John Phillip Law, RIP

John Phillip Law, 1937 - 2008

Our populace is getting less cool by the day, people!

And some more Roth.

I've had this car on my mind for days. It's beautiful.

It's Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's daily driver during his prime mid-60s custom-building days. '55 Chevy with a fiberglass front end. Scoop on the hood. Tangerine orange. The back fenders were radiused.

And of course, it's got ROTH painted on the doors and trunk lid.

Ed's vehicles are well-documented and their whereabouts are locked down, especially since the Orbitron was located. (In fact, some say the mill from this '55 was chromed and plopped into the Orbitron.)

Wonder where this '55 is? Wonder how hard it'd be to clone it?

More Roth.

Here is Ed's 1979 Honda CVCC, which he used to haul his airbrush stuff around in for years. Of course, as much paint went on it as in it. The hood, even in its unrestored state (I hope the owner leaves it as-is), is a thing of Beauty.

Ed Roth And His Orbitron

Here's a picture of Ed Roth and his Orbitron, years before what was left of the car was found sitting in front of a sex shop across the border from El Paso. Some people have no appreciation for Fine Art.

They say a complete restoration is in the works. Let's hope so.

Famous Monsters Of Filmland

Came across an interview with director Joe Dante (PIRANHA, GREMLINS) in a blog called Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.

Joe spoke of 4E's immortal Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine, and he really nailed what it was like to be a monster-loving kid back in those days (50s and 60s for him, 70s for me):

"The appearance of that magazine made a lot of kids realize they weren’t alone. There was a network of people who were interested in all the things they were interested in that no one else around them was. You can look back on it and say, well, it wasn’t much of a magazine, which it really wasn’t. But the transformative effect, the unifying effect that it had on an entire generation was amazing."

You can read the whole thing at:
http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/2008/04/joe-dante-your-movie-orgy-mc.html

"Now tie that knot real tight. It has to hold the weight of a pig."

One of the things I don't like about myself circa 2008 is that I don't get excited about stuff the way I used to. Maybe it's because you can get really jaded after 20 years in Advertising. Maybe it's because you have a kid, your priorities change, and stuff like the next Who record isn't as big a deal as it once was. Or maybe I'm just getting old and tired. Who knows.

But something's coming up that I am real excited about. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY is coming to the Carolina Theater in Durham. One showing. 35mm Techniscope. Man, I'd crawl to Durham on broken glass for that.

It's one of my all-time favorite movies. Easy. And it passes one of my Great Movie tests: I can sit in a chair and watch this thing for three hours and never once look at my watch. (That's a test movies like TITANIC or DANCES WITH WOLVES fail miserably.)

One thing that really amazes me about THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY is that its grand scope somehow comes through on a dinky little television. How did Sergio Leone pull that off? Of course, with Lee Van Cleef's closeups 40 feet wide, and on Film, that won't be much of an issue.

God, I can't wait!

(The title of this thing is one of Eli Wallach's lines.)

O. Winston Link

As I mentioned in my last thing, if anybody bothered with it, we went to the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke over the weekend. Above is one of his elaborate, amazing photographs. (Click on it, it gets bigger.)

As beautiful as his work is, the backstory might be even better. In the late Fifties, he documented the last years of the last railroad to still use steam, Norfolk & Western across Virginia. His shots are amazing compositions, using tons of lights to show the relationship people had with trains in the small towns along the N&W line.

In the museum, you'll see hundreds of his shots, along with his cameras, diagrams and lighting rigs. There's even some artifacts from one of the old country stores he shot.

My wife is from this area (her grandpa worked for N&W) and I'm a closet train nut, so we find this stuff just fascinating. But if you're a railhead or a camera geek, you should consider the museum a pilgrimage you really need to make.

If it's good enough for The Three Stooges, it's good enough for you.

This weekend, I spoke at a student portfolio review thing in Roanoke, VA. Saw some really nice work from some graduating seniors. And what a great town!

The best thing about the whole trip could have been The Texas Tavern, a city landmark and a chili/burger/hot dog place without equal.

