CREEMEDIA

CREEMEDIA

Fonzie Meets The Yolo Kid

AAAY! THE FONZ by Charles E. Pike (Pocket Books)

WELCOME BACK, KOTTER, THE SUPER SWEATHOGS by William Johnston (Tempo)

LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY #2, EASY MONEY by Con Steffanson (Warner)__.

by Rick Johnson

Cheapo TV paperbacks have been with us since forever, or at least their cagey insubstantiality makes it seem that way. Who can forget those great Man From U.N.C.L.E. masterhacks like Bombay Is Missing with Ilya always looking like he just finished chemotherapy five minutes before they shot the cover? How many study halls were survived by wallowing in the ant-brain trash of Monkees Go Home, Gilligan's New Thought or Allen Ludden: Myth Or Legend? Did you learn how to dryshave from Danny Partridge's Grooming Tips For Dips?

After a brief snore, dating from the last Brady Bunch to the first Happy Days when there were few potential tieins, the '70s are once again furiously sucking tad with books about the Sweathogs, Kojak, Police Woman, Fonzie, Lindsay Wagner and anybody else with ratings higher than dog fume documentaries. Of course, these artistic endeavors are just pale electronic shadows of the actual shows, passing over the "subtleties" some dishwater tubists like to think they picked up on to zone into the amoebic attention spans of the pre-teens who actually put down

their hard-earned drug dealing bucks.

And what writers! Just listen to some of these names—Chuck Pike, Bill Johnson, Fred Norton, et al. Probably all the same guy. Probably all write for CREEM. Just reading twenty pages of their inverse sublimity is enough to lure you into the same putting green mentality as a blissful TV O.D. Genius is sleep, just ask Karen Ann Quinlan.

Of all the screen rips, the candy butcher biography is the simplest to write and the dumbest to read, full of sanitized made-up quotes and fanatically compiled Useless information. Lindsay Wagner's bio reveals that she sweats bionic sweat,; and Lawrence Welk's is fine for Cert-heads, but the real classic is Fonz: The Henry Winkler Story, which goes out of its way to prove he's a diarrnetic simp in real life. He got started by playing Billy Budd in eighth grade. He gets the shits when he fights with his girl friend. His favorite color is blue. He gets the shits when he gets "emotionally involved ." He philosophizes that "death is negative energy," He gets the shits over anything. Makes you want to go bomb an animal shelter.

Action books are the next quickest to hack, just like their TV counterparts. All you do is string together a couple of brutal no-pest strip strangulations, a car/Lear jet chase across the Antarctic and a coven of pervs who piss in mail chutes and you've got it. The nine novel Kojak series, with imaginative titles like I Eat Death and Funky Junkies is strictly dog entertainment, but Police Woman #1: The Rape, looks promising, especially for fans of violent sexual assault (and who isn't?). The only drawback is a chickenshit author who blows the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go into endless descriptive pud shuffles about Pepper's bouncing cones and instead has her rub up against walls and get stabbed about thirty times. Makes you wonder.

The books based on sitcoms are the best of all, combining see-through plots with the waxy jokes that night nurses trade after hours. Welcome Back Kotter #3: The Super Sweathogs is the cream of the slime, although the writing is so flaky it was probably done under the influence of Crisco. The story devolves around the Sweathogs' attempt to fill in for Epstein's janitor uncle, who suffered a breakdown when •

he read an advance copy pf the book. They're as efficient as a herd of carp trying to swim upstream, running into all the usual problems like haunted elevators, irate faints at the word d-o-g. Real hilarious hijinks. Laverne and Shirley in Easy Money is another' winner, with Laverne going on a game show produced by the same nurdent who does Grandpa's A Pain, Senile Savants and The Yolo Kid. She almost wins, but blows the Mountains Named After Famous Shovel Inventors category.

Admittedly, some of these books aren't enough to interest a squid, but they do open up allkinds of possibilities. Coming soon to your local drugstore book rack: Good Times #34: Suck Sock, Whiteyf, Ironside Does A Wheelie, Charlie's Angels in Revenge Of The Acting Teacher and Lee Major's Secret,Bulge Decoder. They'll have to do until color radio comes along.

School's Out Forever!

