Fuck APS. Fuck the useless bunch of cretins who work for that worthless company.

There, I feel better now, although a little explanation is probably in order. APS are one of the two electric companies here in Arizona, and unfortunately, they are the only one we can use. This effective monopoly is reflected in the service – or lack thereof – that they provide, and makes them a poster child for de-regulation. Readers of a certain age may remember, for example, what it was like trying to get a GPO engineer out to your house to fix your phone, back before they were privatised and became British Telecom. Yes, APS is that bad.

Their general service is questionable enough: I’ve seen more blackouts since coming out here, than in the twenty-five years since the era of the three-day week I spent in Britain. And they are swift enough to take your power away. It’s just getting them to bring it back that’s the problem…

This all started because our 40-year old circuit-breaker box could no longer cope with the strain of life in 2003. Careful co-ordination was required – don’t run the microwave and the washing machine simultaneously – to avoid tripping the breaker and plunging the kitchen into darkness. When it got to the stage where the whole house would go, we decided it was time to upgrade. An electrician was found, and an appointment scheduled.

Which is where APS (may they rot in hell!) came in. Before work could start, they had to disconnect the meter, and then after the work was completed, and it had been checked by the city, they had to come back and re-attach it. Nothing too taxing there; you’d have to be a bunch of brain-damaged monkeys to screw that up, right? Unfortunately, it seems as if the “S” in APS stands for “Simians”. The approximate timetable:

Wednesday

• 8am: APS switches the power off and disconnects the meter. Makes mocking comments about electrician’s estimated time of completion.
• 8:05am: Electricians begin work.
• 2pm: Electricians finish work. Call city inspector.
• 4pm: Inspector inspects, pronounces it good, calls office to fax APS and give them the go-ahead.
• 5:30pm No sign of APS. We call, and discover that part of the company closes at 4:30, regardless of whether or not you have electricity.
• 9pm We give up on the medieval lifestyle, and go to bed.

Thursday

• 7am We start phoning APS, and discover that part of the company hasn’t rolled in yet.
• 8:30am They – we picture them with a cappuccino in one hand, and a bun in the other – deny having received any fax. We point out we haven’t had any electricity for over 24 hours. They fail to give a damn.
• 8:35am The City confirm, yes, that fax of completion was sent last night. It was Message #18. The one marked ‘URGENT’? They agree to refax and also call APS.
• 2pm Let there be light. And, perhaps more importantly, refrigeration. APS finally turn up, represented by the same smug, smirking motherfucker who took the meter away. He is lucky to escape without being torn to shreds by Chris.

30 hours without power was enough to convince us that electricity should be filed under Really Good Things. Every facet of life requires it, from the radio-alarm which wakes you, to the table light by which you go to bed. Sure, there’s stuff you can do which doesn’t require power – reading, for example – but the options are limited, and once the sun goes down…well, there’s only so much sex you can have. Especially with record-setting temperatures (this week saw the latest 100-degree day in Phoenix ever), and no air-conditioning. Fine if you want to recreate the Rourke/Bonet romp from Angel Heart, otherwise not ideal conditions.

I think it was partly not knowing that was irritating – if we had known from the start that power wasn’t coming back, we could have planned around it, but having our hopes repeatedly dashed to pieces on the brutal shoals of APS incompetence was remarkably dispiriting. Unfortunately, we have no option but to continue under their retarded regime – though the idea of solar panels was an option that grew a great deal more appealing over the 30 hours for which we returned to the prehistoric era. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and stare in awe and fascination at the toaster.

We are currently feeling rather smug about our neighbour to the West. While we in Arizona may have made some rather bad choices for our Governor (Fyfe Symington, forced to resign after being convicted of fraud – though eventually pardoned by Bill Clinton on his way out), we’ve never actually got rid of one mid-term. We were going to have a vote whether or not to dump Evan Meacham in 1988, for his misuse of state money and for cancelling Martin Luther King Day. But he was impeached before the election, avoiding the entertaining circus seen over the past couple of months in California.

