D. Salem!, R. Cazadores
"Chopped And Channeled" by S. Jeffries fr* t.
"Boring Revolution" by M. Verta-Ray
BRUTARIAN LIBRARY w/D. Salem!, R. Palmer, G. Goodsell, G. Sheldon

Front Cover Art by Flick Ford

"The Dozing Fat Boy" by Jarrett Huddleston
"Steven" by Doug Allen
"Dreams Of The Urolagniac Fiend" and other work by P. Reeves
"Alien Metaphor" by Scott Cunningham A
Brurtarian Centerfold by Tom Corlette I
"I Am Not Dead" by Mike Schafer * S)-; j \

Our Father Ai^L*|^Ceasar, who art in these thy Substantial

Astronomical VU^Scopic Heavens, Holiness to thy Name or
Title, & reverence to thy Shadow. Thy Kingship come upon
Earth first & then in Heaven. Give us day by day our Real
Taxed Substantial Money bought Bread; deliver from the Holy
Ghost whatever cannot be Taxed; for all Is debts & Taxes
between Caesar & us & one another; lead us not to read the
Bible, but let our Bible be Virgil & Shakespeare; & deliver us
from Poverty in Jesus, that Evil One. For thine is the Kingship,
[or] Allegoric Godship, & the Power, or War, & the Glory, or
Law, Ages after Ages in thy descendants; for God is only an
Allegory of Kings & nothing Else.
Amen.
The Lord's Prayer Modernized
William Blake 1788

/'Ja
"Brutarian" is published quarterly by Odium Ent. For Submissions and Subscriptions: PO Box 25222 Arlington VA 22202-9998
Editors: Dom Saleml, Sandy Smlroldo, Jarrett Huddleston. Special thanks to Jkn Schoene The Brutarian Ubrarian, Brian Horrorwttz The Brutarian llystsrian, and to Sara Porter Just tor being her.

Subscribe to "Brutarian"! Only $12 per annum, ah checks payable to Dom Saiemi.
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T o the uninitiated, the Brains on Film (B.O.F.)
movie review show might appear to be the
mind jarring result of some diabolical Soviet
gene-splicing experiment combining Siskel & Ebert
with Wayne's World to create Seth "The Fly"
Brundle’s worst nightmare, but there is so much more
here than meets the eye. This adventurous and ir¬
reverent enterprise, which has infiltrated the other¬
wise myopic universe of local cable access program¬
ming in Lexington, KY, is unlike anything that has
come before it. As Max Renn discovered about
Videodrome, B.O.F. is dangerous because it has a
philosophy.

The co-conspirators who comprise the "Braintrust"

behind B.O.F. are two kindred spirits named George
Maranville (accent on the second syllable) and Larry
Treadway, known by their adoring public as Brother
George and Professor Tread. In their youth, they had
each acquired a penchant for everything that is sordid,
putrid, vile and tasteless in the world of cinema, and
they were destined to meet and eventually became
associates in a campaign to refine their hobby into an
avocation. The obvious and most accessible medium
available to accomplish this task was public access
cable. Although their relationship with the local cable
company is often strained at best, for once, public
demand has won out over good taste, and B.O.F. has
secured a regular slot in the Lexington area cable
access schedule. Amid other local programming
covering the usual bland topics, George and Larry
take pride in the fact that B.O.F. sticks out like a sore
thumb. One thing is certain; nobody remains neutral
in their opinions regarding the show. Outrage is a
term which keeps popping up in reference to B.O.F.

Maranville and Treadway research and develop a

different format for each installment of B.O.F. In the
past, with the assistance of their loyal crew, they have
produced theme shows such as Racism Nite, Sexism
Nite, Homophobia Nite, White Trash Nite, New York
Underground Nite and Herschell Gordon Lewis Nite,
each incorporating appropriate commentary,
wardrobe, set design and accompanying film clips.
Although the mood and atmosphere of each show
remains extremely casual, the production values are
continually upscaled, with each successive show being
shot at locations such as butcher shops, abandoned
drive-in theaters and public buildings. In some cases,
trespassing is required.

Brains on Film is very careful to make the distinc¬

tion between GOOD/BAD and BAD/BAD. The new
wave of insipid mainstream stars such as Patrick
Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Andrew McCarthy and Molly
Ringwald often incur the merciless wrath of Brother
George and Professor Tread, although the balance of
their rancor is reserved for the rich Hollywood
producers who employ these non-talents and the view¬
ing public who patronize their shoddy efforts. Other¬ by Vic Stanley
■.■■■■■■■■■
wise fine actors who have made dreadful career
moves, such as A1 Pacino’s grave mistake with Cruis-

2 Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

ingy are also on the receiving end of their scrutiny and BG - Brother George / George Maranville
ridicule. But rather than wallow in the misery generated PT - Professor Tread /Larry Treadway
from watching these terrible movies, George and Larry
VS - Vic Stanley
prefer to revel in the films’ unintentional humor. They
actually teach their viewers a new way to enjoy them by
laughing AT them rather than WITH them. In the B.O.F.
Are you products of troubled childhoods? If so, does
lexicon, the definition of a GOOD/BAD film is one which
this explain your current interests and activities? if
makes optimum use of its resources, no matter how limited.
not, what does explain it?
The types of films described above are considered
BAD/BAD because of their misguided excess and their BG: Larry and I are both from dysfunctional families, which
fawning, pretentious acting, not because of their production as much as I would like to deny it, must have something to
values. Cheap does not necessarily equal bad, nor does a do with our cynicism, sense of humor and obsessions. I lived
multi-million dollar budget always guarantee high quality. with an alcoholic father until I was out of high school. I
In fact, most films are grossly over-budgeted. don’t want to sound morose, though. We’re goofing off
most of the time. I had a pretty good childhood.
Although Maranville and Treadway have sometimes been
accused of advocating an anti-social mindset, those making PT: Troubled? Well, my dad’s been married about seven
these indictments are simply missing the point. B.O.F. does times and my mom four times. I was raised by my
not condone racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc, but merely grandparents who were the best. My grandfather flew back
points out the ludicrous manner in which the film industry from WW II with Errol Flynn and they got drunk together.
deals with these subjects. In actuality they are ridiculing My grandparents also loved pro wrestling. I spent every
those loopy Hollywood moguls who stray too far afield to Thursday night at Country World, a little shit hole in
the ultra left or the ultra right under a banner of strident Georgetown, Kentucky, watching live wrestling. It was
self-righteousness. In their eyes, Charleton Heston is just fucking great!
as far off base as is Ed Asner. If the medium is still the

pmmvm
message, B.O.F.’s main intent is to remind us all not to take What were your first childhood experiences with the
ourselves too seriously. According to the B.O.F. manifesto, types of films that you address on B. O.F. ?
the new age of politically correct hypersensitivity is nothing
more than thinly veiled fascism, and they continue to ag¬ BG: At age eleven, I made my father take me to a film
gravate and confound those factions of the media and various which concludes with the little girl shooting her mother’s
special interest groups who would attempt to stifle their boyfriend for hitting her mother. As we left the theater, we
efforts. Even though they reserve the right to insult had to cast "Guilty or Innocent" votes which might have been
everybody equally, B.O.F. style humor is often self- the name of the film. I loved it because it made me feel
deprecating and the bulk of the tirades dished out by Brother kinda creepy and my father thought it was disgusting.
George and Professor Tread are aimed at each other. When Nowadays, all kids have to do to get that same creepy feeling
witnessing them nattily attired in the hopelessly exaggerated is turn on A Current Affair or Hard Copy. No telling how
"Superfly Disco Godfather" outfits they donned for Racism weird we’d be if we had that luxury as kids.
Nitey one might wonder "Don’t these guys have any self PT: My mom and one of my various step-dads took me to
respect at all?" Sure they do, but not TOO much. the drive-in to see Blazing Saddles, but the first feature was
In an effort to get to the heart of their philosophies on the a cheap, bad copy exploitation film called Dirty O'Neill. I
subjects of film, TV, politics, sex, religion and pro wres¬ was hanging out at the playground in front of the screen
tling, I felt it best to contact them directly. What follows is trying to get that light headed feeling on the swings when
the result of a series of interviews I recently conducted with BAM! Up on the screen a huge pair of breasts jump out of
Maranville and Treadway. a cake and there they were - a set of 60 foot mams. I was
hooked.

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

Have you ever been convicted (indictments don't BG: I’ve been married for about three months now and the
count) of e cepitol crime such es mess murder, old pencil remains pretty sharp, but to achieve (quite an
bestiality or espionage? Please be candid. accomplishment) orgasm, The Incredible Mr. Limpet must
be on TV in the background. I almost splorched last
BG: No major criminal records for either of us, although Thanksgiving while watching The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.
Tread’s penchant for violence gets him in trouble on oc¬ No, it was The Reluctant Astronaut. Anyway, it didn’t
casion. I’m a peacifist or peacenik. Which is it? happen. My wife says I have an oral fixation.
PT: I once got caught sneaking into die drive-in to see The
Fogy but when they caught me they thanked me for coming.
Do things taste salty to you?
VS: Hmmm . . . that’s strange. I could swear that I heard PT: More metallic than salty. That’s die first sign of a brain
about something having to do with bestiality. tumor, you know.

BG: I’m paranoid about clogging my arteries so it’s Mrs.

Dash all the way.

Do you have any mlegitimatem background in

filmmaking? If so, has this experience been
counterproductive?
FT: I’ve done some extra work. You know, sleeping under
trees for $80 a week. Great food, though. I was cowboy
actor Richard Farnsworth’s lighting stand-in on a film. He’s
as short as I am.

BG: No experience whatsoever. Stricdy trial by fire.

How did you two first become acquainted?

BG: Some guy suggested that I ask Larry to co-host I guess
he already knew how dreadful my earlier solo shows had
been. So did I. We had ideas, resources and people willing
to work for beer and barbecue. They all hate me because
I’m the tyrannical, anal retentive producer.

PT: George came begging for a job where I work!

Brother Goorgo, Charter Brutarian

How many other people have you met who share
Please describe any scars, tattoos, missing limbs or your interests? Do they appear to be able to function
any other identifying marks. normally in society? Are you able to function normal¬
BG: No scars except for that hole that looks like a giant ly?
abscessed blackhead that you get from smallpox. PT: My wife and that’s about it! Function normally?
What’s that mean? That I don’t masturbate in public, I eat
PT: Well, my wife an I drove sixty miles to get tattoos.
all my veggies, worship God? I guess I function OK. I buy
Mine is an Aztec eye on my arm. My wife got a black cat
a lot of toys, though.
onher ankle. I cried, she didn’t. But seriously, I’m thinking
of getting Vic Tayback tattooed on my butt and I don’t even BG: More than I ever would have imagined. It’s not a huge
know why. group, but it’s more diverse than I would have expected.
Some people are film literate, while some are frat boys and
BG: The day Tread’s wife showed me her tattoo, she was
rednecks who like the juvenile humor. As far as normal
screaming "I’m going to have this fucking thing for the rest
social function, sometimes it’s hard to get out of the mindset
of my life!,” but I think she likes it now.
of the show after taping. We often antagonize each other on
camera, but the most hostile shows elicit the best reaction.
Please describe in graphic detail any debilitating It’s much like the film Network.
sexual dysfunction you are currently experiencing.
(EX: Siy Stallone's recent penile pump implant).
PT: My prostate seems to be growing on the outside of my
body but I haven’t gotten it checked because my wife seems
to like it

4
Brutarian VoL 1 No. 4
How are you dealt with by people who don't share I’m climbing the walls to do another show, calling him every
your interests? hour with ideas. It’s addictive.

PT: Ignored! I just tell them it gets me laid all the time and
then they want their own show. That’s the only thing people What types of positive and negative reactions have
fucking understand! you generated from your viewers and what are the
BG: I seldom mention it for fear of freaking people out or demographics?
proselytising, although I’m certainly not ashamed of it. BG: We’ve gotten the obligatory "You guys have no socially
After 29 years of hidden passions, it’s nice to get it all out, redeeming value" from supposed open-minded liberals.
and B.O.F. is the perfect way to accomplish this. Tread and They hate us the way people hate wrestling. They know it’s
I enjoy shoving people’s hypocrisy back in their faces when just TV, but they still think that anybody who would do that
they tell us "What our show means." on TV must be pretty fuckin’ weird! As far as positive
reaction, it’s given us some credibility we don’t deserve. I
sure as hell don’t know as much about obscure films as most
How was B.O.F. first conceived and what were your
zine editors, but I guess we make up for it with enthusiasm.
motivations for doing so?
PT: If we get our asses off the couch and put a show on the
BG: My show Brother George on Film sucked! I was lucky
air we get lots of calls and letters, usually supportive. Other
to find Tread. He came up with the "Brain" part, I think.
assholes think they’re funnier than us and they wanna do
It’s difficult to reflect upon the inertia that carried us. Our
their own show. Of course, the next day they sober up and
motivation was just to piss people off, and while we did that
their little fantasy is forgotten. We get a few hypersensitive
to a point, it backfired and more people than we could ever
viewers who wanna string us up but we usually just make
imagine liked it.
fun of them on the air. No big deal. Just mention some
PT: George called me up and asked me to come over and unintelligent individual on TV and they love you.
shoot something. The next thing I knew, I had become some
asshole called Prof. Tread and a show was bom. Our
motivation came from a need to bitch. Pretty high minded, How do you choose, research and develop each
huh?
show?
BG: It’s getting tougher all the time. Mainly just whatever
we happen to be watching or reading about recently, and then
How did you first approach the cable company with
finding an appropriate location. We’re not like a lot of other
your idea?
shows who just sit in the living room filming.
BG: The cable people here are complete idiots and I
understand that’s a nationwide phenomenon. We just did the
first show and presented it. They tried to convince us they
were doing us a favor by not airing it, so we sorta threatened It's difficult to reflect upon
’em and they wised up. Since then, they know not to fuck
with us. We can do anything we want now without a bit of
the inertia that carried us.
whining, and they love to whine. Our motivation was just to
piss people off, and while
What type of personal expenses were incurred in
getting started? we did that to a point, it
BG: A few fights, microphones, a mixer and some beer. A backfired and more people
couple hundred bucks or so. I think we were all unconscious¬ than we could ever imagine
ly stockpiling, stealing and charging various equipment and
props for the show but we never really discussed it. Now liked it.
beer and recording tape are the only expenses. Oh yeah,
Brother George
barbecue for Skidz.

PT: Beer, tape and a fluff girl for Skidz!

PT: It’s usually a mutual thing. We pool ideas, then we
research at the library and the thinking man’s resource - the
Detail some of the difficulties you have encountered
zine scene. Keep publishing all you folks. Somebody’s
in getting the show on the air.
buying it.
PT: I don’t like to talk about it much, cause the cable people
are so fucked up! I just say that they hate us and we hate
them, but we try to exhibit mutual respect. If you believe What has been your best show to date?
that, I’ve got some Mr. Belvedere tapes I’ll sell you.
PT: Almost everybody digs the Poor White Trash II show.
BG: It seems that after every show I say "Fuck this. It’s The skit on H. G. Lewis Night was one of our finest moments.
too much work!" I tell Tread I’m quitting and two days later Acid 60ys had some of our best production values - three
cameras, tighter editing . . . but I like some of the earlier

Brutarian - Vol. I No. 4 5

shows like Films We Hate and Texas Chainsaw Night. FT: I’ve learned not to let George have twenty-one beers
They’re just meaner, more obnoxious! in a single Sunday afternoon. Also, sometimes the more
prepped we are, the worse die show is.
BG: Well, I thought it was Buttload O' Backwoods Buf¬
foonery where we reviewed Poor White Trash Part Z7, but
Film Threat Magazine sure didn’t think so. Poor White Any humorous, dangerous or potentially tragic anec¬
Trash Part II is the greatest film ever made, by the way. dotes regarding the show?
Acid 60fs Nite was good too, with die Acid Cam and all die
crew dressed in stupid-ass hippie outfits. Incidentally, I hate BG: Other than Tread’s violent temper, nothing I can
hippies. remember. It gets pretty heated sometimes. We’ll have a
disagreement before the show and then take cheap shots at
one another while we’re shooting. Sometimes people can’t
tell if we’re really pissed off and I guess we can’t either.
Tread gets into a fist fight about once a week, so I have to
watch what I say. He and his wife are like Bonnie and Clyde.
PT: Some of our best stuff has come out when George and
I are at each other’s throats just due to stupid stuff, but we
haven’t killed anyone . . . yet

Have you met any famous people through the show?

if so, please say something slanderous about them.
BG: None yet, so we must be doing something right Oh
yeah, we did get a soudbite/plug from Jello Biafira when he
was in town. Slander, huh? Well... he did this three hour
diatribe on the dangers of redneck violence and then he
proceeds to bum an American flag and incite the very
redneck violence he opposes. So he’s obviously a
dumbfuck, but everybody knows that, I guess.
FT: Yeah, Jello Biafra. We got drunk with him. I think
he’s really a Republican. My wife and I also met Roni
Stoneman, the old toothless housewife from Hee Haw. She
was standing outside of Shoney’s selling gospel audio tapes.
The weird thing is that she was a little drunk. We were going
Professor Tread, wannabe Brutarian to ask her to do a promo for the show but it was too pathetic.

Does excessive drinking help or hinder e perfor¬

mance? Who do you admire in the film industry?
FT: It usually helps, but in my case, George’s drinking FT: Jonathan Demme, if we’re talking mainstream. The
hinders mine and the crew’s. I spend a week researching guy’s kicked ass and still had hits. Most of your so-called
for a show and die crew forgets to even turn on the cameras, big name creative types have it made because of their ability
so we have to shoot the fucking thing twice. That happened to hire great cinematographers and dp’s, so I really don’t
during the H.G. Lewis show. All I could do was laugh at have all that much respect for them.
George. He was killed. BG: I admire movies rather than the filmmakers, but that’s
BG: Yeah, I’ve been pretty plowed on a few shows. Like a cop out, I guess. Most of who I like don’t make films
Tread said, die H. G. Lewis Grue-A-Thon was an abortion. anymore, like H.G. Lewis or William Castle. It’s tough to
Tread usually takes care of the principle shooting, lighting, find anything good from America these days other than
camera placement, set design, etc, so I’m free to be ob¬ Robert Altman or some documentary filmmakers. Hol¬
noxious. Once the show’s shot however, I have to edit the lywood is a wasteland.
fucking thing for fifteen hours, so I feel I deserve a brew or
seven during the shoot. I’mhorriUe, but Tread’s so uptight
Who do you despise in the film industry?
during the actual shoot, he doesn’t drink. I get uptight during
post-production. BG: I hate just about all mainstream films but I have to
review them for a local arts publication and appear to be
objective. No one comes to mind, except that Cameron guy
What were the greatest lessons you have learned really pissed me off spending a hundred million fucking
through your mistakes? dollars on Terminator H. Even if it would have been a great
BG: I’ve learned that even if I drink to oblivion, Tread will film, that is an obscene amount of money for one film. The
carry die show. He’s getting used to that. only thing stupider is that someone gave it to him.

6
Brutarian - VoL 1 No. 4
PT: Travolta, Swayze, Stallone, Fox ... do I have to go mannered man disguise but occasionally our perverse sense
on? of humor will show, especially Tread. A surprising number
of people actually like the show. They’ll comer us in a
crowded elevator and say "You guys were pretty disgusting
What are some of the scariest or weirdest messages on TV last night" and we just hide our faces. We’re both
you have received on the B.O.F. hotline? Have you paranoids.
ever actually met any of these people?
BG: I’m a collector nerd. I record all the calls, Most are
Tell us about your able crew, particularly the enig¬
drunks who tell us that we suck. A couple of people
threatened to kill us. One guy saw our Christl It’s Christmas
matic Skidz Rhubarb.
Show and fucking flipped. He said he was an Arab and he BG: It’s a very eclectic bunch. Skidz Rhubarb is the
just went off. I guess the sight of two grown men in elve’s ultimate cynic. In our comic "Attack of the Skidz Rhubarb,"
outfits screaming "We’re coming after you food-stamping he renders people helpless by rolling his eyes and saying
Mohammads (sic) and sand hoagies!" was too much. I don’t "yeah right!" M.C. Hormone is the token frat boy on the
know how Tread and I even got on that diatribe. It ended crew. Every once in a while, to make him feel at home, we
up being perfect timing because the show aired a week before make him pick up Vienna Sausages with his buttcheeks. The
the war started, but we had taped it a month previously. The Bob suffers from every disease known to man: asbestos
Nostradamus-like powers of Brains On Film at work. poisoning, shigellosis (the shits), cancer, brain tumors . . .
Anyway, satire’s a dead art form. People today think satire everything but hypochondria. After they read this there
is a cutesy Dan Quayle joke. Fuck that. won’t be a crew, I guess. They already think I"m an asshole.
The show wouldn’t happen without them, though.
PT: The guy crackin’ his Johnson on the machine . . . you
could hear him shoot the goo . . . pretty frightening, huh? I PT: Aah, the crew! M.C. Hormone loves food, girls and
run into some of the callers out at clubs but I don’t talk to horrendous music, but he is the editing genius. MTV-O-
them much. If they like our show, they’re pretty scary. Matic is in charge of the music video stuff on the show, The
Bob, give him a line and he’ll take it. Who would have
thought that this mild mannered guy would want to hang
Do you sometimes fear for your life? around with George and me? I think he has a torrid past and
BG: Sometimes the show makes me paranoid because I think is creative as hell. Finally there’s Skidz Rhubarb. He’s been
someone’s going to come up and beat the shit out of me or on every B.O.F. that’s mattered, is a part time cameraman,
just cuss me out, so yeah, sometimes. part time rock star (guitarist for MR. YUK), and full time
purveyor of Tori Welles videos. His past is sketchy. A
PT: I fear for George’s life.
Turkish director? The funniest thing about Skidz is that his
mom used to take him to the beauty salon because his hair
Please describe the typical female B.O.F. groupie. is so pretty.

PT: You know - corporate types. Lawyers, stockbrokers,

girls with big fax machines. No really - college girls who
need a good . . . oops! My wife talked with one on the phone
once and scared the poor girl to death. She can be pretty
If society is better because
funny. of us, so be it. But I'll do
BG: Some sound frighteningly young on the answering my best to correct that
machine but those we meet at shows and concerts, etc. tend
to have unnatural hair color, various body piercings, that problem on the next show.
oh-so-cool pasty-faced look and tend to talk about films like
Professor Tread
Blacula a lot. They’re always promiscuous; at least that’s
what Skidz and M.C. tell us. The rest of us are married.

Just who the hell is in charge, anyway?

What has been the reaction of your friends, family
and daytime co-workers? PT: George is the anal retentive one. I am the psychotic so
I don’t fucking know or care.
PT: Our friends sometimes want to help, but they don’t have
a clue about what it takes to do a show, so I never ask them. BG: I’m the asshole, so I’m in charge. I wish I wasn’t
My family ignores it to some extent, although they probably though.
talk about it behind my back. Co-workers sometimes want
to talk about it, but I try to play it down.

