Veronica Lodge Equal Time

Okay, Okay, After my gushing and pandering last entry regarding Archie Comics' artist Harry Lucey's illustrations of Betty Cooper, I would be amiss If I didn't even up things by posting some nice scans of Harry Lucey's take on Ronnie Lodge as well!

Favorite Movies: The Divorce of Lady X

Back in the days of High School, I met a classmate who shared the same great love of Classic Movies as I did, and we spent many a night enjoying the works of all those great actors and actresses of the “Golden” era of film! Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur, Bogie and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn, we watched ‘em all!

 Now, this gal was a HUGE fan of Laurence Olivier, and had a whole cupboard full of various beta tapes (Beta! WOW, does THAT sound nostalgic!) of Sir Laurence’s vast career, and she took the time to re-introduce me to an actor that I’d only known from movies where he played a Nazi (Szell in Marathon Man) and Nazi-Hunter (in The Boys From Brazil), fine films to be sure, but hardly representative of his great body of work! Ahahahaha!

Well, over the weeks, we saw quite a few of Olivier’s films including Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, and (a fave of both of ours) Hitchcock's Rebecca, but the one film that stood out, just absolutely won me over and had me laughing and giddy throughout the whole film was the United Artists movie The Divorce of Lady X starring Sir Laurence and an UNBELIEVABLY ADORABLE Merle Oberon as fated lovers who are hindered by cases of mistaken identity!

Olivier is Everard Logan, a divorce lawyer who gets fogged in at a glitzy hotel. A fancy costume ball is winding down as he checks in, and several ball-attendants are needing lodgings to weather out the storm, and shrewd attendee Leslie Steele (Merle Oberon) targets Logan as a man she can playfully manipulate into sharing a room together- and that’s exactly what she does!

Though the night is a completely innocent affair, Leslie’s cheerful and candid manners have severely affected Logan, and he finds he’s falling in love with her! But before he can act upon his impulses, she leaves, without him even getting her name!

The next day he is visited in his office by an old friend who wants to divorce his wife on the grounds that she’s spent the night in a hotel with some mysterious gentleman. It’s the same hotel LOGAN was at the night before, and after a brief interview, becomes convinced that the lady he spent the night with was none other than this man’s WIFE!

Lots of laughs as the mischievous Leslie gets wind of his misdiagnosis and decides to continue the charade, pretending to be the soon-to-be-divorced mystery woman, as Logan falls deeper and deeper in love with her!!

Though I’ve managed to pick up quite a few of those classic movies we watched on DVD over the years, there are still a lot of them that haven’t been given the digital treatment yet, and it was with great excitement that I was able to obtain a copy of Divorce of Lady X from online store MOVIES UNLIMITED, a place that I remembered ordering VHS copies of some of my Garbo movies from oh so many years ago!

Well, I just finished watching it again, and I’m here to assure you people: The magic is STILL there! I fell in love with it all over again; the show is still so funny and fresh! I’ve always stated that Divorce of Lady X was a very favorite film of mine that everyone should see, and my opinion is forged anew! You MUST see this film!

PS: Though I’ve mentioned it three or four times already, I cannot overstate how adorable Oberon is in this film!!! Every scene she is in just makes you feel good! And Pretty? MAN! I read somewhere that Oberon is part Sri-Lankan, and that would certainly explain the almost exotic features she has. Man, is this woman gorgeous! And when she smiles, you just feel so…happy!

A Portrait Of Betty

Been recently re-reading through a lot of my old ARCHIE Comics and once again I was taken aback by how great the artist of the strip Harry Lucey was!  Harry was the primary ARCHIE artist during the sixties (and beyond), and he was the one who first illustrated the gang as the Mod, Peace and Flower Power scenes hit! He was even the guy illustraing most of those early issues where Archie and his friends formed their musical act, The Archies!

Now, my favorite character in the Archie Comics series has always been Betty Cooper, and this is probably one of the main reasons why I love Harry Lucey so much- Besides drawing Archie and the Gang with perfect zest,  Harry always drew the cutest, most adorable portrayals of Betty, and I just had to scan some of these terrific illustrations to share with y’all! These are just random passages from various strips, but I think Lucey really captured the essence of everything Miss Elizabeth Cooper is all about!

I’ve also scanned some complete Archie stories featuring Betty that I’ll have to upload on some future post! 

GODZILLA: The Comic That Started it All For Me!

Though there always seemed to be comics in our house growing up, it was of the Archie / Richie Rich variety and it wasn’t until my friend Jas living across the street introduced me to all the comics he was collecting that I finally got to see what all the hubbub was with those mysterious MARVEL and DC comics lining the racks at our corner candy store.

  Up until then, Marvel and DC comics were strictly for “big Kids”, and whenever I’d take a glance inside one of the books, I was confused and overwhelmed by the pages of seemingly never-ending dialog and utterly incomprehensible storylines. I mean, sure, I’d heard of Spider-Man and Superman, but somehow the stuff I saw in cartoons and television seemed so easy to understand, reading the actual comic seemed like reading an encyclopedia!