You already know that Arnie won. You might also know about some of the other high-profile fringe candidates, such as Larry Flynt or Gary Coleman (probably the first time in decades Coleman and “high-profile” have appeared in the same sentence). But what about the fringe-of-the-fringe, citizens who gathered the requisite 65 signatures and $3,500 filing fee, but didn’t have so much fame or infamy already backing their campaign?

In the interests of a well-informed electorate (and a well-amused one), we at Trash City filtered our way through them, and bring you our favourites. Because of space, and an unwillingness to spend the rest of October working on this, we’ve discounted the Republican and Democratic candidates. Though not without some regret, given quotes such as “single adults are the Rodney Dangerfields of our society” (Rich Gosse), a voter statement that reads, in full, “I breathe” (Kevin Richter), or “former party girl turned Republican” candidate Reva Renee Renz, whose blog has some of the most entertaining pieces on the election I’ve read.

Equally, not every candidate running outside an established party, on an Independent ticket, was entertaining, amusing, or even interesting:

Jerry Kunzman	Bob McClain	Jack Grisham
Sara Ann Hanlon	Brian Tracy

Enough said, despite Mr. Grisham’s resemblance to Michael Madsen.

However, while some chose to decry the election – “a media circus with 135 clowns” – I found it a case-study of true democracy in action. Lack of finance should never be a bar to achieving representation, and the sheer number of alternative voices shows a deep dissatisfaction with the established system. Discounting the ‘official’ Democrat and two Republicans, the other 132 candidates totalled almost half a million votes. In these days of ever more homogenized news, I find this comforting – and to every one of those 132, I tip my hat.

#9 (10,949 votes) – George Schwartzman
“Although some attribute my success in part to my ballot position and somewhat similar name association with Arnold Schwarzenegger, be assured this was not the case.” Yeah, whatever. Perhaps part of his surprisingly good showing was because one of the main planks of his campaign was “the need to prohibit handheld cel phone usage when driving”. He’d certainly get my support there.

#10 (10,114) – Mary Carey
Following in the wake of Cicciolina, while Arnie’s sexual hijinks hampered his campaign, you know exactly what you’re getting with the star of New Wave Hookers 7. Contribute $5,000 and you can have a date with Mary, who supports legalizing ferrets. What they should be legal for, she doesn’t say. She would also create a ‘Porn for Pistols’ scheme to get handguns off the street, and tax breast implants.

#13 (5,915) – John Christopher Burton
Yes, they have Socialists in America. Just not very many of them. Featuring a bilingual website which is the Internet equivalent of horse tranquilizer, Burton is a civil-rights attorney, who “has specialized in defending victims of police abuse and discrimination”. Clearly going for the law and order vote then. His worthiness is probably exceeded solely by his dullness, which is so exceptional as to be interesting in itself…

#16 (4,864) – Gallagher
Only in America would celebrity status be granted to a man whose act consists, in the main, of smashing watermelons with a sledgehammer. Undaunted by his failure to make Governor, Gallagher – who like Sting, Prince and Satan, prefers to be known by only one name – is now preparing to run for President in 2004. Is probably more credible than most Democratic candidates.

#28 (2,262) – Angelyne
Also in the one-name group, is this Hollywood billboard queen, famous for…er, being famous. Perhaps the most imaginative proposal for dealing with the $38 billion deficit: “A room will be decorated in the Capitol building, for anyone who wishes to spend the night and get a personal tour of the building hosted by Angelyne, for the amount of $10,000.” Which would also get you two dates with Mary Carey. [18 years later, Angelyne also took part in the 2021 recall election, and did rather better, getting 26,444 votes, to finish 18th, as the top independent candidate!]

