Fernand Raynaud and His Role in Amusing Myself

Your first favorite comedy recording is one of the milestones of your childhood; it may not fully define the expanse or range of what you find funny as you grow older, but it presents the root elements that made you laugh all those years ago, and probably still hooks you today when you search for a moment’s distraction.

I spent the first few years of my life in a melange of languages. My mother, newly transplanted to America from years in Naples, Italy, switched between French and Italian on alternate days, believing it would help continue communication between myself and her non-English speaking parents, who had also moved stateside to be closer to me. My father just kept speaking English. I have no memory of what transpired, but according to him, after a stretch of this, I stopped speaking completely for almost six months, and then just as abruptly, started up again. Therapists they took me to then could not agree on whether being immersed in multiple tongues was helping me or confusing me – a debate which continues today – so once I inexplicably ended the vocal standoff, the decision was made to pare down to just French and English at home. So while I had previously (and adorably) been able to muscle up to a barista on a cruise liner and say, “Uno cappucino, subito!” before the age of four, what Italian I learned faded away, my French stayed conversational though I would never fully master writing it or nail that eternal aigue versus grave divide, and I learned to speak the flat unaffected English of any other child growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Nonetheless, my first comedy memory was impacted by that multilingual setting. My mother had brought with her a collection of comedy 45s by a French comedian named Fernand Raynaud. And one in particular I somehow gravitated to, playing it as constantly as most growing kids played their Disney storybook record, and ultimately memorizing the sketch. Well, technically, memorizing it as onomatopoeiatically possible, since between skips in the record and the high speed slang of the delivery, I never fully understood all the actual words being said. But my determination to recite it at the drop of a hat definitely made for some initial amusement at family gatherings. Then, for various reasons practical and personal, this obsession became just a curious historical anecdote as I discovered Monty Python, George Carlin, the Second City, and other English-language comedy.

Trying to describe the appeal of a foreign-language comedian whose prime came before the internet offered global interconnectivity is not quite as difficult as dancing about architecture, but it’s still a bit of a challenge. With that Magilla Gorilla in the room, I’ll give it a try.

Fernand Raynaud’s comedy was driven by storytelling, reciting events and sketches using exaggerated voices and facial expressions, usually building to one big payoff, kind of a French equivalent of Jerry Clower. And since some of his sketches became quite popular, he would also effectively be an ancestor of that genre which “SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE” would mercilessly brand for eternity as, “The Kings of Catchphrase Comedy.” Raynaud was in fact often derided by some comedy fans for this appeal, which was at odds with another popular French comedian of the day, Raymond Devos, who was perceived as way more literate. Writer François Beaune described the divide through the words of a woman he encountered in 2011:

“Fernand Raynaud, really, he was already cheesy back then...When I was young, there were only two comedians: Fernand Raynaud and Raymond Devos. In my cultivated, bourgeois family, we loved Devos. [Raynaud’s] interminable croissant gag...[he] was for the proles, Devos was for the nerds. There were still real class distinctions.”

Raynaud’s affinity was indeed for working class characters, and their daily toil against the indignities of job, home, and other people. This was likely inspired from his upbringing in Oradou, a suburb of Clermont-Ferrand, dominated by Michelin’s tire factory, where his father worked as a foreman. He left school at 15, and lived a nomadic, knockaround life into his 20s, working a multitude of jobs, doing military service in Berlin during WWII, and losing two of his fingers in an undefined accident. When he began regularly performing in Parisian cabarets and television in the mid-’50s, he performed material inspired by the personalities he had encountered through his travels, most often sporting a battered hat and long coat. As Beaune observed, “The characters of Fernand Raynaud are beautiful and complex creatures: the sister, the switchboard operator, the customs officer, the [brat]...No stereotypes. Fernand possessed the art of portraiture, the art of observing, of transcribing without exaggerating, of sketching reality.”

Probably the best representation of Raynaud’s skill for social observation and wresting comedy from a repeated phrase is his well-remembered sketch, “J’ m’amuse.” In a set up that serves as a scarily prescient prediction of modern-day corporate doublespeak, a factory boss calls an impromptu meeting of all his employees to inform them that starting immediately, “to boost morale,” no one is allowed to even say that they are laboring or doing a job, they must say, “I’m enjoying myself.” There are predictably tired and grouchy recitations of the new euphemism by the unlucky grunts who are put on the spot to test the new rule, but the sketch reaches its full potential as the boss grills a supply clerk about his role in the factory, and the clerk keeps repeating the “I’m enjoying myself” maxim, demonstrating the clear absurdity of this directive, to a perfect conclusion:

SUPPLY CLERK: I think I’ll be enjoying myself here for another fifteen years, until my retirement, tell you what!

THE BOSS: And after that, what will you do?

SUPPLY CLERK: Well then after that? I'll go to work!

The sketch that I had memorized as a five-year-old was “Bourreau d’enfants,” which literally translates as “Executioner of Children” but would probably be better understood as simply “Child Abuser.” Raynaud alternately narrates and acts out the chaos of a dyspeptic father trying to get his intransigent son to eat his dinner, and the yelling between them leads the neighbors to constantly scream the title catchphrase. Perhaps, to modern listeners, that's a grim-sounding scenario for a lighthearted comedy routine, especially to be re-recited by a child like me back then. However, speaking as a former child, that's a scenario likely relatable to any parent, or neighbor to a parent for that matter; as the late Rahn Ramey observed, if you’ve never thought about killing your kids, that’s because your kids don’t live with you. Revisiting and translating it for this article yielded fresh insight that I obviously lacked back then. For example, there is a third character in the sketch, the father’s mother-in-law who vainly tries to mediate the dispute. Which leads me to the question, where is the actual mother during this dinner? I rather suspect the fact that Raynaud chose to dramatize a grandparent rather than the maternal parent was perhaps meant to hint that mother was off working a night job! 

A reasonably faithful translation of the French audio is provided in small print below:

FATHER: Toto, eat your soup.

TOTO: No, I won’t eat it. Tonight, I don’t want to eat my soup.

FATHER: Eat it right away, Toto. Otherwise I will see it as my paternal obligation to serve you, with deep regret, a lovely pair of slaps to your face.

TOTO: Ohh...oh how unhappy I must be...all this crazy slapping when I don’t want to eat things I don’t like...Oh, I’ve had it...what I life I lead…

FATHER: Stop your crying, Toto, or otherwise I will give you such a slap, you'll know why you're crying.

