Bolus

Strangers in a Strange Land - Part III

Friday, February 15 7:30 PM

In the 1968 Blake Edwards comedy "The Party" (alternative title "Hollywood Party") Peter Sellers plays a bumbling bit part extra who accidentally gets invited to a wild Hollywood shindig. Mayhem and pratfalls ensue.

Tonight is my Peter Sellers moment.

Coop and Ruth have been invited to a party at the home of their friends George Meyer and Maria Semple.  George is a writer and producer for the Simpsons who credits include the Simpsons Movie (including the smash hit "Spider Pig"). His wife Maria is also a writer and producer who has worked on a number of sitcoms. Between them, 17 Emmy nominations and 7 wins. Maria's also the daughter of Lorenzo Semple Jr., another Hollywood writing notable who was largely responsible for creating the 1960's Batman TV series and wrote Sean Connery's final Bond movie, 1983's "Never Say Never Again." Meyer and Semple are avid collectors of Pop Surrealist art, including a few pieces from Coop. Tonight they are throwing a farewell party, as they will be moving in a few days to a new home in Seattle. I've been accidentally invited to tag along.

After lurching through traffic along the 10 and the 405, we snake up Mulholland Drive to a narrow road leading up a mountain, packed bumper-to-bumper with parked Priuses. "Maybe we should grab that spot," I suggest. "Haven't you ever been to a party with valet parking?" laughs Ruth. Hell, I've never been to a party that didn't have a plastic bucket for keg donations.

When we arrive at the top of the mountain we are greeted in the driveway by a winsome member of the Valet Girls, the troupe of hot fembot parking ninjas who are handling car management for the party. "First non-Prius of the night," she says of Ruth's Benz. Apparently the big new automotive trend in Hollywood is conspicuous non-consumption; I marvel at the irony of eco-hairshirt hybrid shitboxes being parked by supermodel servant girls. I also marvel at the valet's shapely hinder.

Then, there was the house.

This is Ursa Major, the estate built by the late Wilt Chamberlain in 1971 as a rival to Hef's Playboy Mansion. It is also the site where Wilt famously claimed to have carved 20,000 notches in his bedpost. The sheer mathematics of it beggars belief (2 different women per day for 27 years) but who am I to question? After all, he was the Hall of Famer. And with an original interior decor like this, he was obviously all business when it came to entertaining female guests.

George and Maria bought Ursa Major from Chamberlain's estate in 2002, after which it underwent a major renovation/restoration taking several years to complete. Sadly, the purple fur waterbed sex room is gone, but the house is now returned to its original structural glory.

When we enter the Brobdignagian 14-foot front door we are greeted by George; a lanky, bearded Ichabod Crane topped with a bowl cut. Warm and cordial and disarmingly goofy, he's not at all what I had expected in a big shot Hollywood producer. We chit-chatted with him for a few moments before I was distracted by a couple of huge Robert Williams canvases hanging on the wall.

After grabbing a few hors d'oeuvres we head out on an alcohol safari. On the way we soon encounter the lovely and gracious Maria. Next, Paul Reubens, better known to many as Pee Wee Herman. Coop and Ruth have met him before, and introduce me. Seems like a nice enough fella, who compliments my 1950's vintage glasses. After grabbing drinks (Rum and Coke for me) we all go off for the 50-cent house tour.

Apologies for the crappy underexposed cell phone pics, but not wanting to appear a hick tourist from Iowa I arrived without a proper camera. Okay, maybe I am a hick tourist from Iowa, but I don't want it to be any more obvious than necessary.  On with the low-resolution show.

Master bedroom, bigger than most houses, and overlooking the distant LA skyline. I remark that the very air here is redolent of Wilt DNA, but I am told that the remodeling contractors removed most of it using ultraviolet searchlights.

One holdover from the Wilt era -- the mirrored skylight ceiling above the bed, allowing Ruth to snap a quick self portrait.

We head downstairs for more drinks. While waiting at the bar behind a gaggle of gals, one strikes up a conversation. "Didn't you come here with Coop and Ruth?" she asks. "You're not one of them fucking right wing Republican assholes are you?"

I look around uncomfortably.

"I told Coop that if George Bush knew who he was, he would throw him in jail and have him SHOT in the fucking HEAD."