BG: My friends sometime hint "You’ll never get a better

job if you keep this up." Shit like that. My parents are
bible-bangers and surely don’t watch it, but they are very
supportive. Our daytime co-workers (Tread and I work
together) just think we're office clowns. We put up the well

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4 1

What are your future aspirations for B.O.F. as well BG: We always tell people how easy this shit is. Once you
as any related prefects? come up with people you can depend on, it’s a piece of cake.
If you have to deal with a cable company, don’t back down.
BG: I used to consider B.O.F. the end all, but I keep having
Remember the First Amendment and Fair Use Doctrine
these pipedreams that it’s actually the means to something
Rule. Cable people have the ethics of pomographers
else. Not Hollywood movie making or any of that shit, but
anyway. Maybe someday, somebody might do something
at least doing some low budget films, which we’re working
with us so we don’t have to be producers, directors, writers,
on. I used to think our kind of humor wasn’t THAT off
editors, set designers, marketers, promoters, etc. It’s fuck¬
kilter, but when I see some of die pap that passes for funny
ing tiring but I can’t stop.
on TV today, I feel like throwing 19. Meanwhile, we’ll keep
doing the show and our weird film ideas, even if there’s not
an audience for diem. If somebody wanted to buy die show Do you feel that you have contributed to the better-
and replace us with two fucking dickhead made-up talking ment of society?
heads, I’d tell them to fuck off. . . unless they introduce me
to a few choice pom stars. BG: I’m afraid I haven’t

PT: We’re trying to wrap up the drive-in documentary that PT: If society is better because of us, so be it. But I’ll do
we worked on all summer. We’re also trying to hawk some my best to correct that problem on die next show.
funds to produce a real B.O.F. pilot for Comedy Central.
We’ve got them nibblin’ but we need about five thousand to Have you been a detriment to society?
sell out and go to real TV. If we do, you better watch out.
PT: That sounds more like it Vic!
BG: I’d shoot the Pope to be considered a detriment in some
What advice do you have for others who want to do
their own TV shows? way. I wish I could outrage people like Russ Meyer or
William Gaines and EC Comics do, and I guess bands like
PT: None Slayer appear to do it too. That would be good company.

Has the fact that you are also rabid wrestling fans
somehow lowered your mainstream credibility even
lower than the show has?
PT: Wrestling aaah ... the white trash Olympics. Like I
said earlier, I was reared on the stuff. You tape traders can
find me on the ICW stuff wandering around in die audience
and booing the good guys. We’re afraid to talk about
wrestling too much on the show. We might lose our high
brow audience, you know.
BG: Most of my wresding friends are long distance ones.
It’s almost useless now since the WWF ruined it. Some
wrestling fans think that the WWF at least gave them a
chance to share their hobby with more fans, but I feel the
exact opposite. If the subject of wrestling is brought up,
people automatically think "WWF.” I hate that shit. To
some people it’s all the same, but it’s not to me.

Will Ric Flair singlehandedly save the WWF?

BG: Vince McMahon is too busy butt plugging Dino Bravo
to even consider that. Even with Flair’s jump to the WWF,
it’s getting increasingly difficult to get into today’s wres¬
tling. I’m spending all my money trying to track down the
Memphis stuff I grew up with. That and Japanese tapes.
PT: I don’t know if Flair can do it, but I once spit a huge
green snot gob into what’s left of Hulk Hogan’s hair. You
can thank me the next time you run into me.
VS: I’ll thank you and Brother George right now for taking
the time to do this interview.
the original pouncAi. comic book of the 'so* and ’*>• For more information on Brains On Film, write them atPO
Box 1337 Lexington, KY 40590-1337 or call the B.O.F.
Hotline (606)277-5973 and leave a threatening message.

8
Brutarian - VoL 1 No. 4
 ™ $*
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9
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Brutarian - VoL 1 No. 4 15
 Theporary
other day, while perusing my collection of fine contem¬
literature, I happened across a Homy Biker Sluts
comic in which a group of geeks revived from an attempt to
party with dub members and found themselves heavily tat¬
tooed. Imagine the total traumatic effect a facial tat would
induce.
At the risk of ruining my image as a warm and compassionate
human being, I daim there are many who, due to their absdute
devotion to being utter wastes of oxygen, truly beg to have KILL
ME permanently inked on their foreheads. Rather than simply
provide a list of individuals who fit the description, I’ve put
together a directory of groups of some - but certainly not all -
of the prime candidates.

Morning Zookeepers
Waking up in the a.m. Is horrible enough without having to
be subjected to a flock (as in sheep) of no-talents on top of it.
Throwbacks to the jive-talking, insincere disc jockeys of the
glory years of AM radio, zeroes with handles like Banana Bob
And His Cuckoo Crew endlessly recyde a half dozen attempts
at humor several steps beneath Mad magazine.
The type of people who make it embarrassing to be young
eat this drivel up, especially the junior high schod level sexual
innuendo. ("Wow, dude, Gonzo Gary said titmouse on the
air!"). Manipulators love the complacent "it’s better to be a ddt
than adult" audience. (I call It "stupid chic"). They’re so easy
to contrd.
The only way I’d change my view of the entire Zoo
phenomenon would be if a reputable source assured me the
whole thing Is a cruel joke designed to see just how gullible the
average dimwit is. Ideally, the source would say, "Hey, we hate
these boobs as much as you do. Here’s a bunch of fish cakes
who couldn’t find the Pacific Ocean on a globe but they wear
stupid Hawaiian shirts every Friday because we tell them to!"

Aging Amateur Jocks

As a participant in the King Of Sports (pro wrestling, of
course) I can relate to the fans of athletic competition - to a
degree. But to those whose entire realm of thought is sports-
related, I say "Get a death."
The worst offenders are those every-shirt-in-the-wardrobe-
has-a-number-on-the-back, wearing-a-baseball-cap-all-year-
round-to-cover-the-bald-spot "athletic supporters," losers who
refuse to mentally leave the little league despite their advancing
age.
Despite inhabiting the planet for a few decades, these zilches
have managed to ignore every existent topic that does not
include a win-loss record or a statistic. Place them in front of a
jukebox or menu; mention an art form, historical event, political
issue or philosophy - high or lowbrow, it doesn’t matter - they’re
lost. Some even cop an attitude if you dare imply sports are
not of paramount importance to the universe. Sorry boys, but
I can’t seem to recall a single hockey game that changed the
world.

16 Bmtorum - Vol. 1 No. 4

 E X C

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23
 SEX
^v^SHDn
I am in heaven when somebody comes snuffling feel of a scar, in fact never so filled with sensation, every
around my ankles and applies their tongue to invisible nerve in his body alive with delight... a lovely new energy
tasty spots on my pants. Mmmm, salty. Are you hungry, like love’s atoms split."
tiny one? Would you like a kiss or a biscuit? I think I
Mmmm, salty. This is not the coin-in-the-slot instan¬
could turn and live with animals. God knows I’ve tried.
taneous experience that sheepfuckers are after. That’s
Dogs get on my nerves a little, with their comic willing¬
just a way of jerking off without having to do it yourself.
ness, sticking their noses in my crotch when they don’t
It ain’t animals performing sexually for the camera. It
even know why. But my great loneliness lessens, some
doesn't fit the category of most human sexual congress
lucky times, when I am very close with brute beasts. And
with animals, which is rape, human aggressor variety.
so I love animals. I mean I really love them. I want them.
The pleasure, explains Elkin, is mutual. And wouldn’t you
I would like to please them. I would like to enrapture
like to make a pair of soft, brown eyes dizzy with joy?
them. I would like to do something really nice for them,
like experience the ultimate embrace. Give it up, I would. I have spent too many years dishing out
animals. I will make you feel the feelins. gummy Alpo to my pals, looking through zoo bars at
snow leopards tracing eternal figure eights in their con¬
Why not, as long as we’re not able to produce
crete cells. And when I look into the opaque grey eyes
children? It’s been tried, but never adequately ex¬
of my rabbit (a Nethertand Dwarf mix and smart as a
plained, unless you count animal porn, which is just
sandwich) I never know whether he’s looking back. He
exploitation. John Berger’s essay, Why Look At Animals,
is not a person. He does not like my lipstick flavor. But
articulates the space between us and the lower species,
he responds to my caresses with squeezed-shut eyes
but doesn’t go nearly far enough. Stanley Elkin, in The
and a flattened body, and once when I spent the day in
Making ofAshenden, a short story from his spicy collec¬
bed I swear he tried to mate with my foot. I do not have
tion Searches And Seizures, has one of his characters
a clue as to how to help Hank get off. But if I did, I’d try it
satisfy a bear. While walking in the woods, this lovelorn
guy stumbles right into the sexual embrace of a Why argue for innocence when there are so many
monstrous mammal-ette in screaming heat. The Kam¬ emotional factors working in the libido, even in the very
chatkan brown bear-fatale walks up to him, sticks her young? Like many women who grew up easy in the
booty in his face, and puts it to him simply: Fuck me or green woods and fields of Long Island, I spent my
I'll eat you. "Her fur, lanolized by estrus, was incredibly childhood on horseback. I’ve heard all the jokes about
soft, the two swift strokes, gestures of forbidden brunette all these girts crazy about horses, so I would like to get
possibility..." He sees his work cut out for him. a couple of things straight. First, the idea of bringing
oneself to orgasm simply by rocking against the pommel
First he tries the tender approach, which fails because
of the saddle seems to be a myth. Nobody I asked could
he limply realizes he’s not about to make love to a stuffed
do it, anyway. Second, attraction to horses is not solely
toy. Then he tries some lounge-lizard talk. 'There’s
based on the size of their penises, though they are huge.
something dartin' in a difference," he whispers to her. His
You will never see a riding horse with an erection, since
cock finally obeys. He expects relief, and finds joy. "...
they’ve all been gelded at birth, and the only thing you’ll
in the warm syrups of the beast, united with her, ecstatic,
ever get a glimpse of is long, limp, unwashed dicks that
transcendent, not knowing where his cock left off and the
only emerge when it’s sunny out and the horse is feeling
bear began. Not deadened however, not like a
sleepy/happy, or when it's taking a piss. Take it from me,
novocained presence of tongue in the mouth or the alien

24
Bmtarian - Vol. 1 No. 4
Joyce’s "guttapercha thing" is not the straw that stirs a that makes us want to cross that gap of silence into their
woman’s bestial drink. But a horse twitches his stifle world need not be one of sheer mass. In fact, the small,
when he walks or shudders his coat to throw off flies. lithe sinuous fuzzy thing that licks your face when you’ve
And the combined stink of horses’ sweat and urine been crying might wind your clock a whole lot more than
mimics a woman’s sexual scent almost perfectly. You one that could shred you with one swipe of his paw. In
smell it, and you think, "Where am I? Should I come fact, vegetarian animals can be the most attractive. Their
closer?" You start thinking about how. Perhaps uniting confidence, which so contradicts their most basic in¬
with the beast would make us more human, too. But for stincts, is sweet and rare. Okay, the tiger with his flexible
women, it can’t be done. spine and lashing tail makes me feel urgent. But lions
are too paternalistic. Forget dogs; they’ll do anything.
But we can dream, can’t we? Everybody’s heard the
The gentle elephant seems a possibility but for its ap¬
story about Katherine The Great being fucked to death
pearance of great age, and the fact that it is never alone.
by a stallion. And everybody seems to believe it. But it’s
What about deer? Dolphins seem like a great idea.
sheer fantasy, cooked up by her political enemies to
We’ve all read about how they love pregnant women. A
discredit her, and bolstered by that quaint and anatomi¬
newly clipped ewe has a sweet looking little vulva, as
cally ignorant notion that all that girls really need is a BIG
someone at a county fair recently pointed out to me, but
one. It’s not that simple. I propose that instead, we are
I despise the idea of forcing her, and female animals do
driven by the allure of physical extremes. Animal grace
not spontaneously desire people. Bighorn rams? Now
could erase our self-consciousness somehow, and then
you’re talking.
we’d feel things we never felt before. Watch a draft horse
hunch its rump and strain in the collar to skid that log So can we make them betray their grave faces and
through the woods. Watch him buck his hips when he’s their languid manners? Why would we want to simul¬
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25
Brutarian - Vol 1 No. 4
26
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27
 On The Bowery Revenge Of The Zombies
(d) lionel rogosin (1956) (d) steve sekely (1943)

Dot time whan ya did dot ting . . . Unfairly dismissed as a low budget
imitation of Val Lewton’s 7 Walked
Gwan, gwan, dat*s nutin\ , .
with a Zombie, this Monogram release
Dot wuz da lowest ting a humin bean ever is a rather effective blend of slapstick
done, I tell ya, and morbid atmospherics. John Car-
Dere was nutin * dot coulda ’ been done, radine stars as a mad Nazi scientist
Whadya, whadya, gwan. feverishly working away in the
Louisiana swamps in a woebegone at¬
It wuz da lowest, I gives ya fifteen cents for tempt to produce a zombie army for
shoelaces an ya never showed up not the rest theFuhrer. So dedicated is Carradine,
of today. It wuz da lowest, , , that he intentionally poisons his wife
Gwan, dere wuz nutin' I tell ya , . , and reanimates her corpse in an effort
glaaaargh graschk , , , anyways, shaddup an to perfect his experiments. This is
pass dot dere drinks. because the undead he has already
created are obedient but a tad slow
moving. However, Carradine’s
This is the way people talk to one another on the world's most tinkering with his already proven for¬
notorious skid row: New York City’s Bowery. But don’t feel sorry mula results in a dead spouse with a
for these men and women; they certainly don’t feel sorry for will of her own, and she, under¬
themselves. Anyway, how can you feel sorry for people who like standably upset, leads the zombies in
to drink and laugh and drink and argue and when finished arguing, an uprising against her homicidal
drink and drink and then drink some more . . . until the bars close hubby.
or the muscatel runs out. It’s not a bad life really, not if you don’t
At sixty-one minutes, Revenge
mind sleeping in garbage cans, constantly peeling scabs from your
(released in some markets as The
swollen calves, having your drinking buddies waiting for you to pass
Corpse Vanished) wastes little time
out so they can steal your shoes or swallowing sterao squeezed
on small talk, director Sekely prefer¬
through cheesecloth for breakfast. Documentarist Rogosin, who
ring to concern himself with creating
won a prize at Venice in 1956, with this, his first feature, takes a
a sense of dread punctuated by brief
somewhat detached and decidedly unsentimental view of this squalid
bits of comic relief. Pay particular
demimondaine. He doesn’t romanticize the people who stumble
attention to the sequences shot in the
about these filthy mean streets and he doesn’t judge them either; he
ominously shadowed cemetery, the
just lets us look at them as they go about the business of hustling a
fog shrouded swamp and the loopily
drink. And the longer we are allowed to look, the more fascinating
overlit laboratory. Revenge also boasts
and ultimately, the more pitifully hilarious these individuals become.
a wonderfully creepy performance by
Fascinating, because of the lengths to which these Bowery denizens
Carradine and a hilariously pop-eyed
will go to scare up some hootch or to secure a flop, pitifully hilarious,
Stepin-Fetchit turn by Mantan
because our harsh croak of laughter is the recognition that these men
Moreland. That the film works as well
and women are ourselves. Others may call them bums or alcoholics
as it does must be credited to its direc¬
and while this may be true, they are also human beings, human beings
tor who was schooled in the artsy
searching for a bit of security, a little comfort, some small talk; can
Danubia studios of Budapest before
we honestly say our needs are so markedly different? On The
coming to America in the late thirties.
Bowery gives the lie to those who would answer in the affirmative.

28
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No, 4
 JFK
(d) Oliver stone (1991)

For many people, the assassination of John Fitzgerald CIA and the Dallas Police Department, and including such
Kennedy was a military style ambush, an old fashioned eminent personages as future president Gerald R. Ford,
coup d’etat planned by the military industrial complex, former Chief Justice Earl Warren (the wonderful man who
executed by aging, terrified cold warriors in the Pentagon placed all those innocent Japanese-Americans in California
and CIA’s covert operation bureaus and covered up by die internment camps during WW II) and the Commission’s
Dallas police, the Secret Service, the FBI and the White most active member, the former head of the CIA (fired by
House with the blessings of both J. Edgar Hoover and Kennedy) Allen Dulles, proves Stone’s case. Would movie
Lyndon Baines Johnson. This will come as no surprise to reviewers like the one for The Washingtonian (D.C.’s
anyone who has read even a scintilla of that pack of lies answer to New York magazine) have to resign for writing
otherwise known as the Warren Commission Report or a positive review of the film? If it was so far-fetched, why
anyone who was old enough to remember the subsequent would The New York Times and The Washington Post
assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther publish lengthy essays attempting to discredit virtually
King, Jr. every book that has questioned die Warren Commision and
Understanding that people no longer read anymore and its primary conclusion that Oswald acted alone? Would
that the few who do, have allowed themselves to be "journalist" Dan Rather take to the airwaves professing his
brainwashed by the propaganda devices of our fascist sacrosanct belief in die findings of Warren and his boys?
right-wing government - television, newspapers and And what about all those stories that are suddenly popping
magazines of general circulation - Oliver Stone has made up in our nation’s newspapers purporting to prove that the
a movie that attempts to lay everything out for you. For Mafia was solely responsible for plotting and executing the
Stone, the how and the who is "just scenery for the public” assassination?
that keeps us from asking the real question, that keeps us As if the mob could change the parade route, eliminate
playing this ridiculous "parlor game,” that keeps us from the protection for the President, send Oswald to Russia and
asking: Why? Why was John F. Kennedy killed? get him back, get the FBI, CIA and Dallas police to make
It’s not that complicated really. If you believe, as Stone a mess of the investigation, force the Warren Commission
does - and in light of our recent forays in Panama and Iraq
it’s almost impossible not to believe - that the "organizing
principle of any society is for war and that the authority of
the state over its citizens rests in its war powers,” than John
F. Kennedy was a dead duck almost the minute he took
control of the White House. Kennedy was a peacenik; he
wanted to end the Cold War by his second term. He wished
to call off the moon race in favor of cooperation with the
Soviets and to sign a treaty with them banning nuclear
testing. He refused to invade Cuba in 1962 and set out to
withdraw from Vietnam. And to insure that his plans would
brook no resistance, Kennedy issued a top secret directive
that made the joint chiefs of staff wholly responsible for all
covert para-military operations in peace time. Essentially,
this ended the reign of the CIA, splintering it, as JFK
promised he would, into ”a thousand pieces. ” But before
this directive could be implemented, the major players in
the CIA, the Pentagon and the defense industry who stood
to lose over eighty billion dollars a year in profits thanks
to Kennedy’s policies, entered into an unholy conspiracy,
a conspiracy which kicked into high gear on November 22,
1963 and continues to the present day. You think it’s an
accident that a former director of the CIA is sitting in the
Oval Office?
C’mon, think about it, this doesn’t seem so far fetched.
If it was, would critics be picking Stone apart over minor
details like whether the Donald Sutherland character actual¬
ly existed or whether the Costner character actually had a
female assistant? Would political columnists be taking
Stone to task for not proving his case? Not proving his
case? Merely laying out the conclusions of the Warren
Commission, an investigative body assisted by the FBI, the Tho FBI f akod photo of Kannady's hood

Brutarian - VoL 1 No. 4 29

 to issue twenty-six volumes of fiction, direct the autopsy, Garrison’s wife and the maudlin domestic scenes pondering
and pressure the national media to ignore the facts. And to America’s purported need to witness the "man behind
when, as Stone notes, if ever, "has the mob used anything the mare" offer a minor distraction from the film’s mes¬
other than a .38 for up close hits?" Then again, maybe we merizing progression). The editing, often intercutting old
should listen to our "kinder, gentler" President who had news footage with staged scenes, is adroitly done; almost
this to say about JFK: "I don’t know much about the every sequence is imbued with rhythm and power making
movie. I haven’t seen it, and there’s all kinds of con¬ the film, which is almost three hours long, seem only half
spiratorial theories floating around on everything. Elvis that length.
Presley is rumored to be alive and well someplace, and I JFK is not only a great film, it is an important one. It
can’t say that somebody won’t go out and make a movie asks its audience to awake from their slumbers and to come
about that." to grips with the fact that they have been duped and
Bush, who ran the agency himself in the mid-seventies, manipulated for almost twenty years by a fascist dictator¬
made no attempt to review the CIA files on the assassina¬ ship, a hidden government that has reduced the presidency
tion. He has no need to. Recently uncovered evidence to a "transient official ... a business agent for military and
strongly implicates him in the hiring of E. Howard Hunt hardware manufacturers." What a courageous act for a
and others as triggermen in connection with the plot to man like Stone, wealthy and influential, who has only
murder Kennedy. money to gain and everything (including his life) to lose.
As entertainment, JFK succeeds magnificently. Direc¬ It is so bold, so daring, that there really is little, short of
tor Stone, who also co-wrote the screenplay, takes the armed insurrection, that we can do to thank him. As I write
gallimaufry of conspiracy theories, effectively separates the this, the movie is making money, people are talking about
wheat from the chaff and then puts it all together in the it and Stone is still alive. Which only means, I suppose,
guise of a story about Jim Garrison, a New Orleans district that the big boys aren’t worried. I guess they figure that a
attorney attempting to try a local businessman, Clay Shaw, nation that cheered the slaughter of hundreds of thousands
for conspiracy to commit the assassination. An all-star cast of helpless Arabs just a few short months ago isn’t going
is superb. Even Kevin Costner has been miraculously to do anything after watching JFK, except go home and go
coaxed into giving a restrained and at times, moving to bed.
performance. (Only Sissy Spacek’s strained portrayal as

Blood In The Face

(ed) James ridgeway & michael moore (1991)

Will Rogers never met these guys. These guys being Black, or Oriental, or Indian or an Italian whose ancestors
members of various Aryan supremacy groups who should were bom south of Milan, you’re not wanted. That’s
be ashamed of having allowed their intellectual and emo¬ because your blood has somehow been irredeemably tainted
tional deficiencies to be paraded on film by hot shot Village or you’re just an animal.
Voice reporter James Ridgeway and Michael (Roger and This is pretty stupid stuff but these Aryan folk look like
Me) Moore. Of course the "Aryans" don’t see it this way, they’re ready to die for it. And kill you if you happen to
besides they’re too busy worrying about the eminent in¬ get in their way. Fortunately, there doesn’t seem to be too
vasion of Texas by Ruskies in tanks and Mongolians many of these people outside the state of Louisiana, so I
mounted on horses specially bred to carry up to seven don’t think we have too much to worry about. What’s
hundred pounds of ammo. How the Aryans came into fascinating about this acclaimed documentary is that these
possession of such incendiary "intelligence" while the rest poor cretins are more frightened than frightening (which is
of the nation slept is never really made clear, but what is not to say that you should walk into one of their rallies
made quite clear is that the eventual invasion as well as all cracking wise). Most of them are dirt poor, semi-literate,
of this country’s present ills are a direct result of a massive semi-intelligent and congenitally incapable of accepting
Jewish conspiracy, a conspiracy that has as its goal the responsibility for their misfortune and unhappiness. So,
destruction of the white race. Now a Jew, as we are they blame the kikes and the mud people and the com¬
constantly told by Aryan leaders (most of whom are alarm¬ munists for having to live in dilapidated houses and work
ingly pale and even more alarmingly inarticulate), is not at menial jobs. All of this could get old in a hurry, but
necessarily defined by creed or color, no, it’s primarily a Ridgeway and company have done a masterful job of
matter of attitude. Thus, Ronald Reagan by virtue of mixing archival footage, press conferences with the likes
having appointed "twenty-eight Jews" to his cabinet is also of George Lincoln Rockwell and David Duke, telling
a Jew. (At least one has to credit these cretins with personal interviews with nothings and nobodies and scenes
understanding that Reagan is not their friend). In other of cross burnings, marches and hate rallies so that the
words, anyone who doesn’t agree with an Aryan leader is seventy odd minutes of running time seems to literally fly
a Jew. And even if you do agree with the Aryans, if you’re by.