TOTO: {wailing}

The neighbors: ‘CHILD ABUSER!’

FATHER: Seriously, you’re not going to rile up the neighborhood because you don’t want to eat your soup, no? Eat it this instant!

TOTO: No, I won’t eat it. Tonight I decided that I won’t eat my soup.

FATHER: Oh like that you decided?

TOTO: Yes, that’s what I decided.

FATHER: Well, you’re going to eat it.

TOTO: No, I won’t eat it.

FATHER: Yes, you will eat it!

TOTO: {wailing}

MOTHER IN LAW: It seems to me, my son-in-law, that for the education of your son, it would certainly be preferable at the moment, would it not, especially at this time that we live in…

FATHER: You, “mother,” give me a break. If you’re not happy here, I’ll show you the door.

MOTHER IN LAW: This I thought I’d never see; my children, throwing me in the street.

TOTO: That’s papa, he wants to throw us in the street. {wailing}

The neighbors: ‘CHILD ABUSER!’

FATHER: Stop your screaming! I’m not going to play along with this drama! What do you want to eat since you don’t want to eat your soup?

TOTO: What would I like? I would like...a sausage.

FATHER: You’d eat a sausage?

TOTO: Tonight I’d definitely eat a sausage.

FATHER: Well, you’re not going to eat a sausage because you are going to eat your soup right this minute.

TOTO: No, I’ll eat a sausage.

FATHER: No, you won’t eat it.

TOTO: {wailing}

The neighbors: ‘CHILD ABUSER!’

The father goes downstairs at top speed, he rouses the butcher after they've closed for the night, and he returns with a sausage.

FATHER: There. Happy? You’ll give me a moment’s peace now?

TOTO: {wailing}

FATHER: What are you going on about now, what do you want?

TOTO: I want you to have a piece before me.

FATHER: That I eat a sausage? After I’ve already had my jam? Never, you hear.

TOTO: Uh-huh. I know you want to poison me, then.

FATHER: No, but you’re crazy. Yes, completely. I don’t want to poison you.

TOTO: Then eat a piece!

FATHER: No, I won’t eat it!

TOTO: {wailing}

The neighbors: ‘CHILD ABUSER!’

FATHER: Be quiet, you! I swear to you, I’ll eat your darned piece of sausage. And after that you’ll give me peace. (mouth full) Because, first off...pay attention...I’ll show you out the door, you hear? So don’t make your faces at me. You’ll be eating your sausage with your school teachers. (swallow) There! Are you happy? I ate your piece of sausage!

TOTO: {wailing}

The neighbors: ‘CHILD ABUSER!’

FATHER: How can this be? You didn’t want to eat your soup, you didn’t eat it. You wanted me to bring you a sausage and I brought it. You wanted me to eat a piece, and I ate it. And you’re still whining? Why?

TOTO: You ate the piece that I wanted!

Thinking back to that very distant time of my childhood, where memory is often difficult to recover, I am inclined to believe that while I liked the laughs I was getting for regurgitating the routine, I was probably first drawn to it and ultimately embraced it because with the highs and lows of the dialogue between the sketch's father and son, it was almost like memorizing a favorite song. Maybe it was less about the subject matter and more the melody of the French being spoken itself that drew me in.

Similarly, to really get in a zone to write this piece, I mainlined easily two dozen or more monologues and sketches of Raynaud's, some of which I was able to suss out meaning from with my pidgin understanding of French, some that I did not but instead simply listened to, indeed, as if they were musical compositions. And while I've got a definite bias because I'm trying to sell the validity of my subject to the reader, I did feel a definite and immediate sense of comfort listening to his patter at length, the kind of easy feeling decades of "A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION" audiences have likely felt. I have not yet gone so far as to listen to an equal amount of his ersatz rivals Raymond Devos or Colouche or Fernandel, but I'm open to that idea, depending on how much response I get for this initial foray. But I digress.

At the height of his fame in the ‘60s, doing TV and movies in France, and taking his stage act to London, Canada, and Africa, Raynaud was now in a paradoxical position. His success meant he could take his children on holidays his hard-laboring father could not, but they would often have to cut their visits short due to being besieged by fans. Also, the high demand for his performances led to being subject to higher taxes, which he could only feasibly pay off by working even more than he already was. His son Pascal recounted in a 2003 interview that he tried to balance all these conflicting forces as best he could: “Even when he was traveling 400 kilometers away, he drove all night to get home and sleep at home...It bothered him not to have the life of the simple man.” However, he would allow himself one major indulgence that would be in stark contrast to his working-class roots: after being served with a tax bill of 300,000 francs, he spent an equivalent amount on a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. Finally, to hold onto more of his income and ease his work schedule, Raynaud moved his residence to Nouméa, on the peninsula of New Caledonia, just out of reach of the revenuers.

Raynaud never did make inroads into the United States, but strangely enough, some of his material did.

It’s not known who precisely was the Francophile on the writing staff of the 1971-1977 Children’s Television Workshop educational series “THE ELECTRIC COMPANY,” but two of Reynaud’s sketches were repurposed, without credit, into animated segments for the show. The segments were done by the late Jerry Lieberman, whose studio would later create logo treatments for Nickelodeon and Turner Broadcasting and the animated portions of Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop” video.

The first sketch really needs no introduction, suffice to say that the animated version pares down what was a wordy 6 minute monologue into a tight playlet.

The other, “Deux croissants,” mentioned earlier in this essay, became the “Sweet Roll” segment, which proved so popular, it was restaged in live action with Hattie Winston and Jim Boyd in a later season. While the ingredients change, the principle is the same: a clueless customer continues to request the one menu item an increasingly flustered server tells him is not available. Raynaud’s original finishes with a third character, another diner who castigates the customer for annoying the server, stating that had it been them taking the order, they would have used the non-existent croissants to smack him in the face. The “ELECTRIC COMPANY” version just ends with the server running to the kitchen screaming. In the 2006 book SMARTBOMB by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby, another variation was attributed to computer game developer Will Wright, who described it as a “Zen” joke, with no acknowledgment to its previous telling by Raynaud or the TV series.

