TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

NOTE: This piece is a splicing/revision of previous entries on the subject, and I intend for it to stand as my definitive statement of experience and sentiment on the events in question. 

It wasn't like something out of a Michael Bay cinematic confection.

I know today is the day to remember the dead, and while doing just that this classic John Berkey movie poster comes to mind:

If only a battle with a gigantic ape had been the worst thing to happen at the World Trade Center...

Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the cataclysmic Bin Laden-driven terrorist attack, and I am filled with a great sense of trepidation and near nausea when I think of the inevitable wave of phony patriotism and jump-on-the-bandwagon “grief” that is certain to inundate the nation for about a week. I guarantee you that the bulk of media will be devoted to documentaries/tributes on the subject — all punctuated by somber arrangements of classic patriotic standards — and there will be at least one presidential address to the nation from our alleged Commander-in-Chief, a badly-read cue card performance that will politically and emotionally push buttons and exploit/exacerbate the nation’s xenophobia and jingoistic horseshit, which in turn will probably fuel yet more American youth to throw away their lives in pointless and immoral wars supposedly being fought in the name of Freedom with a capital F.

Across the nation but most flagrantly here in the Big Apple, there are certain to be legions of thoughtless vendors out for no more than some extra greenbacks, flogging mountains of 9/11 souvenirs and merchandise to blindsided tourists and perhaps even a few locals who forgot exactly how horrifying the events of that day were. The rest of the country may have been genuinely shocked by what they witnessed on the news during 9/11 and the days that followed, but the images seen on a TV, secure in the comfort of home and hearth, cannot convey the agonizing impact of what happened here. Yes, other countries have endured nightmarish events of similar caliber — on a daily basis, no less — and worse, but this was the first time something of such international magnitude struck us here at home in quite some time, and that’s what really kicked our long-held American arrogance right up our collective ass, that feeling of “How could they do this to us? How can this happen here?” and my absolute favorite, “But we’re Americans! We’re the good guys!”

How soon we forget the atrocities committed by this country and its various administrations, both within my own meager lifetime and since the beginning of this nation. My ancestry includes both Native-American and African blood among the other genetics that make up my own personal stew, and both of those groups were famously fucked over by the US government and its people, but many factions these days urge us ethnic types to more or less shut up and forget it, and be happy about where we are blessed enough to live.

I love my country but I am in no way blind to what has gone before or at present, so the situation of twenty years past did not necessarily surprise me, but what does continue to surprise me is the extent to which the American people — and to be honest, some New Yorkers as well — have relegated the horrors of 9/11 to an oft-discussed tragedy, but one that they are not really connected to in an actual, visceral way. It’s one thing to have the media inform your opinion, but it’s a whole different animal to have been there for a major catastrophe and relegate it to the file of sensational events that evoke revulsion one day, only to become a case of ”Yeah, that really sucked.” In essence, forgetting it as another disposable news item rather than the globally connective event that it was.

I, for one, will never forget it, and I hope that I never see anything else like it for as long as I may be fortunate enough to draw breath.

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I reported to work at 7am at DC Comics' Vertigo offices, an early start, yes, but one that facilitated speaking to the company’s European freelancers without interrupting their dinners or quality evening times with their families or loved ones. I immediately got on the phone and called my favorite HELLBLAZER scribe, Jamie Delano, to hash out the details of getting him a check that had slipped through the cracks, an unfortunately common occurrence at the company in question at the time. As I chatted with him and assured him that I would remedy the situation once the payroll guys showed up, one of the editors from the collected editions department burst into my office and told me to switch my computer to the BBC News live feed; an airliner had crashed into the World Trade Center and one of the towers was burning and in danger of imminent collapse. Stunned, I filled Jamie in on what had happened and again promised to take care of his check as soon as possible. I hung up the telephone and switched to the online BBC news channel.

I gaped at the monitor as I watched the tower burn and immediately thought of the people who were within the structure, frightened, confused, in search of a safe exit, and in many cases flat-out dead. As those thoughts wrapped around my brain, a second plane hit the towers, and at that moment one cold, jagged inkling leaped to the front of my consciousness:

THIS IS NO ACCIDENT. THIS IS A TERRORIST ATTACK.

I had no experience with such matters other than through what I saw on the news, and while I was willing to accept one plane slamming into the Twin Towers as pilot error or some other such awful happenstance, two planes making such a collision one after the other was too much of a coincidence for me to write off as an unfortunate twist of fate, the odds against such a fluke being beyond astronomical. Sure, I worked in an industry that thrived from depictions of super-powered set-to’s and endless scenes of mass destruction, but that shit’s fantasy and entertainment. Here, for the first time in my life, I was faced with wholesale devastation for real, and the gravity of the situation completely rewrote my thinking on such things as the stuff of celluloid or four-color diversion.

As my mind reeled from what I had just witnessed, before I proceeded any further I called my mother in Connecticut. I knew that she was one of those East Coasters who frequented Manhattan but did not really know its geography or understand its vast scale, so for all she knew the Trade Center could have been across the street from where I worked (it was at the bottom end of Manhattan and my office was in Midtown, across the street from The David Letterman Show, so it was approximately three miles away). She was still asleep when I called and had no idea what the hell I was talking about, but I told her not to worry about me and that communications in the city would soon be overloaded by people attempting to reach their loved ones. I then signed off and set about emailing all of the freelancers and anyone else who might wonder if we’d been caught up in the attack.

Most of my co-workers made it in to work, arriving just before most mass transit ground to a standstill. The majority of the subway lines shut down, there were power outages, and then the predicted phone problems happened, effectively rendering the city incommunicado for the better part of twelve hours depending on where you were. Needless to say, work did not happen that day and we all sat or paced in a nauseous, nervous state of uncertainty, wondering if more planes would plummet from the air.

