Siouxsie Skelter

Chanteuse. This is the word that I most commonly use when talking about my queen, Siouxsie Sioux. The definition of the word chanteuse that is so very applicable to Siouxsie is this:  a female singer with a distinct, smoky, or dramatic vocal style.
If there is a better description of her, I’m unaware of it.

Siouxsie is one of those iconic singers that you know even if you’ve never bought an album. She of the teased spiky hair, and eyes with thick dark Egyptian Cleopatric makeup. Her porcelain white skin offset by her bright red lipstick, her shoulders draped in jet-black garments collected from vintage stores. Adorned with the requisite accoutrements of silver cross necklaces, studded cuff bracelets, and more rings than a Wiccan mage, she personifies Goth. She mixes a punk rock aesthetic with BDSM imagery; dog collar, leather jacket or vest, black vinyl skirt, thigh-high boots, fishnets on her arms and legs, and a cigarette.

 

Siouxsie and the Banshees were a lot of people’s first exposure to the Goth/post-punk genre. They sure were mine. Once I fell for their unique gothic brand of music, I quickly explored other bands and genres including darkwave, coldwave, and industrial music. Like a musical gateway drug, Siouxsie led me directly to Bauhaus, Dead Can Dance, and Cocteau Twins. I then discovered Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division, The Cure, and This Mortal Coil. Later I got into Lycia, Collide, 45 Grave, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, and Clan of Xymox. I only recently discovered The Chameleons and The Sound (how on earth did I miss them in the 80s?). With her musical tendrils of influence expanding through the decades, Siouxsie is the gift that keeps on giving. 

Some say that Siouxsie and the Banshees invented the Goth music genre. That’s not technically correct, since Bauhaus is generally credited with that. But we can say that Siouxsie and the Banshees were one of the first true post-punk bands, along with Wire and Joy Division. Siouxsie and the Banshees certainly seem to be the reigning ambassadors of Goth, with Siouxsie forever crowned as Hecate.

I think it’s safe to say that her unique visage has influenced every young Goth woman since the late 70s. There are numerous instructional videos on how to apply your makeup like Siouxsie does. I see Siouxsie influence in everyone from Pris in Blade Runner to multiple characters in The Crow. Karen O from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs both looks and sings like Siouxsie. The all-girl German band Xmal Deutschland sounds like they were listening to The Scream on repeat when they recorded their first album. The bands that cite Siouxsie and the Banshees as an influence are legion, and they include U2, The Cure, and Joy Division, all the way up to St. Vincent, Mothica, Anna Calvi, and Rosegarden Funeral Party. Shirley Manson of Garbage said, “I learned how to sing listening to The Scream and Kaleidoscope.” Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode said of Siouxsie, “She sings with a lot of sex – that’s what I like.” PJ Harvey said, “It’s hard to beat Siouxsie Sioux, in terms of live performance. She is so exciting to watch, so full of human energy and raw quality.”

Sioux’s singing style is indeed quite striking and unique. After decades of listening to her sing I believe it comes down to her phrasing, dramatic accentuation, and distinctive lyrics. She is known for singing like her voice is a percussion instrument, accentuating each syllable and matching her staccato vocal line to the drums. Sometimes she talk-sings the words, punches them out with venom, or splits up the syllables over the melody. I’ve never heard anyone phrase poetic lines quite like she does. Her delivery can encompass gorgeous melodies and raw dramatic howls, sometimes in the same song. Siouxsie often sings in an atonal manner like a spoken word piece, or just simply chooses unusual notes that we don’t expect. Her vocal style is as unpredictable as she herself is. 

One of their most famous songs is “Cities in Dust”, in which she pronounces it like this: “Oh your see-ya-tea lies in dust, my friend.” 
She also crafts together some pretty unique lines like these:

Flaccid ego in your hand.
Chokes on dry tears, can you understand?

-“Peek a Boo” 

I wear my silence like a mask

…
I wear my memories like a shroud.

And then, with a potential reference to Macbeth:
I wander through your sadness gazing at you with scorpion eyes.

​​​​-“Halloween”

 

A glass hand cuts through the water
Scything into his twisted roots.

​​​​-‘The Killing Jar’

 

Coronets rest on a death’s head mask

No one is safe while the curfew lasts

But crusted orbs glitter, scepters gleam

While helmets of blood fill the screen

​​​​-‘Regal Zone’

 

Feeling you but calling your name
Icy breath encases my skin
Fingers like a fountain of needles

Shiver along my spine
And rain down so divine.

-“The Sweetest Chill”

 

Early in their career they would do a twenty-minute spoken word interpretation of The Lord’s Prayer onstage. Her lyrics, of course, are greatly expanded and improvised and sacrilegious. You can hear their 14-minute studio version of this on their 1979 album Join Hands.

One of my favorite moments in a Siouxsie song is where she and drummer Budgie have some interplay on the lyrical meaning in “Spellbound.” They do a genius call and response where she sings the lyric, “Take them by the leg, and throw them down the stairs.” Immediately after this, Budgie plays some descending drum hits that sonically represent something falling down stairs. 

There have been some criticisms that Siouxsie sometimes sings out of key. I simply won’t stand for this blasphemy, so shut your dirty mouth. Music scholars have analyzed her singing and determined that she has a four-octave range, and is intentionally singing notes that create dissonance. This can be when two notes are played together that are not in harmony. Film soundtrack music does this constantly to evoke a jarring effect on the audience. The discordance of two sounds that are not complementary is meant to put you on edge, make you feel like something isn’t quite right, like the melody is not doing what you expect it to. Those dissonant notes create a tension soon relieved (or not) by the resolution.When your lyrical content involves creepy carnival imagery, fever dreams, sleep paralysis, and child abuse, you’re likely going to sing it in a way that serves the storytelling. Do you really think that Siouxsie has been singing “Metal Postcard” wrong for almost fifty years because she still can’t reach the note? Of course not, that’s clearly her intended melody. 

Having meaningful and unique lyrics is mandatory for me. I love and appreciate bands that write about things more interesting than getting laid or being heartbroken. I especially enjoy bands that take their influence from books or films, and Siouxsie does this frequently. They’ve stated that their entire first record, The Scream,was influenced by the writings of J.G. Ballard and William S. Burroughs and their literary suburban wastelands. The song “92 degrees” is based on a Ray Bradbury short story, and the film It Came From Outer Space. “Kiss them for Me” is about the life and death of actress Jayne Mansfield, and is also the title of one of her films. One of my favorite songs, “Spellbound”, is referencing the Alfred Hitchcock film from 1945. “Premature Burial” is based on the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, and the entire Peepshow album was heavily influenced by the 1973 folk horror classic The Wicker Man. The song “Happy House” has been compared to Shirley Jackson’s final novel, ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle.’ The songs “Christine” and “Eve White/Eve Black”are both based on the book The Final Face of Eve, which details the dissociative identify disorder suffered by Christine Costner Sizemore. “The Painted Bird” is based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinksi, and “Something Wicked this Way Comes” is based on the Ray Bradbury novel. Siouxsie’s lyrics in general show heavy influence from Lewis Carroll’s books. They even released an album called Through the Looking Glass, and band’s record label is named Wonderland. 

A Goth band releasing a song called “Halloween” was a genius marketing move that forever marries them to the greatest holiday ever. Since the late 80s there hasn’t been a Halloween where I didn’t listen to both the Siouxsie and the Banshees song “Halloween” and Ministry’s song “Every Day is Halloween.” And you’re safe just continuing the Siouxsie playlist on Halloween since just about all of their songs perpetuate the spooky other-worldly mood of All Hallows’ Eve.

Their love of the music of The Beatles served them very well. They covered three Beatles songs; “The Blue Jay Way”, “Helter Skelter”, and “Dear Prudence”. It must have felt bittersweet that their highest-charting song of their career was not a Siouxsie song, but their cover of “Dear Prudence”. In my opinion the Siouxsie and the Banshees cover of “Helter Skelter” is as good or better than the original. Many bands have covered this classic, including Pat Benatar, U2, Husker Du, Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson, and Motley Crue. But the Siouxsie interpretation is my absolute favorite of them all, closely followed by Pat Benatar. All of the aforementioned bands basically just replicated the song structure like the Beatles did but with different singers. Some slowed the song down, some played it faster, but nothing particularly new or innovative was done. Siouxsie actually altered the structure and delivery of the song and made it theirs, which is what you should do if covering a beloved classic. They deconstructed the song and rebuilt it to their own standards.

The Siouxsie Skelter version starts in a minimalist way with only brash guitars over a doomy single repeating bass note. The song gets going very slowly and then speeds up with the drummer pummeling the toms and Siouxsie’s unique sneering voice. They play different notes, riffs, and even replace the chorus’ descending guitar riff with the vocal line NA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA. I love the glorious punk rock addition of an f-bomb when she sings, “You may be a lover but you ain’t no fucking dancer.” And the abrupt ending where the whole band finishes when she says the word ‘Stop’ in the line, “When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide, and I stop.” It’s such a fun reinterpretation of the song with a drastically different energy. And this came out in 1978 on their debut album. For reference, the top-selling albums of that year were the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and the Grease soundtrack. So hearing this record for the first time had to truly shock the pop/disco fans, and spark some brain tingles in the newborn goths.

If you want to leap down the rabbit-hole of covers by Siouxsie and the Banshees, just look to their 1987 album Through the Looking Glass. Some bands release a cover album as a stopgap when they don’t have enough new original material. This album feels more like a loving tribute to music that influenced them. The covers album project was also a tip of the hat to Pinups, the cover album by David Bowie. There are ten cover songs from a quite diverse spread of bands including The Doors, Kraftwerk, Bob Dylan, Roxy Music, Iggy Pop, and Billie Holiday. As I stated earlier, Siouxsie and the Banshees make each song their own, and to the untrained ear you just might think some of these were originals. A special highlight is their sultry cover of “Trust in Me” from The Jungle Book film soundtrack done with frenetic harps and mandolins. How perfect is it having Siouxsie sing a song from Kaa, the hypnotic Indian python intending to put Mowgli into a trance and eat him?

The entire band has a cameo in the 1986 crime movie Out of Bounds playing “Cities in Dust.”  They are performing in a small club with mannequins held up on the ceiling with barbed wire. Siouxsie breaks the fourth wall and looks directly into the camera as she sings. It’s definitely the best two minutes of the movie.

In bigger accomplishments, Siouxsie won best female vocalist from the NME Awards in 1980, 1981, and 1982. Siouxsie and the Banshees co-headlined the very first Lollapalooza music festival back in 1991. In 2005, Siouxsie won the Icon Award at the Mojo Awards. And more recently, in 2023, she headlined the Cruel World Festival. She is also celebrated for her feminist lyrics and critique/analysis of societal structures through a woman’s perspective.

There was a time in the early 80s when the two most prominent figureheads of the goth/post-punk scene united, touring and releasing music together. This post-punk pantheon was, of course, Siouxsie Sioux and Robert Smith of The Cure, literally the reigning Queen and King of the Goth genre. The two bands were friends and toured together in 1979, with The Cure opening up for Siouxsie and the Banshees. When the Banshees’ guitarist abruptly left, Robert did double-duty, playing in both The Cure’s set and then Siouxsie and the Banshees set, never leaving the stage. Then in 1982 the Banshee’s guitarist had to drop out after just a few shows, so they asked Robert Smith to fill in for the rest of the tour.This was documented in the amazing Siouxsie concert film (and live album) from 1983 called Nocturne. Smith became an official member of Siouxsie and the Banshees, and recorded the 1984 Siouxsie album Hyena. He later left to push forward with his other band, The Cure. 

The Nocturne concert was released on DVD in 2006 and I strongly recommend tracking it down. Smith plays guitar and keyboards but knows he is supporting Siouxsie. He doesn’t do a whole lot in the way of stage presence, but how could you with Siouxsie dominating the stage feet away from you? But is it truly amazing seeing these two share the limelight together. Siouxsie prowls around the stage like a lost cat on Halloween. She gazes into the crowd with her intense eyes, burning a sigil from the netherworld into the smoky air between her and the audience. Their live centerpiece here is a dramatic extended version of the song “Voodoo Dolly.” During this song the fog machines cover the stage in thick eerie atmosphere as the band builds and builds, speeding up the song, and ending in a frenzy with Siouxsie on her hands and knees having an ecstatic out of body experience. She then crawls off the stage before returning for the encore. 

I became a big fan of Siouxsie and her drummer husband’s side project called The Creatures. This off and on again band was more focused on just her vocals and his avant-garde drumming and percussion. They worked in elements of world music, blues, jazz, Hawaiian music, and exotica. Being a drummer myself, I was jazzed for every new release by The Creatures. Budgie is an underrated drummer. Drummers propel the song along, setting the tempo and often providing the structure of the song. If the song is a car, the drums are the metal chassis and the engine. In a more appropriate comparison for Siouxsie, if the song is an animal, the drums are the skeleton and heart. What stands out for me about Budgie is how rarely he plays a simple four on the floor beat. He loves polyrhythms and playing his toms instead of the typical hi-hat/bass drum/kick pattern. Even live he’s playing all kinds of unique beats utilizing lots of alternative percussion instruments along with the drum kit.

The early 80s were a hotbed of creativity with people starting numerous bands. If you really want to delve into obscure projects involving these great musicians, check out The Glove. In 1983 while everyone was busy with Siouxsie, The Creatures, and The Cure, somehow Robert Smith and Steven Severin found time to start yet another band. This additional Siouxsie/The Cure collaboration is more pop noise art-rock than any of the other bands, but it’s still worth a listen. The Glove’s only album is called Blue Sunshine and you can find it on Spotify.

If you were to ask me what my favorite Siouxsie album is, I will wholeheartedly and without pause say JuJu from 1981. However, I have a special obsession with their 1988 release Peepshow. This was one of the first compact discs I purchased, and I brought it along with me to college like it was my musical security blanket. The lush production, unique instrumentation, and earworm songs drew me in, but it was the lyrical content that never let me leave. While it is not a concept album, for me all of the songs fit together as if spawned from the Ray Bradbury novel Something Wicked This Way Comes. The song “Carousel” seems definitively based on this book. The album feels like fever-dream nightmares of twisted childhood fears and imagery, as if someone put LSD in my Slurpee and pushed me into the traveling carnival. Siouxsie is definitely leading us down the road of childhood trauma and night terrors with her surreal lyrics. Words that I would typically use to describe poems by Edgar Allan Poe can equally apply to the Peepshow album. Words like macabre, baroque, and hallucinatory.

There are countless references to childhood songs and fears on this album. The famous Jack be Nimble, Jack be Quick nursery rhyme is used in the song “Burn Up.” Lines from ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ are written on the credit/lyric page. The song “Rawheadand Bloodybones” is based on the British folklore bogeyman.Siouxsie sings about scarecrows, jack o lanterns, and killing jars. I would put on this album to fall asleep to in my dorm room, Siouxsie singing like a siren drawing me to my doom upon the rocks. It’s amazing I didn’t have more nightmares.

Later in college I became a DJ on the radio station, and I played Siouxsie and the Banshees almost every time I was on-air. I was typically on-air very late at night, so I had more freedom to play anything I wanted. The F.C.C. only allows inappropriate or profane content between 10pm and 6am. Guess which timeslots I would regularly sign up for. I would play film soundtracks, spoken word, obscure noise bands, death metal, and fuck anthems (songs that used the f word repeatedly just to push the envelope). 

