CREEMEDIA

CREEMEDIA

Hippie Dopes Make Big Score

CHEECH AND CHONG'S NEXT MOVIE Directed by Thomas Chong (Universal)

Dave DiMartino

by

“So much fun—it should be illegal!” That's not anyone’s review, that’s a capsule blurb on the cover of a book. Cheech And Chong’s Next Movie book, to be precise, a 144-page paperback illustrated with stills from the film of the same name. Which, in turn, should not be confused with Let’s Make A New Dope Deal, the new Cheech And Chong album on Warner Brothers records, purposefully released just two,weeks prior to the film’s opening, which—coincidentally—with radio airplay will up the film-gross ante by several million Big Ones.

We’re not talking abbut cute little hippies and their drug habits anymore when (and if) we discuss Cheech and Chong. What was once counter-culture is now Over-The-Counter Culture, and of course not only should we have expected it, we should relish it. Because this is what America wants—and the millions this whole film/book/LP project will generate can’t help but prove it.

Universal certainly won’t argue. That’s why they footed the bill, flying in dozens of journalists and radio people for a Boston screening of the film and a day-long interview session. By putting their money up front—with an initially heavy ad campaign and press junkets like this one—the dividends they’ll reap make such outlays look like small change. There’s no question: Cheech And Chong’s Next Movie, in case you’re wondering; will be one of the year’s biggest moneymakers. And whaf s scary is it actually deserves to be. it it it

BOSTON—The morning after the late-night press screening, there’s a formal press o conference with Cheech and Chong at the Colonnade Hotel. They’re sitting jlown, sipping cups of tea and coffee, acting healthy, wealthy and wise—which of course they are—fielding questions from their press audience. The inherent contradiction of it, seeing last night’s bumbling drugboys as straightmen who casually accept the press conference formality and Universal’s lavish expenditure as par for the course makes things even more surrealistic than anyone intended.

I manage a question. One qf the reasons the prior Up In Smoke was such a massive success was obvious: the people that saw it were mostly kids, say I, most of them so completely screwed up that they kept coming back to see it over and over just to make sense out of it. And I suppose you’re hoping for the same effect?

Big laffs here, and Richard “Cheech” Marin grins. “We’re hoping to double the effect, actually,” says he. “Because we figure the weed’s become a lot stronger over the years.”

The reporters giggle. “And brains are a lot weaker," says Tomfiny Chong. “Now thpy’ll forget it as soon as they walk out of the theater. ”

And Chong continues: “When we did our albums, we had to keep entertaining ourselves

because we had to listen to them over and over. So we put sound effects in. And we developed sort of a style where we’d—.even in the movieput in things that you could watch again and again, and then, yaknow, watch something else each time you’d see the movie.

“We put those things in this movie, too, hoping that if people come back-yhnd ya know that’s part of the trip, TVE SEEN IT 18 TIMES, WOW, MAN:.. ’—that they could get something out of it...” , N

Cheech And Chong’SNext Movie, dopey and dope-filled as it may be, also manages to be a very funny movie. Much more so than, say, The Blues Brothers, its most obvious competition and, by comparison, an obscenely expensive counterpart. And why it works so well is difficult to pin down. Pz»rt of it may be the film’s almost TV-like format, an extended situation comedy where the only real “plot” centers around C & C’s typical day, an excursion into the slum/drug lifestyle tjiat doesn’t nearly seem as dated as it sounds. What’s important—and the pair brought the point up themselves at the press conference—is that the drugs aren’t the main focus, just an Assumed reality thaf s there when it’s needed, qbsent when not. Sort of like real life.

The remainder of the cast is drawn from the Grourtdlingis, anL.A. co/nedy-improv group, and they match the obvious absurdity of C & C to the letter, giving the film added strength in places where it really doesn’t even need it. Even if you hold the Che&ch and Chong albums in cbntempt—and personally, if I never hear the phrase “Dave’s not here” again if 11 be too soon—

you’ll enjoy this film if only for discovering the pair*s real presence as physical comedians. As some flunky at Universal might likely sputter: “If s, a whole new thing. ” And it works.