Now, it is entirely possible that, befitting the old “music hall” style of narrative comedy he practiced, maybe Raynaud was not in fact the original author of those sketches. For example, another of Raynaud’s recordings, “Le tailleur,” is essentially a variation of what has circulated since American vaudeville as “The Suit Joke.” ("Oh, that poor man!" "Yes, but what a perfect suit!") And “It’s the Plumber” has been attributed to both American comic Buddy Hackett and UK comic Duggie Brown, though finding a concrete date of telling it has so far proved elusive, thus it is possible Raynaud told it first. 

But getting back to the prime point, while one shared sketch could be attributed to coincidence and public domain status, the fact that two sketches widely associated with Raynaud -- even packaged together on the same 45 -- got restaged on the same TV show suggests that some wily bilingual was taking notes from his act.

And of course, when I was a comedy-devouring child, I wasn’t about joke theft. I was just surprised that somehow that sketch from one of my mother’s 45s made it to one of my favorite TV shows. And we all had a laugh about it, back at that age when laughing in my mother’s presence came much more naturally than it would once I got older.

In the fall of 1973, the 47-year-old Raynaud was ready to step away. He had booked a benefit performance for factory workers in his hometown of Clermont-Ferrand on September 28th, and intended to hold a press conference before the show with the mayor to announce his retirement. He had specifically chosen this location and occasion for personal symbolism, having previously encapsulated his feelings for the city in 1970: "When, coming from Paris, after Aigueperse, on the blue road, I see the Puy de Dome, and after that, passing by Riom, built in Volvic stone, I see [the sign] ‘Clermont-Ferrand, 14 kilometers,’ my heart beats stronger. I am affected as a lover who will return to a beloved woman."

As writer Jean-Baptiste Ledys wrote this past January, “In this declaration of love that Fernand Raynaud made for Clermont-Ferrand...the comedian did not know that he described the road on which he would die.”

Running late for his press conference, Raynaud’s Silver Shadow, chosen this day because his preferred traveling car had been stolen two days before, that piquant prize which he had jokingly described to his friends as “an assassin,” went out of control after the Aigueperse curve, hit a livestock trailer, and continued for 80 meters until crashing into the wall of the Cheix-sur-Morge cemetery, killing him instantly.

La Montagne, one of the French publications waiting for him at the press conference that never happened, later declared in a headline: “For the first time, Fernand made us cry.”

Raynaud’s most beloved monologue was called simply, “Hereux.” Within the flexibility of French, it can mean “Happy,” but also the more sober reading, “Content.” In his monologue, he portrays a road worker, talking about his unassuming but also unstressful daily life, and contrasting it with the dissatisfied feelings of the relatives he reluctantly meets with once a year, repeating the word “Hereux” frequently. When one of his relatives, a philosopher, challenges him to prove how he can be so content with his lot in life, another relative, a doctor, stands up for him, saying, “Have you ever seen a road worker go on strike?”

“Hereux” would become his best known catch phrase. When tabloids reported on his tax disputes and other domestic troubles, they always invoked it with a question mark. When his sketches were published in a 1975 book, and when actor Jean Rochefort staged a Hal-Holbrook-as-Mark-Twain-style tribute to Raynaud in 2004, performing his classic scenes and songs to packed audiences, it was used as the title. And most importantly, it is the word on his headstone in Saint-Germain-des-Fosses, the municipality in central France where he vacationed in childhood. 

In August of 2010, filmmaker and Academy Award winner Claude Lelouch offered this personal memory of Raynaud:

"I knew him well, he was one of those people who really made me laugh...I remember an evening spent at a friend's house who had very, very beautiful paintings, and had a very beautiful Picasso. Fernand had advised him to put it in the bathroom because, he said, this is where we have time to appreciate [things] every day. The masterpieces, we should put them in the bathroom, where we have time to look at them, [otherwise] in the living room we pass them by...He was a very astonishing person and it is true that he was constantly [concerned about] the truth; I had a little talk with him, and he said, 'If there is not one whiff of truth in my sketch, it won't hold the road.'"

And perhaps, without me knowing it, that was the seed planted in me from that first comedy record. Truth. One kid recognizing how bratty behavior can sound amusing, especially when you clumsily recount it to the grownups instead of committing it yourself. One adult recognizing how when you try to futz with or manipulate what truth is only makes you look more stupid. And all the time in between, finding those real things that would indeed make one content, if not completely happy.

So I think I can say truthfully that I really went to work in enjoying myself for you all.

"Tell them they can laugh at me"

 

On this first anniversary of the passing of David Bowie, a loss still felt profoundly by all of us here at Night Flight, we’re taking an opportunity to reflect on his underappreciated capacity for self-deprecation and comedy.

David Bowie constantly tried new things, resisted coasting on familiar credits, and earned enormous respect that continues in his absence. He took his artistic process very seriously.

What he rarely took seriously was himself. In his music videos, in movie cameos, and in the media, he exercised comic gifts that delivered big laughs, often at his own expense.

In the formative years of his career, Bowie compensated for his intense shyness by disappearing into his stage personas and substance abuse. He spent a long sojourn in Berlin to kick his addictions and find perspective, and emerged in the ‘80s with a more positive demeanor.

A key incident that shaped this philosophical turn took place as he was making the video for “Ashes to Ashes” in 1980 with director David Mallet. Bowie recounted the story to technician Michael Dignum during a break in filming for the “Miracle Goodnight” video from Blackstar:

“[I] had quite the attitude as a young pop star, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype. It changes you. So I was on the set [of] ‘Ashes to Ashes’… I’m dressed from head to toe in a clown suit…I hear playback and the music starts. So off I go, I start singing and walking, but as soon as I do this old geezer with an old dog walks right between me and the camera…knowing this is gonna take a while I walked past the old guy and sat next to camera in my full costume waiting for him to pass. As he is walking by camera, the director said, ‘Excuse me, [sir] do you know who this is?’ The old guy looks at me from bottom to top and looks back to the director and said, ‘Of course I do! It’s some cunt in a clown suit.’ That was a huge moment for me, it put me back in my place and made me realize, yes, I’m just a cunt in a clown suit. I think about that old guy all the time.”

Bowie proceeded to engage in what the British call “taking the piss out” of himself for years thereafter.

With director Julien Temple, he conceived a twenty minute short, Jazzin’ for Blue Jean, where he played both a hapless pickup artist trying to woo a resistant girl, and her favorite rock star, “Screaming Lord Byron,” a stand-in for himself.

There are frequent jokes about Bowie’s real-life bad behavior, and in one instance, the would-be suitor insults Byron with, “Your record sleeves are better than your songs!” The video won a Grammy for Best Short Form Video in 1985.

