Hold your ears, folks, it's show time. People pay good money to
see this movie. When they go out to a theater. They want cold
sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the projection booth. Everyone pretend
podcasting isn't boring off they were having Yes, there's a lovely rosy glow in
the valley. Oil rich Indians in space. I was just looking for you,
Fred, oil rich Indians in space. The fact regarding the situation remain
the same state the authorities, lionel I said, Back up, the facts
regarding the situation remain the same state authorities. Don't you know what that means.
I'm proud of you boys. I'm proud of the job that you're doing
for your country. Go with the Globe, boys, go with the globe.
Good gass, Lord's bird gass. It's the best. You make it
yourself. Nuts, I'm from bird you know. Pucker up, don't you?
Huh? Just put your lips together? What's up? What is this
gonna cost? Yeah? Back again? Yeah? Oh? How do you
feel about that? I don't feel I'm the executive way I go for a
big trip. Were controlling? I hate the music. Welcome to the projection
booth. I'm your host, Mike Boye. Joining me is miss Heather Drane.
Hello. Hello. Also back in the booth is mister Darren Williams.
I'll go boom hey kids. On this episode, we are talking about Neil
Young's Human Highway, OH. Directed by Young under his Bernard Shaky name and
Dean Stockwell. The film stars Rust Tamblin as Fred Kelly, eight gass jockey
and mechanic who gets a new job working for Young Otto, played by Dean
Stockwell. Released in nineteen eighty two, the film ties into Neil Young's rust
never Sleeps and Punk era of his career. I am frankly not sure if
there's a lot to spoil about this movie. You might actually be better off
listening to this before you go and track down the movie. So just take
that as you will. Darren, when was the first time you saw Human
Highway and what did you think? Well, the first time I encountered it
was about twenty years ago. I read Steve Pachelski's review of it, which,
wow, he was knock kind on. About two or three years after
that I managed to track down and leg of the original cut, the non
director's cut. Yeah, I was kind of at that phase in my life
where I was determined to love everything that was a cult film that didn't have
a good reception. But this took me a time or two. I really
liked it, and I really appreciated the loose, shaky quality of the film
and the way it kind of anticipated a lot of things that were happening in
eighties comedies that kind of brightly covered nonsensical stuff. But it took me a
few views before I really fell in love with it. And how there,
how about yourself? I remember reading I want to say it was a review
written by Michael Waldon's a different, a difficult writing legend. And of course
I'm a huge Debat fan. I've been a huge Diva fan since I was
in my teens, and I was obsessed to try and find this film,
and for a long time it was not the easiest thing to get a hold
of, and I'd see little clips of it, in fact, on a
lot of the Debau music video compilation. And I want to say that the
truth about the complete truth about the Evolution DVD that Rhino put out, they
have the Worried Man clip in its whole song form, and that was a
little teaser. Really, Oh my god, I gotta get this film.
And so I finally was able to get the director's cut that Neil Young put
out, and I was not disappointed. And you know, when you've anticipated
a film for that long, there's always that kind of fear of like,
oh God, is there anyway it's going to live up to what you've built
in your head. But it actually surpassed it, which credos because my brain
is a weird space. And yeah, I don't mean this is a cult
film lover's dream. I mean you've got like, like there's a lot of
like Twin Peaks, David Lynch people crossover here. You also have Fox Harris,
Sally you know, Sally Kirkland, so many we'll talk we can get
at the cast. Yeah, I mean I loved it. It's definitely not
for everybody, but I think anything really worth viewing is not going to be
for everybody. I only saw this for the show. I remember seeing the
VHS at Thomas Video. Maybe a few other places, but mostly Thomas Video
in their cult film section. Sorry guys, but it's a really ugly VHS
cover. It's just got this like hazardous material type thing on the cover.
And it really just kind of kept me away because it wasn't appealing at all
and I didn't know anything about it. And then years later I can't even
remember who suggests that we cover this for the show. Might have been you,
Heather, I'm not sure, because I know sounds on brand, I
know how much you like this one. I think you've even been on the
Culture Cast to talk about this. So here I am eating Chris Stashu's lunch.
But I really found this one to be pretty intriguing, and like you
said, all of the crossover with the Twin Peaks stuff, but I had
a hard time believing that this was nineteen eighty two. It feels like this
was being done after Twin Peaks. It just feels a little bit more fresh
and just the colors you mentioned, Darren. Stuff was so bright and so
studio bound, but it didn't feel super studio bound, like it didn't feel
like we were on such a set, because there are some movies where you
feel like, oh, this is just a set and they'll never leave this
place. But they were doing some interesting things, I mean right from the
beginning, like when you've got Neil Young and Rustamblin on bicycles and this really
incredibly obvious background that they're riding in front of. I just love how fake
it is, and I love the use of miniatures, especially seeing the whole
town being laid out, hearing the news broadcast from the radio. DJ's kind
of setting up the whole story that there's this competition of bands and that the
nukes the Devo band is the new Keys and they seem to work at this
nuclear waste treatment plant, and how they won last year with their song Shrivel
Up, and you know it's great. I was just like, oh,
okay, I'm already intrigued and I want to know more about this. Does
it move at a lightning fast pace? No? But do you feel like
you're getting to know these characters each time you watch it? Yeah? And
I think that I enjoyed this movie more every time I watch it. Absolutely.
I mean it's kind of like an own way, like a socially conscious
fever dream, and I really respect that because it actually like it's it's a
film that there is some definitely kind of like serious themes and utter Currently the
nuclear fear is the biggest one, but there's other things going to But it
never feels preachy, and Neil Young, I think, has always been such
an outlier because of course, you know what, don't you think of Crosby,
Stills A Nash and a lot of their peers, like they already seem
like old hat by the time this movie's out, in my opinion, And
Neil Young, he's just never gotten that kind of foginess about him. He
never seemed overly preachy. He's obviously political, always has been, but he
never seems to like ram things down in that way like you never seems like
when people say okay, boom or they don't mean Neil Young, they mean
David Crosby. Weird Diva wore treating him like that though, weren't they like
the old fogy Yeah at the butt the Live show when he showed up to
watch them and they had the audience chant and real dung instead of Niil Young
and the grandfather of Granola and all that stuff. So Diva, like a
lot of you know, the punk and new wave bounds, they were seeing
people like Young as the enemy to an extent until they worked on this.
I think, Yeah, there's that whole kill your idols, like the old
generations are out of touch, But Yeah, Neil Young never really felt out
of touch. I remember, I think it was right after this came out
he did the album that was more rockabilly, and he had that what was
it called Wandering was the song and has a great music video to it,
and he just always feels like he was reinventing himself. And I know some
of that was kind of a fuck you to the label that he was on,
like, you can't put me into a box. I will change every
single time I put out a new album. I think that's fantastic. I
really appreciate that he was doing that and just lifting a middle finger to the
industry that he was in, oh one hundred percent. And those three albums
are all like classics too, because it's like I think everybody shakens the rockabilly
one, there's Old Ways, which is like a traditional country kind of album,
and then he did trans which is like his experimental, sort of scent
like electronic album, and I think that one was the one that was the
ultimate deal break. What I really like about Neil Young the whole time,
though, is that it's not just the record label he was saying that too.
He was saying it essentially to his audience. If you like it great,
if you don't like it even bad at you seem to be entertaining himself
a lot of the time. This big Allenton, I'll ever probably compare him
to Love Read. But I love both of them. I mean usually Read
fan. But the thing I've respect about both thems, I feel like they're
these are cats that always have made the music they want to make at that
time. And yeah, I don't think Neil Young has ever sold out.
I don't think anybody could ever accuse him. If anything, he's run the
opposite direction. Mad respect for the man Bowie as well. He reminds me
of in just this constant reinvention of himself and who he is and what an
augenance can expect from. And like Bowie, he was a major champion of
new young music. He wasn't scared by any of it. He's playing adult
essentially, he just has this stupid look on his face through so much of
it. But he's a lovable adult. But then he's also playing the super
hip, out of touch rocker, this Frankie Fontaine character who has like this
compadour, and he sits in the shadows in his limousine and he's got that
crazy cigarette lighter and he just feels like the most pompous asshole of all.
And it's just again Neil Young making fun of the image that he's supposed to
have, and really he's more like the dorky Lionel that is going around.
I love that he named himself Lionel too, because I know he's a huge
trained face and so why not go with Lionel? And there are trains all
over this movie as well, especially some great miniatures. Frankie Fontane character,
I feel like he could almost pass for like the twin of Boris Blank from
the band Yellow. And I'm not saying Boris Blank is a pompous Vegas guy.
He isn't, but I mean the mess staff everything that name alone.
Frankie fun I always wish he would have done like a Chris Gaines thing and
had done like a whole album as Frankie Fontee. And I was just the
love to hear what that would sound like. But yeah, Lionel, Lionels
like almost like him and the Russ Tamplin character, like they have like this
great sort of childlike not innocence, but there's like a sweetness about them,
like you really love these characters, and it's almost kind of like these just
like two Innocence in this world that seems very much like small town America,
but in a mutant kind of form. It's it's got that Poust fifties sort
of atomic feel to it. Aesthetically, I was wondering when it's actually meant
to be set, because if there's you know, Native Americans having a space
casino and out to space at the same time as Johnny ray Is still on
television, what the hell here are we in? I took the Tamblin and
Young relationship to be very much Vaudeville. It's really all school comedy acts.
If you listen to the way they're interacting with each other and double talking over
each other and confusing things. It's like Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy
to extend all Lewis and Martin, because there's a lot of Jerry Lewis and
that Neil Young performance. Unfortunately, there's something about it that also reminds me
of another nineteen eighty two performance by non actor Stephen King and Creep Show.
