Category Archives: Literary

Apocalypse Wow!

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Is this the worst movie ever made? Dear readers, you will have to tell me, for lo, I haveth not the space on my hard drive, and besides, I’m afraid what all my cool documents will say about me behind my back if I force them to make room for the abomination which is The Day the Clown Cried.

Spy Day the Clown Cried

This is proof positive that, no matter how awful a thing may be, how apocalyptically degenerate, how earth-shatteringly horrific, it will, in the fullness of time, get its own fansite.

Where’s mine, bitches?

The site includes not one but TWO scripts for downloading, a first draft and a final, along with comparative analysis (and never has the word “anal” been more apt) and a compendium of articles on this lost meisterstroke (and never has the word “stroke” aw, fergit it).

Lordy, I’m filthy-minded today. Good thing I work for a singles club!

In any case, here is a snippet from the very fine Spy article in which I first learned of the existence of this work of lost…crapitude. And here is the entire article, for those whose lives do not contain enough pain.

JERRY GOES TO DEATH CAMP by Bruce Handy
Illustrations by Drew Friedman
from “Spy Magazine” – May 1992

To artists and intellectuals, the twentieth century has posed no questions more vexing than these:

First, can art make sense of the Holocaust? 

And second, why do the French love Jerry Lewis?

The first question can’t really be answered, at least not in the space allotted here. As for the second, it’s my own opinion that the French have confused sloppy, uneven filmmaking with Godardian anti-formalism.  Regardless, raising these two issues on the same page is not just a pointless exercise in non-sequitur.  Because Jerry Lewis, like Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi before him — not to mention the producers of the NBC ministeries Holocaust — has transformed the incomprehendible into art.

He did this two decades ago, in 1972, a year of cultural ferment that also saw a black man, Sammy Davis Jr., snuggle Richard Nixon on national television.  It was Lewis’ 41st film (but his first to deal with the mass destruction of European Jewry), and it turned out to be the most notorious cinematic miscue in history — unfinished, unreleased, said by the few who’ve seen it to be  almost unwatchable.  Oh, there are also Von Stroheim’s Queen Kelly and Welles’ Don Quixote, among other busts.  But no other film, seen or unseen, can boast both Nazi death camps and the auteur responsible for The Nutty Professor.

There is only one The Day the Clown Cried.

It sounds like a punchline in an overheated Hollywood satire:  Jerry Lewis in Auschwitz. Depending on your taste, the prospect may be as offensive or as inttriguing as … well, truly, no metaphor measures up to the particulars.  A synopsis:

An unhappy German circus clown is sent to a concentration camp and forced to become a sort of genocidal Pied-Piper, entertaining Jewish children as he leads them to the gas chambers.

The story is meant to be played as drama.  By all accounts, no one sings “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, and Tony Orlando does not appear.
Clown Crying

Gay Pirate Day

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Gay Pirate Party 

Today in Blog News, we announce Gay Pirate Day, since everything posted pretty much has to do with Gaydom or Piracy, which is itself weird as I am neither, although I always wanted to grow up to be a privateer. But now, in light of Gay Pirate Day, one wonders if Privateers are to Pirates as Mouseketeers are to Porny Popstars…

Unlike most day-announcing agencies, we announce this only long after it has become apparent, rather than in advance. We support and encourage the development of “Beginner’s Mind,” the Zen state of having no preconceptions. This, too, is handy, because it means I don’t declare it Fishstick Day right off the bat and lose interest five minutes later and post about racehorses, which sort of thing happens ver

Ooooh, what’s that over there…

Carry on.

Hunky Gay Pirate

Questionnaires of Pensacola

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He’s back!

Rance 

Questions heartlessly stolen from Rance which you can find over there on the right in the Blogroll. You could read the story to get the context for these questions, but since I didn’t even do that in school I see no reason to start at my advanced age. To get the context for Rance, well, that’s a whole other kettle of kippers.

1) Is the glass half empty, or half full?

The glass is imaginary, therefore this question, like all life, is meaningless. Cheers!

2) (Other than Bolidar), does true evil exist? Explain.

