ST. ELMO’S FRIDAY, PT. IX: The Sh*t H*ts

SCENE XXVI: OUTSIDE DALE & JUDITH'S APARTMENT - NIGHT

Kirbo’s snowboarding right off the edge of sanity continues to get a cheerfully nonchalant treatment in this scene:

KIRBO: Get off the phone and open this door!
JUDITH: Are you the maniac that's been trying to cut in on my line? Ah, I should have known.
KIRBO: Where's Dale?
JUDITH: She. Went. Skiing!
KIRBO: What do you mean? Where?
JUDITH: Why should I tell you?
KIRBO: Because I'm not responsible for what I'll do to you if you don't!

Again, that last line that seemed cool back when we first saw this film, but now seems so wrong on so many different levels that it seems reckless for the filmmakers to even try to pass it off as a moment we should cheer for. Seriously, what would you do if you were a woman alone at night and some wingnut in a tux is standing under your window directly threatening you? This does not work in real life and we have the police reports to prove it.

SCENE XXVII: ALLEYWAY OUTSIDE BILLY & FELICE'S HOUSE - NIGHT

The ugliness continues as we switch over to our pair of wild children Jules and FuckFace, who pull up in the alleyway in Jules’ Jeep. Like true substance abusers, they don’t wasn’t the party to end. You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here, folks… A perfect petri dish for date rape. It’s even hinted that FuckFace and Jules have gone horizontal at least once before.

FuckFace is really in rare form in this scene, first asking Jules – who is obviously shaken – “What you got on underneath that skirt?” Such a gentleman. After a awkward and depressing stab at making out, Jules tries to back out and Mr. Face responds with uncommon tenderness and understanding: “Come on. Don't save it for your boss.” Any remnant of a romantic mood is completely atomized in a million shards when he tells her: “You wouldn't have so much to say with me in your mouth.” And that’s not even the most offensive thing he says (or does) in this scene! When Jules finally kicks him out of the jeep, she lays a pretty good line on him: “You break my heart. But then again, you break everyone's heart.”

Ouch. She leaves him in the cold dark alleyway as the door to his house opens and there stands Felice like a Russian babushka, clutching their baby. Up with mournful, Kenny G-like sax break. Truly a low moment.

SCENE XXVIII: SKI CABIN – NIGHT

For this semi-pivotal scene, we'd like to try something a little different this week: Imagining how a specific scene would play out if directed by someone other than Joel Schumacher.

IF THIS SCENE WAS DIRECTED BY: Michael Haneke

We see various black and white shots of the cold and forbidden wintry landscape. Over this comes the sound of someone knocking politely on a door.

CUT TO KIRBO’s fist knocking on the door to a private cabin.

GUY: Who is it?

KIRBO: Ah, yes. Is Dale Biberman there?

GUY: Who wants to know?

KIRBO: Ah, it’s a medical emergency…

GUY opens the door. He’s a rugged-looking DOCTOR-type wrapped in a bearskin rug.

CUT TO Kirby standing on the front stoop wearing a golf outfit: white shirt, white shorts, white socks, white golf shoes, tan golfing gloves – all despite the below-zero temp. He is leaning on a nine iron and smiling politely.

GUY: Who the hell are you?

KIRBO: I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, sir.

GUY: (noticing KIRBY’s getup) You’re a long way from the sandtrap there, fella.

DALE appears next to GUY, hastily putting on a robe.

DALE: Kirby! What are you doing here?

GUY: You know this guy?

KIRBO: (smiles, waves) Hi Dale!

DALE: Uh, yes…yes…he came into the ER last month when one of his friends got hurt…

GUY: (to DALE) Is there something I should know?

DALE: No, Guy. He’s just a friend from college…

GUY: A “friend”? Well your “friend” says there’s some sort of medical emergency.

KIRBY: (shivers) Yeah! Frostbite!

GUY: Dale, this guy is crazy…

DALE: Kirby, please. Come inside.

GUY: What?!

KIRBO: No, it’s OK. I'll stay in the car.

GUY: See? It’s OK. He wants to stay in the car.

DALE: He'll freeze!

KIRBO: Well, I do have some snow chains in my trunk. (to GUY) If you wouldn't mind...?

GUY: (sighs) Fine.

CUT TO inside the cabin a brief time later. The TV is on, running a NASCAR race. We hear the muffled sound of someone breathing heavily. We slowly pull back from the TV image to reveal KIRBY, sitting in a new pair of pajamas and eating a bowl of popcorn. We hear moaning and KIRBY’s head turns, annoyed at this interruption.