After over six hours of being more or less stranded in Midtown, the subways tentatively began to move once again and we all made our way home. I entered the B train station right at the steps of where I worked and found myself deep in a throng that crowded the platform, every one of us eager to get home and escape the horror that spewed hellish black smoke only a few dozen blocks away. Three or four trains slowly lurched in an out of the station before the crowd thinned enough for me to actually board one, and as I clung to the metal ceiling handle I surveyed my fellow passengers and found each of them looking back at me with the same silent question written on their faces: “What now?” That brief musing came to an abrupt halt as the train shuddered roughly into motion and bore us downtown, a destination that we dreaded since the line ran close to what would subsequently be known as Ground Zero.

As the B train approached the stop near the burning towers, there were long delays as the preceding trains delicately inched their way toward Brooklyn, gingerly advancing in hope that that the tunnel would not collapse. Never in my life have I felt such out-of-my-control fear, and I couldn’t help but flash back to my mother’s rampant claustrophobia, a condition that has affected her since her father attempted to kidnap her in a sack and through a window when she was three years old. If she had been on that train, she would have begun hyperventilating, shaking, and desperately trying to claw her way out of the car like a rat trapped in a box. (NOTE: that claustrophobia story about my mom is not a gag, but that's a tale for another posting.)

Passing under the potentially unstable section of street took less time than I would have thought, and as we left that foreboding underground hell we emerged onto the elevated track that crossed the Manhattan Bridge and sat stunned as an unspeakable tableau loomed to our collective right. You see, the train passed right by the Twin Towers as part of its route, which I rode every motherfucking day, and as we surfaced all present beheld a vision straight out of Gustave Doré.

The pristine lower Manhattan cityscape that I had passed for four years now had a black abscess smack dab in its center, a wound from which protruded two smoldering stumps of iron and glass, both surrounded by a multitude of police cars, ambulances, and assorted rescue vehicles, each with lights blinking and swirling, forcing the onlooker’s attention to the misery. Thick, blacker-than-black clouds of chemical smoke billowed heavenward, making the scene look like the largest sacrificial pyre imaginable (which, let’s face it, it kind of was).

The passengers craned their necks, pressed themselves against the windows and sat agog, unwillingly mesmerized by the sight. Not a word was said as we passed the inferno, but the view was reminiscent of a drive-by attraction at Disneyworld if the designer had been a mass-murdering pussy of an arsonist. The chemical fumes somehow managed to creep in through the car’s sealed doors and windows, filling us with the dread certainty that what we were experiencing was so unreal that is simply had to be real. Not soon enough, the nightmarish display faded into the distance and we were once more underground in the safety (?) of the MTA’s underground labyrinth. A commute that normally encompassed about a half hour one way had been actually and subjectively transformed into a three-hour trip along the River Styx, and I felt an edginess that I had never known before.

Upon surfacing at my subway station, I looked northward in the direction of the once flawless skyline of lower Manhattan — a key selling point for homes and apartments in Park Slope — and saw the spewing columns blotting out everything else within view, then noticed some form of unusual precipitation; thanks to the strong winds debris, ashes, and burnt office papers fell from the skies like morbid snowflakes, festooning both sides of the Gowanus Canal with remains that settled all over parked cars, houses, backyards and citizens on the street. When I realized that at least some part of those ashes was all that was left of some of the innocents removed from the human equation by a bunch of cowardly hijackers, I became stiff as a board, staggered over to the entrance of the local bath house-turned-performance-space and voided the contents of my stomach onto the sidewalk. After I had regained my composure, I headed straight to the corner bodega and bought a case of beer, then raced to the liquor store on Fifth Avenue for a bottle of old reliable Jose Quervo tequila, and finally went home to my apartment.

After dropping off my book bag and guzzling down half of the beer, I went to the roof of my building, camera at the ready, and found many of my fellow dwellers at number 647 staring to the north, some in the throes of great, wracking sobs while others just stood transfixed by something inconceivable to those of us raised in the over-confident security of a society that had kicked ass on all comers (yes, I’m leaving Vietnam out of that one).

In a numb and disconnected state, I snapped pictures of the burning towers until I had exhausted the disposable camera — pictures that I decided against developing, and I chucked the disposable camera over the side of my building — at which point I broke the seal on the Quervo, took a deep burning swig, and passed the bottle to the others who stood on the roof bearing witness. As the amber cactus squeezings incinerated their way down my gullet, I washed it down with one beer, then another, and ended up sitting cross-legged on the roof trying to make sense of the whole thing. Then a huge joint was stuffed into my mouth by another resident and I inhaled for all I was worth. “Fuck it,” I figured. ”This is the first volley of the end of the world, and there’s NO FUCKING WAY I’m facing it sober!” The other-than-nicotinal effects mingled with the fermented goodness to create a feeling of hoodoo comfort and I willingly surrendered, somehow eventually ending up safe in my bed, where I awoke the next afternoon, which turned out to be a day off from work for obvious travel and emotional reasons for the company’s entire staff. (We were notified by email of DC's closure for the day.)

The moment I awoke I turned on the TV and sifted my way through countless takes on what had happened and a nearly endless amount of video footage from Ground Zero and the surrounding areas. It was several hours later when I caught up on all of my friends who lived and worked in Manhattan and found all of them to be basically okay, although some soon showed signs of post-event trauma such as a formerly brown head of hair turning silver, and one healthy person in his early forties developing the first sign of what would turn out to be testicular cancer. Both people had made their way out of the great cloud of debris when the second tower collapsed, so the gods only know what the fuck they inhaled or absorbed through physical contact, but they are both thankfully okay now.

When I returned to work, the morale of the whole place was quite understandably fucked up and very little work was accomplished, but we all were grateful for our own miserable lives and sickened that so many innocents had senselessly perished in what was in my humble opinion a clear case of the chickens coming home to roost. I resumed my usual duties and checked in with the international talent who needed to be called, and one of our artists, a guy who lives in Croatia, forever cemented my understanding of how the rest of this world looks at such events. As I told him of what I’d seen he didn’t say a word, and when I had finished I was greeted with a very long silence. As the long distance hush stretched on I said,”Goran? Dude, are you there?” He cleared his throat after an audible drag on a smoke and said, “Bunche…I know you’ve just seen something really, REALLY horrible, but I live in Croatia, man. Similar shit happens all the time here, and the worst part is, YOU GET USED TO IT.”

