‘In 1972, on the set of his rattlesnake-revenge film “Stanley,” director William Grefe desperately wanted one of his actors to swim in a pool of live rattlesnakes. The actor protested immediately, until Grefe offered this palliative:
‘”I told him he would wrestle rubber snakes instead. He was supposed to be panicked, though, so I threw live rattlesnakes in, anyway. He jumped in and shrieked,” says Grefe with a smirk on a recent Monday morning at his home in Southwest Ranches, pausing long enough to imitate the sound of a mouse squeaking. He continues: ” ‘Grefe, you son of a – !’ he says. I guess that’s where I got the name ‘Wild Bill’ on set. I do some mean stuff to actors for the sake of a good performance.”
‘To say Grefe earned his “wild” stripes because of a few antics behind camera is perhaps an understatement coming from the 82-year-old director of grindhouse exploitation films. Over 50 years of making Florida-set movies, Grefe has put into his low-budget, B movies stories written strictly for shock and awe, and certainly not for the benefit of big-budget studios.
‘”I’m not a Hollywood shill,” says Grefe, whose film “Stanley” will be screened Wednesday at Miami’s Sweat Records. “An independent movie is all about the number of days you have to shoot. I shot in 35 mm, which was expensive, so you’ve got to get it right in three takes or less. You hope you got it right, anyway. I didn’t want them to be comparable to Fellini or Bergman because I’m a mercenary. I didn’t make these moves for critical acclaim, I did it because it was right time at the box office.”
‘Grefe, who coaches young students about the benefits of indie filmmaking, says he cut his acting teeth at Florida State University and, later, summer stock before turning screenwriter. He wrote his first movie, 1963’s “The Checkered Flag,” about a car driver who competes against an older racer, but had to replace the film’s sick director at the last minute with little experience behind a camera.
‘Grefe says he learned filmmaking “by doing it myself, getting equipment prepared, driving it around and saving money.” “Stanley,” filmed around North Miami (and not in the Everglades), is one of his favorites because of how it was financed.
‘”I told the studio I didn’t have a script, but that it came to me in a dream. They gave me $125,000 for it, because they loved my sales pitch,” Grefe says. “If the studio ever found out about all the stuff I did with rattlesnakes, they’d put me underneath a jail.”‘ — Phillip Valys
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Stills
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Further
Bill Grefe Site
Bill Grefe @ IMDb
BG @ Letterboxd
HE CAME FROM THE SWAMP | THE WILLIAM GREFÉ COLLECTION
BG interviewed @ Starburst
BG @ MUBI
Interview: William Grefe @ BRWC
Get Swamped With “Wild Bill” Grefé!
BG interviewed @ Horror Cult Films
William Grefe – His Crazy Life as an Independent Filmmaker
GALLERIES: HE CAME FROM THE SWAMP (ARROW VIDEO BLU-RAY) SCREENSHOTS
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Extras
Bill Grefe, interviewed by William Shatner
Bill Grefe, Legends of Film
The William Grefé Collection “Official Trailer”
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Interview
from Boston Hassle
BOSTON HASSLE: How did you get started in filmmaking?
WILLIAM GREFÉ: Well, I wanted to be an actor. I did summer stock up in Woodstock, New York. A guy that was in summer stock with me was Lee Marvin. He was nobody at that time– he went on to be pretty famous. When the Korean War came along, I think I’d seen too many John Wayne movies, so I joined the military. When I got out and got married, I said, boy, this acting is not secure! [laughs] I went on [to join] the Miami fire department, and I had a lot of time when there’s no fire, so I’d write scripts. I wrote three or four screenplays, and I have the rejection slips to prove it! [laughs]
Finally, I wrote one called The Checkered Flag, which was about automobile racing up at Sebring. The fella that bought it had never made a movie before– he’d done some commercials– so we all went to Sebring, and I took a 30-day vacation from the fire department because he wanted me to be there for rewrites. The first day we were up at the races, he had a nervous breakdown and collapsed! The investors all panicked. There were no crews down here at all, hardly, and they brought this old cameraman out of retirement. We were at the hotel room at one in the morning, and they said, “What are we gonna do? We gotta get a director here.” And the old cameraman said, “Look, first you’d have to go to New York or California and hire a director. By the time he gets here, he’d have to read the script.” And then he said, “What the hell– the writer knows all about it. Make HIM the director!” So they drafted me at one in the morning in a motel room in Sebring.
