Let's Hear It for Martin Böttcher

Have a Rockin' Saturday!

Jersey Shore: Pimped Up for the Mission

It's the Scene!

Liberation Road Detour

It's often been said that some of television's greatest offerings never actually made it to the small screen. Never has this been more true than it was with the loss of 1971's Liberation Road.

By the early 1970s, Nancy Kulp had greatly tired of her role as "Miss Jane" on The Beverly Hillbillies and longed to leave this lucrative gig. Kulp and Irene Ryan both signed on for the show because, as strict Dadaists, they felt the scripts offered the type of in-your-face nihilistic abrasiveness that was an offense to the class system. Ryan dated Tristan Tzara in the 1920s when they met a young Hungarian named Grevtin Hausheuerblach whom they renamed Zza Zza Gabor and launched her on her 80+ year as a deconstructionist performance artist. Ryan was able to inject a dose of Dadaism in most episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, as exhibited in this clip where she demonstrates both her strict adherence to the surreal and her previously unrealized potential as a seductive chanteuse.

As that series was winding down, Kulp and Odetta were approached to shoot a pilot and the first five episodes of Liberation Road. Building on the cultural shifts afoot in films like Easy Rider and Diary of a Mad Housewife, the series was billed as a mix of Kerouac's On the Road and The Waltons with a feminist twist.

Kulp and Odetta's "friendship" was an open secret in Hollywood for years, and Kulp had helped Odetta get her occasional acting gigs on series such as Have Gun Will Travel but longed for the opportunity to work together.

The basic premise of the series was that Kulp was a traditional Chicago housewife during the Great Depression who flees an abusive marriage with her two children and teams up with Odetta, a roving troubadour. They set out on Route 66 and meet a series of challenges and social ills ranging from racism, labor abuse and sexism. Each episode was liberally laced with original Odetta tunes, and she usually closed with The Internationale or other anthems.
Though Kulp's high visibility lured ABC to green light the pilot, they soon objected to most of the scripts, which included many collaborators including Sam Shepherd and Susan Sontag. First they complained that it was inappropriate to have children raised by two women, but Kulp pointed out that the Clampetts on The Beverly Hillbillies were an even less traditional family.

Tensions were high on the set as last minute changes to the script were ignored by Kulp and Odetta. By the time they had wrapped episode three and the pilot was about to air, ABC got cold feet after getting a call from the Nixon White House, and the whole series was scrapped. Whereabouts of tapes of those three episodes and the two hour pilot is still unknown. However, rumors have been buzzing over on TMZ that an extant copy recently surfaced in the Czech Republic and will be released by the Criterion Collection in 2013.
Kulp exited show biz for a while after this sour experience, entering politics with an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House in Pennsylvania in 1984. Buddy Ebson famously campaigned against her, stemming from a long-standing tension between the two dating back to a party Kulp hosted in 1968 where he mistook Odetta for the maid and kept asking her for more crab dip.

In the late 1980s, Kulp had moderate success with her yoga and meditation tapes called Now and Zen aimed at post-50 women seeking fitness and serenity. Poorly marketed initially, the tapes were later hawked on the Home Shopping Network as Sweatin' to the Oldies with Miss Jane much to Kulp's horror. After Kulp's death in 1990, Odetta never fully recovered from the loss.

Before We Had Grey Gardens...

...we had the Pruitts who helped fuel my lifelong obsession with eccentric aristocrats down on their luck. I usually spent the next couple of the days prancing around the house with my own take on "How'dja do, how'dja do, how'dja do, my dear." I still say it on certain days.

I Must Meet Leslie Kritzer When I Return to NYC

And to think SNL didn't hire her after seeing this tape. Another reason I lost interest in that show around 1979.

You're Not My Father

Hypnotic. Learn more here.

Mr. Pinky to You

Friendatella was telling me about Pinky Lee the other night, and I had heard about him but had never seen an actual episode. It's pretty obvious he hates the kids as much as they are scared of him. However, those are some very talented dogs in the second half of this clip.

Greatest Horrific Beatles Covers by a Solo Ensemble

For years, Bryce Digdug has told me about the wonders of Solo Cup baroness the lovely Dora Hall (never to be called Dora Hall but always the lovely Dora Hall). The queen bee of vanity records and vanity TV, she built shows surrounding her with legitimate guest celebrities who were definitely on the lower end of the B-list and probably being pushed out of Vegas and headed straight to Branson.

Unfortunately I'd only been able to learn of her through photos and a few online audio clips. Now, thanks to YouTubers gainsbarre13 and crystalsculpture4 that is no longer true. The above clip is one of several posted from her two "special" Imagine That and Once Upon a Tour. To me, Dora feels like the love child of Elaine Stritch and Margaret Hamilton, but she's obviously being held up as some sweet young thing making her way into show biz and adored by her fellow entertainers.

A fuller review of the wonder that was Dora is available at Dora Hall TV Heaven. Oh the horror. Oh the humanity.

(Actually I'm surprised Dora never teamed up with Little Marcy. I guess one stage could not hold two divas of such magnitude.)

Heavenly Intonations

Has Anybody Seen My Cass?