There's just something that reminds me majority Barrel if instead of being turned into a
plant. He was turned into a nineteen fifty eight Jerry Lewis character, which
would have been a better film. That's one thing that maybe on the first
viewing people didn't like necessarily was that repartition that they have. And when they're
talking about how there is old Auto Auto courts and that he died of radiation
poisoning, and then you've got Lionel and Neil Young character talking about, oh,
I fix radiators all the time, and I even drank the water from
the radiators. And you've got Fred Kelly, the Russ Tamblin character, being
like, no, no, it's because of radios. It comes out of
radios. And it's like instead of like Martin and Lewis, it's almost like
two Lewis's, you know. And Russ Tamblin with his flipping and all of
his physical comedy when he comes into Young Auto's office and falls over that bicycle
and he's doing a lot of pratfalls in this. Actually, I think this
rolls almost the perfect Russ tablet light crossover because he's like, you have elements
of his first iteration, like as a Hollywood guy, as a kid actor,
and you know, he's a West Side storying. He's a great physical
dancer. And then it's a cult film, so we got like the al
Adamson this has something to do with al Addison, just go work with me
here on this. And but then we have like art house cult too,
which you know we end up seeing him and stuff like twin Peaks. So
this film's almost like the Bridge. This is almost like a cool kind of
bridge period actually for a lot of these actors, because think about it,
Dean Stockwell, when he did this, he was considered his career is from
much considered on skids. Oh my god, can we talk about Dennis Hopper.
Yeah, the thing you really want on your film set is a clearly
very high on borderline psychotic Dennis Hopper with a knife. That's really all you
need in the film set. Yeah. Poor Sally's I know, like she
ended up getting like getting attendance ever because she's trying to grab the knife away
from him because he was freaking her out. Oh figure, and like he
actually he didn't did our purpose, but I guess she'll like sued him and
all that and even but he's so I mean, he's in his hopper as
a fry Cark feeding raccoons pancakes, and the raccoon's name is Amos. He
even named it, and you know that sh it's not in the script.
No, you know, he's like, this is amous. They're like,
yeah, okay, Denis, that's Samos the rint. My favorite top of
moment is towards the end when they were prise and worried man and he does
that little bit of business and he's clearly stoned out of his mind on the
look on his face, delighted, this childlike innocent grin when he pops up
at the end and he's so high, so high, high on life.
You mentioned the script, and I have to say, what script. Apparently
they were writing stuff down as they're doing it, so there really wasn't a
script that they were working off of. And it feels like that sometimes.
The other times I'm just like, okay, yeah, this, I mean,
you've got really you know, all of these actors that we've mentioned are
really strong actors. The only real non actors in here are the musicians.
And Neil Young. I mean, he does a freaking fantastic job of this.
You would never think that this guy was not an actor. Yeah.
Absolutely, If you can match a guy like Russ Hamblin, you got the
goods and almost maybe wish like he would have done more movies, which is
something I very rarely ever say about musicians who aren't who aren't like David boy
doing acting. Though all this reminds me of Joe Strummer when he was talking
about History Train. He was just like, Yeah, I'm going to keep
acting until asshole's like Don Johnson quit singing. Oh God, I miss him.
Lynch came up a little illier. Do you know if he ever actually
saw this film, David Lynch, it feels like he must have. I
mean, with Charlotte Stewart in here aka Mary X from eraser Head aka a
major Briggs's wife in Twin Peaks, and gosh, she was in a few
other Lynch things, if memory serves, And then it feels like this is
a tryout tape for Blue Velvet and then for Twin Peaks, because with Dean
Stockwell and Dennis Hopper in that in Blue Velvet, and then you've got your
Russ Hamblin and Charlotte Stewart inside of Twin Peaks, I mean, yeah,
it just feels like there's such connections going on here. I would think that
he must have seen it just to be nice to Charlotte at least, and
not only that. The scene where well, it's different depending on which head
of the film you'd been watching, but the original it's Sally Kirkland just after
she's been fired and she's sitting there. She's playing The End of the World
on the jukebox, and she looks up at that picture of old author,
which I think is the biggest laugh in the film, just that Dean stock
Will looking so saintly in such a bad wig and false beard. And there's
that train running through the background with a house in the middle of it passing
through the window. It feels like something from the Double Art. It feels
like you're in Twin Peaks the entire Maybe it's just a woman crying with an
old rock and roll song on the soundtrack, but it feels Lynchian the entire
thing. It's in the Willhouse, it's adjacent, I think a hundred percent.
So we really haven't talked too much about the plot of this movie,
and there's not really a lot going on. There's this whole thing with a
diner slash garage, so there's the diner and there's the garage with the gas
pumps outside. So you've got young Otto who is now taking over the family
business since his dad died of radiation poisoning, and he is setting up new
rules. But at some point he gets the idea. And we don't really
get when he gets this idea, but at some point he says, you
know what, I'm just going to fire everybody, and then I'm wanting to
torch the place and collect the insurance money. I don't know why you would
fire people first. It feels like you would just torch the place and be
like, oh, sorry, you don't have a place to come back to
for work. But maybe I'm planning too much of this, but planning ahead,
I should say. So you've got the mechanic and the gas jockey out
front and they're doing their things. They've got the people in the diner.
It's mostly the waitresses and Dennis Hopper as the fry cook, and then occasionally
odd characters come in. And then on the other side of town, you've
got Divo. Who are these nuclear waste management guys in these red jumpsuits?
And I love how the red is just being over emphasized and just kind of
popping off of the screen. They are literally glowing with radiation, and they
load up the truck with all this nuclear waste and then Boogie Boy jumps onto
the truck and a little Boogie Boy goes a long way. Let me just
say that, I'll have dare you. I love boogie Boy. Oh my
god, Mike, boogie Boy. He's the best part of this film.
Come on, and I think Boogie Boy is the only character in this film
with any kind of awareness of what's going on. During the word Men song,
his little speech about everyone's reach into that big ice cream cone in the
sky, he's in present with any kind of awareness. Within Divo, he
was what the infantilized eve evolution of men. That was his intended roll and
General Boy's son. I have a super nerd of Divo. But yeah,
that's a good that's a good descriptor people. Actually, in fairness, Mike,
people do tend to have very hot and cold reactions to Boogie Boy.
If you're a rod router, if that, if you're that much of a
Devo ner'd, all you deep cutters out there, you will not like Boogie
Boy. I remember somebody online actually asked Jerry Cassali about about like, why
do you guys use that creep beam ask? And Jerry went on some this
is when Bush Junior was an office on some See ran about, Oh I'm
glad you're scared of a little mask and we have a war criminal. Oh
the piss that delighted me. This in Vinegar of Jerry Cassali. Boogie Boy
is just such a striking presence, and he really stands out in this film
because he's got that Mickey Mouse hate Poluto voice and that mask which always reminds
me slightly of you remember the mask in Alice Sweet Dallas. Yeah, it's
just got a similar vibe to it for me. And he's just this this
voice of anarchy. And I's think, if someone watches this film and doesn't
like it, I can understand up. But surely everyone's got to appreciate this
film, if just for Diva Neil Young doing hey, hey, my mind
together? Yeah, and Bookie By just steals every scene he's in. But
yeah, you're right, it's better that they do under use him really in
the film, because if he became anymore he would tend to I think he'd
over balance the film slightly. It's just the voice. The voice gets to
me after a little bit, and then like some of the weird things where
he's just like my mom's got a big butt, and I'm just like what
all right, Oh oh, I live for the barrel go boom? Yeah,
I mean that firn on barrel, that poor scene, the where it's
like barrel go boom, bar and it's like, no, it didn't.
We're not seeing that. We're seeing like the front projection and the something is
skid, and I'm like, okay, I'm supposed to assume that this barrel
fell off of this truck, but I'm not really seeing it because you couldn't
really afford to shoot that. That's okay, I understand. And then poor
Peggy Young, who is Neil Young's wife at the time. She is behind
the truck and I think you see her again at the end, but she
has been cut out of the non the director's cut quite a bit, because
she shows up at least like two or three more times than the original VHS
version of this Are You Naughty Boy? Neil? Yeah? Yeah? In
the XY I do have to say that My Struggle by Boogie Boy is out
on archive dot org and available for download. For anybody who wants it.
So quite interesting. It's like two hundred and ninety one pages. It feels
like a like a real old school zine. There's all of this cutting paste
of text and images with ironic captions underneath. It was very neat to read.
I had a good time going that. What a world. I love
it. I love it. We have archive dot org same here. Not
to turne in two commercial for them, but what a resource at least for
now, oh not come one. Yeah, that's how the barrel goes doom
dear and your your take degree right, almost being like would you almost gett
of like a weird sort of like moral sort of a Greek chorus? Yeah,
well, I think Devo in general a serving is the Greek chorus.
Also in the original cut where they bring the radio station into director's cut to
kind of serve that purpose a little bit. And you know, worried man,
I mean, do you know the original version of that song? It
look like an old yeah, but yeah, and they took it from I
think it was an Appalachian folk song before. But apparently the original is about
someone waking up on a bank and finding himself imprisoned and not really knowing the
crime. There's something too that of that being used as the recurring song for
this film, where you know, everyone's life in the world, but especially
in this little valley, is trapped and sort of ended by nuclear war,
is by the threat of nuclear power, and it's just transposing that original idea
of your life not being in control of dark forces that you have no saying,
assembling against you. And I think that's why they picked that song to
us as the occurring thing. But yeah, even within that group, Boogie
Boy, I don't know if he's the voice of morality. It's actually but
he's kind of the only one who's awake at all. He's the only one
who realizes how dangerous this is. Everyone else is so blase about it all.
Now the people respond to it, like there's that scene later on in
the diner where one of the customers is complaining because everyone else tabs has been
stopped, but Diva or allowed one because they work at the nuclear plant.
And there's this weird almost defense and belief and blind faith in nuclear power that
the same way as patriotism isn't usually portrayed in films like this, it's and
Boogie Boy is the only one really not caught in that trap, not so
completely blind to it. Everything is actually going on around him. I do
love to at a stopper that seeing where he's like, go with the globe,
boys, go with the globe, like he thought, And you're right.
It does have that kind of that that very like sort of uber patriotic
kind of tone. I feel like there's almost and i'd be if I'm talking
out of my talks here you guys, both of you please like be like,
girl, what are you doing? What are you saying? But I
fo there's also kind of almost like a classicism or not class them, but
like a class commentary, because like all of our main characters are working class,
and I mean they live in this this area where the only real like
real availability you have to survive is like working at a diner, working as
a prior, you know, a fried cook, working you know, as
a guy pumping gas, working at a factory, like a nuclear factory.