 He laid out some of his comics and explained to me that the comics were part of an ongoing storyline that continued from issue to issue, and that even though it might seem confusing at first, once you’d read a couple, the story would start to make sense!

 I understood. It made sense, and looking at Jas’ monthly purchases, (among them HULK and CAPTAIN AMERICA as well as BATMAN and his all time favorite, GREEN LANTERN) I thought it might be interesting to try and begin collecting a title myself! But where to start? To be truthful, I didn’t much care for costumed heroes at that point in my life. I was more won over by my friend’s enthusiasm more that any actual comic hero…but then my eyes spied a comic featuring Godzilla. GODZILLA? The famous Japanese monster whose movies I stayed up many nights and endured many “Monster Weekends” to catch? Now THAT sounded cool!

The Godzilla issue that I picked up that fateful afternoon was issue #12, and as luck would have it, happened to be the first chapter of a new story! The story was a tale of Godzilla being abducted and asked to battle on the behalf of an alien race against three deadly creatures called the Mega-Monsters who were due to arrive on Earth! WOW! This story was everything I’d HOPED it would be- big kaiju monsters slugging it out and even one of those giant transformer robots (a la MAZINGER Z) that I loved so much- what more could a kid ask for?! And this time, when I got to the end of the comic and it said “TO BE CONTINUED NEXT ISSUE”, I knowingly nodded, feeling very mature now that I was reading BIG KID comics, and even showed it to my mother, saying, ‘You See, unlike Richie Rich and Archie Comics, THESE comics are an ongoing series, and so they continue from issue to issue…!”

But my Mom dismissed it with a wave of her hand, saying, “Ahhh, they’re only trying to get you kids to buy more comics!” D’oh!

 Three or four weeks later, I happened to be in the candy store to buy some snacks after school, and was JOLTED when I absent-mindedly glanced at the comic spinner and saw the new GODZILLA issue on the rack! Honestly, I had forgotten all about Godzilla and collecting comics, but taking one look at the cover of Godzilla fighting the Mega-Monsters and the story and excitement came rushing back to me in a flash!

The previous issue was merely a setup for the confrontation ahead. THIS issue was the BATTLE ITSELF and oh how it delivered! A city-leveling slugfest began with Godzilla versus the three Mega Monsters all culminating in a devastating end where Godzilla’s giant robot partner Red Ronin is beheaded by one of the alien Beasts! This time when the comic went to “To Be Continued”, I FINALLY understood what a “cliffhanger” was, and I was simply BESIDE myself with desire to read what happened next!!!

I couldn’t contain my excitement when I saw the NEW issue on the stands! There on the cover stood Godzilla bravely trudging on solo against the Mega Monsters, as Red Ronin’s severed head smoked in the foreground!

 There was something special I felt seeing this cover. In a way, it was like the first time I really knew that I was actually passionately collecting this story, not because I wanted to be like my friend or because it seemed cool, but because I truly loved the strip. There was a sort of sense of pride I felt looking at that cover and already knowing EXACTLY what was going on, I felt proud to say to my cousin, ‘Look, Godzilla is fighting Krollar from the planet Mega- and that head is Red Ronin- he got his head sliced off by Triax!!!”

 Well, I ran home with THAT one, and it concluded with a big bang, with Godzilla systematically destroying all three Mega-Monsters and winning the praise of the dying Alien race who now knew their home planet would be forever safe from the evil Megs-Monsters! WOW! What a story!

It was here that comic collecting firmly took ahold of me and has never let go!

Back in these days, I wasn’t really COLLECTING comics so much as readin’ them for enjoyment, so after I’d read the new issue, I’d just toss it wherever happened to be convenient. Then, whenever a new issue would come in, I’d have to hunt around the house and dig out the old issues.

One might be under the bed. One might be behind the television. One might be in the entertainment center stuffed in the drawer with the ‘45’s!  When issue #15 came out, I was able to find all three of them, but I wasn’t so lucky when issue #16 came out. Try as I might, only issue #12 and #13 turned up. After weeks of searching, I realized my mother had probably thrown the tattered issue #14 out! After that sobering lesson, I made a special place for my Godzilla comics- I cleared out a space on the middle shelf right next to our encyclopedias, made a little stack, and there each new issue would go, and be returned to!

 Though issues #15 and 16 (story where Godzilla heads out to cattle country and gets involved with rustlers!) weren’t as interesting as the Mega Monsters arc, by then reading the latest Godzilla Comic was like stepping into a pair of comfortable shows- a regular part of my life…little did I know my favorite storyline of them all was coming up next!

When I first laid eyes on the awesome cover to issue#17, I didn’t give it too much thought. I simply thought the cover was being symbolic, about how S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Dum Dum Dugan was forever hounding Godzilla like an ominous presence lording over his life.