Discretion being the better part of valor, I explain that I am merely the wastrel son of an Iowa hog baron, here only for the debauchery.  I tip my hat, grab my rum & Coke, and head out for more sightseeing.

The wing of the house containing George's office also houses some wonderful fanboy objets d'art, like a few of Coop's ink pieces -

as well as a load of original comics and cool weirdo advertising junk. Vote Kibaki!

The real stunner was the collection of Soviet space program items, like this stenciled escape hatch door (MAN INSIDE! HELP!) and an actual control panel from an orbiter. Used by real cosmonauts, in actual outer space!

After reloading our highballs glasses we find the Wilt Chamberlain shrine. I had forgotten that a young Wilt toured  with the Globetrotters for a time before going to the NBA. On closer inspection, I discover the poster is for an exhibition in Waterloo, Iowa.

Another paean to Wilt in a hall bathroom:  high contrast 70s nudie babes. Wocka chicka wocka chicka.

Back over in the conversation pit, refreshed with more rum, Coop and Ruth introduce me to their friends Kate Flannery and Chris Haston. Chris is a photographer at NBC, and Kate's a cast member on "The Office" who started her career as a member of the Second City   improv group in Chicago. Nice conversation about the Windy City. Then, strangely enough, I spot somebody I (sorta) know -- screenwriter / blogger Roger L. Simon. We had previously talked on the phone several times but never in person, so when I introduce myself he seems rather flabbergasted. And, perhaps, nervous. Despite that, he introduces me to his wife Sheryl and we chew the fat about the blogosphere. In hushed tones, lest we provoke more rage from Progressive Entertainment Industry Lady. 

More drinks. A few more minor celebrities spotted, like Mary Lynn Rajskub, Chloe from 24. Most of the people here are writer types, from the Harvard Lampoon mafia that have controlled much of the comedy d0cks in Hollywood since the dawn of Saturday Night Live. George is a former editor of the Harvard Lampoon and wrote for SNL before joining the Simpsons. I meet several other Lampoon alumni including Michael Ferris. With all the writers in the place, a lot of the talk about the recently settled strike, and the relief. I never mention my sad little comedy blog, but my tales of life on an Iowa hog farm seem to horrify and amused them.

Suddenly, I feel the presence of a warm aura, as if I were basking in the glow of a sunlamp of pure transcendant majesty, or if I were in a hotel pool and sensed a wafting current of excellence-piss.  I turned to behold Kato Kaelin. He is remarkably well-preserved, wearing a pukka necklace adorned with porcelain titties, and accompanied by a stunning brunette who radiates studied ennui as she sits on the couch arm.

"Hey man, you're Coop."

"Yes."

"The artist with the Devil stuff."

"That would be me."

"Hey man, that's cool."

Say what you want about the man, but he has a talent for facial recognition. Which probably helps in his current career in doing whatever it is he does. Chris Haston urges Coop and I to squeeze in with Kato to preserve the auspicious, Yalta-like moment.

I fetch another drink. Coop finds a dynamite plunger and goes Wile E. Coyote . I'm guessing this photo will keep him on the no-fly list for a few years.

Another drink, and we discover a plexiglas hatch on the floor. Beneath it, the huge pool that encircles much of the house.

"Let's jump in," says Ruth.

Unfortunately, I had by this point consumed enough rum to lose most of my ability to ignore dares.

"Yaaaaahhh! Yaaaah!!" I reasoned.

Safety first, though. A quick check of the temperature and guesstimate of the depth. Feh, no prob, I was in the subzero Midwest only a few days before.

Ruth and I perform a graceful, fully-clothed jackknife into the dark watery depths.

Holy sweet mother of Mothra, that shit was cold. Gelid cold. I was looking for icebergs, and think I heard a band play "Nearer my God to Thee." My testes ran screaming for the safety of my abdominal cavity, but only got half way.

Luckily the ginormous hot tub was only a 3 minute dogpaddle away. Its steaming bubbles coaxed my nuts back to stock ride height and my vocal pitch back down to audible range. Ruth and I return through the hatch and dripped chlorine on the floor to cheers.

Eat your heart out, Peter Sellers.