And even Otto, who I mean, I mean, I guess he's a
close thing if we have to like a traditional villain. But Auto is like
almost just seems like kind of like an emasculated and the big scheme of this
universe that even he doesn't really seem that bad. It's like it's almost like
the villain in this film is more of just almost just sort of like it's
it's nuclear energy, but it's also just the mess that we've that humanity has
basically sort of sewn itself into. Yeah, I'm both Young and Stockwell with
big environmentalists as well. And Young was really he was pot to know nukes,
wasn't me? I believe? Yeah? Yeah, which is so which
is so cool to talk about guys, both of them being ahead of their
time, like Dean. I think a lot of people know that about like
Young, but a lot of people realize like Dean Stockwell has always been kind
of this very cool, like countercultural activist kind of guy and also very like
supportive of weird art, Like even in his golden ears he was making like
media like visual media art out of things like dice and you know, like
like sort of like mixed media kind of things and just I love Yeah.
And in addition to being like this great actor, you know, Dean Stockwell,
like this whole film is like everybody I love singing in cinema, any
of these, any of these people. And now Neil Young. I'm like,
now, I'm like, what if there's like an alternauniverse and creep show
where Jordy Varrel's played by Neelie as Little. But I love that, especially
because you think about these, I mean, Hopper, Stockwell and Tambling are
all guys that basically kind of grew up with the Hollywood system and rejected it
and we're just kind of had that anti conformity kind of thing just rooted into
them, and say with Neil Young, but Neil Young is able to see
outside the rock star bubble, like this is a guy that never really seemed
to ever get himself in that bubble. And that's a hard thing to do
fame of any kind, and especially just that era of rock gods, DN
know, and just I mean even and some of them, And that's shit
a lot a lot of people can't even shake. I mean, not to
disparage the dead, but I mean even David Crosby when he was still alive,
some of his tweets, you could tell he's still viewed himself like I'm
the voice of a generation. And I don't ever feel like Neil Young comes
across like that, you know, Like I feel like he's he's just a
really smart guy. He's the guy you could talk with and he's not going
to be an asshole to you and bullshit you or talked down to you.
More importantly, I think that's the thing is as experimental and weird as this
film, because a lot of people that are anti art house one haven't really
seen a lot of it. But also maybe they had a bad experience where
they saw a film that was pretentious and they felt talked down to for being
like a cult esoteric film. I feel like that's a film that is having
the viewers on the level with it, if that makes sense, And I
think that's super cool. It's something I always really appreciate. It's really weird
to think that just a few years prior to this that Hopper, Tamblin,
and Stockwell were all in the last movie. I mean, these guys are
all like being Stockwell was a child star, Tamlin started off very young,
Hopper started off very young. That these guys had been through the ringer,
you know, working their way up and being rebellious and just all of these
things that they remained friends for all these years and are still working on projects
together as pretty wild to me. Well, Stockwell and Tamblin we're in a
film together when they were like nine or ten something like that. The last
movie. I mean, that's where this all starts, really, isn't it.
Because Poppa I think he said he had a deal with Universal Post Easy
Rider that they would match the money he put up on a film, and
he said to Deem Stockwell, do you want to write a script? And
Stockwell come up with After the gold Rush, which I think has been lost,
hasn't it the script for it? And then you were talking a little
bit before we started recording about how Human Highway came about. What was that
whole story? Stockwell he'd written After the gold Rush, and Neil Young came
in and agreed to do the soundtrack album. So that's where After the gold
Rush the album comes from. He was Flans the thing for that, and
the film that he was writing was about the end of the world. It
was about people into panga and basically there's a giant tidal wave. The last
shot of the script apparently was this giant tidal wave coming to destroy everything that
never got made. And then Young and Stockwell through around ideas for something called
the Tree from out the Space which sounds wildly trippy. It was about a
tree that could turn into a rocket, and it takes off into space with
this variety of people who've gone exploring the tree, and they set up this
new civilization based around the tree. And the tree was powered by giant organ
that you had to play music the right thing and the tree could fly because
of it. And that never happened either. And Human Highway just came out
of all that. It came out of less work together. So this script,
this didn't work, Let's do this script. This didn't work, and
then he moved on then and Young first wanted Human Highway to be basically about
the life of a rock star on the road, so it would have been
I think Frankie Fontaine character or something like that. And that's what the Wizard
of Oz esque dream sequences in this film are. They from that original film
in that, you know, the bonfire is scene and the diva and all
that, and it eventually transformed into Human Highway. And what we were saying
about old Hollywood, and Heather was saying about, you know, everyone in
this reject and hold Hollywood. The film is still incredibly in debt to hold
Hollywood and Young said that when I think he said this in his autobiography,
but he wanted everything to look deliberately fake because he felt in old films,
the more fake they loved, the realer it became. And this is almost
brecked here. They now fake it looks it's constantly reminding you this is a
film, this is a film. These are fake, these are sets,
these are miniatures, and yeah, so it all came from that. But
I think it's uses some Hollywood tropes and plot in and it uses some classic
Hollywood so just references. There's constant references to films and old music, like
Charlotte Stewart at one point to sing and I can't give you anything but love
baby from bringing a baby for obvious reasons. Neil Young is whistling somewhere a
lot and obviously listen in joke with Tamblin, but to have and have not
this sort of misquoted halfway through with Geraldy and Battern and Dean Stockwell. But
I think Dean Stockwell in this isn't playing it like he's in a screwball,
Like he's the straight man role in the screwball. He's the only one who's
under playing really and not doing the big reactions to a thing. I think
it's a brilliant comedic performance that's kind of overshadowed a little bit by what Young
and Tamblin are doing. But I think he's incredible in this Dean stockwell from
what I understand, just the name Rust Never Sleeps is somehow coming from Devo.
The boogie boy had that written across his nappy, that breast never sleeps.
And there's debate. I've read a Devo biography words you know, somebody
were saying, oh yeah, because we worked at this advertising agency, and
it's like, no, actually worked at an advertising agency, so don't lie
kind of thing. But like, was it a commercial slogan for like Rustoleum,
We don't know kind of thing. But Rust Never Sleeps. The album
comes out in seventy nine, this movie comes out in eb two. So
you can tell that this had been in the works for a long time.
Because that recording of Devo playing with Neil Young doing Hey, Hey, My
My, into the Blue, Out of the Black or whatever name you want
to call that song. I mean that feels like it was being shot and
done in like seventy eight, seventy nine and Rust Never Sleeps comes out in
seventy nine, and Live Rust is. Yeah, Live Rust is also seventy
nine. You've got Hawks and Doves and Reactor and trans and you can hear
part of I think it's part of Reactor in the movie when Frankie Fontaine rolls
down this window. You get to hear what is it, mister soul.
I think it's the name of the song. But I know, of course
two when we're talking about this movie, we're talking about two different cuts of
it, so I don't know if that was the song that was playing in
the original version of it when it came out maybe two, or if that
was later on when he did the director's cut and changed out some of the
songs. Yeah, that's weird the music change it Isn't It completely throws you
because the first time I've ever watched the two cuts back to back was full
of this, and I was just it's the music different than this. It's
a strange little thing that's going on there. But yeah, I've heared that
Divo story too, and I think it probably kind of makes sense that it
was that the performance would have been filmed in seventy seven seventy eight because it's
a very punk performance and punk and apart from the cartoony punk, the punk
itself that they were doing, I'd pretty much died out by the early eighties.
Yeah, so I think it makes it's more natural that would have been
filmed early on the slogan would have come from. But I also think that
Divo and Neil Young to an extent, had taken You do not think Waits
doesn't interviews or he used to do. He would always lie to the interview.
You'd always make up a story of whatever entertain him most. I think
there's a lot of that going on with this. Oh, I can definitely
see that. Yeah, what isn't evidenced by film. I don't tend to
believe about this movie, which is one hundred percent fare that is. Yeah,
And I don't think I'm wrong for doing that. I'm not calling anybody
a liar directly. It's just that feels like there's a lot of memories.
There are probably a lot of drugs involved, all this kind of stuff,
and then a lot of time passed, you know, if the whole thing
of you know this, here's the story of Johnny Rotten and then Mark Mothersbab
being like I don't want to say John Rotten, and you know what kind
of connotation does Johnny Rotten have? And seventy seven versus eighty two pretty different.
There was no Johnny Rotten by eighty two, he'd gone back to John
Lyden. It looked like from what I could tell, Deepo started doing Worried
Man as part of their set, going back to at least seventy eight,
but it was usually when they were as their alter ego band Dove, the
Band of Love, where they would come out wearing like visors and these hideous,
hideous like kind of leisure suits, and we're basically like a pseudo Christian
type band, and they would open for Devot and there'll be times where apparently
they'd get booed because the audience. If you see any performances of them as
Dove, it's like, how did you guys not know this was TAFO.
I mean, it's pretty There's not many people that look like Mark Mother's Ball.
There's not many people look like Jerry Cassali, you know, and the
shrivel up connection because Dove appears as Dove in the nineteen eighty Dabney Coleman movie
Pray TV. But they're performing shrivel Up, which is weird because shrivel ups
about basically like I mean, I cannot get an erection. It's like Devo's
destroyer, not Kiss destroy but Kinks destroyer, and so to have Dove,
you know, singing shrivel I love Devo. I've never seen the whole movie,
but I've seen that clip. And it's not to be confused with the
nineteen eighty two TV movie with John Ridder Pray TV. There are two pretvs
back like two years, within two years the whole sequence in here. So
we probably should talk a little bit about the dream sequence because, like I
said, there's not a ton going on, but at one point Frankie Fontaine
shows up and Lionel is just so enamored and he's like, oh, you
got a got a noise and you rear end and then eventually starts to fix
the car and this wrench follows on his head and he goes into this dream
sequence. And in that basically you're seeing You're saying, concert footage, you're
seeing a little bit of a road movie. You see this performance by Divo
doing was It Comeback? Johnny from the very very first album, and I
love how they're dressed in this these like cowboy outfits and stuff. You know,
like another great alternate Divo that we have with this this cowboy band doing
Comeback Johnny. And then yeah, we get whole sequence of them doing Hey,
Hey My My with Neil Young, and that's fantastic. I love that
song, and I love seeing them play it, and I love seeing just
Divo basically destroying that song. It's so fun. Oh Divo doing covers in
general. I mean that one is definitely on my list of favorites. I
mean, right next to you know, obviously Worried Man Satisfaction. There's on
a live Devo album called I think when I say it's called originally it's called
it now it can be Told, but I think it has a different name
since it's been rereleased. But they do a medley that Somewhere and it's called
Somewhere with Divo. The whole thing's called but they like at one point incorporate
the West Side Story song, which is so I didn't even think about,
like the whistling of Somewhere in this movie till you said that. I'm like,
oh shit, wait that comes up again with Divo, which again that's
kind of a gift. This is one of those movies where there's all these
little things. It definitely does merit like multiple rewatching this because there's gonna be
so many things you miss. I'm hoping like more people will seek it out
because you know, I'm thinking, like, wouldn't be great if we got
like a rerelease of this with both cuts and speaking of links, there's also
Hopper as well. Out of the Blue. Oh my god, how did
I even miss that? Thank you? I was like, holy shit,
that's so I don't That's that's the thing. There's so much and like give
us commentary tracks because that Blue ray doesn't have a whole lot in the way
of supplements. And it's like most of these, I mean a good amount
of these people are still with us. Young is tambling is speaking of links
and this is a bit tenuous. But the whole thing with Missus Robinson showing
up, did she reminds you of a John Water's character, because I could
you Edith Massey saying those lines and at one point she calls out Dennis Hopper's
name, which is Cracker, and of course crackers and pink flamingoes. Anyone
else think that was deliberate. I don't know if it was deliberate, but
when she was like, Cracker, Cracker, are you going to start talking
about the eggs? Now, what's going on? I did not think that.