But when I read the issue and they ACTUALLY SHRUNK GODZILLA, you could have knocked me over with a feather! Holy Cow, Who came up with such a NEAT story?! (Well, that would be writer Doug Moench and artist Herb Trimpe, but you know how kids are…they think comic stories grow on trees!)

But when this issue concluded, Godzilla was INDEED shrunken, about the size of a small chicken, and BOY! My mind raced with all the possibilities that could happen in subsequent issues! So off they were to New York, with a little Godzilla in tow!

HOLY CRAP, when I saw this cover, I just about flipped! While waiting that long, agonizing month for the next installment, my mind raced at what the next issue’s cover would look like. All I knew was that Godzy was shrunken and going to the Big City. Then Issue #18 came out, and right off, that cover just ROCKED MY WORLD!

I remember taking this issue to Jason’s house to show it off, I loved it so much. I remember babbling to him, “OF COURSE Godzilla would be in the sewers fighting Rats! Now that he was reduced to their level, Rats are the “monster” equivalents of the city right?!” Bonus was the fact that it was “Battle Beneath Eight Avenue”…the name of the street that I lived on! Why, I could imagine this going on right beneath me…!

Well, reading it we find out that Godzilla’s friend Rob Takiguchi (the boy who’d controlled the robot Red Ronin before its’ demise) had fiddled with the latch on the cage containing Godzilla, and when the cage was accidentally dropped, the box sprung open and Godzilla had escaped into the bay!

He'd made his way into the sewers and battled off the rodent vermin as the desperate crew split up and tried to recapture him before he could get into more mischief. Attracted by the familiar voice of Rob Takiguchi, Godzilla emerged from the sewers, but just as Rob was about to approach him, the gas stated to wear off, and Godzilla suddenly shot up to a human-sized 7 feet!

I remember when I saw this issue on the stands, I reached into my pockets and came up with about 18¢, a far cry from the 37¢ needed to buy the comic! Luckily for me, I lived right next to this empty lot where people would toss their beer cans and trash, and I kicked up two 10¢ deposit bottles and ran back to the store, turned in the bottles, got my dimes, and with my grand total of 38¢ was able to purchase my GODZILLA comic!

After all that work, I took a well-deserved break to delve into that new comic- and it didn’t disappoint! With Godzilla now a big 7 feet tall, Rob tries to quietly get him back aboard the ship, but when Dum Dum and the others see him, they panic and rush at him, and before you know it, the lot of them are trading fists and kicks, before Godzilla gives a final solid punch and runs off again.

I think I made it clear above that at this time, I really didn’t care much for costumed heroes, and was waiting for more villains like the Mega-Monsters to show up. Instead, I got…The Fantastic Four?!

Yes, since Godzilla was loose in New York, somebody called in the good guys, and so it was that the Fantastic Four came to crash S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Godzilla hunting Party. I just didn’t like this invasion of my favorite comic… it took the cat-and-mouse relationship between Godzilla and Dum Dum out of their hands and basically turned it into the hot-headed Thing wrestling and irritating Godzilla against the advice of everyone!  Finally someone has the good idea to use Doctor Doom’s time machine to send Godzilla back where he came from, and I hoped that would be the end of the superheroes for awhile!!

 Sent back in time, Godzilla teams up with Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur. This comic obviously meant to tie up loose ends of Devil Dinosaur’s canceled strip, and I felt like I had come in halfway through a movie with all these new characters and pre-existing storylines! Not only that, I didn’t care for Moon Boy taking Rob Takiguchi’s place. I thought there was only ONE BOY who could befriend Godzilla that way.

And it didn’t matter anyway, for once the task was done (and all loose ends were tied up) Godzilla was bounced back to present time, (an effect I NEVER saw happen in any of the prior (or Subsequent) “Doc Doom Time Machine” stories) once again giving Dum Dum and gang the problem of what to do with him.

Funny thing about issue #22- when I went up and paid for it, I placed 37¢ on the counter, grabbed my comic, and started to leave, when the lady behind the register stopped me and said, “That’s not enough. Your total is 42¢!” HUH? I hadn’t noticed that the price had finally gone up. Comics were no longer 35¢, they were 40¢!! So I had to borrow the rest of the money from my cousin, who insisted I pay her back that nickel later!

Yag! More Marvel Heroes, this time Yellowjacket and the rest of the freaking Avengers. Funny how much I loved Costumed Heroes later, at this time I just couldn’t STAND them being in the Godzilla comic! But there they all were, like gnats bothering an ox!

After being sent back to the Stone Age, you would have thought we’d be through with New York super-beings, but it was not to be. Pretty soon it seemed like all the heroes in the city showed up for the punch-out. Using all their powers together, they use brute force to herd him to the oceanfront, but all they end up doing is pissing him the hell off!

