 Friends of mine love bad movies. They enjoy laughing at failed special effects, improbably motivated dialogue, absurd situations. They gather on Zoom or in rec rooms to heckle the screen with commentary every bit as witty as Mystery Science Theatre. (I have some extremely clever friends, by the way.) And I “get it,” — please invite me to the next screening! We are surrounded by crappy exploitation/entertainment products, swimming in them, drowning in them. They appear relentlessly and there is power in choosing how we react. What I hate is how our hip decision to read these works creatively has itself become a market and a reason to make more crap. Our mockery made possible “Sharknado.” It’s enough to make me cynical about being cynical. Because there are many “bad” movies that I genuinely love. The picture above is based on Tor Johnson in Ed Wood’s “Plan Nine from Outer Space” which I kind of love. As a movie, it is not masterful or even successful on any level, but it feels authentic. What little I know about Ed Wood’s life and work come from the far more successful movie “Ed Wood” directed by Tim Burton. I watch it every year to renew my sense of naive optimism which I feel is essential to creativity. The closing line of the movie sticks with me. Wood is settling in to watch the world premiere of Plan Nine and he says to himself, with genuine satisfaction,“This is the one. This is the one I’ll be remembered for.” The irony of his statement is that Plan Nine was later named the Worst Movie Ever Made by a couple critics in the mean-spirited Hollywood old boys network. It gave Wood’s work perhaps undeserved notoriety. I probably never would have seen Plan Nine if not for that reverse publicity. The trouble with “bad,” for me, is when folks call an artwork “bad” primarily to dismiss folks who like it. “Don’t yuck someone else’s yum” expresses this sense. There are many shades of yuck, too. From self-aware trolling to self-oblivious comments when viewers just don’t get it. Some works are weird, hard-to-classify or just out of their time. To really be doing art, maybe as opposed to exploitation/entertainment, means your work will be misunderstood at least some of the time. And some works – lots of them, maybe MOST artwork at any moment – is simply not meant for you. Instead of jumping to label it bad, maybe be a better use of time to look for artwork that IS meant for you. It’s never been easier to find. WHAT MAKES YOU GO YUM? I love getting clarity on what I love and then focusing in on the aspects that make it so yum-worthy. I like to believe that this clarity and focus will help me attract more delight into my life, or at least recognize it when it appears. |
 One astute reader last week noticed that my Blue Mama stickers and magnets were NOT YET available in my ON-LINE ART STORE — To make amends, I will send one FREE to anyone who emails me their physical mailing address. Just tell me magnet or sticker.And from now on, anytime I SAY that a work is NOW AVAILABLE in the store and it is not, the first person to reply to my email WINS THE ARTWORK. I may ask the winner to pay for postage. That should keep things interesting. |
| I promised that this month would be “Monkey March” and I simply did not deliver so here are a couple apes from my archives. The one on the bottom mashes up a 70’s Dirty Harry hairstyle, riffing on the “damned dirty ape” idea.”You feel lucky, punk?” |
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