That same year, Bowie played a sleazy hitman in John Landis’ comic mystery Into the Night. In the film, he has a knock-down fight with a bodyguard played by rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins, a sequence that surely amused him since, as a teenager, he had been inspired to be a musician by listening to 45s by Perkins and his contemporaries.

Bowie’s aforementioned need for artistic freshness became a subject of his mordant humor.

During his 1990 “Sound+Vision” tour, he declared that he was retiring his previous hit catalog from then on, vowing only to do new material in future shows. After the disappointing reception for his band Tin Machine and the solo albums that followed, he began to walk back that promise.

In a promo spot for their joint appearance on the season premiere of “Saturday Night Live” on October 2, 1999, Bowie’s about-face was referenced in an exchange of barbs between himself and host Jerry Seinfeld on their mutual reliance on the tried-and-true.

It wouldn’t be the only time he fired his wit at another target.

In 2006, he played himself on Ricky Gervais’ “Extras,” where, after being annoyed by the self-aggrandizing behavior of Andy Millman, he composes a song on the spot to cut him down to size.

When making the talk show rounds, Bowie was always an urbane and gracious guest, and often participated in sketches.

Here he is sharing a bevy of ludicrous revelations for “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”:

And, in this clip from a 1999 interview on the French Canadian MusiquePlus channel, he shared his love of early internet celebrity Mahir “I Kiss You” Çağrı:

Just before the end of 2016, Bowie’s son Duncan Jones posted a screencap from this interview, calling it his favorite photo of his father.

Having a laugh was also important to Bowie in his private moments.

He released a list of his “Top 100 Reads” in 2013 as part of the touring exhibition “David Bowie Is,” which showcased cherished items from his life.

Amid highbrow fare such as political non-fiction and classics like In Cold Blood, he included the British humor periodical Viz, a Mad-magazine style parody of UK tabloid and music press with a punk rock bent.

While the creators were grateful for his fandom, Bowie himself was not immune from their scathing jokes, as shown in this full-page lampoon from the early ‘90s:

In one of his earliest compositions, “When I Live My Dream,” he wrote, “Tell them they can laugh at me / But don’t forget your date with me / When I live my dream.”

Over five decades after that song emerged, it can be said he lived his dream to the fullest and happiest, and we got to enjoy it with him.

So today, though we’re sad he’s not around, let’s put on one of his immortal songs, and have our own Zoolander & Hansel-style walk-off, and imagine that he’s watching us and smiling at it all.

Night Flight’s video profile of David Bowie from December 4th, 1987, features “Ashes to Ashes” and other dynamic videos from three decades of his career, and is available to watch as part of our special David Bowie collection at Night Flight Plus.

(This essay was originally written for Night Flight Plus. It has been recreated in the style it was presented in at the site, and matched to its original date of publication. Tremendous thanks to Stuart Shapiro and Bryan Thomas for the platform.)

Frankie Say Relax

For a little over a decade, from June of 1989 to about sometime in 2003 when I gave up the ghost, I did stand-up comedy. And I threw myself deep into that pursuit. When I graduated college in 1991, I was sharing a home with two other very funny aspiring comics, and most of my other close friends were also either full bore working in the business or trying to make their way like me. I managed to balance working a day job at an independent arthouse movie operation with doing as many open mics and road gigs as I could. I never made it past opening in respected clubs and occasionally doing feature work in dives on the road, but I was happy all the same. It was a great family to live among. When I took the plunge to move to L.A. in 1999, officially becoming a resident on this date in history 16 years ago, I had so much goodwill and help from the comedy community it made such a leap feel like a brisk walk.

Between hanging out at the local clubs and doing the various rooms that I would beg, plead, and cajole Sharon Rearick, Tom Sobel, and the Funny Bone to work me in (and the rooms that Donnie Lee Diamond would beg, plead, and cajole me to do against my better judgment), I got to know the really great road comics - those performers that may not have had TV visibility or wide familiarity otherwise, but if you haunted a comedy club on a regular basis you saw them pass through once or twice a year and you knew they were hilarious, and you eagerly anticipated their return visits: Mark Eubanks, Dak Rakow, Monique Marvez, Jay Scott Homan, Georgia Ragsdale, Rahn Ramey, Paul Kelly...In the days before the internet could bring you an instant following, comics passed along their favorite bits of these workers and others to amuse themselves and spread the reputation around.

And then there was Frankie Bastille. I never got to directly open for or work with Frankie on a gig, but we got to know each other and got along well; Columbus was one of his favorite stops when he was working, and he spoke highly of most of the comics located there. Frankie was the comic that almost every headliner or promoter had a story about, usually shared in the bar after the public went home and the performers and staff were enjoying the privilege of locked doors and free drinks. We knew of at least a couple of girlfriends he had stashed in certain cities, and his bad marriages were a staple of his act. He was a notorious user of just about every herbal, liquid, and chemical alterant there could be found, once vividly describing gobbling Percosets as if they were salad croutons. I've only done LSD twice in my life, and the final time was with Frankie. There were plenty of tall tales about Frankie circulating among us. How he reportedly did an entire half hour special for Showtime only to have the network shelve it due to his erratic behavior. How he supposedly fleeced Jay Leno out of hundreds of dollars by claiming he was dying of cancer. How he trolled a juggler he was working with (a "boat act" as he derogatorily called middling comics with gimmicks) by having him summoned to the men's room to witness him simultaneously shooting heroin and receiving oral sex from a friend and growling, "Now THIS is a juggling act!" (You can read of a verifiable Bastille incident if you scroll to Question #11 of this interview with Lord Carrett.)

Columbus was also apparently a good place to lay low when he needed to stay out of sight. I remember him calling me up on a Saturday morning, asking me to pick him up from the bus station and take him to a mutual friend's place. I may be fudging the details of this preceding incident, so correct me if I am, but as I recall, he had served some days in jail but ultimately beaten a prosecution further north in the state, and part of his defense was proving that he was indeed a comedian by doing a set before the judge; he proudly told us that this put him in company with Lenny Bruce as one of the only comedians to have their act recorded in a courtroom transcript. He didn't stay in town long, just enough to get breakfast, share some writing he'd done, make a couple phone calls to friends, and wire some money elsewhere, which he did under the alias "Louis Dega" before hopping on another bus to...wherever...and that's the last time I saw him.