And then in the summer of ’79, Godzilla came to a close, though I did not know it.

Issue #24 was the final chapter in the “Godzilla Shrinks” storyline, ending when young Rob Takiguchi finally gets the Avengers to buzz off, and gently persuades Godzilla to return to the Sea. Rob gives a tearful goodbye as Godzilla walks out to the ocean, and as the sun sets, the heroes stand by silently as Godzilla growls a final farewell before departing for good.

And for the first time, the comic didn’t say “To Be Continued”…all it said was “Fin.”

“WOW!” I thought at the time. “What an Awesome ending!” I wonder how they’ll top that in the NEXT issue! But there was to be no “Next Issue”.  Because of Toho’s hefty licensing fee and lukewarm sales, Marvel had decided to cancel the book. But I didn’t know about any of this, and after this, spent MONTHS waiting at the candy store for a next issue that never came! It seemed ironic timing that just as I was about to get into more “older” comics, my beloved Godzilla was coming to a close.

When school began again that September, I ran across one of my classmates from Elementary School. We got to talking about what we were up to, and he said he was collecting comics, too! When I told him I collected GODZILLA, he nodded, “The Marvel one? Yeah, I read some of those.  Hey, I can give you my old issues!” COOL! We made plans to go to his house after school, and walking home that afternoon, I asked, “Say, Godzilla is my favorite comic, but what's yours?” He replied,“Ah, it’s this really cool comic called X-MEN! I gotta let you see some of those!” And he did, but THAT’S a story for another time!

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

One thing we’d always loved back then were the HEMBECK strips that appeared at the back of all the DC Comics in the “Daily Planet” section, and what better way to celebrate my comic-reading childhood than to have Fred Hembeck himself recreate one of my favorite Godzilla covers?! When commissioning this piece from Mr. Hembeck, I was happy to find that HE was a big fan of Godzilla, too, AND in particular, that same “Shrinking Godzilla” that I loved!!! FANTASTIC!

My Commissioned Fred Hembeck piece!

Artists I Love: Lush

   I first heard of of Lush when their album Spooky conquered the College Radio charts. I remember being impressed because that album sat at the top of the college chart for weeks! But there was so much great new music coming out around that time, I wasn’t even sure I’d heard any of their songs on the radio yet.  It wasn’t until months later when a friend brought over the Spooky LP that I discovered I already DID like a song of theirs, the awesome For Love, which had been in rotation while that album was dominating the college airwaves.

    About a half a year later, I started working nights at an Art Studio with this really cool guy named Steve, who became my alternative music guru. One night we were talking about musical groups we were fans of, and he asked me, “Do you like 4AD Groups?”  I had to pause and think before asking, “Wha…what ‘s 4AD?”

  He explained that 4AD was a music label, a pretty eclectic music label at that, and he was an absolute fan of the groups in the roster. He was especially appreciative of 4AD’s unique artistic covers, featuring moody dreamlike designs by Vaughan Oliver.

  He then proceeded to run down the list of some of his favorite artists on the label, and there were a few that I actually DID like, such as Cocteau Twins, Clan Of Xymox, Pixies, and his favorite group at the time: LUSH!

   I mentioned that I DID get to hear the album Spooky, and I did like that song of theirs “For Love”, but didn’t really know too much more about them. He asked if I’d ever seen how the group looked, in particular the lead singer, to which I answered a polite, “No.”.

He smiled and said, “O.K…I’m gonna make you a VHS tape of some of their videos.”

   Well, Steve was true to his word, and the very next week, he gave me a videotape with maybe six or seven LUSH videos, and quite frankly, yes, I was blown away! The songs were just terrific, the group looked cool, and the two girl vocalist / guitarists, well…what can I say? They were just beautiful!

 The VHS tape Steve made for me had a the PV for “For Love”, as well as a few other videos for songs I only vaguely remembered hearing from Spooky, “Superblast!”, and the ultra-gorgeous “Nothing Natural” vid. He also included earlier songs from the band that I just fell in love with as soon as I heard them, “Sweetness and Light”, and a beautiful video for what has become my favorite clip of  Lush, the incredible “De-Luxe”. From that point on, I was hooked!  The two LPs that were out, GALA and SPOOKY, became some of our most-played discs at that studio late at night!

When I started working at Tower Records, I met a couple of r MAJOR Lush fans…I remember these girls' lockers were covered with Lush pics, and they really widened my scope of the world of Miki and Emma!  It was a wonderful time, because I made friends with these big fans just as Lush was set to release their NEW album, SPLIT! There was a LOT of excitement that year, I tell you!

Not only was there new LUSH music to listen to and learn, but there also was a whole slew of new Lush VIDEOS to get and love! Then the crowning present that year came when my friend Herb visited a Music store in Pennsylvania  and bought me a COMPLETE Bootleg LUSH CONCERT! This was the famous Texas show, and I was simply blown away. To see them performing an entire concert was incredible, the quality was A+ perfect, and Oh My did Miki look just GORGEOUS! What a Gift!

