In the interests of my sanity, I’m writing this editorial while simultaneously subjecting myself to Jess Franco’s “Killer Barbys”, a film which does a great deal to restore my confidence in him as the European version of Ed Wood Jr. It’s a particularly dumb horror movie about the titular rock band – actually called the Killer Barbies, so whoever did the credits wasn’t paying attention. Unless, that is, there’s a surprise ending in which they all get massacred by psychopathic barbecues…but I’m not getting my hopes up. Said band’s tour-bus breaks down in the inevitable fog-bound forest, and they find themselves rescued by someone who…well, I’m not quite sure what he is, but I think we can cast doubts on his sanity. It’s all going to end in tears…

You can probably tell, I am right down at the bottom of the video pile, in the unsolicited crap section, enlivened by a steady diet of fourth season Buffy + Angel episodes, courtesy of Chris in the States. These are a real mind-twister when added in to the season 2 Buffy I’m watching on BBC2, and not forgetting the third season which finished last night on Sky. Keeping them straight in my mind is tough, but with a touching devotion to the belief that it does make sense, I’ll pull through. It helps that Buffy 4 is kicking serious butt in comparison: the action sequences are a quantum leap forward, the plots are great, and the characters continue to develop. On balance, it’s probably my favourite TV series just now, with Xena flagging badly in a welter of “drama” — the great thing about Buffy is that Joss Whedon et all never forget it is, first and foremost, entertainment.

I’m not quite so convinced by ‘Angel’, which sees Big Brooding Guy hived off to Los Angeles, along with graduate-level bitch Cordelia and an Irish sidekick to form a detective agency. So far, it has been alright, rather than outstanding: I always regarded Angel as a drip, so was glad to see him leave Buffy. He has toughened up, however, and the presence of Cordelia is very welcome. Irish sidekick, however, seems pointless and I believe he has now left the series. I’ll give it a bit longer, since it did take Buffy a few episodes to find her feet and for the characters to mesh.

This marathon video session is slated to continue for the rest of the weekend, since I’ve got the house to myself, and needn’t worry about the etiquette of inflicting ‘Killer Barby/ies’ on my housemates. I feel the need to sulk in stately splendour this weekend, having had my annual appraisal at work. The words “motivation” cropped up at least four times — usually closely preceded by “lack of”. Can they mean me? 🙂 Well, I suppose it counts as fair comment, and it could have been much worse: “does the absolute minimum work necessary to prevent termination of employment” would have been a fairly accurate assessment.

Perhaps a change of career is in order. I could always wander round graveyards at night. Or maybe lurk in dark corners, brooding and looking mournful. Or, looking at ‘Killer Barb-whatevers’ (the dwarves have just started dancing), I’ve clearly got enough talent to make it in the Spanish horror film industry…

It’s been another one of those weeks…

Last time, you may recall me bemoaning my lack of sleep, following a particularly severe weekender in Birmingham. On the plus side, this week has been a good deal better, at least in terms of pure hours spent worshipping in the fluffy, pillow-shaped temple of Hypnos. Vague qualms, however, are still crossing my mind, since rather too many of these hours have been occurring when I’m not actually in bed. Either I’m preparing to go into hibernation, or I’m suffering from a low-grade form of narcolepsy.

Cinematically, this is a bit of a problem; two planned London Film Festival reviews had to be dropped, simply because I slept through way more of the film that I could justifiably permit. However, in at least one of these cases, it was explicable, since I’d given blood that afternoon — though I had replaced the missing pint, the donations were more amber and foamy than red and sticky. Readers should thus note that, never mind an empty stomach, it’s bad to drink on an empty circulatory system. I admit this is a self-inflicted wound, but understandable unconsciousness is preferable to crashing out in the bog at work. Still, even that has its appeal, as long as you wake up before going home time, you can just pretend to have been in an important meeting.

There was one other incident I forgot to mention last week, that totally freaked me out at the time, but which could be the dawn of a new era in work-avoidance. On Saturday night, at the convention in Birmingham, I crashed out on my bed. Twenty minutes later, Chris called, and I spoke to her for three-quarters of an hour. All perfectly normal, you may think, and you’d be right, save for one thing. Lack of consciousness. Lying there, I somehow managed to chat away for 45 minutes, of which I have absolutely no recollection. You can imagine my shock when I spoke to her the next day and, after obvious confusion, we worked out what had happened.

Astonishment and horror eventually gave way to amusement, and an awareness of the potential benefits. No more work — or at least, none you remember, just going through the day out cold, then your alarm goes off at 5pm and you wake up, refreshed and ready for 16 hours of leisure until 9am the next morning. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit of an improvement over the current way?

Doubts may be expressed over this; for example, would you still be able to come out with the polite falsehoods which are needed to oil the wheels of life? Employees “are not at their desk right now” instead of “have been down the pub all afternoon” — does the near-sleep state lead to devastating honesty? Evidently not: about the first thing I said to Chris was that, no, she hadn’t woken me up, I was just waiting for her call. Partly true – technically, she hadn’t woken me – but it’s precisely the sort of polite fib you need a million times a day at work. Lying, it seems, is not a product of the higher functions, but derives from closer to the lizard brain. You’d probably find that Mr. Tyrannosaur was “not in the forest right now” rather than “has been down the swamp all afternoon”.

And that seems like a fine, fuzzy, late-night thought on which to head off to bed…before I fall asleep on the keyboard!

It hasn’t exactly been the most sleep-filled of weeks. I’ve been doing out-of-hours support for work, which is kinda like being a doctor on call, except without the easy access to pharmaceuticals. I have been from it’s ravell’d sleeve untimely ripp’d no fewer than six times this week, to the point where I no longer give a damn about how seriously I misquote Macbeth. The worst was Monday night, on which I said “Hello!” to Mr.Pager no fewer than three times: 03:55, 05:58, and 06:36. Or rather, “Hello!”, “Yes?” and “What the fuck is it now?”, respectively. On the plus side, it does give you a good excuse for staring blankly at your screen.