The chili was great. The hot dogs were perfect (according to my daughter). Their famous sandwich, The Cheesy Western, was a heaping, delicious mess. And the people (on both sides of the counter) couldn't have been nicer.

The Texas Tavern has been there since the 30s, right downtown, and local legend has it The Three Stooges once ate there. What more endorsement could you possibly need?

Oh, we also visited the O. Winston Link Museum and checked out Link's incredible steam train photography from the late 50s.

Roanoke is kinda like what Raleigh would be like if Raleigh hadn't gotten so busy with the wrecking ball.

I bet their mothers are proud.

I see a lot of ads. Hell, I write a lot of ads. And here's one I really really wish I'd done.

It was created by Giovanni+Draftfcb, an agency in Rio de Janeiro. I like the concept, in large part because I'm a huge fan of Hitchcock and PSYCHO. And I love the art direction, which is absolutely impeccable. Beautiful.

Way to go.

These things are great.

I don't what else I need to say about that.

Who says Vegas marriages don't last?

Ours has outlived the Stardust. That's its dust you're looking at.

Today, my wife and I celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Woo-hoo! And while that's certainly a great thing, it's sad to think about how much of the cool old Las Vegas has been demolished in those 10 years.

The Stardust, where we spent a day or two. (We also stayed at The Flamingo, which is still with us.)

The Desert Inn.

The New Frontier.

The Aladdin.

And God knows how many others. The Sands was a vacant lot when we arrived.

I always thought it'd be cool to go back for our 10th. But maybe it's better to remember it the way it was back in '98 — when only SOME of the cool stuff was gone.

By the way, we got married at 6pm on Monday, the 23rd at The Graceland Wedding Chapel. Jennifer was escorted down the aisle by a chunky Elvis singing "Love Me Tender." We then rereated to a wonderful restaurant beside Caesar's Palace, where our friend Beth drank too much wine. We did the whole garter/bouquet thing near the entrance to Caesar's — with Japanese tourists videotaping it all.

It was a great day.

The Mona Lisa's Got Nothing On This.

The Santa Fe Super Chief. One of the most beautiful things mankind ever created, right up there with The Beach Boys' PET SOUNDS, The VW Beetle and Rat Fink.

The latest on my hot rod.

Checked my driveway this morning, and there's still not a hot rod parked in it. Damn.

But over the weekend, I got the latest issue of RODDER'S JOURNAL (not so much a magazine as a really beautiful coffee table book that comes out four times a year), and it has a great, in-depth article on Bob Tindle's Orange Crate.

It's a fabulous example of a '32 Ford sedan, a bitchin' drag car and a real icon of my youth. I built the Revell model (and gunked it up with so much Testors glue the body didn't lift up right) and stared at its photo in hot rod mags. From what I've gathered talking to other hot rod nuts, I was not alone.

According to RJ, the Orange Crate's still out there, in nice unrestored condition. In fact, it's been seen at a number of car shows, and was selected as one of “The 75 Most Significant ’32 Ford Hot Rods."

It's weird to think that some of these cars can be found in garages and barns all across America, just sitting. What else is out there? And more important, can I have it?

Who says a great movie has to be any good?

The other night, I flipped past that SEINFELD episode where Elaine suffered for the fact that she hated THE ENGLISH PATIENT. I love that episode -- because, like Elaine, I hated it, too.

Hated.

This got me to thinking about movies, and why people like certain ones -- and why they might SAY they like certain ones because they think they SHOULD. For instance, tell someone that you hated E.T. (which I did), and people will look at you like you just kicked their grandmother in the stomach. (I'd love to kick E.T. in the stomach.)

Anyway, back to that sorry THE ENGLISH PATIENT. I went to a party not too long after it came out, and one of Raleigh's film critics was there. (How many do we have, come to think of it?) We were introduced: "You two both like movies a lot..." We got to talking movies, and quickly found that we were coming at cinema from two completely different directions.

