Cockfighter

I don't know what to make of this Monte Hellman character as a director. I can't ever decide if his movies are full of truth or just full of it. That said, I done went and saw my favorite of all the Hellman movies I've seen so far (this would include The Shooting, Ride in the Whirlwind, and Two-Lane Blacktop). The picture in question would be 1974's Cockfighter.

Perhaps an aspect of the admiration for this film comes from the collaboration involved. The movie is based on the novel by Charles Willeford. Willeford, in case you ain't hip, is one of the great American writers of the 20th century, god rest his twisted little soul. Not just a paint-by-numbers genre scribe, his work is at its best a ding-dang parade of pathos. Willeford wrote the script. Hellman wanted to do a total re-write, but Roger "never lost a penny" Corman put the hammer down, and Hellman proceeded to, with an addition and rewrite of a few scenes, shoot the Willeford script. Hellman even casted Willeford himself in an important role.

This is one of those situations where the collaborators together manifest something better than any one of 'em could have done on their own: Hellman gets out of his comfort zone as a director and has to play it a little more exploitation, Corman is forced to go artier 'cause of Hellman, and Willeford gets to spin a yarn in context of his own script, rather than a Hellman-ized version of a Willeford script (only a slightly Hellma-nized version, at least).

Speaking of Willeford, the casting all around is pitch-perfect from top to bottom. Warren Oates as the lead and Harry Dean Stanton (two Kentuckians) as his counterpoint/nemesis are paired just right. Warren Oates, as ever, is the man. The dvd includes, as a bonus, Kentucky filmmaker Tom Thurman's documentary on Oates, (stay tuned as I'll be speaking more on Thurman's docs soon right here). All of the other characters, including Willeford himself, play out pretty much perfect. Watch out for a young Ed Begley, Jr. as a Lil' Abner style hillbilly, and fallen matinee idol Troy Donahue as Oates's alcoholic brother.

In many ways, Cockfighter plays more real than reality. Filmed on location in rural Georgia, and shot by the indomitable Néstor Almendros , one can get a sense of the 70s South-land. Granted that I was a wee lad, it looks, from my Kentuckian perspective, how I remember it to look. The extras were indeed locals on the cockfighting scene, and I swear I knew the Kentucky versions of all those folks.

One thing that's gonna throw a lot of sensitives off this movie is that these cocks mostly seem, documentary-style, to be getting killed. It's true, while some of the action was faked, the game cocks were dying on camera. One simply couldn't make this kind of picture today. Whether it ruffles your feathers or not, one has to come back to the point that cockfighting, legal or illegal, is about as old as humanity itself, and continues on today. Hellman, himself uncomfortable with the "sport" of cockfighting, notes that no matter what his personal feelings, the cocks in the film would have been fighting and dying regardless (the extras would actually hold bouts during down time, while they crew was doing set ups, etc.). I share the director's perspective that what is more interesting than the ethical questions is the film's determination to represent this subculture on film.

As the elder JSH likes to say, the 70s sucked, and people got to know. But, as with anything else in life, you turn over a few rocks, and you can find who was speaking the truth, or even if it not speaking the truth, making it worth the while, even in the suckiest of epochs. Perhaps obviously, this movie did not do well in theatrical release. Despite some title changes, alternate versions, and different approaches to marketing, Corman couldn't find its audience (Hellman blames this in part on the scenes that Corman did demand, which were the more gruesome inserts of the cockfights, and Hellman himself didn't shoot those). But, ultimately, it has found its audience in home video over the years, and rightfully is one of the crown jewels in Hellman's distinct filmography. And, all said, this is some classy exploitation, folks. If you're going to get some 70s on your shoes, this is one suggested path to step in it.

--JTD

Mondo Ten Cane

There once was a time, in glorious pirate days, when men - real men, knew and viscerally understood the power and the grandeur that lay within the demon Rum.

Then, for a long pretentious spell, as Vodka was groomed by ad-agency marketing wonks to rule the roost, Rum was seemingly demoted to being the little brother of every other type of hard liquor. Suddenly mediocre vodka was being hyped to yuppies as the most refined, tasteful, and exquisite means of damaging one's cellular structure. This was mostly because they were packaged in bottles that looked like NYC hair salon products, contained Faberge-egg-like peek-through windows, and/or were named after famous artists and composers.

And yet, I'd bet the farm that most of those punters couldn't tell bottom-shelf from top-shelf vodka in a blind taste test. Despite all the exaggerated gravitas we give high-falutin' vodka (I do it too), there's no getting around its inherent lack of flavor. Like Pure Grain, vodka is really just a means to get you where you wanna go, no matter what crap you mix it with.