Lest the legend get ahead of the man, it must be stressed that for all the rumors, when he was performing, if any of those wild stories were true, the sets he would deliver would be worth the hypothetical chaos. He took charge of an audience from minute one, and while his persona certainly teased the idea that things could go off the rails, I never saw his energy flag or his momentum flounder. Even if he was doing some sort of ubiquitous punchline, such as ridiculing the then-craze of albums with backward messages ("Play any record backwards, all you're gonna hear is, 'Ha, you just fucked up another album!'") or pulling the mic stand up and down to simulate keg tapping ("Fuck, this party's all outta beer!"), he sold it to you as if you were hearing it for the first time. Whatever destructive affectations he engaged in off stage, he never let them impact his job.  Keep in mind that if someone goes to one lame sporting event, they'll still support their favorite team, and if they go to one bad movie, they'll still probably go to another show, but if most people see one bad live stand-up show, often times they will never, EVER, go to a comedy club again as long as they live. That is what comedians, the good ones anyway, have to remember every time they stand in front of a Z-Brick wall to tell jokes. And a Frankie performance usually guaranteed that crowd was going to come back to that club. His antics could be a shock to the system, but his results were money in the bank.

When word started getting around in the late '90's that Frankie had died, while most of us probably never actually saw an obit or a sourced record of his passing, we all just sighed and figured it must be true. In researching this essay, I did find a documented source from Evansville, Indiana, confirming that fate gave him the light in January 1997. From an archived message board conversation initiated by his sister Jean, apparently Frankie had finally gotten clean for a significant amount of time, but had residual health issues from all those years of abuse, and upon leaving a booking in Tennessee to fly to Arizona for the funeral of his father, had a fatal heart attack prompted by high blood pressure compounded by stress and grief.

By the time I was firmly ensconced in L.A., I was also mostly ensconced in a much less flexible situation with the employer I became most associated with for 14 years, and even though my "BEAT THE GEEKS" notoriety revived some notions of people being willing to spend money on cover and two drinks to watch and listen to me crack wise, I had to call it a night on my stand-up. Thankfully, I still have almost all those funny friends from back in the day, and I am lucky to have the company and respect of some of the best names in comedy working today. I do still write material, if you follow me on social media I frequently offer lots of the kind of jokes I would have done on stage. I sometimes still even contemplate wrangling my way to a free mic and going for it again. But then I also ask myself would I be doing this because I feel like I have a legitimately interesting comedy voice to offer, something I would go back to driving and flying to clubs and colleges across the country, counting mileage and collecting receipts to account for my business, or would I be doing this just to get myself cast as the wacky neighbor on a sitcom or third chair on some satellite radio show, and taking stage time away from some younger, hungrier, and better individual who more deserves the boost? As the sagely and often downright saintly Paul Williams has observed, there are fewer things sadder and pathetic than standing before show business with your hands outstretched and saying, "Please, sir, may I have another cup of fame?"

I heard a lot of unusual things come out of Frankie's mouth offstage, but I never heard him bitch about his station. Never heard him complain about about someone being more successful than him, or not being on TV, or any of the whines you could be subjected to from lesser comics. Sure, he would take amusing jabs at those damned "boat acts," but he would also respect that they wouldn't be working if they weren't in demand. And he knew he was way funnier than them anyway, so as long as he got to do his time and trump them, it was all good. He didn't seem to care about getting famous, he just wanted to tell the jokes as often as possible. Which he did. Effectively, that's what I was lucky enough to do for a while as well.

I never forgot about how much I loved comedy, and I never forgot about Frankie. But it seems so much of the comedy world has. Nowadays, if you've heard of him, it's likely because Marc Maron immortalized him in an episode of Comedy Central's "THIS IS NOT HAPPENING" series in 2013 and in his book ATTEMPTING NORMAL. It's a poignant testimonial Maron offers up. But if you google Frankie's name, you'll get Maron's story, maybe a few messageboard posts, references from other comics like Brett Leake or Kevin Lambert, and that's it. No quotes, no video. That apocryphal Showtime special sits dusty on a shelf somewhere in Viacom's bunker. Maybe there's a truck stop in Dustyfuck, New Mexico still selling bootleg cassettes of standups for long haul drivers that may have a Frankie bit or two on 'em. It took multiple pages to find that obituary I posted above, and yes, I ganked that photo from Historic Images just like Josh Matusak did. After I turned 33, I joked that I outlived Christ, Hicks, Belushi, and Bangs. But until I found the actual obit, I never knew that Frankie, that old salty dog of the Comedy Caravan, was only 44 years old when he passed, and thus, last year, I outlived him too.

So, for that fella who treated me like an equal when I was really not even close to his level, I feel the most effective thing I can do to keep his name alive is transcribe one of his sets, so that all of us who remembered him (and the intrigued that may still hear the tall tales) can relive a little of that mind of his we enjoyed. I would normally never do this, preferring you seek out the real thing on tape or on video, but in light of the scarcity of finding anything from better sources, I think this is a justifiable exception. Hell, if he liked being immortalized in courtroom transcripts... It's a small sampling of his repertoire of course, and you're not going to get the full effect unless you can hear his voice that sounded like Dr. Teeth if he spent years of binging and got exiled from the Electric Mayhem delivering the jokes, but at least until something more substantial surfaces, the Bastille can stand again.

Well, don't just stare at me like I'm your Mystery Date! C'mon, loosen up! Don't be bummed out! You're not bummed out, are you sir? Nothin' bums me out, man! I've been married twice, been to Vietnam, and prison - who's left to fuck my life up? Oh they try, they try. Every year, there's always someone talkin' that the end of the world is coming - remember a couple years back, they said it would be, like, end of October? Yeah, I remember that date well, 'cuz I spent my rent money! {does a Pete Townsend arm swing} "And I won't be fooled again!!" Naw naw. 

