VINYL DESTINATION: INNER SLEEVE

I discovered Inner Sleeve Records in 1987.  Just a couple of blocks away from the Wausau Center Mall, I preferred it to that latter establishment's Camelot Records and its candy-colored and neon environment with terrible in-store sound choices. 

Inner Sleeve was dark.  It was almost all vinyl.  The owner stood behind the counter and kept watch.  He didn't have a lot to say, but when he did, it made sense.  Despite the fact that Inner Sleeve carried everything, the store and its employees were dedicated to the off-the-beaten path musical choices.  They were alternative before alternative was a buzzword.  Their year end best of lists always contained bands like the Lime Spiders and Aztec Camera. You know, those 120 Minutes stalwarts. Bands whose waters I hadn't dipped my toes into at that point.  The Butthole Surfers' Hairway to Steven and Die Kreuzen's Century Days posters adorned the walls I walked past as I contemplated Fear's The Record on more than one day.  

I am quite sure I got some side eye for my purchase on the same payday of Iggy Pop's Pair records compilation of New Value, Soldier, & Party, along with Blackfoot's Strikes.  I've always been eclectic.

What Inner Sleeve had was the selection.  Holy Christ, looking back on it, I can't believe how much they had.  Despite Sleeve's anti-establishment environs, all genres were available, including best sellers. Guns n Roses, Poison, and Tracy Chapman adorned the same walls as The Pixies and Jane's Addiction.   It also had a pretty solid selection of used vinyl in the back right hand corner of the shop (Violent Femmes debut thanks, much)  Back catalog titles were in abundance so you were very rarely disappointed, or had to walk out empty handed if you went in there with a title in mind. 

The purchases I made there were in multitudes .  Music from all over the sound palette.  I still have my Replacements Tim that I bought there.  The same goes for Kenosha metalheads Screamer and their still coveted and cult classic debut, Target: Earth.  When Central Wisconsin hype machine Airkraft had their cover of Tommie James Midnight Confessions playing on midwest radio, I picked up the LP there.  I still have the receipt from that one.  I had to wait a few weeks for the out-of-print Let it Be from The Replacements, but I was able to get that one from Inner Sleeve. There were countless others.

I just hit the Sleeve last summer and acquired Bauhaus' compilation LP for Frani and the Deep Purple Burn CD I had been looking for, and damn, if he isn't hand- writing receipts the same damn way.  The prices remain lower than the average bear, and set so that including tax they come out to a round number.  It was that way in 1987, and remained in 2025.  

I don't think the owner remembered me last summer.  The shop's original location had apparently had a fire, and it has since moved closer to where the mall used to be, and is significantly smaller.  Stocked to the gills still, but nowhere near the room to move.  But the vibe is still there.  I talked to him briefly and mentioned that I still had receipts.  He wasn't shocked, and said that it happened all the time and folks drop by to show them to him. 

On the way out, he got my attention and said, "Hey. Since we have history, take one of these!" and handed me a poster celebrating the store's 50th anniversary coming up soon.   No surprise, the poster is a hell of a piece of art while still holding its reason for existence out to be admired. I may get a frame for it and find a place to hang it in the near future. 

It ain't quite what it used to be, (neither am I) but the Sleeve is still rocking, and Wausau's maven of music is still there piloting the plane.

And to quote Sam Elliot in The Big Lebowski, "I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that."

VINYL DESTINATION: DISNEY'S COUNTRY BEAR JAMBOREE

 I've had an upswell of core memories of late.   The 70's were rich in them, but sometimes I surprise even myself with what I have the ability to dredge up.  

We had one of those console hi-fi units in our living room back in the day.  Those things are an affordable collectible among retro technology enthusiasts even to this day.  You know the ones.  They doubled as a piece of furniture. Lengthy wood (or faux wood) units with a flat solid top. There was a lid you could pull up giving you access to a radio band and a turntable, and in the case of many, an 8-track tape player. 

These things are the best.  I just love 'em. 

The one we had in Somers, WI was pretty cool, and fairly loud.  My Ma used to listen to her Patsy Cline and Engelbert Humperdinck records on it.  It also blasted out the Old Man's Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash LPs.  Elvis Presley's Viva Las Vegas Via Satellite Live!.  Jim Nabors and Bing Crosby could be heard around the holidays.  One time, my sister Randee was trying to display the amazingness that was Queen's News of the World, but I was so terrified by that album cover that I couldn't process the genius. 

But, there was one record that ruled over all. Like the one ring.  The Precious.   It seems before I was born my parents had made a Florida trek and visited Busch Gardens and the legendary Disneyland while they were there.  On that little pilgrimage they picked up a vinyl copy of the tunes from the Disney Country Bears Jamboree stage show.  A collection of country western-based tunes performed by various famous Disney bears, it was truly entertaining.  This was when Disney was post-Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and pre-Beauty and the Beast/Pixar, so they were throwing Spaghetti at the wall, methinks. 

As a youthful little music enthusiast, I loved that record.  One track still sticks out to this day, and that was Blood on the Saddle, a Tex Ritter original performed by my favorite bear Big Al.  The whole thing can be enjoyed in the video below.  Just scrolling through the images in the clip brought back vivid memories of the photographs in the booklet contained within the album's gatefold.  The scroll also provided the nostalgia breeze I've become accustomed to while digging up those things that were once so familiar, but are now relegated to the back of the cerebrum while still surviving in my heart.

LOOKING FOR LAUGHS: ORATORY RELAXATION

 I've written on here before about how stand-up comedy was a big part of my life in my youth.   It didn't just make me laugh though, it crawled inside my thought processes and often could bring me to a near state of relaxed meditation.  These folks weren't just funny as hell, but the way they could string words together was an art form. 

Some better than others, but nonetheless. 

During my Middle School years and into my senior year in High School, I was picking through the cut-out bins at Camelot Records at the Richland Mall in Waco, TX and the Wausau Center Mall in North Central Wisconsin for stand up albums.  I had accumulated the likes of Bill Cosby, Steven Wright, Howie Mandel, George Carlin, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin.  