Sure as hell put me in my motherfucking place, let me tell you that fucking much.

So while we all take time out to remember and mourn for those lost on or affected by 9/11, let us also channel as much positive energy as we can into the ether in hope of man someday overcoming his seemingly ingrained need to kill his fellow man for what are more often than not the most idiotic of reasons. Tolerance is a bitch thanks to the fact that we all possess some attribute, belief or behavior that drives someone else barking mad, but we've got to start trying to deal with each other if we don't want to see all that our ancestors strove and bled for washed away in a tsunami of ignorance and violence.

And that’s all I have to say on the subject. Hopefully I will not have any need to bring this up again in the foreseeable future, but here’s my multi-point, possibly bottom line on the subject, and then I’m out:

1. WAR FUCKING SUCKS. DO NOT FORGET THAT. It is wasteful of lives and everything else, so avoid it whenever possible. When innocents, women, and especially children are killed there is simply no excuse, despite what your country’s administration may tell you.
2. THE DEHUMANIZATION OF OTHER PEOPLES AND CULTURES IS UNACCEPTABLE. See above.
3. THINK FOR YOURSELF AND DO NOT LET THE MEDIA — even well-meaning li’l ol’ me — OR YOUR GOVERNMENT TELL YOU OTHERWISE.
4. REMEMBER WHAT RICHARD PRYOR HAD TO SAY ON THE SUBJECT OF WAR IN GENERAL: “CUMMING BEATS HAVING A WAR.” So get the hell out there, get your hump on, and stop all of this madness, for fuck’s sake! As Devo so wisely said, "In this world, you're just a guest," so make the stay pleasant for all people.

Thank you for your time. And never forget to make love, not war. For all our sakes.

-Yer Bunche

Regarding CONAN THE BARBARIAN # 44 (NOV. 1974)

Something I did not expect to encounter during today's breakfast reading:

In CONAN THE BARBARIAN number 44 (November 1974), Conan and cult favorite warrior woman Red Sonja are imprisoned by a brother and sister pair of incredibly powerful immortal magic-wielders who keep their eternal youth going by breeding subhuman fodder whose blood they use for an immortality elixir. Conan finds himself physically puppeted by the male immortal, mental control that he can offer no resistance to, and he is forcibly possessed by a "lust demon" before being commanded to mate with a gaggle of devolved female creatures in hope of him siring the start of a self-generating supply of bodies to sustain the immortals. 

 

It's not stated explicitly, but it's made quite clear that this was the serial rape of a very unwilling and terrified Conan, an event that leaves the Cimmerian warrior deeply traumatized. His reaction to Red Sonja's question about what happened leaves zero doubt about this. 

All I have to say to that is "Approved by the Comics Code Authority!!!" 

BODACIOUS BOOBS, DISTAFF DESTRUCTION AND BADASS BITCHES: THE CINEMA OF THE TOUGH CHICK

Let’s face it, ladies. You’re all familiar with the so-called “chick flick” genre of movies, willowy celluloid confections pandering to your perceived estrogenic desire to see nothing but endlessly repeated tales of weepy romance, makeovers where the wallflower protagonist is revealed to be hotter than a rod of uranium, “all men are scum” fare of the kind commonly infesting the Lifetime channel, and fantasies involving frumpy, neglected housewife types finding a hot and eager cock in a foreign country, usually someplace with a picturesque beach, and said turgid appendage usually provided by a tanned and tigerish guy in a Speedo that makes him look like he’s smuggling plums. That’s all well and good, but what about those times when you’re simply fed up with your life in general (and perhaps your significant other in particular), and you want to escape into a movie featuring smart, capable and tough women kicking, slicing, punching and blasting the motherfucking shit of anyone stupid enough to mess with them? Plenty of such movies do exist and while there are many such offerings, the majority of them are devoid of entertainment value by virtue of being nothing more than a display of nubile flesh and graphic violence concocted to appeal to a mostly male audience that’s satisfied with simply seeing lots of titties and showering blood filling the screen (which describes about half of the movies I love and own). So how does the discerning newbie viewer separate the wheat from the chaff and get straight to the gems the genre has to offer? Well, film fans, let this admittedly less than comprehensive handy guide serve as your beginner’s gateway into the glorious realm of the cinema of the Tough Chick.

Touch Chicks, or “broads” as they were known when embodied by Lauren Bacall and Mamie Van Doren back in the days of yore, are by no means a new phenomenon in the movies, but for all intents and purposes the Ground Zero of the genre would most likely be big-titty-maestro Russ Meyer’s seminal FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! from 1965.

The heroines (?) of the seminal FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (L-R) Lori Williams, Haji and Tura Satana.

This black and white potboiler tracks the homicidal escapades of a trio of bosomy go-go dancers who enjoy drag racing against one another in the desert when not shaking their ample dairies in front of greasy, drunken Joe Sixpacks.

Tura Satana in the iconic role of homicidal go-go-dancing dyke Varla.

During one of their forays into the Californian wastes, their de facto leader, the hot and uber-butch Varla (played to indelible effect by Japanese-Apache former real-life girl gang leader Tura Satana), savagely murders a “square” racer using her karate and wrasslin’ skills, after which she kidnaps his bikini-clad, whiny girlfriend (played by Susan Bernard, PLAYBOY's Miss March for 1966, and lookalike for my friend Matt's wife). The dancers flee an inevitable confrontation with the law and in doing so they stumble across a reclusive old man and his two sons and seek shelter at their remote homestead. Turns out the old fart is loaded after a settlement from the train company he sued after being relegated to a wheelchair following a run-in with a locomotive, and Varla has her epicanthic eyes set on the prize. The geezer is also a pervy old bastard and sets his vile sights on the petite kidnap victim, but what’s a wheelchair-bound cripple going to do? Simple: direct his retarded and hulking bodybuilder son — charmingly named “the Vegetable” — to rape the poor girl while he watches, but Varla’s wise to his game… Meanwhile, Varla’s accomplices also have their own issues to sort out. Blonde and bubbly Billie (Lori Williams) — by far the most likable of the trio — is hankering for a man and aims to experience the Vegetable’s presumed Herculean carnal prowess, while Varla’s girlfriend, Rosie (Haji), struggles to keep herself in check while witnessing Varla’s unabashedly lubricious attempts at seducing the old man’s other son in hope of wrangling the whereabouts of his dad’s fortune out of him. It’s a fully packed, ultra-sleazy 83-minute masterpiece of pulchritude and pernicious pugilism, and has since gone on to earn a well-deserved cult following as the Rosetta Stone of the onscreen tough chick/bad girl ethos.