There is a Siouxsie B-side song called “An Execution” that fit right in with my middle-of-the-goddamned-night playlists. This is from their 1986 album Tinderbox, but only if you had the special extended version with extra songs that was only available on compact disc. (It’s still rarely available unless you get this particular CD or their box set collection called Downside Up.)

This song is a disturbing mood piece with a dramatic spoken word section with Siouxsie reciting this poem:

“This is what she saw
The unsuspecting horse was held fast to the ground
Whilst some soldiers slit open its belly
The guilty gypsy was shoved inside the horse’s belly
With only his head protruding from the dying beast
Another soldier then sewed up the wound with the culprit inside
Condemned to die, along with the putrefying animal, screaming
The young countess looked up, barely restraining a giggle”

At one point the innovative guitars actually make noises like that of a screaming horse. Then the song completely changes into a haunting piano melody that could be a soundtrack for a Dario Argento horror movie. It’s definitely nightmare fuel, and perfect to play on college radio at 3am. Sometimes students that were still up studying would call the studio line to ask me what in the hell song I was playing.

On April 8th, 1995 I finally got to see Siouxsie and the Banshees perform live. They played at one of my favorite Portland music venues, La Luna (RIP, closed since 1999). This was on their tour for the album The Rapture, and the band Spiritualized was the opening act. I remember thinking that this was not a good match at all. But once Siouxsie and the Banshees took the stage, my previous fifteen years of fandom exploded like a black balloon filled with black confetti. I was truly in Goth heaven. According to the online set list, they played a great collection from their discography, including lots of their big hits and one of my top Siouxsie songs, “Red Light.” They really hit their stride for a moody twenty-minute long centerpiece of two of my favorite songs from that record, “Not Forgotten” and “The Rapture.” Blue and purple lighting, and the hazers turned up to high, this portion of the concert transported me to another world. I forgot there was anyone else in the crowd but me. It’s been 31 years, but I still remember the silhouette of Siouxsie poised perfectly still onstage as if she was doing spellwork over her devoted acolytes, which she most certainly was.

 

I carefully step down the stone steps into the underground German cabaret. Cigarette smoke and murmurs swirl around the room post-performance. I notice a bottle of Amontillado sherry sitting on a table, and a luminous woman sitting by herself behind it. I sit down at her table and notice above us a spider plucking on their web like a harp. The woman waves the server over to clear away the wine bottle, which is immediately replaced by a dusty bottle of absinthe and one glass. She asks me if I know the Green Fairy, and I tell her that I am indeed a fan of la louche. The corner of her mouth curls up into a confident smile. She delicately places aslotted silver spoon on top of the glass of absinthe, sets a sugar cube on the flat spoon, and lets the ice water drip slowly onto it. As these drops of sugar water fall into the green absinthe, the color changes in a cloudy vortex of magic and dilution. I think of the creation of the universe and everything within it. She gestures for me to drink and I do. Sipping the licorice-flavored drink, I wonder if this bottle is old enough to still contain wormwood. She gazes deeply into my eyes, pushing past them and forging new paths into my brain. The cobblestone walls disappear from my periphery, and the smoke vanishes entirely from the cabaret. Her face is alight from within. She reaches across the table, grasps my hand and says, “Tell me of one of your life’s greatest loves, darling.”  So I do, and the night melts away into providence.

Death on Burnside

‘A man would have to put his soul at hazard.’

I was walking through the venue restaurant with my dinner when I heard the radio call. “Darren, somebody outside was just hit by a car and people are calling 911.” I tossed my to go box on the bar and it skittered across the oak surface as I ran around patrons seated at their tables to get outside. This food would grow cold and remain uneaten. 

I pushed open the front door of the restaurant and found a nightmare. My shift instantly cracked into something entirely different, and never returned to normal. There was a man laying in the gutter on Burnside with five women knelt down around him. One was still doing a sternum rub, so they had just begun helping him. She quickly moved into giving chest compressions. Other people were lining the sidewalk watching aghast as these women worked on him. Some of the bystanders were crying, and some were holding each other. Since so little time had passed, all of them had to have witnessed the hit and run. Patrons inside the restaurant were still sitting at tables with their dinners, staring outside in shock. I saw several people on the sidewalk with cell phones held up to their ears, but none of their mouths were moving. I realized that none of them were talking because they were all on hold. When you call 911 at night you are often put on hold due to an excess of urgent activity. 

I immediately moved into the street and turned on my flashlight to direct traffic away from this group of people in the gutter. I also called 911 and amazingly I got through and told the dispatcher the details. I later wondered if they had my number flagged since I call them so often as the security manager of a music venue. Regardless, they sent EMS and I went to check in with the women and the man in the gutter. 

I was really impressed that so many people reacted so quickly and selflessly. These women were doing a good job performing CPR on this man. I was also surprised that some dude didn’t jump in and try to take over for them, mansplaining how to properly perform CPR. I gently asked if any of them knew the man, if there was anyone here who was seen with him, and if any of them saw the vehicle that hit him. Nobody got a license plate. The only information that they had was that it was a dark colored SUV. They also kept repeating “We can’t get a pulse. We can’t get a pulse.” They were like a coven of witches trying to work magick to revive this fallen man, and that was their chant.

I called up to my team still working the concert and asked them to bring down the AED. This is the Automated Electronic Defibrillator device that most businesses have on site to assist with patrons who have had heart attacks. I asked if the woman performing CPR needed to switch out and she agreed. Performing CPR on a human being is very different from the medical dummies that you practice on in the CPR classes. When you do CPR properly, you are compressing the person’s sternum and rib cage about two inches to continue pumping blood to the person’s brain in an attempt to prevent brain damage. When you do this, you’re snapping cartilage and potentially fracturing their ribs and sternum. You will hear crunching and cracking noises as you work. This is, of course, preferable over death. 

Whenever I’m involved in an intense situation I become calm and very focused. Often the space around me dims and time slows, while details right in front of me pop out vividly. The man’s eyes were closed, thank goodness. There was shockingly not much blood from the impact, as I believed his injuries were severe but internal. But there was a good deal of spittle around the man’s face and shirt. Most of the streetlights were bathing us in a bright yellow glow, as if we were irradiated. He had a very light beard, and the stubble was actually reflecting the yellow light due to his whiskers being wet from his saliva. I could see every pore in the man’s skin. The cracked asphalt had numerous shades of grey, and there was a large shallow pothole that his body was laying inside of. I shall never forget his face.

Being this close to the man and touching him with both of my hands, I knew that he was no longer there. Whatever spirit, soul, electrical impulses, or energy you believe inhabits the human body during life was completely absent from his body. It’s hard to explain. I’m certainly not a doctor or an empath, and in fact I’m an atheist. But I knew at that moment that he was dead and that we were just continuing to keep his blood pumping to his brain while waiting for the ambulance. His body had too much pliancy. The way that it loosely held it’s weight, the way his limbs reacted to gravity, and the overall heaviness of his body just felt like I was handling road kill. It’s the same psychic stillness that you feel after euthanizing a pet. You know that the beloved pet’s spirit just isn’t there anymore and you’re crying over cooling meat. 

The police cars and fire trucks showed up quickly and started blocking off the street with their vehicles. I had traded out with one of the other women and was now crouched down on the asphalt watching the police string yellow crime scene tape across the road. I realized that in a few moments none of our customers would be able to exit the restaurant because they would be inside the taped off zone. I called in to the restaurant manager and confirmed that we needed to evacuate the customers. I got one of my security staff to escort all of the customers to the only side door that was not going to be inside the crime scene. They successfully got out and away before the police had a two-block area completely sealed off. The restaurant then locked their doors.

Burnside is a street that bisects the city into Northern and Southern halves. It goes west into Southwest Portland and very far East into Gresham. The Burnside Bridge connects both halves of Portland. Most of the venues I’ve worked at are on Burnside, or within a block or two. Famous landmarks like The Roseland Theater, Mary’s Club, Dante’s, and Powell’s Books all live on Burnside. Voodoo Doughnuts, Doug Fir Lounge, Ash Street Saloon, Bossanova Ballroom, The Burnside Skatepark, Crystal Ballroom, Ground Kontrol, Berbati’s Pan, and Satyricon were either on Burnside or were a thrown beer can’s distance away from it. 

The stretch of the road that is outside this venue is four lanes wide. But tonight, with all traffic missing and my adrenaline and emotions peaking, it seemed like Burnside was the size of an airport runway. All the streetlights seemed extra bright so this empty patch of road felt like a movie set; warped and unreal. I did not feel like I was on a major street in a city that I’ve lived in for thirty years. I’ve walked, driven, biked, and marched in protests and Pride Parades on this street. I’ve performed with all of my bands, gone on dates, and celebrated countless life events on this street. Now I’m here responding to a stranger’s death, crouched on the street like a little kid in a sandbox looking up at the candy lights of the police vehicles.Waiting for a miracle or divine intervention to revive this man that I know will never come.

More emergency vehicles arrived and blockaded the street, and officers walked over to me. I suppose I was the only person wearing a radio like them, so I may have seemed like someone to talk to. I told them what I knew and told them we had been performing CPR for a few minutes now. I relayed that all witnesses described the vehicle as a dark SUV that fled the scene after the hit and run heading east. They asked me if we had any security cameras facing the street that we could pull footage from. My heart broke as I realized that we did not. The only cameras we have are covering our main entrance, and not this portion of the street. No other businesses nearby had cameras or were even open to ask. 

I did point out to them some pieces of broken plastic on the road in front of the man that seemed to be from the vehicle that struck him. They looked like small pieces of a broken headlight and some other small pieces of the vehicles. One rather large piece of clear plastic was in the rough shape of a star. The thought was that if they could catch the suspected vehicle and match this piece to it’s headlight like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle then they would have proof of the hit and run driver.

The paramedics arrived and took over. The police began taking statements from anyone who witnessed the hit and run. We were then presented with a new problem. Somebody called from upstairs announcing that the concert was over and the crowd was heading outside. I had essentially forgotten that there was a concert that I was supposed to be managing. We quickly rallied various staff from security and production to stand outside and prevent people from stumbling into a crime scene. As people exited the one venue door available to them, they were surprisingly rude about the inconvenience of having their chosen path blocked. I was stunned at the assholery of so many of the exiting patrons actually arguing with us about why they couldn’t cross the yellow tape and walk through the cordoned-off area with fire trucks and police cars.

I told one particularly aggressive patron that somebody in the street behind me just died and that they needed to get out of my face and walk the other way. People started asking if the dead guy was a homeless person or a junkie. Some staff asked me that later too. Like it mattered at all. The person was an innocent human being hit by a car. Categorizing them as somehow lesser-than or non-essential so you can feel less bad about it is reprehensible. Fuck you for even asking me that question. A person just died and people are upset that they have to walk an extra thirty feet to get to their car? I loudly told a few patrons to get the fuck out of here, and then some police officers came up to enforce the line for me. 

I wisely left the situation and walked back into the street to observe the paramedics with the man. I wanted to see this situation through to the end, with him being taken away in the ambulance. Strangely, they had not continued CPR when they took over for us. It wasn’t like you see in the movies where the paramedic says, “Thank you so much, we’ll take it from here” as they start chest compressions. In fact, they were moving slowly and did not appear to be in a rush at all. Yet, they had not covered the man with a blanket like they do when someone is pronounced dead at the scene. I was thoroughly confused. They slowly placed the man on a stretcher, but left him there unattended while they went to do something else. There was no urgency here at all. They returned and moved the stretcher over to the ambulance, where they put him inside and did not leave the scene. I waited as long as I could, expecting them to turn on their siren and lights and drive him to the nearest hospital. They were still there ten minutes later, so I went back inside.

I walked back through the restaurant trying not to make eye contact with anyone. I didn’t want to talk to anybody ever again. I went into the basement and walked around the corner into a dead end so I could be alone for a moment. I bored holes into the grimy wall with my eyes, I glared pure fire. I visualized a large sigil of vengeance on this wall. I wanted to break porcelain, to melt steel, to puncture flesh, to chew bones and spit out bullets. I wanted to catch the motherfucker that killed this man and then drove away without consequence. I slowed my breathing and focused on all the ancient abandoned items in this corner of the basement. I knew that I couldn’t remain for the rest of the shift.

I then heard some people enter the basement and talk quietly just around the corner in the part that we normally use. Whoever was there had no idea that I was around the corner seething, and I was now essentially trapped here. I decided to walk around the corner and out of the basement. I saw that it was two of my other managers comforting each other. I later found out that the manager who called me on the radio at the beginning actually witnessed the man getting hit by the vehicle. They had given their statement to the police officers and were now sitting on a chair sobbing while another manager had his arm around them comforting them. I should have checked in and comforted the both of them but I couldn’t, I had to get out of there.

I went into our staff office and asked the venue manager if he could send me home, which he gladly did. I announced over the radio that I was leaving the shift early and that I wanted everyone to be careful and to get home safe. Two other coworkers that were traumatized by tonight left early as well. I had never left a shift early before. I drove home in a daze thinking about everything. Both of my teenage kids were at my place tonight, but I chose not to tell them about any of this yet. They were surprised to see me home so early, and they knew something was off with me. I admitted that it was a challenging night and that I’d like to tell them about it tomorrow. Tonight I just wanted to be in their presence and absorb their positive youthful energy. They both gave me hugs and told me they loved me, and that was what I needed most. 

I went into my bedroom and lit a candle for this man. It took me a very long time to fall asleep. 

About a week after this incident I had the following dream:

I was working at a little-used side door on Burnside taking out garbage and recycling. This isn’t a door that the public ever uses, and it doesn’t even have a window or any writing on it. A stocky drunk man approached me and started babbling nonsense. I told him that this was a staff-only door and he needed to move on. He started cussing at me and charged me, grabbing my shoulders. I dropped the garbage bag I was hauling and grabbed his hands, breaking free of his grip. He spat at me and charged again, grabbing onto me again. I then used both hands to push him as hard as I could in the center of his chest. As my palms struck his shirt I heard the same cracking that I heard when performing CPR. He started falling backwards and tripping over his own feet. For a moment he looked like he was on a bicycle pedaling backwards. He skittered across the sidewalk and fell backwards right onto Burnside street. A second later the first truck hit him. I didn’t move to help him at all. Instead I closed the door and went back inside the building. I went into another area of the restaurant and looked outside. It was dark since it was nighttime, but the street was extra dark, like all the streetlights had gone out. I saw cars continue to hit the man. In fact, every single car on that side of the street hit his body over and over again. Instead of blood in the gutters I saw a gray/orange sludge that appeared to be slow-moving lava. None of the cars even noticed that they were running over a dead man on the street, let alone stopped and got out to help. He was like a dead squirrel on the road that nobody sees and just keeps driving over until he is tamped down into the asphalt itself and disappears.

In this dream I was definitely not the hero. In fact, I was the direct cause of the man being hit by a car. Obviously my guilt and grief around this still troubles me. Several statements from the event haunt me.

“We can’t get a pulse.”
“There aren’t any security cameras.”
“Nobody got the license plate.”

