After a short period of hibernation, I had a pretty eventful weekend.
Oddly enough, Thursday and Friday were punctuated by two monkey-related events. The first being
Gorilla Thursdays at ghettogloss, a small gallery in Silver Lake. I saw some local art, watched a bit of planet of the apes, had my picture taken with a girl in a gorilla suit. What really sealed the deal though, was stumbling across the Red Lion, just up the street: a proper, campy, German beer garden. As soon as Doug and I walked in I thought to myself “oh hell yes.” The walls were wood-paneled, there were Germany decorations everywhere and a guy was playing jazz piano. Plus the waitresses were all wearing cute German dresses. Friday night found me at the third happy hour worldwide at the El Portal Theater in north Hollywood, which also featured some monkey shenanigans. It was basically a party in a movie theater that revolved around an hour-long screening of independent and commercial short films and videos of all shapes and sizes. The screening finished with a live clarinet/accordion/tuba band playing the Star Wars theme song while beach balls started flying everywhere. Believe it. We left around 11:30 which luckily left just enough time to speed over to this next gem:
At midnight, the Nuart Theater in Santa Monica screened, to a sold out crowd that we barely got into, Troll 2. This film is notoriously one of the worst-made, worst-acted and most preposterous B-horror movies of all time. All the funny reviews and second-hand accounts of it are dwarfed by the asphyxiating hilariousness of actually seeing it for ones self. To put things in further perspective, the neighboring artsy-video store has it listed in its “Holy f*cking sh*t!” section. Apparently, eighteen or so years after being made, Troll 2 is experiencing a camp renaissance. It’s got this huge cult following that became apparent to me when practically the entire theater recited all the funny lines and scenes (every line and scene). So its on a screening tour with the cast and director, who were there for an equally side-splitting Q&A afterwards. The child that played the protagonist of the film (now much older) is making a documentary about it called The Best Worst Movie.
Tonight was more laid back. I got to the MOMA downtown to see a performance from Saul Williams, the celebrated spoken word poet, singer/rapper, writer. I don’t usually go to see spoken word being performed, so in fairness, I don’t know how to judge it. But it was certainly enlightening and entertaining to watch. It’s always a pleasure to witness a really great orator and performer at work. Plus it’s just cool, in general, to see a bunch of hip, well-dressed people come out to watch poetry on a Saturday night in LA.
