LISTEN TO A TEASER FEATURING EXCERPTS AND NON-ALBUM MOMENTS!

VIEW OUR BOOK ANDY KAUFMAN, I HATE YOUR GUTS!

When news broke near to Andy Kaufman’s birthday that an album of unreleased material was going to be released by Drag City/Process Media on July 16th, the word spread like wildfire. Everyone from The New York Times to The AV Club to Pitchfork to Paste covered the news with the excitement of an unhinged Latka Gravas. It’s no small coincidence that a flurry of new rumors concerning Andy being alive and well and living in ambiguity in Albuquerque, New Mexico surfaced shortly thereafter. These things happen every few years accompanying the release of any new Andy-related news. We will neither confirm nor deny any such claims (if we were ever in any place to comment on them in the first place). However, we are very excited to share a snippet of audio from the 82 hours of micro-cassette recordings Andy made between 1977-79. This sneak peek, premiered on Dangerous Minds, features moments both on the record and off, created by Vernon Chatman (Wonder Showzen, South Park, Louie, The Chris Rock Show) the same mastermind behind the creation of the whole record (along with the help of editor Rodney Ascher, director of acclaimed documentary Room 237). With liner notes by Kaufman co-conspirator Bob Zmuda, and narration by Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader, Andy And His Grandmother, out July 16th on Drag City/Process Media, promises to be a true work of comedy for our times – one that was performed over thirty years ago.

LISTEN TO A TEASER FOR ANDY AND HIS GRANDMOTHER HERE

 More about the book, from Pitch Perfect PR

Andy Kaufman changed the worlds of comedy and performance in the 1970s, showing fans and friends alike a determination to follow put-ons into territory no one had ever even considered “comic” before. His fervor was so intense that when he passed away suddenly in 1984, it seemed as if the ultimate disappearing act had been staged; one that some people believe is still ongoing, with the reveal soon to come. This makes him the quintessential entertainer of our generation, a man ahead of his time and ours, and a force that has yet to be matched—even in the mega-saturated media world of the 21st century.

Among the many things that Andy achieved in his lifetime (and in the years following), a phonograph album release, the staple of stand-up comedians in his time, never happened—until now. Andy and His Grandmother is material never heard before, a skimming from 82 hours of micro-cassette tapes that Andy recorded during 1977– 79. Andy regarded the micro-tape recorder as a fantastic new way of capturing his hoaxing, and carried it with him everywhere, for use at any given moment. Real life was the ultimate frontier for him, and these tapes demonstrate the heart of Andy’s comedy. With gusto, he involves those closest to him, as well as total strangers, in put-ons, falsehoods and other provocations, pushing the limit on logic and emotional investment in everyday situations from the trivial to the deeply personal until any suspension of disbelief is out of the question for all involved, and everyone becomes fully immersed in whatever scenario Andy is suggesting as the new reality.

With so much material on hand, we turned to a writer, producer and comedian whose resume indicated to us that he was a true child of Kaufman’s twisted talent. Since the late 90s, Vernon Chatman‘s work has been experienced by television viewers and aficionados ofSouth Park, Wonder Showzen, Xavier: Renegade Angel, The Heart She Holler, and Doggie Fizzle Televizzle, as well as fans of the Drag City DVD release Final Flesh. Vernon dug deeply into the tapes, coming up with a concept for a single LP that would include several dozen excerpts. Slowly and carefully, the final sequence was shaped. Along the way, Vernon produced several tracks, adding effects to pieces that were clearly unfinished (in particular, “Sleep Comedy”) and drafting SNL‘s Bill Hader to provide narration for the jour- ney. The finished album, with liner notes from Vernon and Kaufman cohort Bob Zmuda, is a work of comedy for our times—one that was performed over thirty years ago.

Perhaps the best thing about Andy And His Grandmother is that it extends the body of work that Andy Kaufman pursued relentlessly between 1971 and 1984 with “routines” never before seen or heard in any of his known performances. This is no recap or greatest hits collection derived from material meant to be seen as well as heard. Andy created these tapes to format his incredible approach on a purely sonic level. The funny to be found in the unfunny, the comedy of everyday existence, the comedy of tragedy, these things are the legacy of Andy Kaufman—and all are vividly on display throughout Andy and His Grandmother.