As the 1970’s happened and the fallout from the turbulent 1960’s influenced Hollywood, the action genre doors were kicked open and downright pulled off their hinges with the genesis of “blaxploitation” and the martial arts movie boom. Blaxploitation can be traced back to Melvin Van Peebles’ pioneering and uncompromising SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG (1971) and the major studio effort SHAFT (also 1971), and once it became apparent that “black is box office,” producers wasted no time in flooding the nascent market with all manner of melanin-based movies, most of which relied on the tried and true use of sex and violence to put butts in seats.

The one-of-a-kind sheer badassedness that is Miss Pam Grier.

Without question the central female figure of the blaxploitation era was Pam Grier, who started out in low budget, shot-in-the-Phillipines “women in prison” flicks, and later set the standard for what we now consider to be the black action heroine. One need look no further than the history of blacks in this country to determine that black women have put up with and survived through a lot of truly horrible situations, so their toughness was kind of a well known given, thus making the gun-toting, karate-fighting, and occasionally castrating aspect of such characters totally plausible to audiences, and Pam Grier was exactly the right actress to fill that role at the right time.

Grier’s output was considerable, but the film that perfectly sums up what her appeal was all about is 1973’s COFFY, a classic thriller that pits Grier’s titular nurse against the drug dealing vermin whose narcotics put her little sister into a coma from which she may never recover. Coffy proves just as violent and ruthless as her prey — blowing one dealer’s head off at point blank range with a sawed-off shotgun in the film’s first five minutes — and her trail of vengeance both compels and surprises as she does whatever it takes to achieve her goal. Memorable sequences include Coffy infiltrating the ranks of a pimp’s stable of whores and starting a brutal catfight in which she conceals utility razor blades in her planet-sized Afro, and a distinctly one-sided fight with a huge and enraged bull dyke who thinks Coffy’s been messing with her strung-out girlfriend. Badassed to the core, COFFY was a big hit on the grindhouse and drive-in circuit and cemented Grier’s place as the queen of the blaxploitation milieu.

The proto-Xena cheapie THE ARENA, in which we get Pam Grier (rocking an impressive '70's bush) as a gladiatrix. Nothing wrong with that scenario!

Special note should also be given to the shot-in-Italy THE ARENA (1974) for its proto-Xena tale of female gladiators during the days of the Roman Empire, a scenario that allowed Grier to strut her top-heavy stuff as captured African tribal dancer Mamawi while wielding a trident against all comers and eventually leading a successful slave revolt. It’s cheesy and horrendously dubbed, but it’s hard to beat as an entertaining way to kill eighty-three minutes.

Pam Grier and Margaret Markov — once paired in the far less interesting BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA (guess who played who? — taking no shit in THE ARENA.

The aforementioned martial arts movie boom threw just about every conceivable Asian whupass scenario onto the screen in the wake of Bruce Lee and ENTER THE DRAGON (1973), and one of the most visceral films of the era was 1974’s THE STREET FIGHTER. Starring the brooding and intense Sonny Chiba as a modern day Japanese karate expert anti-hero whose skills bore none of Bruce Lee’s grace but contained all the lethal and gory effectiveness of a McCullogh chain saw, the film garnered an “X” rating for violence and gore when first released in the United States and was swiftly re-edited and re-released with sixteen minutes of gore excised, a move that effectively rendered the film nigh incomprehensible. Nonetheless the film earned a cult following and in no time Sonny Chiba was cranking out karate movies with gusto, often starring actors he’d groomed through Japan Action Club school. One such protégée was Etsuko “Sue” Shihomi, who played a memorable supporting character in THE STREET FIGHTER, and while that film did little to showcase her considerable martial arts acumen, that oversight was rectified with the release of SISTER STREET FIGHTER to U.S. theaters in 1976.

Japanese release poster for ONNA HISSATSU KEN ("Killing Fist Woman"), known to grindhouse attendees everywhere as SISTER STREET FIGHTER.

Contrary to popular belief, the film (and its sequels) have no connection to THE STREET FIGHTERother than sharing many of the same cast members, and being fine examples of wall-to-wall karate mayhem that the Japanese refined to a rather sanguinary art form. While not as outright bloody as The Street Fighter, Shihomi’s first starring vehicle is a highly entertaining — if illogical — story of a female martial arts expert searching for her cop brother who’s been captured by sadistic drug dealers. There’s really not much plot, but rather a launching pad/excuse for shattering fight scene after shattering fight scene, and god help anyone who gets in Etsuko’s way.

Etsuko Shihomi.

Every bit the badass Lee and Chiba were, Shihomi’s character is one of the Tough Chick genres most formidable fighters and is a pleasure to watch in action. (Just make sure to skip all of her other starring vehicles, with the exception of SONNY CHIBA'S DRAGON PRINCESS, since they more or less royally suck.)

Meiko Kaji classes up the place while administering razor-sharp ass-whuppings as LADY SNOWBLOOD.

