The Drink Tank
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This is issue 100. I’ve been at Then he flashed a sawed-off shotgun this for a little over a year and a half and pulled the painting off the wall. and I’m so proud that this issue is And walked out, past security cameras happening. You’ll discover that every- from which he didn’t bother to hide his thing in this issue is numbered. Those face. Back in the taxi, he made more numbers can be looked up in the “World’s Stupidest Criminal” errors. back in the guide to the contributors. The biggest was prying the Picasso There’s also so much more. out of the frame, and then leaving So let us start things the frame, covered in his fingerprints, rolling...with Frank Wu and the art of in the back of the taxi. He was Mr. Brad Foster! thoughtful enough, though, to leave the driver a ten-pound note. Number 1: RANDOM LIST NO. 743A: Grant-McVicar is the son of John 4 NOTABLE THINGS LEFT BEHIND McVicar, once England’s Public Enemy ON TAXIS, PLANES OR TRAINS Number One (and the subject of an by Frank Wu excellent Roger Daltrey album and movie). Number 2: Missing Things by Brad You’d think his dad would have taught W. Foster him a trick or two. Apparently not. The would-be thief was caught and Number 3: Bono Vox by I M Roger received a combined sentence (for this crime and a dozen others) of 15 years. Number 4: Two Stills from John Perhaps acting as his own lawyer Cassavetes’ Shadows might have been a mistake, too. 2. PHILIP K. DICK’S HEAD I travel a lot, from convention to Here’s a tip: If you make something convention, and I always worry that planned out well. He’d taken a taxi really cool and then show it to a bunch I’ll lose something. The way Holden from the Hilton Hotel in London to of people, be careful lest you lose it. Caulfield left his team’s fencing foils the Lefevre Gallery, a prominent West David Hanson, sculptor and founder on a subway. Or the way Frank Kelly End dealer in Impressionists. Visible of Hanson Robotics, spent 25K of his Freas had paintings stolen from the from the street was Picasso’s 1939 own money to make a robotic version trunk of a locked car. But I doubt if oil painting, “Tete de Femme,” of his of Philip K. Dick’s head. Why? Well, I’ll ever experience anything like these then-lover Dona Maar. Grant-McVicar Dick did write “Do Androids Dream of horror stories. asked the taxi to wait for him while he Electric Sheep?”, the basis for the film 1. INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE popped inside. He asked an employe “Bladerunner,” in which androids are Russell Grant-McVicar had the to confirm that it was a Picasso. And hard to distinguish from people. Picasso theft all planned out, just not that it was worth a million dollars. And the robot head was cool, with 36 servomotors for expressions and noted that this was the worst recording an artificial personality based on experience of their career. mathematical analyses of Dick’s When U2 returned to Portland years writings and constructed by Andrew later, Bono appealed for help retrieving Olney. The head was so cool that the lost lyrics, repeated the plea to no it appeared on the cover of “Wired” avail in 2001. magazine. Meanwhile, a woman named Cindy Everybody wanted to see it. Harris stumbled upon the briefcase in So before that fateful day when the attic of a rented house in Tacoma, Hanson lost his head (c’mon, you Washington. It took her a while to knew that was coming), Hanson had realize that the case was Bono’s, and been traveling for weeks, making that it was stolen. It took her and her two trips to Asia and pulling 15 all- friend Danielle Rheaume another year nighters in 40 days. On his way to to penetrate the protective bureaucracy Google headquarters in Silicon Valley, surrounding the band. he boarded a plane in Dallas at 5 in But in 2004, 23 years after they the morning. In Las Vegas, the flight had gone missing, the briefcase and attendant woke him to tell him they the lyrics notebook were reunited with were changing planes. In a mental Bono, who called it “an act of grace.” fog, he left the head in a bag in the Comparisons between the final overhead compartment. and long-lost lyrics have never been The friendly America West folks published. did find PKD’s head in Las Vegas and packed it off to San Francisco, but it 4. THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF never arrived. Perhaps it wound up JOHN CASSAVETES’ CLASSIC in Alabama with the company that INDEPENDENT FILM, “SHADOWS” salvages lost items, or perhaps - with