At the press conference, Cheech and Chong dodge questions like troupers.

Fave comedy team?

“Well,” says Chong, “I think Carter and Reagan are the best of, uh, the new breed.” He trails off. “Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee...”

I ask if they’ve got any kids yet. Cheech says he’s got a 10-month-old, Chong says he’s got four of them. The youngest is five, the oldest— and this is hard to believe—is 20.

The jokes cool off when the pair talk about their families. I ask if they ever worry about the film, their lifestyle and the combined effect of both on their own children. If Dad takes drugs, why shouldn’t we??

“No, ” says Chong, “if we portrayed it in a harmful way, it wouldn’t have been effective, it wouldn’t have worked. The reasons humor works is ’cause you’ve touched a nerve of truth somewhere, somehow, for some people. And if you don’t touch that nerve, then it won’t work.

But I don’t think [people] get influenced that way. If s just like taking a virgin to a sex movie—‘Ooh GOD that’s ugly!!’—it only relates to yob if you’ve done it before.

“Our double-edged thing is that you can be ‘one of the gang’ or be the opposite, but you’re still gonna laugh, you’re not gonna take sides.”

“Most people think our movies are anti-drug movies,” Cheech says, and the reporters laugh.^ “You know—like who’d wanna be like these guys?”

“Actually,” finishes Chong, “we find that the people who get upset with what we do are white liberals who feel they should take the guilt of the world on their shoulders, and why don’t we feel the same way?

• “But we’ve never had any problems... ” it it it

And it really is a double-edged thing: there’s an urge to dismiss the film, unseen, as the juvenile, dope-filled work of two aging 60’s hippies—and yet another urge to at least give the film a chance, to see it and to draw your own conclusions. The smart move: see the movie. Dismiss the film and it won't really matter anyway. There’ll still be those kids who’ll see it 18 times.

' And that’s it, Wow, man. ».

Dead Pigeon On Love Street

NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE The Biography Of Jim Morrison . by Jerry Hopkins and Daniel Sugerman (Warner Books)

I spent the 60’s living in Miami, Florida. And trash town though it is, living there had distinct advantages. Nice weather. Beautiful girls. Great fishing. Rock stars’ penises. Great race tracks. Jai Alai, too.

Sure, Miami is Fun City all year round. And if you liked rock ’n’ roll and lived there duringthe 60’s, you probably went to the Miami Pop Festival in 1968, It was at Gulfstream Race Track, less than a mile from my house. A friend and I conned jobs there (we were both 14) selling hot dogs. We didn’t have to pay to get in. Saw Jimi Hendrix, the Mothers, Grateful Dead and more. Saw Arthur Brown bring his Crazy World to America, climb a speaker column, pull out his hot dog and scream: “I give you Americans... MY COCK!”

And if you liked rock ’n’ roll and lived in Miami during the 60’s you also went to Dinner Key Auditorium to see the Doors. I Went. So did all my friends. We saw Jim Morrison stumble onstage, ask “Do you wanna see my COCK?” and then show it to ys anyway (bigger than Arthur Brown’s), even though not many of us had screamed “YEAH!!” in the first place. And we saW Jim Morrison get down on his knees and “simulate fellatio” upon guitarist Robbie Krieger while poor Robbie looked like he’d rather be water-skiing in Biscayne Bay.

And now here’s No One Here Gets Out Alive, which, I suppose, documents Morrison’s power fixation and masturbation fantasies better than anything else I’ve read and, as rock bios go, is probably one of the better ones around. If s certainly a great case history. But, unfortunately, sometimes a good case history isn’t enough.

Problem Number One: An unusually large portion of the book is devoted to the entire Miami episode. And as fascinating as that might be for me, personally, to relive that very strange night over again', it’s equally frustrating that not once is it conclusively stated here that Morrison in fact did expose himself.or “simulate fellatio” or Whatever. Instead, the account ^disturbingly hazy—and one gets the impression that the writers didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes and contradict what might have been sworn under oath years ago. All of which might sound picky, * but isn’t. Because it really happened, all of it.