I did seek counseling around this incident, and spoke with any of my friends who were interested in listening. I told my kids all about it. It was particularly helpful to talk with a friend of mine who works as a paramedic for AMR here in Portland. He told me lots of good information about what could have been happening on the EMS end of things. After listening to the entire story, he told me that I was the I.C. for that night, which means Incident Commander. While that is a great compliment, I don’t actually agree with him. I did what I could, and had a couple of resources that the regular civilian might not have. 

I’m still fidgety when I’m outside of the venue near Burnside. Any loud crash or car horn honking sends me into panic mode assuming that someone else was just hit by a car. Every day I walk by the spot in the road that the man laid in as we tried to save him. Everyday I see cars blow through red lights and almost hit other vehicles and pedestrians at this intersection. Honestly, I can’t spend too much time on Burnside while I’m working. I try hard to avoid it.  

A few weeks later, another man was struck on Burnside by a hit and run driver. But this time it was during the day and when I arrived there were already about six firefighters working on him. They had him hooked up to numerous monitoring devices and were already using a bag valve mask on him. No idea if he survived or not. I also have no idea what happened to the man that I assisted with. There was a news article about it asking if anyone had any information to contact the detectives, but the story was never updated.

After these hit and run events I started carrying a waist pack with items I can use in these urgent life and death scenarios where there is no time to react. I have trauma shears, a fingertip pulse oximeter, and ten doses of Narcan. None of these tools would have mattered in these hit and run situations, but it makes me feel better having them on me for when it will matter. I have since used all of them.

I showed up to work that night only expecting to manage a concert. I ended up in the street with my hands on a dead man trying to save his life and failing. One of the primary reasons that I work in this industry is to help people and keep them safe. I did neither tonight. Nothing like this is in the job description, it’s all just part of the job that we sign on for. We’re ready for checking IDs, breaking up fights, and cutting off drunk people. We certainly are not as mentally prepared to deal with someone overdosing, getting shot, or getting killed by a hit and run driver. And yet, these situations happen more and more, and we are the first people to respond. This is my job. This is the work that I have chosen.

But I’m honestly not sure how much longer I’ll choose to do this. I find myself needing more and more time to recharge after being drained down on nights like these. If you asked me if I’m a glass half full or a glass half empty guy, I’d probably just say it depends on what’s in the glass. But I can tell you that my reservoir of faith in humanity was drained much lower on this night.

Anyone who works in the service industry downtown in any large city is aware of this morbid inevitability. If you work as a door staff or a bouncer, eventually you’re going to get pulled into a life or death situation outside of your venue. You will be tasked. You will be challenged. You won’t be the same afterwards. All you can do is just hope that on that night you’re somewhat ready to rise to the occasion and handle it with as much grace as you can.

A man would have to put his soul at hazard. 

He’d have to say, “OK, I’ll be part of this world.”

-Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men  

Tales from the Darkside

“Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be realty. But…there is, unseen by most, an underworld.
A world that is just as real, but not as brightly lit. 
A dark side.”

This was the creepy introductory narration to the mid-eighties anthology series called Tales From the Darkside. I didn’t have to look that up because I still have it memorized. I obsessively watched this show as a pre-teen, scribbling down these words by flashlight since the show aired very late at night. I would speak the words along with narrator Paul Sparer, trying to sound as sinister as he did and getting the inflection just right. 

I recently watched the amazing film I Watched the TV Glow, and that inspired me to revisit this beloved show of my youth. The main character in that film rewatches a show that they bonded with their best friend over, but found that it was not at all how they remembered it. Upon rewatching The Pink Opaque as an adult, the show felt forced, cheap looking, and cheesy. Rose-colored glasses are a bitch. It also wasn’t as special because now you can just stream the entire series, binge-watching the whole thing. There was a certain reverence to waiting each week and clearing your schedule to watch the show live when it aired. The magic was gone, and the character wonders if it was just their lens of teen bonding and nostalgia that made them recall the show with such obsessive love.

The similar show of my youth was TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE. This series ran from 1983 through 1988 on regular TV. It was an anthology series created by George Romero, featuring many famous (or about to be famous) actors. Some of the stories were based on work from major writers like Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Frederick Pohl, Robert Bloch, and Clive Barker. It delved into science fiction, fantasy, thriller, dark comedy, and horror. This is very much in the same vein as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, with short 20-25 minute long episodes. Some of them are farcical, some mildly creepy, and some are downright masterpieces of the short horror tale format. 

In 1990 a feature film was made called Tales from the Darkside – The Movie. I remember being very excited to see this in theaters, as it was finally a R-rated adaptation of one of my favorite shows. And it had some inspired casting, including Debbie Harry (Blondie), David Johansen (New York Dolls), Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore (her debut film), and Rae Dawn Chong. However, I found it disappointing in the same way that Twilight Zone – The Movie was disappointing. It didn’t maintain a consistent tone, and some of the stories were simply not great. It also spent more time on silliness and humor than dread, action, or horror. The corniness factor was just too high. 

The original 80s show aired weekly and it was on way past my prescribed middle-school bedtime. Each Sunday night I would carefully sneak out to the living room and, as quietly as I could, turn on the big console television. My parents had to wake up early in the morning for their jobs, so they were asleep. The power switch was a horizontal silver metal bar about the size of a harmonica.  You would flip this up to turn on the TV, and the cathode ray tube would then make a surprisingly loud static electricity-filled hum as it powered up. I would kneel down on the orange shag carpet right in front of the TV, much like some people kneel to pray. I stayed perfectly still hoping that the noise didn’t wake up my parents, keeping my hand on the volume dial and turning it as needed to go quieter or louder. I would watch the twenty-minute episodes on a super low volume with my face far too close to the screen. Remember back then a show just aired when it aired, and that was it. If you missed it you just wouldn’t see it again. If you missed some dialogue there was no rewinding to make out what was said. So I would kneel with my eyes wide open watching the show, absorbing it, prostrated on my knees as I worshipped at the broadcast altar of the occult. Episodes aired on Sunday nights, which only added to the blasphemy of the ritual. My bible was The Necronomicon. My hymnal was my worn paperback copy of H. P. Lovecraft stories. My preacher was George Romero. My communion bread was a chocolate chip cookie, and my sacramental wine was Dr. Pepper. As each show concluded, I would turn off the TV and return triumphantly to my bedroom feeling like I had successfully broken several laws and half of the Ten Commandments. Later I figured out how to set the VCR to tape the show automatically. But I still crept out there to verify that it started taping, and then I would just stay and watch the episode as I recorded it.  

I’ve always been impressed with the short story and the episodic television show as an entertainment medium. Some of my favorite writers have discussed that writing short stories is much more difficult than writing a novel. Same with a full-length film compared to a 25-minute TV episode. When you only have 80 pages, or 20 minutes to tell a story, you’ve got to get right to it. You don’t have time for backstory, motivations, flashbacks, or character arcs. You’ve just got to introduce the audience to the characters and immediately drop them into the action. But you’ve got to make it entertaining, hold the audience’s interest, and not be too vague or confusing. The editing process must be frustrating as hell. I know that I couldn’t do it. Even my movie reviews end up being novellas.

I’m having so much fun seeing really famous actors pop up in almost every episode in season one. We get both Christian Slater and Brent Spiner in “A Case of the Stubborns.” Danny Aiello and Tom Noonan star together in “The Odds”. I loved seeing Jessica Harper from Suspiria as the lead in “The Tear Collector.” Joe Turkel appears in “Levitation”, famously known from Blade Runner and The Shining. Justine Bateman from Family Ties stars along with Tippi Hedren from Hitchcock’s film The Birds in “Mookie and Pookie.” Keenan Wynn, Bruce Davison, Harry Anderson, Dorothy Lyman, Jean Marsh, and even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar all show up. Carol Kane stars in one of my favorite episodes “Snip, Snip.” Her lovable image works in her favor as she plays a character unlike any she played prior. Special effects makeup artist Tom Savini directs the episode that feels most like a horror movie called “Inside the Closet.” Some of my favorite episodes involve characters that, for one reason or another, are losing their minds and their hold on reality. All of these examples are from season one.

I’m sure casting this show was an easy sell.  Show up for maybe a day of shooting, get paid, get another credit on your resume, and potentially get seen by a new audience. Everybody seems to be having a great time here. Lots of talented character actors make appearances, sometimes carrying the whole episode as the main actor (David Patrick Kelly, Richard Romanus, Fritz Weaver, Ronee Blakley). There was a lot of crossover between TV actors and film actors with this show.

It’s interesting to see the subject matter of the mid-80s turning towards fear of incoming technology. At least two episodes in season one deal with computers being haunted or sentient, or potentially possessing the soul or memories of a person. There are the typical tales about fear of no-tech things like Ouija boards, Tarot card readers, magicians, or haunted houses. There’s even a story about a coin-operated fortune-teller machine. But alongside those we also have stories about fear of the personal computer, the telephone, and even the typewriter. Thanks to Stephen King for the story about the typewriter where anything that you type happens in real life. 

In my own life in the early 80s we certainly did have the personal computer being introduced to the home. I remember using the Commodore Vic-20, and later the Commodore 64 to play games and do homework on. This new technology was not understood by most of us, so it very easily could have been powered by magic, a demon, or robotic sentience. Who knew? The layperson back then didn’t understand motherboards or BASIC programming language, despite that name. Prior to these home computers my parents and I played the original Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 gaming system. As everyone knows, there are ghosts in the Pac-Man game that we destroyed as we played. Literal ghosts in the machine, if you will. 

The only drawback is the video quality and the inconsistency of tone. When you have a different director for every single episode, the quality varies greatly. And when the stories themselves range from silly to unnerving to horrific, it’s a gamble what you’re going to get each time. The image is pillarboxed (black bars on the sides of the screen, the inverse of letterboxed where they’re on the top and bottom).  I don’t mind this at all, and it actually represents more accurately what we saw on our console televisions in the 80s. Sadly the image itself is rather poor, not crisp and colorful. It’s sort of faded and degenerated. I have no idea if there is any way to improve upon it; the source material probably just looks this way. After a couple episodes you do get used to it, but it’s disappointing that the image looks as poor as it does. Some would say that the dubious video quality just adds to the nostalgia, sort of like watching old VHS tapes or listening to a vinyl record with lots of surface noise. 

Many of the episodes, similar to The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, resolve with a big reveal or ironic shock. This isn’t really a problem when you have 90 episodes spread out, but when you binge-watch them together sometimes you feel like a template was used. Some of them just made me shrug my shoulders or roll my eyes, while others made me lean forward on my couch in excitement and involvement. I appreciated the inventiveness of most of the stories, and there’s some fun direction along the way. Even though this series is decidedly low budget, that doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of it. The episodes sometimes feel like a stage play, just using one main set location and letting the acting performances carry the show. Seeing the impressive collection of actors is likely the biggest selling point. That, and the eerie theme music from the intro and outro. Terror is where you find it, after all. 

I can see now that this show was clearly aimed at young people, much like The Pink Opaque and its basis Buffy the Vampire Slayer was also aimed at young people. Middle school was probably the perfect time for me to become obsessed with the show, as I had yet to really delve into R-rated horror films. There is a perfect window of opportunity for content like this. As I got older and entered high school, I got too social and too busy to worry about catching shows on television. I was driving myself to see films in the theaters like The Hitcher, Aliens, and Angel Heart, so tame little episodes where you didn’t see any gore or sex or violence probably seemed trite to me then.

However, this series still left a huge impression on me. One of the activities that I busied myself with was becoming a disc jockey on our high school radio station. I created a weekly show where I played hard rock and metal music. I called this show The Darkside, and I was on every Friday of my junior and senior year. Later, in the 90s, I joined the college radio station as a disc jockey. I was there for three years and I played all different genres of music into the wee hours. I didn’t have a specialty show, but I did go by my radio name, which was Reverend Darksider.

 

“The Darkside is always there waiting for us to enter; waiting to enter us. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.”

 

The complete four-season series of TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE is put out by CBS MEDIA. It has all 90 episodes spread out over twelve DVD discs. 

The Tunnel King

I watched The Great Escape so many times as a kid that I dug a tunnel in my parents’ backyard.

The Great Escape is a classic WW2 film from 1963 directed by John Sturges. It tells the true story of the largest escape from a Nazi prisoner of war camp, based on the book by Paul Brickhill. This engaging adventure film has one of the greatest ensemble casts in cinema: Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, and Donald Pleasance. The memorable soundtrack is by Elmer Bernstein, and I’ve been humming some of these themes spontaneously for decades now. 

This film was on TV all the time when I was growing up, and any time I came across it I would get some snacks and plant myself in front of the television for the next three hours. I watched it with my Dad several times, and then by myself, then later I started inviting my high school buddies over to watch it. In college I would bring friends that hadn’t ever seen it into my dorm room, turn off the lights, and travel back in time to 1943. As an adult, I purchased this film in every iteration that came around. I had the double-VHS tape edition, then the DVD, then the Blu-ray (which was a surprisingly bad transfer), and now the Criterion 4K UHD Blu-ray. 

This film is a litmus test of cinematic exposure and appreciation. If you’ve never seen it I want to watch it with you to experience your first time through your eyes and to discuss it afterwards. As I said above I watched this with my parents, countless male friends, and numerous girlfriends. I’m lucky to live in a cinema city so I’ve seen this in theaters on the big screen as well. I then passed down my love for this film to my kids, making movie night out of this film at home when they were pre-teens. This film was a perfect introduction to war movies for both me as a kid, and then my own kids. There isn’t too much on screen violence, there is zero sex or nudity, and they don’t delve into the darker realities of WW2 like the genocidal extermination programs and death camps. The Geneva Convention was still followed, so the conditions in this camp were much better than others. It’s just one of those movies. Epic in scale, filmed in Panavision, dealing with humanity in a shockingly inhumane situation, with some of the best dialogue and actors. Much like the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns or the Coppola Godfather movies, this movie just defines cinema and remains timeless while being locked in a particular era in modern history. 

One day after watching The Great Escape, I went outside into my parent’s backyard and grabbed a shovel and started digging a hole. The energy of this film inspired me to see if I could garner even a fraction of the determination and hard work the characters had. I don’t recall exactly how old I was, but I’m going to go with eleven years old. I certainly was not trying to escape any oppressive draconian rule by my parents, I just was excited to see if I could replicate what Charles Bronson, the Tunnel King, did in the film. My parents likely thought I was just being silly and would give up after a few inches of earth was displaced. I was not a big, strong, or particularly coordinated child. I refused to play any sports due to disinterest and lack of ability and strength. The idea of tiny little Darren tunneling out of their yard like Charles Bronson must have given my parents quite a giggle. 

But I was very determined and had the energy and drive to just keep it going. I had a wheelbarrow that I filled with the dirt and moved across the yard to create a large dirt pile. I believe that my Dad offered to help but I wouldn’t let him. I was a stubborn one, and wanted to conquer this tunnel all by myself. As I got several feet down, I got a garden trowel and carved out little foot holes in the side to make climbing in and out of the hole easier. Lord knows I wasn’t just going to put a ladder down in a hole. I wanted precisely measured foot holes in the side that would fit my feet and the stretch of my little legs.