30 Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

 W ;\\\w mm\\\\\m\\\«

3
 Motorpsycho!
(d) russ meyer (1965)

More potboiler than satiric

melodrama, Motorpsycho neverthe¬
less delivers a few laughs thanks to
The ACTION would like us to laugh at Cory, a
character so consumed by his need for
revenge that he would knowingly pur¬
the outrageous performances of
Alex Rocco and Stephen Oliver.
BEHIND sue three crazed and armed young
men through uninhabited terrain even
The latter plays Brahmin, a Vietnam
vet who likes to ride around the
desert with his oleaginous buddies
THE though unarmed and burdened with a
woman, but the whole thing comes off
rather flat. The opposing parties stay
Dante and Slick beating the tar out
of unsuspecting motorists and gang
HEADLINES a respectful distance away from one
another and far too much time is
raping their female companions. wasted on the burgeoning relationship
When the trio attempt to work their Cycle between Ruby and Cory. By the time
magic on Cory, a thirtyish Maniacs Cory and Brahmin face down one
veterinarian (Rocco) and his wife, another, you could care less, even
Assaulting
Gail, Cory knocks them on their though both actors have chewed up the
asses. Brahmin and his boys bide and Killing scenery like rabid dogs in an effort to
their time, waiting until Cory makes For keep our attention. The one exception
a house call on a broken-down THRILLS'. to all this is the scene in which Cory,
buxom blonde breeder of broncos bitten on the leg by a snake, has to
before breaking into Cory’s house force Ruby to suck the poison out.
Xthe
where they proceed to . . . beat and Listening to the frightened and
gang rape Gail. When the cops
MOST ADULT desperate Cory scream, for what
refuse to get involved, Cory decides FILM YOU seems like an eternity, "Suck it.
to track down the psychopathic WILL That’s right, suck it. Suck it." is at
bikers himself. Along the way he EVER SEE! once exhilarating and dismaying. Ex¬
hooks up with Ruby, a sultry Cajun hilarating because of its goofy wron¬
whose husband has had the misfor¬ gheadedness, dismaying because it
tune of having his truck break down clues us in as to the gloriously
right before the gang rides by. deranged film Meyer really wanted to
At this point Motorpsycho veers make but for some reason did not.
from relatively straightforward, if Produced and One year later Meyer would make that
trashy, drama to heavy-handed Directed by film: Faster Pussycatl Killl Kill!
satire. Meyer and screenwriter RUSS which was shown in many venues
William (Mudhoney) Sprague MEYER ironically, as part of a double bill with
Motorpsycho.

Wild Gals Of The Naked West

(d) russ meyer (1961)

Made for only twenty-four thousand dollars and with a running time of about sixty-five minutes, Wild
Gals of the Naked West apparently was designed solely to appeal to the ignorant and unwary through
sensationalism and cheapness. It is a film that only a Meyer completest will love, a messy amalgamation
of ineffective slapstick, poor plotting - Meyer spends almost a half hour introducing us to the played out
western town and its denizens - an uninteresting story, and rather surprisingly for a filmmaker acclaimed
for his taste in feminine pulchritude, a cast that features a number of unattractive women.
The last of Meyer’s nudie-cuties - Europe In The Raw and Heavenly Bodies were documentaries -
Wild Gals eventually metamorphoses into the tale of a dappy, diminutive, donkey-riding dolt’s efforts to
rid himself and the town of the unwanted attentions of a bullying gunslinger named Snake Wolf and win
the hand of Wolfs girlfriend, Goldie Nuggets. Which the dwarfish dunce does but not before donning
a ten gallon powder blue hat, orange cowboy suit, purple boots with huge diamonds on each toe and a
three foot long gun. This is the only bit in the movie that works. Meyer wouldn’t release a worthwhile
feature length film until 1964’s Lorna in which he added mega doses of ultra-violence to the mix.

32 Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

 Aenigma
(d) lucio fulci (1987)

For those of us who are waiting for Lucio Fulci

to reclaim the glories of the past with such films
as The Beyond, Beatrice Cenci, City Of The Living
The ONLY Guide Dead and House By The Cemetery, I’m afraid we’ll
just have to wait a little longer. Aenigma is a
To European disappointment in almost all departments.

Trash Cinema! Fulci is at his best when recreating situations

that depend on a Gothic horror mood. City Of The
Living Dead and The Beyond recreate the fetid
atmosphere found in the literature of H. P.
Subscriptions: Lovecraft, while Zambie was less a Romero styled
Craig Ledbetter rip-off than an updating of forties voodoo films.
PO Box 5367 Even Fulci’s westerns are successful because they
Kingwood, Texas 77325 fully exploit the times they are supposed to repre¬
sent. However, let Fulci set a film in the present
day and he loses what style his directorial
Four issues $10 flourishes seem to possess. Examples of this
deadening effect can be seen in his early giallo, A
Single copies $3 (ppd)
Woman In A Lizard fs Skin, along with his worst
Volume Two, number one is still
film New York Ripper. Even his innocuous sex
available in limited quantities for
comedy La Pretora suffers this ailment, but this may be
only $5 (ppd)
due to the fact the genre is totally moribund.
All of this leads up to the fact that Aenigma, set at a
Boston school for girls, is a stale number that shameless¬
ly rips off Carrie and Prom Night 2. I had my hopes
that Fulci might exploit this setting much like Dario
Argento did in Suspiria, however, all he does is instruct
cinematographer Luigi Ciccarese to use as many blue
and red gels as possible so that the film will at least look
like the aforementioned stylish thriller. The plot can be
summed up thusly: Kathi gets humiliated on her first
date and then is run over by a car on the way home ending
up in the hospital in a coma. While in this comatose
state, Kathi spends the balance of the film controlling a
student with prior mental problems and having her
minion kill off the people responsible for her condition.
It’s obvious that our only pleasure will be found in the
mentis by which the guilty parties are eliminated. Here,
we get such "creative" kills as death by statue, stran¬
gulation and snails. If you’ve never experienced death
by snail sucking (if you have, please let me know), it’s
tantamount to watching paint dry!
Performances are, for the most part, uninteresting,
with Jared Martin’s bordering on comatose. He’s a
neurologist who basically copulates with every available
student. The other players are no-named thespians who
will undoubtedly keep this film off their resumes if they
ever become famous. Fulci gives his usual cameo
performance but as his gaunt appearance shows, his
health problems have taken their toll. If ever a sequel
to The Beyond needs to be made, the time is now, Fulci
may not be around much longer.

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

 WHAT WOULD SATISFY THEIR The Last Days of Planet Earth
RAVENOUS CRAVINGS FOR (d) shiro moritani (1974)
"KICKS”?
Isn’t it strange how some films seem to
gain wide cult acceptance while other equally
bizarre titles are virtually ignored? Here’s a
perfect example. Last Days of Planet Earth
is a real mind blower that irregularly pops up
on UHF or late, late shows, yet, with the
exception of a brief review in the Psychotronic
Dictionary, it receives few accolades.
The standard "this is what will happen if
man doesn’t wise up pronto" theme prevalent
in so many earlier sci-fi movies is given an
interesting twist. Last Days foreshadows how
Nostradamus’ most gloomy predictions will
come true unless people start acting more
A SHATTERING , l
responsibly. (Fat chance).
STUDY OF THE 1
SHAMELESS ^i If the overall premise sounds familiar, it’s
"SICK SET” because the film boasts a title similar to the
Orson Welles comball Nostradamus clunker, The Late
FOR SHOCK- Great Planet Earth. But, where the Welles film is
PROOF ADULTS long on words and hocus-pocus atmosphere, its
Japanese cousin is straight out of action city.
Director Moritani occasionally pauses to get a bit
of the spider-web-thin plotline out of the way. This
The Defilers accounts for a total of about twenty-minutes of
(d) lee frost (1964) rhythm-destroying dialogue. The remainder of the
film is devoted to a relentless collage of anonymous
Jim and Carl don’t take crap from nobody, not their characters suffering violent terminations.
gold-digging little girlfriends or their rich philistine parents. For the bulk of the picture, Moritani strings
These are tough guys alright, and they’re not afraid to knock together an appalling sequence of vividly illustrated
down anyone who gets in the way of their never ending scenes of virtually every catastrophe imaginable: fire,
pursuit of kicks. There’s only one problem however, Jim floods, leeches, vampires, food riots, nuclear weapon
and Carl seem to have done it all: smoked grass, made love launches and rock music. I seriously doubt there has
to dozens of women, drunk beer in the car with the top ever been a movie where so many people die horrible
down. What to do for thrills man, when you’ve seemingly
deaths in such a variety of ways.
done it all? Well, for Carl who really wants to fuck Jim
but just doesn’t know how to broach the subject, the next Even the mass youth suicides are memorable. One
best thing is to kidnap a young girl and make her his love group of bikers draws straws with the "winners"
having the honor of riding their Hondas off a cliff into
slave. Jim doesn’t dig the idea but when Carl labels him a
square, Jim, bowing to the pressure, decides to go along. a river. The Bohemian crowd commandeer sailboats,
dress themselves in Carnaby Street leftovers and drift
A sleazy and entertaining variation on John Fowles’ The out to sea in an artsy self-snuff celebration.
Collector, The Defilers boasts a screenplay by David
Friedman (who also produced the film, his first after his Children attend elementary school wearing gas
break with H.G. Lewis) and some rather effective black and masks. The sky turns into a mirror. Scene after scene
of negative visual images bombard the screen. The
white cinematography by Lee Frost. While Friedman
kicker is that this isn’t a highbrow feature aimed at
hasn’t given his actors many memorable lines, he effectively
plots his story, peppering it with nudity, voyeurism, the snooty "We attend the foreign cinema" audience;
it’s a Toho production geared to scare the snot out of
misogyny, latent homosexuality and repressed hysteria.
Director Frost who began his career in nudies and nudie kids!
cuties went on to become one of the more talented exploita¬ If 2001 was the ideal movie to project behind an
tion mavens achieving a notoriety of sorts with Hot Spur acid band performance, Last Days is the equivalent
and the deliciously hateful Love Camp Seven. (Available for a death metal concert. Look for it in your TV
from Something Weird Video). listings. And pass the word.

34
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4
 The Rapture Mr. Sardonicus
(d) michael tolkin (1991) (d) william castle (1961)

For some inexplicable reason, The Rapture Producer-director-huckster Casde made many amusingly
was a box office failure. It played a couple of kitschy horror films, and while Sardonicus may not be as well
weeks in a few of die major markets and then sank known as efforts such as Homicidal or The Tingler, it is just
without a trace. A shame really, because the film as entertaining. Liberally adapted from Paul Leni’s 1927
marks the arrival of a major talent in Tolkin and silent film The Man Who Laughs, Sardonicus is the story of
the confirmation of the abilities of the statuesque a humble nineteenth century laborer (Guy Rolfe) who digs up
Mimi Rogers who had heretofore been wasted in his father’s grave to retrieve a winning lottery ticket. The
thankless parts. shock of seeing the rotting corpse freezes the unfortunate
Rogers has die starring role as Sharon, a bored man’s mouth in a permanent death head’s grin which leaves
and vaguely frustrated telephone operator. When him looking something like Ed Sullivan in the throes of
not working the phones, Sharon tools around town indigestion. The laborer, now very rich, adopts the name
trolling for swinging couples with her erstwhile Sardonicus, adorns himself with a semi-lifelike mask and with
British boyfriend Vic, a wealthy but badly aging the help of his sadistic, one-eyed servant attempts to effect a
playboy. Sharon’s going nowhere and she knows cure by performing all sorts of nasty experiments on local
it. She’s in her thirties, stuck in a dead aid job wenches like attaching leeches to their faces and private parts.
and looking for a way out of an obscene and Naturally, these innovative treatments fail miserably, so
cretinous relationship: she’s a prime candidate Sardonicus forces a world famous neurosurgeon into his
for an epiphany, a sucker for an opportunity at employ by threatening to turn Mrs. Sardonicus into die mirror
spiritual rebirth. And when two charismatic image of himself. The good doctor cures Sardonicus of his
Christians magically appear on Sharon’s ghastly grin but the unfortunate side-effect leaves his mouth
doorstep, it triggers a chain of fantastic - but permanently shut, ensuring death by dehydration.
dramatically effective - circumstance that leads to Creepy, atmospheric and steeped in black humor, Mr.
a religious conversion and concomitant change in Sardonicus also boasts a hilariously histrionic turn by Oscar
lifestyle. "When die master says do this thing, I do this thing" Homolka.
Cut to six years later. Sharon is a happy litde When originally shown in theaters, the narrative was
homemaker married to a successful business ex¬ interrupted by a punishment poll in which die audience was
ecutive named Randy. They have a beautiful asked to choose between alternative endings. Knowing his
young daughter and live in a nicely furnished tract public (or perhaps not caring) Castle purportedly filmed only
house. Bang! It all comes crashing down when one conclusion in which Homolka, exacting retribution for
a disaffected employee shoots Randy through die having his eye put out by Sardonicus, refuses to inform his
heart. Sharon tries to tell herself it’s God’s will employer that his problem is purely psychosomatic.
but she’s not sure. She’s having visions. God
and her dead husband are calling her to die desert
to await the RAPTURE. "And die woman fled
into the desert where she had a place prepared for
her by God,” says the Book of Revelations.
Sharon has no choice; she packs a few things for
her and her daughter and die two of them drive
off to the wasteland to wait, and wait and . . .
Beginning with the premise that emotional
disaffection is endemic to both libertines and
fundamentalists Christians, Tolkin spends a good
portion of the film portraying both as disquietingly
uninvolved. But contrary to the opinion of many
blase mainstream reviewers, this rather pedestrian
notion constitutes anything but die primary diesis
of the film. With this conceit as a spring board,
Tolkin folds each of the subsequent scenarios back
upon itself puncturing the audiences expectations
at every turn. The film careens towards a
halucinatory and devastating climax which must
be seen to be believed. The denouement is per¬
haps the single most hateful directorial gesture I
have ever witnessed. I strongly suggest you see
this film lest die dies irae take you by surprise.
Mr. 6ardonicua

35
Brutarian - VoL 1 No. 4
 Attack Of The 50-Foot Woman
(d) nathan hertz (juran) (1958)

During her all too brief career, Allison Meanwhile, Nancy has begun to grow and grow
Hayes made a lasting impression on many and grow, a process which baffles Dr. Cushing.
horror and science fiction fans. Appearing in Soon, Nancy’s astounding growth reaches fifty feet.
a string of films in the late fifties and early Not even heavy sedation can keep her down. She’s
o
o
sixties, Allison’s heart stopping good looks
added punch to such movies as The Unearthly,
big and mad and wants the philandering Harry.
Nancy destroys her house and stomps off looking for
The Disembodied, Zombies of Mora Tau and her cheating husband. When the giantess discovers
The Hypnotic Eye. But beyond being physi¬ Harry with Honey, things get ugly. Nancy kills

5 cally attractive, Allison Hayes was a good Honey and carries off a screaming Harry. Bullets

a actress. The films in which she appeared were

hardly grade-A material, yet in each one,
Allison brought considerable conviction to her
and high tension wires end Nancy’s rampage, but it’s
curtains for Harry as well: Nancy’s giant jealous
hand has crushed her hubby to death. In death Nancy
parts, whether heroine or viHarness. There Archer finally has Harry all to herself.
was something believable and natural about A soap opera laced with science fiction, Attack
her performances: her acting never seemed of The 50-Foot Woman will never win any awards
forced. And in Attack of The 50-Foot in the special effects department. Big deal. Keeping
Woman, Allison had her most memorable in perspective that this is a low budget fifties flick,
role. the huge rubber hands and superimposed giants are

* While driving on California’s Route 66,

the slightly tipsy Nancy Archer (Allison) en¬
counters a UFO. Emerging from the flying
enjoyably silly. In addition, the sincere performance
of Allison Hayes helps you disregard these less than
special effects. Allison brings just the right amount
sphere is a thirty-foot space man who is very inter¬ of pathos to the role of Nancy Archer. She wisely
ested in Nancy’s star of India diamond. Under¬ plays the part straight and so is quite effective as the
standably upset, Nancy makes a run for it, yelling lonely, unloved woman no one believes. And of
for her husband, Harry. The local sheriff and his course in her 50-foot state, Allison looks fantastic in
deputy try to appease the hysterical Mrs. Archer by her bed sheet mini-skirt and matching bra. Hayes is
driving to the scene of her close encounter. They well-supported by William Hudson and Yvette Vick¬
find Nancy’s car but no spaceship or thirty-foot ers, both acting up a storm. The rest of the cast
giant. The sheriff knows Nancy is prone to pop one chews the scenery with straight-faced aplomb.
cork too many and blames the whole affair on the Mark Hanna’s script is amusing, nicely balancing
red eye Mrs. Archer was drinking. We know poor the absurd and the melodramatic. Hanna also
Nancy is telling the truth and we feel sorry for her. provides some great lines such as this exchange
And where is hubby Harry (William Hudson) during between Dr. Cushing and deputy Charlie:
all the excitement? Why he’s at a nearby bar sucking
Dr. Cushing: She’ll tear up the town until she
face with the town Jezebel, Honey Parker (Yvette
finds Harry!
Vickers). Harry is a low down hunk of pig dung
who is only interested in Nancy’s money. For some Deputy: Yeah, and then she’ll tear up Harry!
unknown reason, Nancy still loves the two-timing Director Hertz (aka Nathan Juran who also
creep. directed The Brain From Planet Arous, The Seventh
In telling Harry the fantastic story, Nancy insists Voyage of Sinbad and Black Castle among others)
he drive her back to the desert. Mr. Archer soon does a credible job. The desert town setting works
learns that his wife is not off her rocker as they both well and interestingly, was used in several fifties
meet the giant from outer space. Harry blasts the fright flicks including Tarantula and The Monolith
big guy with bullets but they have no effect so he Monsters. Ronald Stein contributes a nice, "weird"
burns rubber back to town, leaving his wife behind. score.
Later Mrs. Archer is found naked, minus her star of The version I watched on Cinemax omits the
India diamond. Nancy’s personal physician, Dr. pre-credit preview scene in which the sheriff and
Cushing is called in to treat her. Jessup explore the alien spaceship. Also missing is
While searching the area where Mrs. Archer was the campy written narration. Perhaps these scenes
found, the sheriff comes upon a huge footprint. Soon are in the TV prints only (although I’ve not seen the
after, he and Nancy’s faithful butler, Jessup, head Key Video version). Whatever version you watch,
for the desert to investigate where they meet (who The 50-Foot Woman will serve as a pleasing
else) the big bald man from outer space. The huge reminder that you don’t need a ninety million dollar
alien smashes their car but zooms back to the stars budget to make an entertaining picture.
after the sheriff throws some hand grenades at his
imposing chest.

36 Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

 The Vanishing
(d) george sluizer (1991)

This extravagantly overpraised French-

Dutch production is a tightly constructed, intel¬
ligent little film, a sure bet to mesmerize those
who would characterize something like, say,
Claude Chabrol’s Le Boucher as a masterpiece
of understated horror. Told in a disconcertingly
elliptical style, The Vanishing is the story of a
young man named Rex Hofrnan and his obsessive
search for his girlfriend Saskia who mysteriously
disappears one fine day after entering a con¬
venience store at a gas station to purchase some
drinks. Three years later, Rex is still searching
for Saskia, plastering posters all over town and
appearing on local talk shows begging for infor¬
mation even though he is sure his beloved is dead.
For Rex, this is more than an obsession, it is "an
homage to the vanished loved one.”
An homage which piques the curiosity of the
abductor, one Raymond Lemome, school¬
teacher, faithful married man and father of two
beautiful young girls. A dedicated man, an
intelligent and rational man, the kind of man who
The World's Greatest Sinner thinks nothing of jumping into a canal to save the
(d) timothy carey (1962) life of a little girl who is drowning. Yes,
Raymond is a good French citizen but he does
This agreeably loopy parable about a self-proclaimed have a problem, a problem he has thus far
Messiah’s attempts to win the Presidency should be required managed to keep hidden from family and society.
viewing for any men of God beset by political aspirations. He’s nuts.
Director Carey, the guy who did all the crying before being As a teenager Raymond jumped from a bal¬
executed in Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, plays the part of cony because he knew he was "predestined not
Clarence Hilliard, a middle-aged insurance salesman who to” and knowing also that he would most likely
wakes up one fine morning to discover that he is an ubermensch. kill himself. He didn’t, and twenty-six years
Purposefully getting himself fired from his job, Clarence sets later, Raymond, for the same irrational reason
out to teach mankind that everyone can live life to the fullest if decides he must abduct a woman, which turns
they are just willing to believe that they are gods. Soon, out after much trial and error to be Saskia. We
Clarence has progressed from street comer preacher to rock don’t know what has happened to Saskia at this
and roll idol shucking his suit and tie for a gold lame suit a la point but Raymond after repeatedly sending mes¬
Elvis. Shucking his wife and children as well, Clarence opts sages to Rex to meet him at specific locales the
for females any age including some who are woefully prepubes- three years following the abduction, finally
cent. As Clarence’s following grows larger, he drops his name reveals himself to Rex. If Rex agrees to come
for God’s, dresses his acolytes in dark suits and ties and has the home with Raymond, he, Raymond will reveal
letter F (for follower) sewed on their jacket sleeves. Clarence, all, but only if Rex follows orders.
er . . . God, seems content to play the part of a successful rock
& roll preacher, but when a disgraced political maven convinces Thus far The Vanishing has been somewhat
God that he can find a bigger audience in the White House, he slow moving and rather pretentious, but once
decides to run for President. Raymond introduces himself to Rex, the film
really kicks into overdrive. You want to think,
Normally poor shooting and editing would be a liability, but to catch your bearings, to just step back and
here it endows the proceedings with a seedy air of reality. The breathe a little, but you’re not given a chance.
curiously aloof performance of Carey is cleverly accentuated You’re in a little car with a fussy, pompous,
by placing his lopsided features and watery eyes constantly at garrulous maniac driving on the road to hell and
screen center in tight close-ups. And the script, also co-written all you can do is pray that things don’t get any
by Timothy, is replete with absurdist takes on Nitzchean uglier than they are. They do. But let me tell
philosophy and nicely underscored by Frank Zappa’s disturb¬ you this without running die risk of spoiling the
ingly modernist soundtrack. whole thing, the denouement is quite simply a
totally unexpected, vicious and heartfelt kick in
the gut.

Brutarian - VoL 1 No. 4

 Arise The Hitman
The Church of the Subgenius (1989/1992) (d) aaron norris (1991)

Tired of working for a In an effort to reverse his box office fortunes of

grinning buffoon who late, Chuck Norris shucks off his image as the Pat
pays you only a fraction of Boone of the karate world and gets down and dirty.
your worth? Frustrated How dirty? Well here he plays a hitman, a contract
at having to come home to killer for the mob. In other words, he kills people for
a spouse who grows money and doesn’t care whether they’re upstanding
alarmingly bigger every citizens or evil scumbags. Oh sure, Chuck’s nice to
day and seems to have lost the neighborhood kids but when someone pisses him
all interest in sex? Feel as off, he blows them away with his trusty sawed-off,
if you are being manipu¬ often when it isn’t at all necessary. Chuck actually
lated by an insane and ven¬ enjoys killing people, and as they’re lying there with
geful puppeteer in a their guts decorating the walls, Chuck adds insult to
travesty designed solely for the purpose of degrading mortal injury by calling them things like "asshole."
and destroying you? Yes, Chuck Norris actually curses in this flick. Not
Well, if you answered yes to any of the above, then once but several times - never in front of the kids of
The Church of the Subgenius has a message for you. It course. And he dresses in nothing but black even on
is the Slack Gospel according to Bob Dobbs which says his days off, and as we all know, unless you’re Johnny
unto those who will listen that the secret of life is to Cash no one but bad, very bad people dress solely in
make mountains of money with as little effort as pos¬ black.
sible. And if you have to make a lot of effort, then The story has something to do with Chuck seeking
you’re probably doing something wrong. In other to avenge a set-up by a rogue cop (nicely played by
words: STOP BEING EXPLOITED AND START Michael Parks) in the employ of the mob, but you
EXPLOITING! Oh yes, I know, you’re saying to won’t care about that. What you will care about is
yourself at this point: "Exploiting? Isn’t that a terrible the impressive body count Chuck racks up in a variety
thing to do to somebody?" No, no it isn’t, you foolish of novel and sanguinary ways. And the conclusion,
acolyte of the morally bankrupt, hideously hidebound in which Parks gets his richly deserved payback, will
and insidiously inane Judeo-Christian ethic. An ethic literally blow you out of your seats.
that teaches you to sit still while your government taxes But perhaps the most impressive thing about The
you to death and sends your children to die in cities Hitman is its direction. I saw the last Aaron Norris
whose names they cannot even pronounce and gives you film, Delta Force Part 374 or whatever, and I feel I
as a reward for your pathetic obeisance: the Super can safely say without fear of contradiction, that the
Bowl! Use these individuals for your own ends, treat man who made that laughable flick is not the same
them like dust unto your feet, for they are the dead who man behind the lens here. For one thing, the mind at
walk. work is far too well schooled in noirish atmospherics.
Go ahead and take their money, kick these insensate Most of the interior scenes are ominously lit in cool
beings in the teeth; they won’t feel a thing. Soon you blues and soothing shades of black which are utilized
will have a mountain of money in which to frolic and to blanket much of a character’s physiognomy.
many new and interesting friends to help you spend it. Someone is always stepping out of the shadows but
What kind of friends? Well, people like yourself, all you see is a half lit face, a shoe or a gun.
people who communicate with aliens and worship The exteriors, as in so many noir films, literally
money, people who do not work so they might live but glisten in water, many pools of which gleam with the
who live so they may play. Reverend Dobbs calls these refracted light of neon signs and high density arc
people: Subgeniuses. lamps. In effect, the lighting is given an emphasis
But why am I telling you this? You read Brutarian almost equal to that of the actors creating a fatalistic
which has been heartily endorsed by the Church as tone mirroring the cynical and embittered persona of
"crucial to your understanding," which means that you Norris. There is also a firm grasp of narrative and a
have in all likelihood long since mutated into a Sub¬ firmer grip on the performances: there are few ex¬
genius although you may not know it yet. For you, the traneous moments and fewer false notes struck, espe¬
hysterically funny Arise video will merely confirm what cially on the part of the star, normally one of most
you already know to be true: all information disclosed wooden of actors.
by authority IS WRONG and all activity that feels like The Hitman is a rarity in action genre inasmuch
work must BE ABANDONED. With knowledge comes as it is a film that is both terrifically exciting and
irresponsibility, buy this video and send it to your visually elegant. Whoever this Aaron Norris guy is,
parents. It will help them UNDERSTAND you and give I’ll be anxiously awaiting his next effort, in whatever
them second thoughts about writing you out of their will. field he chooses to make it.