Secondly, I can’t remember reading a single direct quote from Doors Robbie Krieger and John Densmore anywhere throughout this book. And even if I’m forgetting one or two small quotes (at the very most), you tell me: who’d provide better material for any sort of Jim Morrison profile than the people he worked with for five years? Why arenfathey here?

Yet thankfully, between these seemingly random gaps of information, something equally unpleasant hasn’t happened. Had this book takertthe totally sympathetic route, depicting Jim Morrison as some sort of confused martyr figure rather than the profoundly disturbed, unpleasant

individual he’d always been—which clearly might have happened—it would be totally worthless. One look at the adolescent Jim tormenting his little brother and it’s obvious who’s heading for arr eventual breakdown: when your dad’s a Navy bigwig, what better way to get back athim than growing your hair long, ingesting chemicals and saying “fuck” a lot? If this book does anything important, it establishes conclusively that when Oedipus Morrison screamed he wanted to kill his father and fuck his mother he wasn’t thinking about writing a screenplay .

But of course Jim Morrison pretty much defines the romantic rock ’n’ roll hero—a^ screw-up, albeit a good-looking one, whose positive contributionsfar outshine his negative ones. In Morrison’s case, positive means the bulk of the better Doors material and a substantial amount of published poetry. And positive means influential; the first time I saw Iggy & the Stooges or even Patti Smith perform, I immediately remembered the Doors in Miami and Jim Morrison drunkenly screaming “THERE ARE NO RULES!” to an innocent audience who’d just come to hear the “long version” of “Light My Fire.” For all his interest in rock theater, Morrison’s persona that night in Miami was unflinchingly real; later, Iggy’s was too disturbing to be forced, more of a corollary, and Smith’s too studied to be believable. His influence will certainly live on, just as the Doors’ records will—still, a decade later, Elektra’s strongest catalogue sellers.

But considering how hazy those days are now, No One Here Gets Out Alive recaptures the not-quite-so-Golden Age of psychedelia with a minimum attempt at establishing unnecessary atmosphere, which is a definite plus. Purely as a psychological profile and case study it’s superb; only Lou Reed’s (or maybe Iggy’s) would be more interesting. For better or for worse,

Hopkins and Sugerman have produced what’ll probably end up the definitive Morrison biography, and even though it’s 10 years too late (a great way to escape sensationalist accusations), we probably should be grateful it exists at all. Despite the few jarring omissions, this book succeeds in capturing the essence and personality of Jim Morrison—which is all anyone could decently hope for. Only The Best Of The Doors would say it better, and Elektra hasn’t been able to put that one together right for 10 years.

Dave DiMartino

Lester Bangs One Out

BLONDIE by Lester Bangs (Fireside/Simon and Schuster)

It is nothing less than a tragedy that Lester Bangs’ first book should be a coffee-table tirade against Deborah Harry, Blondie, and sexism in rock. Bangs—the master of stream-ofconsciousness journalism, the courageous clown who kept CREEM on its heels from ’71 to ’76, the comically sensitive writer who, by now, certainly must have accumulated a garbage truck’s worth of brilliant prose since he first began writingabout rock in Rolling Stone over a decade ago— deserve better than this, and, in a sense, so does Blondie.

Not mat the book isn’t superbly written and well-documented—it is both that and much more. Do not be misled by the book’s beautiful cover photo of an innocent-looking Debbie: Bangs sets her up as a kewpie doll and then wrings her neck. Priced at $6.95 and

conveniently readable in an hour, Blondie is not' the equivalent of Dave Marsh’s semi-sweet Bom To Bun—it aims for the jugular and draws blood.

Consider this philosophical nugget, Blondie fans:

Is there such a group as Blondie? What difference does it make? You and then have particular reason to be physically around each Other. Andteven if there are six human beings somewhere who have devoted their lives to the maintenance of a rock group with this name, they still haven’t come up with anything within leagues of “Sugar, Sugar, ” which means they could never be as real or heavy as the Archies who never existed.