The next day I started directing the movie. You know, directing a movie is half working with the actors to get the script on screen, and the other half is technical. And I knew nothing technically, so I relied on this old cameraman to help me. So that’s how I started directing. Fortunately, the movie made money. If your movie doesn’t make money you’ll never do another one. It made money, and that got me into directing.
Then, the second one [Racing Fever, 1964] came about. This is something writers and directors should keep in mind. I was at a big boat race with big hydroplanes, and there was an Italian driver named Ezio Selva who had an Alfa Romeo engine in his hydroplane. He was 57 years old, and he made an announcement: “This is going to be my last race. I’m turning the boat over to my son, who’s going to take the boat over and race it.” So he went out and he got going so fast the hydroplane flipped and fell right on top of him and killed him. And his son jumped off the pier and tried to swim out to him. I looked around, and there was a guy with a 16mm camera on top of a truck. I ran up to him and I said, “Did you get that shot?” And he said, “Yeah, I think I did.” So I got his name, and a couple of days later I came by, and he got the shot perfect, with that boat turning over and the guy falling out. So I bought that shot from him, and that’s the way I made Racing Fever, just based on that one shot and the experience of watching that race.
That led to Sting of Death. The guy who produced that had never produced a movie– he was a building contractor, and he wanted to be a movie producer! But he knew nothing about movies. Crazy stuff happened on that movie. At that time, all horror movies were released as a double [feature] at the drive-ins, and the distributor of Sting of Death couldn’t find another horror movie. So he said the magic word: he said if I could get another horror movie, [he’d] finance it. So I said, “Oh, yeah, no problem!” But the big problem I had was that you had to get movies [ready for release] for April 15, because that’s when all the drive-ins up north opened up, and they wanted double features. And this was, like, December, and back then editing and final mix and all that were a nightmare compared to today, where you just tap a computer and it’s right there. We had to work on Moviolas and use the actual workprint. So when he said the magic word, I sat down and made a timetable, because I had to get that thing in the theaters by April 15. So I said, “What can I write about?” So I took the age-old [story] of the Egyptian pharaoh: “If anybody disturbs my burial I’ll come back to haunt ’em!” And I made that into an ancient Indian witch doctor in the everglades, and that’s the way Death Curse of Tartu came about. I literally wrote that script in 24 hours, and filmed it in seven days. Have you ever seen Tartu?
BH: I have, actually.
WG: Well, at the end, Tartu drowns and goes under. But Tartu will not die! He keeps coming back! He was on Turner Classic Movies a couple months ago. [laughs] He just keeps living! I can’t get rid of Tartu.
BH: The “Do the Jellyfish” scene in Sting of Death is one of my favorite scenes in any horror movie. I’ve shown that to so many people. I’m curious, how did you get Neil Sedaka involved with that?
WG: Well, he was doing a nightclub act, and we went. Actually, I didn’t go because I was filming. The associate producer went and offered him some big bucks to write the song. So I really had nothing to do with securing him, but they just gave him some big money to write that song! That’s the way that came about.
BH: Where did your career lead you in the ‘70s?
WG: Well, you always try to see when a trend starts. I can’t remember the name of the movie, but it was one of the first animal movies ever made that started the trend [probably the 1971 killer rat film Willard –ed.], so I jumped on making Stanley. If you’re the second guy out on a trend, you’ll make money. If you’re the fifth or sixth guy out, you won’t. I was the second guy out with Stanley.
The way I got Stanley is sort of a funny story. Red Jacobs– I don’t know if you ever heard of Crown International? Crown was a distributor, and Red Jacobs was the head. He was a crusty old guy, with a cigar a foot long. He had released one of my movies. I was out in Los Angeles– I don’t know what I ate for dinner, but I dreamt Stanley. And I said, “Boy, this isn’t bad! Let me go see if I can talk Red into financing this thing.” So I called him up, and he says, “Okay, okay. Bring me the script, and I’ll read it over.” I said, “Uh, Red, let me just say it.” He said, “Come on, give me the script, I’ll read it over the weekend.” And I said, “I don’t have a script!” And he said, “Well, what the hell are you bothering me for? At least give me the outline.” And I said, “I don’t have an outline.” “You son of a bitch! Get the hell out of my office. What are you bothering me for?” And I’ll never forget, he had this whole box of Cuban cigars, and I reached in and grabbed one of his cigars. “Put that back! Those damn things cost me a buck a piece!” Which was a lot of money back then.