#33, #41, and #47 (2,007, 1,703 and 1,494) – Ned Roscoe, Ken Hamidi and John J. Hickey
One pleasing thing about the US system is you don’t need approval from a party to run as their candidate. Hence, there are no less than three Libertarians – they’re the group I’m probably most aligned with, whose basic concept is summed up in the quote, “the government that governs least, governs best.” Together, they’d have passed Gallagher for #16, though Roscoe seems mostly concerned about the rights of smokers to kill themselves (and anyone else within breathing room) – I’m sure this is in no way connected to his day job as a cigarette retailer…

#49 (1,454) – C.T.Weber
The candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party which is one of those ‘only in California’ organizations: “a multi-tendency socialist and feminist political party”. Doesn’t sound like the sort of party I’d want to go to. Also describes itself as “the only Socialist alternative”; John Christopher Burton (see above) might want to argue with them about that. Albeit in a peaceful and free way, of course.

#54 (1,288) – B.E.Smith
You’ll notice the lack of a link for this one. That’s because he was one of the very few candidates without an Internet site. Thrown into the 48-page voter’s information guide, we find Smith’s voter statement beginning, “I spent two years in federal prison because I grew medical marijuana for myself and others” – which probably explains both his lack of a website, and his photo (right). He promised to pardon everyone in prison for similar crimes, and if elected, would have refused a salary. But would probably accept compensation in Snickers bars.

#60 and #63 (1,121 and 1,029) – Iris Adam and Darin Price
Like the Libertarians, for some reason, there was more than one candidate from the Natural Law Party, thereby splitting the votes of those who like the idea of “yogic flying” [Somewhere at TC Towers, I still have a videotape of a most amusing Natural Law Party Political Broadcast] I think Adam was the official candidate, and if their votes were combined, they’d have placed in the top thirty. Guess even meditation can’t save a political party from discontented splinter groups.

#62 (1,080) – Trek Thunder Kelly
Voter statement in full: “Please vote for me, thus breaking the Seventh Seal and incurring Armageddon. I will legalize drugs, gambling and prostitution so they may be taxed and regulated; the funds derived would subsidize the deficit, education and the environment. I believe in peaceful resolution backed by a strong military; I don’t care who you marry or have sex with.” Wears only blue. Claims to sleep with socks on his hands, and only eat steaks and tacos. Candidature largely appears to be some kind of bizarre performance art.

#68 (927) – Diane Templin
No election would be complete without a religious fruitcake, and with comments like “May the Lord give you the wisdom of Solomon as you vote”, Diane is well qualified. Standing on behalf of the Independent Party (which seems like a contradiction to me, right up there with an Anarchist Party), who regard the census as an invasion of privacy. And probably a tool of Satan, as well.

#74 (734) – Kurt E. (Tachikaze) Rightmyer
A 39-year old who lists his profession as “Middleweight Sumo Wrestler.” Therefore, you will find no snide remarks, sarcastic comments or jokey asides about his candidature here. At least, not until the San Andreas Fault shifts, California is no longer connected to us here in Arizona, and we own Pacific beachfront property.

#115 (374) – Jeff Rainforth
The Reform Party was once viewed as the great hope for a third party in America, after Ross Perot ran for President in 1992, and got 19% of the vote. Ah, how the once-mighty have fallen – going on Jeff’s performance, by approximately 18.99%. Do like the ‘Politicians Suck’ shirt available through his site, though the message is somewhat muted by having ‘Rainforth for Governor’ emblazoned on the other side.

#135 (172) – Todd Richard Lewis
Lewis was one of the players in Bumfights, Vol. 1, where he ran around tying up the homeless while commentating in a fake Aussie accent. “The people of California will rise up in a grass roots campaign supporting The Bumhunter’s run for Governor and take back what’s owed to them – their dreams.” Dream on, Bumhunter: you finished last. Not just among independent candidates, but dead last. And deservedly so.

Dir: Penelope Spheeris
While not quite the worst film ever made, Thunder and Mud represents probably the hugest gulf in quality for consecutive movies from the same director. Spheeris’ previous work was The Decline of Western Civilization, Part II: The Metal Years, a film which rivals Spinal Tap for dumb rock excess, yet surpasses it simply by being a documentary. And she’d follow up Thunder with Wayne’s World, which grossed over $120m in the US alone.

