Making a mark on the Marx Brothers

One day an artist chap popped up on my MSN looking for a script. I was surprised and greatly flattered because i am quite the fan of this Particular Creator and he is quite reticent to work with others.

I tossed out ideas; rock 'n roll porn, little riding hood modernisation, battling war tales. Like a little brother trying to impress his older sibling, i energetically made up nonsense hoping he'd play with me.

We discovered we had a common love; Marx Brothers.

I remember reading that Billy Wilder was going to direct a film; A Day at the UN staring the Marx Brothers and always thought it would be cool to write an imaginary comic adaption interspersed with biographical details.

But this idea was much much bigger than the 6 pages this creator wanted to spend drawing. So i had the idea of a self-contained old school trailer with cheesy narration, on-set interviewing and then a slam of quick jokes. And interspersed with biographical snippets.

The hard thing is getting the humour correct - not just repeating jokes from the other movies. I'm not sure I've succeeded that well - especially the physical humor of Harpo.

I wrote the first 5 pages while i was stuck at a beach house on Kangaroo Island, hours away from anything. Being an earlier riser, I'd type away (instead of fishing like the other insomniac). That wrote easily. The last 3 were hard, doing slapstick is tricky and that took me 2 months of pondering.

This is a second draft, so there will be spelling mistakes and grammatical hiccups.

Anyway, please enjoy my imagined adaption of the Marx Brothers in A Day at the UN.

5 shades of Dino - how Dean Martin made me feel happier.

Late last year I got hit with the melancholy. Probably because of the suckiness of work, family infecting me with their madness and a general loss of direction (I need to do stuff; like build cellars, publish magazines or learn something new otherwise I feel a bit pointless).

I started listening to Dean Martin. Compulsively.

Martin came to prominence as Jerry Lewis’ straight man. And I loved Jerry Lewis as a kid. I remember every Sunday afternoon they’d play a Lewis movie, but only if I behaved in church – such was the power of my parents; act up in church they’d make sure Jerry Lewis (or as I said it apparently – “jer-wee woo-wis”) wouldn’t be on. So I’d tune out for an hour and a bit while the chubby priest prattled on in Slovenian backed by a tone deaf choir whose age averaged medieval, in the end learning a great patience.

At first it was all about the Jerry, but as I got older i noticed it was Martin that really carried the films. Jerry by himself was way to hammy, throwing up every slapstick trick and seeing what would stick. Martin gave the flicks a certain cool, some structure. In Hollywood and Bust (which I may have seen more than Star Wars) Martin hated Lewis, but you can’t tell. That's kind of cool.

So in my funk I’d gravitate to certain songs, which slowly become less and less depressing.

You belong to me

Just remember when a dream appears
You belong to meI'
ll be so alone without you
Maybe you'll be lonesome too and blue

At the time, Em was flying around to Sydney, making work trips to Mt Gambier, Whyalla so the song did kind of strike a cord. What’s interesting is that originally it was a female torch song; you can imagine it being sung to boyfriends and husbands going off to fight the war. But with Martin singing it sometime in the late 50s it brings in a new resonance – women strengthened during the war, boarding planes and leaving their traditional roles of housewives to see the world while their partners mournfully miss them. In my mind I picture a curly haired Ava Gardner type journalist, camera slung over her shoulder searching for the next big scoop, visiting beautiful exotic locales and meeting interesting people, while Martin is stuck at home hoping his girl doesn’t forget him. It’s all rather hopeless and depressing.

(Of course I don’t feel really comfortable with “You belong to me” so i prefer to mumble “You’re the one for me” in tune, of course.)

Little ole Wine Drinker Me -


And when they ask who's the fool in the corner,
Crying

Travelling a little bit away from dumpsville but still within city limits, Martin is broken hearted, far from home, his only consolation is drinking wine, which I think is probably the saddest alcohol. Some will say bourbon, but nope; wine is cheap, easy to drink and no hungover is as bad as a one from 3 bottles of cheap red wine. But it is a nice way to suffer.
Except for wine and a working jukebox, Dino’s got nothing going for him; but when you consider the old adage of wine, women and song – two out of three ain’t too bad.