This dig may have been archeological as well. The movie Raiders of the Lost Ark had just come out and was a huge blockbuster, as well as somehow making archeology look kind of cool. So as I dug I was definitely looking for tiny ancient wooden idols, mystical jewelry from another age, or abandoned knifes or pistols from cowboy times. As I dug out dozens of rocks and roots I kept my eyes peeled for a gold doubloon, or even the one true ring, because you never know. Unfortunately, the layer of subsoil in Eugene, Oregon contained nothing but rotten acorn shells. Not even a stray marble or toy car wheel. Boring.

Yet I continued. As my parents offered unconditional support of my strange project day after day, they would yell out to me offering me snacks. I got down pretty deep in the earth for a little kid and started utilizing flashlights in my pit so I could keep digging and carving out those infernal rocks and roots from the sides of my mineshaft. The hard part now became getting buckets of dirt up from the bottom up to the surface. I believe this is the part where I did let my Dad help me. I would lift the buckets of dirt up over my head to the surface and hand them to him so he could place them on the ground without the dirt falling back onto my face.

I started collecting pieces of wood leftover from a fence project that my Dad and I had finished. I was going to use these to shore up the walls of the tunnel as I started digging laterally. I would be putting a wooden structure similar to a picture frame every six feet or so, then putting fence planks on the top side of them, hopefully holding up the earth above it. I analyzed the scenes with Bronson underground, placing small tea light candles and laying rails for a skateboard or dolly type device for him to lie on to travel from the front of the entrance to the place that needed digging. They even had manually operated air pumps down there, but I wouldn’t need that. I would need to excavate wider parts to allow turning around and moving tools and buckets of earth. Without proper bracing as you dug, you would suffer a cave-in, as shown quite memorably in the film.  

I now had dug down deep enough now for a normal sized adult to stand on the bottom of the pit and have their head under the surface. I considered this a massive success and was quite proud of this. I could bring my friends and even my parents down here. What was I going to make of it though? I certainly wasn’t attempting a one-time escape like in the film, I was aiming for a tunnel that went somewhere specific and would be used often. It would have openings inside that would act as tiny rooms. It would be like a private tree house, but under the earth. 

I had a friend named Shane that lived just four houses East of our house. We would often play army together, debate what actor played the greatest horror character, and talk about Bruce Lee’s innate martial arts prowess. We could do all that underground in this tunnel hideout. Eventually we could get small chairs down there and read comic books by flashlight. We could bring down my boombox and listen to Men at Work and The Pretenders on cassette. And what better place to play Dungeons and Dragons then an actual tunnel where we could potentially encounter a kobold around every corner? The mood would be absolutely perfect. We could roll dice and cast an illumination spell, and for protection from a cave-in. There would be a stock of Dr. Pepper and candy bars down there, stored in our metal Star Wars lunchboxes so the bugs couldn’t get into them. I could even string an extension cord from the house, and we would then have the upgrade of electricity in my subterranean dungeon tunnel hideout. 

With this grandiose plan in place, I started to dig laterally in the general direction towards his house. I figured that he too could dig a hole in his back yard and start digging towards me. However, we had no technology to determine exactly where were headed, so rather than dig two tunnels that might pass each other, I just figured I’d dig mine and try to guesstimate when I thought I was close enough to his yard. I was going to take tape measures (or pre-measured string like in the film) and determine how far I had dug in his direction. Then I could walk the street from my house to his house, measuring as well and sort of approximate when I should start digging straight up towards the surface. I’d feel just like Steve McQueen, hoping that my tunnel didn’t end up twenty feet short like in the film. Shane had an extremely large back yard, so I thought this plan was a decent one. Ah, optimistic and naïve youth, what a fickle bitch you are. 

Of course I wasn’t taking into account what other obstructions would be in my way. This was suburbia Eugene, and all of these houses were brand new construction when my parents bought this home. It was just a field before these houses were built. But now, I would potentially hit sewage pipes, large tree roots, electrical wiring inside PVC pipes, etc. Hell, just encountering a huge buried boulder would stop me in my tracks, let alone a house foundation with a basement. I was, after all, no more than six or seven feet underground. 

But I figured I’d just cross this bridge (or circumvent that boulder) when I came to it. Just like Richard Attenborough says in the film, “Meanwhile, WE DIG.” Days after first starting this project, I started digging laterally and lifting the buckets of dirt up to the top of the pit by myself. I figured out a way to put my foot in the bottom step-hole and lean my back against the opposite wall, then lift the bucket of dirt up to the top without having to enlist help from my Dad. At this point, they were still very supportive of this bizarre quest I’d begun. I got straight A’s in school, and this was physical activity and planning, so they allowed it. They did not, however, know of my plan to dig a tunnel four houses over to Shane’s house to then pop up out of their lawn, emerging like a rabid groundhog from hell, babbling about needing valid passports and having Nazis on my tail. Burrowing underneath the large yards of five houses could easily be a total distance of over 500 feet, through a tunnel dug by an eleven-year-old boy. So I wisely kept the extent of my grand excavating vision to myself.

I brought down some of that fence wood and made that little frame around the new lateral portion of the tunnel. I used a smaller shovel and small pick to dig out the earth, push it behind me, then bring it up to the surface in buckets. It was hard work, and now I was completely covered in dirt every single day. Digging straight down didn’t get me particularly dirty, but being on my hands and knees digging laterally certainly did, making me look like a mud-encrusted shambling mound. I can imagine my Dad watching me crawl out of the earth from the kitchen window and saying something like, “Well, Margie….our boy is a zombie.” I, however, thought I looked like Charles Bronson, so I wore that like a badge of honor.

My tunnel obsession continued, and any free time after school or on weekends I spent underground. I was taking piano lessons at the time, so I imagine my parents were sad to see the fingers that should be used to make music completely covered in dirt and blisters. I don’t think I got all the grit out from under my fingernails for weeks. Unearthing and moving so many substantially sized rocks and boulders had become the most challenging part of this effort. My Mom once opened the kitchen window and yelled out, “Darren, you should come inside for some lemonade.” From the bottom of my pit I yelled back, “Charles Bronson didn’t have any lemonade, Mom!”

Of course, this tunnel project had to eventually come to a premature end. The two factors that caused its demise were the family dog and the rain. We had a toy poodle named Boots that didn’t weigh more than nine pounds. She would hang around the edge of the pit while I worked, assumedly hoping I would uncover a dog treat or something for her. One day, while I was inside describing my exciting plans for mining my pre-teen cave, we realized we couldn’t find Boots. She wouldn’t come when we called her name, which was atypical of her. We went out into the yard and, sure enough, she had fallen down into the pit. She certainly wasn’t trying to take cover from a Luftwaffe strafe attack; she very likely was trying to find me. I felt terrible. Amazingly, she did not break her legs or hurt herself in any way. In fact, she was yapping playfully and wagging her tail looking up at me from the bottom. It was sort of a reverse shot of the scene in Silence of the Lambs where the dog Precious is looking down at the kidnapped woman. I carefully climbed down and grabbed Boots, then brought her back up to safety. That little poodle gave us all a good scare, and brought up a valid safety concern. 

Later that same night, it rained. A lot. In Oregon we have rain for a majority of the year, so I don’t know what I was thinking would happen. My enthusiasm for the project had blinded me to the fact that this pit would get rained out and eventually fill up with water. I went down in it the next day anyway, probably thinking that having wet soil might make it easier to dig and extract the small boulders. There were already a couple inches of standing water at the bottom, and into the tunnel itself. I tried to brainstorm a good way to get the water out with a bilge pump used on boats, and a way to build a small covering over the entrance hole to divert rainfall. I wasn’t ready to abandon my dream of underground inter-property secret travel just yet.

But this is when my parents took me aside and gently explained that my tunnel would probably need to be closed up and abandoned. They were understanding and sensitive about the demise of this dream I had. They said they were proud of me for working so long and hard on this project. I was indeed sad, but agreed that this project was beyond me, unrealistic, and somewhat of a safety hazard. So the next day, once it stopped raining, my Dad and I shoveled the mountains of dirt I had excavated back into the tunnel. It’s always easier to destroy than to create, so this process only took a fraction of the time and effort it took to initially dig it out. I love that my parents allowed me the space to explore an obviously crazy and unrealistic project until it became unfeasible. Then they presented it to me logically and without judgment and made me feel like I actually came to the decision myself. They were the best. Surprisingly, we don’t have any photos of this endeavor. I just have my memories of it and this memoir.

A few years later we had an addition built onto our house when we had a large family room constructed. This happened to be built right over the old location of my tunnel site. This felt to me like when an abandoned gold mine is intentionally collapsed by using dynamite to seal it up. I ended up moving into this room as a teenager to have more privacy. So I was sleeping right on top of the old opening to my tunnel. I still hung out with my neighbor Shane, but we just walked to each other’s house instead of using my connective tunnel plan. By this time I was a teenager so I had moved on to other things. Puberty changes your focus and priorities for sure. But I still watch The Great Escape annually. 

I do still daydream about building a tunnel someday. Instead of counting sheep to fall asleep, I used to think of the schematics for building an underground hobbit-hole more professionally. You’d want to have pipes traveling up to the surface so any wood stove you put inside would have venting. You might want to start by using a bulldozer to excavate the entire area first, and then shape the passageways and rooms from there. You’d backfill the dirt around these barriers instead of laboriously digging out each hallway or room. And you’d definitely want to build a mudroom over the entrance so poodles or rainwater can’t get in.

Or, perhaps I should take up motorcycle riding so I can recreate the Steve McQueen character jumping his cycle over the German barbwire fences. 

Nah, that’s way more dangerous.

Trench Warfare

There are a lot of similarities and connections to the military working on an event security team. Most nights I feel like we are the elite team there to look out for and protect an allied army of less trained and less organized rookie soldiers. But on this particular night, I felt like we went to war with a hostile enemy army trying to destroy our castle.

Ex-military are very comfortable working a physical job like that of a bouncer, so any security team will likely have staff with military training. But it’s not just that, it’s our radio protocol and how we look at the concert itself. The unique nomenclature that we use is all taken from military jargon. Listen to any radio call and you’ll hear people asking for someone’s 20 (location), talk about being stationed at your post (and jokes about abandoning your post), calling color codes for various situations, and lots of “Copy that.” When I climb over the barricade to enter the crowd I feel like a WW1 soldier coming up out of the trenches into battle. We often refer to crazy situations as FUBAR (which originated during WW2). We refer to the division trench for staff to walk between the crowd as the DMZ (demilitarized zone), and we call the space in between the barricades and the stage The Moat. It’s like the stage is the castle and the performers are the King and Queen, and we are the soldiers standing by the gates defending them from the hordes. Sometimes I do wish that I was in charge of a flaming trebuchet.

But tonight I witnessed something I have never seen before. I refuse to name the band because I will not give them any further notoriety or attention. But in three words, fuck these guys. This band was known for their crazy out of control crowds, and the tour manager informed us that some of the previous venues suffered minor damage after their show. Since our building is very very old, this was a valid concern. It was decided to change the structure of the DMZ that usually divides the hall into sections. Staff were concerned that a building as old as this one would potentially not be able to sustain a sold-out crowd jumping aggressively for the duration of the concert. There was worry of floorboards and support beams possibly cracking. So we built the DMZ (which is already very heavy steel) in a totally different way than we ever had before, bisecting the crowd down the middle giving us an access corridor from center stage straight back to the back of the room. I had my doubts about this doing any good, and questioned the physics of this idea to my manager. But certain people who were higher-up outnumbered any dissent among the grunts.

So the show started and was indeed batshit crazy. Their music was complete garbage. It was a schizophrenic mishmash song-salad of wanna-be hip hop, performed by people who looked like they were high school dropouts. But this definitely wasn’t hip hop. If hip hop music was a studio-financed feature film, this dreck was a 3-minute long Saturday morning cartoon on cocaine. But the crowd was absolutely maniacal with their enthusiasm. They weren’t really crowdsurfing, but they were just pogo-ing and knocking into each other and the barriers as hard as they could. Swirling like a mosh pit but without any moshing. It was as if the band sent out a message to their fans on social media prior to the show that said, “HOMIES! For tonight’s show we want everybody to smoke all the meth you can find, and try to destroy the venue.”

I found out later that this was indeed the band’s first time touring, so they apparently didn’t know the etiquette or expectations of respect for the venue. Their rabid crowd had the same problems, and acted like they had never been at a concert before. But somehow this inexperienced infantile group got enough of a following to sell out this concert, so we had just about 1500 of these lunatics here. Looking out into the crowd was like watching a playground full of kids that were all trying to kill each other. I wouldn’t know where to start, but I wanted to intervene. Normally the staff up at the stage will climb over the metal barricades to intercept people fighting or thrashing around hard enough to injure the people around them. But this crowd was nothing but people thrashing around acting stupid. There wasn’t anyone to isolate and pull out of the crowd. We would have needed a hundred staff like me to move into the crowd and pull out the insane ragers without getting swarmed and pummeled ourselves. It just wasn’t worth it to try.

The crowd was ramming the barriers so hard that they were bending and breaking the connecting pipes. We were in a constant state of repairing these broken areas of pipe and drape that we need there for emergency exit/access, but aren’t anywhere near as strong as the two-panel stage barricade pieces. The obnoxious crowd started throwing full bottles of water around. Not only can these hurt and damage your eye on impact, but they also splash water all over people, including the expensive music and lighting gear onstage. Just to add to the chaos, the band kept playing a sample of a shotgun being racked and fired. Over and over again, constantly. Also air horns and air raid sirens. Combine this with the fog machine filling the hall with stage smoke, and the bright strobe lights flashing and blinding people like flash-bangs, and you have what felt like a war zone.

Then something happened that I have never seen happen in all my years of working security at concerts. Those metal barricades that we always have set up parallel to the stage started to move. Now just one of these barricades weighs so much that it takes two people to move them into position. I secure all of them together at the stage with c-clamps and bolts before each show. And the front couple rows of people in the crowd stand on the base of the barricade, adding their weight to it. So the full barricade of 8 or 9 of these pieces together with people standing on it must weigh hundreds and hundreds of pounds, and is typically immovable. The one thing that you can count on at any concert is that the barricades will stay in place.

And yet tonight….the barricades moved. The space between the barricades and the front of the stage is usually about 6 feet, to allow space for staff to move about and catch crowd surfers. That crowd was thrashing around so hard directly into the barricades that they were achieving the unthinkable; moving the barricade towards us. It was as if their collective hive mind had actually decided to attack the barricades. Obviously, if they continue pushing the entire barricade towards us, eventually we will be in danger of being crushed, and would have to get out of the moat by climbing onstage. If the barricade was pushed all the way up towards the stage, then there would be no staff stopping these maniacs from climbing directly up onto the stage with the band. This is, I suppose, every stage manager’s nightmare. The idea of ravenous fans getting up on stage en masse is a worst-case scenario. If a crowd this crazy had access to the stage, they would be risking damage to all of the bands’ musical equipment and instruments, and the venue’s sound and lighting equipment, not to mention the stage structure itself. People could also swarm their musical hero onstage, resulting in more injuries and an inability to keep them safe. In a certain scenario, I could even imagine a male stalker fan groping or sexually assaulting a female artist if they got onstage in a hysterical mob like this one. If you’ve studied groupthink and mob psychology, you know the potential for a crowd of people to do some sick inhuman things.