Covering somewhat similar territory to both neighbours, Thunder still stands alone as the only movie ever to combine heavy metal with mud wrestling. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before? Er, because half a millisecond’s thought would have shown the huge potential for disaster perhaps? It’s certainly safe to say that it’s a match-up which will never be seen again. Anyone even considering the idea should simply watch this film, and they’ll drop the idea with the speed of a well-bribed cricketer.

Your hosts for the evening are Sam Mann, Tawn Mastry and Jessica Hahn. The first looks like a washed-up, has-been musician (and as a presenter, often seems to be channelling Ozzy Ozbourne), the second is a local DJ of minor LA renown, while you’re probably going, “I know that name” about the third. And you’d be right. Hahn was the woman who slept with TV-angelist Jim Bakker and brought down his PTL ministry (mind you, if you’ve seen his wife, Tammy-Faye, you can hardly blame the guy). Hahn got over the trauma by getting implants and posing for Playboy. Twice. How this qualifies her as a host is never quite made clear.

If the presenters are inept, talentless buffoons, they seem like icons of professionalism beside the musicians. The running theme throughout the presentation was desperate attempts to prove how macho these guys all are, despite mostly looking like badly made-up drag queens. Rejecting all claims to the contrary, it seems that “glam” probably does stand for “Gay LA Metal” – perhaps the most telling scene cut between the mud-wrestlers in their dressing room, and the bands in theirs. Hard to say who was applying more make-up or had bigger hair.

The format is simple. Each band of the five on display is “championed” by a mud-wrestler; a band plays, two girls battle, winner continues on. Now, I could go on about the unfairness of this – the champion might have to win just one bout, over an opponent who had already fought three times previously – but this is mud-wrestling, not professional boxing. [Though in terms of credibility, they’re about equal.] Matters are not helped much by a ‘commentator’ whose vocabulary appears to be at about the level of a particularly unchallenging Dr. Seuss book.

I do have to say, however, that the mud wrestlers are easily the most convincing performers: the bands all mime, and the hosts have the comedic timing of a pack of permanent markers. We can’t really blame Spheeris, who has said she’s not at ease with comedy (and a cameo appearance by her confirms this); it’s more that the lines are simply not funny. We thus lay the blame mostly at the door of writer Wally Anne Wharton [yes, that’s her name] who also makes an appearance as the ‘manager’ of the wrestlers. Their federation initials are M.U.F.F. Oh, hold my aching sides, I fear they may split…

With about 20 minutes of mud-wrestling, and perhaps the same of ‘performances’, this leaves around 50 minutes to be filled with totally dire comic skits. This includes protests by a group of fundamentalist Christians from the group U.P.T.I.G.H.T, attempts by a trio of skanks to whine their way in for free, sexual harassment for comedic effect, and – worst of all – monologues by ‘Barbi the Bimbo’, who spouts such drivel as, “I must be telepathetic”. Half right, Barbi, half right… If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was played by Linnea Quigley, but none of the names in the end credits rang any immediate bells, and there’s absolutely no way I’m going back to check.

The sole moment of wit in the whole thing is after one wrestler quits after having her top accidentally torn off. We’ll take at least four sets of quotes in that sentence as read, shall we? One of the replacement wrestlers is Big Bad Mama, who must be 200 pounds at least. Fighting for She-Rok, the all-female band (who are, sadly, just as shallow and cliched as their male brethren), Mama wins, in a moment of cheering defiance to the relentless parade of moronic stereotypes inflicted on us over the past 90 minutes. And that was just the audience – though did we spot Dennis Quaid, looking rather shamefaced? As a final highlight, they wheeled out Bill Gazzara, veteran Sunset Strip promoter of everyone from The Doors to Van Halen. He was looking even more near death than usual (he’d eventually peg it a couple of years later), which made his lecherous comments about the girls even creepier.