Now I won't be able to unthink it. Like the next time I've
watched this, I'm like, holy shit, Darren is right, it's Lassie.
And you know I have to mention because you guys, this is like
part of my religion. At this point. Fox Harris is in this movie
as an Arab, a bisexual Arab. Uh. Yes, yeah, who
had already had sex with the waitress. I've tried you already, I hollered.
I oh, I convenched. I did somersaults in my heart because I'm
not that physically spife. I tried to do a little somersault your girl being
a cast right now. But Irene, I believe it's Irene because he tries
to like woo this like stud Milkman played by David Blue, who's a total
dick to pro Lionel by the way, I was like, oh, he's
the real villain. Fuck it, he's the real villain. And the milk
that's the villain v and means the Lionel and the Fox Harris and for everybody
listening, like, who's Fox thererist? Fox Harris is this gem of a
character actor bestone probably for being the guy with the sunglasses and repo man and
that's driving the car with the loot. But of course for our all you
Steven Sadie and people out there, he's in Doctor Calgary and he Fox Harris
is just one of those guys. He's great and everything, and he's in
this movie for five minutes and just the faces he makes when he goes you
know, I already have like yeah, because she's like trappy and he's just
like and he makes this like undulation with his mouth that only Fox Harris could
do. I was just like, oh he You know. They have a
term I think in Drag where like if a girl's picking the apples, she's
gonna get a lot of tips because she's reaching her hands, those legs a
kick and she is working that stage. Fox Harris picks the entire orchard.
He is apple picking, and I love him for it. Inclusion of the
Milkman does lead to a scene I can't watch, which is the milk bath
sequence during the dream sequence. Oh that disgusted me. Is that in all
versions or is that just in the the VHS version? I believe it's cut
down in the director's cut, but it is in there. It is in
there, but shorter of shorter version, it's much shorter. Yeah, are
you do you have a thing with milk? Is milk like super grocers to
you? No, it's not milk being super gross to me, it's just
that image of him lying there covered with the straw. It's just this something
really upset and about that, this really unwholesome dood scene. Yet we all
have triggers. I had a friend who she's like, oh god, gammo
disturbed me, and I'm like, well, that's normal, but yeah,
it was was that see where he's in the bathtub eating and she was like
that. She's like I had to turn it off with that, and I'm
like that was and gummo, that was that? Really? No, I'm
done, actually, but peopleman goes and do some bales who like eat if
Massey covered and eggs was like they were fine with the singing anus and the
feces, but the hard bawled eggs on poor eaties shivering cleavage was just much
too much like kid, you do? That was my react into this.
Oh and there was no need to see that. Yeah, you could have
got that. So we were talking about the radiation and all this, and
there's a at one point there's a guess it's an earthquake, but they call
it a roller that's going through here. And then later on we just have
all out nuclear war and I guess wherever this is being set, and I
guess it has to be around California Nevada border because of the cal Neva patches.
Yeah, the jumpsuits that Divo have. They get obliterated by nuclear war
and you get to see it coming from both sides. It looks like both
American missile and a Russian missile are both coming towards this town and just wipes
it out except for Boogie Boy. Boogie Boys the only one that's left,
and he gets to give this whole discussion about you know, how bad this
is, this glowing healthscape now that they're in. But that's before then they
have a musical reprise of Worried Man with all of the characters there with their
shovels and their civil defense symbols on there. And I love when when a
whole movie just turns into a musical out of nowhere. I absolutely love that.
Oh my god, same day. The first time I watched it,
I was like overjoyed. And Fox Harris is a part of the unsolvel and
we get to see like Russ and Lionel like yo, yeah, dancing through
that thing on the shovels with her feet. Yes, that's amazing. Comblin
actually choreographed it, didn't he, I believe. So. I love Sally
Kirkland's like she gets like extra raunchy with some of her gyrations. She is
like reminded me she's in, um, this a really great rippedtorn movie called
Coming Apart, And she does like a sexy dance and it's almost like it's
it's like that, but Coming Apart's way, way, way darker. Believe
it or not, This film has nuclear annihilation, but that's something. It's
a kind of a light viewing despite the world ending. Yeah, well,
and it ends on necessarily a hopeful note. But this whole thing of the
limo pulling up to this huge staircase that seems to be going up to heaven
and all of the characters ascending that all too takes a worried man going on
in the background and everything. This is one of the few movies I will
watch the entire credits every single time, just for the music and also to
watch the people going up the stairs. And then of course you have that
great tagline at the end, watch for Human Highway three. And I'm like,
am I reading that wrong? It say two and my eyes are too
old? No, I'm pretty sure it says three. The thing is it
is a light viewing. But when you think about it, all the things
this film sets up, so Dean Stockwell as the nominal villain Lionel wanting to
be a music stom Lionel and Charlotte, will anything happen with them? Well,
everything it sets up that you think is going to be a plot point,
it all comes to nothing because nuclear wall which just comes and just ends
everything for them. And to me, that's like young and Stockwell just saying,
well, look, you may have all these plans, you may have
all these dreams, you may have all these hopes, but if we don't
do something about the nuclear weapons, they could all come to nothing, because
one day when you're dick in about the world could end. It's really dark,
but it's really breezy at the same time, it's subversive like in that
way that I really like it because it is it does have this like deceptive
tone of lightness. But then and actually one thing I wanted to ask YouTube
out and see what you guys think is like with that dream sequence though,
there's that whole section where they're with a bunch of Native Americans and they're doing
like a ceremony and they're like burning all of these old Indians, which at
the time I remember my first ye I took that as being like a symbolic
thing of burning because when you think of like when Indians think of like cigar
stores and you know, basically stuff made by like white people for money,
Yeah, like you go to craft fair. So I don't know, you
know, like something like that. I took it like maybe this is like
like symbolic of trying to sort of rid that sort of color only all kind
of oppress or energy. But but I could be kind to present it wrong.
I don't know what did you guys think about that section? Like what
were your takeaways? The first time I saw it, I thought easy rider
rides again, you honest, that whole section, But I think there's definitely
a lot. I do really like that section. But I think there's a
lot to what you were saying, because the whole thing about how, you
know, the Native Americans are really the only ones who are going to survive
this because they've got a space casino, so they would have been away from
the war, They've got the spaceship flying around, they would have been away
from the war, they would been away from the destruction. And I think
it's that slightly seventies hangover from the hippie thing of back to the land,
back to you know, the native beliefs and the way things used to be.
And I think Young was really big into that, and that's what he
was pushing for as a move away from this nuclear age that we were heading
towards. So yeah, I think it's definitely a possibility. Well about you,
Mike, It almost feels to me like Neil Young making amend and being
like, hey, these are because I don't know if you necessarily see wooden
Indians as being a symbol of oppression, but feels a little weird, especially
to talk about another version of Creepshow Creepshow two, where the wooden Indian gets
revenge and whole mccanney where he's got the long hair that's going to get him
paid and laid. It feels like the wooden Indian is, you know,
it's getting its revenge on, you know, the white man, and just
all of these creeps that are in this town. And when the Indians just
all that's kind of it feels very crass to me for some reason, just
like, what are you doing? Why is it this, you know,
Native American person that you're using to sell your goods that you put them outside
of here? And there are so many wooden Indians in this movie. It
is wild. When you start looking like, well there's one in the office.
Oh, actually there's two in the office. Oh there's three in the
back of the service station. You know, just they're everywhere. And so
when they actually show up in the dream sequence, I'm like, oh,
okay, that's kind of cool. And to see them being burned and everything,
I was like, all right. If to me, it felt like,
okay, we're getting rid of this past depression, and this feels like
Young is kind of trying to come to some sort of agreement understanding with Native
Americans. It's also further than the Wizard of Ours thing of course though,
because everyone from the film, including the one Indians, show up in the
dream seat one speaks it is And if you think about that dream sequence,
it even starts with a basically a mini tornado thing going on when Lionel's struggling
towards the phone booth and everything's just blowing past him. And I think it
shows something about how limited Lionel's dreams really are that even in his wildest fantasies
have been a rock star, is sexual depoetry, amounts to the milk bath
and his back in band. Are these wooden Indians that he's had around in
the entire time. I think it's just showing I think this world is all
a very small place. I mean, this is a place where people are
genuinely getting I did about a talent contest and a nuclear power plant and that's
genuinely a talking point and on the radio it's a very small, very insular
town, and you know, Lionel's dreams are very small and very insulate.
As a result, there was something I'm meant to ask actually going back,
and I don't know if this is just a thing of you know, I'm
British and you guys are American. The gas made by made by birds?
So is that a reference to something that I'm not getting, not that I
know of. Um, yeah, I didn't get it. Yeah, I
just yeah, it was whimsical, and yeah, I found it interesting in
because there's there's a ton of bird imagery in here. You've got the crow
that's going on that actually pays a visit to to both Lionel and to Boogie
Boy. You've got the at one point and I'm not sure if it's in
both dream sequences, but there's the oil pump that is dressed like a bird.
You've got the owl, and they've got a whole who who conversation that
they're doing, and then they cut to the owl, and the owl is
there constantly through this movie. So I was like, Okay, I don't
know what's going on with the birds. And then you know you're talking about
the Indians. Then I'm also thinking about Devo dress as cowboys. I'm like,
are we supposed to like pull all this stuff together into something? But
yeah, bird gas, and you know, one guy's talking about a literal
bird. I think it's Neil Young's talking about the crow that's visiting him.