38 Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

 Even Hitler Had A Girlfriend
(d) ronnie cramer (1991)

But there’s little chance of the protagonist of this

amusing black comedy ever getting one. I mean this guy’s
social skills are so limited that he makes Gary Heidnik or
Jeffrey Dahmer look like Cary Grant by comparison. Not
that our hero - whose name is Marcus Templeton - is
homicidal; it’s just that he hasn’t a clue as to how to treat
a girl. When his mother sets him up with an older woman
from her church, Marcus doesn’t ask her if she wants a
drink, or whether she’s read any good bodes lately; he asks
if he can feel her breasts. And when Marcus does manage
to bring himself to ask a lady for a date, its not to go to a
movie or to a restaurant but to his aunt’s funeral or to a
convenience store to get some of those delicious plastic
wrapped sandwiches that have been marked down to a
dollar fifty. Part of the explanation for Marcus’ behavior
is that he works nights as a security guard and thus doesn’t
get the opportunity to socialize. Another reason for our
hero’s social retardation is his total immersion in an erotic
world of fantasy. You see, Marcus refuses to watch
anything but the triple X cable channel or soft core horror
films or to "read" anything other than pornographic
magazines. Of course none of this would matter if Marcus
looked vaguely human. As you may have guessed by now,
this sap isn’t the best looking guy in the world. He’s barely
5’8, weighs well over two hundred pounds and overall,
sports a look of dull, insipid stupefaction. Imagine a racoon Even Hitler Had A Girlfriend
on a bender and you’ve got Marcus.
Even humanoids get lonely after awhile, and so over¬
coming his fear of rejection, Marcus begins to lavishly
spend his money on local call girls. On his initial en¬
\wwqvelength video
counters, Marcus tapes his conversations, but when the
novelty of that wears off, he sets up a video camera in his
bedroom completely unconcerned that his "dates" may not
take so kindly to being surreptitiously recorded for
posterity. When a paranoid prostitute discovers his shabby
set-up, the hapless Marcus finds himself staring down the
barrel of a gun.
Boasting a surprisingly witty and mordant screenplay,
Hitler cleverly utilizes voice over narration to disguise its
modest production values. The acting is a little amateurish
at times but, Andren Scott is quite convincing in the part
of the pathetic Marcus. Shambling through the hallways
of his house in his underwear and socks, speaking to us in
.1. WlTWdl
an exhausted, childishly peevish tone, Scott turns the neat BKlSLV ACTXHH^rrvt
OF SADI STIC
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39
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4
 The Violent Years
(d) ed wood, jr. (1956)

whom he was parked was buttoned up tighter than

a whore on payday).
Inasmuch as this is a cautionary tale, these
renegade retards are eventually hunted down and
killed. Two members of the gang are killed in the
aforementioned shoot out with the cops, one dies
in a car crash while fleeing from the police, and
Paula, the leader, has to suffer the ultimate indig¬
nity: shucking off the mortal coil while giving
birth in prison to a bastard child. (A brazen bitch
to the end, Paula’s last words are: "So what?").
Society has secured retribution but the question
remains: What led these beautiful bimbos to a life
of crime? Wood has a profound answer to this
question, an answer he feels is the explanation for
any youngster dawdling on the road of delinquen¬
cy: "uncontrolled passions" ignored by parents
who place the needs of the community above the
interests of their children. Right.
This is a preposterous notion, but like all
Wood’s films, the premise has little to do with what
we actually see on screen. Adolescents whose
parents are stable and loving do not run off to kill
policemen as soon as mom and dad leave for work;
they do not invite small time criminals home for
parties when left alone for a few hours, and they
do not don prostitute’s attire once school lets out.
Or do they?
Wood would like us to believe that these gals
This girl-gang potboiler is a relatively obscure opus are just ordinary disaffected teenagers desperately
in the canon of a man generally acknowledged as the pleading for attention. His solution to this agonized
world’s worst director. Although Wood is only credited adolescent angst? No, not increased parental super¬
with the screenplay, the film’s delirious mixture of vision or professional counseling (in a Wood film always
banality, pomposity and sententiousness makes it highly expect the implausible) but a return to "religion . . . and
suspect that anybody but Wood was at the helm of this other moral laws laid down by the great religions."
project. Uhhh . . . right Ed, and Jews, Christians and Muslims
Wood’s laughable script is ostensibly a morality play have never had any problem seeing eye to eye.
concerning four adolescent female delinquents who, as Ed Wood Jr.’s films are often dismissed by faux
described by one of the cops assigned to their case, intellectuals as unworthy or unwatchable. These philis-
"aren’t just kids but. . .MORONS!" And judging from tines want "intelligence," what Tristan Tzara called "the
the way these girl’s operate you’d be forced to concur triumph of sound education and pragmatism.” "For¬
with this opinion. Led by a busty blonde named Paula, tunately," continues Tzara, "life is something else and
these pubescent punks openly assault people on the its pleasures innumerable." So too is the cinematic
highway, knock over gas stations while using Paula’s netherworld of Wood; it is truly "something else," a
parent’s car and - for a change of pace - battle with the realm full of "innumerable pleasures" wherein the
cops at the local high school. The most memorable plausible is constantly jeopardized by the improbable,
moment in the gang’s reign of error occurs when a logic is forced to do battle with absurdity and the sublime
"pretty boy" is abducted from his car and gang-raped is consistently routed by the ridiculous.
(which is really a lucky break for him since the girl with

42
Brutarian - VoL 1 No. 4
 Naked Lunch
(d) david Cronenberg (1991)

Like Dead Ringers, David Cronenberg’s

"adaptation" of William S. Burroughs’
Naked Lunch is dry and dusty. The moist¬
ness of The Fly and Scanners takes a back
seat here.
Not that that’s a bad thing. Splashy
effects worked well in those previous
Cronenberg efforts, especially Videodrome,
but what the director is trying to do with
Naked Lunch almost necessitates a willing¬
ness to subdue the obvious. When Bill Lee
(Burroughs’ "alter ego," portrayed by Peter
Weller) shoots a little too much dope and
visualizes the writing process as head-to-
head combat with a talking typewriter that’s
also part insect, we aren’t smacked in the
face with a seltzer-bottle spray of goo and
hemoglobin, as one might expect from
Cronenberg. We see it "dry." Exactly like
the writing process.

No one who’s read Naked Lunch is going to

believe that anyone could bring it to the movie
When all is said and done, Naked Lunch is typical
screen without reinventing cinema itself. Cronenberg
Cronenberg. Using events in Burroughs’ life as jumping
knew that and didn’t try, because his Naked Lunch takes
off points, the director ushers the character of Bill Lee
a peek at Burroughs’ life while he’s planning to write
through a complicated series of interludes with bizarre
the book. Yes, there are some "bits" from the book,
characters (everyone, it seems, has some major
some presented only verbally via Weller’s lines, and
problems in their lives, like getting hooked on shooting
yes, there is plenty of outrageousness (which is, after
up powdered insect poison), jumping from one set piece
all, the spirit of the book). But no, it isn’t what you
to another and back again. Yet the film flows smoothly.
thought you were going to get to see.
It’s not difficult to follow. It’s funny. It’s sad. And
When pest-exterminator Lee discovers his wife’s it’s horrific.
hooked on "bug powder," he decides to try some
The images Cronenberg has wrought for Naked
himself. Pretty soon the pair are diverting the powder
Lunch linger long after the fade out: the typewriter-
from the manufacturer to supply their own habits, Bill
beetle scurrying across a desk top, speaking to Bill Lee
begins experiencing some pretty vivid hallucinations,
from an anal-like orifice located just beneath its
and before long the line between reality and unreality
wingspread; a homosexual union that ends with the
dissolves completely. In that sense, Naked Lunch
dominant male metamorphosing into a half-human/half¬
treads Videodrome territory but audiences seem to have
centipede as it ravishes its agonized partner; the narcotic
no problem with it here. (Many Videodrome viewers
manufacturing Mugwump that drips intoxicating goo
felt stymied by that film’s purely subjective point of
from hollow, finger-like extensions that sprout from its
view).
head. Yet the image that lasts longest is the one that
Lee finds himself in a territory called "Interzone" involves the least amount of visual trickery: Lee and
after a domestic mishap triggers a run from authorities. his wife Joan doing their "William Tell Routine" a tragic
It’s in Interzone that Lee begins to unravel a Big- truth from Burroughs’ life that finds its way into the film
Brother-like plot involving agents and double-agents and not just once, but twice.
the lunatic fringe. But really, it’s not exactly a plot. It’s
But hey, in Naked Lunch, overkill is the name of
more of a mind game. Soon, poor Bill Lee doesn’t know
the game.
what to believe. So he takes the easy way out. .. and
shoots up more bug powder.

43
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4
 Help Wanted Female Body Parts
(d) harold perkins (1964) (d) eric red (1991)

A story within a story within a story without a point and one So what would you do if you were told that
of the wildest sixties nudies you’ll ever see. An aging playboy your spouse had just had an arm severed in a
hires hookers to strip for him while he regales them with tales of horrendous traffic accident and that unless you
a sordid past involving torture, murder and mayhem. When one gave permission for the hospital to attach the
of his hirelings becomes frightened, she konks the ripening roue arm of a recently executed killer your mate
on the head and runs to her lesbian lover, a karate teacher, for would never be doing any two-fisted drinking
protection. The middle aged masher proves to be more than a again? Of course . . . you’d say no and not
match for the lethal lesbian however, and takes her out in short because the proffered arm looked like some¬
order. The titanic battle between the two has the curious effect of thing you’d pull out of a barrel at a pig-pick¬
turning them both on, and so, the seemingly mismatched duo return ing. No, you’d refuse to give your assent
to the senior swinger’s pad where the mannish girl does a Salome because the surgeon (Lindsey Duncan) head¬
type dance and then stabs our ravished Romeo when he allows his ing the team on this "experimental" operation
guard to drop. Our lascivious libertine awakes to fmd it has all has that severe and fastidious look you always
been a bad dream, but when he picks up a knife and goes after his see on mad doctors in horror movies. But of
virago of a wife, we realize that for this poor pot-bellied profligate course there wouldn’t be a movie if the okay
his nightmares are actually preferable to the "reality" that is his wasn’t given and so, no sooner is the arm
lot. A hateful, misogynistic film, filled with seemingly unending attached than we fmd our star Bill (Jeff
scenes of undulating buttocks, heaving breasts and surprisingly Fahey), a sociologist at a local university,
disturbing violence. (Available from Something Weird Video). returning home to his wife and kids only
slightly the worse wear (well his arm still
looks something like a dead tree limb but
everyone is too polite to tell him so). Bill
quickly comes to realize however, that he is
much the worse for wear what with these
terribly violent dreams he begins having and
with his newly attached limb seeming to take
on a life of it’s own. When the arm viciously
backhands one of his kids and then tries to
strangle his wife, Bill moves into a downtown
motel and attempts to find some answers.
What he finds, is a deranged surgeon who
doesn’t give a damn about his problems and
two other men experiencing similar difficul¬
ties with limbs grafted from the same killer.
Bill forms an impromptu support group with
these guys, but after a few sessions, the group
has to be dissolved inasmuch as Bill is its only
living member. Yes, Bill’s newfound friends
have been murdered, their donated ap¬
pendages hacked and pulled off, and unless he
can come up with some answers pretty quick,
he’s likely to join his compatriots on a slab at
the city morgue. Body Parts suffers from a
trite and rather unoriginal script and languid
pacing, especially in the first half, but the
patient viewer will be rewarded for going the
distance with some fine performances - notab¬
ly Brad Douriff s loopy turn as a good natured
but slightly demented painter - scenes of
gruesome violence and frenzied action that are
nicely shot and staged and a denouement, that
while totally expected, will nevertheless elicit
the harsh croak of jaded laughter from even
the most cynical of horror enthusiasts.
Body Parts

44
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4
 Moonshine Mountain Inner Sanctum
(d) h. g. lewis (1964) (d) fred olen ray (1991)

Mr. Lewis is something of an Sleazy, stupid and senseless, Inner Sanctum finds Fred Olen Ray,
anomaly among exploitation direc¬ producer and director of scores of forgetable low budget potboilers (Beverly
tors inasmuch as he never attempts Hills Vampire, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers) in possession of a film that
to tart up his impoverished produc¬ has even the most jaded exploitation aficionados buzzing. And Fred’s done
tions to make them look like anything it the old fashioned way, not with gore, but with soft-core sex and nudity.
other than the shoddy piece of non¬ Forget the silly plot about a husband who may or may not be plotting
sense they are. Protestations to the with a nurse he has hired to kill his psychosomatically paralyzed wife; it’s
contrary, Lewis’ notions of filmmak¬ just a framing device for a number of incredibly lubricous love making
ing eschew such concepts as dis¬ scenes involving a fully nude Joseph Bottoms and some moron named Bret
cipline and craft and allow him to Clark coupling with either Tanya Roberts or Margaux Hemingway (looking
claim that his limitations are rules, like a badly aging Joan Crawford in a blonde fright wig). And for those
his banal observations dexterities, not interested in seeing fading thespians, there are the "performances" of
his timidities vision and his im¬ Roberts and Hemingway. These gals have obviously long ago come to
poverished imagination a kind of grips with the fact that they have little talent (Margaux’s overbite makes it
purity. In films such as Moonshine almost impossible for her to enunciate and Tanya doesn’t even attempt to)
Mountaint these fraudulent asser¬ and that everyone with even a modicum of intelligence knows this, so they
tions are made with such con¬ don’t even try to emote; instead they celebrate the fact that they are still
temptuous brio that only a boor could relatively young and relatively attractive by humping and gyrating in wild
take exception to them. abandon. After awhile you’ll feel like a peeper at a casting party, but isn’t
Moonshine is the story of weal¬ that what movies like this are all about? So don’t feel guilty, get a couple
thy folk singer and guitar picker of six packs, ajar of vaseline, take off your clothes, pop in the film (the
Doug Martin and his adventures with unrated version of course) and get ready to work that body.
a family of bootleggers in a primitive
southern backwater. Doug has
deliberately sought out the rural and
hidebound town of Stewartsville
hoping that it might serve as inspira¬
tion for his attenuated muse. What
Doug finds is an atavistic community
populated by cretins, blackguards
and thieves, but because the
aforementioned bootlegging family
takes a liking to Doug - thanks to his
"purty singin’" - he comes through
his harrowing ordeals intact and with
new found inspiration in the form of
a "lovely" hillbilly wife.
Lewis claims he made this film
because he loved the music. Don’t
you believe him; Lewis made Moon¬
shine for money and as a slap in the
face to the very audience that sup¬
ported his pictures: frequenters of
southern drive-ins. The musical as
well as the dramatic performances
are awful, the dialogue puerile
enough to make Ed Wood Jr. wince,
the cast, with almost no exception,
one of the most unattractive in recent
memory. In sum, Moonshine is one
of Lewis’ most remarkable
audacities and that, it almost goes
without saying, makes the film sub¬
lime. Moonshine Mountain

45
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No, 4
 A Bucket of Blood The Little Shop of Horrors
(d) roger corman (1959) (d) roger corman (1960)

Think of a Roger Corman horror- Little more than a year after making A Bucket
comedy and chances are good that the C3* of Blood, Roger Corman directed his second
title Little Shop of Horrors will spring to horror-comedy. Legend has it that Corman made
mind. While that film has a lot to offer this picture as a bet. The wager being that he
- including that marvelous cameo by Jack could pull something together in two and a half
Nicholson - its revitalized success days and actually have the film make sense.
eclipsed a couple of other minor Corman ^ Actually, Corman lucked into acquiring a
oddities. standing film set for free, and he asked
A Bucket of Blood went out with screenwriter Chuck Griffith to come up with some
Attack of the Giant Leeches as part of a kind of story to fit it. Using the stage set, Corman
1959 double feature from American In¬ filmed for two days while a number of exteriors
ternational and was one of the first AIP y were shot by Griffith and the second unit over the
combos that failed to make much of an or course of several nights. When it was all pieced
impact at the bucks office. In answer to together, we got The Little Shop of Horrors.
the modest returns from this investment, yj Whereas A Bucket of Blood balanced its titters
within a year AIP began producing big- with terror fairly evenly, Little Shop goes for the
ger-budgeted color pictures like House of
Usher, re-establishing their dominance $ guffaws in nearly every scene, relegating the fear
factor to a minimum. Consequently, without the
of the horror market throughout the six¬ need for generating suspense, mood or scares, Corman’s
ties. film benefits from a relaxed atmosphere where the usual
But before Corman married Poe in the AIP limitations of low budget filmmaking actually aid the
chapel, the director managed to squeeze out a zaniness of the goings-on!
total of three black comedies between 1959 and Jonathan Haze is memorable as Seymour Krelboing,
1960. A Bucket of Blood was the first - and another "schmucky" role that seems tailored for Dick
possibly the best. Miller (Walter Paisley in Bucket). Seymour, who works
Taking a cue from Mystery of the Wax for a skid row florist, crossbreeds a buttercup with a
Museum and its remake, House of Wax, Venus Fly-Trap and produces the man-eating "Audrey,
scriptwriter Chuck Griffith provides all the trap¬ Jr.," named after his best girl (Jackie Joseph). Using the
pings of horror within a comedic framework. peculiar looking plant as a public relations attraction is
Actor Dick Miller - in the quintessential Dick Gravis Mushnik (Mel Welles), who - like Leonard De
Miller role - has a fiendish field day as Walter Santis in Bucket of Blood - discovers the evil truth behind
Paisley, the schmucky busboy of a beatnik coffee his employee’s botanical triumph but does nothing to stop
house called The Yellow Door (the original title the bloodshed. Following the earlier film’s lead, Mushnik
of Griffith’s screenplay). In his attempt to emu¬ survives the proceedings with only his conscience left to
late the Door’s pretentiously artistic clientele deal with at the conclusion, while Seymour becomes the
whom he idolizes, Paisley covers a dead cat with final victim of his own creation.
modeling clay and successfully passes it off as Obviously the framework of both pictures are nearly
an original sculpture. With his newly acquired identical, but there is certainly no confusing the two.
popularity as the catalyst, Paisley is soon mur¬ Little Shop is wacky, wild and wily. Jack Nicholson’s
dering/sculpting a variety of "pieces." There’s brief bit as a pain-junkie who loves to get drilled by his
a marvelous sequence where Paisley gleefully dentist is probably the film’s best moment (repeated in the
presents a smaller work to his boss, Leonard De 1988 remake with Bill Murray in the role), but there’s
Santis (Anthony Carbone), the owner of the other humorous highlights as well, including a sequence
Door. "You . . . you made a bust?" moans De where an armed robber is disarmed by Audrey, Jr. (The
Santis, who knows the secret behind Paisley’s robber is played by scripter Chuck Griffith).
methods. For years The Little Shop of Horrors remained an
Much of the film’s humor - as well as a obscure, rarely-televised movie title that only horror
surprising amount of pathos - stems from movie and Roger Corman fans seemed to know about.
Miller’s standout portrayal of a lonely and tor¬ But the early eighties off-Broadway musical adaptation,
tured man whose desperate desire to be accepted followed by a colorful, big-budget remake, rescued
by society turns him against those very persons Corman’s original from the video wasteland. The film
whose friendship he purportedly cherishes. But can be found in virtually any video rental outlet in both
don’t misunderstand me, A Bucket of Blood is black and white and colorized versions. Or you can buy
first and foremost a black comedy. A cheap one, your own copy for about ten dollars - a significant portion
admittedly - but a damn good one! of the film’s budget!

46
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4
 Less memorable than either of the preceding real monster nearby and the deaths don’t have to be
films is Corman’s third horror "spoof," Crea- faked after all!
ture From The Haunted Sea. Made in 1959 Creature from the Haunted Sea suffers from
but unreleased until 1961, the film rapidly faded murky photography and poor location sound, making
into obscurity, rarely surfacing on local TV the film difficult to sit through. Its scant sixty-three
■jU stations running the mid-sixties Chiller Theatre minute running time seems too long anyway, mainly
Q) package. It’s available on videotape but run- because this Corman film lacks the luster of even the
ning it down is often difficult. very illustrious Bucket of Blood}.
^ Anthony Carbone plays Renzo Capeto, a But the major problem with Creature is Chuck
small time underworld mafia type who, for the Griffith’s screenplay: it just isn’t very funny. Perhaps
^ right price, agrees to help a band of Griffith felt he was running low on horror-comedy
revolutionists escape from their Caribbean is- routines, or maybe, because Corman reportedly gave
aV land with the National Treasury. However, him just one week to write the script, Griffith was too
5* once they’re seaborne, Capeto decides to do rushed to develop anything really worthwhile.
N away with the revolutionists and steal the loot.
Whatever the reason, Creature is notable only
He conspires with his girlfriend, Mary-Belle
Ct> (Betsy Jones Moreland), and her brother Jack
because it concluded a trilogy of black comedies begun
by Corman in 1959 with the aforementioned Bucket of
^ (Robert Bean) to systematically kill off the men
Blood. A rental will nab you a few chuckles, but not
and blame their deaths on a sea monster which
much else. It’s really for Corman completests only.
purportedly lurks below the depths. Capeto is more
than a little surprised when he learns that there is a Watch it and weep.