Not only was it obvious we didn't like the same films -- aside from THE WAGES OF FEAR, I think -- but we didn't like each other, either. He was pretentious and went on and on and on, a lot like the movies he dug. Me, I prefer simpler, shorter films: westerns (7 MEN FROM NOW), crime films (FIVE AGAINST THE HOUSE), stuff with people in rubber suits tearing stuff up (THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON). Good, solid genre pictures.

Seeing that it would be easy, and a helluva lotta fun, to really get under this guy's skin, I cooked up a diatribe that I'm still quite proud of:

Movies are entertainment. You give up your money and a couple hours of your time, and hopefully you get something in return. With THE ENGLISH PATIENT, I looked at my watch a lot, wished the bastard would hurry up and conk out, and for days bitched about my lost six bucks.

But take something like ORGY OF THE DEAD, a piece of nudie junk written by Ed Wood back in 1965 or so: I laughed, my friends laughed, and we backed it up and watched a couple parts of it again. And we still talk about it -- years later.

As I see it, that makes ORGY OF THE DEAD a better movie than THE ENGLISH PATIENT.

The guy just walked away.

That's Ed Wood up top. He was a total loser of the variety only Hollywood can chew up and spit out. God bless him.

(By the way, I also hated PLATOON, JURASSIC PARK and TITANIC.)

I love this.

Here's a piece by hot rod lowbrow pin-up sticker artist Coop. As he says on his blog, "click to embiggen." Hope he doesn't mind that I boosted it.

There's an EASY RIDER-ness to it that makes me want to hang it over my mantle. If I had a mantle.

You Can't Make Up Stuff Like This.

"Louisiana Men Claim Buffet Eatery Banned Them"

HOUMA, La. (AP) -- A 265-pound man says a restaurant overcharged him for his trips to the buffet, then banned him and a relative because of how much they consumed during their visits.

Ricky Labit, a 6-foot-3 disabled offshore worker (That's Ricky in the photo), said he had been a regular at the Manchuria Restaurant, eating there as often as three times a week. But on his most recent visit, he said a waitress gave him and his wife's cousin, Michael Borrelli, a bill for $46.40, roughly double the buffet price for two adults.

"She says, 'Y'all fat, and y'all eat too much,'" Labit said.

Labit and Borrelli said they felt discriminated against because of their size.

"I was stunned, that somebody would say something like that. I ain't that fat, I only weigh 277," Borrelli said.

Accountant Thomas Campo, who spoke for the restaurant because the owner's English is limited, said the men were charged an extra $10 each on Dec. 21 because they made a habit of dining exclusively on the more expensive seafood dishes, including crab legs and frog legs.

"We have a lot of big people there," Campo said. "We don't discriminate."

The argument over the bill grew heated, and police were called. The police report states that the disagreement was settled when the restaurant said the bill was a mistake and, to appease Labit, the meal was complimentary.

Labit said he insisted on paying but was told not to come back. He complained that when seafood on the buffet line runs out, the restaurant only grudgingly cooks more. Campo said the proprietress tries to reduce waste of quality food.

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. (Ooops, sorry!)

I gotta get my priorities straight.

I used to be all over the stuff coming out on laserdisc and DVD and CD. A widescreen transfer of GOLDFINGER on laserdisc? How many William Castle movies are available on DVD? Can you get the mono mix of THE NOTORIOUS BYRD BROTHERS by The Byrds on CD? It was all a big fat piece of cake. And it mattered.

Nowdays, I'm not so well-versed. Or up-to-date. Or whatever. Or maybe it's that I got to much reality impacting around here these days. Who knows.

It turns out that one of my all-time favorite movies, BEDAZZLED -- the 1967 Peter Cook/Dudley Moore one, not that sorry lame putrid remake thing -- has been out on DVD since April. And I had no idea.

Of course, to most people out there, it's no big deal. So what? Go order one and shut up. But us collector-loser-freaks, we want it right away, or at the very least we want to know the damn thing is coming out. Guess it's all part of wanting to be an Expert. It's required to earn your Geek merit badge.