Shockingly, nobody had made a radio call about this first-time ever emergency. This situation didn’t fall under any of our usual radio codes. So, with my jaw dropped, I made this infamous radio call. “The barricades are moving. We are losing the barricades. Please help.” I felt like I was making a last-ditch “Broken-Arrow” call. This is when an American unit is overrun and all nearby combat aircraft come in and drop bombs on all of the surrounding enemies. Amazingly, this is kind of what happened. Not only did other security staff rush to the stage to help, but so did bartenders, roadies, and managers. People that I’ve never seen up at the stage for a show ever were up here to help us defend the stage from this crowd. We all started pushing against the barricades in hopes of stopping its movement. But inch by inch this crowd kept pushing it towards the stage. We were hopelessly outnumbered and simply couldn’t muscle our way out of this.

I did flash to the scene in Star Wars where our heroes are in the trash compactor with the walls moving in closer and closer. And much like that scene, we next attempted what Han Solo tried: bracing the barricades and the stage with thick steel pipes. The stage manager scrambled to get these foot-and-a-half long steel pipes to the stage from the bowels of the venue. We started placing them in between the metal barricade and the front of the stage before there wasn’t any room left to fit them in. Since the stage itself was wooden, we had to also place metal panels against the stage so the pipes wouldn’t punch a hole right though. As people were doing this, we were running out of room. So we did something that would never be allowed in a normal situation. To avoid being squished between the barricades and the stage, we jumped up onstage and sat on the edge of it, putting our feet on the top of the barricades to hold them. If they did get pushed all the way to the stage, we were already sitting on the stage so we would avoid injury. It was at this moment, with my butt on the edge of the stage and my feet on the barricades, that I looked out into the crowd and back to all of our security staff working furiously to save the stage. The barricades were inching closer with each coordinated push from the crowd. Smoke filled the hall, water bottles were flying through the air like grenades, the damned shotgun boom sample kept blasting through the PA system, and the strobe lights went off like flash-bang grenades. Staff were holding onto the pipes as hard as they could to contain the crowd. We were all covered in sweat. The crowd was thrashing around harder and harder, building upon their own frenzy. I have never been in combat, but this felt like what I imagine it would be like. There was so much stimulation and panic that I could barely even focus on anything. This was, hands-down, the most bizarre and surreal moment I’ve ever had working at a concert.

Had the band been experienced, or cared about the venue or the staff (or their own reputation), they could have easily stopped this. There’s no possibility that they couldn’t see all the nonsense happening. All it would have taken was one of the singers to pause and address the crowd like this, “Hey, we want you to have a good time, but you need to chill out for a second. Let the staff here repair what you did so we can keep playing. If you don’t calm down we won’t play any more songs. Everybody please take 2 steps back.” People respond to the requests of their revered musical performers. That’s what needed to happen, but of course it didn’t. The group seemed to think it was funny, and was encouraging the crowd to get crazier. People threw water bottles onstage and the band would throw them back out, replenishing the crowd’s ammo. Many water bottles flew so close to my head that it had to be intentional. Bastards were aiming for me. I bet that band was unaware that if any equipment was damaged by the actions of the band or the crowd, they would have to pay for it. We would deduct it from their payment at the end of the night. And also, their actions (or inactions) ensured that they will never get booked here again. So they were burning bridges because of their behavior.

We were able to get those metal bracers set before it was too late. We had to bring up ratchet straps to secure barricades to each other and to fortify the pipe and drape sections (those were the weakest due to the crowd pushing against the pipes until they bent and unhooked). Everybody stayed at the stage in case some new crisis happened. I was able to get down off the stage and stand in the mere 18 inches that was left between the barricades and the stage. We were furiously ratcheting the tie down straps and kicking out all of the empty water bottles from the moat area. The last thing we want after all this is to step on a water bottle on a soaked floor and injure ourselves in a fall. The show finally ended and we all breathed a sigh of relief and shock.

But it didn’t quite end there; the band’s assholery continued. While we were all taking photos of the devastated barricades and starting the inevitable clean up of all this mess, the band was tagging the green room. We do have a small wooden panel that performers are able to sign their name to, which they did. It’s about the size of a painting frame. But then they just kept going, writing their nonsense directly on the walls all over the green room. Nobody does this, it is clear and obvious where you can write with a sharpie and where you can’t. They used fat inch-thick markers and vandalized all of the walls in both rooms, and even the mirrors and the refrigerator. They also vandalized the hallway outside the green rooms, and the stairwell leading out. Did they not think that signing your fucking name on the wall leaves indisputable evidence who did it? Did they not think that they would have fees deducted from their payout to pay for the repainting of the two green rooms that they vandalized? They just didn’t care. A coworker summed it up perfectly when he said they were garbage people.

With many of our staff being ex-military, the events of this show actually did trigger their PTSD. Those repeated gunshot sounds, dodging flying objects, and the smoke and strobe flashes sent some staff over the edge. I watched many of them go outside for a long smoke break to get themselves together afterwards. A couple of them even left early because they were so upset and couldn’t get hold of their anxiety. I felt for them and was glad to see them go home early after suffering through that shit show.

And even worse, we got reports of the band members misbehaving outside at their limousine during load out. These male band members were hanging out in their limo trying to lure underage female fans inside with a fifth of whiskey. We’re talking about fifteen year old girls who probably idolize and worship them being fed hard liquor by men trying to take advantage of them. By the time I heard about it, they had already left to drive to the next city on their tour. But if I would have caught them trying to prey on female minors outside of our front door, I probably would have lost my usual decorum and professionalism. They were untalented immature predatory vandals with no respect trying to incite a crowd riot and potentially destroy our venue. They will never get booked here again, and I won’t be surprised at all when I see them in jail for rape charges.

Shows like this are rare, thank goodness. But surviving one show as terrible as this one makes you enjoy the slow nights where nothing much happens. When you see me up at the stage staring out into the crowd smiling, you’ll know that I earned it by working shows like this one.

Bigger on the Inside

Amanda Palmer was an artist that I was only somewhat acquainted with through her first band, The Dresden Dolls. Somehow her solo work after that band had escaped me until she scheduled a show at the large music venue I work at. I should have already been a huge fan, as I have always been drawn to the strong, politically active, feminist singer-songwriters. I have seen Tori Amos in concert more than any other artist, and collected her concert bootlegs like an obsessed acolyte tending to their preacher. I’m a huge fan of Ani DiFranco, buying each album as it was released and seeing her live as much as possible. I am one day older than Ani, which probably means something astrologically, but I have no idea what exactly. I attended Lilith Fair for several years, soaking in the songs of Sarah McLachlan. As a kid I bought vinyl records from The Pretenders, Pat Benatar, and Blondie. Later I got deep into the lush goth tapestries of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance. Suffice to say, strong women who rock have always held a special place in my heart.

Amanda Palmer is certainly a very unique artist and performer. She primarily plays piano, keyboards, and ukulele; with extremely personal lyrics that feel like you are listening to someone read their most private unfiltered thoughts out of their diary. In a world where trite pop music and vapid dance songs seem to dominate our aural landscape, her songs actually have something meaningful to say. Her lyrics are definitely gorgeous poems put into songs. If you haven’t listened to her, please listen to the song “Not the Killing Type.’ Seriously, stop reading this and go watch the video for that song. You’ll know exactly what she is about after watching it, and I think it’s the best music video of the last decade. I’ll link it at the end of this chapter. From the first moments of her quirky faces and mouth movements, to her interesting phrasing and singing cadence, you know she isn’t like most singers. The video moves from mesmerizing to disturbing, and is a powerful cinematic vision. You may be familiar with her husband, Neil Gaiman, a pretty famous wordsmith of his own. I can only imagine the deep literary conversations these two creative geniuses must regularly have around the house over a glass of wine.

But Amanda Palmer’s show came with special requests in her rider, which unfortunately rubbed some staff people the wrong way. This was the final American show of her There Will be No Intermission Tour before heading to Europe. Her concert was to be an intimate show of just her onstage playing songs and telling stories and interacting with the audience. Previous shows have gone on for 4 hours. This would be more of a spoken word confessional like you might find in a theater production, and not a music venue. So the tour manager requested things to make the show as quiet and intimate as possible. They requested that we all wear earpieces on our radios, so the constant squawking about irrelevant behind-the-scenes issues wouldn’t interrupt and distract from the show. I always wear an earpiece up at the stage, so that was a non issue for me. They also requested that the bartenders try to be as quiet as they could, limiting loud conversations and, I think, only selling drinks in cups to avoid the clatter of bottles and the explosions of beer cans opening. She discusses empowerment, bisexuality, rape, and abortions; inviting members of the audience to disclose their personal tales as well. Experiences involving homophobia and transphobia will be shared. There was likely going to be sadness and rage and crying with the exchange of these very personal life stories. Since Amanda Palmer was trying to create a safe space for women to gather and share, they requested that no male security staff be in the concert hall.

This is where some of the staff blustered and, in my opinion, took that request the wrong way. First of all, at that time we only had a handful of female staff, so it was impossible to meet that request. There just weren’t enough women on staff to make that happen. Secondly, it was a request if possible, not a mandatory demand that would result in the show not happening if it could not be staffed that way. They asked, we couldn’t meet the request, the show must go on. You certainly wouldn’t want a male staff there who is ogling the women in the crowd, rolling his eyes and scoffing, or who happened to resemble a woman’s rapist. I’m no stranger to emotional heartfelt concerts. The local bands I was in would sometimes tell the crowd to go talk to any security staff if anything made them feel unsafe or uncomfortable in the venue that night. Creating a small bubble of safety and acceptance in a world filled with hate, sexism, racism, and predators is the right thing to do. Amanda Palmer was just trying to do this on a larger scale. Requesting females to staff a feminist-themed event is on par. It just meant that the men who would end up staffing the event should be aware of this, and sensitive to it. There wasn’t any intention coming from a place of man-hating or ‘reverse sexism’ (that’s ridiculous.) The patriarchy obviously dominates most facets of our society, so asking to tip the scales of gender at a delicate event is reasonable and understandable. So, of course, I was chosen to be in the hall near the stage to assist if needed.

I always love being at the stage, but I felt especially honored to be there for this show. Some people just have the gift of being a performer and riveting their audience. I don’t know that many people who could command an audience’s attention alone onstage for four hours doing anything. I was moved and thrilled by her songs and her stories. So much so that I went to the merch table and bought her memoir called The Art of Asking. Being an avid reader, I devoured this book the next day. It proudly sits on the shelf next to memoirs by Ani DiFranco (No Walls and the Recurring Dream), Tori Amos (Piece by Piece, Resistance), Debbie Harry (Face it), Pat Benatar (Between a Heart and a Rock Place), and Chrissie Hyde (Reckless: My Life as a Pretender). That is, when I haven’t loaned these books out to my friends to read. And Siouxsie, I’m still eagerly awaiting your memoir.

So the show was indeed about three and a half hours long and went off without a hitch. Amanda sat at a gorgeous grand piano singing and talking to the crowd. The audience loved her and was in tears several times. There were discussions and disclosures about rape, incest, sexual abuse, and abortions. There was even a political discussion that got a bit heated, but Amanda handled it well. Overall the fans got a very special show and got to interact with the artist in a way that never happens at a large music venue. Hell, I’m a straight white CIS male and I even felt empowered afterwards.

One of the most powerful stories she told was about her first time. She was making out with her boyfriend and things were moving towards having sex. He tied her up and she went along with it. Then things turned dark. He left the room and came back with a friend, who’s birthday it was. He offered Amanda to him, tied up on the bed, as a birthday gift. Thankfully, the friend didn’t want to have sex with somebody’s girlfriend who was bound and restrained, so her untied her and everyone left, each of them irrevocably changed. This disturbing near-rape would, of course, damage your ability to trust others and forever haunt you. But instead of focusing on how sinister the first man was, she focused on how the second man refused to participate and released her. She talked about more men needing to stand up against wrongs like this, instead of giving in to peer pressure and rape culture. She called on men to be more trustworthy and interrupt or intervene when they see other men doing wrong. She was thankful that her first sexual experience wasn’t a rape, but reminded us how many women’s first times are rapes.

As you can imagine, during this story and others, the venue was so quiet that you really could have heard a pin drop. Deeply personal stories, harrowing retellings of abuse, and disturbing disclosures are supposed to make you uncomfortable and shake you up. In sharing our pain, we can achieve catharsis for ourselves and resonance for others. The human experience is riddled with suffering and pain, but building from it and learning from it is essential.

Since she had to get on a plane to Europe the next day, she wrapped up the concert ‘early’ by not being onstage for the full four hours. I was standing at an access point by the stairs simply to be ready in case anything happened, and to prevent fans from entering a restricted area. Some fans are so rabid for contact with their musical idol that they forget basic rules. As the audience applauded, Amanda walked behind me towards the stairs leading to her green room. But instead of just walking down, she course-corrected and walked over to me. I thought perhaps she had a request for me to allow a family member into the green room or something. I was wrong. She put one hand on my shoulder and with her other hand she grabbed my forearm and squeezed it, looking in my eyes with her intense gaze and famous eyebrows. She just held onto my arm and said, “Thank you. Thank you for being here.” We smiled at each other and I thanked her for being here as well. She released my arm and walked off, still smiling. I’m not sure why she did that. Maybe she saw my smiling face throughout the performance, or maybe she just knew that if I was in the hall working then I must be a trustworthy man.

I always appreciate when really famous people don’t just ignore the staff helping to make their show go well. Just a ten second interaction like this one forever endeared her to me, and made me want to support her by purchasing her book and her music. I also defended her and the tour manager when some coworkers tried to malign her or complain about the gender staffing request. Her concert was one of the best I’ve ever seen, made even better by the fact that I got to work it and have an honest human moment of shared gratitude with her. Tonight’s show was all about immediacy, vulnerability, and connection. Live concerts sometimes elevate to being something more than just entertainment. They can provide safety and affirmations and belonging. They can help with networking and community-building. They can be educational and inspiring. They can heal you and even change your life.

because the thing about things
is that they can start meaning things nobody actually said
and if you’re not allowed to love people alive
then you learn how to love people dead

• Link

Anatomy of a Scene: Jennifer 8

Sometimes one scene in a film is so impeccably done that it elevates a routine film into greatness; an actor’s state of bliss. Jennifer 8 is a 1992 police procedural film involving the hunt for a serial killer. Written and directed by Bruce Robinson, it has a solid cast of Uma Thurman, Andy Garcia, Lance Henriksen, and John Malkovich. John Malkovich’s short performance is what takes this standard police detective movie to an entirely sublime level.

John Malkovich’s character enters the film at the 82 minute mark, which is when most average-length films are beginning to wrap things up and race to the climax. Malkovich’s part is essentially a cameo as an FBI interrogator. He only has two scenes, but they are what I remember from this movie and keep going back to enjoy. We’ve all seen the interrogation room scene before in countless detective films and TV series. It is a trope of the genre, and hard to do anything new with it. And it’s a lengthy dialogue scene with characters sitting in chairs. But Malkovich and Garcia take this opportunity to really shine and suck us into the cat-and-mouse game of seeking information and strategically revealing information.