Way to Go Wago

"It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to take up space."
- Tugboat Dave

That quote from Dave was used a few months back to describe Junk Thief TV and what he attributed as being an inspiration for a great video he did that featured miniature horses and random New Orleans tomfoolery. This season of Junk Thief TV has been really sparse, and more than once I've been tempted to give it up since such nuisances as having a job, a life and foster dogs has sort of gotten in the way. (Though "The Bow Show" may be coming soon.) There hasn't exactly been a screaming mob whining "We want our Junk Thief TV", but like it or not we may end up having a few episodes here and there.

Tonight I got some good inspiration from a dozen or more short films by the video-artist Wago Kreider at Artists' Television Access over on Valencia. ATA brags that they bring you videos guaranteed to "mess with your head", and some of Wago's really did with lots of micro-edits and wacky recycling of Hitchcock, Sirk and Ray among others. My absolute favorite was "Vienna in the Desert" that used unedited sound from Johnny Guitar with contemporary footage shown above from what I assume was Lake Mono, but I don't know my desert landmarks that well.

When I first moved to SF, I went to screenings very regularly at ATA after feeling a real void after being involved in the documentary world of Manhattan and longing to be near video nerds. I sort of let my visits lapse, and it was nice to be back. Maybe there will even be a new JTTV coming soon.

Stay tuned...

Yoo Shud Cawl Us

Seconds before we were about to land at JFK on Friday, this commercial from the local NBC affiliate came up on the little screen in the back of the seat on jetBlue. I love this woman, and this is the type of accent and look I so miss since moving west. I searched the far corners of Manhattan hoping to run into her, but she must have been at home sipping her cosmos on Staten Island.

I Still Have...

...my very first hankie, given as a second birthday present by my Great Aunt Cody. Aren't you jealous? Don't you wish you had a Great Aunt Cody?

Here you can sing along with the theme song in the meantime:

Jan Crouch Zen

Not to my pleasure, a You Tube video I did about Jan Crouch nearly two years ago has been my most viewed, topping over 9,000 hits. I won't even link it here, but I will share this very Zen view of Jan. Starting slowly, she eventually hits a near trance like frenzy a little past midway, followed by peaceful, healing waves Jan never intended. And, in case you can't make it out, her deep, slowed down voice is saying: "I haven't worn that for six months, and somebody's gonna love it!" A reference to her bra or pink wig?

This clip brings me great serenity to face the week.

Hollywood Regency

I am giving serious consideration to a radical make over of the Junk Plex. Although I will not part with my famed Ming Dynasty tea pots, Biedermeier chests, Catalaniste Modernisme mosaics, Burkinabe Bobo ceremonial masks or Mixtecan insect dye textiles. I've heard my motif as being described as Heidi-Mediterranean.

The new motif being considered is Hollywood Regency. I've spent a fair amount of time in Hollywood, and one of my favorite TV characters growing up was Hollywood Harry. That's not the real Hollywood Harry on the right. He had a top hat, but it was much larger, and he had a beard and tuxedo. Harry appeared every Friday on the Lunch with Ho Ho Show and was from Hollywood Corners, Oklahoma, and he always had an update on his latest projects "out on the coast". His voice was just like Paul McCartney's on "Monkberry Moon Delight". I've not been able to find any video clips of him on the show either, but here's one from a few years later when Ho Ho advanced from lunch to a show place.

About seven years ago, I was hit up by a guy whose boyfriend had just for a two year stint in Paris and he assured me that he was not looking for a one nighter but a permanent two year temp. There was something about his face that was very familiar, and as our conversation expanded to my childhood years, I learned that we did have a link. He was a nephew of Ho Ho's and had grown up in Connecticut where Ho Ho hailed from. Much as I cherished the thought of yet another Connecticut beau, the thought of waking up to see a 35-year-old Ho Ho out of make up was more than I could deal with.

I'd feel the same way if I ran into Hollywood Harry's kin too.

This whole remodel job may take a while since I'll need to sort out my investments which I've not checked lately. About ten years ago my investment adviser was concerned that I had so much of my money tied up in real estate in Carmel and Sea Cliff and diversified my assets by investing in stock in Web Van, Oldsmobile, Tower Records and Petopia. I've not checked those stocks in a long time, so I'm hoping they've increased enough to where I can afford the new decor.
So what exactly is Hollywood Regency? Two of the central components are Chinoiserie objets de arte and cove lighting. These were central to my formative years. I learned early on that nothing cove lighting makes everyone look 20 years young and 30 pounds thinner.

Central to the movement was former silent star William Haines who went on to sell his soul to the Reagans and Annenburgs. However, he had one of my favorite quotes: "I can only tell you this -- I would rather have taste than either love or money."

Why? Just Because I Can

Fitness for the Rest of Us

Before Ben Stein became a not so intelligent intelligent design proponent and after he was a Nixon speech writer (which didn't require much intelligence either), he contributed material to Fernwood Tonight. This was, perhaps, the best spin-off of all time. I always thought Fernwood was a fictional place, but apparently not. About four minutes in, you'll meet the Fitness Twins just before their show premiered on Channel 6. Mary Lou went on to be Junk Thief's personal trainer. She's an inspiration.

Anchor's Away

Channel 2's Dennis Richmond is gone, baby, gone as evidenced by Flickr user tingley at 24th Street at Osage Alley.

Here is his final broadcast and his sign off. I don't think Taralyn Jo's departure garnered such response nor will the inevitable farewell of Katie Couric.

UPDATE: Here is Junk Thief's take on the same scene this afternoon (May 25) on his way back from Noe Valley, complete with a musical Requiem.