My MusicPlusTV gig has garnered me a new responsibility. More of an option, really. They’re starting a magazine, and they’ve asked me to write for it. My first article is supposed to be a wrap-up of my Sunday morning/afternoon spent hanging out with and interviewing the cast/crew (minus Zombie and wife) of “The Devil’s Rejects”. Since I’m sure they’ll cut the living hell out of it, I’m writing it here first.
First thing’s first… I had to be at Hollywood Books & Posters (or is it Scripts and Posters? I forget) at 11am Sunday morning. Even on weekdays, I’m useless before Noon-ish, but on weekends – I’m useless until about 4pm. Since I wanted to be “fresh” for my public appearance and interviewing, I needed to be up by about 10:20am (yeah, I count every fuckin’ minute that early in the day) to get ready.
Thankfully, I live about 1/2 mile walking distance from the place I needed to be, so I only needed to be awake enough to drag my feet.
Arriving, I saw Crazy J and our producer Kevin chillin’ outside the shop. I met our two cameramen for the day (Tom and Joe). And, the still Photographer – Khari (pronounced “Car – ee”). The line was already about 100 people long.
J had this hair-brained (as usual) idea that he should run along the side of the line, holding out his hand so as to “low-five” everyone in the crowd as he ran past. Getting the “audience” to participate wasn’t the hair-brained part of this idea, and I’ll admit that it was a mild stroke of genius to involve them in any way whatsoever. Hair-brained came in because at the end, he wanted to “high five” me w/both hands, and then jump around.
Did I mention I was still half-awake, sucking on cigarettes like they were the Great Mother Teet of the day? (which they were)
J came running down the line, as expected. The people held out their hands, as expected. He slapped fives on each, as expected. He reached the end of the line, as expected. And, there I stood, arms up and ready for a double-handed-high-fiving, as expected. He jumped and we connected, and I fell backwards and flipped over myself after landing on my ass, rolled over a second time and pushed myself back up .. attempting to make this look at least semi-intentional, or at least professional. Ya know, as expected.
We went at it a 2nd and 3rd time (3rd time just for a “close-up”). I really hope that was worth a sore bum at 11 o’ clock in the fucking morning.
J busted into his intro shortly thereafter, and blew my fucking eardrums with his yelling. That guy really is crazy, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If you can scream and yell “CRAZY J’S METAL MAAAAAYHEEEEEEEEEM” at 11 o’ clock on a July morning in Southern California.. well, you’re fucking insane. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Had my energy needed to carry that crowd.. they’d have fallen asleep.
A bit later, we split up into 2 groups. Tom, Khari and myself were one crew – while J, Kevin, and the other camera guy formed another crew. Their crew got to go inside, where the air conditioned space and the snacks (and the snack girl… rrrrrawrrr – more on her later) kept them cool, calm, collected, comfortable and probably another “c” word, as well.
Our crew, Crew Badass – as I named us just now when I wrote this sentence – toughed it out in the increasingly sweltering heat, out there amongst the fans. The people who make it all happen. Er.. watch it all happen. Whatever. They were people, that’s the point.
We tried to pick interesting characters, people who looked like they had something to say, and/or just whoever stumbled into our path. I’ll admit it was a slow start for me, I had trouble coming up w/decent questions, but after a few people were out of the way I was starting to feel the spunk. Not the man-spunk, mind you, that’s a different story altogether and I ramble enough as it is.
My hope for the day, as I’m somehow unfairly cast as the resident hornball, was to find at least one or two attractive women to impress with my manly interviewing skills. While this most certainly didn’t happen, it was a fun goal to shoot for, and it may have provided for some amusing antics on-camera at times.
The secondary goal was just to kick ass, find crazy people, get some funny shit on camera, and have fun. The secondary goal quickly became primary, and I say it was a goal achieved in spades.
I don’t know yet what they’ll show and what they’ll cut from the hours of footage we gathered that afternoon, so I can’t be sure what you’ll see – but I’ll highlight some of my fave outside interviews..
“The Burlesque Dancer” – J found this crazy old codger (that means “old man”) who seemed to not really know where the fuck he was, but he loved being there. He said something about dancing, and that’s all I could catch from behind J, so I said “give me an interpretive dance, to describe how you’re feeling right now“. He did. I love it when people perform on-cue. Makes my day.
“The Ambiguously-Drugged Insane Fan” – Some nutcase was hanging out near the back of the line with chicken bones in his hat and he called himself “Rabbit”. Figuring he was taking his moniker from Ho1KC, I said “run rabbit run” and he started… quoting the movie. He was quite proud of his chicken bones. I suspect this kid was about 5 bong rips and a crack pipe into the day, he attempted to convince me otherwise. This kid is my anti-drug. No, that’s not true, I still love drugs.. I just won’t do them w/people who look like this guy.
“The Lifelong Fan” – This very elderly woman, who looked very happy to be out in the sun waiting in line to meet cult-movie-stars, was of much intrigue to me. I’m not saying that facetiously, or with judgment – this was a cool lady. Makes me wish my grandma was all into horror like she was. She had some good shit to say, made me feel good about the horror genre – like it had a greater purpose. My moment of hippie love was ended abruptly, as I still wanna smack J for coming out of nowhere and yelling “I’ll bet you like the Partridge Family, huh?” thereby killing our chances at furthering an interview with her.