So anyway, he copped out, and his head of distribution and his publicity guy were in there, and I told them the whole story, which was in my head. And he said, “How much can you make this movie for?” I said I could make it for $125,000. He said, “I’ll tell you what. If you can deliver it to me by April 15, we got a deal.” As I told you, April 15 was a magic date because of the drive-ins. And I wasn’t about to turn the deal down, so I said, “No problem, Red! No problem!” So he shook hands with me, and back then his handshake was as good as 10 contracts.
So anyway, I said [to myself], “What the hell did I…? How am I gonna…? I gotta start shooting immediately!” Because it was December, and as I told you it was a nightmare to edit and do the final mix and all that. So I thought, “Gary Crutcher! That’s my answer!” Gary Crutcher was a writer I knew, and he was a pill-popper. All he did was live on pills. So I says, “Gary! That’s who I gotta get to write the screenplay.” So I called him up, because I knew he would pop pills and stay up for three days and write the thing. So I called him up and said, “Meet me at the LA airport. I gotta take the red eye back to Miami.” So he met me and I sat down with a yellow pad. I wrote the scenes, and when does this happen, and these are the characters, because I had it all in my head. So I wrote the story how I wanted it. He did the screenplay, and stayed up for like three days. And back then there were no faxes or anything, so I said, “I’ve got to have this in Miami by Monday or Tuesday!” So he stayed up and he wrote the thing in two or three days and put it on a flight, which I picked up at Miami Airport.
Incidentally, Stanley opened in Los Angeles against The Godfather— the biggest, most expensive movie of the year. And in LA, The Godfather grossed $181,000 the first weekend. Stanley grossed $179,000. Only $2000 less! And Stanley cost $125,000– god knows how much The Godfather cost!
BH: I was familiar with your stuff from the ’60s, but I was surprised in a lot of ways by Impulse when I saw it for the first time. Is it safe to say that you were working with something of a higher budget than you had been before?
WG: Well, Socrates Ballis, who had worked with me as an associate, wanted to produce his own movie. He went over to Tampa and he was able to raise some money, and when he raised the money he hired me to direct the thing. The interesting thing is the way we got Shatner. Socrates and I were going to California to try to get some name actor, and we were walking through the Miami Airport, and I looked and said, “Hey, look! It’s William Shatner! There’s Shatner!” And we stopped him and gave him our pitch, and he sat down and glanced through the script, and we made a deal right in the Miami Airport. We never went to California! That’s the way we got Shatner.
BH: What was it like working with Shatner to create this character? This seems like sort of a departure from some of his other roles.
WG: I got along really good with Shatner. I’ve heard more people say he gives directors a lot of hassle. In fact, there’s something on YouTube where some director tried to tell him how to read a line and he drives the guy crazy. [But] Shatner and I always stayed real close. I just had a big birthday party, and Shatner sent me a nice thing on Facebook– he filmed it and said happy birthday. And I got a really nice note from Quentin Tarantino. I’ve got a big poster that Quentin Tarantino sent me. He said, “To the man who put Stanley on Whiskey Mountain! Your fan, Quentin Tarantino.”
BH: That’s amazing!
WG: He knows all my films. He’s really a historian of film.