John Malkovich absolutely steals the entire film away from the other actors, competent and entertaining as they all are. Watch Malkovich observe and analyze Garcia while he tries to get a reaction from him. He does everything in the book to antagonize and unnerve him during these scenes. Listen to his cadence and his pause; I think it is his delivery of the lines that is so memorable. And watch his face as he fiddles with pencils, lights a cigarette, or blows his nose. Malkovich pauses to actually write comments on his legal pad, making Garcia and the audience wait. He smirks. He looks up at the ceiling as if contemplating some difficult scenario, in disbelief of the story being told to him. He gets right in Garcia’s face to whisper certain accusations and reveal a card or two in his deck. He repeats statements Garcia made with malice as he spins it to confirm his own narrative and bolster his case against him.

The first scene is Malkovich beginning the interrogation. He uses classic techniques of asking the Garcia character’s permission to do things, smiling like he is on his side, and making sympathetic and understanding reflections of his testimony. He asks a hundred clarifying questions. He makes bland small talk, appears somewhat neutral and bored, tries to build rapport, all the usual tactics. He does a lot of great things with his hand gestures. He rests his face on his fist as if these games are tedious and cliche to him. This scene is about 7 minutes long, but absolutely flies by. The viewer is locked on their every word. And honestly, Andy Garcia does a fantastic job as well. These two actors playing off each other in this tit-for-tat is endlessly entertaining.

“You don’t like Sergeant Taylor, do you?”

“Like?”

“You want me to use another word?”

“I am indifferent to Sergeant Taylor.”

“You don’t blame him in any way for the situation you find yourself in?”

“His motive for exposing my witness was malicious.”

“So you don’t like him?”

“No, I don’t like him.”

“You….. (checks his notes and quotes him) wish him ill?”

Garcia scoffs and nods, understanding the interrogator’s intention to use his own words, out of context, against him.

“Do you want a lawyer, Sergeant?”

“Oh there you go, another game question. ‘Do I want a lawyer, Sergeant?’ What would I want a lawyer for if I’ve got nothing to hide?”

“Don’t you?”

“You know I don’t. So why don’t we quit the bullshit and get down to it? What’s your angle, Mr. St. Anne?”

There is a quick cutaway to the Uma Thurman character, then we are back in the interrogation room, presumably the next day. We see Garcia’s character seated in a chair, then the Malkovich character moves into the frame as if on a dolly. It’s both magical and unnerving. A dramatic entrance explained by his character silently rolling his office chair over to Garcia while he outlines what he thinks happened. He rolls right up to the side of Garcia and ends up just behind him, whispering into his ear.

“This guy’s got a 12 gauge Winchester up your nose. And he’s drunk, and you’re dizzy. Your eye’s full of blood. And you ain’t thinking good, and you’re seeing worse, and –WOW!–(claps his hands together behind Garcia’s ears to startle him) it just went off. You just put him down.”

This scene ends with both men sitting next to each other, looking into their reflection in the two-way mirror with other law enforcement officers behind it watching the interrogation. Almost as if they are watching a television show of their own existence; or in Malkovich’s case, knowingly giving a performance for the men behind the mirror. The audience watches these two characters on a movie screen, and inside of that the characters are watching themselves on a mirrored screen.

The second interrogation scene is over 9 minutes long, and this one is where things get more intense. Not only does Malkovich become angrier and more confrontational with Garcia, but he had a cold in real life on the day of filming. But he pushed through and gave an even more intimidating performance than the previous one. He is so congested during this scene, you honestly feel for the actor. But he uses that to his advantage and it only adds to the realism. Who among us hasn’t had to go to work when we had a cold and just tough it out? And weren’t we a bit more on edge, curt, or quick to bark at people? Malkovich gets to fuss with a roll of toilet paper on his desk to dab his nose with it. I think some directors might have juggled the filming order around if an actor had a bad head cold. Since this was a cameo, I’m assuming Malkovich was flown in for maybe 1 or 2 days of shooting. They may not have had other shooting options since he is a minor character. Whatever the reason, Malkovich delivering his dialogue while being severely congested pushes the scene over into the legendary category.

The scene begins with Malkovich using an electric pencil sharpener to irritate the weary and dejected Garcia. Malkovich is great as using props, similar to Christopher Walken. Cigarettes, pencils, legal pads, toilet paper, notepads, evidence bags, etc. Like a verbal boxing match, Malkovich pushes Garcia up against the ropes until he breaks. He goads Garcia to snapping by mocking his ambition and motivation, bringing up his marital problems as well. He even puts his fingers in his mouth like a child would during this mocking monologue:

“Maybe he thought you were making it up. Cause you wanted to be top cop. Isn’t that why you went running up that garbage dump? So everyone could stand in awe of top cop? Isn’t that why you came up here, cause you couldn’t make it in L.A.? So you got a pissy little degree and you come up here so you can be top guy. Right? But Ross was top guy, wasn’t he? Always would be top guy. And you know what? He did it without even trying. Everybody loved him. He had everything you wanted, didn’t he? Great marriage. Great kid. Everything that you couldn’t have. And you wanted it all to go away. Cause you had a lousy life. With a lousy wife. Who was fucking everyone, wasn’t she? Is that why you need to pick on this little blind girl? Cause you can control her, control who she’s fucking?”

At this point the Garcia character finally snaps and grabs Malkovich around his neck in anger. Malkovich, getting what he wanted, says quietly and calmly, “Come on John. You wanna lose your temper with me? You’re good at losing your temper. Come on, lose your temper with me.” Nose to nose, the two men consider what is next. Malkovich smiles as he would love nothing more than to provoke Garcia into assaulting him on camera, adding to his case against him. It’s the emotional climax of the scene, and my favorite part of the entire movie.

Malkovich only has a total of 16 minutes onscreen, but he absolutely owns the entire film. Interestingly, this is the exact amount of time Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal character is onscreen in Silence of the Lambs. But you feel his presence throughout, as if he was in the entire movie. Most people are shocked to learn that Hopkins has such little screen time in that movie. But Jennifer 8 is different because Malkovich’s agent is unknown to us for almost the first hour and a half of the run time. Nobody is talking about him, retelling terrifying stories, reading letters, acknowledging his character’s importance, etc. Malkovich comes in long past the time where new characters usually get introduced, and he is equally as stunning as Hopkin’s Hannibal Lector character. The gravity he brings to this movie is powerful and undeniable.

“John, I’m running out of questions and you’re running out of lies.”

Sometimes after watching a mediocre movie, I’m motivated to watch a scene of classic acting where everything just came together perfectly. These interrogation scenes in Jennifer 8 are one of my go-to cinema scenes that I’ll watch by itself. I am in awe of John Malkovich’s performance in this film, and how he inhabits the small role with everything he has. While I consciously know that he is an actor that was paid to perform this role in a movie, I never think that while watching him. I completely believe that he is that character; a seasoned FBI interrogator who has been in hundreds of rooms like this trying to suss out information from a suspect. He could be worn out and bored by it all, but he revels in it instead. Interrogating people is his greatest skill; his art. He takes this lengthy dialogue scene that is, perhaps, generic on paper and makes it the absolute highlight of the film.

Jennifer 8 is available on DVD and BluRay, but as of this writing they are both out of print and somewhat expensive. Unless you’re lucky like me and have a physical copy of this movie, your best bet is to rent or purchase it on Amazon Prime.

I Will Bring You the Head of Alfredo Garcia

One could say that I’m a long-time disciple of Sam Peckinpah. His movies have spoken to me in a way that other movies have not. I have read numerous biographies about the man, and for some reason can list all of his filmography in the order of release. His films mean a lot to me. Several of his films remain firmly on my top 10 lists of all time. His films deal with outlaw characters, and themes of men out of time, trying to finish something in a world that has moved on. Honor among thieves. He was definitely a troubled soul that fought lots of personal demons, but sometimes he took that darkness and angst and put amazing beauty on the screen.

Perhaps his purest vision is the 1974 film Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. I have previously written about his 1977 WW2 film Cross of Iron, but I have wanted to delve into this dark masterpiece for a while now.  But much like any journey into the heart of darkness, you have to be equipped and mentally ready for it. 

Some brief background info for the layman first. There are many great books written about the man, so I’ll just give you some basics here. I’ll list my favorite books about him at the end of this article. Peckinpah is primarily known for his western films. He made a name as a solid director on series such as The Rifleman and The Westerner before moving into film. He was known for working with amazing actors and getting unique and powerful performances out of them. A short list of actors who shined under Sam’s tutelage includes Charlton Heston, Jason Robards, William Holden, Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, James Coburn and Warren Oates.  Peckinpah worked with Steve McQueen twice in the same year, releasing Junior Bonner and The Getaway in 1972. Sam was fired from the 1965 Steve McQueen gambling film The Cincinnati Kid. I often wonder if both men had lived longer and not pissed off the wrong people what they could have done together. The independent, macho, strong silent type of character that both men were drawn to could have given us a long lasting working relationship akin to Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro.

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Sam Peckinpah, Isela Vega, and Warren Oates

Steve McQueen and Sam Peckinpah filming THE GETAWAY

Sam was also known for pushing the envelope of on screen violence, so much so that his primary nickname is Bloody Sam. Another innovation that Sam made his trademark was the slow-motion montage action shot. He used slow motion, multi-camera coverage, innovative shot editing, and even the variable speed camera. His style was hugely influential, to the point of virtually every action director that followed him using these techniques. Sam loved the poetry of violence, the dance of death. And using slow motion can warp time, elongating the moment of death. 

He also loved to fight against the perceived authority of the studio executives. He pissed off so many producers that he lost many great films that were planned for him to direct. He would go over budget and fight with the bigwigs that in many cases, his films were taken away from him and edited together by other people, or important scenes would be cut against Sam’s wishes. This resulted in several of his movies being released in highly edited forms that didn’t do well at the box office. Major Dundee and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid are prime examples. It is no surprise that after the debacle of Pat Garrett, Sam made this angry, no-holds-barred film. 

Of all of his great films, Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is the only film of his that he had final cut on. This means that whatever he filmed and edited together stayed intact without any tampering from studio executives. So, for better or for worse, this movie is exactly what Sam wanted, done his way. This is interesting to keep in mind as you watch it, for it is so gritty and bleak. 

The setup of this movie is pretty simple. A powerful Mexican land baron puts a large bounty on the man that impregnated his daughter. One million dollars for his head. Warren Oates plays Bennie, the quintessential anti-hero. He finds out that Alfredo is already dead from a car crash. So he and his girlfriend Elita go to find his grave and remove his head to turn it in for the cash. Of course, this dark plan gets much darker and many things go wrong. 

“I’ve killed people.
And worse, a whole lot worse.”

This film is Warren Oates’ film all the way. He carries the whole thing and is in almost every scene. It’s a tour de force. Peckinpah had worked with Oates for a long time, and obviously saw something in him. A gifted character actor, this movie might be his most successful starring role. Sam had previously worked with Warren in The Westerner and The Rifleman, then he cast him in his films Ride the High Country, Major Dundee, The Wild Bunch, and gave him the lead in Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Oates decided to just do an impression of Sam Peckinpah for the character, even dressing like him and borrowing his sunglasses. Sam liked it and went with it. 

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• 

Warren Oates as Bennie

I feel like Sam was challenging us with this movie from the first 5 minutes. It opens with a poetic beautiful shot of a young pregnant woman resting by a pond full of swimming ducks and dappling sunshine. Then she is brought inside and interrogated by her father. He asks who the baby’s father is and she refuses to name him. Her own father then has his two henchmen strip off her shirt, exposing her breasts to everyone in the room. He continues to ask her and she refuses, so he gestures for the henchman to twist her arms in a pain-compliance hold. She cries out in pain and hunches over. He gestures to continue and we hear the sound of her arm breaking and her screaming. If this isn’t the kind of film you would want to continue watching, this is your exit point. It is a cruel scene that sets the tone for the journey to follow. 

Some dialogue exchanges also give you an idea of the type of nihilistic film you are in for. This is from the early scene with Bennie playing piano and accepting the mission from the two assassins paying him to do their dirty work for them.

Bennie: “Don’t worry, if he’s alive I’ll find him.”
Sappensly: “Alive isn’t our problem.”
Bennie: “Well, How bout dead or alive? How about that?
Quill: “Dead. Just dead.”

Later when Bennie meets with his girlfriend Elita at her workplace, he orders a drink like a true antihero would:

Bennie: “Gimmie a double bourbon and a champagne back and none of
your tejano bullshit. Now shove off.”

After a shootout where Bennie emerges the victor, he goes over to a henchman lying in the dust. Bennie already shot him twice, so he is either already dead or dying. But Bennie shoots him two additional times, executing him for certain.  He then says:

“Why? Because it feels so goddammed good.”

Here’s what you’ll remember about this movie: sweat, dust, flies, grime, nudity, blood, and bullet wounds. There are scenes that make us nervous and uncomfortable, and only a master director like Peckinpah can do that so effectively. He intentionally doesn’t explain some things, leaving the viewer to struggle with how to interpret it. I’m primarily referring to the almost-rape scene that jars everyone that watches it. Many essays have been written about that scene alone. There is much examination of masculinity, insecurity, jealousy, and gender role expectations. Sam even made the two main assassins homosexual, back in 1974. Bennie, and his character arc (or descent) is obviously the focus of this film, but his character is troubled at best. As the main character, he is seedy and lost and immoral, the definition of an anti-hero. The viewer wants him to succeed in this morbid mission, even at the peril of his soul. 

One of my favorite pieces of dialogue is when Bennie and Elita are discussing digging up the body of Alfredo to remove his head.

Elita: But you want me to desecrate a grave!
Bennie: Don’t give me that crap.
There’s nothing sacred about a hole in the ground
Or a man that’s in it.
Or you.
Or me.

I’ve watched Alfredo Garcia countless times and I still keep noticing new things. That’s the sign of a well-constructed film. On this last viewing, I spotted an uncredited cameo from Richard Bright. He is most famous for portraying mafia henchman Al Neri in all three Godfather films. Sam also cast Bright in small roles in The Getaway and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. 

I heard a nice sound cue this time around. When the two company assassins show Bennie a photo of Alfredo Garcia, there is an added sound effect of a car screeching and crashing into something. I assumed that this was a subtle bit of audio foreshadowing, since later in the film Bennie and Elita kiss while driving and bump a passing bus as they screech out of the way. However, it is actually a plot point flashback of sorts. We learn later that Alfredo died in a car accident, so this added sound effect when we look at his photo is a nice connection.

Another detail I had previously missed was during a scene with Bennie driving around in his red Impala with Alfredo’s head in a sack.  He gets out of his car carrying the package with him to go get some ice. Files have been buzzing around the inside of the car, and the stench must be incredible. He needs some ice to try to keep the head from rotting any further. As he walks into a little side of the road restaurant, there is a pig’s head hanging from a hook behind him. A decapitated pig’s head acting as a talisman of bad luck to a man with a decapitated human head in a sack. 