KIRBO: Look, I know you guys are falling in love over there, but could you keep it to a dull roar?

CUT TO the full living room of the cabin: GUY lies on the floor, trussed like a turkey with Kirby’s snow-tire chains. He is obviously dead. The bloodied nine iron sits propped up against the wall behind the body.

KIRBO: My clothes should be dry in a few hours. Thanks for letting me use your pajamas. Nice and snuggly!

DALE sits tied up and gagged in a chair directly facing the wall. She has a crudely made dunce cap on her head and her face is scrawled in lipstick with Annie Hall-related graffiti: “Mashed yeast,” “Marshall McLuhan,” “Sorrow and the Pity,” “escaped lobsters.”

KIRBO: Look, it’s okay Dale. I understand that we weren’t meant to be. And I just want to tell you I’m fine with that. Really, I am. (yawns and stretches) Welp. I don’t know about you but I’m beat. Time to hit the hay!

He gets up and puts on his bloodstained golfing gloves. He slips on a pair of safety goggles. He hefts an electric drill in his left hand.

KIRBY: We'll talk in the morning.

He hits the ‘ON’ switch and walks out of the shot.

SCENE XXIX: KIRBY & KEVIN’S BACHELOR HOVEL – NIGHT

Herein we find out how creepy Kevin and Kirby's apartment really is – even without Kirby around.
Leslie has decided to spend the night here and we see how she starts to sort of regret it with a halting deer-in-the-headlights look on her face and her terse noting of the more disconcerting elements of Kev's "woman trap" and how they all seem to be wrapped around one theme: "Is that a coffin?" "I thought girls would think it was sexy."; "When did you win these writing awards?" "Oh, never. They're more effect to impress young ladies." Then Leslie finds a mountain of photos of herself and yet still doesn't get creeped out and flee this subterranean man-grotto.

True to how characters act in this film – zero logic – Leslie stays and both her and Kev get their liquor on. This leads to a a Bushmill-soaked confession session between our wounded love warriors. They are affected in differing ways: Leslie gets more self-absorbed; Kevin gets more goofy and wimpy. He is the sensitive "emotional (man) friend" who loves a girl so much he's willing to become the confessee to her complaining about a "bad boy" who treats her like shit. He can't even bring himself to trash Titmouse for his abominable behavior: "Whatever we say about Alec we'll regret tomorrow."

But finally, he reverts back to junior high school and the sexy singer with the Karen Carpenter pipes whom he pledged his love to whilst drunk: "Well, I think I hang around you guys so much, personally...because, well, you're all I think about."

LESLIE: Me?
KEVIN: And I think that the reason I'm not interested in other women and why I haven't had sex in so long is because I am desperately, completely in love with you. We won't even remember this tomorrow, huh?
LESLIE: Kevin. It is tomorrow.

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK: More of this pointlessness.

The Cryptkeefer Visits NPR

Years after facing off with Gene Simmons, NPR mainstay Terry Gross finally got her chance to confront the St. Francis of Assisi of rock and roll decadence when she interviewed Keith Richards this week for her Fresh Air radio show. The interview is in conjuction with Richard's new autobio (cheekily titled Life -- ha ha), which arguably ties Mark Twain's autobiography as the hottest and most eagerly awaited dish of the Fall.

Thing is, if Richards followed Twain's lead and waited 100 years to finally publish his own life story, he'd still be alive. Now that would make an interesting interview.

REST IN TEMPO

So long, pal

If you're a member of Gen X, how do you know you're old -- or at least getting there?

(a) when they declare someone "the New Madonna" -- and it sticks

(b) when they invent new sexual pecadilloes that horrify -- or at least mystify -- you

(c) when they turn to you at a party and say, "You know, it's nice to know people your age who can still party"

(d) when they publish magazine cover stories with titles like "What Ever Happened to Generation X?"

(e) when they come up with an uncreative moniker for the next generation ("Generation Y" -- really?)

(f) when you find yourself feeling shocked at how old and puffy John Cusack looks

(g) when they discontinue the single most important audio breakthrough of your entire generation

Yep, those nerds at Sony have announced that the iPOD and MP3s have won the Millennial Sound Wars: no more will they manufacure the Sony Walkman. I personally haven't used or owned a Walkman in about, oh, twenty years, which is just enough time to have completely forgotten about it's impact on my life. It as first devised by Sony technicians (particularly engineer Nobutoshi Kihara) in 1978 after Sony chairman Akio Morita requested a device on which he could listen to opera whilst flying around the world on business trips. Once again, a rich guy gets a bug up his ass and the rest of us benefit.

