The 11-Day Blunder

Just when I thought I would have nothing to "blog" about today, McNeil reports having a dream about Bob AND Dolores Hope! Now, am I going to tell you the dream? No. It having been previously established that you don't know who Bob Hope is, how much less, given the scummy world in which we live, would you have cared to learn of Dolores Hope? And shame on you for that. You're what's wrong with America! Why, if you tried to even think of the concept of Dolores Hope, you would be instantly confronted by and sucked into the greedy abyss of your own soul. And maybe that's what you want. How am I supposed to know? Good for you! So... why am I telling you this, then? I'm glad you asked, imaginary voice in my head! Well, today will be the eleventh day in a row I have "blogged." I haven't double checked, because I just don't care that much, especially since A.I. informed me that I wrote Bill Boyle's novel GRAVESEND and I witnessed what the future holds as far as meticulous accuracy goes, but I'm very certain that today, whatever day it is, marks the most days I have "blogged" in a row since I got demoralized on April 27, 2016, when our TV blew up. I had a little fit and claimed to have stopped "blogging." I was all sad inside like a weepily smiling clown because I had "blogged" for "almost 10 years"... ha ha! What a chump. It's been nearly 20 now! And yes, I'm throwing up as I type these words. It's not as easy as it sounds, throwing up while you type. What was I just talking about?

Today Could Be the Day

It's been some time since McNeil sent me a DVD in the mail of an obscure movie about an already remorseful rodeo clown who gets entangled in a murder investigation.

Jerry 101

I just heard that Jerry Lewis passed away. Dr. Theresa and my pal Phil Oppenheim alerted me simultaneously. I feel terrible! I am going to try to update an old "post" that had ninety introductions to Jerry Lewis for the curious. I am going to try to find eleven things to add so I can call it "Jerry 101." [As a work meeting was coming up as this "post" was being typed, several, though not all, of the hastily retrieved final additions may be of a lesser quality. - ed.] 1. How is Edgar Allan Poe like Jerry Lewis? 2. For that matter, what would Kierkegaard say about Jerry Lewis? 3. Bob Dylan got "deeply into" Jerry Lewis. 4. Jerry was a hero to Richard Pryor. 5. Jerry shares expressionistic instincts with iconic rappers. 6. He made Orson Welles laugh. 7. Freudian aspects of Jerry. 8. He played a gig with Thelonious Monk. 9. A trusted method of immersing yourself in Jerryness. 10. Don't believe me? Take it from bestselling novelist Laura Lippman! 11. Don't believe Laura Lippman? Perhaps famed method actor Edward Norton is more to your taste. [See also - ed.] 12. Consider Jerry Lewis as the forefather of David Lynch. 13. So can it be a coincidence that Lynch was cast in a part originally written for Jerry Lewis? (See also.) 14. As muse to hardboiled Don Carpenter. 15. Jerry's spectacular use of color. 16. Jerry is the inventor of anti-comedy, his aesthetic also appropriated by the cinematic underground. 17. Read the great Jerry monograph by Chris Fujiwara. 18. Jerry a hero to Michael Palin of the Monty Python comedy troupe. 19. Jerry an inspiration for the British version of THE OFFICE that everyone used to love so much. 20. Jerry makes me think of the French painter Henri Rosseau. 21. Do you think Jerry is redundant? No, he is "unfolding redundancy." Joke's on you! 22. Do you like Godard? Well, Godard based some of his scenes on Jerry Lewis scenes. Like this and that. 23. Some maintain that 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY would have been better with Jerry in it. 24. Speaking of which, was Jerry an influence on Boorman's groundbreaking POINT BLANK? I don't know, but he should have starred in it. 25. How about that prescient scene in THE BELLBOY that anticipates Scorsese's THE KING OF COMEDY? Or the possibly relevant fact that Jerry directed parts of THE KING OF COMEDY? 26. The Cinderfella dance! 27. Jerry frequently appears in THE BELIEVER magazine, if that's your cup of tea. 28. I intuit a connection between Jerry and J.D. Salinger. 29. And supposedly Salinger considered Jerry to direct the movie version of CATCHER IN THE RYE, maybe. I said maybe! 30. Jerry's influence on GOODFELLAS. 31. Jerry Lewis is part of Philip K. Dick's mystic vision of the entire universe. 32. You should watch lots of Jerry Lewis so you can practice the fun habit of saying things like Jerry Lewis. 33. Even nature itself aspires to sound like Jerry Lewis. 34. Jerry Lewis is a good singer. 35. Maybe you identify with Jerry's world-weary attitude. 36. He hung out in a diner with Marilyn Monroe. 37. Blair Hobbs detects an aesthetic kinship between Jerry and the photographer William Eggleston. 38. Jerry was an inspiration to Bruce Springsteen. 39. Think of Jerry as a poet. 40. Need a dissertation topic? How about "Medical Ethics in the Films of Jerry Lewis"? 41. In a hilarious practical joke, Jerry ruined Dick van Dyke's meeting with the queen! 42. Jerry was instrumental in getting the great Stan Laurel his honorary Oscar. 43. Jerry is handsome! 44. Maybe you are a "conspiracy theory buff." Well, for real the CIA tampered with one of Jerry's movies. 