Where are they now? A little detective work (okay, 5 minutes on a search engine) revealed the following:

• Grave Danger: God knows. Type in “grave danger heavy metal” into Google, and you get articles on the perils of depleted uranium ammunition.
• Nuclear Assault: Drifted apart around 1993, but like so many 80’s bands, came back for a reunion tour in 2002, and released a concert recording, Alive Again this year. Official site.
• Tuff: Ditto. Lead singer Stevie Rachelle is also in a parody band called Cheeseheads With Attitude, who sing songs about Wisconsin, as well as a tribute band called Motley Priest. Official site.
• She-Rok: Despite “winning”, they apparently vanished without a trace, leaving only a photo (right). Google mostly points to porn sites, suggesting “she rok” is something rude in Dutch. Remember that for your next Amsterdam trip.
• Young Gunns: Changed their name to Wildside, released CDs in ’92 and ’95. Rumour has singer Drew Hannah running a porn company, while guitarist Benny Rhynedance played a pirate at Treasure Island in Las Vegas for a bit.

But wait! There’s more! A January 2006 email from Heather Harris sheds some light on She-Rok.

“The photo you offer to illustrate the band She Rok actually depicts Jessica Hahn, co-MC to the film with musician Sam Mann. She had topical frisson at the time due to her defection from the evangelical ranks, courtesy of her involvement with a well-known, adulterous minister.

Although many of the bands in the movie are deservedly forgotten, She Rok should not be lumped in with them. They were the best of the all-female metal bands of the era, courtesy of better instrumentalists than many signed female metal acts such as Vixen or Girlschool. Guitarist Geri Etinger can be viewed in the film peeling out her trade Van Halen-worthy technique, and 2 other members had musical notoriety outside the band’s ranks as well.

Singer Emi Canyn became one of Motley Crue’s Nasty Habits, the backup singers who exuded their own personalities despite the cliches of the Metal era, and She Rok bassist Mary Kay was co-founder of Detroit’s legendary proto-punk band The Dogs. She’s still onstage playing with Kanary, a band with Precious Metal’s Leslie Knauer, and remains as pretty today as my photos of the filming below indicate. The film was silly fun, and is quite representative of the 1980’s hair metal daze in Los Angeles. Perhaps this info and my photos will make viewing this curio more fun to your readers.”

The non-musicians involved with Thunder & Mud seem deeply embarrassed, save for Quaisha, the girl who had her top torn off, who still seems be working happily in the field fourteen years later. Mastry, last heard of as a DJ in Minneapolis, says simply, “I sucked”, while Spheeris, in an Onion interview described it as, “A flaming piece of crap”. She also doesn’t believe she ever got paid for it – somehow, a more fitting epitaph for this monument to 80’s metal is hard to imagine. Some things about that decade truly are best left forgotten…

[Another reader writes: “I don’t know who wrote the review of the Penelope Spheeris project, Thunder And Mud, but I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. I remember some funny sequences in the video, and your reviewer helped remind me of some others. By the way, Sam Mann (left) is alive and well in Hollywood, CA, splitting his time between his band ‘RAM’ and DJing at a Mexican bikini bar in downtown Los Angeles called Alameda Strip.”]

As part of the publicity for our movie (don’t worry – this is the last you’ll hear of it, and it isn’t really the subject in this piece anyway), a journalist from the Tribune came out to interview us. Rather less impressive was how the piece failed to appear until several days after the premiere, and when it did show up, seemed to bear only a passing resemblance to the truth.