When the original Walkman first hit U.S. shores at the beginning of the 1980s, it was called the "Soundabout" and it took about 2 or 3 years before you couldn't go a block and not run into someone power-walking with what looked to be a TV remote strapped awkwardly to their hip. Then there was those cheap, squishy foam covers that always ripped or fell off, leaving you wearing the painful bare metal earphones that bit into your skin. The first music I heard on a Walkman was Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast (my roommate's). The first argument I had over a Walkman was with my Mom over the effects of blasting my eardrums with sonic noise. The first "cassingles" I bought and listened to were "Been Caught Stealing" and "Things That Make You Go Hmm." The first cassette album where I first and fully appreciated the stereophonic effects on the headphones was Godley & Creme's The History Mix, Vol. 1 -- it was one of those clear plastic cassettes they made in the mid-1980s that for some reason smelled like grapes. The first time I "showed off" my headphones was to impress a girl after a school bike trip in 10th grade, listening to "It Must Be Love" by Madness but not letting on that the batteries were dying and the music sounded like it was being melted in a frying pan. The first time I "co-listened" to a Walkman with one of those two-way splice plugs was with an old friend as we walked through snow drifts while Santana 3 blasted on our earphones. We never did that again: something about two guys listening to the same Walkman made us uncomfortable, as if we were showering together or something.

If I remember correctly, I believe I owned about 5 or 6 different versions of the Walkman over the years. The first just played cassettes, the next incarnation included an AM/FM radio and subsequent models were all pimped out with MegaBass, AutoReverse and Graphic Equalizers. Thing is, each version was so cheaply manufactured (at least the ones I could afford on a teenager's salary) that one jostle could destroy the whole apparatus. It got to a point where I became paranoid and fearful about my Walkmans' fates, especially when the futility of taking them into the local stereo repair made itself painfully apparent. Case in point: lying on my dorm room bed in college looking up at a shelf above me where my just-bought Walkman sat gleaming and ready to be used and thinking "You know what? That's not a safe place for such a precious commodity." As I reached up to grab it, my wrist became entangled in the dangling headphone cord and the thing came crashing down on my desk. That was it. Dead as Dillinger. Never was played and never would be.

Now, in our Audience Participation segment, we're collecting memories good and bad about the wild and woolly frontier days of the Walkman. Feel free to post yours in our 'Comments' section. And please, no penis pill advertisements. Show some respect for the dead.

ST. ELMO’S FRIDAY, PT. VIII: The Devil Went Down in D.C.

SCENE XXI: FRAT ROW, GEORGETOWN U. – NIGHT

"The man, the myth, the legend! The one and only Billy the Kid!"

My second favorite scene involving FuckFace. There’s something quite poignant here despite all of the douchy behavior that obscures it. We see him in his existential shades and ratty old school jacket, walking across the autumnal village green of Fraternity Row. Like a true narcissist, he stops before his old frat house and waits to be noticed. It doesn’t take long. We see the glorious welcome develop like catching fire: some kids hanging out in front of the house see him and run in to grab Troy, a towheaded North Virginia good ol’ boy who comes bounding down the steps like a welcoming warlord. Billy, wearing blue socks over his pants cuffs for some reason, runs up and they do a double-hand high-five. Everybody cheers. Billy the Kid is home again!

Cut to an action shot of FuckFace and his acolytes playing a rompin’ game of tackle football. He and Troy tumble in the dirt and then have a bromancy “just like old times moment.” Lowe’s face when he says “old times” and smiles couldn’t be more phony. You can’t help seeing him thinking about where they were all going to go out partying that night—meaning him, Judd, Emilio, Demi—and that, Yeah man, I’m famous and I’m gonna get famouser. Life is swiggity-sweet! Lemme just get my “old times” face on so we can go out and grab the brass rings that are owed us!

Fuck Face, ever testing out all the angles, tries a ham-handed attempt at charity-work—for himself: “Troy, man, I was thinking that maybe I could get a job on campus with the students. The fraternity, coaching. Anything.”

Soooo, you want a job as a “coach” for an informal pickup touch football team. Right. Uh-huh.