But is Bolidar true or false? Evil can never be true, only false; we know this a priori; if Bolidar is evil, then Bolidar is false. It’s true. But then, this is a work of fiction, which is false. This, also, is true. Discuss. Isn’t this the question they asked Norman the android on that old episode of Star Trek?

3) Isaac and Morgan are convicted of numerous crimes, including “swimming to far from shore.” Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Should you have been?

But where is “far from shore” and why isn’t it capitalized? It’s close enough to swim to, though, so it must be around here somewhere. I can’t swim very far, so I’m gonna assume it’s within my striking distance, as most fictional authors want their readers to identify somewhat with the characters; therefore, “far from shore” must be Granville Island, which is about how far I can swim if I start from the north side of False Creek. But swimming isn’t a crime in Vancouver, although False Creek itself is a crime against Nature, but a very pretty one at that. Have I ever been convicted of a crime? Nobody, ever, in the history of the world, has even accused me of having convictions! Faugh! I laugh in your face…wherever it is. Consider it laughed in. Heartily.

Hey, when did Dave Eggers take over my brain?

4) What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever heard a bird say?

“The mynahs are on sale.” No, really, it was some gawdy, pimped-out macaw in a Surrey mall. Can you imagine ratting out the fellow avians to turn a quick buck? In his last incarnation this fine feathered Fagin was, no doubt, a Somali slave dealer. And in his next? Stage parent. 

5) Haiki sounds like it should be the plural form of haiku. Write a PoP related haiku.

The cashier had bad
hayfever, no sense of smell
But could see garlic.

I was in retail far too long. PoP=Point of Purchase=till. The haiku is also, however, Pirates of Pensacola-related in that I wouldn’t have written about a stuffed-up till monkey if not for the questionnaire, so there ya go. I shoulda bin a lawer. Note, please, subtle classical Japanese reference to the season, cloaked within an evocative noun. I be subtizzle, yo.

6) A character is described as “Not the brightest bulb anywhere there are bulbs.” What’s you favorite euphemism for “stupid”?

I rarely euphemize. I prefer to euthanize, ie make my first blow a stunning one, so that the victim does not feel pain, is not even aware of the attack, until much later, preferably in a subsequent lifetime when the victim is a life form which is much smaller and, therefore, unable to kick my ass. If pressed, I’d have to say “Knucklewalking” though. If you press me again, however, I’ll bop you one.

7) As a child, were you good at hide & seek? What was your favorite hiding place?

Bali. In fact, it’s my favorite hiding place now. Some day I may even get there. If pressed (there it is again!) I do take refuge in the realm of the imagination, where nobody expects to find me.

God, when did PeterPan take over my brain?

8) What was the most misguided act of chivalry you’ve seen? Is chivalry dead? Should it be?

I have an alibi and no further comment at this time.

9) Where was the elusive hiding place of the key to the Sea Patrol boat?

The key to the Sea Patrol boat is that it works even if you just use oars. That’s the real key.

10) Do you have any tattoos? Details, please.

Details? You are gay!

True Patriotism

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TIACongratulations to the Senate of the United States of America, for renewing The Patriot Act and making ten fourteen of its provisions permanent.

As William S. Burroughs said, “It’s the little touches that make a future solid enough to be destroyed.”

“The Thanksgiving Prayer” by William S. Burroughs

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin leaving the carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen, feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where nobody’s allowed to mind their own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the memories– all right let’s see your arms!

You always were a headache and you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

Wish List

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In case you’re wondering what to get me for a present when I throw my “My Book Is Finally Updated, Thank GOD!” tiki-themed party, which theme has nothing to do with the book but a serial-killer-themed party just doesn’t have the right feelgood vibe, you know what I’m sayin’, here is the answer, Kiki the Fashion Tiki from Gobler Toys:

Kiki the Fashion Tiki

 

Although the vindictive bitch in me also likes Johnny Voodoo (revenge has never been so cuddly):

When trouble arises

Catch Johnny some vermin.

With a small sacrifice

Your foes will be squirmin’!

 Johnny Voodoo