Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Pico And Sepulveda
So I was carefully dismantling a collapsing stone wall today that I intend to rebuild and this song starts playing in my head....You know how it is? You kind of remember a song and you want to sing it but you don't really remember it? The kind of thing that could drive someone listening to you nuts....
Pico And Sepulveda, a number by Johnny Figueroa and his Orchestra from the 40's, but it entered my conciousness by way of the 1980 movie, The Forbidden Zone. The Forbidden Zone is a movie that was made by Richard Elfman, the brother of composer, Danny Elfman and scored by Danny when he was leading the band, The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, before he did the Pee Wee Funhouse music, before the Simpsons or Batman movies.
The Forbidden Zone was an amateur film with a shoestring budget, tacky animation sequences and a cast that included Herve Villechaize, Suzy Tyrell, Viva, The Kipper Kids and many others. The plot cannot be described, but it is brilliant 16mm surreal kitsch. Something about the 6th Dimension, Jewish wrestlers, Squeezit the Chicken Boy and a girl named Frenchie. Somewhere there is a video of Danny Elfman and the Mystic Knights performing Minnie the Moocher with Danny as the Devil singing before chopping off the head of Cheezit the Chicken boy....if I can find that.....
I understand that that The Forbidden Zone is available on DVD now. Just a suggestion.
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2 comments:
i'm disappointed; judging from how you started the post, i was all set to hope that someone had set Frost's Mending Wall to music somehow. then you hit me with just some random earbug that wasn't even very contagious.
well, then again, that's coming from somebody whose earbugs are usually all instrumental. just as well, i guess, since my singing only ever ets me thrown out of bars.
(now playing: Yankee Celtic Consort, Arran Boat Song. painfully beautiful tune.)
Well, Nomen, I like a lot of dumb stuff. I like a lot of stuff, but I'm sure you have those days when no matter how hard you try to have serious, profound thoughts, your brain keeps repeating the really dumb Frank Zappa song...Charva....
Still dismantling the wall, carefully. It's part of the side wall of the barn and it developed a very disturbing bulge and cracks...I talked to an architect friend and he said I could do it myself if I put a support beam in to hold up the roof. Hope fully I can get it all done before next winter!
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