And then you've got Russ Tamblin out there polishing the pumps and he's talking about
bird gas. So I don't know if it was just an easy joke that
they wanted to go for or what it was. I just thought they might
have been, you know, like something back in the semties or something that
was an actual foom in America advertising, like an ecologically more friendly gas or
something like that, and they would refering on that a little bit. But
I wasn't sure because that's a little bit out of my cultural NAIs. No,
that does. Actually, I'm glad you brought that up because I forgot,
like we have to mention that saying rabougie boy drinks the gas and he's
like, I'm trying to a lot. He's like, oh, that's a
good casts birds. The only other thing I can think of is there was
a band called Bobby Bird and the Family Bird and they spelled it with the
B y r D. And they had a song called Gasoline. That's the
only other thing I can think of. Damn, that's a deep cut.
Yeah, it's a bit cal Mike. I love that. Oh my god.
That was from seventy nine though, So I don't know if that even
fits in our timeline. So I don't we trying to pull together all the
various streights of a film that was written as they went along. I mean,
there's five credited screenwriters for this film, and I watching it, it
feels like it should have been more. It feels like it should have been
every actor, every cast member, some guys they met in a bar the
night before and a couple of passing lumberjacks should have been credited with the script
on this because they don't know if and there's always a thing with any kind
of criticism, if this is just us projecting what we know of Young,
what we know was stockwell backwards onto the film, or if this stuff was
there in their heads, if they was planned, if it was planned for
it to be so anti plot in a way. But it feels like it
must even amidst all the drugs, Hicken and all the access that was going
on. And that said, it feels like it was planned for it to
be this way. And I don't know how many drugs were being consumed other
than by Dennis Hopper. I never got the feeling that Neil Young was really
into the drug scene, you know, as opposed to his bandmates from c
N and why oh no, No, I don't think he was ever extremely
into it, but he was getting high certainly, Yeah, yeah, And
I think everyone on that said was getting high for deaf and apart from Devil
possibly who feel like Explorers dropped into another world in this film. I believe
they designed the costumes because I feel like I remember Kassali and the ca Terry
Check on the music video did we're talking about like how uncomfortable, but they
designed like the tubes going through the nose and just he had this whole thing
about Devo constantly suffering for their art because so much of their gear that they
would design, I mean they're making it out of man made materials. So
and back then where I mean not like things are much better with FDA or
whatever. It's worse now probably who knows, but it wasn't. They got
a lot of rashes, got a lot of you know, they did suffer.
But but what a great look. Yeah, it does feel like they
but it kind of adds to it. I mean, this film should feel
like everybody. Listeners who haven't seen it are probably gonna think this film is
gonna be a hot mess. It's gonna be a vanity project, and I
would never use any of those descriptors for it. Like, it's certainly not
a vanity project because I mean it's not Neil Young beating his chest and being
like, look at me, I'm brilliant. Like it's so collaborative, and
I mean he even used a fake name for a director. I mean you'd
have to be like a Neil Young fan to know that. So it's kind
of like an in joke. But it's not really vanity. And it does
even though it's dreamy, yeah, non linear in a way that this film
is, it doesn't feel messy. It should by everything we're saying, it
should be almost unwatchable, right, but it's totally not like it's if anything,
it's actually very rewatchable. Yeah. I think the things that we if
you take get in isolation, you know, so many plots, strands don't
go anywhere, lots of the performances feel like they're in different films to each
other. All these things that are going on, these are the reasons why
it works and reasons why it all comes together. It's yeah, it's it's
it's a fascinating film because however much you wouldn't pick it, and unless Young
actually gives the definitive word on it, we're never going to be sure.
Since you know, being Stockball has sadly gone now, you can't really be
sure of anything in this film, and that's part of the reason why it
works as well. So, oh, one other thing I want you need
to bring up the DJs the good chorus when it switches to the female voice
at the end, is she meant film space station? She's seeing the exact
same thing that he was saying at the beginning of the movie, which was
odd that she's saying that the exact same stuff. Yeah, but then her
last words over to you, I can't remember the male EJ's name, she
says over to you, and then she repeats his name again, like where
are you? So is she meant to be on the spaceship this base casino?
That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know, because it feels
like we wouldn't be able to get their signal from space, but we are
seeing the train at that moment. I think it was. It was something
that puzzled me a little bit. So much love gone into this, even
though it was so ramshackle and there's so much, and I would much rather
have this kind of mishmash of a film of dragon and elements of all these
different things of people saying, well, this is what I'm passionate about,
because you feel like you get into see inside someone's head. Then you feel
like you see in the world through their eyes. Which it's not bloated,
it's not self indulgent. It's not a vanity piece. And I can think
of comedy films that are that, and this isn't it. This absolutely isn't
it. This is what art should be doing, is taking you into someone's
worldview and it's dropping you there and it's saying, make what you can out
of this. It's not explaining everything to you. And I love that about
it. All right, let's go ahead and take a break, and we're
going to play an interview with Charlotte Stewart who plays Charlotte Goodnight and Human Highway,
and we'll be back with that right after these brief messages. Hello,
this is Will, a writer of three films plus a Christmas special, And
this is Kevin, a writer of one and a bit films of three and
a bit episodes of TV. Okay, we're screenwriters by day podcasters by night
Yeah okay, Batman and we're the hosts of the Best Bits I Show,
where each episode we pick our favorite film scenes for randomly selected, weirdly specific
themes such as best spicing sexy and best Tom Cruise running scene. Why should
I know these things? Do you? Go? And we have the world's
first podcasting Ali to keep us on the straight and now say hello podvibes.
So if you're looking for another film podcast to subscribe to, why not check
us out The Best Bits with Will Collins and Kevin ly Hair and pod first.
Yeah it's a good crouch Irish cracked. So if you want legal crack
to subscribe it to Best Bits podcast please They say we are shop on gas
Ali and they're a good good order and they are not enough go around God?
What will we do? We've heard that whole story before, putting no
bad down, But I'm gonna filing down more than dirt, just land and
makes the ground. You said that you're going to be eighty two this year.
You've been acting for what sixty years? Now? How old were you
when you first started getting into acting? I went to acting school when I
was seventeen, right out of high school and I got my first job when
I was eighteen. It was on The Loretty Young Show, Never the Loretti
Young Show, You're too young. She was a big movie star back in
the day and she had a TV show on Sunday night. And that was
my first paying part. The next year, I want to say you had
you were like one of the three main characters in Damaged Goods. No,
that's right, that's right. Actually that was a very low, low budget
film. That's how I got my agent. Actually it was I did Damage
Goods before I did the other one, So Damaged Goods was like the first
acting part I got paid for the paid scale, but I got my agent,
so that was fine. And Damage Prince was just a little love story.
But the way he paid for it was it had to have an information
section in the middle where the young man goes to see his doctor and he's
got he's been, he got DD. So there was an information insert in
the middle of the movie. He got up from the bad girl, not
from me. No, no, I wouldn't expect to get it from you.
There are a few roles that you did where you weren't credited as Charlotte
Stewart you were Charlotte Considine. Yeah. I was married to Kim Considine and
I married him when I was twenty four. It was just kind of a,
you know, an honorable thing to do to take your husband's name.
You know, a lot of actresses did it back in the day, so
I did it. But then the marriage didn't last and I went back to
Stewart. I think I only did one or two shows as Considine. I
think that was your name when You're in Speedway. I think that was an
Elvis picture, right, could have been Kim and I had just been married,
and Avis and Priscilla had just been married, and I when I met
Elvis, I thought, oh, I'm going to invite the mothers for dinner.
Have you ever heard of mollege that he was living in her life?
I know, I just felt that, you know, we were somehow the
same, you know, mister God, I think I was so naive.
I have to ask you, how did you get cast in a RaSE your
head? And how long was that shoot for you? I got cast in
a RaSE your head because this is just before the Lance in the Prairie.
And my roommate during small was a volunteer at the Film Institute in Beverly Hills,
and David Lynch was a student there and he had just made a couple
of shorts as part of his schooling, and he was making movie called a
Rasor Head, and he was looking for an actress to play Mary, and
during said, my roommate's an actress. That's how I got it. We
invited David out for dinner, he and his wife, and I was living
into Panga Canyon, which is kind of a nice mountain area outside of LA
and they came for dinner and he brought me the script and I didn't understand
one word of it. But of course I always did student films that did
several never read anywhere, you know, But if they don't have professional actors,
how they're going to learn to direct? That was my feeling. So
I said, of course I'll do it. I didn't know it's going to
take like two years to do it on and off, but did it well
into when I was doing Little House in Prairie quite often, and David Cholay
shot after midnight, so some of these times, some of these nights were
a little precarious because I had to be at work at six am at Paramount
for Miss beetle. But I always did a student film and look he one
that you know, LA Film Festival Award when it was released. Yeah,
he started his career. So that's how I got into all the other shows
that he did, you know, Twin Peaks, you know, whatever,
whatever David did, he tried to include me. I always appreciate that about
him, is that you see those same faces, and even that the people
behind the camera seemed to be the same people a lot of times. Absolutely.
Yeah, he's very faithful and I learned a lot by working with him.
You know, even though he was a student filmmaker, I tried not
to judge him as an amateur because how is that going to help him?
Was my thinking. You know, I had to you know, followed whatever
he said as direct director, is what I did, even though I didn't
understand it. It was his show he directed, and I followed his direction.
And you know a lot of people say, well, what were you
doing under the bed? You know before I said, well, he told
me to pull and pull and pull until he told me and let go.
So that's what I was doing into the Then tell me how you got involved
with Human Highway. It's such an interesting film. Before I did Little House
on the Prairie, I had a clothing store in Los Angeles called the Liquid
Butterfly. You know, we were all hitties back then, you know,
you know, it's the early seventies and we were all flowered children and smoking
dope and all of that. And my clothing store was in an office building
upstairs across from Lookout Management, and Lookout Management managed Neil Young, Joni Mitchell,
Crosbie, Stokes, Nashing Young, Jackson Brand, you know, everybody
that was super hip at the time. And because they were across the hall
for me, you know, they were in my store a lot. And
I started dating the manager there, Elliot Roberts, because I met Neil,
I met Neil Young and everybody else, and he wanted to do your film.