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13 of Bill Grefe’s 20 films
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The Checkered Flag (1963)
‘The alcoholic wife of a rich car racing champion persuades a young driver to kill her husband. To all the actors out there, The Checkered Flag also features a great demonstration of how NOT to play drunk.’ — Letterboxd
the entire film
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Sting Of Death (1966)
‘Released in 1966, well into the countercultural shift which would be reflected in Grefé’s later exploitation films, The Sting of Death feels out of time as a pure 1950s schlock B-movie, replete with preppy teens, a dubious monster, and a bloke who is treated as the biggest freak known to man because of a… minor eye deformity? You’d think that audiences in 1966 would be tired of this by now. Another monster movie? What is it this time? Jellyfish?… Well at least it’s in colour.’ — Planktologist
Trailer
Excerpt
Do The Jellyfish by Neil Sedaka
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Death Curse of Tartu (1966)
‘So, Death Curse of Tartu. Grefé needed to make a movie quick and he had the funding so he took the old story of the mummy’s curse and transplanted it to the Florida Everglades, changing Tutankhamun to a more Native American-sounding Tartu. Grefé wrote the script in 24 hours and then shot the whole thing in a week on a budget of $27,000. So the only response to complaints about how awful it looks is “What did you expect?” Or as Grefé himself puts it on the commentary track: “You know when you read some critics they’ll compare a movie like this with a fifty-million-dollar horror movie and you know my saying is let the guy who directed the fifty-million-dollar film and had six months, let him try to shoot a picture in seven days and see how good he does on $27,000.”’ — Alex on Film
Trailer
the entire film
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The Wild Rebels (1967)
‘Man for a movie called Wild Rebels they sure sit around and get high for a long time before doing anything Wild. I like how our hero immediately thinks the three bikers covered in Nazi regalia are trust worthy and a good place to get some extra cash. Of course any biker Nazi enthusiast is always made up of a charismatic leader, an unhinged violence craving guy, a man with brain damage and a woman who just wants to tag along for, and I quote “kicks”. Ultimately boring but the soundtrack is good at least. The final scene with the spiral staircase did have a decent shot with a dummy.’ — EdgeyBerzerker
Trailer
They Kill for Kicks: Making Wild Rebels
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The Hooked Generation (1968)
‘The whole world’s a freakout on one outrageous trip in this Psychoactive Time Capsule of homicide, hypodermics, and hippies-gone-bad! Three scary specimens of THE HOOKED GENERATION-Daisy, Acid, and Dum Dum-want to be big-time drug dealers, but have the collective IQ of a pack of rolling papers. Still, they decide to score a boatload of narcotics by killing Cuban smugglers, massacring members of the Coast Guard, and making hostages of two do-gooders who stumble on the scene. But when the gang learns that the drugs are too hot to unload, they scurry to the Everglades as the FBI closes in! Sick fun proving once and for all that swamps and syringes just don’t mix. THEN: Father John accidentally drinks a soda spiked with LSD and trips his brains out to become THE PSYCHEDELIC PRIEST. Setting off across America on a journey of self-discovery, he falls in love amidst hippies and heroin until hitting rock bottom on skid row. Originally titled Electric Shades of Grey, this unique dose of acid-fueled nostalgia is almost worth missing Sunday chuch for. Say amen, somebody!’ — Image Entertainment
Trailer
the entire film
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The Naked Zoo (1970)
‘Love and crime in Miami’s Cocoanut Grove artist’s colony. Swinging young writer Stephen Oliver has a falling-out with benefactress Rita Hayworth in the wake of a wild LSD party. Rita foolishly tries blackmail after Oliver’s reconciliation attempt leaves her crippled millionaire husband dead.’ — Letterboxd
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Stanley (1972)
‘Unlike many grindhouse films, “Stanley” was almost devoid of humor. I was left feeling mostly sad and a little bit disgusted. Here, it was a reaction to the pathetic lives of the characters and, mostly, disappointment at the very real violence against not just the mice but the snakes. We see the baby snakes crushed with the butt of a rifle, we see a snake shot, and we see Tim swinging snakes around in a tantrum, smashing their bodies against the cabinets and floor in his kitchen, as well as onto the bodies of snakes moving around him on the floor. There is a higher snake body count than human.’ — SHAAWANO.COM
Trailer
Excerpt
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IMPULSE! (1974)
‘An insanely committed, really-swinging-for-it William Shatner as a serial murdering confidence trickster is the bull in this film’s china shop, completely destroying everything in his path, abetted by some of Grefé’s more inventive photography.’ — matt lynch
Excerpt
Excerpt
Excerpt
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Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976)