It’s probably around this point that I morphed into a manic “must have it all” Lush fan, and I soon discovered there were TONS of Lush songs out there, tucked onto flip-sides, One-off compilations and EP bonus tracks, that needed to be acquired! Soon I was picking up different 4AD single variations, collections like “Alvin Lives in Leeds” and those terrific “Volume” series for collectible Lush stuff!

There were these three cool musicians I knew, who loved Lush as much as I did, and they invited me to play in a side-band project they had which did very Miki Berinyi-ish shoegazer music! I happily agreed, and for a while there, we were rockin some pretty nice tunes! We even did our version of “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend”! Ah, happy times!

In 1996, one of my dreams came true when LUSH announced they were coming to Hawaii to play in a little venue called “Nimitz Hall” to promote their brand new CD, LOVELIFE!  Me and my friend Larry made our way down to that gig, and MAN, we were NOT disappointed. We got choice viewing positions on a balcony that looked right above the club stage, the scene couldn’t have been better if we were sitting front row!!!!

 Miki and the gang started the show with “Heavenly Nobodies”, and I immediately started laughing, for this was their way of saying to the adoring crowd, “Don’t worship us-We may not live up to your standards!”

They ran through their catalog of hits, but the song that really knocked our socks off was their blistering performance of “Runaway”…the song was just POUNDING!, Miki and Emma’s soaring vocals never more spot-on! And of course I don’t have to say how great those two gals looked!

  Miki had this habit of putting her guitar pick in her mouth whenever she changed guitars, and a lucky friend of mine managed to catch the pick when she flicked it into the audience. The next day, he showed it off, and I was in awe as I examined the pick – Miki’s pink lipstick was smudged into all the cracks of  the “Fender” relief logo!!!

Sadly, as everyone knows, Chris  would take his life a few weeks after this gig, and the wonderful group of LUSH would separate for good. When I think about it, I feel so blessed that I got to see them, because a few weeks difference and the concert I saw would never have happened. That makes me savor  my memories even more. And even though the group is gone, I’m still collecting their stuff, only now instead of looking forward to the new releases, It’s  acquiring those old/rare/unreleased/bootleg stuff still waiting to be discovered! Every time I acquire a new collectible or song (boy, ya shoulda been there when I finally got a copy of “Sweetie”!), it takes me back and reminds me what a fine group Lush was, and still is!

Super-Vixens: Anita Manaday

In the era of comics blatantly using scantily-clad, half-naked  heroines to sell their books, Codename: Knockout seems to be just another comic in the seemingly never ending slew of titles relying on sex and girls to propel sales, and I have to say that after reading the first 10 issues or so I hadn’t found any reason to dispel those accusations.

 I mean, sure, the storyline and characters in that Vertigo title were all interesting enough, but the fact of the matter is, it WAS a story centered around scantily clad women, and in that regard, Codename Knockout succeeded very, very WELL!

Sexy and half-dressed girls is the modus operandi here, and not one single opportunity is missed to show the girls prancing in short, SHORT skirts, bikinis, and lingerie, and no character looked finer than Anita Manaday, The E.V.I.L. Agent who uses (what else?) her awesome powers of sexual seduction to “break” the men laid before her!

Super-Vixens: Angela Devlin

In the first few issues under the penciling of Louis Small Jr, Codename Knockout main character Angela Devlin looked curiously (and disturbingly) like Pamela Anderson…and very VERY BRONZED Pamela Anderson, I might add. I wasn’t until artist Ed Benes arrived that she really seemed to come into her own (or at least, didn’t look like anyone I recognized) and become a “real” character!

Super-Vixens: Amora

Everyone has their dark side, but poor Angela takes the adage literally in the delightfully witchy “evil twin” incarnation of Amora, her hellbent sister who goes about systematically destroying everything in her sight! When the time finally comes for the two to have their “showdown”, you never saw such an awesome display of raw power…and panty-upskirt shots! Truly a match made in heaven for any comic geek!

AbFab on DVD

I got the ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS DVD Box Set from my friend Car on my birthday since she remembered how much I loved that show back in the day…

I've got just about all of the original two seasons episodes on VHS tape dubbed off the TV back when Comedy Central was showing it, but thought it’d be really NEAT to finally have the complete series on DVD, but one thing is puzzling me and in fact bugging me about the DVD set:

For SOME REASON, the awesome theme song "This Wheel's On Fire" has been COMPLETELY cut out of the show and now the credits have been replaced by this instrumental music!!

GADS, that’s REALLY irritating, because the song is SO MUCH part of the show. When the show begins, they have a teaser/setup of the episode, then after a joke, it would go right into the drumroll intro. And more importantly, the END of the show, after the end credits ran, they'd tack on one final scene or joke, and then freeze frame with the refrain of "THIS WHEEL SHALL EXPLODE!!!!" Was always SOOOO Funny!