OR

Scholastic Alternatives ForThe Liberated Parent

The Rolling Stone Illustrated History Of Rock & Roll Edited by Jim Miller (Rolling Stone/Random House)_

by Robert Duncan

I have a few infant memories (discounting present). One of them takes place in a nursery at the remarkable age of six months. Mother was there. Father was away, as usual. I believe he was in Akron. Akron, that's right. In a motel. He had been drinking. Not too much. Hold it; memory pains. Yes, frankly, he had been drinking too much. The bed in the motel in Akron. There's a mist. No. Yes. No. Yes. It comes clearer. But I don't want to see. I have few infant memories. Clearer. Clear. The bed in the motel in Akron has Magic Fingers. For only a dime. It was a dime back then, which has something to do with inflation and the cost of the parts that they need to make the bed vibrate like thousands of tiny fingers; magic tiny fingers.. .STOP! In the motel bed, which appears to gyrate, in factr more than vibrate, is Father with the cocktail waitress from the Tip Top Lounge. Simple enough. Quite simple. It's a fact. A searing fact of my infancy. But that's not the point.

As I said, I was in the nursery and Mother was there. Winter was beginning to give way, but, while we still had the benefit of the excellent steam heat, we had none of the desperate need for it as in the three months previous. Did I mention we lived in Chicago? It was late. I had just awoken from a dream. A dream in which my father was in Akron in a motel room bed.. .1 forget the rest. I was unhappy. The tears, however, were drying post haste in the salty beds on my cheeks. Still I longed for something to completely vanquish my disquiet. Mother was soft and warm (I knew from previous experience) and her presence therefore was soft and warm. And fragrant. I inhaled her melodic aroma—the delicate C-above-high-C of her collarbone and, particularly, her musky high notes. And now she leaned over my little body and becartie warmer and gently fuller . Her face neared my ear, her musk deepened, her tongue clicked as it adjusted itself in the luxurious, clinging moisture of her mouth, and she pronounced one word: Morphology.

Perhaps it is why I drink.

Suffice it to say, I was less than soothed to discover my mother's choicest verbal consolation in the openihg sentence on page 322 of The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. As it did not allay my childhood fear pf the unknown, likewise it did little to illuminate Art Rock to me, the adult. In American, then: What the fuck is morphology, guys?

But, as the youngsters say, Hety, man, I won't lay my bad shit on you— except perhaps to also ask you to explain "miscegenation," and if it is, as I suspect, a word referring to arcane sexual practices of humans with cattle. Because with little reservation I can say thatthisis a fine, fine book—indeed,

even a far better thing. It reads well—or at least one of us does—as I was able to complete the lion's share of it in two sittings. And in those moments when it's not reading particularly well, it references well—that is, sometimes there're too many facts, however, they are the essential ones (thank you, Greg Shaw).

As a sampler of various styles of Rock Criticism, the book is remarkably broad. Itturns out (as I had always suspected) that Paul Nelson is the Rock Crit Estab's most articulate and inspiring bleeding heart (see "Dylan") and that this new fella Lester Bangs is its most mercifully restrained rationalist— by that I mean, Lester abhorrs Morphology but does not shy away from down and dirty morphological discussion (see "Heavy Metal") to the Easy Reader's eternal joy. But the big surprise here is that Robert Christgau can write good.

But I carp.

And I also forget the pictures. Which are probably the book's most striking feature. They are good to great (see Eddie Cochran as the coolest human who ever lived) and many are rare (Little Richard sans conk as missionary lounging in an arch-conservative bathrobe studying his Bible), and all are reproduced in legible size—it's a large format book—and in legible black and white.

From everything to everything else, this is the rock history you want. If not as absolutely inclusive as the Rock Encyclopedia, it's also a lot better entertainment. In other words, if your mother didn't get you this for Christmas, rock fan, it's likely she doesn't care (about you, that is). Secondly, at a time when rock seems to be slipping in the culturo-socio-politicoAbednigo—I'm talking about Significance, . brothers—departmentdue, perhaps, to the merciless, heathen onslaught of the likes of Kiss and Aerosmith—this book gives Serious Rock Criticism a much-needed shot in the arm. I mean, to look at this book you might begin to think it all counts. The book even proffers the possibility that rock has a future (and that it may thus remain a viable thing to Putin Perspective) in the hands of (who else?) Steely Dan; Roxy Musid, Disco, Reggae, and Bruce Springsteen.