Houston

Nobody calls me freind,

Its sad the shape I'm in

Going back to Houston
Houston
Houston
I Got a girl waiting out for me
Well at least she said she'd be

Dean Martin loved Country music, apparently. He even played a cowboy in one of the best traditional Westerns ever. Though in this video he's bit more Roy Rogers than John Wayne. Houston is about a down on his luck guy just wanting to get to Houston. Its pretty depressing but there’s some life, a bit of hope that his girl might be waiting there for him, but in the least he's got a home and bed. Its got some clever lyrics and is kind of funny, especially when compared to the other ‘funny’ western song; Not Enough Indians which is archaic and misogynistic.

Open the door and let the good times in -


Don't let nothing stand in your way
Just open up the door and let the good times in
Tomorrow's gonna be better than today

What I appreciate about this song is the production, not so much in the video but in the Capitol Records (or Columbia) audio release. A lot of Dean Martin songs from the late 50s - early 60s have these awful back up singers that all sound like cloned fat bald men, or blonde stepford wives; their only job is to repeat the lyrics in unnerving perfect harmony. Its frustrating in something like Standing on the corner, to have this barber shop quartet echoing the lyrics; washing the tomcat out of the lyrics making it into something homogenous and safe. This song though has this great party mood, even though its about a poor, hungry smoker who’s girlfriend is fooling around on him and has discovered rodents have drunk all his alcohol – essentially a miserable existence there's this great unbridled hope and joy. You can't help but smile.

On an evening in Roma -


Down each avenue or via, street or strata
You can see 'em disappearing two by two
On an evening in Roma
Do they take 'em for espresso
Yeah, I guess so
On each lover's arm a girl
I wish I knew
On an evening in Roma

Finally, away from the blues; far from the sad drunk who’s woman has left him; the poor jobless stooge far from home – this is an ode to being with the one you love. Even cheekily wondering what those couples are getting up to as they slip away. I sway from being a francophile to an italophile (???) but I hear this song and I’m Marcello riding my vespa on cobbled streets on my way to meet my senorina, dodging hanging laundry hoping no one will notice the melted chocolate gelato on my suit.

Don't know what the country's coming to
But in Rome do as the Romans do

Makes decisions so much easier.

Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday in the Press

Gestalt Publishing is releasing a Graphic Novel sequel to Repo Man and its recieved some ink in EW and on the Cinematical blog

It looks pretty exciting

Dave de Vries: Comic Maker, Decision Maker, Movie Maker

I read in the Advertiser yesterday an article on 'amateur' film makers and one of the film makers featured was Councillor Dave De Vries, best known for Southern Squadron and the Phantom mini (Marvel), he also did a good Green Lantern Annual and Black Lighting series.

Well he's making a short film.

Comic comic podcast #1

The second podcast by David Blumenstien and Ben Hutchings is up. Most interestingly is the talk about selling comics to shops. In my web consulting and writing for the web training I've started using Pareto Principle; Pareto was an early 20th century economist who discovered that 80% of the wealth of Italy was held by 20% of the population. Since then its been used as a rule of thumb - i use it to say 20% of an organisation's business responsibility is needed by 80% of the community so websites need to reflect that 20%; all other content is non-core and a waste of time. The Pareto Principle is also used in sales; that 80% of sales come from 20% of your customers. That's not to say that individuals are buying multiple copies. When i think of customers, I think of either comic shops or venues where i sell the book like zine fairs and conventions. And at first with Ozcomics Magazine and Sureshot Presents I'd chase every sale (moreso with the Magazine); deal with multiple shops selling 1-5 copies in each shop except for 3 shops which would order 20+ copies consistently. At first I'd thought that the shops that had smaller orders would grow but they didn't so i stopped bothering.