‘Richard Jaeckel in a rare lead role plays Sonny Stein, an outcast with a mystical connection to sharks. After a series of betrayals by fraudulent and immoral individuals, Stein’s fin-ship with dangerous fish comes in handy to lower the human population in a seaside Florida town. William Grefe’s uniquely off-beat do-over of his own WILLARD-influenced STANLEY (1972) ups the danger meter by diving head-first into the carnivorous waters to get striking footage of the apex predators. You won’t find major studio, JAWS-level thrills, but fans of Drive-in movies and the wild and weird side of cinema will find plenty to sink their teeth into.’ — Cool Ass Cinema
the entire film
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Whiskey Mountain (1977)
‘Absolutely Bill Grefé’s crowning achievement, a not-infrequently nasty little bit of regional hicksplo trash. Whiplashes between comically padded and seriously harrowing, so its narrative lulls seem naive and its gnarly violence feels all the more unpleasant, and as usual he mines genuinely indelible performances from his entire cast. A real gem.’ — matt lynch
Trailer
Quentin Tarantino on Whiskey Mountain
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The Psychedelic Priest (1971)
‘An intimate portrait of one man’s descent into the dark underbelly of the hippie counterculture, the film touches on themes of religion, the effects of drugs, racism, police brutality, teenage pregnancy – you name it, The Psychedelic Priest has got it. John Darrell gives a commanding performance as the titular priest, giving you the impression that he really could have been a star in his own right, if not for some unfortunate dentistry. A film so daring, so boundary pushing, that, maybe in the interests of public order, they didn’t dare release it until 2001. William Grefé himself took his name off the project, perhaps afraid of the power of his own creation. It remains his finest work.’ — Planktologist
Excerpts & review
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Consider Us Even (2014)
‘Sisters are kidnapped at gunpoint, tortured and interrogated. What happens next will make you think twice about your own daily decisions.’ — IMDb
Trailer
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Thumbs (2019)
‘This is what happens when an 89-year-old man writes a film about young women, texting, the “net”, and thumbs.’ — Justin Johnson
the entire film
*
p.s. Hey. ** Lucas, Hi, Lucas! Good to see you, pal! I’m good, still mostly doing film stuff. I’m reading two books that aren’t going to be published until the fall, and they’re both pretty great: Laura Vasquez ‘The Endless Week’ (Dorothy) and Charlotte Northall ‘Practicing Dying’ (Pilot Press). Feel better or hopefully you are already. I’ll look for ‘Permanent Red’. Glad to get to talk with you! Stay great. xoxo ** Misanthrope, Give it a few weeks. Oprah gave him the big stamp of approval and fame is ensuing. I liked his poetry. I had problems with his first novel. I’m pretty sure I won’t read the new one. Me too, the two smallest toes on my left foot have been fucked up and painful for almost two months, but only when I’m wearing shoes, and I fear a doctor is in my immediate future. Luck with your culprit. And with your neck especially. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, I thought the whole mass outburst of happiness was really beautiful. Now real life and preternaturally reserved Parisians are returning. ** Carsten, Yes, indeed. I become ever more intolerant of conventionally built films with superficial ‘edgy’ turns that are heavily reliant on color saturation/ grading and score, and Guadagnino is way in that camp of directors. A good cannibal movie? Hm. I think a case could be made for Greenaway’s ‘The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover’. I think Pasolini’s ‘Porcile’ has some cannibalism in it unless I’m misremembering. The cannibalim exploitation movies like ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ have their charms. ** Hugo, Nice Sunday -> Monday. What’s your friend’s video game? Obviously that possible collaboration is promising. Wow, Guadaningo did a film about or employing Arto Lindsay? That’s quite a shock. I’ll look that up. I think AL is, among other things, one of the most exciting living guitarists, so that’s something. Luckily the early books of mine to which I was referring have never been sold anywhere as far as I know. They were in mini-editions, and I was nobody, and hopefully the few people who bought them never thought to preserve them. You have an excellent one. ** James Bennett, Welcome home, sir. I know Will Mountain Cox a bit. He lives here, I think, or I see him at bookstore events pretty regularly. Thanks about the Gluck interview. Yeah, it’s kind of my favorite interview with me, I think. My week: work on a new draft of our new film script, figure out the impending US trip to show ‘RT’ in SF, more film stuff no doubt, try this new deep dish pizza restaurant that just opened here, and who knows. Let me/us know when the site is up. So exciting about the impending publication date. If you’d like to do a ‘welcome to the world’ post for it I would be totally down, just let me know if you do. ** julian, Hey. Wow, about your brave parents. Oh, shit, the Emilia story was there twice? Mistake. I made that post years ago, so I don’t remember why or how I fucked up. Oops. I was too young to see VU live, but I have a