Also hailing from the Land of the Rising Sun is 1973’s LADY SNOWBLOOD, based on the manga story written by Kazue Koike, the legendary author of the classic samurai saga Lone Wolf and Cub (which was also adapted into a series of classic films). Starring cult Tough Chick actress Meiko Kaji, this revenge tale focuses on Yuki, the visual epitome of classy and demure geisha beauty, and her quest to avenge the violent and unwarranted deaths of her school teacher father and brother and the unjust imprisonment of her mother. While behind bars, Yuki’s mother realizes she has no backup child to avenge her murdered loved ones, so she indiscriminately gives herself to any prison guard who will have her in hope of conceiving a son. She dies giving birth to Yuki, and the girl is raised by a kindly monk who molds her into a swordswoman of lethal skill and talent. When she’s around eighteen or so, Yuki embarks on the trail of the killers, some of whom have become powerful political figures, and her prim demeanor provides her with a perfect way of hiding in plain sight. Yuki’s odyssey is long, hard and painful, but her focus and determination make her an implacable foe to be reckoned with. Followed by an inferior sequel, LADY SNOWBLOOD: LOVE SONG OF VENGEANCE, LADY SNOWBLOOD is easily the most “artsy” film on this list thanks to its gorgeous cinematography and intriguing direction by Toshiya Fujita. That’s not to say that it rivals the work of Akira Kurosawa, but it is definitely one of the better and more unusual of the ‘70’s-era samurai flicks.

The 1970’s exploitation wave proved fertile ground for the Tough Chick movie, and perhaps no other effort of the era personifies the crazy, over-the-top potential of the genre like 1975’s THE JEZEBELS, later re-titled and better known as SWITCHBLADE SISTERS.

SWITCHBLADE SISTERS: the completely warped direct descendant of FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! and one of the most entertaining bad girl movies of all time.

Tellingly directed and co-written by Jack Hill, the writer and director of COFFY, SWITCHBLADE SISTERS is an unintentionally (?) hilarious and insane piece of work that could probably never get made today, and more’s the pity. The ludicrous story revolves around the adventures of the Dagger Debs (the distaff complement to the way-too-old-to-be-playing-teenagers Daggers gang) and their many run-ins with the law and other gangs, and the internal power struggle between chipmunk-faced leader Lace (the scenery-chewing Robbie lee) and tough newcomer Maggie (Joanne nail, whose costume makes her look like a superhero) , who has transferred to the Debs’ high school.

Lace (Robbie Lee) shows Donut who's boss. (BTW, Donut is played by Kitty Bruce, daughter of "sick" humor pioneer Lenny Bruce.)

When Maggie’s brief affair (more accurately described as a rape that changes gears) with pregnant Lace’s meathead boyfriend, Daggers leader Dominic, is discovered, it’s only a matter of time until Maggie and Lace must fight it out for supremacy. But Maggie’s already taken over the Debs by impressing them with her assorted criminal deeds, seceded them from the Daggers, and renamed the girl gang as the Jezebels, so when the inevitable set-to finally takes place, Lace is practically foaming at the mouth like a rabid squirrel. Featuring a staggeringly loony script that’s loaded with ridiculous dialog, black lesbian separatists who train as an urban guerilla army and build a homemade tank/assault vehicle,

rival gangs who wear outfits guaranteed to wilt the audience’s corneas, howlingly idiotic massacres in a roller rink and on the streets of the story’s unnamed city (presumably somewhere in California), Switchblade Sisters can not-inaccurately be described as a less literate take on A Clockwork Orange’s teen violence-ridden dystopia, and would make for the ideal second half of a double feature with FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!

Following its heyday in the 1970’s the Tough Chick genre mellowed considerably. Although bright spots like ALIENS (1986) and TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991) re-defined the pre-existing characters Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor into icons of the form and THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (1996)shamelessly ripped off Modesty Blaise to fun effect, the Tough Chick films offered up by mainstream Hollywood studios simply didn’t pack the straight-to-the-guts punch held by their predecessors. That may be due to an unconscious (?) backlash against movies placing women in action hero roles usually dominated by the likes of the Stallone, Shwarzenegger and Van Damme stable of male fantasy fulfillers, or it may go hand in hand with the gradual extinction of grindhouses and drive-ins as multiplexes proliferated. Whatever the case, the halcyon days of Tough Chick cinema are now behind us, but thankfully preserved on DVD, there to serve as inspiration for a hoped-for resurgence.

BIG BLACK-ASS COWBOY RIDES OFF INTO THE SUNSET: R.I.P., PAUL BECTION (1952-2026)

It is with a mixture of grief and relief that I note the passing of Marvel Bullpen brother and friend Paul "Big Black-Ass Cowboy" Becton (1952-2026). The relief comes from knowing that his decades of medical suffering and their attended psychological and emotional torment are finally, blessedly over.

Paul was a big guy, and I do mean BIG, as when I met him he stood at around 6'7" and weighed close to 400 pounds. His mirth was as large as he was, and his skills at coloring and pulp magazine-style illustration were quite impressive. We shared deep mutual interest in nearly everything comics, pop culture, and rock 'n' roll-related, and few could geek-out on Paul's level. His knowledge of and love for classic westerns was second to noe, but he refused to check out any Italian westerns, not even those helmed by the great Sergio Leone, because, and I quote, "No one in those stories actually has a job. Just a bunch of assholes wandering around in goddamned ponchos!"

We shared a lot both at Marvel and outside, and as the years went by Paul's physical condition majorly deteriorated. He suffered an injury while playing football during college, an injury that impaired his mobility and no doubt contributed to his weight, and during the years after Marvel, while living in the Staten Island the house that he shared with his utter prick of a brother, Paul fell through the stairs inside the house, due to the wood rotting, injuring his other leg, thus relegating him to a number of physical rehab facilities, where he was forced to live for many years, as the house was condemned and no one was allowed further admittance. The house ended up getting demolished, and Paul was unable to retrieve any of the lifetime of collectible treasures that accumulated on his own and via his career in comics.

I regularly visited Paul in one of the rehab centers on Staten Island, bringing him sketchbooks to draw in and drawing tools, plus occasionally smuggling in requested bottles of his favorite hooch. It was tragic seeing him trapped in the facility, and his soul-deep misery was palpable. Unfortunately I had to stop visiting him when I began my own journey down the path of inescapable medical misery, by which time he had moved out of the facility and began living in a ground-level flat rented from a friend. But not long after he was set free from the rehab facility, Paul suffered a debilitating stroke, and that was pretty much all she wrote, until his recent passing. No one that I asked knew exactly where Paul was living during his final years, and I wish I had known so I could have visited with him one last time.