TROY: Oh yeah! We could use somebody like you around here, Billy!
FUCKFACE: Really?
TROY: Yeah, we need somebody to get us some good drugs, man!

WHANG ZING!! BUZZ KILL!! Billy’s reaction is classic: utter deflation. Is this all I meant to you guys? Yep. That’s why it sucks to be a guy. That’s why it sucks to be a legendary party animal. Unless one of your frat mates grows up to be Jack Kerouac and writes a bestselling novel about a character that was based on your legendary wild behavior back in the day a la Dean Moriarty, the stories you are racking up will evaporate, and your bros who once cheered you and egged you on will be looking at you in nostalgia-tinged pity from their barcalounger in their plush living room in their beautiful house whose couch your are currently crashing on after your 11th rehab stint. There’s no retirement dinner once a great party boy retires. There’s no grand speech from your successors praising your time in the sun, no gold watch, no Tiki torches. One day you just show up ready to go like you always have and you’ll hear a pipsqueak’s voice behind you, utterly unafraid of any consequences you could bring down on them: “Who let the old guy in here?”

Cut to a rather unappealing looking baby looking happily at a cheap rattle. Poor Felice is minding her young daughter: “What is that, your rattle?” she coos to the child, holding back from saying: Where is your daddy? Wasting our time again? Chasing pipe dreams? You and I have a looooot to talk about when you’re older, gal young ‘un… The bitter-lemon look she gives FuckFace is like a cornered viper – it almost looks as if she’s going to bite him. Then, out of nowhere, she drops another bomb on our boy: “Remember Ray Slater? The guy I was going out with before I met you? Well, he came by to see me yesterday. He still wants to marry me. He said he'd take care of me and Melody.”

FUCKFACE: Don't you give up on me.
FELICE: We could probably still get an annulment...
FUCKFACE: No! I'm gonna change. I'm gonna get the right job. Look, there's gonna be no more drinking. And no more women. You're not gonna believe how out of hand it's gonna be!

The fact that he used his patented phrase “out of hand” – obviously cribbed from Alfred Lord Tennyson – does not bode well for this promise, does it? It’s interesting that although the filmmakers offer our FuckFace an easy way out that any decent young man in the prime of his life wouldn’t leap on in a millisecond, he stubbornly turns it down. I mean how hard does a guy have to be hit in the face with Divine Luck before he notices it? Is this some sort of cautionary scene about the mental aftereffects of beer-bonging?

SCENE XXII: MR. KIM’S TOWNHOUSE – DAY

We are back with poor Mr. Kim, the “Korean gangster” whom Alec set up with FuckFace. Now – because that proved so successful – he’s let Alec talk him into talking with by far the most stable member of this privileged gaggle: “Krazy Killer Kirby” Kaeger. Meethinks after this, Mr. Kim will divest young Mr. Newbury of his thumbs.

MR. KIM: I work out of my house. You must be available 24 hours a day. Complete discretion and loyalty. $500 a week.
KIRBO: I'm your man, Mr. Kim!
MR. KIM: I must be able to trust you with my house, my car, my private affairs.
KIRBO: Look no further, Mr. Kim. I'm your man!

Kirbo, in this scene, sits next to a large potted ficus tree: both strangely sit at the exact same angle. Is Schumacher making some sort of visual pun that Mr. Kim fails to pick up on that he would be better off hiring a potted plant to look after his house than this scrubbed-cheek spiked-haired cherub in front of him?

Kirbo puts up a good front – the ladies’ underwear under his suit is probably helping – but don’t all psychos when they’re putting together their terrible secret plans for the rest of us? We think that, maybe somewhere, Mr. Kim recognizes that Kirby is like him – insane yet capable, a functioning upwardly mobile sociopath who will dominate the crooked and shadowy world of D.C. power brokers when he and the old guard are all dead. He sees himself in this pink, red haired, corn-fed jocko-homo. Perhaps Kirby could be for him what Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski was for the Gambinos, Luca Brasi was for the Corleones or Chris Partlow was for Marlo Stansfield: his personal angel of death.

SCENE XXIII: HOSPITAL PARKING LOT – DAY

Kirbo, who's gotten the job, pokes his head out of Mr. Kim’s Mercedes and hisses at the snarky private chauffeur to open his door. She reluctantly does as she is told and Kirbs springs out of the car towards where Dale Biberman is walking into work, not with a dagger or poison acid or straight razor in his hand but a copy of the Wall St. Journal, because he is a lame-o.