Instead, now it has laughter and that instrumental track. BOOOOO!

WHA HOPPENED? Did they lose the rights to that song?  ARGH!

Anyway, it sucks because even though I've got the DVD, I’m still gonna end end up watching my VHS copies of the show!

Favorite Garbo Movies Still Unavailable on DVD!

As a fan of Garbo, I was tremendously excited when they released the beautiful Box Set of some of her more famous moves, including my favorites from her, Queen Christina, Mata Hari, and Ninotchka, but it’s now been over 5 years since that set came out, and what I want to know is:

Are they EVER going to get around to remastering and releasing any of her OTHER movies on DVD? For while the first Box Set contains many Garbo classics I love (and introduced me to a few I hadn’t seen before) there are still a LOT of her movies of hers I love that I’ve only ever seen available as VHS tapes! Theses are the ones I saw thru rental shops or via the Late, Late Shows back in the day!

Movies like “As You Desire Me”, “Susan Lenox (Her Fall And Rise) and “The Painted Veil” (is Love in the Time of Cholera a remake of this?) are BIG sentimental favorites of mine, and I don’t care what ANYONE says, “Two Faced Woman” is a HILARIOUS, FUN movie that I’ve always loved and is a MUST HAVE!

Sigh- Looks Like it will be quite a wait. Though there have been recently a few unreleased-on-DVD Garbo movies available on DVD-R thru Amazon’s “Createspace” service, what I’m really crossing fingers for is the authentic, remastered DVD treatment these movies truly deserve! 

Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries presents: Jean Rasey!

Back in the days when The New Mickey Mouse Club was consuming most of my life, I also had a mild passing interest in the Sunday night Crime-drama Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries, the show based on the best selling juvenile fiction novels and starring teenage heartthrobs Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson and Pamela Sue Martin.

Pamela Sue Martin! Like most guys my age, most of the main reason to tune in to the show was to see the pretty sleuth go through the motions, and so when a friend of mine told me he’d picked up the Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries DVD Box Set of the first season, I couldn’t wait to borrow it and take a step back to those childhood crushes of yesteryear!

  The show itself was about as much as I’d remembered (the stories themselves were your basic TV mystery drama yarns like Quincy and Charlie’s Angels) and Pamela Sue was as charismatic and pretty as I’d remembered…but there was one person I hadn’t recalled at all, and that was the character of Nancy’s tomboy friend George Fayne.

 As all readers of the original Nancy Drew novels know, best friends George Fayne and Bess Marvin usually accompanied Nancy as she went about uncovering clues and solving mysteries, and though I don’t know what became of Bess, it was nice to see (along with “sort-of” boyfriend Ned) some of the other regular book characters making appearances in the show!

 The show was paired up with the Hardy Boys show, and so maybe the producers wanted to give Nancy a “partner” in the TV series, and they surely found one in George Fayne! As played by pretty actress Jean Rasey, I found myself loving every scene that George was in, and I think it’s safe to say that (at least at THIS time in my life) she really MADE the show for me!

 Jean Rasey! How in the world did I forget about her? This gal was so much fun, and I think she really brought the George character to life! I’d always thought having a girl named “George” was funny reading the books, but to see it attached to this beautiful, sunny girl just made it all the more ironic!

  And the thing I loved most about Jean Rasey’s portrayal of George is that she managed to capture the character’s tomboyishness while still managing to look cute as heck!  One of the great joys of re-watching the series after all these years is watching George’s stuttering “scaredy-cat” shtick that would give Shaggy a run for his money performed with such cute and spunky gusto!

 I was so intrigued by my discovery of Jean Rasey, that I went right to Wikipedia to find out more about this wonderful actress…only to find no page exists for her! Man, that is really sad. IMDB still had a bit about her, though it was disheartening to read that she’d only done a few more television show appearances (all between 1975-79) and nary a show since! Sigh. Oh Well, I'll always have my Nancy Drew reruns to satisfy me!

BTW...While searching for information, I came across a "Facebook" page featuring a pretty lady named "Jean Rasey"... is this the Jean Rasey?! :)

Comments from the original VOX Post:

jean rasey wrote: Feb 21, 2010 

Yes....this is Jean Rasey.

zinkognito replied to jean rasey’s comment: Feb 24, 2010 

WOW!!!!!!!

Dunno If I'm REALLY lucky enough to have garnered a comment from THE lovely Jean Rasey, but on the off chance it happens to be, I MUST say that it is a THRILL indeed to hear from you!!!!

(And who says blogging doesn't have its little rewards!?) AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Thanks so much for commenting!

jean rasey wrote: Feb 24, 2010 

Hahahaha! No thank you! & Yes it is me Jean Rasey and Yes I am back acting....again thanks for your very kind words.....:-)

zinkognito replied to jean rasey’s comment: Feb 25, 2010 

Ms Jean Rasey~

You're VERY welcome! That's great news to hear, and we'll certainly be looking out for your new endeavors!