So, anyway, BEDAZZLED is out. It's one of the funniest movies ever made. It's got Dudley Moore in a nun outfit jumping on a trampoline. It's got a great score (by Moore). And it's got that hip, mod 1967 Technicolor Panavision thing in spades, courtesy of director Stanley Donen.

Oh, and it's got Raquel Welch (as Lust) go-go dancing while Moore, still in his nun get-up, gets drunk. And ain't that why the motion picture was invented in the first place?

How to ring in the New Year.

Step 1. Select the snack of your choice. (In my case, Cheetos -- the crunchy ones.)

Step 2. Choose the adult beverage of your choice. (I'm having a White Russian.)

Step 3. Insert THE NIGHT STALKER DVD into your DVD player. (An episode you haven't seen ever/in a long time/last night, but it was really good. You could also go for one of the two TV movies.)

Step 3. Enjoy.

A Wonderful Life It Ain't.

It's late Christmas Eve. Presley's in bed. Jennifer and I are getting everything ready for Santa Claus' arrival. I decide to turn on the TV to give us something to watch as we wrap presents that will be unwrapped in just a few hours.

Maybe there's some kinda holiday thing on. A CHRISTMAS STORY. The Grinch. Charlie Brown. One of those Jesus documentaries on A&E.

What do I come across? THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.

Now, I think this is a great film. A landmark. But I question the widsom in scheduling this one on December 24th.

Did that keep me from watching a bit of it? Not at all.

"You're ruining Christmas!"

It's an absolute fact that A JOLLY CHRISTMAS FROM FRANK SINATRA from 1957 is the greatest Christmas album ever made. Hell, even Santa Claus would agree with that.

I'll nominate THE VENTURES' CHRISTMAS ALBUM as #2. One of the Elvis ones (take your pick) holds down the #3 spot.

And the list goes on. Sorry, Phil Spector. Please don't shoot me.

Every year, Frank, the Ralph Brewer Singers and conductor Gordon Jenkins provide the soundtrack to my holiday -- and it's pretty much impossible to have a blue Christmas when this thing's on.

Up top is the original LP's cover art. Pretty, ain't it? That was the way it looked when Capitol sent it to stores back in '57. It had a "high fidelity" thing in the upper right corner.

Then, in 1963, after Frank had split Capitol for his own Reprise label, the album was re-released as THE SINATRA CHRISTMAS ALBUM. That's it to the right. Kinda lame cover, but that same great music. Now at a slightly discounted price.

Then things start getting confusing. Along comes this thing called the compact disc. Capitol puts out A JOLLY CHRISTMAS FROM FRANK SINATRA, giving us a couple extra tunes -- and they return to the original cover art! In the meantime, another Sinatra holiday CD is put together, this one on Reprise, called THE SINATRA CHRISTMAS ALBUM, pulling together various holiday tunes recorded for various things -- he never recorded a full Christmas album for the label. No relation to the retitled JOLLY CHRISMAS that Capitol had once released. (You may have seen this CD. It's got an artsy shot of a red Christmas ornament on it.)

Then we get to 2007. A JOLLY CHRISTMAS FROM FRANK SINATRA is now 50 years old! So an anniversary version of the CD is prepared, which turns out to be just the regular thing with a new cover. No new tunes. No alternate takes. Not even some kinda different-numbered-bit remastering. Just a bastardization of that cool old cover art and some shiny slipcase thing. Sorry, not impressed. (It's always bothered me that the artist is never credited, and his signature on the LP cover is illegible.)

So the music is as great and timeless as ever. But are future generations gonna be stuck with these tacky new graphics? Let's hope not. I'd like to think that my grandkids' Sinatra Christmas music (who knows what format they'll hear it on) will look like the one I had -- and my parents had. Tradition is such a huge part of the Christmas season. This is one I sure hope we don't screw up.

By the way, Frank followed A JOLLY CHRISTMAS FROM FRANK SINATRA with the fabulous COME FLY WITH ME. He was on a roll that would last damn near a decade.

Ring a ding ding!

And a jolly Christmas from me, too!

[The title of this entry thing is bellowed by one of Ned Beatty's bratty kids in Spielberg's 1941 (1979).]