So I'm here in Columbus, good place, like it here. But they got shit here that's screwed up. They got a bank in town called the Fifth/Third Bank! Who'd be dumb enough to put their money in there, man? They can't even convert fuckin' fractions! What's their gimmick - are they...two thirds better than Bank One? Shouldn't need an abacus to figure this out. I take math seriously, 'cause when I was in high school I had a teacher I couldn't take serious. First day, he gets up there and says, "Half of you are gonna pass! Half of you are gonna fail! And the other half..." and I'm thinkin, "What the fuck? Three halves equal a whole? What were you before you were a teacher, a teller at the Fifth/Third fuckin' Bank? You should be my drug dealer, how about a pound?" Yeah, I was a smart ass in school. You do that? Sure you have, we all have. "If A+B is equal to A-C, what do we know about A+B?" "I don't know, but X must be Phil Collins, cuz you just spelled ABACAB!" "Alright, Mr. Bastille, you're so smart: stand up and tell the class what Pi squared is." "Pi squared? Those are Pop-Tarts! What else wouldja like, the hypotenuse of a croissant? I brought a bundt cake, maybe we could do some radius problems?" "Last chance, Mr. Bastille, explain the Domino Principle." "That's when you get a free pizza in a half hour if they don't show up." And I know when that half hour is up - it's a joint and a six pack later, cuz you've gotta be loaded to eat a Domino's Pizza. That shit is like Cheez Whiz on a frisbee, man! That's how they get it to your house in 30 minutes or less, they're like {mimes spraying cheese onto a disc, flings it} "*spritz* WHAM-O!" I've seen dogs wearing bandanas in national parks that won't chase after that shit! "Ruff ruff - aw fuck no, man, that's Domino's Pizza! Let's go back to Burger King, wait for that Elvis dude to show up."

Yeah, I drink. I gotta quit drinkin' though. You know you gotta quit drinkin' when you wake up and see your stomach and bladder outside your body with picket signs. {marching around stage} "Aw screw this! Hell, no, this guy's unfair!" And meanwhile, my liver's looking at my kidneys and saying, "Awright! STONES!" {does Mick Jagger strut} I like all kinds of stuff. Like beer. 'Cept Heineken. Stay away from Heineken, man; that's Nazi beer. Serious. You finish off a six of Heineken, you're up in the attic lookin' for Anne Frank! {knocking noise/gesture} "I know you're in there! I read the book!" {knocks again} I can say that. I was born Jewish, went to Catholic school - what's your excuse? I like tequila, the really hardcore stuff, the Mezcal, with the worm...you ever eat the worm? I used to do that. And then I found out: Mexicans don't do that. They made that shit up as a joke! There I was, sittin' in a cantina in Tijuana, I'm gobblin' up worms like a robin in springtime! Should've just said fuck it and gone to a bait shop! And all the guys there are looking at me, sayin' to their friends, {spit take} "Juan, Raul, check out the dickweed gringo! Yeah, go on, drink the Spanish Fly, you'll get laid! Here, throw this hat on the ground, dance around it, it's a fuckin' custom!"

Cops, I got problems with cops. Highway patrol especially. It's 'cause of that fuckin' dumb ass hat they're always wearing. Man, if I've been gettin' high, drinkin', cop pulls me over, I see him comin' to the car with that hat on, I'm thinkin', "Aw it's cool, it's just Ranger Smith! Hey, Mister Ranger Sir, how's Boo-Boo 'n shit? What's up? Ya got a pic-a-nic basket for me?" "Let me see some I.D.!" "Lemme wear your fuckin' hat!"

I did Vietnam, did combat. Combat's real wild now, man - lasers, nukes, chemical warfare - but they still make all these soldiers work with bayonets and all this old shit. You mean to tell me with all the weapons the enemies got today, you're going to send me into combat with a *rifle*? Au contraire! Sending me into combat today with a rifle, that's like sending Captain Kirk to fight the Klingons in a Mercury fuckin' station wagon!

And that's what I can recall off my head. Of course, if you've been holding a Bastille stash of your own, please feel free to share...

Frankie Say...No More

John and John, Where Have Ye Gone?

If you're a comedy lover, March 5, 1982, and March 4, 1994, are two days in history where you had better laugh just to stop from crying.



When you talk to someone born between, say, 1940 to 1960, they'll have some sort of story about how the assassination of President John F. Kennedy shocked them like no other death of a public figure, or for that matter, any other tragic event they'd witnessed. After that, it gets a little more fragmented and particular, depending either on your political stripe or entertainment taste. And for me, my personal JFK moment has always been when I came into my father's house on a Friday afternoon, just after buying snacks for the evening's VHS rental, and as I walked into the dining room, the news on the TV was announcing that John Belushi had died.

I thought I was pretty together for a 12-year-old. Sure, it was shocking when Elvis died at 42, I had been listening and pantomiming his records alone in my room and was thus a fan, but I was in grade school and he was my parents' rock star: I shook my head and went on. I was up past my bedtime watching "THE TONIGHT SHOW," as was my regular routine, when the news interrupted that December night in 1980 with news that John Lennon had been shot; again, I was shocked, especially since his new album had only come out three weeks before, but somehow I got over this too. But when I heard Belushi was gone, I was inconsolable for weeks, and there's a part of me that's never gotten over it.

Perhaps it is because unlike Presley and Lennon, Belushi felt like he was mine, a star that belonged to me and was not my parents' hand-me-down. I found him by staying up late to watch "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE," I had the ludicrous tingle of going to an R-rated movie like THE BLUES BROTHERS to see him do his magic...nobody older than me had to set the stage and sell me on any sort of past track record, I was seeing his legacy happen from the ground floor. And at that stage of my life, I was a little husky like he was, and I looked up to his ability to be physically graceful and command attention and be attractive to girls. I wanted to be him when I became a man. And in most of the right ways, and even some of the wrong ways, I still want to.

It seems strange to make this kind of observation about a man who is remembered for his domineering qualities, but Belushi emerged from an artistic mindset that is very hard to find in the entertainers of today, where genius was not only in how they could project, but also how they could hold back. If you watch enough classic SNL sketches you will see how John can play completely normal while another player or guest star takes focus and gets the laughs. It may not have been his personal instinct - he was notorious for trying to sandbag female writers' sketch ideas - but once a sketch made it to show, and the camera was on, he was all about the scene, whether he was the prime mover or the straight man. And while he certainly owned the frame when he was headlining a movie, when he was playing support, such as to Talia Shire in OLD BOYFRIENDS or Jack Nicholson in GOIN' SOUTH, he knew when to turn his wattage up and when to turn it down. Maybe that's old Second City discipline straight from Viola Spolin and Paul Sills, maybe it's from working with people whom you enjoy playing back-and-forth with, but it is a skill that is missing from a lot of comedy nowadays. I am not here to accuse modern comedians of being attention hogs, far from it: most have trained in the same talent incubators (Second City, the Groundlings) under the same standards, and in the best comedies, are still capable of this proper give and take. I feel the finger is better pointed at more modern comedy producers, who after overpaying for talent, panic if every second of their screen time is not taken up with a laugh.