Sometimes after my parents had gone to bed, I would grab my Panasonic Slim Line tape recorder and sit in front of the TV's speaker and record shit like Robert Townsend's Partners in Crime,  Joe Piscopo's Halloween Party, and any one of the Rodney Dangerfield's comedy specials that gave up-and-coming comedians a big audience before they broke.  These were my introductions to Sam Kinison, Robert Schimmel, Rita Rudner,  Andrew "Dice" Clay, Carol Liefer, Louie Anderson, and Bill Motherfuckin' Hicks. 

While living in Waco, I started the practice of lying down at bed time, in the dark, with the headphones of the Sanyo MGR60 pocket cassette deck my Dad had bought me as a gift firmly on my head.  The old man left the thing lying on my pillow to come home to after school one afternoon.  He had no idea what that little expenditure meant to me.  Particularly while living in Waco, with an even more accentuated amount of that solo self-introspection time. 

 I didn't even ask for the player.  He had just seen me fiddling around with that old standard Slim Line tape recorder my Mom bought me in 7th grade, with some cheap headphones in an attempt to listen to music privately.  It didn't work that great and he picked up on my failed attempts.  

But I digress.

I'd lay there, crawling towards sleep, with Bill Cosby's (or as W. Kamau Bell refers to him, "The artist formerly known as Bill Cosby" for obvious horrible reasons) To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With.   This album was an extended routine about two brothers lying next to each other in their apartment bedroom, whispering in argumentative fashion while fearing their old man coming in to beat their ass for failing to go to sleep.  

Now anyone who has a sibling or has had friends or cousins, et al, sleep over knows what this is like.  And the bit had a soothing sentiment to it.  

 

 I also lay there on other nights listening to Carlin.  Either Playin' With Your Head (the audio release of the HBO stand up special which I had recorded and repeatedly viewed) or Toledo Window Box.  Playin', particularly, was a tour de force of the man's domination of the English language.  His routines were so honed, so tight, there was nary a stumble of the tongue, much less an "uh.." to be found.  But the shit was so hilarious that you didn't realize you were in the presence of one of the world's all time greatest public speakers.  And that voice, that low, deep, yet slightly raspy tone could relax me even when talking about the funniest observations in existence.  It was only upon repeated listens that you realized that his speech was laser focused and error-free.

George could get me to shut it all down, focus on his genius, and fall asleep in a time where it was difficult.

 

 Billy Crystal's Marvelous! is another example of a comedy album that I could relax to.  Whether he was talking about libido in his youth, his flatulent grandfather, actors Yul Brynner or Edward G. Robinson, or doing impressions of his favorite boxers, an aged jazz musician, or his own character, Fernando, I loved it all.  The broad spectrum of places where humor could come from in his imagination was awe-inspiring and often touching.  There was a ton of fucking heart on this record, and it also made me unwind, and I recommend this semi-forgotten audio take of a video-recorded special as well.

Looking for Laughs, I guess in some cases, found me peace.

THOSE QUIET MOMENTS: ASPARAGUS HUNTING

Photo by Art Rachen on Unsplash

Late Spring, Somers, Wisconsin revisited. 

This goes back something like 50 years. 

Dad and I went asparagus hunting.  Yes, it is what it sounds like.  

We'd drive out to a rural train track area, tall conifers on either side, slight slopes rising from the tall grass to the tracks on the East and West sides of the iron thoroughfares.  

The asparagus grew close to the metal.  Dad and I walked along, Bob's frame leaning down with his pocket knife in his right hand grasping the stalk with his left.   He'd push the blade through the thick gree veggie with his thumb until it sliced the stalk, and then drop it into a paper bag.  I'd run along beside him, my hero, grabbing the tracks to feel for vibrations, (I feared the train much more than the old man did, after all he made his living loading cars on them for American Motors) and collecting shotgun shells that he allowed me to pocket.

I often found the glass electrical insulators from power lines laying around too.  With his cockeyed grin and a mop tousle with his free hand, he allowed me to keep those too. 

I can't stand the stuff now, but I loved asparagus back then.  We'd drive back home where mom would substitute it for the chipped beef in the gravy for the Wisconsin staple, "Shit on a shingle".  Or creamed substance on toast. 

God, I loved that stuff.   And I miss and love my Dad. 

This is what core memories are all about, brothers and sisters. 

CLICK HERE FOR COOL WISCONSIN ASPARAGUS INFO

THE WILLS WILDLIFE SANCTUARY: MY UPCOMING TONY SOPRANO MOMENT

Frani and I's favorite Sopranos moment is an early one.  When the ducks leave Tony's pool, and he begins to have debilitating panic attacks.  The way James Gandolfini performs a character so vicious and yet deserving of a smidgen of sympathy is a gift the man had that many don't.  God rest him. 

A couple of weeks ago as Frani and I were going through the nightly constitutional of taking the dogs out, something stunned us both.  For a couple of consecutive nights, we surprised a mourning dove, who could be heard chirping and fluttering up against the ceiling of the patio in a panic of sorts. I felt guilty both times, but was wondering what in the hell he/she was doing there well after dark. 

The answer came days later.  While I was at work, Frani sent me a text that made me smile.  In the upside-down guard of a weed-whacker resting against the wall of the patio, right outside Cameron's window, was a nesting mourning dove.  A few days later, another text came, this time Frani updating me that babies (or squabs) were peeking out from under the adult dove.  They weren't just building the nest, they were brooding. 

Bursts of research showed that the doves pick spots like this intentionally.  The ceiling of the patio provides excellent cover from assholes like Blue Jays. It's wonderful in its ability to provide shelter from inclement weather, which Texas occasionally has in the spring.  And human activity keeps away multiple types of predators. 