Now I'm thinking that I might just deal with Adelaide, cons and fairs - my cut is bigger and i sell more with less hassle.

On a related note the guys also talk about writing to an audience, this was brought up at Pulp Faction as well. I'm in the commercial camp; i think that you need to consider your audience and write for them. I always find the people who say "You write/create for yourself" to be essentially wankers. They either suffer egos so large the believe themselves to be more important than the audience (who essentially pay them) or people with no confidence in their skills so when their work doesn't "succeed" (however they define success) they counter with "I wrote it for myself (so it doesn't matter what other people thought of it)". I think its more important to be happy with what you create, to be proud of it otherwise you are just hacking for a wage (not that there is anything wrong with that; many plumbers, nurses and taxi drivers are doing what they do to put food on the table - they have no pretension about it). So i'm in the mind that it should be "You make sure you are happy with your work".

I think the Comic show at the Melbourne comedy festival is a great idea and is a billion times better outreach program than anything else i've seen; FCBD, cons).

Another good show.

And the Stan Lee

"Seinfeld fanfic" "Seinfeld?" "Seinfeld Fanfic" "Fanfic?" "That's what I'm saying"

For some reason I had the notion that every month this year I'll post up a script; in attempt to lead a slightly more creative life. Sometimes it'll be comic script, sometimes it won't - its all out there in either case. Because, i only came up with this notion recently I didn't have anything new, so I dusted off an old script I did at university.

At the time i was immensely proud of it, it did get some praise which helped but with hindsight I'm slightly embarrassed that I wrote a Seinfeld script around poo jokes (in my defense it was written around the time Something about Mary got released).

And its based on a true story.

I slightly cleaned up some spelling mistakes and language but essentially from 1998 here it is (DOC, 77k).

Just because you love something doesn't mean you should do it for a living

There's the stereo-type of the grumpy comic shop owner, that guy who thought

I really like comics, I want to be around comics all the time, I'll start my own shop and I can read comics all the time. It'll be great, except for those fucking customers.

They know what they are talking about but have lacking social skills and sales abilities.

Well, I got a homebrew kit for xmas (which means next xmas I'm going to get socks and jocks) and needed some supplies. Previously I went to a homebrew shop out in the hills, requiring abit of a drive. With a shortage of time I thought I'd try a local shop (the only shop my side of the city). I walked in and waited, purusing the shelfs, while the owner served some other guy. Then i had these exchanges;

"Have you got any of the Cooper's plastic long neck bottles?"
"I think I've sold out, haven't had a chance to unload my car, they're shit anyway, glass is much better"
"Yeah, I've heard that glass is better, but I'm just starting out so I'm just going the cheaper option"

Instead of "I haven't got any in now, have you considered glass, its easier to clean and makes the beer taste better"

Then I asked about about any ways of invigorating a stalled batch. He asked what i had used and told him Coopers Pale Ale with the supplied Brewer's sugar. At this point he sneered and then proceeded to tell me how Coopers have done a disservice to Homebrewing and that they are shit.
I peered to my right and noticed 5 shelves stacked with Cooper's Malt Extracts.
He then got overly technical, talking about what i should have done (Not used Coopers), his own pale ale varieties, the day he's had, history of yeast. In his 15 minutes of talking he mentioned picking up the fermenter and swirling it, which was the sum total of what i needed.

He's overt tone was just "you are wrong and stupid" which is most probably true but the maxim "the customer is always right" doesn't piss off the people putting money in your pocket.

Its not "you are wrong and stupid" its "You are right and smart BUT you could be righter and smarter"

Sigh

I then asked him the cost of a bottle drainer and asked to buy some carbonation drops.

"How am I supposed to pay rent?"

Now, in the couple of homebrew books I've read it was made clear that it was ok to ask the homebrew shop guy questions, even so i still did feel guilty that i took up they guy's time
(but i usually feel guilty/anxious about something). However if it wasn't for the ranting i would have been there for 2 minutes not twenty.