 

Where do books go when they die?

You may say the recycling bins or the county dump.

But sometimes they make it to the book purgatory.  Maybe they get resold online, or at library sales, where they might be carted away $2 a bag. Perhaps they were left out in front of a used bookstore in a cardboard box so that passersby could grab an unsightly but vaguely interesting tome to page through somewhere or another.

The other day I found such a book. It’s called Meet John F. Kennedy, written for children and published with large type. It begins with:

On November 22, 1963, a handsome young man rode into the city of Dallas, Texas. By his side sat his beautiful wife, all dressed in pink. It was a hot, sunny day in Dallas.

They rode in an open car. Their car moved slowly. They smiled and waved to the crowds along the streets. People cheered. They were glad these young people had come to their city. 

Suddenly the sound of three shots ripped the air. One shot hit the young man’s neck. Another hit his head. He fell sideways into his wife’s lap. Minutes later he was dead.

He was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. He had been shot and killed by an assassin.

This book, published by Random House in 1965, introduced a whole generation to the Camelot-style myth surrounding the beauteous President and his wife, and even the myth of his killing by one lone assassin using three lone bullets, and he dies tragically but lovingly on his wife’s lap. The writer, one Nancy Bean White, didn’t want you to know that the President’s wife actually climbed out the back of the limousine with her husband’s brains as a skull shard dropped from her hands. Mrs. White also didn’t find it necessary to mention that the flood of the president’s blood also splattered the cops on motorcycles riding nearby, and that another bullet also struck the governor of Texas sitting in the same limousine. No. That couldn’t happen in a child-friendly Third Act, an antiseptic conclusion with all questions answered.

In November 2013, the 50th Anniversary of the killing, it will be an important time for the establishment to further engrave this myth into everybody’s mind, to remove credibility from any countering view. People like Tom Hanks will produce films like Parkland, holding that the Warren Commission Report holds all answers, and people were just doing their jobs, even if they lied a bit, it was all well-meaning. The 50th Anniversary news programs will make it clear that if you question these views that you are crazy, and should be shunned.

More than a decade ago, our sister press Feral House published a book called The Assassinations edited by Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease about new released material regarding the killings of JFK, RFK, MLK and Malcolm X. Feral House comes along with another book this anniversary of JFK’s murder. Alex Cox, director of Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, Walker, and more, has come along with The President and The Provocateur: The Parallel Lives of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald, a fascinating meditation on the cast of characters in this Killing of the King ceremony.

The book has just come back from the printer, and it looks beautiful.

Here is a revised edition of an award-winning biography that celebrates one of the most improbable lives of the twentieth century: a blind and homeless man who became the most famous eccentric in New York, rising to prominence in major label recordings in addition to symphonic concerts of his compositions.

Moondog will soon be seen as a feature-length documentary titled The Viking of 6th Avenue directed by Holly Elson and produced by Hard Working Movies.

Born Louis Thomas Hardin in 1916, Moondog first made an impression in the late 1940s when he became a mascot of the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. His unique, melodic compositions were released on the Prestige jazz label. In the late 1960s the Viking-garbed Moondog was a pop music sensation on Columbia Records.

Moondog’s compositional style influenced his former roommate Philip Glass, whose preface appears in the book. Moondog’s work transcends labels and redefines the distinction between popular and high culture.

A wide-ranging compilation of Moondog recordings, which includes never-before-released Madrigals played by Philip Glass, Steven Reich, Jon Gibson, and Moondog himself, are offered as free downloads for every purchaser of this biography.

The must-see Source Family documentary opened at IFC this week after a series of amazing events in New York including a night of Source Family home movies, an afternoon of meditation, white magick, and holistic food and numerous Q&A’s with Electricity and Isis Aquarian, original Source members. If you are in New York City, San Francisco or Seattle, the film is now playing and we highly recommend you see it.

We are not here in physical form on this planet very long. What do we do and what do we learn while occupying these bodies of ours?