We learned a few other things.  How often they feed.  How long the parents will stay, leave, and return.  How quickly they will grow.  We've become invested in these little guys, and hope that they do well. The parents have left them overnight twice as of this point, still returning to feed them.  When we go out with the canines we can hear their alternating calls, which are probably alerts for the young, since they are almost the size of their parents at this point. 

Sadly, they will be leaving soon.  We've seen one jump to a neighboring shelf only to return when the parent came back.   It won't be long before they legitimately leave, and according to what I've read, it's a one-way trip, in which the male takes over for a couple weeks teaching his kiddos to forage, seek shelter, and fly. 

I just hope I don't turn into Tony Soprano when they do depart without return and have an aviary psychotic break. 

Here's a video that I made in honor of this wonderful little injection of hardwired yet feathered and gorgeous nature into our lives. 

ADDENDUM:    As of four days prior to this writing, January 3rd, the twins as we call them, have flown the coop.  It's made me sad in a sense, especially right away, but hold on a minute.  Every day, they've returned in some form or fashion.  A couple times landing in the yard pecking around.   Two other times, I awoke, and upon walking out to scout the yard before taking the dogs out, they greeted me from behind the mimosa tree.  They don't seem rattled at all when seeing Frani or I.  They're tentative, for certain, but far from skittish. 

I've seen the parents separate them, still feeding them, fly off with them, only to return with them later.  The father, stopping to drink from the shallow water dish I left out, jumps over to the babies to give them water.  He joins his partner hanging out from the chimney, Mama from the garage corner, to oversee the babies as they play, hop, and peck around in our yard.  I hope, for them, the back yard feels like home.  Because the parents' recurring appearances after the twins fledged, and watching the babies grow has made Frani and I love having them around. 

I've read that mourning doves can become accustomed and less fearful of friendly voices.  We've always spoken to the birds as sweetly and kindly as possible, long before we became aware of that fact.  

All of this seems to have brought us a little flutter of love that, at least for a while, brings some joy to parts of our days. 

ADDENDUM II:  Sunday, June 6 was the last day the doves were here.  It was very melancholic, almost bittersweet in how it all came about.  During mid-afternoon, I caught motion out of the corner of my eye that turned out to be one of the adult doves.  They swooped in to the back porch, where it all started, and even briefly lit upon the genesis of it all, the weed whacker's guard.  He/She then flew off into the sky.  

Shortly after, I did what Frani and I had been doing all week, grabbing the binoculars in order to survey the back yard looking for "the twins".  The Twins had been in an out of the yard all week, pecking, playing, being fed by their folks, leaving and returning.  Eventually just before dusk, the parents would show up. and the family would venture off together for the day. 

I didn't need binoculars this time.  By dinner, I looked out the back door to see one of the young doves sitting in the rock bed next to the sidewalk.  Exactly the same spot that one of the babies landed when they first fledged.  That first day, the fledgling hung out in that spot for a few hours before disappearing into the dark at sunset.  Fran and I were so worried about those two at that point.  The other fledged to the top of a propane tank just to the left of the nest, joining their twin at dusk. 

Fears were allayed.  They both returned the next day and for the week.  Until Sunday, that is.  

The baby continued to hang out in that rock bed for a couple of hours.  Being a worrywart, I approached him, softly asking if he was alright.  The young dove looked up at me and proceeded to just venture down the sidewalk and into the yard, under what Frani calls "the bee house", a wooden contraption meant to attract honeybees.  It remained there until just before dark.  At that point, the young dove flitted up to the fence, remaining there for about 15 minutes as the sun dipped.  

Then he was gone. 

Part of me thinks, naively or not, that it was a goodbye visit.  The parent checking in on the nest one last time.  The youngster returning to where he/she first set themselves after fledging.  One last spell under the bee house by the mimosa, where the twins spent the vast majority of their first week out of the nest. 

And then giving the yard one last going over from the fence before departing.  Leaving to join, as the reading showed, a flock of other younglings to begin their adventures.  

Be well, young doves, We have nothing but love in our hearts for you. Thank you for giving us a window into the wonder that is Mother Nature, and the beauty of the circle of life.  It is not lost on me that in this era of strife that we are consistently dipped in every time the news is turned on, that the opposite showed up on the patio.  With all of the harsh and ugly intrusiveness that our current culture is practicing, it was a joy to see such splendor flutter outside the window.  

In the form of the dove.  The symbol of peace.  

MOVIES I STAYED UP LATE FOR: THE SAVAGE FIVE

My first exposure to The Savage Five was during a late 1981 WGN TV theme week of martial arts films. I believe The Seven Deadly Venoms and The 36 Chambers of Shaolin were also included in this batch. As I recall, the Friday night flick of this particular week was the film I’m writing about right now. 

 In Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, the plot line was driven by the anticipation of oncoming bandits, the preparation of the fearful villagers and recruitment of help to defeat them.  In The Savage Five the bandits are already there and doing damage from nearly the get-go. 

The Bandits attack this pacifist enclave, abusing everyone, robbing the businesses, committing murder, and eliciting sacrifices that are heartbreaking and unspeakable.  One of them displayed in an absolutely wrenching scene that is completely unlike the typical kung-fu flick victim faire; it's emotional and raw.

I grew up watching martial arts films on "Blackbelt Theatre" and the like as a kid. The frequency bred familiarity.  In this particular film,  I was moved by the far more plot-driven feel than the contemporaries I’d encountered.  However, the awful dubbing makes it very difficult to gauge the quality of the performances.  
I really don’t believe a lead villain was saying shit like: “Hey let’s take a look at what’s going on outside!”,  Just as a villager is helping an abused rebel down from a tree the villains had hung him from.


The facial expressions and expressive emoting during the dialogue however are easy to buy. 
John Woo’s future number 2 and 3, Ti Lung, and Danny Lee, respectively, and Kung Fu legend David Chiang lead a great cast guided by the master Cheng Cheh.  Beautifully shot, and wonderfully choreographed, but still minimalist, The Savage Five is arguably among the most grounded of the Shaw Brothers output, as its realistic narrative takes steps their more aspirational flicks never had the guts to take.