"i'll be back for those bottles and drainer, and i like the look of the red irish ale" Which translates to, I'll probably never come back because you're kind of rude and don't want to encourage you.
"hmmfff"

Which is a shame since he did have some nice stuff and was conveniently located.

Shaun Tan's The Arrival is loved by the French. Deservedly.

Shaun Tan's The Arrival has won Le Grand Prix at Angouleme. That's pretty big news.

nakedfella and nonstinking fella podcast

Indie comic creators (the good interesting kind) David Blumenstien and Ben Hutchings do a witty intelligent podcast talking about the scene, conventions and each other.

Things I agree with

• I think that there are enough talent to warrant some sort of awards/recognition
• Some nerds get a little bit too excited at conventions
• charging more than $6 for a 32 page comic is idiotic
• Pop culture conventions are nor for comics
  

Things I don't agree with

• Trudy Cooper isn't the only decent writer in the country, there's the guy who does Nakedfella
• $200 is a fair price for a table in artist alley
  
• People who reverse their cars into parallel carparks (not actually relevant to the podcast, but i'm just saying is all)
  

Another Adelaide Artist - Tim McBurnie

Just in the new year, i was scanning various "Best comic lists" and someone mention Seven Pirates, a french book, by Australian Tim McBurnie. Having never come across this name before, I got my google on and discovered he actually resides in Adelaide.

He does some lovely work.

His site

His blog

2007 Ledger Awards announced

The 2007 Ledger Awards for Australian comic books released in 2006 have been announced.

Congratulations to all the winners.

That was 2007, this is 2008

I'm still trying to figure out if 2007 was a good year. It wasn't a bad year. First year of Marriage, yeah, was good; finished some projects around the house (retaining walled lawn, cellar) and started planning the next (deck, fire pit, wood oven, gazebo) and work was alright. But it wasn't great, which is fair enough, it can't always be good times.

Best Movie:
2 Days in Paris
Runner up:
Superbad

Nothing overly dramatic or hard hitting, but smart and entertaining.

Worst Movie:
Pirates of the Caribean; End of the World
Over long and over complicated. Disappointing since i really liked the first two. Rescue Dawn was shit as well.

Best Dvd
Stanger than Fiction
Runner Up
Branded to Kill
At one point in the middle of the year I watched a really bad Michael Douglas movie and pretty much declared i'd stop watching rubbish. So I started hitting Bergman, Godard and De Sica and haven't regretted it since. The post modern rom com of Stranger than Fiction faltered at the end but was still a joy to watch. Branded to Kill is just crazy film making that is still tangible and satisfying.

Best book
Keep Off the Skyline: The Story of Ron Cashman and the Diggers in Korea / Peter Thompson and Robert Macklin
I don't read enough regular books, but amongst the non-fiction war books i read this was easily the best of them. Enough pathos to keep you interested mixed with the background information to give a better idea of why.

Worst book
Terror or love?: Bommi Baumann's own story of his life as a West German urban guerrilla
Essentially the story of a brat just trying to find a reason to fuck shit up.

Best "Graphic novel"
The Arrival by Shaun Tan.
Just wonderful. Deserves even more accolades.

Worst "graphic novel"
Black Dossier
I liked the first two because the fan-fiction elements didn't really drive the narrative, i didn't need to be familar with ever piece of genre fiction since, i dunno, 1812 for it to make sense.

Best Australian comic
DeeVee Whatever the latest one was
Runner-up
Wrong by Jing
As a whole there was some disappointing Australian Comics released this year. Some with beautiful art but disappointing writing (CAB), decent writing but poor art (Local Act books). There weren't many book that hard a true spark of excitement or creativity(like 2006), a lot of releases seem so calculated and most of the time I expected better (Character Sketches). If it wasn't for Comics Rehab (Various), Guh (Jase Harper), Wrong and Deevee, it would have been a very disappointing year.

Best Comic
Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad

Worst comic
Everything I read by Tony Bedard
He wrote a couple of issues of Birds of Prey (with great art by Nicola Scott) and Legion of Superheroes after Simone and Waid, respectively, and they were shit.