Later, at the trial, the chauffeur will be called as a witness. Here is an exerpt from her testimony:

PROSECUTOR: What did Mr. Kaeger do then?
CHAUFFEUR: (holding hanky) Well, um, then he walked towards the deceas—uh, Miss Biberman.
PROSECUTOR: Did he have the chainsaw in his hand at that time?
DEFENSE: Objection your honor. Using the power of suggestion!
JUDGE: Sustained. Keep your mentalist tricks out of this courtroom, counselor.
PROSECUTOR: Noted, your honor. (puts away spinning hypnotism wheel) Thank you. I put it to you again, miss: what was the accused carrying in his hand when he approached the victim?
CHAUFFEUR: I…I don’t…
PROSECUTOR: Answer the question!
CHAUFFEUR: I’m, I’m sorry…I can’t…
PROSECUTOR: You mean you can’t, or you won’t!
DEFENSE: Objection!
JUDGE: Counselor, I’ve told you about your liberal quoting of Mr. Hand from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which Vincent Canby of the New York Times once called “a vulgar bargain-basement teen fantasia.”
PROSECUTOR: (takes ‘I Don’t Know’ sign off his neck) I’m sorry, your honor. Now, miss, would you please tell us what Mr. Kaeger was holding in his hand when he approached the hot leggy sawbones.
CHAUFFEUR (crying copiously) I can’t, I can’t, I’m sorry…it’s just too…
PROSECUTOR: I know it’s hard…
CHAUFFEUR: …too LAME. He was holding the Wall St. Journal, folded up like he had been reading it, with a couple of articles outlined in red pen with the words ‘ask jules’ written on them.
[The courtroom gasps.]
JUDGE: Sorry. I’ll turn the heat down in here.
PROSECUTOR: And what happened next?
CHAUFFEUR: Well, uh, then Miss Biberman, said, ‘Kirby, what are you up to?’ And Mr. Kaeger told her that he had just been handpicked as special attaché to Mr. Kim Sung Ho.
PROSECUTOR: The famous Korean entrepreneur?
CHAUFFEUR: (looking both ways rapidly with her eyes) Yes, uh, “entrepreneur”….
PROSECUTOR: Go on.
CHAUFFEUR: So, um, she’s all ‘What about medical school?’ and he’s all ‘Foolish pipe dreams, Dale. I had to grab my financial opportunities while I could. It's all about money, right?’ and she’s all ‘Well, good luck’ and he’s all 'I'm throwing a little party at Kim's house on Saturday night. I'd like to see you there’ and she’s all ‘Thanks, Kirby. I'll try’ and he’s all ‘good deal!’…”
DEFENSE: Objection! You honor, how long do we have to stand for this? The witness is obviously regressing to some sort of tween mall-chick state…
JUDGE: Overruled. I’ll allow this, but watch yourself, counselor…
PROSECUTOR: Thank you for the leeway, your honor. In order to return our witness from her regressive state I have elected to admit to evidence exhibit C… (pulls out Dale Biberman’s skull with the doctor’s reflector cap still on it on it and shoves it in her face) ‘Why are you continuously late to this class, Mr. Spicoli? Why do you shamelessly waste my time like this?’
DEFENSE: Objection!! Your Honor!!

And so on and so on and so on…

SCENE XXIV: STREET OUTSIDE ALEC & LESLIE’S YUPPIE LOFT – NIGHT

Wendy and our man Howie are canoodling like a couple of young lovers from a Booth Tarkington novel, standing by a gleaming new lemon-yellow Chrysler LeBaron convertible. She is obviously leading him on, and he’s buying it hook, sink, and liner. Alec and Leslie, dressed for the evening, show up to meet them. Alec sees the car and asks Howie: “So does this mean that you're officially engaged?” Howie, fresh and peppy as a puppy, emotes proudly: “Yeah!” before Wend cuts him off at the balls: “No, it means I'm officially thinking about it.” Howie backs down meekly: “Uh, well...” Alec uses this as a cue for a little emotional blackmail.

ALEC: What is this, Howie? Didn't you think women were always dying to get married?
POOR, DOOMED HOWIE: Not to me.

