Vinyl Destination: Eddie & The Cruisers

In the winter of 1983 my parents were going out for the night, so on the way home from work, my Dad brought home a pizza and Coke for me.  He also rented a VHS tape of "Eddie & The Cruisers" to keep me entertained.  Killer gesture from Pops, that's for sure.

Eddie & The Cruisers is a pedestrian movie in retrospect despite its cast of up-and-comers, namely Joe Pantoliano, Ellen Barkin, and Tom Berenger.  However, this particular 12 year old was excited as a slick teaser trailer from about a year prior had my interest piqued.  The story as it was sold in the trailer seemed compelling.  It felt as though it had that urban legend air of possibility, possessed decent direction and cinematography, and it featured one hell of a killer soundtrack.

The movie also references legendary French poet Arthur Rimbaud and his stellar work.  In the story, Eddie Wilson, charismatic lead singer of the titular rock and roll outfit Eddie & The Cruisers, is obsessed with Rimbaud's work to the point of naming his upcoming final album after a collection of Rimbaud's poetry, "A Season in Hell".  He even pulls off a mirror-image of Rimbaud's real-life disappearing act.

I won't lie.  As a kid, I was a huge fan of the soundtrack, became an avid fan of the actor who played Wilson, Michael Pare (who has long since derailed into a career of low-budgetry after a fierce start that also included The Philadelphia Experiment and the remarkable Streets of Fire) and later in life, the works of Arthur Rimbaud.

A handful of years back I was doing some sniffing around into Rimbaud's history and it was the first time I actually saw a photo of the poet.  Here he is, next to Pare.

Though Rimbaud's work is mentioned in the film, nowhere does the photo come up, so imagine my surprise at the fact that (at least in this photo) Michael Pare is a doppelganger for the long-dead Rimbaud.  Look up the actor anywhere online from when he was a youth and the resemblance is really quite amazing. 

So, the question is. What came first, the chicken or the egg? 

Eddie & The Cruisers is based on a book by PF Kluge, and in the novel, Wilson's muse is apparently Walt Whitman.  It has been mused upon that due to the Eddie Wilson character's dying in the mid 60's, a real-life popular music influence couldn't work.  Director Martin Davidson wanted to have Wilson's hero be someone kindred in spirit to the late Jim Morrison instead of Whitman.  Enter Arthur Rimbaud.  (reference here)

Where in the process of the script's development was it decided to go with Rimbaud?  Was Pare cast because he looks like Rimbaud?  If so, why isn't this eerie connection utilized to what could have been incredible effect?  Because the ball was dropped in a major way if the writers were indeed aware of the incredible resemblance...

As it stands, it would indeed be one (Season in) hell of a coincidence.

Bound to the Past: Salem's Lot

Original Post: 3/5/18

November 17, 1979 may have been the most frightened I have ever been by the filmed medium.   My beloved mom and I were in the living room alone, 38 years has muddled the fact of whether or not anyone else was in the house.  Chances are, gauging our binary fear, the answer was no.  My father was in the hospital for a few nights receiving cancer treatment.  At this point in the game, I was unaware of that knowledge, and would be for a couple more months.

That night was CBS' premiere airing of the mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's novel, "Salem's Lot".  The film is quite legendary and notorious for being among the most frightening of the made-for-TV medium at the very tail end of a decade famous for it.  The 70's small screen gave us "The Night Stalker", "Trilogy of Terror" "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark", and "Bad Ronald", after all.

A little history:  Before we had moved to this house, I had vivid memories of a particularly creepy paperback book I saw resting on top of my sister Linda's stack of textbooks at the breakfast table.  For those of you younger than 30, please reference here:   Textbook.    I had been monumentally creeped out by the Salem's Lot cover.  It wasn't just the simultaneously innocent and malicious facial expression, but that damned drop of blood that answered the question of which one of those two adjectives should be used to describe the gargoyle-like vampire's face on the paperback's front.  (See the title heading of this post for a representation)

I had no idea when it started what we were up against, and the film's director Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre infamy) let us know none too quickly.  By the opening credits, I was pinned up against the footrest of my Mom's orange recliner as she crocheted nervously.  The scene where Geoffrey Lewis and a partner drop off the crate in the Marsten House basement never left my mind.  Nothing particularly evil happens through the bulk of the scene, and it seems to go on forever, but I'm still creeped out by it as much as the much more notorious scenes in the film. 

Then the Glick bastard disappears, starts hanging outside of windows of friends and family in a terribly unnatural way, and by night two, BARLOW makes his presence known in another poor kid's kitchen. At that point, my Mom and I, both holding on to our heroic dog Ginger, were glued to this story and to the floor/recliner.  Smart?  Nope.  This was terrifying... but we both loved a good story.  A trait all of us kids inherited from Mom.   The subject of both the book and the movie come up in family discussions to this day.  I for one, won't forget my Mom and I's monumental battle against Stephen King's goddamned imagination.