Which is in spite of the fact that the news just came in on the wires that Peter Frampton has the biggest selling rock album of all time. A discussion of which, I guess, will be in the next definitive book.

Here, Have Some WORMS!

by Edouard Dauphin

If you're squeamish about spaghetti, better lay off Squirm, the new picture about squiggly things on the rampage. The little varmints are supposed to be killer worms, see, and they're a nasty looking lot all right, but despite their tenacity and their reputation for voracitv. thev reminded me of leftovers from the Chef Boy-Ar-Dee kitchen.

The film's action takes place in a small Southern town which, unfortunately, is not Plains, Georgia. As a matter of fact, it is Fly Creek, Georgia, and don't bother looking that one up in your atlas and gazetteer. A severe electrical storm has toppled power lines and sent short circuits into the wet ground, awakening millions of worms, many of whom haye never before appeared in a motion picture. Naturally, they decide to eat the town and everybody in it. And without clam sauce.

Into this cozy setting comes Mick, a smartass New York antique dealer who knows a junk town when he sees one. He's got the hots for Geri, a local girl who's seen too many Tennessee Williams movies. She talks like Carroll Baker in Baby Doll, walks like Liz Taylor in Suddenly Last Summer and hangs around the house like Vivian Leigh in Streetcar. In other words, she's worth the trip.

Mick is such an inveterate New Yorker that when he visits the town luncheonette, he orders an egg cream. (Geek musta thought he was at Gem Spa South.) Guess what slithers up the inside of his plastic cup, dripping syrup and seltzer down from its wriggling form. Mick is disgusted. He throws the egg cream down on the counter and storms out the door before anyone can even do the Bounty test.

Meanwhile, Geri has her hands full with Roger, a wild-eyed bait farmer who lives nearby. He is courting her, Georgia style. He leers at her through the window while she's taking a shower and later on attempts to rape her during a fishing trip. But she resists his advances and, in the course of the ensuing struggle, he falls onto a box of worms. They proceed to turn his face into a large pizza with everything.

Geri's kid sister has a solution for the impending catastrophe. She rolls up a batch of Fly Creek home grown and stays wonderfully wrecked for the . entire onslaught of the slithering creatures. Long since given up for dead, she is discovered the next morning, sleeping blissfully in a large trunk, having missed the invasion and subsequent destruction of a million slimy rascals. She's also missed a good part of the movie, which is her loss. See Squirm and bring along the monosodium glutamate.

Do you like films in which nothing happens? Then get ready for a couple of all-time classics: Obsession and Burnt Offerings. The former was directed by Brian DePalma, the man who tried to con us several years back with Phantom Of The Paradise, starring that sawed-off squirt who keeps popping up on the Johnny Carson Show. This time out, DePalma's leading man is regulation size but that's about all youxan say for him, cause it's Mr. Wooden himself, Cliff Robertson. He plays a New Orleans businessman obsessed with a young woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to his dead wife. Genevieve Bujold appears -in both these roles arid gets to talk with an Italian accent not unlike Sergio Franchi's. Cliff mopes around while Florence (the city) for two or three reels before persuading Genevieve to marry him. They return to New Orleans and it's time for the big surprise ending that no one's supposed to reveal. So here it is: she's really his daughter. You would have guessed it anyway.

At the screening I attended of Burnt Offerings, the man next to me went to the lobby to make a few phone calls and returned a half hour later to ask: Did Did ariything not happen?' It's that kind of picture. Oliver Reed and Karen Black are co-starred, so right away you know you're in trouble. They play a married couple who rent a summer home that the Addams Family would have turned down as too tacky. Srange . Strange events follow. Oliver gets a little rqpgh in the swimming pool. Karen brushes up on her impersonation of Tony Perkins' mother in Psycho. And Bette Davis has a coughing fit. For the grand finale, the house starts falling down. Pretty frightening, huh? Yeah, if you're an architect. See these films only if they don't have bingo in your town.