In the late ’60s and early ’70s particularly, fellow souls explored the WTF and What Is It?, and often attached themselves to a larger group of explorers for the purpose of discovering at an accelerated pace.

Elsewhere we published books about The Process Church, communal/tribal living, Future Primitivism, and coming in the not too distant future, The Mel Lyman Family.  Under the Process Media imprint, Jodi Wille and I published this book/cd by Isis Aquarian and Electricity Aquarian, The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, YaHoWha 13, and The Source Family.

The Source Family — whatever one thinks about cults or communes — has been extremely influential in regard to healthy eating and exploratory beliefs.

Now that Jodi has focused her attention to creating films rather than books, she has put together, with the help of Maria Demopoulis and many others, a full-length documentary based upon the Process Media publication.  I must say that this film is an amazing thing, chock full of film from the period, and I’m proud to be acknowledged as its Co-Producer.

There are a lot of not-to-be missed events happening across the states during the month of May. THIS website has information about all the screenings and events, and they begin at the end of April and throughout the coming month.

SEE THE MOVIE TRAILER HERE

Green Apple, Other Cinema, yes, San Francsco—here we come.

Tonight—that is Friday March 29th at 7 pm—I’ll be speaking about the Process Media book co-written with Maja D’Aoust, The Secret Source, and also about Ritual America: Secret Brotherhoods and Their Inflence In American Society, A Visual Guide (co-written by Craig Heimbichner) in a visually-enhanced presentation.

Find further information on the Green Apple show HERE.

Saturday March 30th we’ll be appearing at Craig Baldwin’s Other Cinema on Valencia in the Mission District. Here’s a link to this program.

Other Cinema will be unspooling our 16mm prints of Shriner Parades and other examples of fraternal ritualism.

Examining the announcements for Saturday night’s Other Cinema avent we noticed that it’s difficult to find the time it’ll all start. We’ll make sure to be at Other Cinema at 7:30 pm to speak to friends and interested parties and begin the visual presentation at 8:30 pm.

Hope to see y’all there!

RSVP for the Facebook events:

OTHER CINEMA EVENT 

GREEN APPLE EVENT

Spring is here, sprouts are popping through the cold soil, and despite all human attempts to destroy the earth, life has come again.

My special friend, Elizabeth Perikli, and I just flew to the mile high city to celebrate the marriage of Boyd Rice and the lovely Karin Buchbinder. The ceremony took place at the high point of Denver’s weirdness, Casa Bonita, where the black-clad groom held Barnabas Collins’ cane signifying eternal television life, and the bride, all in white, held a floral arrangement signifying promise and togetherness.

Behind the photo seen above of Boyd, Karin and yours truly, a young lady climbed the wall and dove into the warm pool, splashing chlorinated water on the newlyweds, whose marriage ceremony was conducted by none other than Little Fyodor in fine Jewfro.

With the help of sister Juliet, we have planted the Spring crop at Feral Acres, and if the spirits are right, we will have a new crop of arugula, spinach, beets, onions, lettuce, beans, raspberries, potatoes, garlic and tomatoes.

God bless the Vernal Equinox.

Doe (Avedon) Siegel as shot by Richard Avedon 

For my family throughout the 60s and early ’70s, The Academy Awards meant party time at the Siegel’s house in Sherman Oaks for a yearly gathering. By the Siegels I mean director Don Siegel (known for Dirty Harry and other Clint Eastwood pictures), and his wife Doe, a model and actress once married to photographer Richard Avedon. But by the time she hooked up with Don, Doe had turned her back on Hollywood and instead raised children and created memorable parties, always with dozens of noisy guests.

At these parties Doe would constantly puff cigarettes, laughing in high screech and often shouting across the big living room at arriving guests.  It amazed young me how loud Doe could be. You’d always get a big bright red lipstick-smeared smack from her on your cheek along with the hug. Doe was close to my mother, Rosa, who in her New York days directed avant-garde beatnik-style theater. One show, a Restoration drama done in plainclothes called The Rehearsal, actually made it to Broadway, but just for one hugely unsuccessful night.  I was told that Rosa talked Doe through tragic times when her post-Avedon boyfriend died tragically in a car crash.