Out of all the Kung Fu movies of the 70's that blew up in the wake of Bruce Lee's Asian martial arts film explosion, Five is not among the highly regarded.  But for me, outside of Lee's oeuvre, it may be the strongest.  My memories of that early 1980's Lichter Road living room screening, which prompted my own side-kicking and air-punching along with Ti, David and Danny, are still strong to this day.  I'm sure my chop-socky aura is still floating in the air of that Southern Wisconsin living room.

MY TEACHERS: A HARD ONE TO FIGURE

Seventh grade was hard.  I felt like I was wandering onto another planet.  The first few days memories still have a tug on the gut.  I can remember nausea rumbling while hearing Taco's Puttin' on the Ritz on the radio in the morning waiting to leave for the city bus.  

Not only would I know absolutely no one as I traversed from elementary school to Junior High because of a district switch, I had to ride to school with very few kids my age, but a lot of adult strangers.   Many who talked to themselves.  Many elderly.  

Many crying babies.

It was all so intimidating.  A nice windy additive to the cyclone my life had been since Dad got sick.  The teachers were also a series of anomalies.  Particularly Mr. Malone. 

Dude was hard to figure.  He taught Social Studies, and he did know his shit.  But he was odd.  He'd go into these internal monologues when angered by a student's chatter, outright rudeness, or lack of classy behavior.  Mr. Malone would stare you down.  He would develop an evil, guttural chuckle and bitterly sarcastic grin as he dressed you down.  He'd narrow his eyelids and begin muttering to himself about failed psychologies; "I'm okay, you're okay...."   Flat out irritated by the immaturity of his 12 and 13 year old Social Studies students.  Us Current Events aspriationals. 

One day, because there was a little too much effort behind a yawn,  that ire was directed at me.  I got that treatment I had seen so many times before.  I was embarrassed.  I was downtrodden, and didn't want to destroy my school year.  This other outside shit, the strangers, the buses, the inner city school student body, often gang members (sometimes stoned) that I wasn't used to being around. 

The mocking.  The bullying.  The instantaneous violence. 

All that shit was too much already.  I didn't want to condemn my academics.  

This end I could control. 

So I went to visit Mr. Malone after class to apologize for the yawn. We spoke for a little while, talked it out a little.  He made it seem like we were good.  Then he said something to me, without a true facial expression, without a smile.

"You seem different from the rest."

That felt weird.  But I felt like I had accomplished what I needed to do.  Later in the year, when end of the day "clubs and groups" were formed, I joined Mr. Malone's hiking club.  Basically we walked as a group down to Lake Michigan and back.  As summer's frothy head deflated down to fall, it transformed into The Chicago Cubs Club, which corresponded to the Cubbies 1984 run at the playoffs.  Somewhere the North Shore boys hadn't been in decades.  The Cubs were better than hiking, an activity that gave Tom Murphy the opportunity to turn around, and just before hawking a monster loogie at me, chortle out "Dance, Buddy".

Fuckin' nonce.

We gathered viewing materials, Mr. Malone rolled in a TV set and we watched the Cubbies run at it.  My Dad was a big newspaper reader, and every Saturday Morning during this exciting season I would run with a quarter to the row of newspaper machines in the covered walkway of the plaza across the alley from our house.  That quarter gave me a Chicago Sun-Times and a fresh full page color poster of one of the Wrigley Field Warriors starting players. 

Mr. Malone used my newsprint substrate mini-posters to help create a display in one of those glass encased hallway windows for our club. I was pretty proud to make such a major contribution to it. I didn't get along with the kids in the club at all, most of them were a clique of diques, but Malone?  Thanks to that Mr. Malone guy, despite how most of the 7th grade felt about him, despite how angry and strange he could be, Malone was all right.  He had valid reasons to feel the way he did, teaching was turning a corner into not just being difficult at this point.  

Mr. Malone was spittin' jewels at us. Pearls before swine. He knew his stuff, was well versed on 200 plus years of American History, from the Constitution to the Falkland Islands crisis blasting at us from Roger Mudd every night.  No one respected that nearly enough. 

 I could deal with the other kids thanks to all of that.  

I never did get my mini-posters back.  Never was able to hang Rick Sutcliffe, Bob Dernier, Gary "Sarge" Matthews, or Ryne Sandberg on my bedroom walls. 

But, as far as the Cub Club kids, I know that I was different from the rest of them.  Because Mr. Malone said so.

And I still am. 

HERE IS MR. MALONE'S OBITUARY.

ADDENDUM:  In the winter of 1984, Mr. Malone assigned us a brief essay on something out of the days news.  I picked the budding negative controversy surrounding the horror film, Silent Night, Deadly Night and its depiction of a murderous Santa Claus.  I even attached a newspaper theatre ad from the same day's paper to highlight my eloquent observations about the silliness of the whole thing. 

Mr. Malone, I have since learned, was a conservative.  I got an A anyway.  That's who he was. 

SALEM'S LOT UPDATE

 Well, the video goes into more detail, but finally a SPECIAL EDITION of Salem's Lot is released, and just a hair shy of 50 years after it aired.  Ridiculous. 

But here we go...

I'm a little more photogenic than Barlow, but I didn't feel like typing all that shit.

YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME

 I’ve gotten pissed off recently at the DVD and Blu-Ray industry.  Particularly the boutique industry, so to speak. And I’ll give you a couple examples of reasons why:

Number one:

Enemy Territory. This is a movie that has great sentimental value for me due to the fact that in 1987, I rented it from the Schofield, WI Super 29 grocery store's video section.  On a Saturday night I watched it with my mom. It was a low budget action picture that never even made the jump from VHS to DVD.  Hell, at the time I rented it, I'd never even heard of it. It may not have even seen a theatrical release. Finally Arrow, a company which I have been actually starting to think may surpass Scream Factory in quality and film selection, decides to release it this next year.  