“The Family That Watches the Slayings Together..” – A tattoo artist (who “specializes in evil shit”, my kinda tat artist), his wife, and their 2 kids, waited in line to meet the cast and crew. I might be a one-night-man for most of my life, but I still shed a happy tear on the inside for a family that kicks this much ass. Gives me hope, I guess.
We finally headed inside around 1:30. I didn’t know what to expect, but the scene inside wasn’t as hectic as I thought it would be. Pretty tame, nothing out of the ordinary. Again, not what I expected at a cult horror movie cast-and-crew signing. I don’t wanna say I had hoped for at least one “could you sign this severed body part and don’t ask questions” fan, but… well, it would’ve been nice to see one.
The first interview was with the shop owner, Eric Caidin. I still can’t thank him enough for giving us EXCLUSIVE coverage of this event. It might not seem like much, but I think it rules to come in at the last minute as a DIY crew (we got permission the old fashioned way, by just asking – no lawyers, no agents, no contacting of movie studios) and be the only media reps in sight. I don’t remember much of the interview cause I was just taking in all of the shit in the store and my eyes kept wandering. If you see that clip, you’ll notice I looked at the guy for all of about 10 seconds.
After an impromptu interview w/the film’s composer (I hadn’t expected to be allowed to interview cast/crew while they sat there, so I was hesitant to respond to his calling us over to talk w/him) – we made our way to the back area where most of the remaining crew were still sat.
I was leaning on the counter, and I saw in the corner of my eye a gigantic man sitting in a chair. Even sitting down, motherfucker was bigger than me. I looked down at the counter and saw that it was Matthew McGrory. For those that don’t know – he played “The Giant” in Burton’s “Big Fish”. Uhh… yeah, he’s a scary motherfucker. 7′6″ of scary motherfucker. And, that voice? Not a digital effect. Dude actually sounds like a vinyl record recording of the devil being spun at 12rpm. I told him that. I thought it was funny at the time, along with “tell me – does Ewan McGregor suck as an actor?” – but when you’re staring at 7′6″ dude and he looks back without so much as a half-smile, whilst his voice makes your bones shake.. you suddenly forget about being funny and start to wonder if you brought any T.P. with you, cause you’re gonna need it. I asked a bit more serious question – about what he enjoyed about filming TDR, shook his hand, thanked him for the interview and moved on before he ate me alive.
Looking over to my right, I just saw cleavage. Then blonde hair. Khari pointed out that we’d been spotted by the cleavage and blonde hair, and suggested we at least engage the woman in conversation. It was none other than E.G. Daily. Her first line was “ya know, if I were lying down with you, I worry that the spike in your forehead would poke me”. I said “actually, it moves to the side if you push it but more importantly, you were over here thinking about lying in bed with me, probably post-sex”. She admitted. On camera. I rule for that. We stood and talked w/her for a bit, she did an impression of Tommy (Rugrats) discussing my vertical bridge (the “forehead piercing”) and we moved on. Not before I looked at her cleavage again, of course.
The highlight, for me, was getting the chance to sit and chill out with Sid Haig. I knew J was in there earlier, and didn’t wanna bug ol’ Sid with the same-old-same-old, but he was fuckin’ cool. He said “look, man, ask me the same shit and I’ll give you different answers – it’s alright!”. That’s a fuckin’ trouper, right there. I admitted to him that I wasn’t entirely familiar with his body of work (I’d rather admit faults than come off phony), but that I had a LOT of respect for him – as a person, who without security of any kind decided to walk out amongst the fans and shake hands whilst everyone waited in line, a very cool move, I say – and of course, his work. I asked him about crazy fans, which he was all too happy to tell us about. This clip will almost certainly make it (or will have already made it by the time you read this) onto the show. It’s a great little story, from a great fuckin’ guy.
And last but not least… Snack Girl. Ohhhh she wasn’t in the movie, no. But she was in a different kinda movie.. in my head. Ya know, the kind w/the soundtrack that uses wah-wah pedals. And the actors don’t “act” so much as… nevermind, you get the idea. Umm… she was all kinds of hot. Traipsin’ around, shakin’ her hips, and offering snacks to everyone. Great interview. I don’t know what she said, but.. great interview. Too bad her boyfriend ran the door. I totally could’ve almost had a chance at being rejected by her. But, alas, boyfriends (at least, when they’re standing 10 feet away) are a “no-fly-zone” for the Mitcz.
That about wraps it up, really. I’d write a novel about it if I could (cause I talk and write like a crackhead with a nifty story) – but this has probably been exhaustive enough.
All in all, I had a fuckin’ blast. The fans were great, the shop owners (and workers) were very hospitable, and cool, and the cast/crew were all very very cool to us – despite our hanging around for a combined 4 hours. I really hope we can cover events like these more often, I fuckin’ love it. Yeah, it’s even worth dragging my zombie-like ass out of bed at 10:30 in the goddamn morning to stand out in the goddamn heat for. I mean that sincerely.
Oh and snack girl… if duder ever cheats on you or anything and you need someone to.. ya know, feel your pain and “just talk to”.. you know where to find me. RevMitcz.com baby!
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