Screenbeat Comfortably Dumb

Screenbeat

Comfortably Dumb

by

Vicki Arkoff

“I have a disease called alcoholism and dr-dr-dr-drug dependency. ”

—Ozzy Osbourne

It’s not likely to sweep the Oscars this year, but wouldn’t it be nice if Penelope Spheeris’ Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years were to be nomitated for “Best Documentary To Bite The Hand...” or some such category?

To prove that lightning can strike twice, Spheeris decided to risk a sequel to her original Decline (about the L.A. punk scene circa 1979 with Black Flag, X, the Germs and Fear). The flick is a fascinating bit of docu-metal skewering the stars, the fans, the wanna-bes and the casualities of the genre. Can’t stand the screeching noise of Faster Pussycat, Kiss or Motorhead? You’ll soon forget, because this clever hunk of celluloid is a real hoot.

The picture it paints, however, is not a pretty one. Try this scene on for size: in the film’s most shocking sequence, Chris Holmes—guitarist for W.A.S.P., arguably the most offensive multi-platinum band ever—is interviewed while floating in a pool, fully encased in leather, with a quart of vodka in his system and another quart on its way. “Do you consider yourself... ” Penelope begins, off-camera. “...A piece of crap,” Chris finishes. “I’m a piece of crap. I’m what they call an old fuck... I don’t dig being the person I am. I just don’t like it.” He signs off by sliding into the pool in a nearly-comatose state while his mother watches without a word.

This is the kind of interview Barbara Walters would give up her next face-lift for... and Decline’s got ’em by the bushel. “I must’ve snorted up all of Peru,” sez Steven Tyler. Alice Cooper waves a noose as a threat to his imitators. Ozzy claims to be on the wagon but is so shaky he can’t manage to pour a glass of orange juice. Spheeris obviously didn’t set out to lens an authorized biography.

“Let me say that I tried to be fair to everyone, she says from her Sunset Strip office. “I wasn’t out to get anybody. I wasn’t out to make the scene look stupid or glorify it. I was only out to present it in as truthful a way as I could, because unfortunately, too many people don’t know about it and don’t understand it. They see long-haired kids and just dismiss them as stupid.”

Despite the inclusion of a smattering of articulate fans and musicians, the movie doesn’t go all that far towarddismissing the stereotype. That’s far too great a task when you’ve got the likes of Poison and the bar-band London as case examples.

“I had to pick people that had something dynamic to offer the film,” insists the director. “I had to pick people like Odin who were going to make it at the cost of their life: that’s human drama. And London: if there was handbook on how to be a rock ’n’ roll screw-up, they wrote it. I’m glad I had Megadeth there to bring everything back down to earth ’cause we were dealing so much with being stars, being loaded and all the fuck-up parts of rock ’n’ roll.”

The most disturbing observation made by the film is brought to light through talking head interviews with fans and kids in street-level bands, in which a disproportionately high percentage vehemently believe that they’ll become superstars. No doubt about it and no back-up plan, aside from Skid Row.

Naturally, it’s the scenes not in the film that are the juiciest. Tipper Gore had agreed to meet head-to-ugly-head with Blackie Lawless until her hubby’s campaign started heating up. Motorhead’s Lemmy had a thing or two to say about the way Spheeris directed his scene (“If you don’t like your job, why don’t you go work in a dry cleaners,” he snapped. "He was awful,” she groans). London told S&M stories about other, bigger bands, and they gave Spheeris a “headache remedy” that turned out to be thorazine, knocking her out for two days.

“There were all these stories that I couldn’t print,” Penelope gives a frustrated laugh, “because ultimately, Miles Copeland (the I.R.S., F.B.I. and L.A.P.D. president who’s also the film’s executive producer) wants to enter politics. Every time he’d see the film he’d say There goes my political career.’ But I’d say ‘Your political career went down the tubes with the first band you signed!’ ”

Penelope has one verboten scene that’s a particular favorite. When explaining that his music “is fucking—you can really fuck to a good Aerosmith song,” Steven Tyler offered to give the somewhat flustered director a personal demonstration. Did she take him up on the offer? And more to the point, will she put the footage in The Decline Of Western Civilization Part Three: The Porno Years?

“No,” she smiles conclusively. “But if I get a second chance, I will.” s