Portland, Oregon, Bono had the John Cassavetes is best known for all the wires sticking out - it was lyrics to U2’s next album stolen from acting in “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The mistaken for a bomb. “That would be a a taxicab. The band was under a Dirty Dozen” (for which he received really strange ending,” Hanson noted, lot of pressure. This would be their an Academy Award nom for best “if the head of a Philip K. Dick robot sophomore record - a challenge for any supporting actor). But he was also wound up being exploded by another band - and worse, they were making an important, if slightly obscure, film robot.” it about God. Even worse, the studio director. PKD’s head is still missing. time was already booked and coming His first film, “Shadows,” is up fast. Bono quickly whipped out considered by Leonard Maltin to be 3. BONO’s LOST LYRICS new lyrics, and he felt spiritually “a watershed in the birth of American After a show at the Foghorn in inspired as he did so, but the band still independent cinema.” Dealing with race issues, it was shot cheaply Gena Rowlands, has battled Carney to in 16mm in black and white on suppress this original version. the streets of New York, with an She wants to promote a white-washed improvised script and volunteer crew version of Cassavetes as someone who and jazz score by Charles Mingus. never suffered through depression or When Cassavetes first screened artistic struggles or self-doubts. his film in 1957, the audience was Rowlands - who did not even know puzzled and confused; many walked that there were two versions - has out. After that disappointing response, demanded that Carney give her the Cassavetes hired a Hollywood hack original, so she can destroy it. He has to make a more commercial version, refused, claiming that it must be saved swapping out half the length of the to recreate the original version. for future generations. film. The second version, from 1959, Finally, after 17 years, his search Rowlands also meddled with the was popularized, but many thought paid off. He was contacted by a recent Cassavetes DVD set. She the original better. Jonas Mekas wrote woman whose husband had owned a threatened to kill the project if the at the time, “I have no further doubt junk shop in downtown Manhattan. original version were included, or if that whereas the second version of He had regularly replenished his wares Carney’s name - after he had spent ‘Shadows’ is just another Hollywood with purchases of (you guessed it) stuff 300 hours on the project - were not film - however inspired at moments that had been left behind on subway expunged. Because she had the - the first version is the most frontier- cars. money, she won. But the battle goes breaking American feature film in Carney’s personal theory - based on on today... at least a decade.” But the original interviews from people who might have negative had been cut up to make the been involved - is that folks carrying Total: second version, which became widely the film back from its final original 4 things lost, 3 retrieved. Not bad. circulated, and the first was lost, screening were distracted when an seemingly forever. attractive blonde got on the train. But critic Ray Carney, who’s spent In any case, the only surviving a lifetime writing scholarly works on print of Cassavetes’ film was found in Cassavetes, refused to admit that it an attic of a relative in Florida. The was gone. celluloid base was shrunken and Carney spent years and tens of brittle, but the emulsion was clear and thousands of his own dollars searching sharp. It was even better than the for the film, even interviewing dozens of overlapping scenes in a restored copy people to follow a lead that the film had of the second version recently prepared been donated to a school somewhere in by UCLA. the midwest. He even worked with the Cassavetes’ lost film was found. original actors and audience members But the story doesn’t end there. Interesting, Cassavetes’ widow, actress Y’all know how I feel about Los the Imperial Palace Hotel), but perhaps you?), a two-story gilt and marble-clad Angeles: A certain cloudy mixture of the most fun, with diorama sets and house studded with bronze statues. love and failure hangs over the city interactive displays. However, the I do mean ‘studded.’ Dragons for my eyes. But I can’t deny that cultural spot that has been catching crawl up the outside wall; Roman Kelly Green catches it just right my imagination just lately is a little and Greek soldiers stand alert on the inher piece.