SCENE XXV: KIRBO'S PARTY - NIGHT

The foursome arrives at Mr. Kim’s townhouse, where a swingin’ party down the line is happening, complete with smiling Korean houseboy in a white jacket bearing a tray of bubbly. In his delusional state Kirbo has decided to completely replicate the party at which he stalked Dale Biberman. He has also apparently decided to share credit for the party with the ficus tree. Seeing as it did so well in Mr. Kim’s job interview, Kirb has decided not to see it as a competitor for Mr. Kim’s affections. It sits right next to the front door, greeting guests and taking coats.

Oh look, the chauffeur has joined in on the action. John Parr's "Man in Motion" plays over the scene – again. Apparently, there is no other music for this crowd. These Washingtonians have not heard the booty-bumpin’ black DC club music called “go-go” or its signpost acts like EU ("Da Butt"), Trouble Funk ("The Devil Went Down in D.C.") and Chuck Brown ("Bustin' Loose"). If this scene plays now, of course, there’d be a little Jay-Z or Three 6 Mafia on the stere--uh, iPod.

POLITICAL PARTYIN' D.C STYLE: Marion Barry Dances to Trouble Funk

Resplendent in a rented tux with red tie and cummerbund, Kirbo has become sort of a hair-gelled version of Jay Gatsby, putting on a huge party for one person who never shows. (Daisy = Dale, get it?) FuckFace, Alec and Howie all sport the 80’s layered look, with Alec and Howie both wearing British style v-neck sweaters under their sports coats. (Are Alec and Howie brothers under the skin?) They wander past Kevin, who's busy yammering away to a bunch of underclassmen: “You are so wrong. College is a four-year delusion so you don't have to deal with reality. Hi, Les! You're lambs waiting to be slaughtered, you undergrads…” This is the crucial point of the film where Kevin becomes tiresome.

Howie and Wendy pass FuckFace, who is wearing by far the worst tie of this film: a gold lamé number that like all of his ties looks to have been taken right out of a Salvation Army bin. The three regard each other warily, like gunfighters. Wendy tries to stammer out an introduction but Howie beats her to it, saying “Howie” before she’s finished with her sentence. (This might be the only improvised moment in this film, and it’s a wonderful one amidst a Gobi desert of spontaneity.) Howie politely shakes Billy’s hand and then says nervously but commandingly: “Well, we'll see you a little later, okay?” Howie is growing some balls: Wendy’s harpie sister was right, he is a “fine young man.” Howie = 1. FuckFace = 0.

Alec wastes no time in pouncing on our boy: “Billy, I want you to know I'm not gonna be getting you any more jobs.” Billy responds in mocking turn: “Al, you're so perfect. Such a young God. You not only have the right stuff, you have the right job and the right hair. I, of course, have the wrong hair.” As he says this, he nearly bumps into his own doppelganger—if you freeze frame, they make the exact same motion at the exact same time—with the same wrong hair, the same bad fashion sense (orange Hawaiian shirt under grey linen jacket), same dickweed smile. They never know the other’s there, but they pass within inches. Creepy.

Les, Jules and Wend are standing to the side, klatching. Jules is wearing by far her worst outfit to date: a pink leather jacket with her hair crimped from a Belgian waffle iron and silver lipstick later popularized by erotic dancers in the 1990s:

JULES: Forrester said he wanted to know what I'm looking for in this relationship. So I told him love, companionship and the vice-presidency. (throws her head back and cackles like Roseanne)
WENDY: Sounds like you have your boss wrapped around your finger.
JULES: I ever tell you what he likes me to do with my finger? (puts her arm around Wendy’s neck, almost burning her with a cigarette, blows smoke in Wendy’s face)

FuckFace, ever the enabler, oozes out of the crowd to lope a tentacle around Jules to pull her away for some line-snortin’.

(Note: Schumacher places Poor Howie in the background just to the left of Wendy. Initially, it looks as if he’s having a conversation with someone offscreen, but it soon turns out Howie is just standing there in the corner in his itchy green sweater and yellow shirt, gazing forlornly at Wendy as she completely ignores him. Here, Howie is cast in the same role as Myra from the homeless soup kitchen, pushed to the margins yet staring wonderingly, fascinated, by our vapid main characters.)