All the smoking, all the drinking, all the laughing, and above them all, the honking and shrieking of Doe Avedon Siegel.

The Siegels had the first color television that I had ever seen, a 25 inch number. So damn huge I thought. One afternoon we were at the Siegels for another party, this time the last game of a World Series, I think, and suddenly on the TV was a brief program about ping-pong, this one featuring the expert play of Don Siegel. This unexpected feature on the tv screen really impressed me, since Don was the sort of guy who seemed to fade to the background at his house parties. If I remember correctly, his ping-pong obsession could also be seen in his film Charlie Varrick where Siegel does a Hitchcock-like cameo playing ping-pong.

My father could be seen in a lot of Siegel-directed movies and television shows, including one episode of a series called Breaking Point where my father plays a junk-dealing motocyclist in a Nazi helmet who makes an addict out of John Cassavettes’ girlfriend.

On Oscar night, Siegel house guests would fill out cards and bet on the winners. The Cassavettes, John and Gena, also played along with the Siegel’s Hollywood games though they were creating antidotes to the slick crap blessed by the aging and close-minded Academy members. Disrespect, envy, hatred, all of it, poured out into the sodden hours of the Academy Awards at the Siegel house every single year. One night my drunken father (called “Biff” by close friends and Woody on the set) actually got into a fistfight with John Cassavettes after John apparently insulted the theatrical acting style personified by Laurence Olivier and the British school.

When we tired of the adults, and their drinking and smoking and howling, we’d go outside and climb the stairs to the pool near an attached guesthouse. After hours in the pool, chlorine would sting your eyes. Or we’d go up to the Siegel’s adopted kid Nowell’s room, who was constantly creating bombs and poisonous chemical stews. One time I remember pouring out mercury from a dark bottle and handling it with joy. Those were the days, my friend.

Stuff happens.

Little did I expect to be asked to write a screenplay about the John F. Kennedy assassination to debut during the upcoming 50th anniversary.

My immediate reaction: “That could be a disaster and a bore, and easily ridiculed. I mean, who wants to see JFK again?

After sleeping on it, the idea intrigued me. How could such a film be done?

What if it’s not a documentary or a docu-drama about the assassination itself, but focused on the honest-to-God Downardian weirdness of it all?

Apparently the title was already concocted: Dallas in Wonderland. Perfect.

We focused on the work of John Armstrong, who was earlier seen in the Feral House publication, The Assassinations edited by Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease.

We accessed some extraordinary material about an unproduced tabloid television segment about Jack Ruby by Sondra London.

We recalled discussions with the remarkable James Shelby Downard, who’s now a character in the film, during a lengthy drive through Tennessee and Mississippi.

Then we put on our Hitchcockian fez and concocted a thriller.

It took months, but I wrote and rewrote the script, with the help of Ryan Page. How to describe it? The new production company, 13th Sign, who loves it, calls it a “conspiracy thriller.” As far as I’m concerned, it’s more Eraserhead than Jason Bourne.

It’s a dream come true, and even better, some media jackass, insulted the film before one frame was even shot, or the script was read, and it’s being held up as a competitive feature to the Tom Hanks produced pro-Warren Commission JFK assassination picture, Parkland.

Can I take it? Adam Parfrey vs. Forrest Gump? Wild!

In a couple weeks we’ll be able to announce the lead actors.

Slime. Snail Trails. Mucus by the ton. It makes one wonder. From whence does it all come?

How can a single person produce so much of it that it fills multiple shopping bags full of snotty tissues?

An acupuncturist once told me that the mucus may not be actually stored in one’s sinuses, but created on the way out. Well, I don’t know how to interpret that notion, and what allergists would think of that idea, but I start to recall all the productive slime trails left by the multitude of slugs and snails up in these parts of the Pacific Northwest. It all starts to make me believe in perpetual motion machines and the possibility that something can in fact come from nothing.

The onslaught of a simple human cold and its small miseries is not a productive time for me. But it does have me contemplate these biological wonders.

Once I’m able to concentrate, I’m going to look through the Process Media title, When There Is No Doctor. It might let me know what to do.