A Mark and Brian Christmas: The Reindeer Audition Tapes

Classic Gems of Mark and Brian Christmas Past!

As I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, I was a HUGE fan of the KLOS Radio Program featuring Mark and Brian, and would listen to the show religiously every day throughout the years, til the show was unceremoniously yanked off the Hawaii airwaves, an evil act that I’ve never forgiven them for! (Thank God for Podcasts!)

  The Holidays were especially special ones to tune on to, because the show was filled with such warmth and real nostalgic conversations of magical Christmases of childhood, including Christmas songs, stories and movies, not to mention everyone’s memories of Christmas as kids.I've taken the time to rip some of my favorite Christmas skits (that I managed to capture on tape) to MP3s so y'all can enjoy them and get into that Christmas mood, too!

Today's clips is:
The SantaLand Reindeer Audition Tapes

In this scenario, Mark and Brian enter the "Rare Footage" Vault to discover the Reindeer Audition Tapes! The Setup is: We all know Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer was the one chosen to have a theme song for himself, but what is not so well known is that ALL the reindeer submitted THEIR theme songs to Santa for consideration!

Gotta laugh when Mark tries to "Ho Ho Ho" like Santa, and Brian asks, "Ed MacMahon here?" HAHAHAHAHA!

PS: Funny how the electric door to the Rare Footage vault sounds so much like Pink Floyd! :)

Favorite Albums: Fleetwood Mac / Mirage

Around Mid- 1983, I was insanely in love with singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks, and was voraciously devouring anything and everything to do with her. Though I’d always loved her Fleetwood Mac songs and was even a fan of her Bella Donna solo album (especially the rocking Edge Of Seventeen), it wasn’t until her second album The Wild Heart came out that I totally flipped for her and began worshipping her as the rock-goddess she was!

  Back then, out video station of choice was Night Tracks on WTBS, and me and my friends tuned in every weekend to check out the latest videos before heading out for the night’s activities. At that time, my favorite videos were Stevie’s "If Anyone Falls" as well as "Stand Back", but I was curious about another Stevie video that Night Tracks routinely played, and that was the dreamy and mystical Gypsy, which credits told me was off of Fleetwood Mac’s latest album Mirage, which had just come out a few months earlier.

  Mirage? What was that album? I’d heard of Rumours, of course, as well as the big (at that time) album Tusk, but didn’t know anything about this one, nor did I know anyone who’d picked it up. But I really wanted the Gypsy Track, and when my friend Herb informed me that it also had the fun song “Hold Me” on it, I was convinced!

   We went down to Tower Records, and as I waited in line looking over the George Hurell-shot cover, I remember the first thing that shocked me was getting used to Lindsey Buckingham without his trademark afro and goatee! The cover was kind of a wraparound thing, with Lindsey and the girls on the front, and the Fleetwood and Mac group namesakes on the back, looking very much like the wards of the ‘Mac Estate!

We took the album home and immediately dove in. While my friend Herb showed only passing interest in the tracks, I was immediately smitten and would go on to not only repeatedly play that album over and over, but make all my FRIENDS listen to it, too!

  One great thing about having three prolific songwriters in the group is a LOT of diversity, and Mirage is another great showcase of the members’ talents. Christine, Lindsey and Stevie each take turns with their compositions, giving the album a decidedly “White Album” feel to it as they build up a musical “quilt” of song genres!

  With Lindsey Buckingham, It’s funny, that in the first two ‘Mac albums he and Stevie were in, his songs were carefully crafted pop/rock tunes, but by the time TUSK came out, his songwriting (to ME at least) started to sound like that Dana Carvey "Choppin' Broccoli" songwriting character who makes up songs as he goes along, and songs like “Not That Funny!” and “What Makes You Think You’re The One” sounded more like jam sessions with nonsensical lyrics than actual singles. 

The songs he penned for Mirage still have this loose free-form feel to them (as in songs like "Book of Love", "Diane" and "Can’t Go Back”, but they are fun and catchy as hell! There’s this one goofy song called “Eyes of the World”, and with its refrain of “eyes…eyes…eyes” as its chorus, my friend James once exclaimed “What the heck is this crap?!” before dancing around, pointing at his eyes in tune with the song. AHAHAHA! But the one masterpiece Lindsey DID lay down for this album was the cool, rocking song EMPIRE STATE, about his experiences in the Big Apple (as opposed to Sunny California). MAN, I love to blast this one!