But only in the fucking UK. That’s ridiculous. This is the most quintessentially American 80s film that I can even think of off the top of my head and it’s only being released in the UK?  It stars Ray Parker Jr. as a maintenance mechanic trapped along with Gary Frank in a gang-infested high rise project.  This unlikely duo must fight their way out.  My Ma and I enjoyed the hell out of this little CBS/Fox VHS release, and it has great sentimental value as Mom explained to me the cinematic history of Frank, and also Jan-Michael Vincent, another star of the film.  Tony Todd makes an early appearance here as a frighteningly intimidating leader of the film's gang, the Vampires.  So being released in the UK alone makes no sense to me.

Ditto is the case with Brian DePalma’s The Fury.  It did see a DVD release I once encountered at a Shopko in Southeast Wisconsin, and a limited release through Twilight Time's Blu-Ray label.  Both are bare bones however.  I only own the laser disc you see pictured up at the top.  I'm hoping the Arrow folks will eventually push it out over here, or someone else will license the title for American release. 

Example Number Two: 

Outland. Now this is a film. I’m gonna write further about it in a future Spectrum Files entry. In short, it’s an action sci-fi film that is essentially a retelling of High Noon starring Sean Connery, and taking place on one of the moons of Jupiter.  A stellar film directed by Peter Hyams that I won’t go into any more detail with because I selfishly want you to read the other piece. The great thing about it; however, Arrow is releasing a deluxe, special edition with tons of bonus features on it that go above and beyond what I would expect for this film. 

The negative: It’s only on 4K. 

Salem’s Lot time.  I’m sure that if you’ve read this blog, you’re probably tired of hearing about it. Here’s a link to further information on it from me so I don’t have to irritate you by repeating myself: LINK.  The film was released to TV in 1979 which was well over 40 years ago. Finally,  Arrow is coming out with a super deluxe special edition of the mini-series. The special edition I’ve been waiting for forever. 

The problem is: Once again only on 4K. 

Now I did a slight amount of research and found out that the reason that Arrow is doing this is because they and other boutique physical media companies think cinephiles and physical media collectors are in the game for 4K and have left Blu-Ray in the wind.  If it's true that this is their belief, it pisses me off. 

Because it is a bunch of shite.

I’m a collector, but I’ve done most of my film collecting by hunting for the cheapest possible pick up I can find by visiting clearance racks,  Entertainmarts,  Movie Trading Companies, and the cut out bins of Half-Price Books. By going on eBay and trying to hustle the lowest price out of whoever is selling the films. I'm not cheap.  I'm frugal and not wealthy.  I’m also not going to pay $500 for a top-of-the-line 4K player. I can’t afford it. And I’m not the only collector of physical media that feels that anger.  

I mean, Just sitting there and thinking that true fans of film and those that have a collection of hard copies should be 4K owners is really shortsighted. It’s not gonna kill these companies to put a Blu-ray of their 4K upgraded movie out there for those of us who don’t have the 4K player.

It’s kind of insulting, and a little bit elitist, to think that those who collect physical media are only into the high end reproduction, and the rest of us are a bunch of half-wit art and tech-retarded inbreds.  Mind you, these boutique companies do wonderful work: bringing quasi-lost films back from the scrap heap, video and audio remastering, newly filmed documentarian looks back,  archival material that they research and gather, and right on down to the packaging.  Why, they're fucking artists, really.  

Then why cut those nerds among us that can't do the 4k thing, completely out of the running to own these films that have returned from the format grave?  The nerds that buttered your bread as you boutique monsters grew your businesses??

You all can kiss my ass, if that's how you're gonna roll, and suck on a chili dog out behind the tasty freeze. .

.

Up at aunt Mae’s

As evidenced by this post here: Those Quiet Moments, I spent some time in Beaver Dam with my dads family. My parents didn’t always bring me up there alone, often going  up there  with siblings. 

I can recall seeing my brother Dan’s red glowing cigarette ember floating in the dark across my Grandma’s living room. I don’t know how well that ended for Dan but it’s one of my earliest memories. But that was at my grandmother‘s house. 

Aunt Mae’s was a different experience. In one of Mae’s spare rooms, My sister Pee Wee and I would sometimes play “The floor is lava” while using the cushions from the “radio bed” as I liked to call it, as flotation devices.  I slept in that room, and I can remember lying in the dark, the only light being from the radio dial and a backlit photograph of Mount Saint Helens that my father had bought for my aunt years before  (I actually still own that picture). The only sound was “Heartache Tonight ” from the radio’s hidden speakers. 

I once owned that piece of furniture too, and it is One of my regrets that I no longer do. 

Anyway, we used the cushions from the stiff  plaid sofa portions of that unit to keep from being consumed to our fiery deaths by the pretend magma beneath us.

I’d often run around in the basement to occupy my time. I was bored after all;  I remember seeing some Bob Hope humor magazines underneath the mattress lid of the footrest ottoman that had been in the basement. 

I didn’t get the jokes.  Especially the cartoon of a bride, asking from the seat next to her groom at a wedding reception for pickles and ice cream.

There was a mini sauna there as well.  It looked like a plastic medieval torture device.  The basement was also adorned by an unfinished bathroom. Unfinished in 1979, and it remained unfinished in the mid 2000s.

My aunt Mae was the owner of the first cable box I ever saw. It was in her living room that I first saw The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and The Beguiled. (a film which haunts me to this day).  I watched these films later than I should’ve, up on a Saturday evening, as my parents, my aunt Mae and uncle Roger played cards in the kitchen. I can still hear the clinking of glasses, the muffled laughter over whiskey sours and brandy old fashioneds, and the fog of cigarettes. The buzz and crackle from the television that was on a cart in that dining room area, where I first saw the static-hidden teaser trailer for Ridley Scott’s Alien.  

This was a place they entertained themselves so many times over the years. 

