The History of the Tele Times (2007)

The History of the Tele Times is made from some of the 6,000 hours of film accumulated by wizard documentarian Claire Burch. The focus here is on B. N. Duncan, legendary underground artist of Berkeley, CA. We revisit the esteemed “Fred and Ned” comic strip that Duncan created with Wild Billy Wolf, and the zine they started, which later continued with Ace Backwords, a major under-appreciated genius of our era. (One of his songs is on the sound track.)

From 1978 to 1982, The Tele Times presented the ultimate in outsider art, in every sense of the word. Primitive artist Narayan, for instance. It’s said that life on the streets is many times more difficult for a woman than for a man. It is interesting to be introduced to such a woman, however briefly.

Duncan is seen constantly photographing the kaleidoscopic Berkeley ambiance and interviewing its dwellers. Burch recorded the historic meeting of Duncan and Backwords and the historic meeting of Duncan and uber-cartoonist R. Crumb. We hear excerpts from the lively feud between Crumb and a stripper, and meet his partner Aline Kominsky-Crumb.

The interview with Duncan is very ably conducted by Ace Backwords (who, if there were any justice, would have his own TV show. I’d call him an even hipper Dick Cavett.) They discuss Gypsy Catano, and the occupation of People’s Park, and a whole lot more besides. The conversation turns to the subject of vehicle dwellers or rubber tramps including Vincent Johnson, the founder of Rainbow Village.

Historically speaking, these are the people who later turn out to have genuinely made history, rather than the politicians and armies, as is generally supposed.

The back of the DVD case has a nice quote from Michael Horowitz and Cynthia Palmer, venerable keepers of the psychedelic tradition. (A debate between Horowitz and Backwords would be an interesting event. The latter’s book, Acid Heroes, pretty much trashes the entire scene.)

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The Good Life (2007)

The Good Life does not the good beginning have. There’s some voiceover narration employing the word “oftentimes,” and I’m thinking, “Oh, please.”

Miraculously, that teaser of a soliloquy, delivered by the protagonist, is the only false note. Once we’re past it, this quickly becomes a hella good movie. Plus, it incorporates the wonderful piece of oratory from Chaplin’s The Great Dictator.

Jason (Mark Webber) is grand – the character and the actor, both. A painfully responsible young man, he parents his giddy, flaky mother. As if that weren’t enough, Jason also looks out for Gus (Harry Dean Stanton), an aging movie projectionist who can’t get over the death of his wife, among other things. Jason visits the beautiful old theater daily for the increasingly unrealizable purpose of keeping Gus on the rails.

The conversational topic is heroic pilot Amelia Earhart.
Gus: “They say she wore men’s underwear.”
Jason: “Who’s they?”
Without copping any kind of attitude, he says it all in two words. “Who’s they?” Jason is truly cool. As we used to say in the Sixties, he has his shit together.

He also survives brutalization by a psycho football player, and turns out to have a shocking medical problem. I remember hearing about a boy whose parents gave him, for Christmas, the same gun used by their other son to commit suicide. That may have been the inspiration for this package left to Jason by his dead cop father. He keeps it in a drawer, unopened, for quite a while. I know the feeling. I’ve received letters that needed to sit around and mellow; that couldn’t be opened until the right psychological moment. It’s all pretty grim, actually.

Then beautiful, mysterious Frances (Zooey Deschanel) comes along. At first, she seems like a blessing. There’s a scene between her, Jason, and Gus that rings true for anybody who has taken care of someone with a deteriorating mind. But heaven never lasts. Though Frances claims Jason as her soulmate, it is, unfortunately, his soul upon which she makes several demands. Frances is like Henry Miller’s wife, the legendary June: a totally unreliable fabulist and a magically irresistible femme fatale. There are such people, and one who’s really good at it can captivate victims of either gender, at will.

Half of Jason’s monumental obligations vanish when his mother finds a man, who will now presumably bear the burden of her unstable ways. As soon as Jason formulates in his own mind the intention to leave town, Gus dies. I can relate to that, too. I had a cat once, a creature of already-proven weirdness, who heard me talking on the phone about finding him another place. He sickened and died within days.

The truth comes out, about Frances, and it’s bad. But I like the ending.
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Written and directed by Stephen Berra

I’m Your Man (2006)

First line written in my notebook: “Must get soundtrack.” I’m discovering musicians I never heard of before. Martha Wainwright sings “The Traitor” with exquisite textures and shapes of sound. Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen do a transcendent “Anthem” together, and I love Batalla’s old-fashioned-looking brown dress with pink sleeves. And Antony, how did I miss this guy so far? “If It Be Your Will” – is there a more perfect song? Even if he does mess up the lyrics? The guy who sings “Can’t Forget” is Jarvis Cocker, but he looks enough like Cohen to be his long-lost son.

There are songs here that I, a self-identified Cohen aficionado, don’t remember hearing before. The thing about his compositions is, they lend themselves to a wide spectrum of styles and interpretations. In 2005 a whole slew of great performers got together for a concert honoring the songwriter/poet/novelist. This is the beauty part: they’re getting seen and heard by people they never reached before, because of their purpose to express their admiration for one man. There’s something karmically satisfying about that.

The director of I’m Your Man is Lian Lunson, and the executive producer credit goes to someone I’d never have guessed in a million years – Mel Gibson.

An interview is interspersed. I’ve seen some sexy old dudes recently – Frank Langella in Starting Out in the Evening comes to mind – and now Leonard Cohen. There are short bits where he says some very illuminating things. He grew up on a diet of superhero comics. As a young man in Montreal, he hung out with a group of poets who mutually savaged each other’s work, as a learning experience. He quotes the immortal Shelley, who said poets are the “unacknowledged legislators of the world.” One thing he talks about is how he’s always been more comfortable wearing suits. (But probably didn’t when living at Big Bear, or in the Zen monastery on Mt. Baldy).

Even more illuminating are the tributes offered by other musicians. Nick Cave’s first hearing of the Songs of Love and Hate album was, he says, a life-altering experience. “It just changed things.” Rufus Wainwright says he grew up in environment where “the name Leonard Cohen was spoken frequently, with reverence.” He does a real good job here, with “Hallelujah.” Edge from U2 makes his worship evident, and then there’s Bono, who I never paid much attention to before, but now that I hear how he feels about Cohen, I like him a lot. Bono compares Leonard Cohen to Shelley or Byron, and that’s just fine

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