Wendy has broken away from Howie – how is he faring all by himself? “Uh, no thank you, I’m allergic to paté” before sneezing all over the proffered tray – and is standing out on Mr. Kim’s brick patio. There is some sort of visual metaphor set adrift here: the patio furniture has been covered over with white tarps, which blow in the stiff autumn wind. (“Summer’s over kids, time to grow up and die!”) There is romance in the air, which FuckFace promptly ruins by revealing that he hocked his beloved sax to pay the phone bill and then asking Wendy if she’s “still...a virgin?” (Implication: “You did it with HOWIE rather than ME?!”) Wend finally sprouts some moxie: “That's none of your business.” Yeah, Wend! Unfortunately, she ignores the tingly sensation she feels and unconsciously squeezes her rubberized thighs together. Meanwhile, inside, Howie gets his tie caught in the bathroom door. In front of a lot of people.

Cut to a rapidly unraveling Kirbo on the phone, tracking down Miss Biberman: “Yeah, hi. By any chance, did Dale Biberman get called in on an emergency duty tonight? Okay. Thanks.” Perhaps juiced by the word “emergency”, he tries an “emergency breakthrough” usually reserved for disasters like flash floods and fires. But Dale’s roommate isn’t having it: “I want you to make another emergency breakthrough. Do you hear me? She won't release it? Did you tell her who's calling? Did you tell her I was giving a goddamn party for her?!”

Kirbo slams down the phone and angrily storms out of his own party. He is now in full psychotic-break form, capable of just about anything. He passes FuckFace, who in the middle of his 11th screwdriver woozily watches him go before stumbling sloppily over to the coke-snorting table, joining Jules and a now completely hottied-out chauffeur, who as it turns out is quite the coke connoisseur. “Make room! The kid can’t fly on one wing!” FuckFace announces as Jules hands him mirror and straw. It is here that I usually imagine a threeway between FF, Jules and the hot chauffeur. (What can I say? I'm a product of my time.) Imagine this scenario: Jules and the chauffeur and FF go to a nearby political rally for Senator Hodges the Hotel Van Buren and videotape themselves having sex and dropping X; afterwards, FuckFace passes out and Jules and the chauffeur steal his wallet and sell the tape to Meet the Press. It might look something like this:

Ah, dreams…wait, IS THAT ANOTHER GUY!?

ALEC: Quiet, please! Quiet, please! Quiet, please. Everyone! Thank you. Big Al has an announcement to make!
SARCASTIC GUY: Oh, well, now we're excited.

Kevin inadvertently invents hip-hop scratching by pulling the needle off the record, which of course, is STILL “Man in Motion,” a record which is really making the rounds of the Georgetown party circuit.

ALEC: On June 1, Leslie Hunter will do me the long, long, long-awaited honor of becoming my bride. You're all invited! Thank you very much. Howie, let's make this a double wedding.

When Alec says Leslie’s name, he almost puts his arm around Howie. Alec, we notice, has pushes his coat sleeves up to his elbows and has removed his crème-white cashmere v-neck, indicating he is really sloshed and feelin’ silly. Leslie, who was doing party-type things like adjusting the flowers by the stereo (weaselly Kevin lurks nearby), throws a conniption. She stalks across the room with some difficulty in her tight long spinster dress and shorty boots, pulls Alec into the kitchen, where they both stand correspondingly by two sinks filled with bags of ice.

LESLIE: What's the matter with you? Cut it out! We discussed this at home. Now you completely discount me!
ALEC: (acting innocent, grinning, hands in pocket, rocking on his heels like Johnny Carson giving a monologue) I'm just trying to facilitate the marriage process.
LESLIE: You want marriage or a Christmas card with the Newberrys in front of a fireplace?
ALEC: You're afraid to commit!
LESLIE: No, I'm not afraid to commit. I have to have something for myself first before I can share it with you.*
*I’m not proud of it, but this is one of the lines I subconsciously have picked up from this film over the years and have used repeatedly in my adult life, mostly to avoid commitment. I used it for so long that I actually started believing that I came up with it; when I found out it wasn’t original, and what the source material was, I was very upset. It’s a condition peculiar to us member of the Media Cocoon generation. There’s certainly a case to be made for subliminal suggestion.

ALEC: Oh, will you just for once not use as the excuse for not marrying me your god-damn career?

This line is delivered in a classic Judd Nelson hectoring/mocking tone of voice. God, he sounds like such an exquisite asshole, and his assholeness really spikes like a fever and doesn’t let up for the rest of the film. Is this, like The Big Chill, more the tale of a young hero fallen in the eyes of his adoring college friends? Alec never becomes likable after this, not that he was that likable before… in fact, from now on, we’re referring to Alec as “Titmouse."