There was also a Ben Cooper Wolfman jiggler that I played with often when I was there. Back in 1979, which I think was the last time I was there as a child,  I remember hanging the Wolfman by the little string that was affixed to his back from a peg in the basement pole.  Back in the mid 2000s, when aunt Mae had me over for the first time in many years, I went down into that basement because my uncle Roger wanted to show me something. 

Standing in the glow coming through the basement windows, taken in by the dust floating through the air, wondering if the particles had been there when I was a kid,  I saw something else that definitely had been there in my youth. 

Hanging from the pole was the Wolfman. 

Now, a sibling’s history says that I had a nephew that apparently played with that Wolfman as well,  however he had the decency to always hang it back where I had left it some 20+ years before. I kind of got a chill down my spine when I saw it there. It was almost like that entire basement had been frozen in time. 

I guess in some ways,  it was. 

Technology and Shit

As you can see with this:  TECH, I have a fascination with old technology.  Especially if it is still working and being used successfully.  Now, if you read the link that I have there, you know that I'm obsessed with the media end of it, and maybe the computer end...

The more I think of it, the more it goes from being a mere interest, to being a question of our own humanity in a way. 

Right now Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, are still heading out toward the heliosphere.  They were both launched in 1977.  They're still fucking chugging along. They are powered by plutonium rods (I think), which means they must have small reactors inside them of a sort, hence 50 years of power.  But get this: the information they store is kept on digital 8 track tapes that continually overwrite as necessary.  

They're still sending information back, through radio waves.  The signal is weak because it is traveling across 15 billion miles of space.  That's right, 15 billion!!  So NASA set up antennas that are so strong that they can make sense of those incredibly weak radio transmissions.  Transmissions that take some 22 hours to reach their destinations. 

Here's where it really spins my skull.  In 2024 there was a breakdown with Voyager 1.  It was sending back garbage information.  So they fixed 47 year old technology from 15 billion miles away.  I can't make hide nor hair of what's going on with their McGuyvering, so check this shit out:  NASA

They basically rewrote the code somehow with whatever 1977 computer technology is on that thing using programming here on Earth from the now.  From 15 billion miles away.  

I can't comprehend how smart these people are... I'm lucky if I can tie my shoes. 

But look, man.  Human Americans can reprogram a 50 year old probe that's 15 billion miles from Earth, but we can't figure out how to make a refrigerator, washer/dryer or dishwasher give us 15 solid years without a problem?

These hunks of space program metal are headed toward interstellar space in absolutely frigid temperatures using technology of power, propulsion, computer memory, signal broadcast, instrumentation, heating and who knows what else that were top of the line during the Summer of Sam.  When Ron Guidry was pitching for the Yankees.  When Jimmy Carter was president.  Star Wars was number one at the box office, and Fleetwood Mac's Rumors was the top selling album.  VCRs cost $5,000.00 in todays dollars.

The Voyager twins are continuously sending back information on plasma waves, magnetic fields, cosmic rays, particles, and its own engineering health.  From 15 billion miles away. 

Here on Earth we can't talk to each other and our gubmint has decided just this week to bail on the EPA energy law that was turning the corner on ozone layer depletion, car emissions and power plant releases.  Why?

They felt like we needed to use "beautiful, clean coal" (a fucking oxymoron if there ever was one) more than we were cuz money.  That whole wind, sun, energy thing.... just too much work.  We need to fuck the planet up for our kid's kids because money. 

So we're still learning about what's going on 15 billion miles away in the depths of areas that Ripley and the Nostromo were navigating in Alien (a film only a year younger than the Voyager Twins) while we fuck up our own corner of the Solar System. 

Nice.

A Nice Anniversary

The first movie my dad (Richard, not Robert in this case) took me to see was April 2, 1982. It was the infamous Chuck Norris slasher/kung fu flick known as Silent Rage which I’ve written about before:  here. 

Chuck Norris was kind of connecting point for my dad and I, as A Force of One starring Chuck was one of the first movies we ever rented when we got our first VCR. Spectrum aired Breaker Breaker, and it  was probably the first movie that we ever watched together on there as well. 

Were these movies good?  No. 

Ha ha, no.

although Silent Rage will eternally hold a place in my heart because of its extreme bizarreness, killer score, excellent secondary cast, and the fact that I got to sit next to a man who fell asleep because it wasn’t the movie he thought it would be. I think the snores that he emitted were louder than the film itself.  I’ll Never forget those moments at Kenosha’s Lake 1 and  2 in 1982.

These elements, in a way, cinematically at least, go hand-in-hand with pops.  Whatever Chuck became in the political arena in recent years,  he piloted action cinema of the early 80’s and my dad had admiration, being a boxer himself, for Norris’ skills.   This all acted as a bit of a bonding material when Dad stepped into my mom’s life 40 odd years ago.  

Today I’m reflecting on that with Norris’ recent passing and the anniversary of Rage’s release. 

Will T.

Back in 1990, my friend Matt and I were discussing music, which to be honest, is what we’d do constantly. Matt had told me that he was listening to Chicago’s Steve and Gary show, broadcast on WLUP FM.  They had a musician on that he thought I would find interesting. He told me the singer/songwriter seemed like a country/rock type artist who had somehow named Minneapolis’ The Replacements as an influence. The Replacements were not Matt’s cup of tea, but they were definitely among my favorite artists at the time and still are. Kudos to Matt for going above and beyond and thinking of me. 

The artist was Will T. Massey. 

So I tucked away that for the future and moved onward. Somewhere along the line, Matt and I were at a record store, and I was digging through a cut out bin of cassettes. It was there that I found a promo copy of Will‘s 1990 self-titled debut album.  As a preface to a lot of possible musical stories, "I popped that into my tape deck…" 

I was fucking gobsmacked from the opening track.

From Send Up the Smoke to A Summertime Graveyard, I was just blown away. During the summer of 1990, I was listening to this tape constantly; so much so, that I would see my nephews, Joe and Adam, playing in the other room while I babysat, and Adam would be lip syncing to Send Up the Smoke as he pushed his Tonkas around.  Over the next few years I lost track of that tape and Will T. 