47
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4
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 The Freakmaker aka The Mutations
(d) jack Cardiff (1974)

When Donald Pleasance Pleasance ends up surrounded by a

is starring in a horror film, monstrous menagerie of mutated mis¬
you can be fairly certain the fits who harbor hatred deep in their
pic is gonna be worth your malformed little hearts. Then again,
while. Maybe it won’t be a how could it, with Nater believing his
classic, but it sure as shit ain’t crowning "achievement" to be a com¬
gonna be no bow-wow, bination of a human being and a giant
either. Venus fly trap?
The Freakmaker is an un¬ The late Michael Dunn, veteran
usual little picture hampered of numerous celluloid chillers that
by restrictive production called for the services of a (usually
values that make the finished malevolent) dwarf, has a memorable
product appear cheap and role here as the manager of a travel¬
more than a bit rushed, but ing carnival of freaks. (The freaks are
the film is captivating in spite real, playing themselves, as many
of this, due in large part to the other special show-biz people did in
script co-authored by Robert Tod Browning’s classic, Freaks.)
D. Weinbach and Edward With his cohort Lynch (Tom Baker),
Mann. These guys may not a horribly disfigured giant of a man,
be able to write dialogue, but their the pair supply experimental subjects
ability to take a potentially objec¬ to Nater in the hope that he will
tionable idea and turn it into some¬ eventually uncover a means of restor¬
thing palatable augers well for future ing them to normalcy.
collaborations. The Freakmaker owes more to its predecessor than just the idea of employing
Pleasance plays Dr. Nater, the real fife freaks to propel the story forward. In one particular scene, cribbed from
"ghetto doctor," a scientific sort Browning, a posse of freaks, their switchblades clicking, their eyes glaring, pursue
preoccupied with the idea of combin¬ their victim on a rain swept night. Whether intended by director (Naked Under
ing plant and animal cells to trigger Leather) Cardiff and his screenwriters as a tribute or a rip-off, it doesn’t really
biological mutations, accelerating matter. What counts is effectiveness: that’s the bottom line. And in that respect,
evolution in the process. Of course, The Freakmaker has tied up all loose ends nicely.
nothing works out as planned, and

The Art Of Dying

(d) wings hauser (1991)

Wings Hauser finally getting tired of headlining something of a curve however: real chainsaws, bullets and
laughably inconsequential grade zero action adventure knives are being used.
flicks takes over the directing chores for ... a laughable Wings being a stand-up kind of guy simply won’t
and inconsequential action adventure flick. Except in this tolerate these kind of hi-jinx on his beat, so he takes it upon
case, the picture is sicker, far sicker than anything Wings himself to track down these homeopathic homos. Unfor¬
and maybe anyone else working the back lots of American tunately, Wings has a few problems of his own - primarily
cinema has made in quite some time. the penchant for murdering every possible informant - and
Wings stars as a sociopathic cop on the trail of a gay a number of promising thespians are offed before Wings
male couple who are making an underground movie that wraps up all loose ends. Before he does, males, females,
appears to consist entirely of reenactments of some of the she-males and who knows what else are gutted in all manner
more shocking scenes in classic American films. We are of gruesome ways. For those cineastes who ask nothing
shown beautiful recreations of the shower scene from more from an evening’s entertainment than homophobia,
Psycho, the Russian roulette bit from Deer Hunter, the hateful dialogue and innovative evisceration, The Art Of
chain saw carvings from Scarface and much more. Our Dying will come as something of a revelation.
gay blades have thrown the actors they have recruited

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4 49

 Whore Tetsuo: The Iron Man
(d) ken russell (1991) (d) shinya tsukamoto (1991)

Our policy at this magazine is not to bother with dreadful films Tetsuo opens with a slobbering man
unless they have: (a) something redeeming in their awfulness, some in rags cutting deeply into his thigh and
purity of essence or vision a la Ed Wood, Jr; (b) generated a lot of inserting an iron rod. Then the film gets
controversy or outraged some segment of society; or (c) no reason for gruesome. There is no story really, no
existing other than as fodder for cheap jokes. The intellectually feeble narrative, no plot; Tsukamoto has
and aesthetically bankrupt Whore clearly falls into category (c) since fashioned a horrifying industrial
there is nothing of worth to be found in its 100 or so odd minutes of delirium, a phantasmagoria with the city
running time and as it was seen by almost no one and therefore never as abandoned factory where citizens
had the chance to arouse much debate in any quarter. And because I slowly transmogrify into metallic
love cheap jokes, I am going to attempt to amuse you by listing some monstrosities leaking oil and radiator
of the spurious reasons for renting this execrable work: fluid. To attempt to describe the film as
1) As the titular heroine, Theresa Russell gives one of the worst anything other than a continuous series
performances in recent memory. Running the gamut of emotion from of hallucinations would be to do it a
A to B, the marginally talented Theresa is so awful that she makes disservice; Tetsuo has been purposefully
Tanya Roberts look like Jessica Tandy by comparison. designed to provoke and to bewilder, to
arouse and to anger. There’s no rhyme
2) The film boasts the most laughable pimp in recent memory, a
or reason to any of it. Call it I Gobot.
skinny, red-headed white guy who must be all of 105 pounds soaking
Call it anything you want; these dreadful
wet. Why the hefty Theresa is afraid of this guy is a mystery to me.
images will continue to haunt you: a
She’s got him by at least thirty pounds.
woman’s hand mutating into a deadly
3) It’s at least two hours shorter than the only other film with chromium claw, a face rotting away to
"whore” in its title, Jean Eustache’s legendary talkathon The Mother reveal a mass of twisted wires and mis¬
And The Whore. shapen metal, a penis metamorphosing
4) Ken Russell actually seems to think gang rape and forcible into a huge power drill which skewers a
sodomy is the stuff that provokes laughter. Rumor has it that Ken’s beautiful woman who attempts to make
next assignment will be directing snuff films for the mob. love to it. And on and on until your
virtually screaming for release.
5) You get to see Theresa wear ridiculous outfits with zippers in
all manner of outrageous places and a few shots of her oddly shaped That Tetsuo works as well (or as
breasts and her wide, flat, impossibly white ass. insidiously) as it does is largely a testa¬
ment to brilliant editing which effective¬
6) Antonio Fargas plays a Rastafarian street person who smokes
ly employs multiple exposures, stop ac¬
massive quantities of dope in public places and never gets busted.
tion and accelerated motion photography
Functioning as something of a Father-confessor to the addle-pated
and mind numbingly swift intercutting.
Theresa, he advises her from somewhere beneath the ever present
Effective too are the nauseatingly realis¬
cloud of ganja smoke that there is nothing wrong with being a whore,
tic mutant apocalyptic metal and rubber
it is the pimps that are giving the profession a bum rap.
costumes and the gloppy claymation se¬
7) Russell asks you to believe that a high class pimp, knowing quences. Shot on 16 mm in black and
Theresa is a prostitute, would wine and dine her for over a year then white, the film also benefits from a light¬
put her out on the streets to turn fifty dollar tricks. ing scheme that seems to bathe every¬
8) Theresa is consistently allowed to step out of the narrative and thing in a crepuscular and sooty light.
philosophize about subjects such as blow jobs, penis size and talking Some critics contend that with Tet¬
dirty. This is known in the theater as the Brechtian alienation effect. suo, Tsukamoto is making some sort of
9) It is not Russell’s worst film, the stupifyingly boring Gothic is statement concerning post modem day
far more difficult to sit through. Whore is never boring. Callous, industrial society’s dehumanizing effect
misogynistic and calculatingly inane yes, but never boring. on individual consciousness, but there is
10) At the very least, Whore is educational. Watching it you learn really nothing in this disturbing
dreamscape to support this. If the film
things like, well, like classy ladies of the evening don’t wear panties
is "about” anything, it’s about dreams
when they’re on the night shift and they never flash a potential
and consciousness and how each infuses
customer and they never, ever work the same side of the street on
and informs the other. Sometimes a
which a wino is vomiting. I bet you didn’t know any of this, did you?
I bet you also never really cared about it (me way or the other. meditation on this interrelationship can
give rise to works of great beauty; in the
I could probably come up with half a dozen more reasons for case of Tetsuo, it has resulted in a sordid
watching this disaster, but I think the trick to Whore is paying for it and disturbing nightmare.
yourself and then trying to come up with your own excuses.

50
Brutarian - VoL 1 No. 4
 One of David Friedman’s favorite films, this cinematography are little more than mediocre,
roughie - a nudie flick with snatches of sadism but the ubiquitous nudity and the film’s overall
and violence - was written for curvaceous star air of idiot depravity are more than adequate
Stacey Walker whom Friedman met while film¬ recompense. And what of the climax, in which
ing Fanny Hill. An overheated tale of a Walker receives her poetic comeuppance at the
psychopathic femme fatale who likes to get men hands of a cool teenbeat singer? Are we to say
and women all hot and bothered and then scream that for a sociopathic female it is just a matter of
rape at the moment of crisis, Honey is sure to time until she realizes her destiny, until she finds
please both masturbators and hardened sadists. a firm hand to push her onto the path of prostitu¬
The aforementioned Stacey Walker, while not a tion? The beauty of Honey is that concerns such
classic beauty, has an indefinable je ne sais quoi as this are irrelevant, if thou goest to meet woman
that gives Friedman’s outrageous screenplay a one brings not questions but a whip. (Available
needed air of believability. Direction, acting and from Something Weird Video).
52
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Hexx - Hexx Gang of Four - Mall
Adept admixture of death and speed metal spat out by I’ve got this friend named Jerry and it seems that
a bunch of hoary veterans possessing a marvelously whatever I ask him about these days, whether it’s a
morbid lyrical sensibility and a heady sense of melody book he’s just read, a record he’s just purchased or a
that makes bits of business like Blood Hunter and Birds movie he’s just seen, his response is almost invariab¬
of Prey almost (heaven forbid) catchy. Kudos to lead ly: "It wasn’t bad." Which loosely translated means:
singer and guitarist Clint Bower for his kinesthetic "Dom, the damned thing just wasn’t clever or inter¬
depictions of death by nuclear bomb (Fire Mush¬ esting enough to engage my gargantuan intellect on
rooms), death by drowning (Watery Graves), death by any level." Now Jerry has always been a big fan of
suicidal leap (The Last Step) and death by chemical the Gang, even when they turned into a neo-disco
bombardment (Persecution Experience). Available on band near the end of their first incarnation, so when
Century Media Records, naturally. he asks me whether I liked this thing I’m gonna say,
"Jerry, it wasn’t bad." Which from me means:
"They’ve run out of ideas, just like you, you mar-
Joe Clay - Ducktail maluke." (Wamer Bros.)
Way back in 1955, a Louisiana teenage rockabilly
singer was poised on the edge of stardom. There were
turns as opening act for Carl Perkins and Fats James Carr - Take Me To The Limit
Domino, an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and At last report this guy was a catatonic or non-am¬
finally a record contract with RCA. And . . . nothing bulatory schizophrenic and here he is standing tall in
happened. When Joe Clay is finally run down by a a picture on the CD cover. If you don’t know who
European concert promoter thirty years later, he’s Mr. Carr is, you should. He was, and if Limit isn’t
working as a school bus driver. Well, just like in the merely a result of some studio wizardry, still is, one
movies, Joe is flown overseas and finds himself of the world’s great soul singers. Not all of the
playing to packed houses on the continent, and when material is first rate, and some of the arrangements
he returns to the good ole U S of A, the advance word are rather hokey, but Carr sings his heart out and for
from the British press has him set up as a cult hero. those of us who thought he’d never record again given
Now, hard on the heels of Clay’s new found success his medical record, that is enough. (Ace Records).
comes this CD release of the original Bear family LP:
eleven of the greasiest, red-hot, white-trash rockabilly
ravings ever committed to acetate. While clearly Alice In Chains - Facelift
Jesus, these guys sound great when you’re fucked up
influenced by Presley, Clay’s performances possess a
on Glenfarclas (104 proof). I know a lot of this stuff
rawer, more primitive quality. Listen to the aban¬
doned stylings of Get On The Right Track or You Look will sound silly when I’m sober tomorrow, but I know
That Good To Me and you’ll see what I’m talking even now, as I’m getting ready to run to the john, that
about, but like me you’ll be hard pressed to explain cuts like Man In The Box and Put You Down are as
good as grunge rock gets. Hell, as good as anything
why this guy never made it big. I’d like to have seen
gets. And Layne Staley is one of the best frontmen
Elvis take a novelty tune like Did You Mean Jelly Bean
I’ve heard in ages. (CBS Records).
(What You Said Cabbage Head) and put this much
spontaneity and idiot passion into it. (Bear Family
Records). Meathooks - Cambodia Soul Music
Winningly insane amalgamation of dada, grunge and
Various Artists - Time Will Show The Wiser industrial clamor. Well, I shouldn’t say "winning"
inasmuch as this Soul Music has absolutely NO
Interesting collection of obscurities from bands you’ve
commercial potential. But Meathooks know this and
never heard of compiled by the editors of Bucketful of
they know that the big time record companies know
Brains, a magazine you’ve never read. I know, I
know, you don’t give a shit about any of this, you just
want to know if I’ve discovered any bands worth
checking out. Yeah, there are two: The Chills for
their energetically tuneful thrash and The Bevis Frond
© this and they know that you know this and they hate
themselves, the industry and you for knowing this.
Out of such malice ... a terrible beauty appears to
have been bom. (Disastro Mix, Box 423, Madison

N
Square Station, NY, NY 10159).
for his/its demented neo-psychedelic guitar work.
And, come to think of it, Thin White Rope and The
Chemistry Set are starting to grow on me. (Triad
Records).

56 Brutorian - Vol. 1 No. 4

Various Artists - Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1947- became the base for southern soul "Making music for black
1974 adults" (Vols 5 - 7). Sold in 1967 to Warner Brothers (a
Who would have thought that a record company started by company more interested in big name rock acts), by the early
the son of the Turkish ambassador (Ahmet Ertegun) and a seventies, Atlantic was no longer actively seeking out Black
Jewish dental student (Herb Abramson) would some twenty acts. (Which is why Vol 8 with its Spinners and Roberta
years later be the largest seller of soul music surpassing even Flack songs is the worst of the lot). The contents of this
Motown? Well, it didn't happen overnight. The initial eight CD set can also be purchased separately, but these
releases, a number of jazz and jump band things, went single discs omit many of the cuts found in the box set. And
nowhere (see Vol I) but with the label's first hit, Stick while the set itself costs an arm and a leg, it is essential
Mcghee’s Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee, Atlantic estab¬ listening for anyone with even a cursory interest in rhythm
lished its signature sound, what Peter Guralnick in his and blues.
epochal Sweet Soul Music described as "downhome [music]
with a sophisticated twist." Often this involved taking
sophisticated performers like Ruth Brown, whom the label
Various Artists - Surf Legends (And Rumors) 1961-
signed in 1949, and turning them funky or doing the reverse.
1964
Hey all you hotdoggers and hodaddies, here’s a heapin'
Quality and authenticity soon became the bywords for the
helpin’ of twenty-six, count ’em, twenty-six monsters from
label especially with the addition of writer-promoter Jerry
the surf. Totally tubular twangy trebly tunes sans vocals
Wexler in 1953 (Vol 2). In 1954, a relatively unknown
(which make them instrumentals), with some swank sax
singer named Ray Charles put together this "blues and gospel
surfacing every now and then. No Ventures, Surfaris or
combination" otherwise known as I've Got A Woman. One
Trashmen, but what’s here is choice: The Rumblers, The
of the most profoundly influential singles in the history of
Ramblers, The Revels and . . . and . . . and what the hell
pop, it firmly established Atlantic as the premier independent
difference does it make? All these guys were just a bunch
label in the country, a status that enabled Ertegun and
of obnoxious teenagers making a crazy, glorious, wigged-
company to sign talent like the Coasters, Joe Turner and the
out racket just for the hell of it and if you take this stuff
Drifters (Vols 2-4). In the early sixties, with the addition
seriously you’re probably missing the point. (Del Rack,
of Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Joe
8300 Tampa Ave, Northridge, CA 91324).
Tex and their distribution deal with Stax Records, the label

NOW AVAILABLE!
Doug Allen and Gary Leib’s
"Book of ldiots"#2
A compendium of collaborative,
decorative doodlings chosen
from sketchbooks and cocktail
napkins. 54 pages, cardboard
cover. Limited edition.

Send $20 to Studio Twelve

952 N. Hoyne Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4 57

Lou Reed - Magic and Loss Joe Coleman - Infernal Machine
There’s little magic here but it’s certainly your loss if you Prankster/performance artist/painter’s first piece of vinyl
shell out the green for this pretentious, melodically under¬ since his mid-seventies work with those notorious nattering
nourished, ponderously paced "meditation” on life and nabobs of negativism, The Steel Tips. The first side, a
death. Some words of advice for you Lou, from a poet far tribute to mass murderers, cleverly pairs monologues from
greater than your mentor Delmore Schwartz: "Do not go real (Manson, Kemper and Lucas), as well as fictional (The
gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave Sadist, Night of the Hunter) killers with twisted songs like
at the close of day." (Sire Records). Far more entertaining, Eddie Noack’s Psycho and Tex Ritter’s Samuel Hall. The
albeit in a pathetic way, is Lou Reed’s Walk On The second side opens by introducing us to a geek - dialogue
Wildside Workout (actually it’s entitled Live At The Ritz and courtesy of Nightmare Alley - which turns out either to be
it’s a bootleg). Yes, that’s really Mr. Reed with a hot four Coleman or Bob Barker depending on how you look at
piece aerobiocized show band backed by a horn section and things. From here we are taken on a harrowing journey into
synthesizers in what sounds like an audition for some third fear, loathing, madness and failure featuring crazed songs
rate Vegas lounge. The only thing missing from these from the aforementioned Tips, a demented Kirk Douglas
nauseatingly buoyant arrangements is Up With People sing¬ monologue from Detective Story, the Gooba-Gabba chorus
ing background vocals (although that might have been them from Freaks, car crashes, pig snorting, backwards dialogue,
on Vicious). VU *69, another boot, suffers from shoddy African chants and Prohibition era ballads slowed down and
sound but the band (sans John Cale) does a fine job in setting speeded up: a portrait of the artist as a burgeoning psychotic
up that inimitable drone and decorating it with some tasteful as it were. Infernal Machine is kind of pricey, yet inasmuch
psychedelicized guitar work. Songs from the third LP as the whole shebang comes with a platter tastefully
predominate and if you buy this thing hoping to hear a live decorated with a picture of Coleman as a kind of deranged
version of Sister Ray, forget it, that’s / Can*t Stand It they’re Christ and an LP-sized booklet containing many of Joe’s
playing on that second mislabeled track. demented naif paintings in suitable for framing full color,
it’s worth the few extra bucks. (Blast First, 262 Mott St,
Room 324, NY, NY 10012).
Morgoth - Cursed
Brutal, numbing, relentless death metal: no melodies, just
dire, skull-rattling riffs that shift, with little rhyme or reason, Nick Drake - Fruit Tree
from warp speed to grinding martial tempos. And over this Nick Drake, an English folksinger, killed himself and after
hellish spew rides the chilliastic, atavistic yowlps of a listening to these songs it won’t surprise you that he did.
vocalist named, appropriately enough, Grewe, singing Drake cast himself as a knight errant, a foolish romantic,
cheery ditties about Darkness and Sold Baptism. Not for the hopelessly and incessantly searching for beauty and truth.
faint of heart nor those feign to be hurt nor those . . . Jesus, Even when solace was found - in love, a sunset or an autumn
Sandy take this thing off, I can’t hardly think no more, it’s landscape - Drake’s balm was tinged with the knowledge of
too burning! (Century Media). their transience. The lyrics are wistful to the point of
morbidity, the music - especially the early coffee house folk
jazz - so sweetly languorous that it borders on the precious,
Deadhorse - Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers Drake’s hushed voice so filled with brooding melancholy as
Death heavy metal machine fueled by a blazing Texas guitar to be almost unbearable, but somehow, someway, the lines
duo who, along with the rest of these horses, have clearly are never crossed. By the time of his third LP, 1973’s Pink
had their blood sugar raised to alarming levels as a result of
Moon, Nick had pared his music to the bone, playing and
massive ingestion of Taco Bell burritos and Colt 45 malt recording totally unaccompanied. Shortly thereafter, after
liquor. How else to explain sentiments like: The feel is in
a brief stay in a psychiatric rest home, he was dead. Fruit
my hand/like cancer it *s growing/There *s no solution so Tree is a four CD collection that contains the three LPs and
choke the shit out of something; or, I want to bathe in the adds a bonus disc of fourteen tracks including seven cuts
blood/that gave life to your corpse/no longer prisoner of that have never seen the light of day. (Hannibal Records).
time/I caress your remains. I wonder what the hell these
guys do to relax, embalm cadavers? In fact, I wonder if it’s
at all possible for them to relax? Maybe they don’t want to Various Artists - Psychedelic Microdots Vol. /
relax. Yeah, that’s it, they can’t relax because they are Lovely lysergic lunacy lifted from lost labels and longer lost
haunted by the fact that they, like all humans, are little more bands (Jesus I’m beginning to sound like Andrew Loog
than an insidious heap of torment/resting hideous strips of Oldham). It’s a little heavy on We The People cuts - seven
flesh. I don’t know if I can continue to go on knowing this. out of eighteen - but the fuzz guitar and farfisa fueled Miracle
Life suddenly seems ... a pathetic, meaningless farce Worker (Brogues) and the garage grunge masterpiece Good
created by a savage and malignant God for His own idiot Times (Nobody’s Children) alone make it worth the price of
amusement. (Metal Blade). admission. If that isn’t enough of an inducement, the folks
at Sundazed have added the surrealy sappy Smell Of Incense,
the deranged psych pop of Mindrocker with its pulsating
moog tape loop and half a dozen others that possess the
requisite oddball touches and loopy lyrics. (Sundazed
Records, Box 85, 27 Church Street, Coxsackie, NY 12051).

58 Brutarian - Vol. I No. 4

No Man - How The West Was Won Chicken Scratch - Giant and Invisible
For those of you wondering whatever happened to Mission "Thrashy, grungy, full of political foment..." No, no,
Of Burma frontman Roger Miller since he split from the no, "foment" is a transitive verb guys; the word you were
band in 1983, the answer is plenty but we don’t have the looking for is "fomentation." Moreover, "thrashy" and
time or the space to go into that here. Since 1989, he’s been "grungy" are definitely not the words to use when attempting
touring and recording as part of this titular power duo (now to peg this combo’s sound. "Eclectic" is the word you gotta
a trio). And if you’re looking for a resurrected Burma, employ inasmuch as The Scratches assay everything (rather
forget it, Roger and No Man seem to be committed to effectively I might add) from heavy metal mamba on the one
fashioning a kind of idiosyncratic hard pop (or you can call hand to deranged country vaudeville on the other and almost
it avant-garde pop, or you can call it post-punk pop, or you every other pop variation in between, including some
can call it alternative power pop, but ya doesn’t has to call hybrids for which words are pitifully inadequate. I mean
it pop). Most of this stuff is fairly effective with Call On what do you call Meet Me In My Monkeysuift Thrash-
Me and Reach For The Sky with their rock sound drumming fusion? And what about Alaska! Quasi-metal pop? In any
and smoldering guitar work, real standouts. (SST, Box 1, case, what I’m trying to say, is that stylistic consistency is
Lawndale, CA 90260). not this group’s bag, which is fine with me. If you want
numbing sameness, buy an REM or Nirvana record. (Com¬
munity 3, 48 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211).
Date Bait - / Split On Your Grave
Master Baiter B. Horrorwitz is telling everyone who will
listen that they should avoid this platter at all costs. Well, Love Camp Seven - King Sex /Sour Old Men (7inch)
since you gave my wife this thing as the first prize in that For a group that takes their name from a repulsive film about
Halloween costume contest rather than the trip to Hawaii a brothel in a Nazi concentration camp, it’s rather surprising
(cheap bastards) we expected, I had little choice but to give how light-hearted and good natured the music on this platter
it a spin. And I don’t know what all the boo-hooing is about is. King Sex is a hilarious mix of curdled jazz, mellow pop,
because Split is a terrific party record, a delirious mix of music hall campiness and droll lyrics. Sour Old Men is
trashy pop, garage rock and ghoulish rave-ups. Hell, even garagabilly stomp in a dissonant vein. (Community 3, 438
the Iggy and Dictators covers get a B+ for effort. Send Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211).
these guys your money, they’re starving to death for their
art. (Brian Horrorwitz, 2101 Hildarose Drive, #203, Silver
Spring, MD 20902). Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Retrorocket Back to
Earth
This guy is out there and in spite of the title I doubt he’s
Lost - Stumble touched terra firma at all in the last twenty-five years or so.
Neurotic, neurasthenic, noisy grunge that bears a passing So hey man what’s his style? How does he get his kicks for
resemblance to Husker Du on side one and a lot of those a living? Well. . . it’s not rockabilly really . . . and it’s not
SubPop noisemeisters on the flip. I never really dug the Du that Cramps ghoulabilly thing either . . .it’s more like . . .
(well there were a few Grant Hart songs I have a soft spot h’mmm . . . dementabilly and clowntry and western, but
for) and most of those Seattle bands leave me cold, but I find it’s all so whacked that it makes the wigged-out Hasil Adkins
myself listening to this platter incessantly. Maybe it’s sound like George Jones by comparison. Why? Well, for
because Lost keep things simple, and maybe it’s because several reasons: the Cowboy can’t sing, he blurts and brays;
they sing about getting drunk and passing out and waking he writes simplistic songs about things like the Jersey
up feeling empty and useless or about getting drunk and Turnpike, Egyptian maidens and meeting Alex Trebec. His
feeling confused because you don’t understand how you can arrangements are eccentric enough to make Wild Man
miss a girl and at the same time want to beat the crap out of Fischer blush in embarrassment; and that bugle playing of
her or about feeling confused in general and not knowing his, trust me, it gives new meaning to the word abandoned.
what to do with all this inchoate anger. Stumble makes me When you add it all up it spells: ESSENTIAL. And
wish I was twenty-one again, and still believed there was an just in case you had any doubts, the good folks at New Rose
answer to any of these dilemmas. (77 Nagle Road, Erie, Records add, as a bonus, all thirteen cuts from Rides Again,
PA 16511). the Cowboy’s previous release.