45. Maybe you're an animal lover. Well, Jerry bought a hearing aid for his dog. 46. Jerry is subversive! 47. Quentin Tarantino + Jerry Lewis = True Love 4ever. 48. (Maybe because he anticipated one of Tarantino's more radical and disruptive narrative decisions by 40 years.) 49. Does he irritate you and make you uncomfortable? MAYBE THAT'S JUST WHAT JERRY WANTS! 50. For example, he once stuck his nose in Frank Sinatra's eye. 51. And took some of the starch out of Tony Curtis by flicking ashes on his jacket. 52. Jerry is complicated. He "both depicts and manifests inadvertent disclosure." - J. Hoberman. 53. Jerry's influence on the Beastie Boys. 54. Jerry appears in works by acknowledged comic geniuses John Hodgman and Michael Kupperman. 55. But perhaps you prefer authors from Mississippi, a chunk of land with a notable literary history. If so, you should be aware that Tom Franklin and Frederick Barthelme have put Jerry Lewis in their well-regarded "Mississippi" novels. 56. So has Don DeLillo, though he is not from Mississippi, nor are his novels set there. 57. ARE you a historian, by the way? Then consider Jerry's breakup with Dean in its implications as "a national trauma." 58. Francis Ford Coppola cites Jerry as an influence. 59. Which reminds me: I recently read an interview that Scorsese did with Lewis in which he (Scorsese) cites THE LADIES MAN as an influence. I always assumed the scene in question was drawn from SATYRICON. But SATYRICON came out after THE LADIES MAN, so maybe SATYRICON was influenced by Jerry too! I just now decided that, while typing this. 60. Jerry's darker side a fruitful subject for literary speculation. 61. Speaking of which, John Waters said Jerry Lewis was "probably a monster!" Can there be a higher compliment? 62. Although (see previous "link") John Waters went on to praise his taste in costuming. So that subject is worth contemplation. 63. Though, intriguingly, to Waters's original hypothesis, Jerry repeatedly acknowledges the collusion of the innocent with the monstrous, especially within a single individual. (See also.) 64. Jerry's art provides some of the same challenges and rewards as Sun Ra's. 65. Jerry envisioned hosting Queen Elizabeth, Jimmy Hoffa and Helen Keller on a talk show. I still want to write that play. 66. Fascinating undercurrents to his on- and off-screen chemistry with Dean Martin. 67. I wrote a pretty good article about him once if you can find it. 68. And this "post" is all right. 69. Try to solve Jerry's universal problem. 70. The complex transparency of Jerry's genius can be profitably compared to Brian Wilson's. 71. Jerry reveals the intrinsic flaws in the very notion of successful human communication. 72. Maybe that's why he's constantly "rewriting his own being." 73. But before he rewrote himself too much, here's a 13-minute clip of young Jerry at his brashest and most engaging. 74. Jerry's anarchic devouring of the hand that feeds him. 75. Maybe you are from the "dance world." Did you know that many highbrow choreographers turn to Jerry Lewis for inspiration? 76. Similarities between Jerry and the great Italian giallo director Mario Bava, if that's your thing. 77. Jerry is a model of tact and restraint compared to the makers of Jason Bateman movies. 78. As Jerry is, so you will be. As you are, so once was he. 79. Jerry, like Elvis, was a target of snobbery and classism. 80. I mean, even when he ended the Oscar broadcast EARLY, the powers-that-be still despised him. He gets under "the man's" skin. 81. For example, when everybody in "the establishment" was dumping on Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE, Jerry was one of the first to proclaim its greatness. 82. Did he inspire a character in a Wes Anderson movie? Probably not. But I think he inspired a character in a Noah Baumbach movie. 83. Touchstone for towering cartoonists Lynda Barry and Gilbert Hernandez. 84. Jerry deemed a subject worthy of the Savannah College of Art and Design. 85. Jerry cut short his formal education and set out to educate himself. 86. Jonathan Rosenbaum knows a lot about movies and he loves Jerry Lewis. 87. Tough-to-please James Wolcott likewise. 88. Camille Paglia seems happy about Jerry Lewis. 89. Even comedians who resist his influence must grapple with his legacy. 90. Jerry blurs assumptions about gender. 91. Hey, Sandra Bullock likes Jerry Lewis. 92. And John Sayles says "he did it all," though he was likely just being polite. 93. Jerry helps redeem the troubling "monkey riding dogs" trope. 94. Jerry advances clowning from sadness to rage. 95. Jerry's singing provides ballast in one of those ubiquitous "peak TV" shows that no one can get enough of. 96. Just the thought of Jerry Lewis makes someone laugh alone in a parking lot. 97. Jerry makes comedy of our basic existential choice. 98. See my AV Club interview on Jerry Lewis's literary influence, I guess. 99. Jerry of sufficient interest to narrowly escape being drunk-dialed by Cary Fukunaga. 100. Noted author Megan Abbott finds that watching Jerry is "akin to psychosexual quicksand"! 101. Appropriately at this moment, Jerry Lewis distracts me from James Joyce's elegiac short story, "The Dead," supplanting death with life!