In the late 2000s, I had stumbled across an article about Mr. Massey stating that as the 90s crumbled, Will did along with them. He fell off the map. Turns out he suffered from schizophrenia; this rode him into the ground. After years of being gone, in 2008 or so, he found treatment of a sort. He then popped back on the music scene in the south in 2009. His return included a couple of CDs and an Austin songwriter of the year award in 2012. 

I contacted him directly on Facebook and thanked him for his songs. I told him that Smoke and You Take the Town had been there for me in multiple situations over many years. That the songs had nurtured me through some difficult times more than once.  Will thanked me for loving his art and was glad those songs were there for me. He always closed out his correspondence with:

Peace, 

Will T. 

It wasn’t a penpal relationship. I wasn’t a babbling fan trying to coat him with unwanted attention. It was just a couple of back-and-forth expressions of appreciation, if you will. A friend once told me that the internet shrunk the world. 

and he was right.

I was able to thank Will, as I have been able to do with a few other musical artists as well. But then Will vanished again as quickly as he had popped back up,  Leaving a couple of albums and a bevy of songs in his wake. 

I recently found a blog from one of his cousins,  one that had spent much time with him over the years and misses him deeply to this day. He hasn’t spoken to Will in over eight years.  He hopes Will is still out there and does his damndest to keep Will and his musical legacy alive on his little corner of the internet. You can find the narrative here. Buller's Back Porch

He definitely misses Will and there’s some touching stuff here to be taken in. And in my own way, I want to preserve Will‘s music too. Will touched more than a few lives in his time with his art, and it seems from the comments on the blog he still is . 

Here is Will T.Massey in his 1991 prime on Austin City Limits.

   

Wherever you are, Will, 

Peace. 

Ma & The Atari & The Heart

Some years back, I found out from a great Aunt that I have both Irish and Bohemian blood in me from my Father's side.  So, I guess in a roundabout way, that makes me a Pikey.  In the movie, Snatch, Brad Pitt plays the world's most famous Pikey.  Just like Pitt's character, Mickey O'Neill, I love my Mother.

Christmas of 1980 was a melancholish (not a word, I know) yet joyous affair. A true oxymoron yes. But it was the winter of the Atari 2600.

We didn't actually get an Atari. We got the Sears version, the Tele-Games. Same difference, as the fam would say.

                                    

We all had a blast playing games on it. It was cool to watch Don "turn over" Asteroids. Dan or Pee Wee figured out how to get "double blasts" out of your avatar in Space Invaders. Dad liked sports games. Linda and Dan played Pitfall with me all the time.

                                                Ma only played one game, man. Frogger.

                                 

 
She also almost wriggled out of her orange recliner multiple times in excitement playing the thing, threatening her delicate sacroiliac.  That was hardcore.  Who says "Oh, my sacroiliac!"?

My Ma, that's who.


Sometimes, if you watch Law & Order enough, you learn legal terms. One I picked up on is "excited utterances". What is that, you say?


Says Google: An excited utterance is a statement relating to a startling event or condition, made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event. As a hearsay exception (Federal Rule of Evidence 803(2)), it is admissible because the spontaneity and lack of time to reflect are believed to ensure reliability.


So, one day, Ma is really rocking Frogger. She's got that frog flying up and down The Boulevard of Broken Balls as Christopher Walken would say in a noir song on SNL.  Breathlessly, Mom was having one of the best games of her Atari career. And just as she's about to break her personal high, the Frog goes splat. Ma shouts out:


"GOD DOOTS SPASTICH!"


The room freezes. We all stare at each other. And the laughter went on for an hour, maybe more.


A catchphrase was born.  
One that persists to this day.  You should hear Don say it.

Later Mom would almost top this moment by misremembering a mid 80's music video appearance by Dwight Yoakam.  She claimed to be a big fan, and yet told me his name was Dwayne Purvis.  We laughed about that for years. 

Anyways, memories are what this blog is all about.  I went to see my Mom this past summer with Aidan.  She now suffers from dementia. Nothing is harder on memories than that.  Pee Wee has done such a great job getting Ma set up in a home that has made her as happy as Ma can possibly be. My sister deserves all the loves for the effort she's put in. 

When I got up to Wausau from Texas, my niece and great niece Jessica and Tia took Aidan and I to see Ma right away.

I sat in front of her, her hands in mine, Aidan to my right, hand on my back.  Mom wasn't quite sure.  She talked about family, she talked about Dad, memories.  She emotionally thanked Aidan and I for being there.  But I could tell she only had a faint grasp on who she was speaking to.  As she was talking about her kids, she said she had a son. 

A son named Robby.

That's when I said that it was me.  I was right there.  

The light went on. It all came back. The power in that moment was incredible.  She spoke of memories.  Of me.  Of Aidan.  Lichter Road, Somers.  Her brothers, her Mom.

Her girls.  All of them.  How much she loves them.  How much she loves Dan and I, those goofy sons of hers.

I love my Mom so much.  I can't thank Pee Wee and Linda enough for advising me to get up there while Mom still had cognizant moments to function, to be aware.  To remember, and reminisce, and love. 

And of course, give you stuff.  She's always doing that.  That shit ain't new.

But the power of her light turning on.  The look on her face.  The smile in her eyes. 

That was a fucking GOD DOOTS SPASTICH!! moment if there ever was one.  

I love you, Mom.  Thank you. 

Svengoolie

 So as a kid, I can remember a friend and I getting together to watch the Son of Svengoolie 3-D movie. 

Svengoolie is the alter ego of Chicago personality Rich Koz.  Today is his birthday. 

Dateline: July 29, 1982.  The movie is The Revenge of the Creature.  With Clint Eastwood in a cameo as a lab tech!

Anyway, this buddy of mine, his siblings, and I gathered around the television to watch the movie after getting the sunglasses from a local convenience store. 