Not so with Rum. The flavor palette of Rum is wide-ranging and varied, and so is its buzz factor. In recent months I've come to realize that the ultimate Rum walks among us and its name is 10 Cane. It's such a powerhouse and cosmic juggernaut, Jack Kirby should have drawn it. It packs such a clean but intense wallop that I frequently switch it out for my beloved Cachaca in caipirinhas at home. Now THAT's some serious Rum.

What 10 Cane and Cachaca have in common is that they're both pure-cane concoctions, as opposed to the nasty molasses-based formula of many a common man's Rum.

Oh yeah, it's expensive as hell. But hey, so is vodka packaged in a faux antique Swedish medicine bottle. I think I'm worth it though.

- - JSH

Lustmord Funnies

While I've been fartin' around doing promotional crap for my corporate mass-market glossy coffee table book Weird Kentucky, our very own Transylvania Gentleman J. Todd Dockery has quietly published a real literary masterwork, one that will stand the test of time and be spoken of reverently in hushed tones of awe long after mine is clogging up the budget bins in a few weeks. Don't buy my book, buy Doc's. Seriously.

The casual reader may find Dockery's graphic novel In Tongues Illustrated to be impenetrable at first - dense, stream of consciousness, disorienting, with its tangled plotlines, erratically recurring characters, and non-linear story arc fucking back in on itself. This initial reaction is common when viewing scathing white-hot truths such as those contained in Dockery's comics. Rest assured, this anxiety will pass, and in time you'll gradually come to understand the precepts of Dockerythink.

So what's it about? Well, see, there's chain-smoking tie-wearing Jack Lustmord, a film-noir-ish protagonist (who coincidentally resembles Dockery himself) and the voluptuous object of his obsessive nocht-mares, the mysterious Mona, who seemingly represents multiple women, as she continually shape-shifts. But is the shape-shifting an allegory for female unpredictability, or is it a metaphor for the way men repeatedly rotate and change the images in their mind just before consummating self-love in the restroom of a Flying J truck stop? Both, maybe?

Then there's a wormy nebbish of a private investigator, who goes by the surrealist monicker of "Mask or Machine?" who's just lookin' for clues at the scene of the crime, seemingly inside the David Lynch landscape inside Lustmord's skull. And what he finds will astound you and change your life forever. (Okay, maybe it won't, because you might be stupid.)


Dockery's intensely crosshatched uber-detailed style conjures up many likely-seeming influences, like Robert Crumb, Basil Wolverton, Gary Panter, Daniel Clowes, and Joe Coleman, but the fact is, what emits from his skull is 107 percent unique, and can't be sullied by the critic's crutch of comparison.

Go, and seek ye a copy of In Tongues Illustrated, and tell 'em Harry Stephen Keeler sent ya.

- - JSH

Ommegeddon Time!

Ommegang Breweries already bring us the finest beer known to man, which is Duvel. That being the case, it's really difficult to care about anything else they make, or anyone else makes, for that matter. Beer Perfection is already in our grasp, so why dabble with experiments that are certain to end in disappointment?

Well, here's one experiment worth taking. Ommegeddon is neither better nor worse than Duvel, it's simply a sideways trip - it's every bit the beer Duvel is, but with an action-packed Hop factor that's like a punch in the face. If you ever said words to the effect of "I like Duvel, but I wish it was much, much Hoppier", then fall to your knees and praise the Lord, friend, for your prayers have met with a favorable response. Ommegang is not only mega-uber-Hoppy, it's brewed with a specific type of weird yeast called Brettanomyces.

For many in the wine and beer making world, Brettanomyces is a bad word. It lends a powerful funk to that which it inhabits, which some have described politely as "mulchy" and others not so politely as "notes of horseshit". Many vintners actually consider Brettanomyces something to fight from "tainting" their batches, and have discarded countless barrels because of Brettanomyces contamination. And yet, here these nutty Ommegang folks are actually openly, deliberately, building a beer brand around it!

I give it two thumbs up and would give it three if I could grow a third.

- - JSH

Ramona Fradon

It's been a running gag betwixt JSH and myself that I've been holding out on a promised "Metamorpho Rant." Metamorpho, in case you don't know, is the Silver Age comic book character created by the esteemed funny book writer Bob Haney. However, I find I really don't have much to say about Metamorpho other than the fact I have enjoyed the breezy, silly, slightly surreal nature of the comic as a Silver Age artifact. I borrowed a collection from Lexington cartoonist Bill Widener, and it's made a fine addition to my bedside reading mix. It ain't exactly high art, but as JSH has said before, there's no distinction between high and low art, anyway. Metamorpho, to put it country simple, is a kick.