Still, it’s easy to imagine Bill and Hillary Clinton having this conversation sometime back when they met at Yale:

LESLIE: Fine. All right then. I have a better excuse. What are we going to do about your extracurricular love life?
TITMOUSE: What extracurricular love life?
LESLIE: Alec, come on.
TITMOUSE: What did Kevin tell you?

Similar to many moments in this film, this comes out of nowhere. Up until now we, like Titmouse, had no indication whatsoever that Leslie had caught on to his garden rompin’. It just appears – poof! – and we’re supposed to buy it. Remember us bitching about the loose plot thread of him going to work for Senator Hodges? (No? Well, we did.) How about making Titmouse’s dalliance some hot chick in Senator Hodges office, tie those two loose threads together? That way it would be more believable for Leslie to catch on without too much explanation. But explanation seems not to be what this movie’s about.

Still, there’s much to be said for Les’s approach. Turns out she didn’t really know, she suspected, and then bamboozled Titmouse, who thought he was such a hot-shit political strategist, into admitting his infidelities. Thus comes the impression that Titmouse is more pissed at her for duping him than he is at Kevin for supposedly spilling the beans. Still, he’s gotta do yet another alpha-dog thing and rush to the living room and throw poor hapless Kevin to the ground, screaming down at him: “What did you tell her?” before Leslie calmly slides the knife in and twists: “He told me nothing. It was just a hunch...until now.” Again, the poor John Parr song is scratched off the record. Must be getting pretty worn by now.

Alec has that classic Alec moment. Right in front of everybody, he tells Leslie with mock hurt: “I want you out of the apartment tonight.” The party starts up again.

TUNE IN NEXT WEEK: Where we examine the significant fallout from Kirbo’s party and finally get to our long-delayed new feature: ‘What If This Scene Was Directed By…?’ We promise. Pinky-swear.

Who the &$@# is Conlon Nancarrow (and why is nobody besides Kyle Gann talking about him?)

Last summer, I met filmmaker Bill Scaff, who had come back down to L.A. to be interviewed for Filmforum's oral history of L.A.'s avant-garde filmmakers. (My lovely fiance was tasked with setting up the interviews.) Scaff was cleaning out the storage space he had left here and he gave me a vintage copy of a vinyl LP with the bizarre title Studies for Player Piano. (I say "vintage" because the record sleeve had a disc-shaped wear mark on the cover.) And there I discovered Conlon Nancarrow, the unforgettably named man behind this strange endeavor. Although I had come across his name in Alex Ross' invaluable The Rest is Noise, I never realized the scope of the man's work and life, which would make a great template for one of those Scott Alexander/Larry Karaszewski screenplays from the mid-90s.

He was from Texarkana but wound up living as a Mexican citizen (he stayed out of the U.S. for forty-plus years); he was an avowed card-carrying Communist who joined the rebel brigade that fought Francisco Franco's fascist forces; he was a jazz trumpeter who wound up composing music that could not be repeated by human hands; he was a recluse who seemed to have met or come into contact with many of the great composers of the modern era; he was influenced by minimalism but his music was "maximalist" to the extreme. His obsession was where music met machines -- he might very well have been one of the first cyberpunks -- and he found his perfect machine in the player piano.

Thirty-two years before Einstürzende Neubauten turned mechanized machines into musical instruments, Nancarrow seemed obsessed with the exact opposite. Influenced by the impossibly complex piano runs of the great jazz pianist Art Tatum and the theories of avant-garde composer Henry Cowell (whose writings on harmonic and rhythmic freedom he stated were "the most influence of anything I've ever read in music"), Nancarrow purchased a custom-built punching machine in New York in 1947, where he would manually produce piano rolls that he dubbed "studies." The reason he did this was simple: his music was so complex that it had to be "composed" without being performed by actual human fingers. Nancarrow, writes Alex Ross, "relied on his mechanical instrument to execute insanely intricate rhythmic designs that only a many-armed robot pianist could have played."

Our blog title was a little misleading: there is a trove of info on Nancarrow on the web. Our blogroll bud Kyle Gann wrote a tasty survey called The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (Cambridge University Press: 2006), of which you can read excerpts here. There's a site devoted to Nancarrow written by his former assistant Carlos Sandoval and an 80-minute radio program by Alejandro Viňao on musicians influenced by Nancarrow's work. Bruce Duffie interviewed Nancarrow back in 1987, ten years before the composer's death, and Minnesota Public Radio ran a portrait of his life and music just a few months after his death.