According to Todd Brown at Twitchfilm, an uncompleted outline for Son of Strangelove, a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s immortal 1964 Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, was found among the effects of the legendary screenwriter Terry Southern (Easy Rider, Barbarella) after his death in 1995. The story was set in the underground bunkers discussed in the infamous war room scene of the original film. As tantalizing as it is to wonder how such a film would have turned out had it indeed come to pass, it turns out that Kubrick had Monty Python refugee and great visionary of the dismal Terry Gilliam in mind to direct. Straight from Gilliam himself:

I was told after Kubrick died - by someone who had been dealing with him - that he had been interested in trying to do another Strangelove with me directing. I never knew about that until after he died but I would have loved to.

 

This is my face, just thinking about ‘Son of Strangelove.’

Just imagine the psycho-in-toyland wonders of an underground bunker for post-apocalypse elites as conceived by the deliriously inventive mind behind The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus! It’s sad that we’ll likely never know, but Gilliam fans still have something to look forward to. This winter will see the release of his new film The Zero Theorem, which, per the director in a recent Guardian interview, constitutes the third piece of a dystopian trilogy begun with his 1985 masterpiece Brazil and 1995’s mind bending time-travel drama 12 Monkeys.

The Zero Theorem has already screened to acclaim at the Venice Film Festival. Euronews featured a preview of the film prominently in this clip:
 

 
Bonus: Enjoy this lengthy interview with Gilliam from CBC Radio’s Q.
 

 
Star Wars may have represented a kick-start for Alec Guinness’ career as well as a wholly unexpected windfall when his share of the gross turned out to be far more lucrative than he had any right to expect. But on the whole, Guinness seemed annoyed by the whole idea of George Lucas’ space opera.

Also, he was kind of terrible at remembering people’s names.

In Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography,  Piers Paul Read gives readers a glimpse at some correspondence and diaries written by Guinness while Star Wars—later christened Star Wars: A New Hope—was being filmed.

In a letter dated December 22, 1975, Guinness wrote a friend, noting the likelihood of his next movie being “fairy-tale rubbish”:

I have been offered a movie (20th Cent. Fox) which I may accept, if they come up with proper money. London and N. Africa, starting in mid-March. Science fiction—which gives me pause—but it is to be directed by Paul [sic] Lucas who did American Graffiti, which makes me feel I should. Big part. Fairy-tale rubbish but could be interesting perhaps.

 
A few months later, on March 18, 1976, he’s working on Star Wars but not having a very good time. He also has inordinate difficulty remembering Harrison Ford’s name.

Can’t say I’m enjoying the film. … new rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wadges of pink paper—and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable. I just think, thankfully, of the lovely bread, which will help me keep going until next April even if Yahoo collapses in a week. … I must off to studio and work with a dwarf (very sweet—and he has to wash in a bidet) and your fellow countrymen Mark Hamill and Tennyson (that can’t be right) Ford. Ellison (?—No!)—well, a rangy, languid young man who is probably intelligent and amusing. But Oh, God, God, they make me feel ninety—and treat me as if I was 106.—Oh, Harrison Ford—ever heard of him?

 
Yahoo was a West End production in which Guinness played Jonathan Swift—as it happens, my parents saw that play; my mother always said it was one of the most powerful pieces of acting she had ever seen.

Then there’s this diary entry from April 16, 1976:

Apart from the money, which should get me comfortably through the year, I regret having embarked on the film. I like them all well enough, but it’s not an acting job, the dialogue, which is lamentable, keeps being changed and only slightly improved, and I find myself old and out of touch with the young.

 
In his memoir A Positively Final Appearance, Guinness tells the following story:

A refurbished Star Wars is on somewhere or everywhere. I have no intention of revisiting any galaxy. I shrivel inside each time it is mentioned. Twenty years ago, when the film was first shown, it had a freshness, also a sense of moral good and fun. Then I began to be uneasy at the influence it might be having. The bad penny first dropped in San Francisco when a sweet-faced boy of twelve told me proudly that he had seen Star Wars over a hundred times. His elegant mother nodded with approval. Looking into the boy’s eyes I thought I detected little star-shells of madness beginning to form and I guessed that one day they would explode.

“I would love you to do something for me,” I said.

“Anything! Anything!” the boy said rapturously.

“You won’t like what I’m going to ask you to do,” I said.

“Anything, sir, anything!”

“Well,” I said, “do you think you could promise never to see Star Wars again?”

He burst into tears. His mother drew himself up to an immense height. “What a dreadful thing to say to a child!” she barked, and dragged the poor kid away. Maybe she was right but I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities.

 
Clearly, Guinness was kind of being a dick here, but I’m pretty much on board with him doing this. I read somewhere that the young boy in question was grateful for Guinness’ “intervention,” but I wasn’t able to verify that.

Allegedly, Guinness was also eager to have the Obi-Wan character killed off to limit his involvement in future Star Wars movies.