Time to head out. We say our farewells to George and Maria.

"Here, have a box of lemon bars," says Maria. "We over-ordered."

Hmmm, I though. Hollywood party "lemon bars" topped with heapings of "powdered sugar."

"Thanks," I said, looking askance and winking. "I bet the 'powdered sugar' is  'delicious.' "

On the way back to Coop and Ruth's house, still dripping and guarding the lemon bars, I get a call from Tammi Jo. She's still in Palm Springs, still sick as a dog.

"How'd the big party go?"

"It was okay. You didn't miss much. No Chuck Sitzmann pig roast kegger anyway."

Back in Silverlake, before turning in, I decide to sample the "lemon bars" with "powdered sugar." Turns out they were actually lemon bars with powdered sugar.

Which leads me to my question: anybody have tips on removing lemon bar from a sinus cavity?

Six Degrees of Stark Naked

Yesterday my friend Cal Spitzer electrogrammed this snazzy 8x10 publicity shot of the delightfully named (and delightfully shod) Stark Naked and the Car Thieves. Research reveals that this combo had its beginnings as a conglomeration of several Indianapolis area garage and doo-wop groups,   finally relocating to Los Angeles where they had several minor hits, and rotating list of members. Despite the wild name (and a reportedly crazy Vegas stage show), their surviving recordings are decidedly tame. Further research reveals that their name was eventually stolen by a New Zealand band who went on to record a minor hit cover of another name-thieving band: the Monks' (UK) "Nice Legs, Shame About the Face."

The thing that really struck me, though, is the small print: SN&CT's booking agency is listed as "Jimmy O'Neill Management." I believe this would be the very same DJ Jimmy O'Neill whom I listened to on WOW Radio 590 Omaha during the '70s. Before his days of spinning hot Top 40 wax in Omaha, Jimmy managed several L.A. bands; before that he was a Los Angeles DJ, but best known as the host of ABC's mid-60's teen music program Shindig. The program was created by O'Neill and then-wife Sharon Sheeley, an accomplished songwriter who penned the #1 hit "Poor Little Fool" for Ricky Nelson and co-wrote  the Eddie Cochran classic "Come on Everybody."

Sheeley and Cochran later became boyfriend and girlfriend, and she (along with Gene Vincent) survived the car accident that killed Cochran in England in 1960. Their ill-fated romance later became the subject of a 1980's Levis 501 commercial. Following the wreck, Cochran's car and its contents were impounded at the local police station.  A police cadet at the station named David Harman borrowed Cochran's impounded Gretsch guitar and taught himself how to play. As "Dave Dee" he later led the 60's British pop chart-toppers  Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, who had a mini-revival last year when their nugget "Hold Tight" was featured in an ironically bloody car wreck scene in Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof":   

Where was I? Oh yeah, Shindig. It was a brief but big TV hit with Jimmy introducing many of the big acts of the day. Despite solid ratings it was canceled in 1966 to make room on the ABC schedule for a second weekly episode the red-hot Batman series (delighting a young Batman fanatic named Quentin Tarantino who would pay homage to Adam West's Bat-dance in Pulp Fiction).  Shindig performers included The Beatles and this rival quartet of English Invaders:

The Who, as fate would have it, would later score a US Top 20 chart hit with a cover of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues." Jimmy's O'Neill's spotlight on Shindig also brought him immortality in 1965 as a Flintstone character -- here's "Jimmy  O'Neillstone" introducing "The Beau Brummelstones" on "Shinrock."

My favorite nugget from the real Shindig is this Halloween '65 bit with Jimmy introducing Boris Karloff for a cover of Bobby "Boris" Pickett's Monster Mash:

In the background, those cute go-go girls included Terri Garr, who would go on to have a starring role in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and earn an Oscar nomination for "Tootsie." Another was Toni Basil, the 80's one-hit wonder of "Mickey" fame.  Between her Shindig go-go gig and MTV mall rat celebrity, Basil was a bit player in films, including Mary the prostitute in 1969's "Easy Rider" with  Jack Nicholson, who received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. Basil teamed up with Nicholson again the next year as Terry the hitchhiker girl in "Five Easy Pieces," which earned Nicholson his first Oscar nomination for best actor.  Here you can see her sitting in the diner booth during the film's famous sandwich scene:

Nicholson, of course, went on to star in dozens of films, including Batman and a cameo appearance in Tommy, the rock opera written by The Who a few years after their Shindig appearance. As noted here previously, that film also spawned a totally bitchin' pinball machine -- the model I frequently played while listening to Jimmy O'Neill on WOW.