He was directing if he wrote and was directing, and I was an
actress and knew back and so he gave me the part one of the Leagues,
which is Charlotte, the waitress. So it took us four weeks to
shoot, and one of my roommates was the producer, and a lot of
other friends that I met in the same building. The building where I had
my clothing stories called the I'll think of it a minute and come back to
it. But it was owned by this very weird lady who lived on the
property in a little house at the end of the parking lot, or it
was called the Clear Thoughts Building, and upstairs were all these producers, directors,
writers, editors. In fact, part of Woodstock was edited there.
And so I met all these I met all these new friends who were in
the movie business and rock and roll. So of course, you know wrote
apart from me in the movie I think Charlotte the Waits. It was one
of the most fun times I ever had. So interesting to me that so
many of the people that were in that end up then working with you in
Twin Peaks, I mean with Russ Tamblin and Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper ended
up being in Blue Velvet. I should suppose. I don't know how the
crossover happened. Quite frankly, it just was coincidental. I guess. I
guess we were the hot people at the time. I just have to laugh
at all that. You know, we were all having such a good time,
the dope that was being smoked and the romances that were going on.
It we were all really just having a really good time. Well, tell
me what else do you remember about making the movie. It was written as
we went along. In fact, yeah, we would. We would get
there in the morning and get into costume and makeup, and then we'd got
the set, which was the diner basically most of the time, and Neil
was directing who he was also playing the lead, and she would say,
oh, k in this scene, so and so the cook is banging on
banging his front banners, batchelon the counter and the other waitress is getting upset.
So okay, let's go shoot. So we would shoot the scene with
Demis Hopper and Sally Kirkland and me I was playing Charlotte, the waitress.
Then we would finish and Neil would say okay, cut and then Jamie Field,
who is one of the producers, would write it down everything we did.
So it was written after we did it, in other words, and
then that night they would figure out where to go from there, and the
next day we'd come in and they say, okay, now Lionel switched mechanic
is going to come into you know. That's how we did it. We
improvised, and then it became a script. Wow, had you ever done
anything like that before. Never, I had never done anything like that.
In back half the time when I was singing, I just made it up,
walking along, you know, singing, and it was just and I'm
not a singer, which is the funnier part, because my friends tell me,
don't please, don't sing, you can't carry a tune. But apparently
Neil thought it was fine when I saw moonglow and he whistled along with me.
It's crazy. How has done a supper to work with on that one?
Crazy, absolutely out of his mind, out of his mind when we
were doing it. I mean, Neil just went along with it and let
him play that character because there was no controlling him. And later on Dennis
became a really responsible person and actor that at that time in his life he
was like over the moon and out of control, wacko. So Neil Young
just used that as part of his character. You know. In fact,
he really did hurt Sally Kirkman. He forget what he did. She had
to go to the hospital because he he could hit her with a knife or
something, and she had she had to go to the hospital, and that
it was awful, but he was in character and she wouldn't get out of
the way, and she just kept complaining about him, and that's what happened.
He was out of control. They didn't try to stab her, it
was just she she just wouldn't get out of the way. So anyway,
she was a case too. I was surprised at just how good of an
actor Neil Young was. I think he was playing what he felt was the
true Neil Young, real goofy, crazy, not crazy, but innocent.
Whether he played Lionel, I think that's what he really really thought of himself.
You know, he was just was there, and he was consistent.
He was the most consistent character in the whole movie. He never broke character.
He was always Lionel, Lionel. Switch the bits of him and Russ
Hamblin going back and forth. They're comedy gold. Oh yeah, but they
made that up as they went along. That has to be some pressure on
you. I mean, I'm sure you're used to improvisation, but to do
an entire film like that, I couldn't believe it. I was so I
was so amazed that I got to do it because I was like, why
he you know, why why did he want? In all the shows that
I've done all the TV shows and stuff. I never got to play a
sexy part. I always had to play the straight girl, you know,
the good girl. Always everything you see me in or basically everything you see
me in. But he let me go for my Maryland Monroe side. I
got in my mind. I was Marilyn Monroe sexy, and I could say,
that's what happened, you know, when you let somebody go. I
think if I was in any other place, but see, I knew everybody.
They were all my friends, and he was so complimentary that I just
was. I was comfortable, you know, I was really comfortable. But
everybody's consistent in their part. They were all you know, they were not
just musicians or you know GIVO. They were the nuclear garbage collectors. Well
how crazy does that make you if all you're doing all day it is collecting
nuclear waste. That's why they glowed. They glowed all the time. And
I think, you know what that came from? All the stuff in the
middle where Lionel is on tour, you know, as a rock and roll
star, and div I was there. That was shot two years before.
That was shot for real as a documentary on Neil Young being on tour and
never sold it. So what he did was he wrote a movie around it
and made Lionel Switch auto mechanic who dreamt of being a movie rock and roll
star. That was a dream member who gets hit in the head with a
wrench under the car and dreams the whole tour. But they had already shot
that years before. I know, you're a working actress, so you're probably
you know, once you're done with that, you're on to the next thing.
But do you remember anything about the movie being released or not being released?
It was weird because I mean, we had a big release in a
theater. I think it was a big theater on Hollywood Boulevard. We had
a big opening and stuff. He never really got the back end to promote
it. I don't know. We were kind of laughed at the same way
when Little House when the Prairie started. When Michael Landon started Little House from
the Prairie, we were laughed at in Hollywood, however, and PC was
totally behind him because he was Michael Landon. But nobody gave us any credit
whatsoever. And can you imagine next year's our dis fiest anniversary of being on
the air. Little House on the prairie bailey all over the world. I
remember being huge, and I remember missus Beadle or Miss Beatle. I should
say you eventually got married on the show, right, I did. I
married the pig farmer and we had a baby, and we moved out of
Walmut grow and the region. We had to move out of Walmut Grove because
they had to bring in and this is true. Another school teacher who was
we call Laura Ingels married al Manzo Wilder to become law English Wilder. Well,
they had to bring al Manzo into the story, so his sister moved
to town and became a teacher. So they that was planned four years in
advance, because they they told me when I got to part it was only
for four years because Miss Beetle would leave Dan and another teacher would come in
with al Manzo her brother. And that was part of the true story.
So everybody said, why did you leave? I said that was came to
leave. Eventually you would write your memoir Beck And what was that twenty sixteen?
Why then, why that particular time to write that. I never wanted
to write it. I never had a clue. What happened? Was I
retired in nineteen sixty five and I moved to Napa, where I lived now,
and because I was kind of known in the entertainment industry, somebody asked
me if I would be in the local Christmas pageant as the mother, and
you know, that's kind of a ticket selling demmick that they were looking for,
so the parents in what's it called? I can remember it's the classic
Christmas story and ballet that I had a lot of downtime because I was only
in two scenes, but I had to hang out the rehearsal forever. And
there was somebody else that had to hang out because his children were in the
musical. And so his name was Andy Dnsky. He was a local newspaperman
here in Napa. So he and I used to sit on the poor of
the entry waiting for the rehearsal to be over, and we're just sitting talk
and I would tell them stories. I'm telling the stories because we had loged
down time. So he kept saying, you should write a book, and
I would do fack damn right, write a book. I barely got out
of high school. He said, no, no, no, no,
honestly, you should write a book. You've got a lot of good stories.
Andy. Really, he said, Okay, don't write a book,
tell me some stories. So that's what they did. Every week. We
would every other week almost two years. We met it start up, and
we sat for about an hour and I would tell him a story and he
would write it down, and then he would bring back the written you know,
the typed up story, and I give it to me and I would
correct at a sound owner or whatever and tell him another story. So that's
how a little house in Hollywood Hills became a reality. Just fought it and
fought it and fought it, and he finally got a publisher about a holy
shit, and it's still sun. It is still funny. In fact,
you want to your funny story. I just my husband just bought me a
new iPad. It's called Star or something, because I'm going to be going
on a lot of trips. I've got a lot of ship and not shows
to film, but handy then coming up, and I travel all over the
country and I'm so bored on the plane that I look, I was looking
for something. So he bought me this iPad and it opens up. It
has all these features, including audiobooks. Oh gosh, audio books I click
on it and guess what audio books on my iPad? My book. I
couldn't believe it. My cut just on here because my name, because it's
his mind. Couldn't figure it out. But that's probably why it happened.
But the book, the audiobook, and my book is still selling. I
still get royalties selling quite a bit. I may say, when you go
to these conventions, are people there for you? For Little House, for
the Twin Peaks stuff or Highway to Heaven? I mean, you've been in
so many thing Tremor. Most of the events are for Little House in the
Prairie, and then mostly in the Midwest. I go to Missouri and Minnesota
and Alabama and Iowa a lot. However, in March, I'm heading to
two sun, Arizona to do what they call a West Death and it's for
all the Western TV shows, you know, gun Smoke, Bonanza, all
of those that I did. So I'm going for that. But then right
afterward I'm heading to Missouri to do a Little House event and then Michael Gross.
Do you know who Michael Gross is from Tremors plus Family Ties? Yeah,
yes, exactly. Michael called me a couple of days ago and said
Charlotte. We're having a Tremor's Fastball and I want you to you know,
blah blah. And I said, Michael, when is it? He told
me, and I said, I can't go. I just said what he
said. No, they're running all the Tremors movies and you're in two of
them, so they're so sorry. I can't go. I'm going to be
in you saw in Arizona. Shit, who would have thought at eighty two
there were the demands for my definite my attention. I have to ask you,
how was it returning back to being Betty Briggs all those years later for
the third season in Twin Peaks. Oh, it was wonderful. It was
like coming home, you know. I was in the last the last show.
I only had one scene and that and that was okay. That was
okay because it was a plot line and David was, you know, sweet
enough to find the seattle to do that that one scene. It was wonderful
because it was on my friends, you know that I worked with, you
know, a year and a half or two years and Twin Peaks. It
was wonderful. I was drilled and I was sad because the week I was
shooting was the week that Catherine Coulton died, and we were supposed to have
we were supposed to have lunch for dinner or something because I was arriving on
a Wednesday working Thursday. She was arriving Thursday working Friday. And when I
got there, I got I was in the cotton the wardrobe, and I
said, have you heard from you know, from Catherine. They said,
oh, didn't she hear She can't come. She's very ill. And said
what this book had lunch tomorrow? Said no, no, no, David
is going to her. Just filmed her scene. She was dying as she
filmed that. She literally died a couple of days later. She pulled her
step together to do that scene. And that is Catherine Coulson. That is
Catherine Coulson. It was amazing, It was amazing, shocking. As a
fan, it was so sad. At the end of every episode, he
would have a you in memory of and it was their last appearance, and
you're just when her name came up, I almost lost it. If I
didn't lose it, oh, I know, I've got some wonderful memory,
you know. I of course I met Catherine Dockland and Jack and I were
doing it is your head. And you know because she was there every day.