I just watched Salem's Lot during the Halloween Season last fall and it holds up remarkably well despite some dated clothing and hairstyles.  David Soul plays a great tortured soul (Do you believe a thing can be inherently evil?), a young Bonnie Bedelia as his paramour, and Lance Kerwin, who was a TV star at the time on a show called "James at 15", whose star was soon to fade, rounded out the cast.   Bedelia was amazing on the recent dramedy, Parenthood that just finished its run on NBC.  It appears her career actually outlasted the others, who were much bigger stars at the time.

The Lot means a lot (pun intended) to me.  The affore-mentioned Linda left a yellow copy of "The Shining" laying around that I read over the course of a couple of weeks in late 1982.  I really loved this Stephen King guy!  Even at 11 years old.  My Mom, very excited by how I had taken to reading, bagged up a bunch of her old paperbacks and drove me down to a now-legendary store in Kenosha, WI. called The Paperback Exchange.   Not as much a bookstore as a trade-in library, the place's selection was incredible.  I traded in those donated novels of my Mom's into a stack of Stephen King's work.  The Dead Zone, The Stand, Night Shift, Firestarter, and of course, Salem's Lot, among others.  The book still packed a mean punch when I finally read it in the summer of 1983. 

Linda sparked the fire, my Ma stoked it, and I couldn't have been happier.  Talk about support and encouragement! That's how it's done. Of course, Stephen King is one of the most famous novelists of all time, and is experiencing a bit of a renaissance as we speak, but back then, when he was just starting to exercise his dominance, I was all in. 

And in a late fall evening of 1979, his work crossed media avenues to attack my unexpecting mother and myself, and I'll never forget it.   

And I'll always be grateful for it.

Looking for Laughs: Music

My step-dad (only using that term for the purpose of differentiation) was always one to support my interests; sports, card collection, my kids, ad infinitum.  At one point in middle school, to follow in his footsteps (and possibly avoid a bus-ride home) I stayed after school and joined the Washington Junior High Band to be a trumpet playing Wildcat.  (Dad wasn't a wildcat, but he did shred on a trumpet, infinitely better than I ever would.)  Such a badass.

Anyway, the afternoon Mom, Dad, and I went to the music store to rent my trumpet was special for more than one reason.   This was in the days (it makes me feel old to make this upcoming description, so should I throw in the word "Sonny" at the end of it?) where musical instrument and sheet music stores often had very sizeable vinyl record departments.   As did department stores like Sears, Montgomery Ward, et al.  My Dad was a bit of a social butterfly, so as he was chattering away with the person behind the counter that he probably knew (interesting fun fact: by 1984, my Dad knew approximately 77% of the adult population of Kenosha, WI.) I asked another person in the store if they had the new record by Weird Al Yankovic.

"Eat It" was a huge hit at the moment, and being a connoisseur of things that made fun of other things that I didn't particularly enjoy (like Michael Jackson's "Beat It") I was interested in picking up the album, should they have it.  To my true surprise, this mom-and-pop establishment indeed did carry a brand spankin' new copy of "In 3-D", the most recent full-length from Mr. Yankovic.   Dad was more than happy to pay the $6.99 for the new record and made my afternoon.

Listening to "In 3-D" was the beginning of my realization that often, the best of Weird Al's work were the "deep cuts" on his records.   The mainstream parodies were his bread and butter, but his originals were often more vital-sounding, and certainly funnier.  I found myself looking forward to these off-tracks, for lack of a better term, on subsequent albums, as well as his consistently hilarious Polka medleys and "style parodies".  I have been, for over 30 years, a fan of his and will continue to be.  His work will never grow old, as he changes with the culture.  Al, a comedy chameleon of the highest order, was a gift given to me by the "Dr. Demento" radio show that I listened to every Sunday night after "The Young Ones" was over with on MTV.  The Doc gets his own post in this series, so I'm moving on here.

So Dad knew about musical parody, and put in an order at the record store that same day for a collection of the best of  Spike Jones and his City Slickers.  Jones' music was in vogue in the 40's and 50's.  Not so much parody material, and if it were, I wouldn't have been too familiar with the original. The bands tunes consisted of zany slapstick takes of classical pieces, and relevant-to-its time comedy.  A personal favorite of mine was "Der Fuhrer's Face" a direct comedic kick-in-the-nuts to Adolf Hitler. 

Most kids would have frowned on this "old fogey comedy" because Spike Jones was a good 35 to 40 years ahead of my era.  This was 1984, after all.  "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and "The Safety Dance" shared air time with Cyndi Lauper and Billy Joel.  The gap was wide and would have been difficult to traverse for most kids.  Not me.

Listening with my Dad and watching his massive grin grow as we heard the goofy horse race play-by-play on the "William Tell Overture", or the ridiculous vocal machinations on "Chloe" and "Hawaiian War Chant" are some of my favorite quiet moments.  I miss that breathy quiet laugh-turned-chuckle of his. (It was quiet, like he was trying not to laugh).  You saw it, more than you heard it, but you sure as hell felt it, and it was contagious.


My Dad shared other classic comedy with me beyond just Spike Jones.  It's just one of the many ways that he shaped me, and I'm very grateful.