Along the way Nicholson earn a boatload of Oscar nominations, most recently for the Omaha-based "About Schmidt." In that film, Nicholson's character works as an actuary at the downtown HQ of the Woodmen of the World insurance company, once Omaha's tallest building. Woodmen of the World insurace, incidentally, owned WOW Radio and gave it its call letters. When Jimmy O'Neill was a DJ there, his studio was in the same building.

But my personal favorite Nicholson screen moment occured a few years earlier, as Marine Colonel Nathan Jessup in 1992's "A Few Good Men." Another Oscar nomination, likely clinched by this memorable scene:

Recognize Nicholson's Marine lawyer in the scene? Yep, inevitably, KEVIN BACON. But that's another story.

Fear and Loathing in the Mystery Machine

Excerpts from the never-aired 1973 Scooby Doo episode with guest star Hunter S. Thompson

We were ten minutes south of San Clemente when the putrid green daisy walls of the van started closing in. I recall the fat four-eyed lesbian sweater girl saying something like "are you okay, Mr. Duke? We've got a mystery to solve..." when suddenly the gullet of the garish chartreuse steel beast began to spasm, as if a digestive track readying itself to vomit. I began clawing at my hamstrings and when I turned my head I was looking into the irridescent eyes of a grotesque animal screeching "Ruh Roh! Ruh Roh!" in a hoarse irritating dog-accented gibberish. That's when it things began to turn weird.

I fought off the ether hallucinations and fly swarms and fumbled through my medical bag for my 9 millimeter and another shot of absinthe. I pushed off the safety and casually popped off three quick rounds, through the shag carpet stomach lining of the nauseous steel beast that was consuming all of us, and it began thrashing angrily. The lesbian was screaming, and the two Aryan Hitler Youth were screaming, and the grotesque talking dog jumped into the arms of the whimpering hippie boy. Holy sweet Jesus Christ, I thought, don't these people realize we're about be eaten alive by poorly-drawn Chevrolet? "Nevermind," I said. They would see it all soon enough, after the nightshade cookies and Scooby snack kicked in.

****************************

Hanna and Barbera liked my story on hormone doping at the '72 Laff-a-Lympics and proposed that I cover a Harlem Globetrotters game at a haunted Aztec pyramid in Mexico. They called me to their offices in Burbank. "Jesus Christ, you're killing us here, Duke," Hanna complained when I demanded a $1500 advance for the project. "I've got expenses," I said. They relented and arranged for a chirpy entourage to escort me into the belly of the beast. There was the lesbian chick, the blond Palos Verdes neck scarf Nixon boy and his frigid miniskirt girlfriend, the gawky soul patch hippie kid and his paranoid Great Dane. Lost Manson kids all, Squeakies and Leslies and a canine Tex in a puke green van hoping for some Mexican helter skelter. All the better reason to pack a few guns, I thought.

"Like hi Mister Duke, ready to solve some Mexican mysteries?" said the hippie kid in a grating singsong. I was simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by the shape of his head. "Fuck that," I said. "We're going to Compton to pick up some supplies."

We backed up the van to the garage of my exploration outfitter, Dr. Tyrone, and loaded the necessary cargo for our insane basketball safari in Baja: twelve mason jars of absinthe-laced Goofy Grape, two pounds of hashish, 450 hits of Wacky Package blotter acid, a tinfoiled brick of pure Mendocino nightshade distillate, a Jif Peanut Butter jar of ether, two gross of amyl poppers, a sandwich baggie of MDMA, seven quarts of Mescal, 112 peyote buttons, two cases of Schlitz, and a new experimental medication Dr. Tyrone called "Tyrone Nitrate." The supension of the vomitous beast groaned under the load and we pointed it toward Tijuana.

*****************************

"Rejus Rist! Rejus Rist!"