Sam put in a couple of subtle homages to his own films. At one point, Bennie is suggesting that his employers do not need to know that Garcia was already killed. He tells Elita, “In this house, we know nothing.” I was instantly reminded of a similar famous line from Sam’s film Ride the High Country. In that great film, Joel McCrea’s character says, “All I want is to enter my house justified.” Another film also references the house as an important character. Dustin Hoffman’s character in 1971’s Straw Dogs says to his wife, “I will not allow violence against this house.” Peckinpah wrote or co-wrote all three of those movies, so it’s no wonder that dialogue repetitions would reappear. 

Sam also references his previous film, the 1973 western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. During the third shootout, in the hotel suite, Bennie runs around the corner and a bad guy shoots at him. His bullets hit the TV, and several hit the mirror showing Bennie’s reflection. The cracked glass patterns appear over Bennie’s face and torso exactly how they did over James Coburn in the climax of Pat Garrett. In that film he was the shooter, so he was shooting himself. This symbolized the death of his soul, as he was about to murder his best friend, Billy. And this scene, and the whole film, was about the two men being two sides of the same coin. If Garrett kills Billy he would be killing the original, outlaw version of himself, now that he is on the side of the law. In Garcia, the image of Benny is being further distorted and damaged, much like his body and mind. It’s a well-crafted reflection of the previous film.

Mirrors are all over the set in this film. Many of the quieter dialogue scenes play out in a reflection. A shot of Bennie entering a hotel is shot all in a huge mirror reflection and looks like a painting. At first nothing in the mirror reflection is moving, and the border around it definitely looks like a frame of a painting. Then Warren Oates moves into the field inside the mirror and we know it is reality–or that his character is walking into an artistic rendition of reality.

A final similarity between this film and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is turkey shooting. In this film, Bennie fires at some turkeys on the side of the road in a spontaneous show of excitement. He tells Elita that he wasn’t trying to hit any of them. That’s an interesting thing to put in this film that seems random. Peckinpah got a lot of heat from animal rights groups for actually shooting off the heads of turkeys in the Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid target shooting scene. Could this be a veiled apology from Sam? Not likely. Maybe he just hates turkeys.

Another echo of a previous Peckinpah film is when Bennie says to the bag containing Alfredo’s head, “All right Al. Let’s go.” Anyone that has seen The Wild Bunch remembers William Holden’s character Pike saying “Let’s go.” It is ranked as one of the greatest movie lines of all time. Warren Oates, who plays Lyle Gorch in that film, laughs and says, “Why not?” Instead of a big speech explaining why the group needs to march back into an occupied city and face almost certain death by the army there, their communication is simplified into facial expressions, locking eyes, and these two words. Hearing Warren Oates this time say the first part of the famous line is deeply satisfying. And just like in The Wild Bunch, the main character says “Let’s go” as he decides to wade into the final bloodshed when he could easily just escape to safety.

Anecdotally, Warren Oates was the focus of a double feature I saw a few years ago in my city of Portland, Oregon. A group called BAM (Beer and Movies) put on a Warren Oates double feature at the Hollywood Theater. The two films were The Wild Bunch and Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. This was, perhaps, the greatest double feature that I’ve ever seen. Four and a half hours of Peckinpah bliss on the big screen, as well as the Jerry Fielding soundtracks.

One of the most memorable shots is with Bennie sitting outside the shower with Elita. She is vulnerable and naked sitting in the water stream crying. Her hair is wet and reminds me of the mythological goddess Hecate. Interestingly, Hecate is known as the protector of the household and associated with crossroads. She is associated with boundaries, and therefore the underworld. I found this quite interesting in relation to the previous quotes about houses in Sam’s films, and since this film feels like a descent into the underworld. Oates looks right into the camera for the only time in the film and says, “I love you.” The expressions on his face are myriad.  This had to be a hand held camera shot, and it does feel like he is looking into a mirror, and that we are him. It is a striking and emotional shot.

The final 45 minutes of this movie is a gonzo roller coaster ride of Bennie’s descent into meaningless death and destruction. It’s a fever-dream with Bennie talking to himself, and talking to the decapitated head in a bag. Flies buzz and patter against the inside of the car windows. Bennie takes a pull of tequila, pours some directly on the bag saying, “Take a drink, Al.” This road trip movie is far off course and headed straight to hell. Many, many people die. We get four separate gunfights and it’s difficult to keep track of how many people are killed. Bennie has almost lost it all, and is definitely losing his mind. It is reminiscent of Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver or William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones at the finale of Rolling Thunder. They all go into the final act ready to die, even expecting to die, so nothing really matters. The bleak nihilism of all three films is striking. In The Wild Bunch, the group is at least finally standing for something–brotherhood and doing the right thing. They go back into the Mexican town to rescue Angel, their captured gang member. They are so outnumbered that we know they are doomed. But dying for a cause, dying for some honorable reason is better than becoming obsolete, or wasting away in an old folks home. In Alfredo Garcia, our main character isn’t really doing it for anything but money. This morphs into revenge and punishing all the villains–every single one. We want Bennie to ‘win’ since we have seen all he has been through and lost to get here. The sacrifices made were staggeringly high. As he says early in the film, “Nobody loses all the time.”

One of the greatest moments in this film, and Warren Oates’ career, comes late in the film. Bennie has returned to his cheap apartment with the ice and Alfredo’s head. He is preparing to chip apart the ice to pack around the head when he approaches the mirror. He takes a pull of tequila, removes his sunglasses and looks at himself in the reflection momentarily. After all the loss and killing, he can barely look at himself at all. He looks so haggard and beaten down, his sad red eyes look shocked and soulless. He puts his glasses back on and gets back to his job. 

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not
become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss
will gaze back into you.   –Nietzsche

Something else I was stricken by was Sam’s attention to background action and details that flesh out the scene, making it seem real. I think Sam likes kids, he puts in a lot of them playing in his films. In this movie young kids sit on the hood of Bennie’s Impala as he slowly drives through town. He even playfully makes shooting gestures at them with his hands, which certainly foreshadows all the actual shooting to come later. There are many shots of groups of kids playing ball, food vendors on the side of the road, bands playing music, herds of animals, lines of hanging laundry, and sweaty mustached faces. After one shootout, a young child is seen grabbing a revolver out of a dead man’s hand, then dropping it. When Bennie and Elita reach the cemetery where Alfredo is buried, there is a funeral procession for a child. A small wooden coffin is being carried by mourners, which made me think of the death of innocence.

The end of this film is done so well, I just can’t get it out of my head. Bennie finally delivers the head of Alfredo to the Mexican baron, El Jefe. He arrives on the day of the baptism of Alfredo’s son. A shot of the prized head being identified and placed back in the ice-packed picnic basket by the guards is juxtaposed with the baby’s head being baptized with holy water. Absolute genius. There are dozens of family members around, and El Jefe is celebrating the birth of his grandson. Family members outside are lighting off fireworks, which would ostensibly cover the sound of gunfire from inside this hall. The constant pops reminded me of the beginning of Cross of Iron with the sounds of the mortar explosions getting closer and louder. 

Bennie presents the bounty of the decapitated head to El Jefe and defiantly pulls out huge chunks of ice and drops them on the desk as he says, “16 people are dead because of him, and you and….and me.” Nobody knew or expected him to have stashed his pistol in the picnic basket. Bennie pulls it out and thus starts the final shootout, full of slow-motion gunfire and blood squibs. Bennie yells, “NOOOOOOO” as he fires, and his voice is as loud as the gunshots. He is yelling at the injustice of all these people dying for this twisted treasure hunt. Screaming for all he has lost on this journey. Screaming that they aren’t going to keep getting away with it, and keep holding all the cards. No more. Once all of the guards are blown away, Bennie aims the gun at El Jefe, shakes his head slightly with a nervous grin, and growls “Nooooo” like an animal. It’s like the sound that a tiger death bringer would make. It’s a great audio mix boost. I won’t spoil what happens next, but it’s a killer ending to a batshit crazy movie. 

• 

• 

This film is a must-see for Peckinpah fans. If you haven’t seen any of his films, I don’t recommend starting with this one. Build up to this one by watching The Getaway, The Wild Bunch, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid first. This is a grimy dark movie that comes from a place of desperation and anger. It’s part road movie, part love story, part action film, part drama, with elements of a horror movie. But it’s all Sam. 

“Look at me with your goddam fucking eyes.

Come out and tackle me, you bastards.
I’m gonna nail ya. Somewhere I’m gonna nail ya.
You’re up there. You’re up there you son of…
I’m gonna find you.
Damn your eyes.”

Nobody Touches the Priest

A PRAYER FOR THE DYING (1987) – Mickey Rourke

Another film that slipped through the cracks at the time, A Prayer for the Dying is a great drama that needs to be re-appreciated.

This film was released in 1987 as a star vehicle for Mickey Rourke, who was on fire in the 80s. It is the second film of his to come out in 1987, with the first being the amazing detective noir-horror film Angel Heart.

Just to recap, Mickey Rourke in the 80s was a huge rising star. I’m not going to delve into his later years of taking any film that came along, or quitting acting to become a boxer and thereby changing or ruining his good looks. Mickey Rourke started receiving much acclaim in the 80s and was even called that era’s potential new Marlon Brando. Even when he only had a small part in a film, he was the actor you remembered. His acting style draws you in and makes you believe him in any role. His emotions are telegraphed perfectly just by his face and his eyes. His delivery of powerful lines puts him a notch above most other actors in the 80s.

One of the first rated R double features I was able to see in theaters was the 1985 Michael Cimino crime epic Year of the Dragon. Strangely, the other film on this double feature was John Boorman’s The Emerald Forest. Both really good films, but not connected in the slightest thematically or genre-wise. Oliver Stone wrote a hell of a script for Dragon, just a couple years after writing Scarface. I used to wear my Dad’s army jacket, similar to Stanley White’s in the film, while playing adventure time in my backyard. I had a toy handgun and would imagine I was running around fighting the triad in Chinatown. I still love Year of the Dragon and re-watch it often. I have a similar love for Alan Parker’s 1987 masterpiece Angel Heart. Seeing that in theaters changed my life. But that’s a topic for another essay.

Mickey’s run of great films made by great directors is quite impressive. I think people forget just how big of a star he was, and how he was considered one of the greatest male actors of the time. He was handsome, charming, naturalistic and mesmerizing on screen.

Mickey’s select 80s filmography:

Heaven’s Gate, Michal Cimino 1980
Body Heat, Lawrence Kasdan 1981
Diner, Barry Levinson 1982
Eureka, Nicholas Roeg 1983
Rumblefish, Francis Ford Coppola, 1983
The Pope of Greenwich Village, Stuart Rosenberg 1984
Year of the Dragon, Michael Cimino, 1985
9 1/2 Weeks, Adrian Lyne 1986
Angel Heart, Alan Parker 1987
A Prayer for the Dying, Mike Hodges 1987
Barfly, Barbet Schroeder 1987

That is quite a strong list of famous directors for any resume.

Clearly, every director wanted to work with Mickey. Cimino obviously found something he loved in working with him, perhaps planning a long-term working relationship similar to Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. He cast Mickey in Heaven’s Gate, Year of the Dragon, and Desperate Hours (1990). I truly wish we could have seen more Cimino-Rourke collaborations.

The greatest and most prolific year for Mickey Rourke was obviously 1987. Three powerful films were released this year, with each of them showcasing his stellar acting and command of the screen. He played the grimy 1940s New Orleans detective in Angel Heart, the haunted IRA terrorist in A Prayer for the Dying, and the alcoholic Charles Bukowski character in Barfly. If you were to only watch three Rourke performances, I would say this is the holy trifecta of where to start.

A Prayer for the Dying is now one of my favorite Rourke performances. I rented this in the late 80s and didn’t love it. I think it’s because it was mis-promoted as an action movie when it is more of a dramatic meditation on guilt and religion. Also at that time I probably wanted it to be a violent action film like Charles Bronson would have made, since it dealt with an IRA terrorist killing mafia targets. Death Wish in Ireland. Watching the preview confirms this, as they show each and every action scene of gunfire paired with heroic action movie music (none of which is even used in the film). The original composer left the project and was replaced by Bill Conti, who gives us an amazing soundtrack. Pretty sure that music on the preview was from the original composer. I am so glad that they went with Conti. I would buy this soundtrack easily.

Mike Hodges directed this film based on the book from Jack Higgins. Mike Hodges slammed onto the scene in 1971 with the gritty crime movie Get Carter. People my age may also remember him as the director of the classic 1980 camp sci-fi movie Flash Gordon. He had a bit of a comeback with the films Croupier and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead. He’s a great director for this kind of story.

Rourke plays Martin Fallon, an IRA terrorist sporting a sawed-off shotgun, red hair and sideburns, and what I found to be a very convincing Irish accent. He looks weary and defeated for most of the film, because he is. The movie starts with a botched attempt on military vehicles that results in a school bus full of kids being blown up. He wants out, but the powers that be won’t let him out until he does one last hit (and because he knows too much). With promises of a passport and 50 thousand dollars, he reluctantly agrees.

He assassinates the mafia target in a cemetery but is seen by a priest, Father De Costa, played by Bob Hoskins. For the first time in his career, he does not eliminate the witness. Instead, he does a very interesting thing. He later visits the priest and confesses the murder to him, thereby insuring that the priest cannot tell the police about it. Whatever is said in confessional is strictly between the priest, the confessor, and God himself.

De Costa cannot understand why Fallon let him live, and uses that as a sign that there is still good in him and a chance to save him.

Martin Fallon:

I could’ve closed your mouth with a bullet.

Father De Costa:

Well why didn’t you?

Martin Fallon:

There’s been enough killin’

Watching the interplay between these two great actors is one of the many pleasures of this film. The priest takes him on as his project to try to redeem him, and the terrorist wants to keep the priest safe and debate religion and forgiveness. I think his character wants to do something good as penance for the murders he has committed. A clunkier title for this movie could have been Absolution for a Hit Man. It becomes an existential discourse on the nature of religion and redemption, between a man of the cloth (with a violent past), and a man of the gun.

One of my favorite exchanges is when the two reverse their roles by the priest sitting in his own church pew and the terrorist standing behind the pulpit giving an anti-sermon.

Father Da Costa:

Have you something to say?

Martin Fallon:

We are fundamentally alone.

Nothing lasts. There’s no purpose to any of it.

Father Da Costa:

That’s a bit of a statement. Can you explain it to God?

Martin Fallon:

No, Father. Wrong way around. Can he explain it to me?

Can he explain my lost faith and how I lost it?

Another interesting scene is where the priest loses his temper after a group of teenagers vandalize his church. They reveal that some men at the corner bar paid them to destroy his church. De Costa goes to the bar, called COURAGE, and confronts the familiar mafia villains. He then viciously beats the three gangsters with his fists and a garbage can lid, which seems to be homage to Sonny Corleone beating up Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather. The shot is framed so only certain letters of the big neon sign are visible, just the four letters R A G E. Hoskins does a great job in this scene, showing his disappointment in himself reverting back to anger and violence. He and Fallon are just two sides of the same coin.

The rest of the cast is just as great. Liam Neeson is another IRA terrorist and good friend of Fallon. Alison Doody, later to be cast in the third Indiana Jones film, gives a solid performance as Neeson’s teammate. Alan Bates relishes his role as the mafia villain. He and his brother run a funeral home, with Bates enjoying doing the mortician duties himself.  Having the main villain also working as the embalmer was an interesting touch I hadn’t seen before. It was reminiscent of Norman Bates’ interest in taxidermy in Hitchcock’s 1960 classic Psycho.

