April 14, 2002 

Our correspondent Deathspammer muses . . .

   "Wish Phil Austin would get his novel published . . ." So does Austin, believe me. The actual fact is that "Beaverteeth" has been rejected by probably five major and five middle rank publishers. My personal favorite being some editor who said "I guess I’m not hip enough . . ." These unneeded and absolutely unnecessary rejections have at least allowed me some time to considerably improve it, endlessly working it over like . . . like . . . oh, make up something on your own. I’m written out. I spent the first few years on it just learning how to write in a form that’s kind of the opposite from the way I write for FST. The second part of the experience was going back and figuring out how to tell a story. We’ll see if I’ve succeeded. Someday. Upon publishing. If I can find someone hip enough.

   I’m thinking of unleashing some of it here, just to see what elicits what response. Response is good, and thanks, Larry, for your thoughts. Thoughts are good, too. And responsive thoughts, well . . .

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   It’s sad, but Rhino Records recently had to say goodbye to both Harold Bronson and Richard Foos, the two leather-jacketed rhinophiles who founded the label out of their record store in ages past and who guided it long enough to produce the latest three FST albums and the PBS special called "Weirdly Cool" before being bought out by Warner Bros. and basically told that Rhino is to become a high-profit reissue division of WB and therefore, their services and guidance are no longer needed. Two more gracious, honest and fun people you’ll not meet and we’ll miss them, not that they’re gone. They still live in their same houses and their kids say they’re not gone, they’re still there. Their respective wives report seeing them. Word has it that they’re establishing businesses (in the case of Richard) and finishing a movie (in the case of Harold) and I have a feeling we’ll be seeing them in Firesigntheatreland in the not far future. FST had two engagements with Rhino, by the way, the first being in the early Eighties with the release of "Anythynge You Want To," "Lawyer’s Hospital "and "Nick Danger and the Three Faces of Al."

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   Me and the Blonde Bombshell are heading to Utah and won’t be back for a week and a half. We like to – at least once a year – camp out east of Capitol Reef near Tarantula Mesa at the base of the Henry Mountains where the last wild bison in America live, where there are no phone lines or fences and the Waterpocket Fold becomes quickly more important than any of our life in Hollywood. We’ve got five dogs at the moment and they all get to go. As I write this, we’re packed and ready but at the last minute my friend Menno comes to town from London and Budapest to show the first cut of his movie to its star, the estimable Mr. Cusack, and he requests our presence. So tomorrow morning we head for the screening room – without the dogs – and view what’s taken over Menno’s life the last year or so. It’s called "Max" and it’s about Hitler as a watercoloring youth, and his brief friendship with a one-armed Jewish German Army vet named Max who becomes his art dealer. And you know? Max dies at the end, after many entertaining moments with – say – Georg Grosz. This much I know because I did the original reading of the script for producers and so forth at an art gallery on Robertson in LA, videotaped by Allen Daviau for Zemeckis and featuring Anne (that’s right) Heche and Alan Cummins. I was the narrator. There is no narrator in the actual film and so I’m not in the actual film. On the other hand, neither are Alan or Anne. The night with Anne Heche is another story, though. Ellen DeGeneris was there, watching over Anne like . . . like . . . you fill it in. I’m written out.

   Word has it – and I think the word comes from Lion’s Gate, the producers – that it’s Academy Award material. Utah can wait a day. If they don’t give Menno an Oscar, at least they’ll give it to Johhny. (I haven’t met Johnny, except over the phone, but I call him Johnny because Menno does. When in Rome . . . ) When we get back from the San Rafael Swell, from Ninemile Canyon, from the mysteries of Western America, we’ll let you know how it went. All of it.