Guitar Emotions

Stopped by The End of All Music yesterday and walked away with this treasure (see above). It wasn't until I got home and took the record out of the sleeve to play it and saw Jimmy Bryant's name on the label, frank, plain, and unclouded by unsettling clowns, that I thought, "Oh! Jimmy Bryant." I know his work with the equally nimble Speedy West. But somehow the name "Jimmy Bryant" was not what leapt off the cover. It is indisputably true that I do not "blog" anymore, but as this recording has such an obvious thematic connection to "Jimmy's Happy/Jimmy's Blue," a double LP I also found at The End of All Music and put forth for your examination in these pages (though that was a different Jimmy altogether), I thought it only proper to break my rule just this once. (Photo by Bill Boyle.)

Here's Your Monocle

I recorded a TCM showing of THREE RING CIRCUS and watched some of it last night. I am pleased to tell you about the villain of the piece (pictured), Puffo the Wonder Clown. First of all I am pleased to tell you that his name is Puffo the Wonder Clown. He is addressed often. "You're drunk, Puffo." And, when he is fired from the circus, "Draw your money, Puffo." I cannot explain the pleasure such sentences gave me. "Puffo, he's stealing your thunder!" says another clown, referring to Jerry Lewis. So later Puffo goes out there and kicks Jerry Lewis in the behind and jumps up and down on him. The circus audience turns on Puffo! And I must say I was surprised because it seemed like regular clown business to me. I'm not sure what clued in the audience that Puffo really meant it. Clowns are always brutalizing one another for our amusement, and we thank them for it. But one little girl jumps up and yells, "Stop it! You're killing him!" I may be paraphrasing. After Puffo nearly murders Jerry in the ring (I guess - as I say, it was difficult to distinguish from everyday clown violence), Jerry says in his saintly mewl, "Here's your monocle. I'm not mad, Puffo." You see, Puffo had dropped his monocle in the sawdust to get Jerry to bend over. You know how it is. Oh, Puffo. I am not sure I can rightly call Puffo a sad clown, though he is certainly a bitter clown. Jerry - who tinkered a lot with the script of this famously troubled production - seems interested in rage-filled clowns. Think of the snarling clown who hates America in his film THE FAMILY JEWELS. Think of him, I said! And of course drunken clowns are a national treasure by any standard. Puffo is a mean drunk, as opposed to the garden-variety sniveling of a typical drunken clown like Twitchy, who meets his sad end at the hands of a psychopath in the Mickey Spillane circus thriller RING OF FEAR, but I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. Will you mind very much if we stop talking about clowns for a second? In a subplot, Dean Martin falls under the spell of Zsa Zsa Gabor as the haughty queen of the circus. And I had never really thought about it, but that's a common story element, isn't it? The beauteous, dominant circus woman? I think of Steve Martin in THE JERK (its title an homage to Lewis's THE PATSY?), in the thrall of the sexy motorcycle daredevil who pushes him around. In conclusion, I cannot justify Puffo's honorific. At no point in the film are we given any indication that he is, in fact, a "wonder clown" of any kind.

Corn

"When I think of sour corn, I think of Dean Martin." What a cryptic sentence! Well, there's a paragraph that explains it but I like it better by itself. That's from yesterday's menu at the Southern Foodways Symposium, an indescribable annual summit concerned with global politics, economics, history, art, activism, race, space, place, family, gender, science, agriculture, industry, philosophy, and so many other subjects, and I know I'm leaving out food, but as one of the organization's oral historians described her mission yesterday, "It's about the people, not the food." That being said, superstar chef Sean Brock and his mother made us a 20-course lunch. A 20-course lunch! That will really make you take a nap. Sean Brock and his mother made this 20-course lunch for more than 400 people (as seen above). He said the most people his mom had cooked for until yesterday was about ten. Earlier that morning I gave an unnecessarily blistering talk about the TV chef and humorist Justin Wilson, a relatively harmless entertainer who is long dead. I put on some sunglasses and just went full "insult comic" mode. I'm not even sure why! The talk as given wildly diverged from what I had so carefully researched and printed out. Maybe I was possessed! Actually, Gustavo Arellano spoke right before me and he was ON FIRE and I was like, "Uh-oh, I'm gonna have to DO something to follow that." And nature took its course.

As you can see, I wielded my Emmy as a comedy prop and the whole thing went very well despite my inexplicable viciousness, which I believe worried JoAnn Clevenger, the astonishing doyenne of New Orleans's iconic Upperline restaurant (at the Symposium to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award), who stood up in the Q&A section to nobly defend Mr. Wilson, a frequent customer of hers. I saw her later in the evening and she told me some complicated things from Justin Wilson's personal life. "I always like the underdog," she said. We had a nice talk about it. I also saw Sean Brock and he said the 20-course lunch was "the most important meal" he had ever made and "the meal I was born to make." He was referring to its transcendent emotional content for one thing. All I could think with extreme gratitude was, "We got to eat the meal Sean Brock was born to make!" I also told him that his mother's statement - "When I think of sour corn, I think of Dean Martin" - could be the first sentence of a novel. It's my favorite sentence right now.

I guess the other thing I need to tell you is that John Currence got dressed up in a shrimp costume and was positioned above a dunk tank filled with grits. He told me he studied Gary Busey in the movie CARNY (pictured) to perfect his aggressive dunk-tank patter. "Were those really grits in there?" I asked Blair Hobbs about the dunk tank. "It looked like brown water," said Blair, which for whatever reason sounded like the worst thing to get dunked into. I honestly doubt that the Southern Foodways Symposium, with its deeply concerned soul,

would waste grits, or anything else that could help someone. For example, another lunch, this one made for us by Mashama Bailey (pictured here with Joe York, whose pinpoint accuracy as a pitcher dropped shrimp-Currence in the tank; "Your Emmy won't save you now!" yelled Joe as I walked into the danger zone between him and his target), was ingenuously based on ingredients that usually get thrown away: Chef Bailey's salad was made with the stems of the collard.

Probably Very Loud

I'm ashamed to say that when I saw Jack Carter's obit in the New York Times today the first thing I thought about is how much Robert Goulet's son-in-law hated him: "The band dubbed him 'Captain Rage.' He made everyone so unhappy that we had him thrown off the bus." I almost titled this "post" "Captain Rage Is Dead" but it seemed disrespectful to Mr. Carter's family. I found this photo from the NYT obit fascinating. I can't conceive of the occasion. None of these "comic entertainers" go together, for reasons you could never understand unless you were Ward McCarthy or McNeil or me. Just look how uncomfortable Wally Cox is! I was going to do a big analysis for your benefit. I was going to call Rowan and Martin "louche" and talk about the "impish sad clown razzamatazz" of Jimmy Durante. But you know what? Who cares? I sent the photo to McNeil and Ward. Haven't heard back from McNeil, but Ward's response says everything that needs to be said about the gathering: "I imagine it was probably very loud."

My Nephew Is a Genius

Last time I went to Atlanta I forgot to bring my little jotting notebook in which to jot my little notes. You won't catch me making that tragic mistake twice. 1. On the drive to Atlanta this weekend, "Jokerman" by Bob Dylan played. Some particular lyric - I can't recall which; by necessity, one cannot jot while driving - made me think for a split second, "Maybe this song is about Jerry Lewis!" (You may "click" here to refresh your memory about the time Bob Dylan got obsessed with Jerry Lewis.) It did have a "sad clown" vibe. But it also has a bunch of mystical stuff about "kings dressed in scarlet" or something. So never mind. Or, wait! THE KING OF COMEDY. I believe he dressed in scarlet. I don't really think "Jokerman" is about Jerry Lewis. But I was driving alone and had time to think. 2. The occasion of the drive was Barry Mills's birthday party. Who should be there but Craig "Sven" Gordon. We reminisced without irony about the old band we used to be in together, just like a couple of living relics from the cliché museum. 3. Somehow the band Kansas came up, prompting Sven to reveal that the lead singer of Kansas moved into his neighborhood for a time and could often be spotted jogging! 4. Chris Lopez came to the party. An interesting beetle landed on his arm. It looked just like a piece of popcorn. 5. Last time I saw Barry's daughter she was two years old. Now she's nine. Barry told her how when she was two, she liked it when I made crazy trumpet noises, it would really make her laugh. So once I was doing that and Dr. Theresa encouraged me like so: "Work it, Jack!" And Barry's two-year-old daughter suddenly shouted, "Work it, Jack!" Ha ha ha! Barry's daughter bore the retelling of this story with good grace uncommon in one of her age. She was thoughtful and polite about the rambling of her elders. 6. Look!

