On the Death of Flounder

By Steve Evans

The death Friday of Stephen “Flounder” Furst marks the passing of another key cast member from Animal House, a film now almost 40 years old yet immortal in its invocation of time, place and attitude.

If you’re worth knowing at all, you’ve seen the film. More than once. No need for me to rehash the plotline here. My agenda lies elsewhere.

People often assume Belushi was the first among the cast to die. Not so. It was co-writer Doug Kenney, who also had a small role as Stork. Kenney's life was no less interesting and at least as tragic, which brings us to a greater theme buried deep in Animal House.

Most men, if they are honest and spent any time in college, will confess an abiding love of this great comedy. For many of us, university life wasn’t exactly as portrayed on the grounds of Faber College in John Landis’ anarchic film, but it was often close enough. For all the puerile humor on display, I defy anyone who’s actually been to a toga party to tell me it wasn’t all kinds of debauched fun. Or that a road trip to Emily Dickinson College wouldn’t yield results as seen in Animal House. It is no coincidence that the mighty Otter, while sauntering the halls of this all-girl school, quietly whistles Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf – yet another subtlety I’ll betcha never noticed before.

Keg parties. Chasing girls. Smoking grass with the cool professor on campus. Riding motorcycles indoors. Deflating pomposity. Delivering the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner. These are essential rites of passage for the red-blooded male seeking some enjoyment out of life.

Because you gotta enjoy it while you can. Look out on the horizon past graduation and what do you see? Mortgages. Despicable bosses begging to be ice-picked in the face. Marriages. Diapers, diatribes and divorce(s). Graying hair. Fading health and inevitable mortality. Who needs that shit?

We cannot recapture the decades in the rear-view mirror or even act that way any longer because carrying on like lunatics might get us accused of arrested development. But we can still reminisce and laff and, especially, we can wonder whatever happened to that seemingly drop-dead gorgeous redhead I picked up that one night at Rockitz and who had vanished from my apartment by dawn along with a couple of my jazz records all those years ago.

Yes, let us indulge in healthy remembrance of things past and conjure some of that old magic with a surefire spell. Chant with me now: “Toga, toga, toga, toga!”

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2017 by Steve Evans.

World-Famous Pedophile Mikey Jackson Dead at 50

By Steve Evans

Faded pop phenom Michael Jackson died yesterday, reportedly of cardiac arrest. The pedophile and perennial oddball nearly took the Internet with him, as scores of news sites and Google itself were almost crippled by the influx of queries regarding the man-child with one white glove.

Beyond the anthropological fascination such behavior provides, those of us encumbered by intelligent thought are left wondering: who the hell cares that Michael Jackson is dead? And, won't I be pissed if the Internet crashes and I can't do my work today, all on account of some grief-stricken frenzy over one of the most overrated and easily one of the most peculiar pop-cultural freaks in American history?

Michael Jackson possessed a thin, reedy voice and a squealing falsetto that made him sound like one of the prepubescent girls who swooned over his dance moves, which could be fun to watch in the early days, but were ultimately repetitive and eventually just boring. Every cat in The Temptations could dance better than Michael Jackson. Most of 'em could sing better, too. So could Smokey Robinson and every last one of his Miracles. Sam and Dave. Otis. Sam Cooke. Yeah.

But Jackson offered something no one else could deliver, and, I'll wager, he did it all unintentionally. What, you ask? I'll tell ya:

Michael Jackson was more entertaining offstage than he could ever be under the limelight. He put on a good show, alright. And that's because Michael Jackson was out of his mind, boys & girls. Tinfoil-chewing, bug eyed looneytunes, dig? I really hope this doesn't come as news.

Jackson's money bought him a "get out of jail free" pass on more than one occasion. His unquenchable passion for eccentricity made him the darling of the tabloids, the Holy Grail of paparazzi, and all the attention brought him millions more to indulge in the sort of bizarre behavior and sexual perversions that would have gotten half a dozen Nazi officers hanged 70 years ago. One wonders how history would look upon Charlie Manson if only he could have carried a tune and had indulged a fetish for plastic surgery.

True, Michael Jackson never killed anyone or ordered anyone murdered, to our knowledge. But he paid millions out of his personal fortune to hush up tongue-wagging boys who had fallen under his spell and to whom Gawd Knows What had occurred while alone with Jackson when no adults were around. Actually, according to leaked grand jury documents, quite a lot went down at Neverland Ranch, where the boys drank "Jesus Juice" (wine) and gallons of other libations, some laced, some perhaps not, so everyone could get a little loose and Michael could have his fun with young boys. As Robin Williams observed in his stand-up act, while visiting Neverland "you must be at least this tall to ride Michael." Williams held his open palm about four feet off the ground and we all got the idea.

Jackson also spirited away much of the Beatles' song catalog when the collection went on the auction block in 1985, right from under the nose of competing bidder Paul McCartney, which reportedly annoyed the hell out of Sir Paul, but really aggravated the unholy hell out of me because for the next 20 years I had to listen to so many Beatles songs being pimped in commericals to sell products that I instantly boycotted on general principle -- all because Michael Jackson bought the rights and immediately turned around to license those classic songs for commercial use. Doesn't matter if news reports are true that Jackson willed the rights back to the Beatles' bassist. Too little, too late. God Damn you, Michael Jackson. Ya money-grubbing, lilac-lavender, fancy-lad freak.

So aside from the "Thriller" video -- a fairly amusing and expensive-looking zombie short starring Jackson and directed in 1983 by John "An American Werewolf in London" Landis -- and maybe two good recordings with the Jackson 5, I will only remember Michael Jackson, if I bother to remember him at all, as the weak vocalist who warbled a tune called Ben, which was the titular theme song for the sequel to Willard (1971), which was a creepy and ultimately stupid movie about an extremely disturbed young man who communicated telepathically with rats, one of which was named Ben (released in 1972), and who made them do his bidding.

And so we come full circle, as life imitates art, art mirrors life, and we kick around cinematic subreferences galore.

This ain't called Cinema Uprising for nuthin', film fans.

Copyright © 2009 by Cinematic Cteve // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.