John Cale - Even Cowgirls Get The Blues Rudy Grayzell - Texas Kool Kat
I don’t get it, why all the superlative reviews for this dreadful Four song 45 featuring three raucous, resoundingly rebar-
cassette release of two live CBGB performances from ’78 bative rockabilly roundelays and one sordidly sentimental
and ’79? The sound is tinny, the performances with the serenade by a Sun label vet backed by the fantabulous
exception of guitarist Ritchie Flieger, mediocre, and the A-Bones (sans lead singer Billy Miller) one of the hottest
songs, most of which are no longer performed by Cale, garage bands on the planet. Can’t wait for the feature length
uninteresting. Admittedly, Cale was at the top of his game version. (Norton Records).
during this time (which I can attest to having seen him twice
during this two year period) but you’d never know it from
this wretched effort. A much better document of this period
is contained within the grooves of the intermittently incen¬
diary Sabotage Live which even at its worst is more lis-
tenable than anything on Cowgirls. (Roir Cassettes).

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4 59

Various Artists - Chrome, Smoke and Fire There’s some boogie, rock and roll and R&B thrown
There are a few things you should know before you purchase alongside some fine blues tunes - which run the gamut from
this double LP which bills itself as a "compilation of hot rod down-home acoustic to electric south side. All of it p>ep>-
music." First of all the price, the package goes for over pered with Johnny’s gruff, gravely growls and his trademark
thirty dollars. Secondly, the music inside isn’t really "hot lightning quick guitar runs as well as some hard drivin’ and
rod" music for the most part. "Hot rod" music was that grindin’ slide work. Dr. John adds some nice fills on the
sixties chrome wheeled, fiiel injected, reved-up instrumental piano on a few cuts. (Point Blank).
nonsense with all manner of automotive sounds in the
background. Chrome has about an LP’s worth of fifties
country boogie and "billy" slanted rockabilly much of which Various Artists - / Was A Teenage Caveman
you wouldn’t stock your vintage Wurtlitzer with. Thirdly, Fuzz, farfisa and a fulsome fuck- you attitude. Also in¬
a few of these selections have been slapped on these platters genuous primitivism, unbridled p)assion and paleolithic per¬
without permission of the rightful owners of Norton and formances punctuated by p>eevish philippics masquerading
as vocals. Unless you’re currently laboring in a soi disant
Ripsaw Records. On the positive side are the liner notes,
the terrific Robert Williams’ illustrations which adorn both garage band or are the kind of anal retentive who keep>s old
the cardboard and vinyl and the dozen or so rare and 45s in plastic, you’re unlikely to have run across any of this
marvelous songs. So the whole thing works out to less than stuff. But what the fuck does that matter? If you’ve never
three dollars per boss cut. That ain’t too damn bad. (Blast heard the Emperors’ 1 Want My Woman, die Haunted’s Eight
First). O'Clock This Morning or the Beechnuts My Iconoclastic
Life, your existence thus far has been a travesty of a mockery
of a sham. So trust me: YOU NEED THIS! (TC 1966).
Crungehouse - New Society/Chocolate Love
Groove
The "groove" side is a deeliteful psychedelicized funky Various Artists - Teen Age Riot
metalloid rap, a Willy Wonka fantasy except that here Willy A comp of hilarious jd and hot rod songs made by p>eople
is a black man with long straight blonde hair and a nose ring. who haven’t been within two hundred yards of a fight in
The flip is a noisy little sucker filled with stinging, keening their life and who wouldn’t know a shiv from a Chevy. You
guitar runs, monstrous rifling and bludgeoning rhythms all think juvenile delinquents actually listened to stuff like High
laid over a loop of a chillingly emotionless lecture on the School Caesar (good flick) and Shanty Tramp (even better
dangers of "the crazy acid" LSD. (1504 Faragut, Hyat- flick)? I think not, these songs stink of Eisenhower era
tsville, Md 20781). suburbia not of leather and beer. But pay me no mind, you’ll
have a great time laughing at all these faux-tough songs and
the ludicrous radio spots for troubled-teen pics that follow
Where No Life Dwells - Unleashed them . (Atomic Records).
Yaaaaaargh . . . Graaaaalspch . . . DIE! Self-styled
Berserkers send forth brutal riffs to do battle with stop on a
dime time shifts, furious rhythms and hellish cacophony.
Jesus and Allah are dead, you are a God and all who will Pixies - Trompe Le Monde
not admit to this must be struck through the eye with a
Memo From The Desk of Black Francis:
broadsword. A disturbing effort by a band obviously too Dear college students, Listen, I’m really sorry about that last
LP with its persnickety melodies, fey lyrics and retro surf
wise for its generation. (Century Media).
guitar stylings. This thing is a horse of a different color.
Hey, I mean it. We had Ozzy Osbourne and Ratt working
Buddy Guy - Damn Right I've Got The Blues in the adjoining studios while recording so we had to drop
And he certainly has the right to say so, this being Guy’s the cutesy-pxx) stuff out of sheer embarrassment and I had
first domestic release in ten years. An injustice that borders to scream on most of these cuts like my testicles were being
on the criminal given the fact that many in the biz (Eric God slowly pulled off with pliers out of fear that the guys next
Clapton included) feel Buddy to be a guitarist without p)eer. door would kick my ass. Even the slower, moodier things
The song selection is a little weak here, but even such old will probably strike you as more weird than effeminately
warhorses like Mustang Sally are redeemed by Guy’s sweet quirky. Plus, I let the producer fuck around with the textures
reverberating wail. And when it all comes together on cuts as well as splatter Joey’s muscularly frantic guitar work all
like Where's The Next One Coming From with its fat-bot¬ over this thing. Yeah, I know, the lyrics are still a bit art
tomed bass and soulful and laconic string stretching, its as school oblique but hey, some of them like this one: Oh kbs
good as the blues gets. Guy is aided and abetted by the me cunt and kiss me cock/Oh kbs my ass oh let it rockt are
aforementioned Clapton as well as Jeff Beck and Mark kind of cool and besides who cares about the words when
Knopfler, but if you buy this thing for any of the Brits, you’ll we’re making such a glorious (yes glorious) racket. So
be disappointed, this is Buddy’s show. (Silvertone). whaddya say, give us a break, tell us all is forgiven, better
still don’t tell us anything, just buy our record. Okay?
Okay? C’mon, I’m serious, from now on it’s strictly
Johnny Winters - Let Me In Blackie’s House of Beef, serving up prime sirloin without
A more interesting release by a blues veteran by virtue of an ounce of fat. (Elektra).
its eclecticism and song selection is this platter, Johnny’s
first release since leaving Chicago’s Alligator records.

60 Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

Curioddity - Screaming Popeyes Even better is The Magic Of The Pyramids, a bone-rattling
Thank God these guys have cut the running time of their live performance by the Elevators. Recorded a year before
releases to about thirty minutes. Normally, the Popeyes’ the band signed with Leland Rogers’ International Artists
tapes contain such a wealth of weirdness that you could listen label, Magic presents the Elevators at the height of their
to the things for about forty years and not even begin to artistic power. Captured in a pre-show practice session
scratch the surface. So here we’ve got about fifteen less before a small group of fans, the band - fronted by 17
minutes to deal with which means I’ve got twenty pages of year-old Roky - churns out definitive versions of Fire In My
notes rather than the usual fifty. I’ll be glad to send copies Bones, You're Gonna Miss Me, and eleven other Elevators’
to you upon request, but I’ll end this disjointed review by classics.
advising you simply to send $5 to Jeff Olson, 210 S. Alto,
With its LSD-derived lyrical imagery and massive waves of
#D, Branson, MO 65616, inasmuch as no one I’ve heard is
feedback, The Magic Of The Pyramids is nothing less than
making experimental music and sound collages as intriguing
a major revelation in the history of rock music. Devotees
and as accessible.
of psychedelia will especially lap it up, but anyone seriously
interested in modem music should also investigate. Kudos
The 13th Floor Elevators - The Magic Of The- to Collectibles, a budget-priced "oldies" label, for unearth¬
Pyramids (Collectibles) ing and releasing this lost gem.
Roky Erickson - You're Gonna Miss Me: The Best Of
Roky Erickson (Restless Records)
Mudhoney - Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
by Rick Cazadores
by Rick Cazadores
With the appearance of the previously unreleased The Magic
Seattle grunge rockers Mudhoney, whose disappointing
Of The Pyramids, a 1965 live performance by The 13th
debut album led rockcrits to write ’em off as lame Iggy
Floor Elevators, and of You9re Gonna Miss Me, a compila¬
wanna-bes, are back from the dead with Fudge, a metalloid
tion of independently produced singles and rarities from
blast that buries their previous output, including their highly
Elevators’ guiding light Roky Erickson, the superficial
collectable Sub Pop singles. Unlike ex-Sub Pop-sters
pantomime of neo-psychedelia is shamefully exposed. For¬
Soundgarden and Nirvana, now megastars with major label
get those new Syds on the block who contentedly imitate the
backing, the Honeys ride their numero deux back to indy-
lysergic spewings of their sixties forebears. Roky and the
land where the air is cleaner but the jack is oh-so-leaner.
Elevators virtually founded the concept of psychedelic music
Nevermind, ’cause in my dictionary "art" appears way
with hard-edged, window-rattling blasts of sheer sonic
before "commerce," and they’re both pages ahead of "sell
skronk. And while those loveable Liverpool lads, The
out."
Beatles were bursting charts everywhere with silly little love
songs, Roky and crew were contemplating the universe From the opening organ chords of Generation Genocide, a
beyond their navels and WRITING LYRICS about their Titanic Overture for the noxious nineties, to the moribund
rocky ride. metallic bite of Check-Out Time, the album closer, Every
Good Boy Deserves Fudge rises above the usual Sub Pop
The Fag Four eventually struck paydirt with this same
Strum und Drang. Critics who lauded Nirvana for mixing
concept because panty-waist pop mavens would rather hear
metal with melody should check out the brushed intro for
about Henry the fucking Horse than be challenged by the
Good Enough or the lurching pulse and harmonica wail of
genuinely scary navigations of Roky and the Elevators. In
Move Out. Throughout, Fudge resounds with the clanging
fact, the band’s prerequisite acid trips (and a three-year stint
metal crunch of a garage door slammed in the face of an
in a hospital for the criminally insane) ultimately shattered
uncomprehending record industry. (Sub Pop).
Roky’s tenuous grasp on what most of us prefer to call
"sanity" sending him tumbling into a psychedelic hell in¬
habited by holy devils and demons of darkness. Incredibly,
these neurological nightmares inspired Roky to write ghostly
tributes that both acknowledged and sanctified his divine
terrors.

You9re Gonna Miss Me chronicles Roky Erickson’s fall into

madness following the Elevators’ break-up through his indy
singles and abortive live performances. Included are Erick¬
son classics Bermuda, Starry Eyes, Red Temple Prayer and
Two Headed Dog, as well as the lesser-known White Faces
and the haunting If You Have Ghosts. This compilation
argues for a critical evaluation of Erickson’s vastly under-
appreciated talents as a singer and lyricist. It’s also a perfect
introduction for neophytes who know of Roky only through
the fawning imitators featured on college radio playlists.

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4 61

 Deuce Coupes, preferably painted
high-gloss black and loaded out with
cool red/orange and yellow go-faster
flames (extra-beastly exposed engine
with chromed organ pipe velocity
stacks optional), (2) record sleeves
featuring lowered early ’50s Ford and
Chevy lead sleds, often indicating fine
early vintage (’62) BOSS genre musi¬
cal material and, (3) jackets sporting
extra-huge Drag-Rite tires or bur¬
nished chrome mag wheels ... a
high-profile customized look for the
’63-’65 nationwide hot rodding ex¬
plosion crowd. Non-boss warning
light: covers featuring insanely
blown/multi-engine rail dragsters,
contrary to NHRA class approved ap¬
pearances, often serve merely to dis¬
guise dangerously high levels of loath¬
some studio slicked vocal puke con¬
tained within. Strictly look but don’t
SURF 'N' DRAG SPECIAL III no simpering adolescent vocal syrup. touch. REJECT THE GLAMOUR
This strict rule automatically eliminates OF EVIL. Third and final BOSS
You remember second grade, right? at least 50% of all would be BOSS genre requirement is the song titles
You get home from school and you’ve genre competitors. And the proper in- should incorporate lotsa’ real gassy
got nothing to do, right? So you turn stro sound is, of course, vastly impor¬ ho-daddy speak . . . something like
on the T. V. ... all tiny and black and tant. Not unsimilar to surf instrumen¬ Mr. Eliminator or Ho-Dad Machine.
white. And good. And then it hap¬ tal but more, like, swingin’, with Maybe something to do with nitro fuel
pens. First comes the deafening roar dominant four-barreled sax riffing, or big stick shifts or whatever. Oh
of huge monster-charged engines wind¬ wide open base lines, heavy twangin’ yeah, and the song titles should be
ing out over the insane scream of guitars and, most importantly, TONS listed on the front of the record sleeve,
cheater-slicked tires incinerating the AND TONS of overbearingly LOUD preferably in some insipid sequence
tarmac, back to back with the hysteri¬ drag engine sound effects that should that bears absolutely no relationship
cal, hyper-ventilating M.C. shrieking, occasionally drown out the tune itself whatsoever to the order in which the
"SURF N’ DRAG SPECIAL! SURF entirely! The album jackets are impor¬ pieces appear on the album. Anyway,
N’ DRAG SPECIAL! SURF N’ tant BOSS genre qualifiers too, ideally the following selections have been ad¬
DRAG SPECIAL! SURF N’ DRAG falling into (me or more of two or three judged by me to qualify in ALL BOSS
SPECIAL! BROOOM! BROOOM! categories which I will now dictate: (1) GENRE CRITERIA! SO LET THE
BROOOOM! The maniac-high RPM the ultimate BOSS covers featuring RUMPUS BEGIN!!
barrage of super-charged drag-strip super-stocker T-Buckets or ’32 Ford
hyper-patter, infernal combustion and
tantalizing snatches of song pound The Shut Downs: The Deuce
relentlessly over a continuum of AC¬ Coupes (mysterious Crown Records,
TION visuals - solid smoke, spinning probably 1962-’63) - Cover drags with
mags, checkered flags, parachutes pop¬ a pair of heavy duty chopped and chan¬
ping ... 60 seconds of 100% pure neled lead sleds (a ’51 Chevy and ’48
adrenalin wipe-out! By the time the Ford respectively) which, if you’ve
obscure record company P.O. Box been paying attention to the RULES,
rolls across the grainy screen you’re a should clue you in to The Shut Downs’
neurotic sweaty ball of boy-macho ten¬ really big rollicking bass and sax heavy
sion . . . cuz you’ve tasted it: The big sound. I mean this thing swings,
BOSS world of ’60s hot rod record daddy! Hey, even the vocal cuts are
spectaculars! BOSS. Toss in a monster heap of
I don’t mean the Jan and Dean/Beach hemi-powered engine rumble and
Boys type shit here. I have no time for you’ve got one of my favorite V-8s!
the prosaic plus I hate that drivel. My Contending titles include: '36 Three
genuine ’60s hot rod spectacular entries Window Coupe, Turn Her On, Buddy,
must meet EXACTING BOSS GENRE The Deuce Coupes and Body By
QUALIFICATIONS! First, they gotta Fisher. A TOP ELIMINATOR.
be mainly instrumental! That’s right.

62 Brutarian - VoL 1 No. 4

 and intentionally made sound like Stray Cat Strut at the

iy request of the movie’s producers. The song is one of the

spooky greats, a classic of old style menace and echo-mood
and Dixon must know it because he had it tattooed on his
arm.

You have to keep your eyes open for Eddie Dixon because
he seldom plays and when he does it’s at weird places like
Fanny’s Oyster Bar. But seeing him live is fun and well
worth it, especially if you are an obsessed student of this
kind of music, as most 50’s-heads seem to be.

THE WALDOS
Now you know who wrote half of the good Heartbreaker’s
songs: It was Walter Lure. His new band, The Waldos,
which was formed sometime before Johnny Thunders died,
is so close in spirit to what the Dolls and the Heartbreakers
were about that you’ll hardly notice that Thunders is miss¬
ing. They play beautifully trashy sets with a novel twist:
they attempt to emulate the Shirelles or the Searchers and
however ludicrous such a concept may seem to anyone who
Welcome everybody, welcome to the New York music scene
hasn’t seen their underrehearsed dollar-per-note sets, it is
and my gut reactions to a few of the more germane, if not
the essence of their greatness. They really don’t know how
necessarily popular bands, man, plying their trade around
sloppy it all is, or if they know, they are powerless to change
Manhattan island and environs. In later issues of this rag
it. I think William Burroughs once said something like,
I plan to take a look at many more musical combos, so if
"real artists don’t want to be artists, they just want to be left
you ’re interested in seeing your group grace these pages,
alone" (i.e. rich). This implies that only rich kids want to
send your demo tapes, vinyl and CDs to Matt Verta-Ray c/o
be artists. Well Burroughs ought to know, he’s both. I’m
Brutarian, PO Box 25222, Arlington, Va 22202-9998. And
sure The Waldos would rather be Bon Jovi rich than
yes, the Brutes will forward all your stuff to me, so don’t
Heartbreakers poor, but I guess someone was watching out
worry about getting lost in the mail.
for the rest of us and kept the Waldos gorgeously un¬
marketable. Bom to lose, right?

To see the Waldos is a wonderful thing, like watching your

EDDIE DIXON own daughter in her first ballet recital, your eyes blind to
Self-professed "Rock Daddy" and desperate man, Dixon is the missteps. Old school NY rock fans can’t help but get
one of the New York rockabillies. He’s a crowd pleaser high in the magic of their throwaway style and transparent
and everything he does smacks of professionalism as he showmanship. But stage energy is one thing, knowing good
swings through sometimes endless sets of fairly authentic songs when you hear them is another. Everything The
sounding rockabilly and rock and roll. He plays a 50’s strat Waldos play has some perfect major key hook in it that the
or a silvertone hybrid through a very old tube echoplex and lovely ladies can hum on the way home even if it’s played
a tiny Fender amp. He gets a great, although too-soft-to- too loud to pick up any of the words. True, a lot of the
knock-you-out sound, and plays melodic ’billy leads that songs were written around twelve or fifteen years ago, but
lean to country. His band, which seems to vary from show pick up their single Crazy Little Baby/Cry Baby (Baylor
to show, is usually semi-lame: a bunch of jaded pros who Records) and there’s proof that they are still writin’ ’em and
either don’t know the idiom or don’t care. Clue - last time writin’ ’em good. One of my favorite New York bands.
I saw him play, the drummer had a mohawk. The main
attraction is his singing which is classic Gene Vincent style
rockabilly crooning, and of course the ladies love his lanky THE SPELVINS
physique, John Waters moustache and greasy straight hair. It’s too bad about these guys because they were doing
The Dixonettes (Tish and Snooky) are two hot chick singers jangle-pop when it was the thing to be doing. Now of
who have worked out harmonies, dance steps and matching course, everybody is pretending their REM records were
leather skirts with dice on them, very showbiz very charm¬ left in the apartment by the previous tenant and, well, they
ing. just can’t bear to throw ’em out. But Spelvins’ songwriter
Apart from the usual choice of covers, Dixon writes some John Keeney keeps writing these hooky college radio clas¬
decent originals such as Desperate Man, Brand New Baby sics like it was 1983. The songs are like a cross between
and Undivided Attention, all of which have good melodic The La’s and The Lovin’ Spoonful. "Bird," the singer, has
hooks in ’em. His most memorable original is Relentless, an unusually fine and disciplined voice and on a good night
one he wrote for the soundtrack of the biker movie Loveless can sound really soulful although all the time spent languish-

65
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4
ing in obscurity has hurt a band that is so obviously made brother Madonna couldn’t get along with in Truth or Dare
for mass appeal. It’s similar to the DB’s and their song . . . NOT! He sings and plays guitar and writes most of the
Amplifier. The band refused to believe that this tune hadn’t songs. They just lost their wicked cool drummer Paul Corio
made it, so they kept releasing it over and over on every who is pursuing his cartooning career. (You might have seen
album they put out, but bad timing or bad luck kept the song some of his drawings in The Voice.) Actually, losing Corio
an obscure classic even though it wound up on about four may be a problem for these guys because not many drum¬
different records. The Spelvins are supposed to have a hill mers could maintain Vacant Lot’s speed and intensity for
length on the market soon and for their sake I hope it gets an entire set. It’s one thing playing cut-time hardcore songs
released because they’re just about to bust apart from fast, it kind of comes off like polka. But try playing a Chuck
frustration. Their drummer, Dessau, owns a recording Berry song at three times the normal speed. They also count
studio and the band often plays at parties the studio is off the next song, sticks a-clickin’, punk style, while the
constantly throwing, so if you want info on their next gig guitars are ringing from the last one, which adds to their
call Harold Dessau Recording in NYC. momentum. I’ve heard their set lists even have "sip of beer"
written where they take one of their rare between song
breaks, then it’s click, click, click, Dah-na-na-na etc.
VACANT LOT Once again, though, it comes down to songs and these guys
They’re not exactly youngsters but they play fast. This is have them. Big, obvious hooks that are made to withstand
a band that hooked me after just one viewing. I happened bad PAs and too-loud guitars. I wouldn’t exactly say these
to be at CBGB’s seeing some other group and when these guys are natural rock animals, but they’re smart and they
guys came on they just knocked me out. Imagine a faster distill their influences just enough to get away with it. This
version of the Ramones. So far as I know they have two is a band made up of music fans, but then I guess you could
singles out, the most memorable song being a cover of the say that about The Beatles. The All Kinds of Girls single is
Real Kids’ All Kinds of Girls. I put a copy of the original backed with She Gotta Leave, another strong song you could
on 78 speed and damn if it didn’t sound just like The sing perfectly without knowing any of the words. The other
Vacants. The lead singer is Pete Ciccone, that’s right, the 45 is Almost Summer, a major key melodic romp with a
beautiful harmony hook in the chorus. (Ciccone wrote it.)
The flip is the weakest, most obviously "in-the-style-of"
song called Cyclone. (Mitro, the other guitar guy wrote it.)
These guys play loud, hard and fast and they have good
songs. What else do you want? See ’em live, buy the
records.