Any dedicated bubblegum scholar would agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment, but is it, after all; really fair? In all honesty, can Deborah Harry’s face be regarded siVnply as a “perfect blank*?

After reading this analysis and history of the band that put Gotham City back on the map (it sure the heck wasn’t Teenage Jesus and the Jerks), the lingering question is why did Bangs bother with such a scathing attack? Was it because he saw in blonde Debbie the perfect embodiment of sexploitation in a cruel, devouring capitalistic recording industry? Or was it because it he somehow felt cheated: that, after falling in love with Blondie’s first album, tike many of us, he gradually began to sense a cold shoulder, as the band drifted further away from its original comic-book sensibility?

I can’t pretend to guess at Bangs’ motives, but what he definitely has not done is follow the dream of Richard Riegel set forth in a review of Eat To The Beat in CREEM last year. “How long do you suppose it’ll be,” asked Riegel, “before Norman Mailer scents his long-sought ‘ultimate orgasm’ in his own N. Y. backyard, in the discopop byways of Eat To The Beat, and wants to come around Blondie to do his book on Deborah Harry as the brand new lost Marilyn Monroe?” Bangs doesn’t even confront Deborah in the entire text of the book (during the final chapter, he does chat with Chris Stein over the phone), which is a major disappointment. I was eager to read another one of Bangs’ famous Vic Morrow-style interviews, a type of fast-and-furious social intercourse that Bangs singlehandedly perfected in CREEM, creating some of the funniest verbal horseplay since Abbott and Costello’s lightning exchanges. Instead, we get an involved explanation of Deborah as the symbol of “zero cool,” a slapdash interpretation of punk rock’s meaning (which reduces a viable genre into a mere attitude), a history of the band’s roots (through interviews -with people who knew them once-upon-a-time and through excerpts from mags and various bios), critical assessments of Blondie’s oeuvre, a stab at Mike Chapman, and then the clincher: an investigation into the strategy of marketing Blondie via Debbie’s sexuality. This is the primary focus of Bangs’ book, and, on the surface, it seems subversive that he got away with such an ' approach (except that that’s why we always read Bangs and thars what’s expected: to see him get away with murder).

Nevertheless, it is this anti-sexist theme, which seems so noble, that bothers me. In a chapter entitled ’’Pinups,” in which Deborah Harry is compared to poster girls like Suzanne Somers and Farrah Fawcett, Bangs writes with the cynicism of a New Yorker who sees victimization at every turn: “I think if most guys in America would somehow get their faverave poster girl in bed and have total license to do whatever they, wanted with this legendary body for one afternoon, at least 75% of the guys in the country would elect to beat her up. ” Sez who?! In fact, most guys probably wouldn’t even know what to do so they’d run home to mommy.

My point is simple: the analysis of a form, whether popular or artistic, in terms of sexual

textuality generally leads nowhere (try reading Pauline Kael’s phony criticism). Deborah Harry is a big girl, and she can make her own decisions. If she clearly wants her image to be sold in terms of a sexual fantasy, then why should we care? Record companies market everybody (even Patti Smith and Lydia Lunch) like so much meat, and Debbie/Blondie is no exception.

. But if the business of a rock journalist is no\v to become a watchdog of morality, pointing a finger at every hypocrisy that corrupts the same monolithic industry that indirectly provides, his/her bread and butter j then Bangs should be told the heart-rending truth: Most of the goobers stranded in the wasteland beyond N. Y. aren’t going to purchase his book for its intelligent, thought-provokjng prose—they’re going to buy it because it contains lots of sexy pictures of Debbie.

Perhaps, though, it’s the tension between Bangs’ revelatory text and what the photographs conceal that makes Blondie such a challenge to read. Still, like Bangs, I haven’t been a Blondie fan since their debut, yet I’m left with a gnawing feeling that Bangs hasn’t given them a fair shake.

Maybe next time Bangs tackles a biography, * he’ll choose a subject which he ican smother with a passionate embrace (Ray Charles, Brian Eno, the Velvet Underground, Van Morrison). Or an even better project (onCe the mysterious Rock Gomortah is behind him) would be a collection of his essays, tall tales, and visionary chants—it could easily be the rock writers’ answer to Finnegan’s Wake.