Best Music
Spring a leak, The Lucksmiths
Luckmsiths can do no wrong, this album has some great covers and bsides. And 2007 was officially the year i lost touch with new music. A lot of 2nd albums (Interpol, Bloc party, jens lekman) graced the ipod but not a lot really got me excited, besides maybe Gogol Bordello. The two most played albums were probably Dean Martin's All the hits and Jonathan Richman's The Berkeley Years.

Worst Music
Prince's Plant Earth
I probably played the Fergie album more often then the latest album from my favourite preformer, which means it was pretty shit.

Best Purchase
Deconstructed Country Road peacoat
I'd been looking for one for at least 2 years and while i'm not keen on Country Road quality, they're high end stuff seems to be ok and i got this for a bargin.
Runner up
Australian daybill for the 1956 re-release of the Marx Brother's Day at the Races
I just have to find a frame that fits it, but even though there is some double lines from a displaced registration during printing (i think that's the term) its still beautiful.

Best TV
The Unit
Lost, Heroes, etc didn't really grab me as much this year, not like this David Mamet and Shawn Ryans tv series. Its not high art but its incredibly consistent.

Worst TV
24
I turned off most shit, except for 24 which just plunged from being my favourite show ever to right-wing torture-porn.

Worst Purchase
56K modem
Not so much the modem, i bought it when i was updating my dad's computer to Vista and his current modem may not have been compatible. I bought the modem ahead of time because my dad lives 2 hours away and didn't want to have to make an extra trip back. I was told that i wouldn't get my cash back but credit back if i returned the modem. that was cool. When i didn't need the modem and went to get my credit the retailer A & R reneged because it was two weeks old. Asshats who won't get my business again.
Runner up
Probably the second hand mulcher that can't handle big stuff like leaves.

Best Wine
Heartland Pinot gris/Viognior

Best Quote
"Is the seafood fresh?"
"Chef assures me the seafood was freshly defrosted 2 days ago."

Best Person
My tailor. Emma

Worst Person
Me. I've learnt there are two sides to every story and subsequently I have to remember that people are inherently good. But in this instance the worst person would be me.

Very few jokes using the term 'seamen' really work

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to go sailing. I'm not sure why, but for awhile I've been wanting to learn to sail, it could because of the Season One finale of OC where Seth sails away or it could be yearning to be as one with the calm ocean, a willing servant to the beck of the weather.

So once B found out of my desire, he organised to go out on his dad's 36 foot sailboat. With my phone stowed away (that's sailor talk for stored away) i wasn't able to take photos but it was kinda like this;


Mick, the captain who had spent the previous night on the boat, doing it 'full Bruce Willis style, gave us a quick run down of how to deal with the ropes, mixing up clockwise and anti-clockwise to hilarious results.


B, piloting the boat whilst i furled the head sail, pulled the main sail and passed around the Pizza Shapes.


The other Mick, Michael, moors the boat after sailing back into harbor.


Then we had some drinks.

Irony is owning a spoon factory and dying at a fork in the road.

I've been quiet again. Having to work through Xmas while its nice and everyone else gets a break means i'm not really into the whole computer thing too much out of work hours. So in my time off i've been playing heaps of Xbox and talking about comics to random strangers.

Even though i'm working and its miserably hot the whole festive season was pretty good. XMAs was spent with family, my annual batch of ice cream went down really well (though my ice cream maker is now broken). NYE was probably the best for awhile (really low key and relaxed) and I spent New Years day watching De La Soul put on a good show.