Example: I saw ANCHORMAN 2 in December, and pretty much hated on it for multiple reasons, but especially because it felt like for all the trouble it took to reunite all the principal cast from the first film, it was fully the Will Ferrell show with maybe Steve Carell getting the most significant screen time because of his increased stature, while the rest were just left to get a few sporadic moments to shine. But I went the other night to see the "763 New Jokes" alternate R-rated cut that was reissued to theatres this past weekend (in advance of the home video release), and while it still has many problems, actually liked it better, precisely because it spread more screen time and material to the supporting players, but certainly carried the perceived downside of making the movie longer. As such I could easily understand the pressures on Ferrell and director Adam McKay from all sides, and deciding to hedge their bet and sacrifice development for jokes-per-minute. John Landis has often remarked on the decision to carefully parcel out Belushi's appearances in ANIMAL HOUSE for maximum impact, and even in many of those moments, he is in concert with the primary cast, and not always getting the payoff. Landis would likely not have that option today, instead he'd surely get besieged with studio notes demanding more Bluto scenes, "because he's the star."

This is what I wish more people would dwell on when the legacy of Belushi is discussed, rather than the usual topics of his excessive behavior in films and in real life. He was described as being able to walk into a room as if he were on horseback, to pull all eyes to him. However, too many don't recognize that once he had that attention, he gladly gave it away to others. It can be as obvious as the easy rapport he enjoyed with Dan Aykroyd in their multiple movies, or sometimes not for public consumption, as when he came to support friends Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas during a press op for STRANGE BREW, and insisted on not being filmed, so that all attention could be given to the rise of the McKenzie Brothers. There was a touching testimony by the late SNL writer Michael O'Donoghue for a Rolling Stone memorial issue, where he listed five reasons why John went straight to Heaven - I can't find the original text, but two that stood out to me was that he regularly sent money to Albanian relatives he'd never met, and that he reunited his old high school band to play together for all their friends. In short, what made Belushi special was that he not only had the confidence to draw attention to himself, he had the generosity to spread the wealth around..."Oh, you think I'm funny - here's these guys I know and enjoy, you should be watching them too."

That is what I think I love most and miss so much about Belushi decades later, and the lesson I've tried to carry on from him: the notion of shared elevation, of making everyone in the scene look good. As a high school football star, he knew if you can grab that ball, then go ahead and run with it all the way to the goal, but if you got a teammate to make the pass to, trust in them to rise to the occasion.

One of the prime recipients of his comedy trust managed to go on running with the spotlight, and my heart, for over another decade. And when he unexpectedly died 12 years later, one day before Belushi's marker, and within days of another comedy legend, Bill Hicks, it made me so despondent I left a sobbing message on a friend's voice mail bemoaning, "All my heroes are dying."

Upon discovering the quasi-adult pleasures of watching "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE" as a child, I was soon hungry for more. And I don't know how precisely it was that I found "SECOND CITY TELEVISION," later to just be "SCTV;" I guess I somehow saw it listed in the TV Guide described as a sketch comedy show, and my curiosity drove me to fiddle with the antenna to get a decent signal from the Dayton station that aired it after SNL since no Cincinnati stations carried it. But after that first episode, I was hooked. And, naturally, was the only kid on the playground talking about Count Floyd and Edith Prickley and Bobby Bittman. And, when I did get to go to that previously-mentioned taboo screening of THE BLUES BROTHERS, when a smug detective showed up where the boys were staying, I was certainly the only kid my age in the theatre to look at the screen and excitedly say, "That's John Candy!"

To this day there are plenty of people who don't care for Belushi or his work, who merely see him as a fat pampered train wreck, but there is practically nobody out there who doesn't have a kind thing to say about John Candy. His history is similar to Belushi's in terms of Second City education, ensemble performing, and public charm, and also full of outgoing gestures to friends and fans, of cooking large meals for the crew of his movies, of sitting in the cheap seats with hockey lovers who came to see the team he co-owned for several years. The popular perception is that Candy was a more sensible person than Belushi, since he lived longer, didn't abuse drugs and liquor, had a more solid marriage and raised children, and did not have a record of erratic behavior to sully his image. But as demonstrated in his final years, Candy was susceptible to the same addictive swings that Belushi was prone to, just through more socially accepted dependencies on cigarettes and food. And as such, both men reached such a need for those perceived comfort items which they inherently knew would decimate them, it put all who loved them in the position of either enabling or disengaging, and speaking from personal experience, disengagement is worse precisely because you don't know how bad things are getting.

Candy, I feel, also had a gift that is often overlooked when his body of work is discussed. Belushi only made a handful of movies, and while the greatness of some of them remain in debate (I count myself in the small but vocal rally behind NEIGHBORS), he didn't leave behind any clunkers. Candy was not as lucky; there are plenty of stiffs in his resume, including, sadly, his swan song, WAGONS EAST. But I maintain that while Candy has appeared in movies that didn't work, he never gave anything less than 100% to those roles. He could take substandard material and elevate it just enough so that you never felt like your two hours were a total waste, only a minor disappointment; you never lost your goodwill towards him, if anything you bemoaned that the rest of the movie didn't deserve him. As a tweener, I thought GOING BERSERK was a neglected masterpiece, and even though through my adult eyes, I can see how threadbare and misbegotten it is, I remember his scenes and I'm still laughing. Candy could sell like a champ: he could take a tired predictable punchline and make it gold, like this one from another misfire, ONCE UPON A CRIME:

"Why, you married for money!"
"That sir, is an outrage! I married for lots of money! Huhuhuhuhuhuh!"
(seriously, that classic Johnny LaRue laughing-verging-on-sobbing is irresistible)

Selling when the ship is sinking is another lost art. It's not that there aren't devoted actors today who try to make the best out of lousy material, but ultimately they come off as too guarded or too desperate. Somehow, Candy was always eminently watchable no matter how badly everything else was turning out. You can try to just blame it on '80's nostalgia, but I guarantee you 10 years from now there will be more people watching ARMED AND DANGEROUS than, say, THE WATCH, and I'll stand on Ben Stiller's coffee table in my Chuck Taylors and say that.