Rourke’s character spends time around the church with De Costa and his blind niece, Anna. In an inspired scene, Fallon tries to help Anna tune the huge church pipe organ. We have no idea of his background besides being a terrorist. A police detective arrives to question the priest and takes an interest in Fallon’s presence. Rourke plays innocent and tries to pass himself off as the organ tuner. He is sitting on the piano bench facing away from everyone, but looking at them in a mirror on the organ. The detective doesn’t believe him and pushes him to play a song. Rourke’s face shows a mix of distracted innocence and the tension is built as he just hits some random discordant notes. Then, when we fear the detective is about to arrest him for questioning, Fallon proceeds to play a beautiful somber fugue by Bach. The director lets the song play out and Rourke smirks and smiles with satisfaction.

De Costa’s blind niece, of course, finds herself in peril late in the film. She is terrorized by a bad character in a way that made me think of Terence Young’s 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark. Her character might be the weakest link in the story. Having her be blind almost felt like a gimmick to make her as vulnerable as possible. The actor does a fine job, she just has some pretty obvious lines and serves as a superfluous and somewhat unbelievable love interest. I suppose her character represents purity and virginity in a film about Catholic guilt and repression.

Certain shots might hold symbolism I didn’t catch when I first watched this movie over 30 years ago. The religious iconography is plentiful. Having the church be under reconstruction with scaffolding is unusual. That could represent the church trying to give itself a makeover to continue to exist in a modern society with changing priorities or disinterest. In another scene a huge statue of a crucified Jesus falls to the ground and a large cloud of dust puffs off of it. The ancient history of religion literally dusting itself off to reinvent itself anew. When a character is shot in a cemetery, a statue of a saint is spattered in blood, in a reverse baptism at the point of death.

There are many great acting moments from Rourke in this movie, but the best has to be this speech between his character and Liam Neeson in the tree park. His delivery and facial expressions truly show his pain and remorse. The camera holds in tight close-up on Mickey and we are gifted this short monologue about his suffering and loss of himself.

Martin Fallon:

Listen, I don’t want to keep waking up every night hearing the screams of young children. I lost something a long time ago, Malachy. Everything. Everything got very black, like dried blood. And something started to stink. Every day it got worse, sometimes so bad I couldn’t get out of my bed. I sat there in the dark like a wee scared boy, not being able to breathe or speak my name. I saw myself lying in the street, dying, not wanting to die. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.

 

This somber film is full of great performances, music, and direction. Please track it down and give it a watch. I recommend the Twilight Time Limited Edition BluRay. And if anybody needs help curating a Mickey Rourke film festival, I’m your man.

 

 

 

 

 

The Demon Alcohol

I had already clocked out and was hanging outside the entrance of the venue talking with my coworker, who was closing by himself tonight. Almost all of the patrons were gone, and the bartenders were doing their closing cleaning duties. Two males exited the venue and wobbled off to wherever they were going. Now that we live in a time of cheap and convenient Uber and Lyft drivers, there is literally no reason to ever get a DUI. There never really was to begin with, but you get my point. Cabs regularly park outside our venue and wait for some easy fares. People stand on the sidewalk watching their Lyft or Uber driver’s progress on their smart phone’s map. Within minutes, they are safely picked up and transported home.

But tonight a female bartender came outside in a panic and yelled to us, “Those guys are hammered. We cut them off and they were talking about driving home. STOP THEM!” Immediately the adrenaline shot into my system and I kicked back into work mode. We ran around the corner and sure enough, saw the more-drunk of the two men opening up his car door.

We sprinted over to the car yelling at the men. I went to the driver’s side door where the man was already sitting, keys in hand looking for the ignition. All of his windows were down. My coworker was on the other side of the car talking to the other man. I started trying to talk the man out of it. “Sir, you are not going to drive home tonight. You have had too much to drink and you’ve gotta stay.” He mumbled some drunk-speak about being fine and he was going to drive. “Nope. You can pick up your car tomorrow. Let’s get some coffee in you and call you a cab.” He kept mumbling his protests. “My friend, this isn’t worth going to jail and losing your license. Or hurting somebody. I just want you to get home safely.” All of this sound logic would have worked on a sober person. But you just can’t reason with drunk people. My coworker and the man’s friend were on the sidewalk pleading with him to give me the keys. I finally said, “Hey look over there, your friend is talking to you.” The driver glanced over and I reached inside the car window and snatched the keys out of his hand.

The man looked like I had just stolen all of his retirement money. He nodded to himself bewilderedly and smiled. I walked away to the sidewalk with his keys. It turns out the less-drunk friend had a hotel room at the hotel directly behind us. He offered to let the driver stay in his room that night. I gave the keys to the more sober friend. We thanked him and watched them stagger over to the hotel room, open the door, and go inside.

My coworker said, “Damn man, you oughtta clock back in. You just saved somebody’s life tonight.”

* * * *

Some thoughts on alcohol. Without it I wouldn’t have a job. If you take a macro view of what I do, my job is essentially to confirm that you are old enough to drink alcohol, and then kick you out when you’ve had too much of it. That’s it. It’s a legal drug that kills more people than all other drugs combined. And yet, it is tolerated, promoted, pushed, advertised, and worshipped by our entire culture. At least here in the United States. It is potentially a part of every family celebration, rite of passage, and life event. It is the most popular social lubricant or anxiety crutch.

I work around alcohol and deal with intoxicated patrons all the time, yet I barely drink at all myself. I’ll occasionally accept a free shot after work, commonly called a ‘shift drink.’ When I do drink I choose hard cider that I’m drinking for the taste, not to get buzzed or drunk. The last time I was drunk was at Burning Man in 2005, and that probably qualified as alcohol poisoning. I just can’t tolerate the hangover and the headache the day after being drunk. And I’m not 21 anymore, either. In college I could drink a bunch and snap back pretty well the next day. Now that I’m substantially older I would need the entire next day to nap and recover and be miserable and in pain. Screw all that, it’s just not worth it. I suppose I would actually make a great bartender since I don’t crave the product at all. I could never work as a chocolatier though. I would eat my weight in chocolate and be fired after one shift. I’m reminded of something somebody probably said in some western film I can’t recall the title of. “Alcohol? Oh it’s the devil’s drink. I ain’t got much use for the stuff myself….but I sure do make a livin’ off of it.”

One behavior that I don’t  particularly understand is this: Getting off work but staying at the bar you work at drinking with your coworkers. Some people hurry up so that they can clock out and run a block or two away to another bar. This is where their friends work, so they can get a drink or two in there before they stop serving. I suppose that if you really like alcohol, it must be a kind of torture to handle it, pour it, and serve it all shift when you can’t have any. Then when you’re done all you want is a shot and a beer back. Me? I just want to go home and chill out after work, where I could have a drink in peace and solitude. I’ve already been around people all night and I don’t have the bandwidth to put on the social mask and engage in small-talk with anybody. And drunken small-talk is even worse. I’m not single, so I’m not interested in flirting with anybody. And I’ve already been here for too many hours, so staying longer just doesn’t appeal to me. Blowing my cash tips that I was just given on overpriced drinks seems like a complete waste. I know I sound like a boring old miser, but I’ll save my money by not remaining in the bar giving my tip money right back to the business. I have a Tupperware container hidden away at home that I put all my tips in so I won’t spend them on impulse purchases. I even have a secondary envelope full of tips I get specifically from working private rental events or catering jobs. This envelope is beginning to look like something you would see in a crime movie when somebody is making a payout after robbing a bank. My Tupperware tips and thick cash envelope will hopefully allow me to take my family on a vacation somewhere without puddles of rainwater.

I’ve had a couple girlfriends who would definitely qualify as alcoholics. Functional alcoholics. Binge drinkers. But still alcoholics. That certainly contributed to the eventual demise of those relationships. I also used to throw epic parties out at my house in the country. Since the parties would go for three days, everybody would just stay and camp. That way nobody had to worry about driving home after drinking on dark curvy country roads. I’d put out a huge bowl and people would put their keys in there. But, accidents do happen and I always felt like I had to maintain sobriety in case I needed to drive anyone to the ER. So even though you’d see me walking about with a drink in my hand tending the bonfire, I was nursing the same drink for six hours. Reminds me of stories of Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin pounding back an entire fifth of Jack Daniels while performing onstage. He later admitted that the bottle was full of apple juice.

I can’t say that I didn’t experiment with alcohol. Friends of mine from high school and college might remember stories of me drinking too much in the dorms or a friend’s house. Luckily, that was decades ago and minimal evidence exists to prove our intoxicated excesses. In my thirties I did develop a taste for mango cognac, which I would deliver to guests at my parties in tall shot glasses. Nobody refused mango cognac. “You cannot possess mango.” I also liked drinking absinthe. I really liked the ritual of preparing this anise-flavored spirit. You pour absinthe into a special glass, then slowly drip iced water over a sugar cube on the slotted spoon set across the glass. When this drips down into the green absinthe and the cloud of sugar swirls around, it is called ‘the louche’ or releasing the green fairy. This was from the time where the psychoactive ingredients wormwood and thujone were still present in absinthe. Much rumor and confusion any mythology accompanies the story of absinthe. Absinthe was finally legalized in America in 2007, and it is commonly available in nightclubs and bars. Today’s absinthe is just an unusual tasty drink with much history, that appeals to those who like the taste of licorice.

My parents never had any problems with alcohol, but there were many alcoholics in their family. They did sit me down and talk about alcoholism at one point when I was a little kid, years before I would ever have even been thinking of trying alcohol. They said that, due to my heritage of being Irish and German, I should be very cautious when drinking alcohol. They said that many family members have struggled with alcoholism, and that I may be potentially more prone to react poorly to it, or to even become an alcoholic. The idea was that I may carry around a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. This warning lodged itself deep into my brain and I never forgot it.

I did indeed have an uncle who was an alcoholic. He almost died before I was born. He was drinking with his friend and they attempted to drive home. His friend was driving drunk without any insurance, and my uncle wasn’t even wearing a seat belt. They lost control and drove straight into a building storefront. My uncle went through the windshield of the car, and then crashed through the store window. He was in the hospital for three months recovering from that accident, and had to have his jaw wired shut. I never forgot this story of his completely preventable accident caused by drunk driving. When he would visit at family events I would secretly examine his face for any scars or evidence of his jaw being wired shut. As a little kid, I didn’t really comprehend what that entailed. But as an adult, I never got into a car with a driver who had been drinking, I always wear a seat belt, and I have never driven drunk.

I was also deeply affected by the loss of several of my musical heroes due to alcoholism. One of my favorite bands of all time, Led Zeppelin, broke up when drummer John Bonham died. He died from choking on his own vomit after drinking the equivalent of 40 vodka shots. Jimi Hendrix died the same way, but from a barbiturate overdose. Not only did I love Zeppelin beyond measure, but I was a budding young drummer myself, so I felt like this was a warning I shouldn’t ignore. When I started learning to play drums at age 16, I put on Led Zeppelin IV and attempted to play along with Bonzo. Keith Moon of The Who also died due to alcoholism, along with Bon Scott of AC/DC and Jim Morrison of The Doors. So many great talents self-destructed due to their abuse of alcohol. It seemed like the accursed trifecta of things to avoid as a musician were alcohol, heroin, and airplanes.

In my time of dying, want nobody to mourn
All I want for you to do is take my body home

When I do spend a few minutes at the bar after a long shift, I’m usually decompressing over a non-alcoholic beverage just watching people. Most people there are talking loud and saying nothing, to quote James Brown. They clumsily flirt and ogle one another, trying to glean some confidence from their friends around the pool table. They are spending far more money than they should be on unhealthy bar food and alcohol in an effort to treat themselves, celebrate some accomplishment, or let off steam. On the good side, they are creating memories with friends. On the bad side, they are getting sloppy drunk in public. Now that I’m clocked out, they aren’t my problem anymore. The problem is, I’m still in uniform, and being a bouncer isn’t something I can turn off easily.

I think mainly of the missed potential when seeing people getting drunk in a bar. Instead of regressing to a cro-magnon level, these people could be home creating something or achieving their goals. I think of all the dreams and projects that people in the bar might have while watching them smoke cigarettes and drink beer. I bet these people have projects that they are procrastinating. I bet they would normally be writing music for their band, working on writing their book, or studying for their college coursework. They could be working out by lifting weights or running, building their own business plan, or finishing their screenplay. Or even just the more simple act of spending time with their partners, parents, or kids — creating those good memories. There’s nothing but squandered potential in here during the wee hours. Very rarely, there are people who can get amazing things done while drunk. I’m thinking of the famous painters and writers who reportedly would create masterpieces while drinking. But that is the exception, there can only be one Charles Bukowski. That cantankerous old bastard wrote more amazing lines while he was drunk than I’ll ever write in my sober lifetime.

I have theorized with my coworkers that a certain very popular television sit-com has affected all of our lives in this industry. Cheers was one of the most popular shows ever made and concerned the lives on and off shift of bartenders. This show won numerous awards, ran for 11 years, had spin-off series, and started the careers of many beloved actors. Most of my coworkers are around the same age group, so we watched this show as it aired, or later in syndication. The idea of your neighborhood bar being your safe haven and sanctuary started with us all watching this show. No matter how bad your day was, you can walk into the bar and everybody yells, “NORM!” The neighborhood bar is the great decompression center with your friends. I think we internalized the themes of having work mentors/coaches, friends/therapists, lovers, and people you see more than your family becoming your family. No, I never consciously thought I would grow up and work in a bar. But somewhere in my childhood those archetypes and characters and relationships making a home and a family in a bar embedded themselves deeply. And decades later, here we are.
We all just wanna go where everybody knows our name.

I don’t think most people like drunk people. Intoxicated people become rude, boisterous (loud), selfish, cocky, demanding, and really repetitive. They can’t control their bodily functions well and might vomit, or trip and hurt themselves. Property damage is also a concern. Or they want to fight people, or put their hands on people without consent. And I would guarantee that alcohol has involvement in a majority of rapes and sexual assaults. Then, to compound things, the usual verbal de-escalation techniques or verbal judo that I typically employ are rendered ineffective. It’s like they put up a +10 Shield of Unreasonable. Because you just can’t reason with drunk people. Honestly, I really hate drunks. The irony isn’t lost on me that I hate drunk people, yet I have chosen a career that literally manufactures drunk people. We are producing the very problem that we then have to handle. Job security at it’s finest.

So at the end of the night, I’ve clocked out and am sitting at the bar. I’m tired and drained and sweaty. I’m not drinking alcohol, obviously. I’m drinking soda water with about four squeezed lemon slices in it. I’m texting my wife goodnight and telling her what time I will probably get home and quietly crawl into bed with her. I hear the manic sirens of an approaching emergency vehicle. Instead of rubbernecking to see if it’s police, fire, or an ambulance, I just look up at the rows of glasses hanging upside down above the bar in front of me. The red and blue lights from the police car reflect and glitter inside all of the glasses, lighting them up like a string of Christmas lights. I stir my drink slowly, wondering if they are responding to another drunk driver wreck, and hoping that nobody went through the windshield.