strong memory of driving down the Sunset Strip with my parents and seeing ‘Velvet Underground and Nico / Exploding Plastic Inevitable’ on the marquee of this nightclub (The Trip) and feeling very left out. ** Steve, No, our only investigation into ghost-y stuff for the film was researching how ghosts have been depicted in movies so we would be sure not to replicate them. The post texts were generally credited at the bottom of the post. Happy to hear about the breakthrough with the death certificates. You’re an only child, right? I can’t remember. If so, doing all of that alone sounds so extremely daunting, although my experience working with my siblings on the estate settling was a nightmare. I know, shocked about the Arto Lindsay film too. I’m going to look it up. Everyone, Steve has some new reviews up for you to peruse, namely of Pulp’s new album MORE here, and of Matmos’ METALLIC LIFE REVIEW and Dalava’s UNDERSTORIES here. ** pancakeIan, Yeah, haunted dolls is a thing, a cult fetish or something. I can’t remember where the quote came from. I made that post, oh, seven years ago or thereabouts. Travolta came to the reading because he was shooting ‘Urban Cowboy’ at the time, and the director (James Bridges) was buddies with Isherwood. It seems possible that some gallery might show Henson’s work at the big Art Basel Miami Beach fair, but only maybe and probably not worth a trip to the totality. Yes, I’m pretty sure Disney never did anything with the ‘Arabat’ books. I was pretty surprised they were interested even back then. As was Clive. Nice dude, Clive. ** Steeqhen, Thanks. Happy to successfully provide. You probably just need the sleep, right? Zac can sleep for 18 hours at a time if left to his druthers, and it doesn’t seem to phase him. As always, ‘Dr. Who’ is an absolute mystery to me, but nice that it’s whatever enough to inspire obsession. ** Uday, Maybe on the zero budget thing. Maybe for a documentary, which we do want to make at some point. Our first film only cost 40k to make, and I don’t how we managed to make it for so little, but we did. An old woman as a pet. That’s a curious fantasy, obviously. Never heard of that before. Maybe you should go for it. Or make art about it or something. Could work wonders. As long as the moths are outdoors, that would be lovely, but I hope not to see the moths that keep magically getting into my clothes and nibbling. ** Right. Today the blog is celebrating the low budget movie maker Bill Grefé and his cultishly fun and sometimes even interesting works. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
There’s a case to be made that grindhouse folk such as Grefe are the true auteurs. Will try and seek out the Psychedelic Priest, which looks pretty great.
Away from such highbrow pursuits, last night I saw Becoming Madonna thanks to a leftover subscription. Hers is a compelling story and there is really a lot to admire the woman for. Still think that Frozen is my choice for being her zenith. I remember that being played at Glasgow’s Optimo back in 2002. Happy nights!
Dennis, I wonder how the live rattlesnakes would go over today. I see scandal and lawsuits.
My toe got fucked when I was wearing Crocs. An old high school classmate recommended them to me at the gym and I needed new slippers anyway, so I tried them. Just wore them around the house. They were great at first. Then, suddenly, I noticed this toe hurting. And then hurting much more. It was the Crocs. I’ve got this big callous on the tip that I have to cut off every couple weeks to relieve the pain.
The tender toe is on the other foot. It hurt so bad for a day or so. Several ibuprofen and a bunch of ice later and the pain went away. Sort of. I have to be very gentle with it. Like I said, I suspect gout. Ugh.
I’d really prefer never to go to a doctor. This neck has forced me. Bleh.
You keeping up with Roland Garros? A lot of really good players are left. You really need to try and score some tickets. I did see that Paris Saint-Germain won the club championship over the weekend. That must’ve made Paris a little festive.
Dennis,
Yeah I know Will too. He’s a good egg. Met him in Paris back in 2013 when I was spending the summer working in an Irish bar. I had some of my very first published poems in his lit mag/pamphlet, “Belleville Park Pages.”
Film work and deep dish pizza sounds like a good time. My only exposure to deep dish is these mini frozen ones that you can get in Ireland/UK. I used to love them when I was a kid. Recently bought some to see if they hold up, and sadly they do not.
However, I’m hoping to make it to Chicago next year. So I can finally experience the real deal. Are you supposed to eat them with a knife and fork? That’s what I’ve always done.
I will of course keep you and the blog up to date on Ssnake milestones. And I would be so honoured to have a “welcome to the world” post on here! I have an idea about how to do it. I’ll email you!
I’m about to spend the afternoon with the freshly delivered manuscript for Ssnake’s second booklet, a short fiction called “Stag Do/Fantasy Horn” by Anna Walsh.
Seeya
J x
Never heard of this cat before, but Whiskey Mountain is a great title.
Re. cannibal movies: true, Greenaway & Pasolini, though both those directors tend to annoy me. I guess Texas Chainsaw Massacre would count as a cannibal film. Nothing shown, but plenty implied. And that’s one of my favorites, horror or otherwise.