BRIAN DEWAN
I used to be in a band with Brian, and I’m telling you, it’s
not an act. I would go over to his house and he’d be
"playing" the accordion, just sitting in a chair, his eyes
intently focused on the edge of a table or something. That
fuckin’ thing sounded like a donkey. Brian would be zoning
into some repetitive two note (usually atonal) pattern and
he would devilishly play the same thing non-stop for - I’m
serious about this - maybe forty minutes, or until you
STB/Bi BfcOCK CACrUS stopped him. This kind of thing is just one aspect of him
but it adds to his general mad genius aura. I guess if anyone
jf]ANP PAINTER ONE OF A is one - a genius - Brian certainly qualifies, if only for the
KIMP, STUFFEP POLLS,$<GN£p\ intensity and single mindedness of his vision. He’s
BY DOUG AUEhJ W A UtftTEP remarkably faithful to his aesthetic, to the point of being
stubborn. You can see him play some quirky, irregular
EDITION. BACH 0N£ IS thing exactly the same way if you catch his "act" a year
PIFF&SENT. OWN A pOtfc later.
AU€N ORIGINAL.' n Brian’s talents are myriad but I’ll stick to music for now.
STS/frJ aw> BRtOCK $38'^ When he performs, he usually plays with a standard
CACTUP PLANT— #40.0° autoharp (like your 3rd grade teacher would stroke if she
didn’t know piano) or a huge electric zither that he made
TO; VOUG AUENf P.Q. £©X himself. The zither is about the size of a picnic blanket
6l3/BANGALL,N.Y, (250& folded over once to make a triangle. It’s got eight DiMarzio
humbuckers in it and piano wire for the bass strings. He

66
Brutarian - Vol. 1 i\’o. 4
plays it through a tube screamer distortion box and sometimes
through a real revolving Leslie speaker. It sounds pretty
awesome and it’s not for folkies although in a strange way,
what he plays is what folk music ought to be. The songs,
which he sings in a strange old-feshionedey tenor voice, are
reminiscent of Irish sea shanties or some queer kind of
chanted Puritan music that no one’s ever heard before. His
tunes are about the kind of details that only a very obsessed
and observant person would think of. For instance, the
unforgettable Wastepaper Basket Fire is a droning cautionary
tale about someone who "professes to have failed" to extin¬
guish his cigarette before throwing it in the trash. Or the
song about Tuck Box Charlie: "Don’t you know? He lives
in here and the hardware store’s his home!"

It’s hard to describe the music because it’s such a specific

trip this guy is on: smarter and less babyish than Daniel
Johnson and way cooler and tougher than, say, Pete Seeger.
All I can say is see this guy play. (I don’t think there are any
records, although Bar None was interested in him for a
while.) He plays out infrequently, sometimes at Knitting
Factory, sometimes opening for They Might Be Giants who
are obviously in awe of him. (Dewan is to TMBG as Dinosaur
was to Sonic Youth or Daniel Johnson was to Yo La Tengo).
Anyway, catch Dewan, you’re in for a treat.

In coming weeks 77/ be talking about some other NY bands,

man, and 77/ even try reviewing some I don *t like. Keep your
eyes open for: Yuppicide, A-Bones, Radicts, Action
Swingers, The Rogues, Yo La Tengo, Liquor Giants, Madder
Rose, Devil Dogs, Deviators, Karen Black and many more
or possibly many less. Until then, I say to you: Wake me up
when you’ve quite finished with your BORING
REVOLUTION.

GIANT
PRINTING
3530 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, Virginia 22201
(703) 525-1313
^ —

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4 67

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iLi iv
Plausible Denial aftermath of the tragic shooting. When con¬
Mark Lane fronted with these mutually exclusive explana¬
tions - if the children were present that day why
Thunder’s Mouth Press (1991) did they feel the need to ask him where he was
- Hunt explained that 'these were unformed
In case you were wondering where the minds..." that needed to be reminded of the
evidence linking the CIA to the Kennedy assas¬ "circumstances." None of Hunt’s children were
sination is, look no further, it’s right here. And called as alibi witnesses.
it comes to you courtesy of convicted Water¬
Having shown Hunt to be the liar, knave and
gate burglar E. Howard Hunt. Rumors had
fool everyone thought he was and in addition,
circulated in Washington for years about this
having won his case without having to call a
crazy fool in connection with all sorts of
single witness, Lane was presented with a
skullduggery, some of it, like the ludicrous plan
unique opportunity. He could abandon his
to "eliminate" muck-raking columnist Jack
defense of the defamation suit and instead
Anderson, even making its way into the
focus exclusively upon the links between Hunt,
papers, but it wasn’t until a right wing rag
the CIA and the assassination of the President.
named Spotlight published a story in 1981
linking the ex-CIA operative with the Lane’s client, aware that history was in the
President’s murder that Hunt determined that making, gave the go ahead.
even deranged reprobates had their limits and Hunt eventually was forced to slink out the
so sued for defamation. back door of the courtroom like a whipped
At the initial trial, The Liberty Lobby, the dog, but by the end of the trial he had long
publisher of Spotlight was represented by an ceased to become the center of interest. As
inept shyster who actually asked the plaintiff the press rushed by the disgraced operative to
not to contest the fact that Hunt was not in interview the forewoman of the jury, Ms. Leslie
Dallas on November 22, 1963, the day Ken¬ Armstrong, they heard this:
nedy was shot, effectively gutting the case for
The evidence was clear. The CIA had
the defense. Fortunately, for The Liberty
killed President Kennedy, Hunt had
Lobby, Hunt’s legal team was just as poorly
been part of it, and the evidence should
schooled in legal niceties, pressing the judge
now be examined by relevant institu¬
to give erroneous instructions to the jury. This tions of the United States government
effectively resulted in an appeals court order¬
so that those responsible for the assas¬
ing a new trial some four years later. In the
sination might be brought to justice.
interim, The Liberty Lobby had wised up and
retained legal scholar and noted author Mark That night in Miami, the city where the trial
Lane to represent them. was held, a television station owned by The
During the second Hunt vs. Liberty Lobby Washington Post reported only that Hunt had
trial, a curious thing happened; Hunt, the first lost his case. In Washington, The Post, which
witness to testify, impeached himself on cross- had printed a lengthy story concerning Hunt's
examination inadvertently using his own family initial victory, published nary a word concern¬
to do it. Hunt had stated in his complaint that ing the jury’s verdict at the second trial. And it
one of the reasons he had brought the suit was wasn’t just The Post that had a hidden agenda;
because of the pain and anguish the story had almost all the national news media refused to
caused his family who, after reading the Spot¬ touch the story.
light piece, had never ceased questioning him This book, the product of Lane’s exhaustive
about his whereabouts on that fateful Novem¬ research in connection with the trial, remained
ber day. Yet when being deposed before the untouched by every major book publisher in
trial, he swore that he spent that day and the the country until picked up by Thunder’s
entire weekend inside his house with his wife, Mouth Press (who might be commended more
his fourteen and thirteen year old daughters for their business acumen for hitching a ride
and his ten year old son "glued" to the on Oliver Stone’s coattails then for their fear¬
television set watching events unfold in the less integrity).

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4 70

 from the only thing on this theatre’s unturned in its quest to chronicle the
The Grand Guignol: bill of fare. An evening at The Guig¬ history of horror’s first (and most
Theatre of Fear And Terror nol would include one or two bawdy influential) periodical, Famous
Mel Gordon sex farces as well as a realistic Monsters of Filmland magazine.
Amok Press (1988) drama. The shows were often at¬ Greg Theakston’s introductory
tended by European nobility and chapter, 'The Warren Report," is a
towards the end of WW II, General fascinating account of the birth of
By Greg Goodsell
George S. Patton himself stopped FM, shock-full of little known facts
by to see what all the fuss was about. and figures about publisher James
The arrival of this scholarly Newspapers played up the story
volume will be a godsend to those Warren and editor Forrest J. Acker¬
with headlines like "Old Blood and man. From pre-conceptualization
who have attempted to trace the rise Guts at the Theatre." Excited
of graphic horror as an art form and to post-realization, Theakston
citizens flocked to The Guignol covers it all - and then some!
until now have only encountered under the impression that a new play
grand guignol as a relatively mean¬ Gahan Wilson offers a nice
had opened!
ingless catch phrase. The Grand preface which touches on the intrin¬
Guignol was, of course, the name of Profusely illustrated with old sic value of genre films, but being
a legendary Parisian theater that handbills and photo documentation the least "light-hearted" piece in the
specialized and reveled in plays of of produced plays, Grand Guignol is book, it seems slightly off-kilter from
the macabre. Extant between the rich in detail and anecdote. In an the rest of Chronicles' content.
years of 1897 and 1962, the theatre effort to make his work as complete
There’s a "typical" Forry-word
defined, if not exactly legitimized, a reference as possible, Gordon has
from FJ A and the numerous reminis-
on-stage depictions of dismember¬ reprinted many synopses as well as
provided two complete horror plays. cences of FM readers-turned-
ment, murder and sanguinary ven¬ professionals provide a kaleido¬
dettas. The small-town boy who In his conclusion, Gordon scopic view of what it was like grow¬
slaps latex together in his basement answers the question we all might ing up with Famous Monsters and
in emulation of Tom Savini and Fan- ask in approaching this work: Why Warren Publishing Company.
goria magazine owes everything to study The Grand Guignol? For the Editor Dennis Daniel has done a
this sui generis French stagecraft. author the answer is quite simple: remarkable job amassing contribu¬
'There is something embarrassing "The connections between what tions from just about "everyone who
about The Grand Guignol," says people see and what they do is was anyone" connected with the
Gordon in his introduction. "Like a rooted firmly in individual cultures. mag during its twenty-five years of
renegade sect or invented religion Sometimes, barbaric stage activity existence, but the real "backbone" of
from another century, it touches only produces health-giving chills The Chronicles is its monstrously
upon our secret longings and fears. and laughter. Such was the case of massive index.
A product of fin de siecle France, The Grand Guignol."
The Grand Guignol managed to All one-hundred-and-ninety-one
transgress theatrical conventions issues of FM have been painstaking¬
and outrage its public as it explored ly autopsied, their innards laid bare
the back-alleys of unfettered desire, for everyone to see... right down to
aesthetic impropriety, and nascent identifications of the Mystery
Photos!
psychological trends in criminology The Famous Monsters
and the study of abnormal be¬ Chronicles Cover artists are listed, bylines
havior." are cited, even the reprints are
ed Dennis Daniel noted, making the book an indispen¬
We learn that The Guignol Fantaco Enterprises (1991)
originally had its origins in the re¬ sable reference guide for anyone in¬
enactment of true life crime terested in seeking out the choicest
episodes, the fait divers, and the by Randy Palmer issues and proving, as The
trend towards greater stage realism Chronicles subtly states and as FJA
in the form of the "crass" play It’s difficult to write a purely objec¬ might’ve put it, that "FM SHALL NOT
(stories about Paris street thugs and tive review when the subject is DIE!
prostitutes). The resulting depiction something near and dear the
of violence led to plays of horror reviewer’s heart.
freely adapted from the works of Still, I don’t think I’ll be accused of
Poe, Kipling and Conan Doyle. So prejudice when I say that The
shocking were some of these Famous Monsters Chronicles is an
productions that the theatre was excellent tome just because of my
forced to keep doctors in their own connection with it. Anyone can
employ in order to treat the many see that this book is a true labor of
swooning and hysterical members love, exhaustively researched and
of the audience. Still, gore was far well written, with nary a bone left

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4 71

 inept Shack Out On 101 is a "dead- of these monsters was "socially as¬
The Devil Thumbs A Ride on minimalist portrait of America at sassinated," literally gunned down in
Barry Gifford Its most paranoid." None of this their formative years, victims of fac¬
Grove Press (1988) really matters, of course. What mat¬ tors they had no way of controlling.
ters is that Gifford makes you want Michael Newton, author of the semi¬
Some of the most mordant and to see the films you haven’t seen and nal Hunting Humans: An En¬
meaningful film criticism around is return to the films you’ve already cyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers,
currently being churned out in vir¬ seen. Can you ask any more of a has penned another brilliant and
tual obscurity by poet and novelist critic? penetrating work, a survival guide
Barry Gifford. I say in obscurity be¬ for the millennium if you will. And
cause these short reviews of a given the aforementioned statistics,
hundred or so crime and noir films one can only look at this tome as a
first appeared in Mystery Scene survivalist manual: the U S of A with
magazine and who, aside from a few barely a fourth of the world’s popula¬
Serial Slaughter: What’s tion produces more than three
hard core aficionados of the genre,
has ever heard of Mystery Scene Behind America’s Murder fourths of all known serial killers.
magazine? Anyway, the publishers Epidemic Newton, who has spent more than
describe this slim tome as essential Michael Newton ten years researching this subject,
to those of us weaned on the gets into more than just the how and
Loompanics (1992)
"moody, ominous, violent underbel¬ why of this "epidemic." He crawls
ly of American movie making," and into the belly and head of the beast
His mother was an alcoholic pros¬ with the laudable goal of "detecting
they’re right. Gifford not only has a titute who would perform with mem¬
wonderful eye and ear but he can some patterns" and "arriving] at
bers of either sex totally uncon¬ some prescriptions."
write; his hardboiled maudit style cerned that her little boy was watch¬
perfectly matches the look and tone ing. Mom was jailed for robbery Newton offers some interesting
of the movies he writes about. Just soon after her son’s fifth birthday. solutions but the serial killer simply
listen to him, for instance, describe Following her release she began to comes in too many stripes and
how Joseph H. Lewis makes dark¬ leave him with relatives for weeks at colors - resisting ready charac¬
ness work for him in The Big a time, once trading him to a cocktail terization. Many who are caught
Combo: waitress for a pitcher of beer. One and "cured" return to their old habits
of the relatives to whom the boy was upon release. In fact, the system
... it takes a visual artist to "fails so frequently," Newton informs
make the black work, to in¬ delivered sent him to elementary
school in dresses explaining that it us, "at such a cost in human lives,
fect it with just enough light that failure almost seems to be the
so that anything other than would teach him "how to fight and
be a man." At nine, the diminutive rule."
dark seems wrong, uncom¬
fortable, unnatural. Noctur¬ child was finally taken from mother Consider a couple of recent
nal contact is different from and "relatives" and placed in the first cases. Ed Kemper, incarcerated for
that of daylight: sex and of many juvenile facilities where he butchering his grandparents at fif¬
danger come to the surface would be repeatedly raped and tor¬ teen, was released over his own
much more readily, they in¬ tured throughout his adolescence. heartfelt objections. He went on to
form the frame, the back¬ Is it any wonder then, that little murder six college coeds and
ground fills up and comes Charlie Manson turned out like he sexually violate the corpses, finally
closer, threatening to over¬ did? cutting off his mother’s head and
whelm, to overcome any turning it into a dartboard. And what
But Charlie isn’t the only one of his about Jeffrey Dahmer who was al¬
puny attempt to hold it back. kind. As Ted Bundy succinctly put
Lewis managed to drain any¬ lowed by the police to remain in his
it: "We serial killers are your sons, apartment with a bruised and bleed¬
thing unnecessary from this we are everywhere. And there will
image, to hold it up in dim ing fourteen year old Laotian even
be more of your children dead though the naked boy had just been
match light for an instant, tomorrow." A lot more. Federal
then snuff it out. espied by hysterical neighbors flee¬
agents estimate that before the ing Dahmer on the street. Dahmer
This one passage tells more dawn of the twenty-first century assured the cops that it was just a
about why so many noir films work some forty thousand men, women lovers’ quarrel even though there
than any ten books I’ve read on the and children will be butchered for no were photos of victims in plain sight
subject. What’s more, Gifford isn’t real reason, an average of eleven and a corpse in the bedroom.
afraid to go out on a limb. He’ll tell victims per day.
How well do you know your
you that a certified masterpiece like There are many kinds of serial or neighbor? Better get a gun, it’s your
Blue Velvet is the work of a man that "recreational" killers but they all, only hope.
may "never make a completely satis¬ without exception, share the plight
fying film," but that the hilariously of little Charlie: Each and every one

72 Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

 observations were "helped along" cerning guess what porno-related
Raw Talent by editors Rimmer and Tavel. In real life incident.
Jerry Butler as told to Robert Rim- traversing this memoir, the reader’s Written by authors with toes in the
mer and Catherine Tavel opinion of adult film stars is im¬ porn industry (Rimmer is a self-
Prometheus Books (1990) proved somewhat - many are highly proclaimed adult video expert and
professional, sincere individuals so the last name is more than ap¬
by Greg Goodsell who make no pretense about what propriate), Raw Talent will frustrate
they do for a living. It becomes pain¬ and disappoint those looking for yet
Paul Siederman, also known as fully obvious however that Butler another shock-fest along the lines of
porno star Jerry Butler, entered the himself is no rocket scientist. Linda Lovelace’s Ordeal, to date the
show biz world as a working class Those looking for further sleaze only other widely published book
kid from Brooklyn with a passion for and muck in an already ques¬ with a purported insider’s view of the
hockey. Blonde and good looking, tionable profession will be sorely porn industry. Raw Talent contains
with an innocent boy-next-door per¬ disappointed. When Butler sizes up no stories involving forced dog sex,
sona, Butler tried his hand at per¬ a fellow performer he doesn’t par¬ celebrities’ aberrant sexual
forming in off-Broadway plays. ticularly care for, his profile is usually proclivities, beatings or the like.
Naive and inexperienced, he fell into curt and brief, sometimes it is far Rimmer, Tavel and Butler know full
roles in quasi-pornographic more charitable than his subject well upon which side their bread is
homosexual productions such as deserves. The nastiest Butler will buttered, making this project all the
The Gay Dracula and Orpheus Des¬ get is in revealing that New Age dip- poorer for it. Talent's unrealistically
cending, usually cast as a virginal shit sex star Hyapatia Lee’s husband happy denouement, which has But¬
young stud corrupted by decadent Bud enjoys performing anilingus on ler finding true romance and fulfill¬
aesthetes. Defiantly heterosexual, the male during their frequent three- ment after a lifetime of cinematic
Butler wanted to prove his virility way sessions. cum shots, is undercut by a revela¬
while still exploiting his pretty boy Raw Talent was originally tion that occurred shortly after this
looks. His salvation came in porno released when Butler loudly revised edition appeared. Reported
flicks. declared his retirement from the in all the supermarket tabloids was
In the countless skin star adult film industry. Of course, he the news that Butler’s live-in love,
biographies appearing regularly in returned to pneumatic antics shortly the girl who played Wednesday in
glossy stroke standard magazines, thereafter stating: "Male stars have the original TV version of The Ad-
the background bio for the male a longer shelf life than females do, dams Family had attempted suicide
porn performers usually begins: "I although we don’t make that much after a botched return to acting
was an orphan." This is shorthand money." Butler’s latest shot-on- which yielded her only two non-
to the interviewer for: "Leave my video feature is the highly timely sexual roles in adult videos.
family out of this." Such is not the Wee Wee’s Big Misadventure, con¬
case with Raw Talent. Here, Butler
recounts his most painful childhood
traumas for the inquisitive reader:
his loss of virginity to prostitutes at
the age of sixteen, his crushing
defeats in hockey, his father’s own
porno collection, etc. This is all well
and good, but readers com¬
ing to Raw Talent will more
than likely skip this section to KILL-GORE PRODUCTIONS Presents
get to the "good stuff," that is,
the dirt Butler has on his fel¬ DRIVE-IN MEMORABILIA
low studs and sex kittens.
A 16-page illustrated catalog with listings for HUNDREDS of
Raw Talent is the kind of
book that will have the reader
skipping from chapter to CULT / HORROR / SEXPLOITATION
chapter. Loosely con¬
structed, it is not unlike a bat¬ POSTERS and PRESSBOOKS. To reserve your copy, send $3.00
tered skin flick cassette with
drop-outs at all the "hot (refundable with order) to
spots." Strangely, Butler is
reticent and respectful of his KILL-GORE PRODUCTIONS
co-stars. Constructed from
tape-recorded conversa¬ P.O. Box 65742, Washington, DC 20035.
tions, one wonders If Butler’s

Brutarian - Vol 1 No. 4

 movie made on outdated film stock But then, along comes Border¬
The New Poverty Row for $298 in which the alien invaders lands 2, courtesy of editor Mon-
Fred Olen Ray were rubber ants purchased at a teleone and Avon and my spirits are
McFarland (1991) dime store for nineteen cents. Since brightened and my hopes renewed.
then, Ray has had his share of hits By golly, here’s an anthology that’s
This book is subtitled Inde¬ and misses but even his worst ef¬ really worth its five dollar price tag.
pendent Filmmakers as Dis¬ forts pale in comparison to Jerry Here’s proof that there are good
tributors, and Mr. Ray knows Warren, a man who "had absolutely short stories being written today.
whereof he speaks having run his no regard for the quality of his films You just gotta know where to dig to
own independent film company, or the satisfaction of his audiences." unearth 'em. Monteleone obviously
American Independent Produc¬ And if you've ever had the dis¬ does.
tions, since 1985. He has bestowed pleasure of viewing Terror of the Of the twenty-one tales included
upon the world such unusual low Blood Hunters or Man Beast, you’ll here, there are zero - count ’em -
budgeters as Hollywood Chainsaw no doubt agree. ZERO literary lemons. Certainly
Hookers and Evil Toons. Like the Most of the subjects of this study some of the tales don’t measure up
other later day independents made fairly undistinguished pic¬ to others, but every single story in
saluted in his book, Ray formed AIP tures. For every Spider Baby or Borderlands 2 has something to
(hmmm, wasn’t there an organiza¬ Night Tide there were half a dozen recommend it and at least half say
tion in the fifties...) because he was Mermaids of Tiburon. Ray recog¬ something that you won't forget a
tired of being ripped off by dis¬ nizes this; he doesn’t try to make a half-hour after you put down the
tributors and because he was case for hopelessly muddled and book. In one of the creepiest of the
frustrated over his inability to make misguided efforts, and in the final lot, Breeding Ground by Francis J.
the kind of pictures he wanted when analysis, that is what lifts Poverty Matozzo, a surgeon must come to
toiling for others. Ray is an anomaly Row above most of the so called terms with something inside his own
in the independent field: he has sur¬ "critical" studies in the exploitation head - an idea, an emotion ... and
vived. But before him, several field (Box611, Jefferson, NC 28640). something else that’s more than a
mavericks made a go of it - at least little unsettling. Down the Valley
for a few years - and Poverty Row is Wild by Paul F. Olson (who was one
an examination of six men who of the founders of the much-missed
thumbed their noses at the major Horrorstruck magazine) is one of
studios. those (relatively) quiet tales of un¬
Informative, concise and written Borderlands 2 ease that Charles L. Grant likes so
in a punchy, no-nonsense style, ed. Thomas F. Monteleone much, the kind of story that kind of
Poverty Row is more entertaining lulls you along until it bites you in the
Avon Books (1991)
than most of the films Ray writes end. And in The Potato by Bentley
about. Some of this ground has al¬ Little there’s a slowly crawling horror
ready been trod before e.g. Roger by Randy Palmer that impacts on the reader almost as
Corman, Sam Sherman, but for well as it does the story’s
those unfamiliar with their work, Every year there are a number of protagonist.
these chapters will serve as an ex¬ horror fiction anthologies released
by publishers big and small and Editor Monteleone's secret for
cellent introduction. Ray’s own putting together such a wonderful
bemused reflections on his strug¬ every year I’m disappointed. Be¬
anthology is his willingness to leave
gles to establish himself make for cause no matter who publishes the
no stone unturned in his search for
some of the most beguiling reading damn things - or for that matter, who
the "year’s best." Most of the Bor¬
in the book. He's certainly come a edits ’em - I still end up reading
drek. derlands stories have come from
long way from The Brain Leeches, a authors who’ve yet to taste the "big
Weil, here is a qualifier: not every time." There are tales by such
story in every anthology is drek. But names as Rex "Slob" Miller, Joe R.
many of them are, and I can’t figure Landsdaleand (surprise!) Charles L.
why. When DAW Books releases Grant, but it’s pretty obvious that
their annual Year’s Best Horror future editors of anthologies of dark
Stories, you’d think there would be fantasy - if they are going to per¬
three or four clunkers at most. After petuate the genre and not merely
all, "Year’s Best" means cream of the sustain it haphazardly - are going to
crop, dunnit? have to follow Monteleone's ex¬
Yet I sit here nonplussed, think¬ ample and look to new horizons and
ing, is this really the best? What a new names with fresh ideas dripping
sorry state the tale of terror is in, if from their poison pens.
this truly represents the BEST.