Interestingly, Lucas has said nothing but complimentary things about Guinness’ involvement in the project, and, according to the Piers Paul Read biography, Lucas even pushed for the actor to receive 2.25% of the back end rather than the agreed-upon two points. I’m far from Lucas’ biggest fan, but that was a pretty cool thing to do.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Star Wars dating tips: Luke Skywalker, sex machine
Robotic French Space Disco inspired by Star Wars (1977)

Photo: theresa
 
This just in from ACL Fest:

“Austin – October 13, 2013: Due to current weather conditions with flash flood warnings, the Austin City Limits Music Festival organizers have canceled the festival today.”

Up to 12 inches of rain began to pound Austin last night mid-way through The Cure’s set at Austin City Limits music fest. If Robert Smith had anything to do with this, Texans owe him a debt of gratitude. We need the rain.

As I drove past the festival site there was a massive exodus of music fans who were battling their way through some of the heaviest downpour I’ve ever experienced. Sheets of rain fell like waterfalls. Traffic is at a standstill. Cops are doing their best to keep things moving. Somehow there were no casualties that I’m aware of.

Atoms For Peace, Tame Impala and The National, among many others, were scheduled to play today.

Thom Yorke tweet:

Austin Texas tonight. A storm to end all storms! Lightning and thunder & rain like I have never seen..

 

 

 

Photo: Sarah Rodenberg
 

 

Photo: vergonsix
 

 
Mykelle Nicole posted on Dangerous Minds Facebook page:

Right when Robert sung the lines “I want the sky to fall in, I want lighting and thunder” for ‘Want’ is when the sky opened up and it started to pour. (seriously not kidding)

 
During the American Folk Blues Festival in Newport, Howlin’ Wolf reflects on the meaning of the blues, while Delta blues peer Son House heckles him, sloshed out of his ever-lovin’ gourd. It could have been way more uncomfortable than it actually was, but Howlin’ Wolf elegantly hands House his drunken ass. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Son House, but Wolf is one of those seemingly rare aggressive, “dangerous” performers who also happened to be a really, really good person.

In additions to being a devoted husband and father (and raising his wife’s two daughters from a previous relationship), Howlin’ Wolf (real name Chester Burnett) actually attempted to support his mother as soon as he became successful. Tragically, she drove him to tears, rejecting both her son and his money for their association with “The Devil’s Music.” In a time when black musicians were almost never properly compensated, Howlin’ Wolf was a musician’s union member and managed his money incredibly well. Not only did he possess innate business savvy, he passed that knowledge on to his band members, who received health insurance as a condition of their employment. They were also required to pay union dues, but if they couldn’t afford it, Wolf would front them the money, or send extra dosh to their family back home.

It might go without saying that Howlin’ Wolf attributed much of his success to the avoidance of vice and excess, and with Son House as a cautionary tale, it’s not hard to imagine why.
 

 
The verdict on Norman Mailer is swayed too easily by a revulsion to his private behavior, rather than by any examination in the quality of his writing. The problem stems from Mailer himself, whose need to impose his personality and his opinions, on anyone who would listen, placed his private life on center stage. This he did without thought to the damage it would cause his literary reputation.

While his opinions were sometimes daft and offensive, it did not mean Mailer couldn’t be original and vital.

Much of his essays and journalism, which he fired off like some revolutionary pamphleteer, are crucial to an understanding of recent American history. His non-fiction books were ground-breaking, in particular his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Armies of the Night and The Executioner’s Song, which are two classics of New Journalism.

This is all well and good, but Mailer considered himself a novelist first, with ambitions to write “The Great American Novel.” This never happened. Indeed, his fiction never achieved the critical and popular success of his first novel, The Naked and The Dead, which says much.

There’s a truth in John Updike’s observation that Mailer had once the potential to be the greatest American writer of the twentieth century—if only he hadn’t squandered his talent on a desire to being a respected public figure. Writers write, they don’t run for office, or make unwatchable movies, or compensate for their own insecurity by turning everything into a fistfight.

With all this in mind, it is perhaps time for Mailer’s reputation to be reassessed. This week sees a new volume of his essays, Mind of an Outlaw (with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem)  and a new biography, Norman Mailer: A Double LIfe by Peter Lennon. Both will be published on October 15th. A book dealing with the infamous Norman Mailer/Gore Vidal spat, will be published in December. Sales of these books should give a good idea of Mailer’s current standing and relevance.

In 1966, Norman Mailer was interviewed in a documentary for Swedish television. It contains what was good and bad about Mailer—an overweening need to push his ordinary ideas (today’s word Norman is “totalitarianism”), with those occasional sparks of brilliance. It can be summed up by the know-it-all-booze-in-one-hand-Mailer versus Norman-being-a-father-and-husband, who is willing to admit he sometimes doesn’t know the answer.

(As a footnote: Nice juxtaposition to all of the above with the freeze frame below…)
 

 
1968 was a very good year for Bill Cosby. He won his third consecutive Emmy for Best Actor in a TV Drama for his work in I Spy—a feat equaled only by Bryan Cranston for Breaking Bad—and he was in the middle of his run of six consecutive Grammies for Best Comedy Recording, a feat you’d have to imagine will never be equaled. He also found time to release his second music album, Bill Cosby Sings Hooray for the Salvation Army Band!