The dog started whimpering in paranoid Scooby Smack madness when the two Federales started poking their flashlights into the rear van windows. How long can we maintain? I wondered. How long before one of us starts raving and jabbering and making weird sound effects? The lesbian was swatting away at invisible flies and the hippie was in a comatose peyote stare. The two Nixon youths had gotten into the Tyrone Nitrate and were rooting like animals on the van floor. I could probably shoot the two cops, but it would be just a matter of time until the other Mexican pigs tracked us down and fed our corpses to the Baja condors.

"Ola senor," I said, rolling down the passenger window and motioning to the fat one. I reached out with a $100 handshake. "There's one thing you should know. We're going to the Globetrotters game at the haunted Aztec pyramid. That fat homely girl in back, with the glasses? She's a hitchiker we picked up outside El Cajon, a runaway from a wealthy family. I think she is holding drugs."

We tore off south toward Ensenada, the two fat Federales disappearing slowly in the mirror as they struggled to handcuff the fly-swatting lesbian chick.

*****************************

"Keep digging," I ordered, my Glock trained at the hippie's hairy, bulbous head. The Schlitz-peyote cocktail had likely rendered him harmless, but I wasn't taking any chances -- with him, or any chupacabras that might appear in the desert night.  The shivering mongrel dragged the limp bodies of the two Hitler Young Republicans one by one across the desert floor. It wasn't clear yet whether they were really dead or just in a Tyrone Nitrate-induced zombie state, but I wasn't in any state to explain them to another Federale. The holes were shallow enough that if they were still alive they could dig themselves out and hitchhike back to the border.

Pa-zing!

The hideous dog jumped out out of the way as I popped a round at his feet. "Ron of a ritch! Rut ruz rat for?" it screeched. "Stop walking on your hind legs," I said. "You're a goddam dog, for chrissakes."

*****************************

Madness and rank paranoia filled my mind as I looked down from the steps of the pyramid to the violently stupid spectacle. A team of lumbering Aztec ghosts is leading the Harlem Globetrotters, 82-6 with six minutes left to go, dunking over Curly Neal and Meadowlark Lemon like they were willing victims in one of their ancient blood sacrifices. I half expected the Aztecs to reach into the Trotters' chests and remove their beating hearts. Christ, I hadn't see such a beating since Sonny Barger took a baseball bat to a mouthy Oakland meth dealer in '66.

But the freak circus on the court is only the start of the snarling insanity. Who put a goddam basketball court in the middle of Mexico? And what the hell were Sonny and Cher and Don Adams doing here?

Mama Cass begins choking on a ham sandwich. The hippie gives her the Heimlich while the stupid dog suits up for the Globetrotters, who suddenly start scoring points. Nobody seems to notice.

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Me and the dog and the hippie started pulling the masks off the Aztec ghosts. "Like, YOINKS!" the hippie screamed, still half-addled from the amyl.

I should have known. In fact, I knew. I had always known. Those weren't ghosts. They were monsters, the flesh eating monsters of a country half-decayed by greed, stupidity and rot. The Aztec starting five: Nixon, Agnew, Mitchell, Haldeman and Erlichmann.

"We would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling dope fiends," said the evil Yorba Linda bastard.

"See you at the Bob Hope Hell Celebrity Pro-Am," I said, washing down a handful of MDMA with a bottle of Gusano Rojo. I ate the worm.

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Saturday morning in the late '60s was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe Roadrunner or Johnny Quest or Space Ghost or Lancelot Link Secret Chimp meant something. Maybe not, in the long run ...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in front of that Zenith console color TV eating a gigantic bowl of Quisp. Whatever it meant.

And that, I think, was the handle--that sense of the inevitable victory, and that we were part of it. In the end we would unmask the ghost as the Old and Evil town banker, or kill those evil frogmen in a really cool explosion; our pre-sweetened, vitamin-fortified energy of youth would simply prevail. We were shooting the curl of a beautiful cartoon wave and nothing could stop us, except when our moms would yell at us and then we would have to go outside and maybe ride our minibike around for a while. Now, less than five years later, if you turn on Saturday TV and look at the cheap washed-out backgrounds in a certain way you can see where the wave broke and rolled back, and broke and rolled back, in an endless Xeroxed repetition.

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Originally posted here