What's fascinated me for the longest time up in this Metamorpho thing is the artwork of Ramona Fradon, one of the primary illustrators on board with Haney for Metamorpho. First, she's a she. A woman artist? Doing Silver Age comics? Hot dog. Her style is spot-on for Metamorpho: nimble and expressive. Mrs. Fradon herself has gone on record that she percieves her work on Metamorpho as a pinnacle of her career in comics.

Speaking of "Mrs." her husband is another cartoonist, Dana Fradon, of New Yorker fame. And sorry, Mr. Fradon, I covet your wife. I want to build a time machine and go fetch the young Ramona Fradon. I would do my damndest to make myself her cartoonist husband. Ramona Dockery. Sounds good, doesn't it? As my buddy Joe Turner put it, "Nothing's sexier than a chick who is into comics."

Speaking of time machines, I have yet to track down any photos of the young Ramona Fradon. I wonder how she dressed in the sixties? So, if any of you readers out there can find an archival photo of Ramona (something in a mini-skirt, perhaps? did she wear high heels or was she a beatnik/proto-hippie?), for gawdsakes, forward them to us here at TransyGent HQ.

The whole time travel wife idea of mine may not be too far off the mark. Dig that less well known about Mrs. Fradon is her mystical side. Her book The Gnostic Faustus, analyzes the cryptic 16th century version of the familiar tragic story, finding it a metaphor for a Sophia-centered Gnostic creation myth whose message offers hope and a promise of salvation (she not only draws, she writes! hubba, hubba). So, I was already dreamy about Mrs. Fradon before I knew she was down with Gnosticism. Hell, get me drunk I'm likely to either profess Gnosticism or Anton LaVey-ian Satanism as my religious faith.

The fact that she studied hypnotherapy, energy healing, and Past Life Regression therapy and practices astrology even just makes her start to sound like the actual future Mrs. Dockery, Jessi Fehrenbach. The world's strange, ain't it? It probably ain't even real.

That said, come to me, Ramona of my dream-world. We'll live in love outside of time, discuss Metamorpho and what it was like to illustrate Bob Haney's scripts, we'll talk shop on inking techniques, and philiosphize about Gnosticism. Among other things, baby. Among other things...

--JTD

William Burroughs Quote of the Day

The shift from time to space may involve mutations as drastic and irreversible as the shift from water to land.

In the beginning was the word and the word was God. And what does that make us? Ventriloquist's dummies. Time to leave the Word-God behind. "He atrophied and fell off me like horrible old gills" a survivor reported. "And I feel ever so much better."

--last two paragraphs from the essay "On Coincidence," The Adding Machine, 1986

--JTD

Bob-consciousness

Growing up in the 1970s, my friends and I all hated Bob Seger. I mean we really, really hated Bob Seger.

For me and a lot of my middle school hipster friends, he symbolized everything that was generic and boring and hippiefied about "rock". He wasn't heavy like Grand Funk Railroad or Black Sabbath, he certainly wasn't crazy like KISS or Ted Nugent, he wasn't artsy and innovative like Mike Oldfield or Klaatu, and he wasn't deep and lyrical like Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits. He wasn't even pop in a good way like the Bay City Rollers or the Raspberries. He was just nothing, taking up valuable space. He was someone that the older kids liked, but even to them he seemed like a second-tier artist, someone you might go to Rupp Arena to see in the cheap seats and not buy a t-shirt.

Years later now, flipping across the radio dial brings me little else but unlistenable modern crap, and I often remark aloud to whoever's in the car with me: "My God, it's come to this. Modern music has gotten so awful that I actually feel comforted when Bob Seger comes on the radio, by comparison." Same goes for a lot of bands that I used to disdain in the 70s but who seem like friendly old acquaintances now - like Aerosmith, Joe Walsh, Jethro Tull, and even the fuckin' Eagles. But there's something about Bob that, in hindsight, makes me want to apologize to him and admit we were wrong about him. His music sounds better today to my ears than it did back in the day.

Though he had his share of sappy ballads, many of Seger's rockin' songs are standard I-IV-V blues changes like "Betty Lou's Gettin' Out Tonight", "Katmandu", and of course, "Old Time Rock and Roll". Listening back now, I wonder why these didn't appeal to me.

And then you dig a little deeper and learn that Bob Seger, with his old "Bob Seger System" band, was a honest-to-gosh garage band that recorded an amazing song called "2+2=4" in 1968. Had Seger packed it in early, singles like that and "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" would be coveted by hipster scum today, and endlessly bootlegged on comps like Pebbles and Back From The Grave. Just goes to show ya, as Ravena Diesel once said, most people's first record is good.

So here's to you, Bob. Sorry I couldn't dig what you were puttin' down back in '76. I'm drinkin' this Hennepin tonight in your honor, dude. We've got tonight.

- - JSH