A clue as to how much fun such a mammoth \ work might be can be discovered in Bangs’ dedication in the beginning of his Blondie bio.

“To Napoleon XIV,” it reads, “forSideB.” The reference is to Napoleon XIV’s novelty hit, “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa,” the flipside of which was merely the A Side played backwards: in a nutshell, Lester Bangs’ aesthetics defined.

Robot A. Hull

Morning Sickness For Spuds!

THE DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW

(NBC)

Experienced television fans/fools don’t get excited about new new programs very often. Oh sure, there was the big rush to watch Spectreman or Presenting Ramu whan they first came out, but generally, the words “new show” are greeted with the same kind of enthusiasm as “historically a good Coho spot” or “former editor of CREEM, ”

The new David Letterman Show might change all tHat, however. Letterman ,Nwho is supposedly being groomed as Johnny Carso’s eventual replacement on the TonightShow (if he can beat out Peabo Bryson, Edd “Kookie” Byrnes and Joe Torre) has definitely come into his own as a comedian. Despite a tendency to run hot and cold and his occasional reliance on Carson moves—-particularly when he’s bombing—he sports a truly bent mind as well as the most remarkable retrieval system since Lassie hung it up.

Occasionally, you have to put on NASA magnetic space boots to follow his train to thought. |-le claims to have opened the first combination All-You-Can-Eat Luncheonette/ Blood Bank in Manhattan. His favorite movie is Viva Las Vegas and his favorite restaurant trick is requesting more parsley. And he ridicules the studio audience often enough to rate a higher hanging-in-effigy percentage than Rupert Holmes or even Howard Cosell.

Anchored by an oversized Barbie and Ken wood-look set featuring a dead cactus, some decorator coffee cups, a popsicle stick dinosaur skeleton, scale models of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building as well as th£ Inevitable Fish Tank Of Destiny, the show takes off in several different directions. Squeezed, packed and warped into 90 minutes is comedy, music, news, films, kill-the-critic, “real” guests, planted “guests,” and all of this year’s best commercials, including “I can’t afford an exterminator!,” “... those brown patches sometimes associated with child-bearing pears,” “What do you do if your dog is constipated?,” and my own personal favorite: “See this ugly yellow stain? That’s what your brain looks like after watching Dinah.”

Some of this works and some of this doesn’t. In a show played mainly for laughs, the news segments with Edwin Newman stand out like an infant changing table in a gas chamber. Newman sorpetimes tries to sheepishly slip a joke into his report when all he really needs to do is say “Marshall Tito” a couple of times to crack up most people. *

A few of the regulars are also what Wally Cleaver would term Red Blanket Cases. Mrs. Marv Mendenhall—a fake Here’s Heloise type who offers household hints like covering up the odor of room freshener by-frying some sturgeon or bus seats—has bombed in every appearance, leaving David to squirm silently with the __ expression of someone who just sat down on a paint-by-number set.

' Another member of the troupe, comedian Bob Sarlatte, comes off like a radio celebrity from outer space. Not only is he not funny, but the first thing to crawl out of his mouth on Day 1 was—gimme babies!—a retard joke! Now, really, even lower forms of life like us rock critics have learned to ease off on the unintentionally brain-damaged. C’mon, Bob, just say ^Bob Welch” like we do! ,

Smellbags aside, several inspired spots highlighted the first shows. Among the very b.esr were Stupid Pet Trick Day, which included such amazing performances as Poodle For A Day, Reverse Shedding, Prank Calls To Norway and the much-dreaded Impressions of Jo Ann Pflug.; and a tribute to the rhusic.of Allen Ludden, featuring his stenciled version of “Call Me Irresponsible.”

In addition, film essayist Wil Shriner screened home movies that excluded him because his father said he “wasn’t right for the part,” and yet another disguised regular whose name I didn’t

catch as ex-FBI agent, P. J. Rails. Insisting that he received messages from J. Edgar Hoover through the lyrics of Helen Reddy (him too?!), he went on to ask the 6ne question that’s on everybody’s mind: is there a real Betty Crocker?