Barry's birthday cake, of admirable fluffiness, was decorated in remembrance of that kids' show that Barry and I used to make. 7. I met a guy who is working on a feature film about the founding of McDonald's, starring Michael Keaton and Laura Dern. He showed me a picture of "the first McDonald's" building and set that he had helped construct in a town north of Atlanta. "It'll be there a few weeks and then it will be gone, like it was never there," he said. I probably said, "I just had a dream about Laura Dern!" I probably said, "Tell her!" 8. I met a woman named Jenny who I thought said she was "as culpable as any vicar." I asked her, "Did you just say you are as culpable as any vicar?" She replied, "No." She also wanted to know what Lopez and I were like when we had "velvet nubs for horns." Or did she say "fuzzy nubs"? My jotting is unclear on this point. Perhaps she said both. She meant to ask what we were like when we were young. Lopez said, anticlimactically, that one of us would generally walk into a bar and the other one would be there, and one of us would say, "Are you gonna finish eating that?" Jenny asked whether we would sit across from one another or on the same side of the booth on such occasions, and the conversation dwindled. 9. Hey! Remember when I was amazed to learn that there were chickens living on the roof of Manuel's Tavern? I finally got to eat some of those eggs, "rooftop eggs" they were called on the menu, when my sister and brother-in-law and nephew Jasper had brunch there. Jasper wanted a pancake and some French fries. My sister was hesitant! But I was a strong advocate for this hugely appealing and innovative idea. I couldn't believe I had never thought of it myself! French fries are a perfect breakfast food. Why doesn't everybody serve French fries with breakfast? They are not that much different than so-called "home fries." My sister finally said okay, and I like to think my relentless nagging had something to do with it. 10. On the drive home, I saw a coyote run across the highway! I don't think I've ever seen one in person before. I know Melissa and Chris have some living out near their place, but coyotes strike me as exotic in our region. I guess they're not. I have to remind myself about the time I was so excited to see some wild turkeys on the side of the highway, and every person I know told me it's no big deal to see wild turkeys and that I was a sucker for being excited. And now I suppose you're all going to tell me that everybody has French fries for breakfast where you come from. Liars!

A Harlequin in the Middle of Them

John Waters told me (that's right!) that I had to see the Keane painting of Jerry Lewis and his family. Somehow, I didn't know it existed! "He's a harlequin in the middle of them," said John Waters. And so he is!

Half a Panda Act

Got kind of stuck halfway through writing a SpongeBob script so I jumped in the car and went to see the new Chris Rock movie, which I am happy to report is a "sad clown" movie in the old tradition, where the sad clown learns that the most important gift he can give is the gift of laughter. Rock's character - the sad clown in question - even talks about Chaplin. And at what is arguably the climax of the movie (spoiler alert!), DMX appears and sings the Chaplin composition "Smile." So I don't think I am crazy. Now let us move on to the dwindling pages of this Bob Hope biography I am reading. Several things about Bob's 1979 trip to China tickle me in just the right way. Bob brought Peaches and Herb with him because "Hope thought their hit song 'Reunited' was a good theme for the trip." I just like to think of Bob Hope listening to a Peaches and Herb 45 and saying something like, "You know, these kids are really onto something!" I find it amusing that Dolores Hope carried "packets of Cup-a-Soup in her luggage" in case she didn't like the food in China! I find it adorable that Bob took a tai-chi class and spoke to Chinese film students about MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE. And I enjoy this sentence very much: "The owner of a trained panda complained that he wasn't getting paid enough and said he would allow the show to use only half of the panda's act."

McNeil's Movie Korner

Welcome once more to the welcoming arms of "McNeil's Movie Korner." Forgot to tell you that McNeil discovered the Jerry Lewis version of THE JAZZ SINGER. He kept pausing it to send me emails: "I watched the first minute (!) and had to pause it my heart was so overflowing with joy. ....Oh, *****, I just watched another minute - Jerry just finished the opening song. I feel like I want to rewind it and watch it over already." And: "I watched another 30 seconds...Jerry comes off stage and licks the manager's cheek!!! This is so perfect." And: "I've watched through the end of Act 2 of THE JAZZ SINGER, but I had to stop at that point. I became physically ill when Jerry's father threw him out of the house - AFTER the cantor b**** slap took my breath away. I'm upstairs talking it out with Bonnie." BONUS! Bill Boyle sent me an article yesterday about when Bob Dylan got "deeply into" Jerry Lewis. The article also mentioned in passing that Bob Dylan owns a boxing gym with a coffee shop attached. MORE EXTRA BONUS EXTRA! I watched WHICH WAY TO THE FRONT? and it anticipates the controversial ending of Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS by 40 years. By which, not to be coy, I mean to say that Jerry personally kills Hitler at the end of the movie.