My memories of Paul and his stories are many, too many to list here, but I will let this story that he told me during our Marvel years serve as an example of his sense of humor:

"When my father and his brother were little kids they used to get harassed by this annoying old lady who lived in the neighborhood and just loved to get into their business. She'd see them on their way home from running errands for my grandmother and she'd call them over, saying 'Whatchoo boys got in that bag? Lemme see!' Since they were kids and they were taught that they had to obey their elders, they had no choice but to comply with the old bitch's request to let her inspect their bag. She never took anything but I guess she just got off on fucking with two kids.

"Anyway, one day they had enough of that bullshit, so my dad and my uncle each took a big shit into a bag and, as per their routine, walked past the old bitch's house. Sure enough, there came the familiar croak of 'Whatchoo boys got in that bag? Lemme see!' The boys handed over the bag and ran like hell. My father said that when the old crow told my grandparents what they had done, he and my uncle got a major ass-whuppin' that night, but it was worth it and that old bat never fucked with them again!"

Rest well, o Big Black-Ass Cowboy. Your trail of woe has finally come to an end. May you enjoy the Last Roundup.

 At Library Bar, celebrating my birthday (June, 2006).

SO FUCKING TIRED

The face of mental/physical/emotional exhaustion.

As is no doubt wholly apparent from my regularly posting about the situation, I hate my life.

Since around 2010, my life has been an endless odyssey of one form of medical misery or another and I have weathered all of it, with the unexpected benefit of it allowing me a lot of time for introspection and deep examination of my life and the elements of it that made me who I am, both for better and for worse at different points in my development. We're talking a couple of stent surgeries, followed by years of suffering through the torment that is chronic atopic dermatitis of a severity that shocked even international dermatological specialists, becoming a guinea pig for the miracle drug Dupixent (which cleared up my atopic dermatitis and saw me becoming the poster boy for its initial success). Then came finding out that my kidney function was almost nil, so I had to get a fistula surgically created in my left forearm so I could begin ongoing dialysis treatments, and that first year of adjusting to the rigors of dialysis being a study in learning to handle excruciating pain and the process's resulting near-complete lack of energy and occasional ancillary insomnia. Up next came the esophageal condition that caused my airway to sometimes close off so I would be unable to breathe for about one or two minutes at a time (which was terrifying until I remembered how to hold my breath from swimming), along with near-ceaseless hiccup-adjacent spasms that could be quelled by multiple rounds of my "water trick" every day. And don't get me started on last August's cardiac bypass surgery. Oh, and my recent viral infection that saw me hospitalized sick as a dog, with my system in toxic shock that resulted in all of the skin on my body shedding like a snake and subsequently regenerating, albeit a tad more leathery.

All of that galloping horse shit was a lot to deal with on its own, but then my mother ended up in a near-fatal car accident that put her into a coma for a while — I hope to someday be able to erase from my memory the sight of her laying there, un-moving and silent, intubated, and looking utterly helpless — followed by her pulling through that only to be diagnosed with cancer in both lungs at the age of 85. Over the next several years I watched helplessly as her advanced age and illness caused her once mighty force of nature to fizzle out like a damp squib, which was only worsened by her surviving a minor stroke that further robbed her of her sharp mental acuity. And while I did what I could to be of help and comfort to her, I was trapped in the prison sentence of my own medical nightmares, and I could only be in Westport when my medical schedule and diminished physical stamina would allow, which forced me to leave the lion's sharp of being my mother's helpmate to the stalwart soul that is Roger, without whom neither of us could have weathered things through to the end in anything resembling an organized manner. Then Mildred left us and the sale of the house and disposal of its contents came next, which I traveled to Westport to deal with on weekends as best I could, with the aid of Roger, Kathleen, Daisy, and a legion of caring souls whose presence and help saved my fracturing sanity.

It is now roughly four months since my mother's demise and my own medical miseries persist, coupled with the fact that my main hospital, Mount Sinai, no longer accepts my insurance due to contract negotiations with my insurance provider going sour. Truth be told, I've been breaking under all of this and have yet to get new insurance, but I am getting myself together enough to resume taking care of business and I aim to spend most of Thursday on the phone with Mount Sinai, looking into continuance of service, considering that I am a patient with chronic kidney disease and have been on the State's waiting list for a kidney transplant for going on six years.

None of this is in any way uplifting, and compounding all of it is the fact that many of my dear friends live elsewhere and/or they have schedules that do not allow for any or much interaction, which would be contingent upon how much energy I can muster to socialize after another week on dialysis.

In short, my life sucks. That's why I go to Tea and Sympathy as often as I do. Its cozy interior evokes a hominess that I have not felt since I was very young, and its roster of delicious food and tea serve as a great source of comfort when there is little of that elsewhere in my day-to-day existence. When I am there I am reminded of what it feels like to be a living, functioning human being, rather than the ambulatory husk that hauls itself to dialysis or any number of other medical or hospital-related can't-miss appointments. My times of seeing and being with my friends are tragically few, and when I do get time with them, it is invariably over far too soon.

And having said all of that, it's back to the center in but a few hours, and I. can tell you with full candor that I would rather be anywhere else instead. Someday all of this misery will blessedly be over and done with, but the ongoing nature of it that I experience daily is downright Sysyphian. In a past life I must have sinned like a motherfucker, because the ancient Greeks had it right. Tartarus is real. I know. I fucking live there. 

CHEECH & CHONG'S LAST MOVIE (2025)

I grew up a fan of the stoner comedy albums of Cheech & Chong, years before I ever inhaled of the sacred sweetleaf, enjoying their work because it was basically old school-style radio comedy for the then-modern era. The success of the humor had nothing to do with having experienced being stoned. It was simply about the misadventures of two hapless stoners and other characters in their daily lives, so it was highly relatable. Their movies, which is where they made their real money, were a mixed bag, with, in my opinion, only UP IN SMOKE and CHEECH & CHONG'S NEXT MOVIE being legitimate classics, and NICE DREAMS and THINGS ARE TOUGH ALL OVER being entertaining enough, if not particularly inspired. Which brings us to CHEECH & CHONG'S LAST MOVIE. 