74 Bmtarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

 cute to play without a wise guys, made men like John 'The
Between Thought And Ex¬ parachute Dapper Don" Gotti, Fat Tony Salerno
pression: Selected Lyrics and Tony "Ducks" Corallo. Wiretap
of Lou Reed This is doggerel and it matters not profiles twenty-five major players
Hyperion (1991) a whit that some of it has been pub¬ from the five New York Mafia families
lished in The New York Times and - the Commission which controls or¬
The Paris Review or that some of it, ganized crime in the U.S. - and the
The late, great Lester Bangs like The Slide has even won awards:
once, in one of his insane en¬ families from Boston, Philadelphia
comiums to Reed, wrote that Lou I've got nothing about gay guys and Providence, each conversation
would be remembered, if at all, as But, faggots, just like a cunt. prefaced with introductions identify¬
'the guy that gave dignity and poetry ing setting and characters.
Years ago, wherever we would
and rock ’n’ roll to smack, speed, spot them, Perhaps the most interesting
homosexuality, etc." Well, maybe, thing about Wiretap is the remark¬
but I was under the impression that Handles down, Alabama, small able amount of hubris displayed by
it was Rimbaud who did that. Lou town its players. Paul Castellano never
was however, one of the first rock We’d take the ha, ha, so ha, I, he'd suspected his Doberman patrolled,
and rollers to caress such subjects Do the slide elaborately fenced and electronical¬
with cool detachment. This tome ly rigged estate was bugged when
though is not about rock and roll, it Do the slide he bragged to a compardre that:
is about poetry, lyrics Lou feels "can Baby, you’d better slide. "No one comes into Staten Island
stand alone from the music for What’s missing is the confluence unless I say so." The two most
which they were originally written." of music and verse which con¬ powerful men in crime, Tonys Saler¬
So the question becomes, can stitutes Reed’s genius. Either ele¬ no and Ducks, cut up in their social
the verse stand alone, is it effective ment extracted from the mix is like a club, blithely unaware that the club’s
poetry - work of heightened lan¬ truncated limb preserved in formal¬ phone, walls and front doorway
guage full of mystery, metaphor and dehyde, perhaps interesting as a were bugged, an incredible feat con¬
profundity? Well, there is a com¬ museum piece but nowhere near as sidering the constant traffic in an
position called Murder Mystery potent. Compelling when ex¬ extremely hostile neighborhood.
which on record contained two sets perienced in viivo, it’s ironic that a Don’t they get it? The FBI has more
of lyrics such as the following both rock and roller who has such muscle and intelligence working for
spoken at the same time: resentment for the encyclopediac them.
approach to the idiom is so willing to So what it all boils down to is this:
A aid in his own mummification. Don’t do business with the Mob be¬
for screeching and yelling cause eventually you’ll do some¬
and various offenses, lower thing to piss them off and then they’ll
the queen and bend her over blow your head off and even if you
the tub, against the state, the somehow manage to stay on the
country, the committee, hold good side of these deranged dagos
her head under the water Wiretap: Listening In On the FBI will bug your car or your
please for an hour... America’s Mafia toilet and get the goods on you. In
ed James Goode which case the Mob will have to
B
whack you inasmuch as you have
relent and obverse and in¬ Fireside Books (1988)
inside info and most likely will squeal
verse and perverse and to keep yourself from getting turned
reverse the inverse of per¬ How do these garbage-eating inside out in the slammer. Capice?
verse and reverse and guineas stay in business? If these Good.
reverse and reverse and FBI taped conversations are to be
reverse and reverse believed, it’s a wonder these guys
can run a lemonade stand much less
Having fun yet? Learned any¬
a criminal empire. Because what we
thing? Has your life been enriched are shown is that our almost legen¬
or ennobled in any way? Perhaps
dary Cosa Nostra is little more than
I’m being unfair let’s sample a sec¬
a motley collection of vicious, semi¬
tion from Reed’s favorite lyric, The
literate, pug-ugly thugs. Cretins who
Bells:
whack off brother, father, long-time
When he fell down on his family friends and then go out for
knees after soaring through "scungil."
the air with nothing to hold And we’re not talking about lower-
him there It was really not level minions like Benny Eggs or
Baldy Dorn. We’re talking big shots,

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

 what The Hungry Muffdivers sound Frankie Goes to Hollywood who
Trouser Press Record like. Oh c’mon, admit it, you’ve clearly do not belong here but
Guide (Fourth Edition) been suckered like this. You’re no you’ve made up your mind about
ed Ira Robbins different from anybody else you’re frauds like these a long time ago
Collier Books (1991) so hungry to hear something new, and besides you’re going to buy
something different, something this tome to discover bands like
wonderfully wild and abandoned Sleep Chamber (. . . ritualistic in¬
I know you think you’re pretty
that you’ve bought something on dustrial music that works on both a
cool and with it but if you’re like me
the basis of having read something shock imagery level and on a more
and have a day job you’ve probably
like this: "An hysterically solipsistic intellectual erotic/occult plateau)
thrown up your hands in despair by
discombobulation by pixilated and Ritual Tension (... a band that
now after trying unsuccessfully for
sesquepedalians." So you go to was somewhat overlooked in the
the last couple of years to keep up
Tower, or H.R. Puffenstuff or rush to gush over such New York
with the alternative music scene.
wherever the hell it is you shop for noise scene contemporaries as
Sure you subscribe to hip music
music and you end up with . . . Sonic Youth, Live Skull and Swans)
magazines like B-Time, and Option
Nirvana. and to learn which rap albums
and Maximum Rock and Roll, et al.,
So where else can you go? To belong in your audio library (let’s
yet inasmuch as the reviews in
TV? Oh, to MTV and its Cutting not be hidebound in our definitions
these zines always end up either
Edge 120 Minutes? Don’t make me of music there are some wonderful
describing a band you’ve never
laugh. All those bands have already rap and hip-hop things out there).
heard of as an insidious combina¬
been signed to major label deals Whether you agree with Trouser
tion of three of four other bands
and even if they hadn’t, who wants Press' critical assessments is be¬
you’ve never heard of or in slang that
to listen to a group that wastes its side the point. For Ira Robbins and
is little more than code known only
time making pretty movies employ¬ his staff’s primary concern is in ac¬
to the reviewer and his tiny coterie
ing fog machines, empty curately describing the sounds and
of friends, these assessments really
warehouses and dancers of dubious textures of this music in plain, un¬
are not much help. Occasionally,
gender? No, the place to go is The adorned language (no rock speak
these hip publications will rave in
Trouser Press Record Guide with its for these guys and gals). Thus any
such a mad dog style about a band
1600 entries covering 2,500 artists conclusions as to the worth of a
that you’ll go out and buy the platter
and over 9,500 records. Yes there particular record or a band’s
anyway even though the writer has
are performers like Madonna and recorded oeuvre is really beside the
left you completely baffled as to point. So don’t get angry or upset
if one of your musical favorites is
cavalierly dismissed, this is a con¬

GARY LEIB GREG SUSS sumer guide bonehead not a critical

treatise and don’t complain about
being hoodwinked after purchasing
a platter on the basis of a TP recom¬
mendation. If an LP is said to be

THUGS TO DO J HAVE
collaborative works
filled with "speedy rave-ups burst¬
ing with frenetic drumming and
sing-songy choruses" and you run
out and buy it and end up hating it,
blame yourself for being an il¬
literate.
and more There are some notable omis¬
sions - Frank Zappa, Marc Bolan,
and if Hawkwind’s in here why not
opening tuesday march 10 Black Sabbath, they’ve influenced a
6 to 9 pm whole spate of young noisemakers
- but you really can’t find fault with
an alternative music guide with

VENUE entries and career bios on

hundreds of obscurities like The
Pagans, The Electric Eels, ESG and
Snivelling Shits. Well, maybe you
4532 MAIN can but then you probably sub¬
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI 64111 scribe to Rolling Stone and think
Spin magazine is cutting edge read¬
(816) 561-3311
ing material.

76 Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

 It seems to me that on an other words, the beast you lash out
The Drug User: Documents earth so old, so wrinkled, so at is a part of you too.
1840-1960 painted where so many com¬ Yet rather than promoting
eds John Strausbaugh and promises and laughable thoughtful intercourse about drugs
Donald Blaise conventions are so rife, and their possible uses in culture,
Blastbooks (1991) opium (if its harmful effects society cowers beneath the mask of
could be eliminated) would cautious morality with its attendant
soften people’s manners "Just Say No" campaigns. If, as
by Glenn Sheldon and would cause more good Jean Cocteau says, the euphoria
than the fever of activity opium induces is superior to that of
I can guess what you’re thinking:
causes harm. health, shouldn’t medicine and
Either this book is a propaganda
tool for the War On Drugs, or this is In almost every respect, The Drug science abandon their development
a how-to manual for ingesting User is a unique collection of essays of curative technology to focus on
peyote and regressing to the sixties on enlightenment, chemical or rendering the drug potent yet
when the sky looked tie-dyed and otherwise, and discussions on benign? Case in point: It’s a very
brownies held all the ingredients that opium, hashish, peyote, mescaline, American morality that removes the
Alice B. Toklas prescribed. LSD and marijuana. The sacred trip B-vitamins (the protein complex)
of the peyote as transcribed by John from beers, so that alcoholics - par¬
I was strolling the straight and
(Fire) Lame Deer is included and an ticularly homeless ones - can more
narrow path when I stumbled across
invaluable piece by Dr. Albert Hof¬ successfully suffer from malnutrition
this book. Through my clean and
fman who in 1943 accidentally took (Yes, real beer can and should be
sober haze, I glanced at the book’s
the first LSD trip while experimenting nutritious).
list of contributors and my mind was
blown, man! Two of my personal with lysergic acid derivatives in his Defy the perverse cliches of our
gods were included here; indeed, search for a respiratory stimulant. culture; just say YES to this book
two individuals who haunt the first Surprisingly, Mark Twain expounds and start to think about what drugs
half of this century with their drug-in¬ upon the uses of the coca plant. could mean to and for society. And
spired genius. The first of these, Less surprisingly, Artaud discusses let’s hold out hope that The Drug
Jean Cocteau, displayed his ba¬ society's need for a population User will provoke as much thought
lance during both periods of addic- whose consciousness can - if not as the individual documents col¬
tin and recovery. My second demi¬ must - be altered for art’s sake be¬ lected therein once did.
god, Antonin Artaud, realized that cause everything is... shit!:
for him recovery was impossible but You won’t be able to stop
manifest his genius throughout the
souls from being predes¬
course of his inevitible decline. Oh tined for poison, whatever
yes, for those of you who’d prefer to
kind it might be: poison of Conjure Wife
avoid these unsavory characters be¬ isolation, poison of reading, Fritz Leiber
cause of their heavy duty aesthetic
poison of onanism, poison of Ace Books (1981)
theorizing, there is also fine work by
repeated coitus, poison of
William S. Burroughs (couldn’t you
the rooted weakness of the What would you do if you sudden¬
have guessed?), Anais Nin, Mark soul, poison of alcohol,
Twain and Sigmund Freud. ly discovered that your wife believed
poison of tobacco, of anti¬ that you owed your success and
Burrough’s foreword is a wicked¬ sociability. well being to her abilities as a witch:
ly funny and satiric poke at the politi¬ to charms she had made, spells she
cal morality of the U.S.’s War On That Antonin, what a party animal!
Yet his Theatre of Cruelty seemingly had cast, potions she had mixed.
Drugs; a classic, not-to-be-missed Even more importantly, she main¬
work, a delicious appetizer for your pervades all of today’s art, with MTV
just one exemplar of his concept of tained that you would have been
head. Next, I turned to the work by long dead by now, murdered by one
Cocteau. Wouldn’t you do the art as spectacle.
of the many other witches who envy
same? Well if not, you must already In these times, it seems apparent your marriage and begrudge you
be high! Anyway, Cocteau’s chap¬ that the fear of "otherness" pervades your happiness. Well, if you’re Nor¬
ter is an excerpt from one of the American culture and inspires man Saylor (clever name for one
most powerful works in literature - hatred, violence, racism and clas- about to take a fantastic journey into
Opium: Diary Of A Cure. Out of his sism. If this book has one message, the unknown), tenured professor of
personal hell, Cocteau keeps as¬ it must be that the "other" dwells in sociology at a prestigious north¬
cending with gems of such profun¬ each of us and that mind-expanding eastern university, you have a long
dity that we end up believing him to (and mind-altering) drugs in releas¬ talk with your wife, Tansy (from the
be bewitched. In our best moments, ing this "other" may result in a better Greek for immortality because the
most of us sound like Hallmark understanding of ourselves. In flowers of the plant do not speedily
cards compared with exhalations wither), the underlying implication of
such as:

Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4 77

which is that divorce or institutionalization is imminent No, to Norman this is all coincidence and so despite
unless every last gewgaw, withered parchment and the fact that gargoyles start to move up and down the
voodoo doll is thrown into the fireplace. wall on the building opposite his office, that he is
Tansy acquiesces but late that night as the last eye of plagued by visions of mad truck drivers trying to run him
newt and wing of bat smolders on the fire, a chill suddenly down, and that his academic career begins to fall apart
shoots through Norman, the room darkens, there is a for no apparent reason, he refuses to believe dark forces
"faint, mighty roaring in his ears" and suddenly he has the are at work. When he finally comes to his senses, it is
sense of standing "naked before something menacingly too late, for both Tansy and for himself.
alien." Conjure Wife, which was first published in 1953, is a
At that point, you’d most likely wake Tansy, tell her suspenseful and well written story peopled with amusing
you’d been a misguided fool, humbly beg herforgiveness stock figures. Leiber skillfully interweaves the hoary
and even more abjectly beg her to start making with the themes of conflict between reality and the imagination,
hands and mumbling those strange incantations while sanity and insanity and logic and irrationality while rais¬
throwing graveyard dirt on you. Norman, however, is a ing disturbing questions about what it means to be fully
rational man, a brilliant professor and so he refuses to let "human" and whether comfort and security in relation¬
his emotions or intuitions run away with him. ships is possible given the fact that we can never truly
know or fully understand someone other than ourselves.
Norman stands fast, even after getting a phone call a This is the true stuff of nightmares and possibly the
little later from a student who threatens to kill him and reason that for most fantasy fiction aficionados, Conjure
another call after that from a strange woman who begs Wife remains the most beguiling novel ever written on
Norman to ravage her body and then abruptly begins the subject of witchcraft.
screaming curses and imprecations.

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78
Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4
 Brutarian Contributors
JARRETT HUDDLESTON: This impoverished artist is believed FLICK FORD: Seems to have a little problem keeping jobs drawing
by those behind the scenes to be the master puppeteer maliciously strips for pornographic magazines. Which is surprising considering
pulling the strings of . . . dom salemi in an insidious attempt to he limns the best trim in the business, often personified by "Lusty
degrade and destroy him. Eaten up by the green-eyed monster, Tailspin," a character inspired by the pulchritudinous CID D.
Jealousy. SCANTLEBURY, a sometime collaborator in Flick’s comic
oeuvre. Cid would never ever entertain the thought of even the
SANDRA SMIROLDO: Beloved of . . . dom salemi but believed
briefest of trysts with . . . dom salemi.
by those same people behind the scenes to wear the pants in her
unholy union with the man whose name must forever appear in lower GREG GOODSELL: Is preparing an interview with The Cramps
case. which will appear in a future issue, and unlike other publications
we will refrain from mentioning, the interview will be credited to
STEVE JEFFRIES: Professes to be a friend of . . . dom salemi’s
Greg. Look for his work in the new Deep Red magazine and The
but doesn’t really give a fuck about anyone else’s problems.
Famous Monster Chronicles both of which will go largely unread
Earnestly desires all who recognize his genius to write to him and
by . . . dom salemi.
tell him so.
JERRY JASINSKI: Was bom and raised in Detroit. Big fucking
CONRAD WIDENER: Mr. Widener wears the pants in all his
deal. His primary concern seems to be the discovery of the most
relationships and consequently has little sympathy for . . . dom
efficacious means of extracting the price of a twelve-pack from . . .
salemi. If Conrad was paid just a few pennies every time his work
dom salemi.
appeared in an underground publication he’d be a rich man by now.
P. REEVES: Is, as evidenced by his work, a borderline
CRAIG LEDBETTER: The nicest man in the world and as such
schizophrenic, a condition which renders him thoroughly uncon¬
would deserve your money, but if you don’t want to make him feel
cerned with the ongoing plight of . . . dom salemi.
guilty, send along with your cash a request for a subscription to one
of his twin peaks of depravity, Asian or European Trash Cinema. TOM CORLETTE: Perpetrator of the Brutarian centerfold (not the
Reportedly sent a pair of pants to . . . dom salemi with instructions idiotic background which engulfs it) is a friend of an acquaintance
on how to put them on. of . . . dom salemi.
SALLY ECKHOFF: Once kissed . . . dom salemi, but when she MIKE SCHAFER: A manic dissembler and creator of
discovered that he wasn’t wearing any pants that’s as far as it went. claustrophobic graphic gems who is curator of an upcoming small
When she’s not writing highly professional pieces for The Village press show at Minor Injury Gallery, Brooklyn, an invitation to which
Voice she drops a few scraps Brut’s way. will not be extended to . . . dom salemi. Mr. Schafer will be most
upset to receive a $60 invoice for the half page ad we ran for him -
STATELY WAYNE MANOR: "The Literature Boy” who, in
minus the $7.50 payment we owe him for his half page comic.
addition to being the Next Big Thing among wrestling managers,
has been hailed as the Most Conceited Man In The World by
supermarket tabloids on three occasions. A fine role model for . . .
dom salemi.
RICK CAZADORES: Edits the quarterly zine REVERBERA¬ DEMAND FOR MORE
TION. He recently interviewed K. Gordon Spector, the originator
of the Mexican "girl group” sound. Purported to publish a fine FREE STUFF
fanzine under another name which briefly featured the work of. . .
dom salemi.
DOUG ALLEN: Has pissed away what little money he’s made on
Steven as the result of a disastrous doll project (no, not girls, dolls
What? You think we'd PAY for
- as in toys). Rumor has it that Doug is living in a refrigerator box the execrable drek we review in
in upstate New York with a character that looks suspiciously unlike
. . . dom salemi.
this MAJESTIC tome? THINK
SCOTT CUNNINGHAM: Co-founder and editor of the politically
AGAIN! We expect to see our
correct but nevertheless entertaining World War 3 comic magazine PO box stuffed with videos,
has just taken on the position of house surrealist for Heavy Metal,
a magazine subscribed to by . . . dom salemi. tapes, CDs, demos, books, zines
VIC STANLEY: Has been cited by no less an authority than Joe and soiled panties - and we mean
Bob Briggs as "a writer just beginning to realize what he can do.” PRONTO. Christ, the fucking
Which means, of course, that Brut will eventually be unable to pay
him the dollar per word he’ll be demanding from the perpetually Estonians are reading this shit!
exhausted bank account of . . . dom salemi. What are you? A bunch of burnt-
RANDY PALMER: Former associate editor for the long defunct
Famous Monsters for which he still mourns. Wake up and smell
out wackos from the joint?
the coffee, Randy; Forry Ackerman is about one hundred and Don't you get it? We're already
twenty-seven years old and it’s all he can do just to get up in the
morning. He’s through with the publishing business Randy,
through, finis, RIP, vaya con Dios, hasta la vista . . . unlike your AT THE TOP!
current meal ticket . . . dom salemi.
CLAIRE RICHARDS: Angry young poetess who got even angrier
when she didn’t receive the promised copies of an earlier Brut issue
which featured her work. Just more fuel for that raging fire that’s dom salemi: Is a modest, unassuming little man who would be
burning in your shapely little belly, eh Claire? A fire which could shocked to learn that he bears more than a passing resemblance to
never be extinguished by the likes of . . . dom salemi. . . . dom salemi.

79
 Terrific double issue of Exploitation Retrospect primarily
devoted to the Kennedy assassination and concomitant issues.
Ridiculously cheap at one dollar per. Don’t write a check,
send cash or money orders to Dan Taylor, Box 1155, Had-
donfield, NJ 08033-0708 . . . Eric Caidin of Hollywood
Book and Poster and the legendary Johnny Legend are
singlehandedly trying to bring back grind house viewing in
LA with special double and triple features devoted to the likes
of H.G. Lewis and Doris Wishman . . . Evangelist Robert
Tilton is rapidly becoming a cult figure due to his insidiously
insincere monetary solicitations and his blatantly phony glos-
solalia act. This guy is such a fraud he makes Ernest Angley
look like Sister Theresa by comparison. To keep abreast of
happenings of this show business giant, it is suggested that
you tithe one greenback for a sample copy of the always
amusing unofficial Tilton Fan Club Newsletter. Ad¬
ministered by Brother Randall, 6102 B. Mockingbird, #374,
Dallas, TX 75214 . . . Normally, self-styled punk music zines
drive me to distraction, but Foster Child has a self-deprecating
style and some street smarts which give their reviews the
smack of authenticity. And it will only cost you one dollar to

Betty Tage learn about promising bands, books, underground mags and
trash film if you act immediately and write to 7635 March
Court, Glen Burnie, MD 21060 . . . Craig Ledbetter has
decided to take on the world of Asian exploitation film and
toward that end has just published the first issue of ATC (Asian
Trash Cinema). Nicely laid out and adroitly written, it is
essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in
Oriental sleaze and bad film. For a single copy send $4.50
(believe me it’s well worth it) to PO Box 5367, Kingwood,
TX 77325 . . . Hard on the heels of its lubricous, full color,
36 card, eleven dollar and ninety-five cent Betty Page set
comes Shel-Tone’s Bloody Visions, a 48 card, black and blood
red Mass Murderer collection. Sanguinarily written and dis-
quietingly drawn by noted author {Forgotten Horrors, Car¬
nival of Souls graphic novel) and film critic Mark H. Price,
the set is a must for those wishing to wean their young-uns
from baseball cards (and all childish pursuits for that matter).
That’s Shel-Tone that’s asking $11.95 at PO Box 45, Irvington,
NJ 07111) .. . Fuck, National Lampoon. The funniest rag
in America is the Rev. Ivan Stang9s Stark Fist of Removal.
The Rev. is the founder of the Church of the SubGenius and
Fist is the Church’s house organ. Published "para-annually,"
the Rev. and his followers produce for your edification and
amusement over one hundred pages of rabid rants, deranged
discourses, salacious short stories, crazed comics and in¬
vidious illustrations. There is absolutely NOTHING LIKE
THIS ON THE PLANET and for that reason alone you should
get Fisted. The Church thinks we here at Brut have a bad
attitude, wait ’til you get a load of theirs. If you want to
) 13. JOHN WAINE OACYx
jj Killer Klown change your life, rush $3.95 to: SubGenius Foundation Inc.,
PO Box 140306, Dallas, Texas 75214.

80 Brutarian - Vol. 1 No. 4

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Brutarian, Evelin,

Thanx a lot for the mag. It was a surprise you’ve touched our heart. We’ve made you
to get it and I enjoyed reading it, especially a lifetime subscriber and are sending you
the movie and book reviews and "Steven." two American dollars. Take the whole
But unfortunately I can’t subscribe, I don’t town of Tartu out for dinner, it’s on us.
have money for it. We still have Russian
rubles here and therefore my monthly in¬ Mr. Big
come is [little] more than $2. So $15 is a Brutarian Magazine ffe
fortune for me [that] I do not possess yet.

Evelin Mikenberg
Tartu, Estonia
BELEAGUERED BY RECESSION rRBPU^EFBYBuKGEOmfG JWGoTsm?
MUZZLED BY MEh/DAClTY?HORRlFtED BY STA TE- SPONSOREDMASS HYPNOSIS?
— j/torflAMV /w/res you to —

THATS RIGHT! WHY FIGHT IT? GIVE up

AND EMBRACE YOUR WEAKNESSES / THERE'S
NOTHING MORE GRATIFYING TO THE
EGO THAN/ WALLOWING IN THE HATRED,
FEAR AND PREJUDICE THAT LIE at THE
CORE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT/ WHY LABOR
UNDER THE BURDEN OF FEIGNED .
RESPONSIBILITYP/^JSI'^N GETWITHIT/
ONE ELSE//