Like the new Dodge, all dullness has been engineered out of the David Letterman Show. Of course, they have to pay people to even look at that car, but that shouldn’t be the case with this program. It outclasses all the morning competition, from exploding gaine shows to Donahue badgering sex-change dancehall owners and the Seattle Parabeauticians Squad. Ideal for those zombo A. M. hours while you wash the dishes, hose down the barricades or just sit around thinking up new uses for your spatula.

Rick Johnson

by Edouard Dauphin

Hate kids? There’s a new film that’ll confirm your worst suspicions about everyone under the age of 10. Titled The Children, it’s an unsavory little shocker about a group of grammar school tykes who try to wipe out the entire adult population of a town. Kind of like Sesame Street meets Dawn Of The Dead.

The dozen or so brats have been contaminated by a radioactive cloud that accidentally escaped from a local nuclear plant. See, the kids’ school bus blithely drives through this funky orange vapor which evaporizessoon after. The children are ruined for life but things could have been ' worse. They might have been exposed to a James Taylor/Carly Simon No Nukes concert.

The toddlers go on a rampage right away. Seems all they have to do is touch you with their hands and your face is instantly transformed into something resembling a dish of baked clams covered over with Quaker State Motor Oil. If that sounds appetizing, you’re going to eat this movie up. Which is what the producers should have done instead of releasing it.

EntepGale (“We’ll Sing In The Sunshine”) Garnett. Not having had a hit record since 1964, she’s now palying a housewife and mother of two. One of her kids was pn the unfortunate bus and hasn’t turned up at home for her daily dose of Gilligan’s Island,' The Flintstones and The Brady Bunch. Obviously only a major catastrophe could have kept her away from TV fare like that.

(I never miss’em myself.)

Allas, the catastrophe is pretty tame .Ten townspeople bite the dust in presictable fashion, with the total special effects budget kept comfortably,under $25. Then if s bright idea

time. If the murderous brood kills by touching you with their hands, cut off their hands,«n activity that at least could have been accompanied on the soundtrack by The Clash singing “That’s No Way To Spend Your Youth.”

Following the “Look Ma, No Hnads” sequence, the flick ends with the realization that Gale Garnet has given birth to still another contaminated brat. Is a sequel to this boring film rearing its ugly head? Lef s hope not.

Skip The Children and visit Three Mile Island instead. D

The Big Red One is not the story of some Arperican Indian’s pecker,but, as directed by Sam Fuller, taht rarest of events, a great war movie.

And there hasn’t been a great combat flick since. Merrill’s Mauraders in 1961, which was directed by—you guessed it—Sam Fuller.

You say Apocalypse Now was a pretty decent war epic? Sure, if you can believe a blpated Marlon Brando with a shaved head resembling a rapidly rotting cantaloupe. And Dennis Hopper cavorting around a jungle city like a cross between Charles Manson and Ted Nugent.

Sam Fuller was in the war, the big one in the early 1940’s, aerving as a foot soldier with the 1st Infantry Division, the outfit that gives this film its name. Fuller knows war. He’s even captured Germans and forced them to go with him.

Outside oflggy Pop, how mafty of us have done that?

Star of Big Red One is Lee Marvin as a grizzled platoon sergeant leading a quartet of baby-faced soldiers through the hell of battle. Throughout the movie, Lee snarls, scowls and clenches his teeth in rage. Fuller must have told him Michelle Triola Marvin was coming on the set any minute.

See The Big Red One and fire when ready.

Rockers is a current word for reggae music. It’s also the title of a film that portrays the Rasta-world of Jamaica with humor and insight and happens to be one of the best music films in years.

Featuring such greats as Horsemouth Wallace, Burning Spear, Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh, it’s a must for anyone who’s ever wondered why Bob Marley wears his hair funny. Or as the Rastas would say: “I-man like Rockers to the fulness. Sight? Step to Rockers.” Oh, and bring along somespliffs. ^