 Man (Tommy Chong) and Pedro DePacas (Cheech Marin) during their 1970's heyday.

The film is a bit of a misnomer, in that it isn't a narrative comedy, and is instead a bittersweet career memoir framed within an aimless road trip by Cheech & Chong as their old man selves. Those of us who are fans and who have researched their history will be aware of the behind the scenes details, but it serves as a solid history lesson for newcomers. Cheech & Chong's comedy was very much of its post-hippie era and might not translate well to today's sensibilities, but back then they were HUGE, literally the comedy equivalent of rock superstars.

                                                  The '70's comedy legends in the 21st century.

CHEECH & CHONG'S LAST MOVIE is recommended for comedy historians and fans who want to see our heroes one final times before the inevitable meet the reaper, a time that's sadly growing ever closer. 

WICKED: FOR GOOD (2025)

 

Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) returns to wreak more righteous mayhem. 

Just got back from WICKED: FOR GOOD. 

 

I was entertained, but I felt it was definitely the weaker of the two films, with the stakes and characters having been firmly established in the first installment, while the second film is basically a final act that's been padded out to 137 minutes. I did not see the Broadway version, but I'm guessing that show was about three hours max, excluding intermission, so translating it to the screen in two films totaling close to five hours was doomed to feel bloated with filler. I found the second film to be more of a case of racing to the narrative finish line than actually engrossing the audience. All of its plot threads wrap up rather abruptly, especially Glinda's banishment of the Wizard and the imprisonment of Madame Morrible, which leads me to ask if she could rid Oz of those villains with such relative ease, what took her so fucking long to get there?

 

Was it bad, No. Does it pale in comparison to its livelier and more fun first half. Absolutely, but it's still worth seeing. I loved the production design and the performances, plus to say nothing of the seamless flying sequences, and Cynthia Erivo exuded major presence as Elphaba. When Glinda slapped her, the entire Bay Ridge audience let out a collective "Oooooooh..." as if to note how ill-advised it is for a palm-colored person to strike a black woman, even if said black woman happens to be green.

 

Worth seeing, especially if you can score a discount matinee. Also there are some theaters that are screening both films back to back. I don't know how well that will work from the audience's POV, as the falloff from the first film is considerable, though your mileage may vary. And in my opinion, when it comes to films ancillary to the classic 1939 THE WIZARD OF OZ, by far the best of the lot is 1985's RETURN TO OZ, which remembers in no uncertain terms that the Oz of the novels is a place that is simultaneously fantastically wondrous, but is also downright terrifying. Give that one a watch if you never saw it.

 

 Poster for the theatrical release.

THE LEATHER BOYS (1964)

Enjoy it while it lasts.

One of the best-known of the era's working class "kitchen sink" dramas (think A TASTE OF HONEY or SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING, and a personal favorite, the genuinely sleazy BEAT GIRL), THE LEATHER BOYS (1964) focuses on the marriage of Reggie (Colin Campbell) and Dot (Rita Tushingham), who get married very young. (Rita is sixteen.) Reggie is fond enough of Dot, but it's pretty clear that his true interest in her revolves around her being sexually available. All he wanted to do with her is have sex, but the self-absorbed and immature Dot 's interest in perpetually having fun begins to grate on Reggie's nerves, as well as her incompetence as the housewife she's expected to be during that era, and the marriage begins to sour while the pair are on their honeymoon at a holiday facility in Bognor.

The pair regularly fight and soon Reggie loses interest in physical intimacy with Dot, instead preferring to spend as much time as possible with his biker pals. He soon begins a friendship with blonde leather-clad "certified nutcase" Pete (Dudley Sutton), a happy-go-lucky sort with whom Reggie finally finds a legit human connection.  

Pete (Dudley Sutton).

The only other person Reggie gets on with is his grandmother, and when his grandfather dies, he moves Pete into his grandmother's house so she'll have some company, which works out just great for everyone. Unfortunately, Reggie moves out on Dot after less than a year of marriage and begins boarding at his grandmother's with Pete, the two even sharing a bed. Reggie's relationship with Pete deepens as the two become inseparable, and Reggie finds it easy to communicate and express himself with the ebullient Pete. As the pair become closer, it becomes clear to the audience that Pete is gay, though at no point is he portrayed as in any way a stereotype of a homosexual man, while Reggie remains oblivious. 

                                                                         Get a clue, Reg.

Dot takes up with another of Reggie's biker crew in an attempt to make Reg jealous, even going so far as to claim that she's pregnant with Reggie's child (a strategy suggested by her mother), but Reggie immediately scoffs at this, noting that there's no way it could be his kid because he hasn't touched Dot in ages. Dot notes how Reggie and Pete seem attached at the hip, even going so far as to bitterly state "You two look like a couple of queers." (She's not wrong. They could be a butch couple that Tom of Finland would have illustrated, what with the biker culture and leather fetishism, though considerably less cartoonishly buff.) Reggie and Pete even go on holiday together and have a blast, though when Reg tries to pull two girls, Pete's lack of interest is barely hidden behind a polite facade, and of course Reggie does not pick up on what is blatantly obvious: Pete is clearly in love with Reg, and he even suggests that the pair leave England for New York City.

                          Reggie finds a sympathetic ear and genuine human connection with Pete.

During a multi-person motorcycle race to Edinburgh, with Dot riding bitch with her new beau, Reggie and Dot begin to reconnect, much to the consternation of Pete, and the two decide to reconnect. I won't outline how, so you can see it for yourself, but the story's conclusion leaves the lives of our three main characters shattered. 