Maybe Kangaroos

Reading that biography of John Wayne, I was particularly mesmerized by the allusions to a movie produced by John Wayne, a brainchild of his boozy sidekick Jimmy Grant, a circus movie starring Mickey Spillane as himself - RING OF FEAR! It says something about me that I also watched ISLAND IN THE SKY, a very interesting John Wayne movie that starts out interesting and just gets more and more interesting as it goes along, a really fine movie, and yet I have no desire to "blog" about it. I'd much rather "blog" about RING OF FEAR, which is, as I just informed you, a circus movie starring Mickey Spillane. As himself! Many spoilers follow, ha ha. RING OF FEAR begins with thudding timpani and roaring lions. The theme song goes, "Here comes the circus/ Marching down the street/ Hear that thrilling beat/ The band... the band... the band is playing, Yay!" and that's the whole song. (See also.) The narrator lists all the animals in the circus, ending his litany with "maybe kangaroos." Maybe! Sounds ominous. Then we cut to a big, scary sign: STATE MENTAL INSTITUTION, and a guy saying, "I tell you I'm not crazy, gentlemen." We're less than 5 minutes in! Oh boy! Then the guy says something I didn't quite catch about "building a fence around the universe." He's in trouble for talking to a picture of a "circus girl." Then he escapes! I thought they were setting him up to be sympathetic but then he tossed a random guy under an oncoming train, so I guess not. He meets up with his pal, a guy named Twitchy. I thought I had that wrong until a surly clown said, "Twitchy must be hitting the bottle again," thereby confirming the name Twitchy. Twenty-five minutes in, here's Mickey Spillane for some reason. Somebody says, "Say, ain't you Mickey Spillane?" Spillane mumbles, "Yeah, that's right." Poor Mickey! As an actor he doesn't even seem convinced of his own name. He does walk around with copies of his new paperback in his jacket pocket and hand them out to strangers. Lots of circus acts in this movie. I hate to see them taunting the tigers with the whip and the chair, though, so I fast forwarded through that stuff, I must admit (though to come clean I enjoyed it - very guiltily - when some elephants danced to "Turkey in the Straw" - God have mercy!). Twitchy is a drunk clown, like so many sad clowns before him, but I wasn't sure I could safely categorize him as a sad clown until I saw that he was being blackmailed for murder. That would make anybody sad! Now we meet, for a few sparkling moments, an acrobat named Tiny. Boy, I liked her. Her "bum" of a husband works part-time as a department-store Santa. Golly, I would have watched a whole movie about them! But that's all we get of Tiny. Mickey Spillane calls somebody "a windy character" and Pat O'Brien responds, "Yeah, he's windy and he's a character." I am not sure what that exchange of dialogue got us! The sword swallower wants peppermint polish for her swords because her swords taste so terrible. (Hey, I've got eight pages of notes here.) She has a weird way of introducing herself: "Hello, Mr. Spillane, are you married?" Mickey says, "It slips my mind at the moment," a pretty good Mickey Spillane line, but the incongruous set-up is unforgivable. I have here in my notes that Mickey Spillane chews gum and squints. Half an hour in or so I find out that the crazy madman is named "Dublin O'Malley." He's Irish, by the way. Meanwhile, back at the circus! A clown comes out holding an umbrella. Cut to the crowd laughing hysterically. Cut back to the clown holding his umbrella. A clown holding an umbrella really seems to get to everybody. (See also.) By an hour in, Dublin O'Malley seems kind of like an interesting, complicated psychopath, or am I going soft? (Also about an hour in, a kangaroo actually appears - a kangaroo with, forgive me for saying so, surprisingly prominent testicles.) I did enjoy watching Mickey Spillane eat an ice cream cone. It seemed authentic. Was he getting more comfortable onscreen? Or was I getting more full of rye? Around this time, for example, I started thinking of the actor who played Dublin O'Malley as a poor man's Orson Welles, which is funny, because Dr. Theresa, who was in the next room and not even paying attention, later told me that she thought he sounded just like Orson Welles in LADY FROM SHANGHAI. Suddenly Mickey Spillane is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Later, he will put on a tight sweater, too, before suddenly reverting to the usual baggy jacket, loose tie, and fedora. Turns out Twitchy used to be an aerialist, which reminded me of something that Bill Taft once said to me in a circus performers' graveyard. Dublin has a long, intricate monologue describing death by cyanide to Twitchy and yes, this scene clinches it, Twitchy is a super sad clown. Dublin O'Malley drowns that clown! Reaction shots of disapproving circus animals! Pat O'Brien gives a deadpan read of the immortal line, "Valerie, I'm sorry. We just got news that Dublin is a kill-happy maniac." Dublin is eaten by a tiger, cutting immediately to a song about the circus being "a magic wonderland" of "angels and clowns." THE END

Cat Name

I talk about sad clowns a lot here, but I can't take any credit for the sad clown angle of tonight's ADVENTURE TIME, storyboarded by the wonderful Graham Falk and just concluded in most of our large nation. It was entirely Pen's idea to make the character a sad clown; I was "pitching" (as we say in the business) for him to be a piano player for a torch singer in a seedy mob-run nightclub, like Cameron Mitchell in the Doris Day movie LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME. Strangely, it was also Pen's idea to name the episode "Sad Face" after one of our cats, Sad Face. I even tried to change that title a couple of times on drafts of the outline, but Pen kept changing it back. You may "click" here to see a drawing Pen did of Sad Face, with whom he was quite taken on his trip to Oxford. You will note that the drawing is labeled "Big Boy," which indeed became Sad Face's secondary name for a number of reasons. He was first called Sad Face as an aloof and slender feral cat who lurked mysteriously in the gray mist and shadows half-unseen and for whom we used to put out food. Those who say feral cats cannot be tamed have never seen Dr. Theresa in action. She made friends with Sad Face patiently over the course of several months. We caught him finally (ha ha! I know how boring this is and I just don't care) and took him in for his shots and had him fixed, intending to release him again, which we did, during a rainstorm! How terrible. What were we thinking? He didn't seem to care. But he came in one day and stayed in, this wraith who used to be able to jump over tall fences and run agilely if heart-stoppingly through the traffic in front of our house, back and forth across the busy and treacherous street like a maniac. He lost any desire to go outside ever again, just like me, and got comfortable and fat, just like me. So we took to calling him "Big Boy" instead of "Sad Face," though he still has a sad face, but a "happy head," as our young neighbor once observed. Anyway, I'll have you know Sad Face has lost a lot of weight since Pen drew that picture. For real! For further reading (ha ha! Don't do it!), remember when I was writing that dumb serialized fantasy novel for the Vice magazine and nobody cared? You will note that a daring brigand in it had a faithful horse called Sad Face.