I just got a fresh blast of frustration with our educational system. In my 12-year-old half-brother’s German class they’re covering poetry right now. Today’s there’s an exam, so he asked me for help. And it’s the same reductive shit I’ve had to endure several decades ago: rhyme schemes, identifying alliteration, neologism, repetition etc. “the lyrical I”… All fine & well if you taught students that this is ONE of many many MANY different forms poetry can take. But no. Teach a thin sliver of something & call it a rounded education. No wonder kids don’t read & go through life thinking that poetry is nothing more than rhyming lines about meadows & the hue of cheeks. What depresses me is that nothing has changed in twenty-odd years. Talk about bourgie–Germany’s got that down to a bloodless art. Raise generations of pedants & critics & then wonder where all the creators went…
Sorry, rant over. Had to get that off my chest. Are you familiar with Tough Poets Review? Here’s the link: http://www.toughpoets.com/
They’re now accepting submissions for their Fall 2025 issue & I’m thinking about sending something in. Glad to see there are still poetry journals around.
https://youtu.be/nqCTPxdW9tQ?si=keD-1YU9LsSyclAA
I found this An hour so ago
Hello! How was your weekend? I’ve been doing research on what semi modular synth Im going to save for next. Possibly a sampler, haven’t thought of buying any of this in awhile! I’ve settled tho
When I was making music what I was saving up for was a korg volca k. Actually I just purchased it during my break. Speedy update. Anyway it was only 100$ second-hand. I could go on about my love of that if my brain wasn’t so scattered
I don’t know what happened why I ever stopped studying synthesis and music but I’m continuing because I really don’t like the idea of being consumed by drawing, its possibly just not my thing or at least realistically is , kind of boring and eradicate how I prefer to express things. Consumed by chaooos.
I have been working and saving money because I want a lot of investments currently and one of those investments is a grocery visit to the Saigon market to buy some Chana Masala. which Is all good and great although-I’m not kidding- a perfectly brandished box cutter was laying in my path home across the sidewalk.
Just sparkling in the sun.
And I don’t know, but I’m trying. Really really trying. Every situation I thrust myself into is uncomfortable but I always hope in the end it’s fullfilling and not damaging. I’m comfortable with my coworkers t and I am grateful to have something that can at least make me feel wanted or needed to some degree but wether it’s “they’re gonna fire me” or they don’t see me as one of them possibly because—and I know everyone struggles I just just wish I wasn’t so selfish and anyways. Oh well I have been making myself do more and maybe that is why I do so much because even as I do things I enjoy it’s all flowing through me.
And I hate when I get home after working all day and beat myself for being too exhausted to create or absorb intentfully . But work is great lately actually. Me with two tabs opened on a work computer, one displaying checked in dogs and vaccines
The other watching faceless fingers play a modular synth.
O k see ya later possibly tomorrow? I’m hoping this stress destructs itself. I feel like the more I avoid writing here the harder it will be to get back to it so I suppose just bear with my I am uncertain why maybe because it brings out the question “how was your day?” And I realize how much I ltbink but that’s all ok I suppose I don’t know.
Have you ever been Amoeba Records in California? What’s a really good record store where your currently living? Have the bats come out this time of weather? If they have, do you think you have the expertise to recognize if it’s the same flying fellas every year?
Wait, so if you look at my name–im kindve just noticing it now, that you could either take it as two bats playing ping pong or one bat chasing/terrorizing the other one with a ping pong paddle
Hieroglyphics.
Hi Dennis.
My friends’ video game is https://store.steampowered.com/app/3682040/HEIZEN_Airspace/ – It’s not out yet, but these things take way too long, especially when you’re doing it all by yourself. So I’m always glad to encourage them and help out whenever/however possible. If you have any thoughts, do tell.
I only know about the Arto Lindsay/Guadaningo thing by accident, a DVD I bought of some film that eludes me now had an unskippable ad for his film “I am Love” playing before I could even get to the menu, and while it passed me by I noticed that the album Tilda Swinton carries is “salt” by Lindsay. I then looked up the association more because I was bored. I haven’t seen the film itself, though, I don’t think I will. But yeah, Guadningo is a big Lindsay fan and has a documentary named after his album Mundo Civilizado. It’s in Italian and from what I can tell doesn’t have English subtitles. Don’t think I’ll track it down.
Bit of a morbid question, but do you ever worry about someone publishing all your unfinished/disowned work after you die? They did that with Didion’s therapy notes recently. I was kinda weirded out by that, felt like vultures picking on a grave. Idk, it’s a weird question, but it’s something that has bothered me. I have a bunch of embarrassing shit in my backlog I don’t want to ever see the light of day. I’m trying to write another novel rn, it all feels very slow. I have too many commitments in my life as of right now. I dunno.