All he could do was complain. 

He really literally thought that things were going to be flying out of the television during the entire two hour running time of the movie. As young as I was, I understood how it worked. 

I did even try to tell him “it’s only gonna be something that is going to be an element of addition to the movie.” It’s wasn’t going to be the main focus in the thing. Also, the movie is fucking 30 years old! Don’t expect magic!

There was no getting through to him.

   

To this day people complain about the great 3-D disaster. Like a political scandal, which is bullshit. If you would follow instructions and listen to what Sven was saying at the beginning of the program, you would not have had any problems. 

He told you exactly what you needed to do with the technical picture settings on your television to make the 3-D work with the glasses; and  the damn 3-D did work with the glasses!! 

Apparently I was the only one that showed up for that five minute intro to the movie. Regardless, I grew up watching son of svengoolie on the weekends, got a kick out of those classic horror movies that he shared, and his corny jokes that he is still doing to this day. 

God bless Rich Koz, the man himself . 

God bless Svengoolie. 

Happy birthday, Sven! 

My Sister and Red's Roller Rink

My sister Pee Wee used to wake up in the night shouting.  Freaked me out.  It was leg cramps.  I used to get them in high school and college a lot when I would bike everywhere on my Huffy 314.  Nothing like crawling around on the floor, trying to push the calf muscles down against the cold concrete to get that muscle to let go.  The ones Pee Wee used to get had to be fifty times worse. 

Why, you ask?

Because my sister spent more time on those damn Cyclone roller skates of hers than she did her Pony high tops. 

It was trendy amongst the early 80's youths in Kenosha, WI to hang out at Red's Roller Rink.  It was more a way of life for the high school set than it was a hobby.  Pee Wee would attend long sessions at the joint to hang with her friends, a veritable microcosm of southern Wisconsin life, ensconced in metal, concrete, cheap carpet, cheaper food and a top flight sound system playing Kool & The Gang, April Wine (couples skate), and Steve Miller Band's Abracabra. (all skate, skate slowly, please!)

I believe she socialized with her besties (I think she met Bon Jovi-lover Cindy there, who to this day I see as another sister) her crushes, the refs, and probably the maintenance staff and the cooks too.  

I frequented the place occasionally too, don'cha know.  However, I was a below average skater at best.  I could get around on the things, but I couldn't skate backwards or anything like it.  I sucked at braking, as evidenced by the fact that if I even approached anything remotely resembling above-average speed, I was going to hit the wall on the rink corners at the turns. 

My sister was a badass.  I can still see her tearing it up in reverse, the spins, taking corners with such intensity that she'd get low enough to touch the floor with her fingertips, navigating the place with ease, taking and exiting the ramps like she was floating.  Fuckin' unreal....and she did it all on those Cyclones.  Top level skates, those. Mom and Dad hooked her up with them for her birthday, or maybe Christmas, I can't remember.  But girl had game.  She was an athlete.

I'm sure Dad (Richard "LeSkate" Torcaso) thought it was cool Pee Wee was into the sport, as he was something of a legend himself on roller skates.  That noticeable scar on Pop's shiny head was due to his Montgomery Ward's days.  'twas a demonstration of roller skates in the Ward's parking lot.  He turned backflips in the fuckin' things, kids.  Didn't quite nail the landing on one and that's the scar's creator.  Dad's love of skating and respect for Pee Wee's devotion to the sport couldn't have hurt my sister's chances of getting those Cyclones. 

Anyways, Pee Wee spent way more time at Red's than I did.  Long-ass sessions on the weekends, but I don't know how much time was actually spent skating.  This was the social circle's center point.  A place for gathering where everybody knows your name. Not me, so much, but the frequent fliers for sure.  I can remember my sister regaling me with tales of her friends and even the refs (who maintained order and skater safety on the floor).  I even think one of them was named T.C. or something. 

I told Mom I wasn't sure if I understood the obsession with spending so much time in the place, but I can see Mom setting down her crochet hooks as if it was yesterday.  A pre-emptive Ma move that was the predicate for either advice or a story about to be told. 

Ma did some skating herself, yo.  She told me about her time on the floor a bit and how the organ instrumentation from the then current Kinks' hit Come Dancin' reminded her of the music playing while roller skating (A few years later, she said the same about the sounds of Dire Straits' Walk of Life). Mom had a very similar gathering of friends and cohorts while the wheels below their feet rolled along.  It was a pretty great story.  

I didn't know anybody at Red's for the most part, but I dug the game room.  This was the early days of the Atari 2600 that we had at home, but the arcade machines held a certain glimmer that was different.  Red's had Defender, Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede, and a table top football game with the X's and O's as the avatars. The room also had a big projection screen that showed rock videos (I think recorded off mainstay must-see TV program Friday Night Videos), I remember seeing Michael Jackson's Thriller there once.

Red's made Pee Wee happy.  She was always smiles when she came home (unless there were teenage romantic bummer moments), and the smiles only made bigger if she were leaving to go in.  She often came home with one of her friends from the joint, and the party would often continue on.  Laughter and giggles that could be heard up and down Lichter Road.  Well, to be honest, I'm sure Pee Wee's 45s of I Ran, Shakin', Who's Cryin' Now, or Chilliwack's My Girl probably drowned them out, but I digress.

Regardless, it made me happy to see my sister happy.  She (and others) carried my weight during some real tough fuckin' times. But she lived at home.  And she listened.  And watched.  And protected me. 

So if Red's gave Pee Wee joy?  It gave me joy. 

They put a parking lot on a piece of land
Where the supermarket used to stand
Before that they put up a bowling alley
On the site that used to be the local palais
That's where the big bands used to come and play
My sister went there on a Saturday

Come dancing
All her boyfriends used to come and call
Why not come dancing?
It's only natural

Come dancing
That's how they did it when I was just a kid
And when they said "come dancing"
My sister always did

-Ray Davies, "Come Dancing", 1982.