Why Pie Cry

Now I will tell you about the rest of that Red Skelton sad clown movie. Are you excited? Like, remember when I told you that he had a job attacking people at an amusement park with a cattle prod? Okay, well, one guy got kind of mad about it. So Red Skelton's boss comes out and says to Red Skelton, "Hey, we run a family place here!" He's mad at Red Skelton! Even though HE'S the one who hired Red Skelton to attack the customers with a cattle prod. It's a strange business, being a threatening clown. So Red Skelton gets fired. For doing his job too well, I guess. Next he gets a job being a "receiver." That sounds bad! He says, "Don't let my kid see this." So he sits there while a guy gives him an exploding cigar and smashes butter on him and hits him in the face with a couple of pies. And his kid sees it! And silently weeps! Ha ha ha! Doesn't this kid - whose name is Dink (!) - know what a clown does for a living? He's been living with a clown his whole life. The weirdest part of that scene is that Red Skelton gives no reaction whatsoever as the guy assaults him with pies and so on. I mean, he doesn't move a muscle. Put some effort into it, clown! Half the fun of the old pie in the face is the hilarious reaction of the "receiver." I mean, even if you're going to be deadpan about it, you have to be deadpan in a funny way. Like, I don't know, stoically and with economical motions wipe the pie out of your eyes, one at a time. Oh well. And the kid is just crying while his dad gets hit in the face with pies. I forgot to mention he's not just a sad clown he's a drunk clown and a clown with a gambling problem. Charles Bronson (!!) wins all of Red Skelton's money in an all-night dice game and Red Skelton picks his sleeping kid's pocket for a gold watch that means the world to him. I also forgot to say he sent his kid to sleep in the backseat of a random stranger's car! (Remember, now, at the end of the movie, Jane Greer says, "You did a great job raising him, Dodo.") I'll tell you who I liked: Little Julie, a shady operator who does his business out of a diner booth. "Step into my office," he says with self-loathing and also regular loathing. He organizes what Megan Abbott would probably - probably? does! I've heard her! - call "smokers" - smokers with racy entertainment! This guy has a touch of authentic sleaze. The actor's name is Lou Lubin. Let's hear it for Lou Lubin (pictured)! He gets Red Skelton a shameful gig where he has to tell the 1953 version of dirty jokes while ladies take off their clothes. At the end Red Skelton dies from clowning too much. For real! And I skipped over some surprisingly brutal moments like when Red Skelton smashes a pane of glass with his fist and then starts hitting the wall and screaming. That is one sad clown. Okay, bye!

Wistful Urchin Face

I watched the first three minutes of that Red Skelton sad clown movie. Guess who (according to the credits) is in the Red Skelton sad clown movie and TWIN PEAKS? Jane Greer! (And guess who's in TWIN PEAKS and this season of JUSTIFIED, which I was coincidentally dvr'ing while watching TWIN PEAKS? Alicia Witt!) The Red Skelton sad clown movie starts out with the clown and his kid, who has strategic smudges of dirt daubed on his wistful urchin face for extra wistfulness and urchin cred, AND a Goober hat! Red Skelton runs onstage and a dwarf tries to hit him with a plank, to the delight of all. Then Red Skelton shocks the dwarf in the behind with something like a cattle prod. Then Red Skelton and the dwarf use their weapons to very aggressively and without warning harass the paying customers of an amusement park. That's their job! That's a weird job.

When Dodo Dies

Remember when I watched all those sad clown movies in a row? Those were the days! I'm not sure I'm up to it anymore. Still, I couldn't help but set the old dvr to record THE CLOWN, a Red Skelton movie that was coming on TCM in the wee hours. Maybe I'll work up my nerve to watch it. I seem to recall that it's based on the old Wallace Beery tearjerker THE CHAMP. Why would I remember something like that? Only instead of a sad boxer he's a sad clown. Hey, when I was searching for an illustration for this "post," I saw that a youtube clip of THE CLOWN is entitled "When Dodo Dies." Oh no! (See also.) I didn't watch it and I'm not going to "link" to it either because oh my God.

Red Shoes

Had a great time watching Vincent Gallo's film BUFFALO '66 last night with Bill and Katie and Megan. Somehow I had never seen it before, and right away I started seeing Jerry Lewis connections (I always do, but this time they were really there). I saw so many Jerry Lewis connections that I'm afraid I forgot half of them on the walk home. Conscious, direct connections? I don't know. Gallo and Lewis were in a movie together, and there was that one time that a New York Times interviewer lumped them into the same general category ("kindred maestros of self-loathing and self-absorption," he appreciatively remarked), but that doesn't prove anything, though in his early scenes with Christina Ricci, Gallo certainly nailed the rhythm, high pitch and tone of Lewisian speech patterns, veering occasionally into the darker, intense and demanding bark of Buddy Love, or angry Jerry in THE KING OF COMEDY (another fantasy about kidnapping). And Megan found this photo of the two on a "web" site that quotes Gallo on how much he dislikes Jerry Lewis (though I don't know, they look like they're having a blast!). So maybe it's just the coincidental shared temperament of a certain kind of filmmaker. (And I'm not even considering David Lynch's debt to Lewis, or the famous affection of some French New Wave directors for his films, though there could be some trickle-down going on, as Lynch and the French New Wave are openly drawn on in Gallo's directorial style.) "A child's fantasy," Megan called BUFFALO '66 last night (not in a judgmental or critical way). Like Lewis in THE PATSY and THE LADIES MAN (just for example), Gallo seems fixated (in this film) on romantic rejection in boyhood as the dominant factor in shaping a man's stunted personality (along with, as in THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, monsters for parents, of course). (And now I am recalling what Elvis Mitchell once described to me as Jerry's "fear of sex" - a big factor in BUFFALO '66 - as a hallmark of his [and Lynch's] style.) The emotional climax of BUFFALO '66, like that of THE LADIES MAN and THE PATSY and other Jerry movies, showcases a teary cipher of an ingenue reassuring us (and him) about all the hero's finest qualities, including some that have not been apparent. There's a wide sentimental streak in both filmmakers, one tied to self-regard. These are controlling men (there's a reason why Jerry's book is called THE TOTAL FILM-MAKER), old-school auteurs, writer-director-producers (Gallo even wrote the music for BUFFALO '66, a la Jerry's hero Chaplin - Jerry came up with the thematic melody for the first movie he directed, THE BELLBOY - aagh! somebody stop me) who intriguingly marshal great piles of money and armies of people in the service of an image of themselves as powerless little boys. Like Lewis's characters - most explicitly in CRACKING UP - Gallo's is a suicidal clown, and (here comes a big spoiler about the endings of two movies) just like THE PATSY, BUFFALO '66 gives its hero the great satisfaction of dying before being magically (cinematically) restored (see also). Also, they both wear red shoes. Goodbye.