On saturday we had the monthly Panels and Gutters comic drinks at the Grace Emily. It was a small turn out of about 15 people, with many scared off by the heat. It was an enjoyable afternoon with some art shown and irony defined.
Peter from Pulp Fiction Comics puts money on a tab for discounted drinks but with the smaller turn out there was $30 left over. That's 7 shots of tequila, bar keep.
Em had joined us and was enjoying white wine spritzers but on Dan's insistence she got a shot and a lemon wedge. Seven upturned glasses and 6 lemon rinds later (i ate mine) we were off. A bunch of us went back to Dan and Claire's in an attempt to see if our old couch (that i'm not allowed to sell), fits in their flat. We stopped of at the bottlo and while Dave suffocated in the boot I had this exchange with Em
Em: Can you get something for me to drink?
Me: Sho, white wine? Rose?
Em: I don't knoooow
Me: Gin? You can throw the empty bottle at me
Em: Can we get some tequila?
Me: Ok, how about this one?
Em: Get the one with the scorpion in it!
Me: Its twice the price and not actually tequila
Em: Its got a scorpion in it!
Me: Ok

30 minutes later, 2 shots later
Em: Its not thaaaat nice
Me: Try it with lemonade

10 minutes later
Em: Do you want to finish my lemonade?

So I spent the evening drinking beer and mezcal as well as pub squash and mezcal mixers, cursing the scorpion. We watched Dan's old skate videos (including a protracted poo eating sequence), guitar heroed, planned road trips and ate decent pizza. It was a good night.

A year ago today

Me and BJ turn up after enjoying pints and burgers and a mad dash for forgotten accessories (my belt and shoes). This was after i was admonished by my mother for not wearing a tie which in turn caused my father to rip his tie off to use as a belt (he too had forgotten his belt). He stated that no one would notice, but then spent the rest of the day asking people "Do you like my belt?"


As the string quartet played, the lovely bride treads the aisle


The day was a 42 degree scorcher so we had to do some last minute re-arranging, ergo the ceremony in the shade.


And married


Post photos rehydration


Joining the ceremony fun

The night was relaxed with people enjoying the much cooler evening. About 60 of close friends and family joined the festivities, including 14 that made the trip from the old country. I made a knob of myself in my speech by using the phrase "if you ever wake up with a hooker, call me, sorry, shit i mean dead hooker" and then doing a rather embarrassing/cute shuffle/wedding dance.

It was a good day

Instantaneous II - Quick recap

I'll probably do a better, more accurate recap later on when i get the details but

• 45 pieces were auctioned
• about 300 people turned up (but i'm bad at guessing these things it could have been 150)
• All the pieces sold
• I liked the free red wine, as did Evil Dan. Emma didn't like the free red wine, as did Dan's mum.
• the highest was $500 for a piece by Team Radelaier Clare Oakes
• the lowest was $65 (i think)
• Everyone liked the Rose
• My piece sold for $170
• The average price was about $130
• So over $5000 was raised
• that' will provide about 1000 meals at the Adelaide Soup Kitchen
• I forgot to take photos, but everyone would have looked awesome
• I bought a piece of Owen Heitmann's art
• no my mum didn't buy my piece
  
• You can still see the exhibition until December 23rd, upstairs at the Grace Emily
  
• I'll try and get scans of the top sellers
  

Secret Santas are kind of dumb and annoying

Essentially, Secret Santas are kind of dumb and annoying

ebay feedback

Sellers who wait for feedback before providing feedback are knobs.

Australian Comics Podcast

After a bit of a wait Maggie, Komala, Practice and myself are back for a new Australian comics podcast a look back at con season and some aussie comic releases.

Instantaneous II

Next Tuesday, 4th of December at the Grace Emily, Pulp Fiction Comics is present the second Instantaneous exhibit charity auction.

The first Instantaneous went well, raising $1800 for Adelaide Soup Kitchens.

The second Instantaneous promises plenty of wine, 35 pieces of art that will be auctioned by a professional auctioneer. Peter from Pulp Fiction has also spread the word to a lot of the art news places in Adelaide so it should be a good night.

More details at the Pulp Fiction Comics website and Facebook

I have another piece in it and I hope it sells.

On a related note, December 1st is the monthly Panel and Gutters comics drink up at the Grace Emily so if you like comics - turn up.