Wish you the best
Hey Dennis,
I’d have to agree unfortunately about needing the sleep, despite my desires to avoid all human conditions like sleep, eating, and cleaning. Though I can always appreciate a lovely meal full of flavour, I wish that I could just get a flavourless cube of all my needed nutrients and would satiate my hunger for the day. I also wish I didn’t to use the toilet. And I wish that showering didn’t feel like ending my life (not suicide, actually just the feeling of an ending). I have to admit that sometimes pissing or shitting or eating or sleeping or showering feel incredible, but when they don’t, it makes me feel hollow…
I’d love to meet Zac and speak to him about his sleep. Do you know if he’s the type to document his dreams, or is it just about the endorphins of it? I can’t believe it’s June already, and I’m still so sleepy and lethargic. Maybe I should just accept that this summer will be a sleepy one.
I’m always rambling about Doctor Who, sorry about that. Don’t expect you to really care about anything regarding plots or story, it’s just a fixation of mine! Today I’ve planned out a ‘series’, I’d love to have it be a tv series, but I think I could see about working on it and trying to get one of the Doctor Who publishers to pick it up. I’m trying to blend the best parts of the serial 60s-80s, and the overarching story and drama of 00s-20s. I think it’ll be good for me to have this little borderline fanfic project in the background of my life.
A grindhouse director continuing to make films in the 2010s??? I gotta check out some of them, and obviously the earlier stuff. I love the look of cheap films from the 70s and 80s — well i love the look of cheap films in general — it makes the camera feel in the moment, like you’re watching your friends from the side making a shoddy picture. I’ve definitely talked about that here before, but i love when things are a labour of work and not a factory, even if the film is just a cashgrab. I also don’t enjoy the desire to make every tv show look like a movie nowadays; my mam and I have become obsessed again with Soaps, we’re watching Eastenders at the moment. It’s all so over the top and stupid but sometimes you need a bit of melodrama. I feel like if anything ‘turned me gay’ as a child, it was the amount of Soaps I’d watch with my family. Especially as in the 00s they were all trying to have provocative gay storylines, and I used to eat that shit up. I think having every scene take place in a roster of 5 locales just makes everything feel so fake and yet so real.
Anyway, got my ritalin today after about 2 weeks of not having it, so hoping that it’ll help me get back to normal life tomorrow!
Hi Dennis…… so many movies filmed in Florida . In my case, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. But, I never knew anyone made a horror film about jellyfish before . I can see how Tarantino is drawn to Grefe , listening to his interview. Speaking of Florida, thanks for the gallery suggestion (RE: Henson) . But Miami Beach is on the opposite coast from where I’m at ……I’m in St Petersburg.
Yeah, there’s no way that Disney would go through with a collab with C Barker. Their biggest problem these days is that they never want to offend anyone, so everything they produce turns out pretty generic. Sad.
Ha, I remember Travolta in ‘Urban Cowboy’ . I rented the video with my mom way back when, because she was a big Debra Winger fan . When I was working at that theater in NYC, I sold Winger a ticket for ‘The English Patient’ . She was very courteous to me .
I saw you mention Greenaway’s ‘The Cook/Theif/Wife/Lover’ up above . I love that one…….wish Greenaway had made more films. It’s so bizarre to watch.
And, you refer to Wes Anderson on occasion. I’ve seen most of his, over the years. My favorite is ‘ Moonrise Kingdom’ . The soundtrack uses a lot of Benjamin Britten………a very solid British composer.
later!
Yes, I’m an only child, and I’m dealing with all these issues on my own. At least I’m not competing with anyone over the estate, but I could really use some help. Anyway, I sent the death certificates off to my lawyer today. It’s hard not to be extremely worried, especially with everything else going on in the U.S., and exhausted constantly.
If you and Zac made a documentary, what subjects are you thinking about?
I saw a very interesting doc about a self-declared conservative theater company in Columbus, Ohio on YouTube, although I haven’t seen the entire 3 hours.
A documentary! Was going to ask if you’d seen Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers but then remembered that it was on the Les Blank Day on this blog back in February. I like the joyfulness of exploitation movies, so Bill Grefé fits right in there. Of course wished the moths to be outside and not making holes in your clothing, especially because you’ve expressed your difficulty finding comfortable clothes given your allergy. Wishing beetles today instead, on the other side of your windowpane like so many little rhinestones.