She First Laid Eyes on Jeffrey When He Burst Out of a Pie

It has been a busy few days! Many revelations. Just for example, we learned that Bill Griffith watches THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW every week. He said of the midwest, from which he hails, "Polka was our blues," and we all laughed, but then he kept expanding his argument until we were all nodding thoughtfully. "We" included Laraine Newman and Ace Atkins and Megan Abbott. Bill was doing his usual amazing job of showing us around Rowan Oak. He got out Jill Faulkner's rarely-seen scrapbook in which she pasted pictures of her favorite stars, snipped from movie magazines. (Jill was Faulkner's daughter, of course.) There were quite a few photos of Lucille Ball from her pre-comedy pin-up days - a coincidence, as Laraine and I had just been talking about her (and would continue to do so during our panel the next night). In one of them, Lucy was "showing her bloomers," as Laraine put it. I guess it felt strange to stand in a girl's bedroom and nose through her private scrapbook, even though (or especially because?) she grew old and passed away years ago. Another revelation: Laraine once auditioned for Bob Hope! She said it was nightmarish and mortifying. She did her "Valley Girl" character for him, back when no one - especially Bob Hope - knew what a "valley girl" was. He stared at her with a look on his face that said they did not belong in the same room, the same building, the same universe. If I paraphrase, it is only slightly. What else? The revelations are only beginning. I read things in REPROBATES: THE CAVALIERS OF THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR about which I neglected to inform you. I did make it to twitter - a poor substitute! - to quote Robert Herrick, who was quoted in the book: "Get up, sweet Slug-a-bed, and see/ The Dew-besprangling Herbe and Tree." When I got to "besprangling" I had to put down the book for the night, I really did, because nothing was going to top it. Besprangling! At the end of the chapter we found out how Queen Henrietta met her favorite dwarf: "She first laid eyes on Jeffrey Hudson at a banquet held in her honour by the duke, when he burst out of a pie and greeted her." What else? Megan and Bill had a good talk because - unbeknownst to one another - they had both been watching Lawrence Welk's Halloween special at the same time. Dr. Theresa and I missed it because we were watching HOUSE OF THE SEVEN CORPSES as part of our Halloween film festival. (Megan took the above photo of her TV screen during the Lawrence Welk Halloween special and tweeted it at me while I was watching HOUSE OF THE SEVEN CORPSES.) HOUSE OF THE SEVEN CORPSES does not linger in the memory. But I did write down three things on the back of an envelope to tell you about it: 1) John Ireland wears an ill-fitting lavender turtleneck. 2) It is one of those movies in which a cat appears at the beginning, and you think "Oh no! Something awful is going to happen to that cat!" And it does. 3) HOUSE OF THE SEVEN CORPSES concludes with a touching expression of gratitude to the Utah Historical Society! I wonder how the Utah Historical Society felt about that. I knew that Bill Griffith was a big horror fan, but I did not know that Megan Abbott and Laraine Newman were just as avid. So Bill and Megan bonded over pioneering camera techniques in BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974). At dinner last night Dr. Theresa and Laraine enthusiastically discussed THE STUFF (in which Laraine's friend Garrett Morris appeared) and other works of Larry Cohen. Megan and Laraine rhapsodized about THE BROOD and DEAD RINGERS, both by Cronenberg. Laraine brought up Kolchak: The Night Stalker. By coincidence, Dr. Theresa and I had just watched THE NIGHT STRANGLER, a TV movie starring that character, as part of our Halloween film festival. Hmm, what else? While Dr. Theresa and I were on the way to the airport to pick up Laraine, a song by Jim Ed Brown came on the radio, containing this rhetorical question: "Did you ever hear of a clown with teardrops streaming down his face?" To which I responded, "Yes! All the time." Yet somehow Jim Ed Brown seemed to think we'd be surprised.

Hey

Hey, Tony Soprano self-identifies as "a sad clown" in the first episode of THE SOPRANOS and talks about Jerry Lewis in the second episode of THE SOPRANOS. I'm just keeping you posted.