So, after sleeping overnight and ruminating on the events in THE LEATHER BOYS, I enjoyed the film but am disappointed that it didn't do more with examining the relationship between Cockney mechanic/biker Reggie and fellow biker Pete. After decades of hearing about how the film was tarred for "promoting moral turpitude" and banned in some areas, I came to it expecting something as off-putting as the infamous CRUISING (1980), but even for its time I found nothing particularly offensive or salacious about it, unless the mere hints of the existence of homosexuality or a positive same sex relationship were enough to send the critics and the greater British public into paroxysms of wailing and hand-wringing. (Which, let's face it, was pretty much the case. Homosexuality was not decriminalized in England until 1967.)  

Reggie's a typical Cockney from the British dramas of the pre/early Beatles era and is serviceable enough as a protagonist, but he's kind of bland. Dot is immature and quite selfish, and definitely not yet ready for the responsibilities of a British housewife in 1964. The one truly likeable character in the triangle is Pete, who is sensitive, caring, kind, down-to-earth, and just plain fun, the kind of person anyone would be glad to associate with. It's pretty obvious from the get-go that he's gay and has feelings for Reggie, but he is at no point played as a stereotypical mincing sissy. Pete's just a nice guy with a taste for high-octane motorcycles and black leather, and he came from out of nowhere to become my favorite queer character in cinema. His utter lack of stereotyping is refreshing, especially when considering when the film was made, and sheer normal human decency of such a character must have been quite unsettling for the average British moviegoer in the early 1960's. Pete was far from the first gay character in UK cinema, but he was easily the most human. He reminded me of some of my friends, people the likes of which I never see properly depicted onscreen. I would have loved to see a film that continues Pete's story from the point where we left him, but alas. Anyway, check out THE LEATHER BOYS. Low-key but very good stuff indeed. 

 Poster from the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 - Day 31: WITCHING AND BITCHING (LAS BRUJAS DE ZUGARRAMURDI, 2013)

Witchery shenanigans with a distinctly Latin flavor.

Armed robbers disguised as street performers stage a violent daytime heist and hijack a passing taxi, with the plan being to flee to France, with the 10-year-old son of one of the robbers along for the ride (the kid was an active and willing participant in the robbery), as well as the innocent passenger of the cab. 

                                   A piss poor example of "Take Your Kid to Work Day."

 During the ride, the men grouse about how fed up they are with women in general, and the mastermind of the heist notes that he planned the robbery so he could have enough money to properly provide for his son. After a devastating high-speed chase with the police, the group make their way to the remote town of Zugarramurdi, which their driver at first refuses to enter because he is aware of its long history with the most diabolical of witchcraft, but a series of not-so-coincidental encounters and accidents lead them right to the mansion that houses the local coven, a merry group of cannibals that prophesied their arrival, heralding the robber's son as their "chosen one." Two detectives are also in hot pursuit, as well as the head robber's pissed-off ex-wife, who trails them. because she believes her son has been kidnapped. All parties converge at the mansion, where much mayhem and dark shit transpires, including torture, two romances blossom, elder forces are summoned, and it all culminates with the coven's Lovecraftian ritual that will bring about the end of the worldwide patriarchy.

                                                             In the mansion of madness.  

It was my intention to close this year's 31 DAYS OF HORROR with a solid witchcraft movie, so when the goofily-titled WITCHING AND BITCHING was recommend earlier this week, I opted to give it a chance. I love witchery stories and I had never heard of this one, so I went in blind and what I got was not at all what I expected. 

                             Comely witch Eva (Carolina Bang) eagerly anoints her broomstick.

It turned out to be a subtitled horror comedy from Spain that's actually very funny, striking the perfect blend between the humorous and the genuinely horrific. The laughs are earned while not shying away from adult visceral content and shocking imagery in the least. The entire cast give it their all, and I was delighted to see my girl Macarena Gomez, perhaps best known as the eerie mermaid in DAGON (2001), as the boy's angry mother. She has a creepy-eyed beauty that gives the legendary Barbara Steele a run for her money.

                           Macarena Gomez demonstrates the perils of roadside restrooms.

There's a lot that I could say about this film, but it would be criminal to spoil more than I already have, so I urge you to see it for yourself. Just remember to turn on the subtitles.

And with that, this year's cycle of 31 DAYS OF HORROR reviews comes to a close, and I thank you for joining me. And of this year's films, I hereby cite THIRST (Day 15) and WITCHING AND BITCHING as the unexpected hidden gems of the crop. Those are the two you absolutely should check out. Anyway, thank you for your support, and keep the flame of love for horror alive!

                                                             Poster for the Spanish release. 

Poster for the American release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 - Day 30: KOLCHAK - THE NIGHT STALKER "Chopper" (1975)

 

 

Investigative reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) follows a trail of murders in which the victims are all beheaded by a headless leather-clad biker on a cherry motorcycle of a make that ceased production some twenty years earlier. Kolchak's sleuthing reveals that the killer is the sword-wielding reanimated corpse of a teenage biker hoodlum who was accidentally beheaded in a prank gone horribly wrong and whose bodily was hastily buried without its head, and apparently a body interred sans noggin will rise and exact vengeance, so Kolchak must stay one step ahead of the this modern Headless Horseman and figure out a way to and its swath of six-cylinder slaughter.

 

You can't reason with a headless man.

 

"Chopper," Episode 15 of the short-lived KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER (1974-1975), features one of the show's more memorable monsters in the headless biker, though admittedly its practical execution leaves much to be desired when seen fifty year after the fact and viewed through 60-year-old eyes. KOLCHAK was the one new network TV series that I never missed during original airings (whenever possible), and to a nine-year-old monster kid, that show was like manna from heaven. Its "monster of the week" format would prove its undoing (How could they hope to keep the series running indefinitely when it's pretty much the same gimmick every week?), but I ate it up and watched most of its episodes from the relative safety of beneath the family room's coffee table. Of the show's many dark antagonists, the headless biker was always a favorite simply because of how visually disturbing it was when filtered through my 9-year-old imagination. Sure, it looks like something from a cheesy carnival spook show to me now, but back in January of 1975 it was the stuff of nightmares. I would love to see this story retold with a decent budget and actual super-visceral gore, but I'll gladly cherish "Chopper" for adding early shades of darkness to my world.

  

Vintage TV GUIDE ad from the series' run on THE CBS LATE MOVIE.