  Stevie is the one who’s experimented the most with her songwriting, and though “Gypsy” sounds most like her previous work (almost like a sequel of sorts to “Rhiannon”), her other two songs sound more like the stuff she was writing for her solo albums. “That’s Alright” is a country-tinged kicker that almost seems like a precursor for her later “Enchanted” song, but it’s her third track “Straight Back!” that sounds the most like the “solo” Stevie Nicks songs, a slow rocker driven by some awesome keyboards by Christine. The song fades out too soon; I really wish this song could have been a bit longer for how good it is!

 Of the three, Christine McVie is the most reliable here, and she exudes the same romantic pop stylings that gave us songs like “You Make Loving Fun”, “Warm Ways” and “Songbird”. Opening the album with the awesome toe-tapping sunshine-y song “Love In Store”, she runs the gamut through tunes like “Out Of My Mind” and the fun aforementioned song “Hold Me” before closing the album with the beautifully melancholy “Wish You Were Here”, one of her BEST ballads, ever!

 High on the album, that Christmas I was THRILLED to find that they’d released a Videodisc concert of their MIRAGE tour, and after I bought it (at the local RCA dealership), it quickly became the most played movie that season! Songs form Mirage like Love In Store”, “Gypsy” and “Eyes Of The World”(!) were all featured here, and the show even had one of the coolest openings ever with “The Chain”, and one of the sweetest closing songs with “Songbird”!

Although I know that albums like Rumours and the eponymous titled Fleetwood Mac albums are probably greater albums overall, I’ve really come to embrace MIRAGE as my own, because while most Fleetwood Mac fans either love the “Bare Trees” era, the Rumours era, or the “Tango in The Night” comeback era, I have never, NEVER met another fan who owns, much less loves MIRAGE as much as me. Which is strange, because it was a bestseller when it came out…where did all those purchasers get to?

Alberto Vargas

Bought a beautiful Alberto Vargas Book which originally sold for $45, but they made a Special Print Run for Barnes and Nobles for an INSANE price of only $14.95!

Man, I’ve loved Vargas artwork since falling in love with the image adorning the  cover that iconic CARS album CANDY-O(as did many of us guys back then) and have always been aware of his awesome artistic skills…

I remember inheriting a whole slew of old Playboys when I was around 13 or 14 years old, and being blown away when I discovered Vargas’s contribution for each issue was to create a saucy and (utterly nude) pinup for each Month! Heck, I was SO obsessed with Vargas’ artwork that I actually TORE OUT all the Vargas pin-up pages to put in a separate portfolio collection...WTH!!! Gads, all those old collectible Playboys ruined…!

Sad to say, in the end, not only did I tear up all those collectible Playboy Magazines, over the years those pages have been lost to time, so I don't even have those pin ups to show for my thoughtless deeds! D’oh! So it was nice to have a slick coffee table book of Vargas works...

144 pages of beautiful artwork that covered Vargas work from the early days 1920's to the Playboy Years 60-70's . the 1940-50's esquire stuff was great, but naturally I have a penchant for his 60's stuff.. such GORGEOUS GALS!!!

Now online looking to see if I can find some of his other works that I might have torn out of a mag before...

Favorite Albums: Dead Milkmen / Eat Your Paisley!

I was first introduced to the sounds of the Dead Milkmen by a local band called X=X. Among the songs in their setlist was a groovy and fun song called “The Thing That Only Eats Hippies”, and when I asked the bassist about the song one evening, he informed me that the song was in fact a cover of a group with the zany name of the Dead Milkmen!

Dead milkmen? Well, that was a sillier name than I could have imagined, but when you consider that this is a band who sings lyrics like:

“What Do they Taste Like?

Some Kind Of Treat?

How Many Hippies Can This Monster Eat?

It Ate Stills and Nash Before they Could Shout

And then it chewed on David Crosby- But it spit him out!”

I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any less!!! HAHAHAHA

 That weekend I made my way to the local record store in an attempt to find the Dead Milkmen album with The Thing That Only Eats Hippies. This wasn’t too hard a feat seeing as how the Milkmen only had a couple of albums out, the other one being “Big Lizard in My Backyard”. The Hippies song was on their latest album, a crayon-drawn cover with the curious title “Eat Your Paisley”!

Well, the title alone indicated that the album would be as much fun as the Hippies song, and not only did it not disappoint, it blew us away! Every song was SOOOO MUCH FUN! Listening to EAT YOUR PAISLEY was like watching a marathon of  “The Kids In The Hall”, it was so zany! And Catchy! Man, that album became the soundtrack for me and my friends that summer!

Days were spent on campus singing the lyrics to “Where the Tarantula Lives”, and nights were spent driving around town loudly singing along to deliciously warped tunes like “Beach Party Vietnam” “Air-Crash Museum”, and the acidic poseur-bashing tune “Moron”, and a favorite to all was blasting the epic album closing song “The Fez”!

Of course, in later years, the Dead Milkmen would gain a larger audience with their peppy song “Punk-Rock Girl (probably the song they’re most known for nowadays), but Man, nothing can top those  college days of Eat Your Paisley!