She was a camera assistant and she did Jeff's hair and we became we
became really good friends. Even after days split up, they you know,
she and I were good friends. It was great to be working to work
with her on Twin Peaks and everything they got to do together. I miss
her. She's just one of the most glorious women I never known in my
life. Well, it was very nice to have that kind of tie up
for in Ashbrook and his character and your character, with that kind of message
from the major. It was, wasn't it so other than going to conventions?
What's kipping you busy these days? Or is that enough? Well?
What I do is I'm at a cancer survivor and I raised money for a
cancer program in Napa where I lived, and I make took bags with pictures
from little house on the prairie. So I spend my days sewing and shipping
out. I have five bags ready to ship this moment on my table here,
ready to go out tomorrow to the post office. I put them on
Facebook and people write to me and tell me what character they want, and
I make the bag and ship them out and I give a percentage to the
cancer program here now. So that's what I sew every day. I sew
every day. I just shipped twenty bags to Illinois for my up and coming
visit back there, and I've got thirty ready to go to two sons.
So yeah, that's what I do. I sew every day. Thank you
so much for your time. I really appreciate this. Okay. I look
forward to hearing seeing whatever you're doing with this. On the Misty Mount,
I got the Human Highway. Jake my head, refreshing fountain, chake my
eyes from what they've seen, Jake my head and changed my mind. How
good? All right, we are back and we were talking about Human Highway
and you were talking about that love and affection that brought this movie to life.
And obviously Neil Young still must really like this movie because of the way
that he poured so much into the Director's cut. You know, the version
we've been talking about mostly in the first half of the show was about the
director's cut. The one that came out they was twenty sixteen, and before
that was a VHS version that was released in ninety five, and I think
that's the same version that played theatrically whenever this played maybe eighty two. I
need to see if I can find ads for this in the paper or anything,
because I'm curious what kind of release it got. He went back and
he tweaked a lot of stuff to see that original VHS version versus the DVD
slash Blu Ray version. There's a lot of little differences. Some of them
are pretty darn subtle. But then there are other times where you're just like,
oh, the editing is so different in this whole thing, Like we
really stay with Devo for a long time in that director's cut, whereas their
performance of Troubled Man is really chopped up in the original version of this,
the VHS version. So it's kind of interesting just to see that, just
to see that beginning part of it. But then, you know, you
mentioned Darren the whole thing of the End of the World, what is it
Skeeter Davis tune that's being sung. There's a lot of smaller differences in here.
It's that's the one that puzzles me most. In the original cut,
that scene where her sitting there, Sally Cookland sitting there crying and listening to
the End of the World comes after she's been fired in a spectacularly petty moved
by Dean Stockhol because he's not intended on paying or anyway, he didn't have
to fire her at that point. But in the other version the directors cut
they moved that to earlier in the film, and I'm guessing that that was
because they wanted to show a sense of the sadness taken the place since old
Otto would die. It's the only reason I can think of to do that
particular art it. The DeVos section is from why if my Memory's right the
VHS they cut out a line of dialogue because there's a whole thing where they
talked to Alan Myers, who's their amazing drubber I said, they're like,
hey, you know, they're about Linear Valley. They're like, hey,
Al, don't you got a little China doll down Dana Linear Valley? Yeah?
And he's like, yeah, her dad hates fine guts. He's some
kind of Tai chea. I think Mark brother bosays, why don't we give
him a barrel bath? And which is I was like, I missed it
so much. I love that that little little interaction and Alan Myers in real
life was a legit Master Taiche well a little in Jack there when there's that
whole like it begins with Boogie Boy, it begins after the apocalypse, and
it begins with him talking like the radio DJs aren't there at all, and
then we kind of, I guess we're going back in time to more of
the beginning of the story, because it really like the stuff with Boogie Boy
that at the beginning of this VHS version was at the end of the DVD
version. So it's really I could see where this VHS version would be even
more confusing because you're like, wait a second, is the world over and
are we going back in time to see how it ended? Or So that's
what my assumption is. And yeah, you're even talking about like the stuff
that I mentioned earlier about the radioactivity, and you know you get it from
radiators. Now you get it from radios. There's a really hard edit while
they are hawking where they just boom cut right back to devo and you miss
the whole thing about the radios. And I don't even know if you get
all the jokes about the radiators. At some point it's just like, Okay,
that was really strange, and you can hear it in the audio too.
You can hear like a little click there because I was watching it with
headphones on. I'm like, well, that was very odd. I'm not
sure why we did that, But I think the biggest part of this is
the biggest difference is that dream sequence. I think it starts a lot earlier
and it goes for a lot longer, and you get more stuff as far
as I think you see the Milkman in the dream sequence. You see much
more of Cracker Slash Dennis Hopper in that dream sequence as well. And then
he adds this really awful filter thing to it to make it very tough to
even see what's going on sometimes. And I'm so glad he got rid of
that, because that just capt writing weird visual effects, weird visual effects,
and I'm just like this, this is awful. Just get rid of all
of this stuff. And I'm so glad that he did, because now it's
like, oh, I can actually see this, and I wish I could
see it in full without that weird special effect, because like I said,
he chops down. That's like here's a little section of this, here's a
little section of that. You know, you get a little bit of the
milk bath. But then poor Darren's watching that full milk bath with the waitress
drinking the milk out of the milk bath. I'm sure that must have been
tough for you, so I'm sorry about that. He seems to have learned
the art of atton since, you know, since the original cut to this
one, because this film flows so much bad as let's shoppy, and I
think that the dream sequence could need it being cut down, and I think
if focuses now on what it needs to focus on, which is my my,
hey, hey, on the old section of the Native Americans, the
stuff with him on stage and the two would not go well. You know,
I'm not common with his knucking wealth and is going well, but all
of that you don't really need in the film. Well. It was really
weird too, because Jimmy McDonogh wrote a biography of Neil Young. I think
it's just called Shaky, and he's describing all of this stuff in the dream
sequence and I'm just like, I don't remember that. I don't remember this
either, and I'm like, is he talking about behind the scenes things?
And then I finally watched the VHS version, I was like, oh,
okay, now this makes a lot more sense. I was like, Jimmy,
what were you talking about it? He wasn't high on airplane glue there
was. He was actually referencing I do. I do agree that editing and
the director's cut so much better and that that effect. And I'm usually very
pro like weird opticals, but that effects. I mean, you would talk
about somewhere now's welcome, Yeah, because that sequence is longer and so you
get more of that smeary it just yeah, that was it was the choice,
and I'm glad he unchos for the director's cut, But it would be
cool to have like like a different composite. You say this about other films,
but in this instance, like the filmmaker owns it and he's still with
us, I feel like, well, maybe that would be cool. I'm
sure there are a number of like boutique labels that were like, oh my
god, we get to release something with Neil Young. I'm surprised there isn't
a fun edit at least just put them together. Yeah. God, there
are films way more obscure. They have like composite cuts that Mike and I
have actually discussed on previous episodes. But and Mike found him because you are
the true detective, the film detective here. Plenty of people don't know about
this movie, but they certainly know who Neil Young is. I'm just amazed
how obscure this film still is, because when I first discovered it, it
was from the review and I was just like, but I'd just been through
a massive nineteen seventies Neil Young face and I'd never heard of this film.
And I'd been a fan of Dean Stockwell since I was a kid, thanks
to Quantum Leap. You know, I was like ten or eleven when they
started so, and then obviously my teen's onto Blue Velvet and films like that,
and I was like, Neil Young and Dean Stockwell made a film together?
Why have I never heard of this before? And even now you mentioned
it to people, and oh, what's that but Neil Young, Devo,
Dean Stockwell, Dennis Hoff. But you think it would have multiple audiences built
in If anybody listening this hopper as a fry cook feeding a raccoon, I
mean, if that doesn't sell you, and he's even a little sleazy.
I can't remember if it's in the because at this point, because we're talking
about both cuts, and I know for sure it's the VHS cut when Charlotte's
talking about she's going to be in the Talent Show and she's excited, and
then at the end, right before they hard cut to something else, he's
like, are you gonna be naked? And I feel like I've worked with
that fry cook. I'm pretty sure like that is so on point. We'll
also running thing in the director's cut, isn't it, because even over the
beginning when people are talking about it, they saying that Charlotte, that girl
from Auto's DNA, she's going to get a close off. It said a
couple of times in the run up, but I think it's only the one
time in the original cut. I think it's just in that Dennis Hopper line
that they last mentioned, but in the directors it's dropped in everywhere. Oh,
it was refreshing as well. See Charlotte Stewart, you know, pushing
forty by that point, playing the sexy role, which is unusual in Hollywood,
playing the love interest, playing the sexy role. It's a bit of
a change for what you'd expect from Hollywood in the early eighties. You'd expect
it to be in a twenty Yeah. I love that all of the actresses
seem to be of a certain age or older, and it's just like,
yeah, that's great, you know, and especially these three waitresses that are
working in this. There's barely anybody that comes to this other than of other
than the chic and his harem that show up, which is very unusual.
But you know, you've got like Dennis Hopper and that really bad wig coming
through and picking up that very angry woman who had her car worked on by
Lionel. But you don't get a whole lot of other people coming through,
and so they feel much more like, yeah, it feels like Alice,
you know, you get like the older type waitresses rather than these young girls
that are just like, I'm gonna be here for you know, two weeks
and then move on to stardom or something. It's like, everybody feels very
grounded. What was the point of Heaven Hoppa come into it a second time
other than just to do the double in thing that they do with so many
roles in this because obviously Mother plays two roles, Hoppa's playing two roles,
Young plays two roles. Stockwell even plays two roles because he's playing old on
young auto. So this again another link to lynch Oulder double the actors and
characters going on. Yeah, I'm not sure why they're doubling up everybody,
but I was just like, okay, that's the thing, if you want
to do it. It feels like somebody said, well, Neil gets to
play two roles, how about I get to play two roles. It seems
to exist mainly to give Dean Stockwell that little grouchesque lyne to the woman as
he's pushing in the car. Oh, he knows he wants to get there.