The errors started precisely four words in, with a woeful inability to spell our name: throughout the article, it was given as McLennon, rather than McLennan. Here are the other distortions, half-truths and downright falsehoods contained therein:

• “Chris McLennon began creating handmade beaded jewelry at home and part-time 20 years ago.” – She actually started in 1991.
• “Sometimes we take a break…I’ll go in my back yard and trim my citrus trees.” – Few things are less likely for Chris to do as a leisure pursuit. In the three years I’ve lived here, I’ve not seen her trim foliage once – this is what we have Mexicans for. 🙂
• “The couple met electronically after Chris, who moved her business to Scottsdale from New York…” – it never operated at all when she was in New York.
• “…e-mailed her future husband after reading his magazine on the Internet.” – she first got in touch with me several years before TC had any kind of internet presence, and before Chris even had a computer. The first contact was a hand-written note with $20 in it as a subscription.
• “Chris McLennon paused, looked about her office, her living room and outside at her orange, lemon and lime trees” – Despite what he writes, the journalist was never actually here, the interview was conducted by telephone. Also, you can see no citrus trees from either our office or our living room.
• “If you’d told me years ago that I’d have a very successful business from home on a computer I would have thought you were crazy.” – Attributed to Chris, who said no such thing. I said, that I’d have thought you were crazy if you’d told me when I was working for HSBC, that I’d end up selling beads in Phoenix.
• “It’s the kind of movie we think people want to buy and watch, and the kind of film we’re adding to our movie business.” – Adding? Not unless you count flogging off unwanted DVDs on Ebay as a “movie business”. Perhaps this ties in with the “new movie sales and rental company” attributed to us previously in the article.
• “Trash City, originally a printed paper magazine that began in his native Scotland in 1989.” – By 1989, I’d been out of Scotland for two years, and was actually living in Farnborough, Hampshire.

Yes, most of these errors are trivial and unimportant – but the sheer volume and carelessness of them is disturbing. If such a simple, easily verifiable story can be executed so inaccurately, what chance is there for anything more complex? When you know the actual facts, then see the “truth” as reported in a newspaper, and discover the gulf between them, it inevitably makes you (even more) cynical about every other story reported in the press.

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The film is finished, and we’re getting all set for the public premiere this Friday – though there’s a cast/crew/press screening on Wednesday, and the director came round with the master copy last week. Chris + I sat and watched it, and also got to participate in the commentary which was recorded as we saw the film for the second time that evening.

I am, of course, entirely biased, so hardly expect you to believe any comments I have regarding the qualities of the film (we’ll recruit an independent opinion for our actual review next week, don’t worry!). But given the budget was well below what Robert Rodriguez allegedly used for El Mariachi (and even the $7,000 claimed was a fraction of the total spent to get it actually into cinemas), and it was shot over three long weekends, Synthetic Truth punches far above its weight.

It kicks the arse of a lot of direct-to-video product, and has a lot more to say, and says it more effectively, than a number of recent cinema releases. While not exactly a feel-good film, it mixes up emotions effectively, with some great characters and some memorable dialogue. Must confess I’m still uncertain as to whether or not I should send my parents a copy (the language has more in common with Goodfellas than the school pantomime in which they last saw me perform), but it’s certainly something with which I am proud to have been involved.

Recording the commentary track was an interesting experience; we largely just sat in the background, and allowed Zach and Ryan to talk, since unlike us, they were on the set for almost every scene. Still had a blast, interjecting the odd sarcastic aside, though if Denise Richards or the MPAA hear it, we could be in trouble. 🙂 It was amusing to realise how much method acting had gone on – the kid eating a packet of Goldfish snacks, genuinely was eating them, to the extent that after multiple takes, he finally upchucked them off-screen. Now that’s suffering for your art.

Chris’s sterling efforts on the publicity front will be coming to fruition, with a bunch of newspaper articles scheduled for the week ahead, in time to whip the populace into a state of frenzy for Friday’s premiere. That’s our main shot at recouping production costs, between admissions and sales of tapes on the night. We should hopefully have DVDs too, as the film has now gone off for mastering, so special editions (commentary, trailers, music videos, etc.), signed by the director will also be available.

Where it goes from there is hard to say, but will largely be determined by market forces. The current plan is to send it off to various film festivals first, while simultaneously making enquiries with various distributors of independent movies. Ideally, we’d like Miramax to come in and take it off our hands for $3 million dollars, in which case, the film festivals can go whistle. 🙂 Though being honest, we’d probably settle for Troma, and a slightly smaller sum…

Premiere report to follow next week!

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