Ultimately, Belushi and Candy were brothers from another mother. They were friends, excellent team players, men who challenged conventional notions of attraction, and engendered enormous audience affections that continue long after their departure. For whatever vices they picked up that should have been left behind, perhaps even those were simply part of how they treated their art and their lives, from the cardinal rules that everyone is taught to do in improvisation: say yes, explore, and heighten. And in the best moments, and the detrimental moments, they kept to that standard.

Belushi would have been 65 and Candy would have been 63 today. And they would have been as grief-stricken as we have been at the recent loss of their friend Harold Ramis. As all three of them were when Doug Kenney inexplicably departed before properly enjoying the success of the movies he co-wrote with or for them.

In his exploration on Belushi's legacy, Roger Ebert observed, "Tragedy is when you know not only what was, but what could have been." That's why my elders have not forgotten the shock of their fallen heroes, nor I mine. I think if there is a difference, it's because, well, if the two Johns stuck around a little longer, we would have had a lot more laughs in the world. And we're always going to need those.

But thankfully, we have what they left behind, which is still a lot of great stuff.

Little Chocolate Donuts will always be the donuts of champions!

And Johnny LaRue will always be NOT GAY!

Bolts From Above Hurt the Movie Down Below

Here is a glimpse inside all the random thoughts that ran through my brain during the midnight screening of Tyler Perry's TEMPTATION: CONFESSIONS OF A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR I just came home from:

Century City has apparently done away with their 3 hours free parking. Alright, I guess all the malls are now. Rates approximately 1/hr for shoppers and diners, AMC patrons up to 5 hours/$4. So let me get this straight: if I validate, then regardless of how long I was at the theatre, I'm paying $4? It would be cheaper if I didn't validate? Well, this may be the last time you see me darken your multiplex again. I sure as hell can't afford any other attraction in this mall. Why don't you just hang the sign INCOMES UNDER $50,000 KEEP ON DRIVING;

Any movie title that starts with CONFESSIONS but does not involve Robin Askwith inadvertently getting it on with posh birds in swinging London is automatically suspect. Thrill me, Mr. Perry, or at least give me someone without trousers when the vicar shows up;

Lionsgate has their white "Heaven" logo for their regular movies and their red "Hell" logo for their horror movies. Hasn't Perry made them enough money to get his own color-coded logo? Maybe mauve, like one of Madea's housedresses;

Oh, so this movie is going to be told in flashback? Aha, then instead of Gene Siskel's old question, "Is this movie more interesting than having dinner with the principal cast?" I'm going to be asking, "Is this movie going to teach me anything I didn't already learn from Charlene's 'I've Never Been to Me'";


Hey, it's the nurse from BUBBA HO-TEP playing Judith's bible-thumping mom. I guess if I had inadvertently given a happy ending to the King of Rock'n'Roll, that would have been a Come to Jesus moment for me too;

Vanessa Williams is the new Faye Dunaway;

Wait a minute, Vanessa...Faye...brainstorm: remake NETWORK with all-black cast! Oh no, that already happened in real life on BET. Speaking of, how ya livin', Debra Leevil?;

Renee Taylor here looks like Harlan Ellison in drag;

Husband promises Judith he's not going to take her to the $1.99 buffet. Does this mean he'll at least spring for a $2.99 shrimp at Long John Silver's?

Whoops, hubby forgot Judith's birthday, so he's going to lip-sync "Try a Little Tenderness" shirtless to cheer her up. Sorry, Brice, Duckie did it better;


Meanwhile, apparently, Harley has been learning his seduction technique from Positive K;


Okay, Tyler, I know you're sending the characters to New Orleans, and African-Americans invented the genre, but Woody Allen owns using Dixieland music in a romantic montage. I'm waiting for at least an appearance by Tony Roberts now;

No, the Jewish one;

Yes, him, the one who looks like Spike from COWBOY BEBOP;

Mama suggests Brice needs a whipping, claims it's from the King James edition. No, actually, sounds more like it's from the RICK James edition;

There are unseen people being discussed by the secondary players. Roger Ebert's rule of "economy of characters" has thus already told me the big reveal;

Uh-oh, it's the middle of the night, Judith's been bad, and now her mama is shreiking that the Devil is inside her. Please, please, let her start talking about her dirty pillows! Better yet, give Judith dormant psychic powers and let her levitate some kitchen knives!

Which reminds me - when I was growing up, we had BLACULA, BLACKENSTEIN, ABBY was basically BLACK EXORCIST, hell we even got BLACK SHAMPOO...why did we never get BLACK CARRIE? I would have paid an older kid to buy my ticket and sneak me into that movie!

All Judith wants to do is take a shower right now, and her mama and husband won't let her. I don't dare ask what would have happened if all she wanted was a Pepsi;


Harley also apparently has been taking points on how to set a party mood from Mr. Boogaloow in THE APPLE. Since Judith opening a counseling practice with Harley, does this mean Brice has to listen to Grace Kennedy sing first before getting her out of the contract?


Oh, no he didn't strike Judith's mama! Now I have proof the most famous Tyler from Georgia took some cues from the second-most famous Tylor in Georgia, because here it is dramatized in CinemaScope, folks - dick will make you slap somebody!


Whoa, an extra fillip upon the expected big reveal! "What's wrong?" the girl asks Brice. He should be replying, "What's wrong is I've never seen a Tyler Perry movie before; if I had, I would have known this was coming."



Conclusion: this is now tied with DEAD MAN DOWN as being a movie most likely made by someone from another planet, using the English language and dramatic structure in the same maladept fashion that ABBA wrote their first songs in English. I don't know if the African-American community was looking for their own version of THE ROOM, but they've got it now. Actually, one crucial difference: this was actually entertaining, I will go see this movie again. And thus if you're feeling the urge for bad behavior, go indulge. However, if you're pinching pennies and can't afford a first-run movie ticket, or you just don't believe in the whole outsider or camp principle of movie watching, but you do want to see an attractive woman learning about the pitfalls of Temptation from a rich suitor, with occasional interludes from The Big Book, here's a condensed version you can dance to:


Ye gods, Corina looks like a younger, hotter Madea. I'm not comfortable with that. Let's try this again:

Personally, I'd still rather see a full on Alexyss K. Tylor directed production in the future. Maybe she can get BLACK CARRIE made just in time to compete against that damned remake. That would be an onscreen depiction of some serious Vagina Power.  C'mon Hollywood: hit the bottom, work that middle, make this happen!