The album is a shambolic and funkadelic and frankly amateurish treat. Backed by the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, the Cos takes on the Beatles (“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”) and the Stones (“Satisfaction”). Interestingly, the title track, “Hooray for the Salvation Army Band!,” is actually a strange parody of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”—even though Hendrix is not credited as a composer on the track.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Puddin’ Pops: Bill Cosby covers ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’
Bill Cosby hoodie

 
Happy Crowleymass, everyone! Aleister Crowley, thee Great Beast 666 was hatched from a dragon’s egg on this very day in 1875.

Below, I discuss Uncle AL on the History Channel TV series, How Sex Changed The World

I had fun doing this show and I got to explain a general concept of sex magic to middle America! Good times!

The Crowley segment starts at about the 5:50 mark.
 

 
On March 15, 1969, The Velvet Underground played its last show of a three-day residency at the legendary rock club The Boston Tea Party in Boston, Massachusetts. That night’s set was recorded by a fan (no, not Robert Quine) directly from Lou Reed’s guitar amplifier. The recording became known as “The Legendary Guitar Amp Tapes.” Reed’s guitar is, of course, way up front and the rest of the band is barely audible. The result is a mighty electronic roar that reveals the depth and layers of Reed’s playing. Over and undertones, feedback, string buzz, the scratch of fingers on frets and the crackle and hum of tube amps combine to create a monolithic blast of metal machine music.

I’ve combined some of the “Guitar Amp Tapes” (“Heroin/Sister Ray”) with The Velvet’s performing “What Goes On” at End of Cole Avenue in Dallas, Texas in 1969 with an edited version of Coffin Joe’s (Jose Mojica Marin) Awakening Of The Beast . I think it makes for an edgy listening and viewing experience and one that should not be watched at work or in the presence of the easily offended.

 
You’ve been piping Mozart into the crib since precious lovely was just days out of the womb. You hired the nanny from Kuala Lumpur in order to ensure pre-kindergarten competency in Malaysian. You’ve been harrassing the director of Léman Manhattan Prep for weeks in order to increase the odds of acceptance. So far, the algebra lessons appear to be yielding positive results.

But wait! You need to broaden precious lovely’s horizons with exposure to some authentic contemporary street music traditions, don’t you?

It’s time to sign the kid up for “Baby DJ School”!

Intent on “empowering the super young to mix music that is super dope,” Cool Pony in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood is offering eight-week courses “for ages 0-3” in the dark arts of music mixology. Teaching the class is Natalie Elizabeth Weiss, a DJ who has worked with the Psychedelic Furs, Fischerspooner, Santigold, Xiu Xiu, and Au Revoir Simone, among others. A full session of 8 weeks costs $200.
 

Through singing, movement, puppetry and interactive technology, little ones will be introduced to playing and handling records, mixing and matching beats and creating fun and funky samples using modern DJ equipment. … Why should children hear the same nursery songs underscored by the same instruments time and time again? Switch out a guitar for a sampler, a piano for a mixing board and a song about black sheep for a song about back beats, and you have an exciting new musical landscape that both young and old will enjoy. Best of all, electronic beats can be mixed by pushing buttons and moving sliders that are easy for little hands to manipulate.

 
Classes began on September 18, but with Cool Pony’s “rolling admission” policy, you can start any time! (Actually, registration appears to be closed—but give them a call, you never know!)

Remember: the next Skrillex isn’t going to just happen all by itself. He’s going to be engineered—so get on that!

If your kid progresses far enough, you can always use him or her to make a little money busking, as seen in this video. (Note: it’s clearly a trick, there is no kid scratching records in this video.)

 
Thanks to Fernando Velasquez Pomar!

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
DJ Kypski imitates Amy Winehouse’s voice with a turntable
World’s Oldiest Happiest DJ. Enjoy your damn life already.

 
Today is National Coming Out Day.

Without a doubt, the very best coming out story I’ve ever heard saw the father of the “comer-outer”(?) react with probably the most hilariously droll and lovingly delivered deadpan line one could possibly whip out in that situation (and a joke held in reserve, no doubt, for some time in the teller’s back pocket):

“Well, they say that 10% of the population is gay and 15% are left-handed. At least my son won’t have trouble with scissors.”

I laughed until I cried when I heard that story over 20 years ago. I still do. If I end up having a gay kid, I will steal that line, Dr. Ferguson, you had better believe I will.

But, the best, most human and by far the sweetest thing I’ve seen all week (other than the Dachshund raising the baby ducks) is the “It Gets Better” video that was made by the mother of Bravo’s Andy Cohen. In it, Evelyn Cohen talks about what it was like for her when her son told her that he was gay, how she reacted and what she did afterwards. It’s really pretty amazing stuff, I promise you.

“I told this friend…‘What am I gonna do? Andy is gay,’ and she said, ‘What do you mean what are you going to do? He was gay yesterday and he’s the same person today. You just know a little more about him.’”

 
Via Jezebel