You know how, you know how to get there? Why don't you
get lost together? And it's very much a grout show kind of lying.
And I genuinely believe the Stockwell is playing it that way. He's under playing
it for to have the whole comedy feel. And I love it. I
could I could talk about Tean Stockwell day. I think he's amazing, amazing
actor. And I love the eyebrows. He's got some like crazy ass they're
almost like old man brows young otto because they're like combed upwards. And he's
yeah, now, Dean Stockwell's gift and everything and his like green like He's
dressed up like totally like money in a way, because he's got this very
late green to and he but he looks amazing at it like anybody else would
just be like a total used car salesman nightmare. He looks so devilish,
so demonic. And it's that one scene way he hands iiring the new rules,
and the camera just close to close up on his face and he just
has this really devilish little expression to his face. I love it so much.
You know what stuff to find these days too? Is the actual soundtrack
for this. I've been looking everywhere for just you know, the soundtrack.
I guess I can go to discogs and buy it, but I was just
looking to download some of these songs. Nope, not available. And then
even with worried man, I had to go to like an obscure you know,
Devo release type thing. You know, of course there's stuff is a
lot easier to find, but just to track down the one song, I
was like, Wow, this is taking a lot more than I thought it
would. I was actually really pleased to see that in the dropbox because I've
been looking for everywhere unsuccessfully. Yeah, they put it out on the Complete
Truth about Devolution, I think, oh no, that's the music video,
but I can't remember where the actual song. They ended up releasing it on
some sort of like ridlease collection. God, because they've done a number of
though see even I'm like, oh God, because there's like hardcore hardcore Devo
oneted too and other. But yeah, but that's not a complaint any any
Divo that we can get as good Divo pioneers who got scalped disc one?
Oh nice, right, yeah? As opposed to another album I found yesterday
called when Pigs Fly Songs you Never thought you would hear, where Diva does
a cover of Ohio, the Neil Young song, which again another another great
connector not just because that song, but I mean Kassali. Yeah. I
read an interview with Jerry online today prepping for this where I mean he basically
said, for him, the conception of Devo started with that event. Yeah,
that's right. He said something like that is it. We give up
on being hit beies and we dropped out of the peace stuff then, didn't
he And that's why they became about Devolution instead. I wonder if there's a
cover of a Divo cover of Revolution Blues anyway, I'd like to hear that.
I did know Odd Devo Live, which is got some very rare live
stuff from their early from real early era. Do you hear them do a
song called Beulah, which I'm not saying I'm not to say that again somebody
might have been a pivot in the band. But on the intro they say
this is from Jerry and the Pacemakers. I don't know, maybe it was,
but I do recommend seeking that out. But but actually go back to
the movie. What do you guys think the Human Highway of the title is
referring to. That's a good question for me. It's that these people are
stuck in one place and it's all the people that are kind of coming through
their lives, that it's the road outside of the gas station, that that's
the human Highway. But you come up with something better, I'm going to
buy it. Well, it was the Neil Young song Human Highway, which
was really about the way society can break individuality, wasn't it. And you
can lose yourself on the Human Highway. And yes, these people are all
kind of lost because they're not going anywhere, they're not really doing anything with
their lives. The biggest dream other than you know, Lionel stream of being
a rock star, ish Charlotte's stream of just winning a talent contest. That's
the most to seem fake and hope for so I guess if he took it
from this from his own song, like all these captors are lost on the
Human Highway. Really, I'm going with Darren. I'm going with Darren.
I'm with you, Mike. I'm like, I'll buy Darren's for Neil Young.
It's just the wordplay too, just the phrase human Highway just automatically just
grabs you. Didn't either of you watch Greendale is two thousand and three film.
I have not. I've been curious about it because I didn't even know
about it till when I was researching Human Highway a while back for Culture Cast.
Because yes, I'm on that, that's how much I love this.
Everybody talk about it. But but yeah I saw that. I was like,
Wow, the young Maid. I don't know the movie. It looks
vastly different. It's filmed more like well, basically it looks like hold home
videos for a lot of the film, and it's about the small town.
And the album Greendale was songs about the people and familing this whole town.
And he's basically got a cast of act as miment to his songs throughout the
entire thing. It's a full blown musical, really, but everything's done in
mine and everything's low key. It's nothing like Human Highway. There's none of
the bright colors. It's very mute and very dull. It's very about environmentalism
again though, so that kind of link is going through both of his films.
And then he also directed Rust Number Sleeps. Is that right? Or
Rust Rust Live? I think he directed some of his the live videos.
Yeah. Yeah, Human Highway came out with a box set of Rust Number
Sleeps and Live Rust, and then the movie as well. I don't know
if it was kind of hidden amongst the things, kind of like the Kiss
meets The Phantom of the Park had like yeah, and it has oh you
know, I know there, oh yeah, but it had like hidden in
there and that it was the like European version. It wasn't the TV version
that we all grew up with. So cut out some of the cartooning music.
Come on. The music's way better because I actually use kiss music.
I'm sort of torn though, because I love like i'd athletes see Anthony Zerbe
as average ever in walking to like Mister Make Believe off the Gene Sevens solo
album. But but they cut out some of Ace's great dialogue, which was
total bullshit, like we don't get oh my god, oh Beethoven's Fifth you
know, I mean, come on, act like he's doing the act thing.
I just cut God. I love that movie for completely different reasons,
Like there are some films you love and you could say recommended people, like
this is a really great movie. Human Highway is one of those, Like,
no, this is a great movie and it has a lot to offer,
and there's some beautiful like skill envision going on in Heart. And then
there's Kiss meis the Fantom, which has very little of any but I love
it. I love it. You know it's I mean, come on,
Anthony Zerbe as Abner Devereaux fighting kiss. But yeah, it's off the I
believe it's off kiss Ology Volume two, right. I don't even know it's
listed on the back of the box. I mean it is so hidden in
there that it's like, oh, what does this thing? It's almost like
an Easter egg on the disc. Oh, I found it all right,
guys, let's go ahead and take another break and play a preview for next
week's show. Go to bed, little father, We want to be alone.
Please you like me just a little bit. Your general appearance is not
distasteful, thank you. The whites of your eyes are clear. Your cornea
is excellent. Your cornea is terrific. Love isn't so simple? An innchka,
anoka, white of doves, bill and cool? Why do snails,
the coldest of all creatures, circle interminably around each other? Why do morths
fly hundreds of miles to find their mates? White of flowers slowly open their
petals on in natchka. Surely you feel some slight symptom of the divine passion,
A general want in the palms of your hands, a strange heaviness in
your limbs, a burning of the lips that isn't thirst, but something a
thousand times more cantalizing, more exalting than thirst. They're very talk. That's
why we're back next week. Would they look at Ernst luwitch'sochka? Until then,
I want to think this week's co host Heather and Darren. So,
Heather, what is the latest with you, ma'am? Over at my website
monda Heather dot com. I recently have written a tribute to Robert Hamer,
who was one half of Barns and Barns, which is a band that most
people know of for doing fish heads, but they're so much more to that
band and to the work that he and Bill Mummy created. So that's over
there and very proud of it, so please read it. I also have
an essay on speaking of Fox, Harris Anna Micabro has released um like Doctor
Calgary Stephen Sadian's Amazing eighty nine film and in the limited edition run of that
blue ray, I have an essay so you can read that if you get
the limited edition. If you don't have it, I'll probably poust it at
some point later I don't know, but please buy it, sharing any goodies
until that bad Boy is old. So of course you can go to my
website Mondo Heather. I'm on Patreon, Mondo Heather is social Facebook, and
I'm also on the Dark Habits podcast talking about Johnny guitar with host Spencer Seems
and the co host Jessica, and we got to have a lot of fun
with that and I got to hal everything. Sterling Hayden and Darren. What's
going on with you, sir. It's a little bit weird me promoting myself
because all of my stuff is actually patrons wh's behind the paywall. So I
feel really strange about saying, oh, go and pay money and listen to
this as not even my patron, but what I'm going to promote my podcast
pout and A. Bared has got a public face in podcast The Warriors.
He's a stand up comedian. It's about comedy and mental health. It's brilliant
works to go check that out if you enjoy him on there. He's got
two years' worth of material about films with me on the Patron and every month
we cover a different subgenre of cinema. I talk you to a history of
that subgenre and basically at top we do our top five films from within it.
So this is my first public place in podcast and I'm it's been a
real treat. You've both been so great to work with and thank you so
much for inviting me on. I'm so glad to have you well. Thank
you so much guys for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening.
If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth. Check
out some of the other shows I work on. They are all available at
weirdingweightmedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to
join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we
get helps the Projection Booth take over the world. If the worth many to
sing words song I made me word down, the women wor that's worming to
sing words song I baby word women. Everyone told the parties they're all lives
of Cavin And it takes word man ow to sing words fuck up. It's
all coming down, and it takes worth man now of sing word It takes
wormen to sing stone, Oh baby down, women to stay words oh many
word down. Will have con t one mad to say words than were now
we won't be I he would comrades were then to say we'd song many,
we're down words it were down? Won't can't you man thing I weren't more
a baby were down by won't now we're open down? I love my Lauren
saw got to take a reason. I come in my head to see f
the season one turns of my best to see it soazing. I come out
to the change the sens stand by the fire with the bass. I'm transfer
the crazy fan side, said her, and only better. She said that
strange. She don't chick and I let her ways fill a face. You
returned to faster supervide why closing doesn't take a disaster for the ways looking much
faster? This is same? Should change? Why don't you rister it's the
same, I should change? Why don't you want it's a sage? I
should change. I Why don't you ask? Why? This is a little
heavily high can soldiers and Nick Soon's color were finally on our own this summer.
I had a comment for Dad ever the ring workers dot Jam being the
lon to read right and ran Nick Big against down in the Capital and Hippy
Street to hell. You gotta get down to sol come down here around La
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la Soldiers and Nixons coming on our road this summer
high La la la la la la la la la la la la lad High
forgain Ford Forain, hid for day Dad for Dain made it to the end
of this episode of The Projection Booth and as the end credits role. We
wanted to thank you the listening audience here at the Projection Booth podcast with Mike
White, Host extraordinaire Bang