Deciduous

"Do you exist?" Ace Atkins asked McNeil to his face the other night, settling a question - we hope! - that has persistently plagued the "blog." McNeil affirmed that he does indeed exist. Barry B., who was also in town for my birthday, reported that, back in Atlanta, Phil recently remarked again upon his disbelief in McNeil - RECENTLY! - which seems incredible, given that Phil once sent McNeil something in the mail. Did he think he was mailing something to a ghost? Oh, how we stubbornly ignore the evidence in front of our eyes. While he was in town McNeil inspected the cashew tree he mailed me for my birthday, speaking of mail. I have to say, it's looking kind of sickly. I think often of the song "Grandfather's Clock," which is about some old dude who dies when his clock stops ticking (or his clock stops ticking when he dies) and I worry about keeping the birthday cashew tree alive on similar principles of sympathetic magic. But I draw some consolation from SIBLEY'S GUIDE TO TREES, which I've been coveting at Square Books, and which my sister and brother-in-law kindly got me for my birthday (yes, they were also in town! As you will see, everyone was in town. It was really nice! And though I kept saying NO PRESENTS, people gave me stuff, perhaps most startlingly Bill Griffith, who strode across Snackbar with a machete [for me]. "Like ADVENTURE TIME, get it?" he said). For example, I read about deciduous trees in the introduction, and took some comfort from looking at the sickly tree and thinking, "Oh! It's deciduous, that's all. Yes, that's what a deciduous tree must look like." Sometimes we can deceive ourselves with our fancy book-learning, maybe! As far as I can tell, this kind of straight-up cashew tree doesn't generally grow in the United States, though trees in "the cashew family" (including various pistachios) do. "Many species in the family exude a blackish resin from broken twigs and develop blackish spots on the leaves." Check! "Many species in the cashew family... have toxic oils in their leaves and stems." Gosh! Poison ivy and poison oak are related to the cashew. Gee! Yesterday I was thankfully able to point out to McNeil a few new, tender shoots on the cashew tree, nestled among the blackening and withering leaves. But we're not here to talk about trees! I'm sure the main thing you'd like to know is whether we had another "McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival" while McNeil was here. We did not. And yet a peculiar mini-film-festival did occur. Dr. Theresa and Leslie (who was also in town: see?) were idly flipping around the movie channels for something to watch when they came across THREE FUGITIVES, that Martin Short/Nick Nolte team-up that everyone was probably waiting for once upon a time. Some quality of the film - Dr. Theresa and Leslie referred to it as "flatness" - they found compelling and numbing. I came in after they had already succumbed to the flatfooted vibe it exerted. McNeil came in to find all three of us staring dumbly at THREE FUGITIVES. Martin Short is an an unwilling bank robber who needs money for his moppet of a daughter who has LOST THE ABILITY TO SPEAK. "Charlie Chaplin has a lot to answer for," I said at one point. (I think it was a long shot of the Little Girl Who Couldn't Talk alone at the very end of a park bench, her hands folded in her lap, and Martin Short was really pushing the wet-eyed, gulping sad clown thing, to use Bruce Handy's definition of the term, which is looser than mine.) Late in the film Dr. Theresa and Leslie came out of the coma-like trances into which THREE FUGITIVES had lulled them for a segment in which Martin Short is forced to pretend to be a pregnant woman, Nick Nolte "her" concerned husband and the little girl is transformed into the "couple's" little boy. The academic portions of their brains kicked into overdrive at the sight of the gruff loner Nolte learning to be a "true man" by performing the role of the "man." Perhaps he, without changing his physical appearance, was in the most elaborate "drag" of all! The next day (or was it the day after?) in the post-celebration haze, a groggy Dr. Theresa and Leslie felt they "needed" another movie exhibiting the same "flatness" as THREE FUGITIVES, and charged me with finding one that was just beginning on one of the movie channels, which is how we came by chance to FEDS, a buddy comedy starring Rebecca De Mornay and Mary Gross (pictured) as would-be FBI agents. Once again I was moved to say, "Charlie Chaplin has a lot to answer for," but I can't remember why. Besides, the real phantoms hanging over both THREE FUGITIVES and FEDS were Martin and Lewis, of course. Martin Short (who often impersonates Lewis) and Mary Gross are the child-like ids (Mary Gross in a gun shop sticks a pistol in the front of her pants and does a strange, wiggling Jerry-like dance) while De Mornay and Nolte are the loners, the smooth operators, who learn to allow themselves to become dependent on their "weaker" counterparts. (And, as McNeil pointed out during the cross-dressing sequence of THREE FUGITIVES, Jerry often took the "female" role, appearing, for example, in remakes of THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR and NOTHING SACRED in the parts originally played by Ginger Rogers and Carole Lombard.) Ha ha ha, I know nobody is reading this! McNeil (who came over in time to catch almost all of FEDS) wondered whether there was a sequel, a FEDS 2, and though it seemed obvious that no one had scrambled for a follow-up buddy comedy from Mary Gross and Rebecca De Mornay, McNeil checked his iPhone, just to make sure. And of course there was no FEDS 2. Yet a sequence that played over the final credits seemed to promise just that. The ridiculous optimism we need in order to continue living! Leslie argued with force and clarity that both THREE FUGITIVES and FEDS were about the fact that we become the roles we perform. Then some great monster in the scheduling department saw to it that CONTINENTAL DIVIDE came on right after FEDS. What a double feature! As no one felt capable of movement, we sat through CONTINENTAL DIVIDE - marking the second time I have seen it in four months, a preposterous circumstance I never would have believed had some Cassandra informed me of it in advance. Yet Leslie, who had never seen it, championed CONTINENTAL DIVIDE for a long spell, repeating "I don't see why this movie is 'bad,'" at a number of points. Well into the second act she spoke of its charms convincingly, citing, for instance, the cinematography that made everything in Chicago look like "old Polaroids," and exclaiming when Blair Brown busted up the shotguns of some eagle poachers against a rock that it was just the kind of thing she (Leslie) always fantasized about doing. But soon, beaten down by the movie's numerous willful missteps, she gave up, finally concluding that CONTINENTAL DIVIDE seemed like a movie that was stitched together entirely of scenes that had been edited out of some other movie. McNeil pointed out that it aspired to the condition of the "screwball comedy," yet lacked that genre's essential ingredient: unnatural speed. The director, he thought, could have improved the movie a lot simply by getting everyone to talk faster. Thwarted by a misguided allegiance to so-called "realism"! Hey, I don't want you to think we only watched movies. Leslie also went through an old community cookbook reading recipe titles and we'd make up songs about them - or, more accurately, imagine who might have recorded a song with such a name, like "Impossible Cheeseburger Pie" (Bob Dylan) and "Baptist Pound Cake" (Leonard Cohen; "Baptist Pound Cake" being a sexy, taboo metaphor - some woman takes pity on Leonard Cohen and feeds him "Baptist Pound Cake" in "the alley behind the church.") In summation: 1) Sometimes we can deceive ourselves with our fancy book-learning. 2) We stubbornly ignore the evidence in front of us. 3) We become the roles we perform. 4) Ridiculous optimism is required for the merest survival. These seem like terrible birthday lessons! So why was everything so much fun?