Things weren’t helped by the severe lack of sleep over the weekend, though this was somewhat more self-inflicted since I was up in Birmingham, at Aya-Next, a Japanese animation convention. I was on the committee, but had adopted the cunning plan of volunteering to edit the conbook, in the hope that, because I’d done all my work before the convention, I’d be able to sit back and enjoy the event. Not quite the case: I learned that “sitting back and enjoying the event” rapidly led to “being given something to do”. I’ve helped at conventions before, but purely as a volunteer, with the ability to say no, but being on the committee, you can’t really do this. There is a LOT of work behind the scenes and I now have a far greater appreciation of those involved…albeit largely of their rank stupidity in agreeing to do it in the first place!

Communication over the weekend was largely by walkie-talkie and earpiece, which led to mild schizophrenia. You’d be talking to someone, and suddenly an entirely separate conversation would start in your ear; you’d try desperately to pay attention to both, but after about ten second, your brain would start frying in its own juices. Had a similar experience visiting Chris in Arizona, when her two kids were both talking to me at the same time, about totally different subjects. After she noticed my bewildered expression and rescued me, I asked her how she’d coped for all these years: “Oh, I just ignore them,” she cheerfully admitted. Dead easy, this parenting lark.

Back at the convention, I still had a grand time. Spent most of Friday on the registration desk, and much of Saturday on the bring-and-buy stall, an opportunity to swap your useless junk for somebody else’s (and flog a few non-useless TCs into the bargain, in my case!). I then girded my loins for Saturday night, the infamous TC live-action all-nighter, at which I show a mix of HK and Japanese stuff, including The Story of Ricky, The Ebola Syndrome and chunks of women’s wrestling. This is really just an excuse to watch stuff I like, video projected onto a nice big screen, but there always seems to be (this must be the seventh or eighth time I’ve done it) enough depraved individuals out there to keep me company.

Sunday was subdued, for some reason probably connected having been up for 32 hours straight by the closing ceremony. But I wasn’t finished yet: this parsimonious Scot could only get a cheap rail-ticket by catching the late train back to London. Mind you, since that meant I ended up having to get a taxi, I’d probably have been better off not bothering! I got home at 1 a.m. — ready and refreshed for a week at work? I think not. I’d like to think that this weekend will largely be spent making up for lost R.E.M. time, but…the London Film Festival beckons. Never mind, “no rest for the wicked”, I’m just too tired to be wicked!

Ah, that’s better. Those reading the last editorial may have noticed a slight degree of tension — in the same way that Hitler was “slightly mad”. But even though I’d *far* rather still not be here, ten days in Phoenix of rest, relaxation, sunshine and culture both high (a visit to an exhibition of Monet paintings — I resisted the temptation to walk up to the admissions desk and say, “Show me the Monet”) and low (attending WCW’s Monday Nite Nitro show) have generally restored my traditional even keel. At least, for the moment: I’m off up to Birmingham on Thursday, and am playing Russian Roulette on my good humour by travelling with Virgin Rail…

Anyway, Halloween in America was impressive, since they clearly go for it in a much bigger way than here. I’ll save full details for the next TC, I think: here, I’ll just concentrate on Dinner Theater, which I went to one evening, and deserves some comment as a new, and generally enjoyable experience. I’ve had trouble explaining the concept of pantomime to Americans before, but going by this case, all I have to say is “it’s like dinner theater”, since both contain audience participation, generally coarse acting, and cross-dressing.

This was, in particular, Mystery Dinner Theater: set in the 1920’s, we were supposedly guests at a film premiere hosted by a megalomaniacal tycoon, clearly inspired by Cecil B.de Mille. His leading lady is offed, and we have to find the culprit, from the evidence in the play, and by questioning the characters. Was it the rival for her role? The overly swashbuckling leading man? Her ambitious personal assistant? The action takes place in and around the tables of the restaurant which plays host to the event, with the actors also doubling as waiters and waitresses, serving up the food between “acts”.

Let’s be honest: the food sucked, barely reaching the level of a decent school canteen in terms of innovation, presentation or taste, clearly being designed for volume production. But given the price, which was not all that different from a regular theatre ticket, this was not surprising, nor in consequence did it matter too much. And I really doubt the plot logic would have held up in court; without giving too much away, I could see absolutely no evidence for the murderer being who it was. Mind you, I was never any good at whodunnits. And the acting is hammy and unsubtle – the mime/clown was particularly irritating – with corpsing not uncommon.

So why did I enjoy myself? Probably for the same reasons I enjoy pantos (well, at least generally) — or indeed, WCW wrestling: larger-than-life characters, enthusiasm and energy, and a sense that anything could happen. Taking the audience into a show is a dangerous act at the best of times, and when you’re dealing with a well-fuelled dinner crowd, the best laid plans don’t so much gang aft a-gley as fly straight out the window, shrieking. While I sometimes wondered how many of the ad-libs had been scripted beforehand, it still required undeniable guts and quick thinking to handle it all and keeps things rolling in the general direction of the plot.

Also, and perhaps most importantly, it was apparent that there were no fortunes being made here — the actors were largely doing it because they loved acting, and their fervour carried through. They were genuinely having fun, and that’s infectious. There’s a lesson to be learned from this, and perhaps it helps explains why I find both The Blair Witch Project and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre over-rated — neither was much fun for the actors to make, by all accounts. Be it films, plays, fanzines or whatever, if you want your audience to have a good time, have one yourself. That kind of philosophy I can handle…