Hawaiian Remake.

Getting into VIDEO that led to FILM! https://bunchofgrapes.indielite.org/book/9798211046962

With video (transferred to film) it felt like I could deal with reality, examine it, dissect it, rearrange it, look deep into life while it was frozen on film. Here, suddenly, was an avenue of expression for all my deep-seated emotions. While I had been able to create some good sculptures, make well-produced symbols of my physical and mental angst, movie-making offered me a more immediate connection to my real-life concerns. With images and sounds I could now cut right to the heart of these serious matters.

And I thirsted for some people in my life. I had sculpted alone in my studio about as long I could stand, finally concerned that I was sinking into that black hole that comes from constantly working by oneself. I had gotten too dark. Movie-making helped move me back into the light.

HAWAIIAN REMAKE (1971)

During that first year of Graduate School I was offered a free trip to Hawaii by a girlfriend of former teacher/now studio mate Charlie, and without questioning her motives, I grabbed at the chance. But before I left for my week in the Islands I took the opportunity to shed my dark persona, exchanging my black coat, dark black Levi slacks, black shoes, for a brightly colored floral print shirt, yellow pants, and even some white loafers I found at a thrift store. I suddenly looked like something out of a Peter Max cartoon. And most dramatically, I went for a professional haircut, telling the barber to cut it all off. I took pictures of myself in the mirror of the barber shop as he cut off my long hair, shaved off my beard and mustache. I knew that once I was on Oahu I would have a chance to get some sun on those white areas of my face.

When Deborah came by to pick me up for the ride to the airport, she found a completely different person waiting at the door than the one she had invited. She could barely speak, haltingly getting the question out, “What happened?” She probably figured that I’d been busted by the cops, held down and scalped. It quickly became apparent that Deborah had liked me a whole lot better as a black-heeled sculptor, had perhaps wanted to flaunt my weirdness to her family over there. She probably would have cancelled my ticket if it hadn’t been one of those cheap, non-refundable kind. So she was stuck with me.

In any event, I tagged along with Deborah for a few days, met her sister and brother-in-law. And while with her I fell into normal outdoor Hawaiian activities, like snorkeling out of chinaman’s Hat island, with her suppling fins and goggles swimming gear. When I asked about sharks around she kind of poo-pooed the problem by saying that the shark breeding grounds were on the other side of the island. (If this swim had been after JAWS came out I’m doubtful I would have gone along!

Soon after that I was given an OK to just roam off by myself, using my two-island ticket to hop over to Maui. I enjoyed watching as hippie-filled vans drove right by me while I hitchhiked, while the conservative ex-military personnel gave me rides so that they could complain about the dirty-hippie takeover of the islands. While standing in the middle of a patch of jungle, I caught a nice ride from a newly married couple from San Francisco, who seemed to enjoy my company, taking me in their rent-a-car to a tourist attractions like The Seven Falls, where fresh water converged with the Pacific Ocean, flowing down seven plateaus of rock formations before converging with the crashing waves. Later the couple (I guess I was their distraction…) dropped me in Lahaina, where I slept on the beach after discovering my scant $9 left wouldn’t buy a hotel room (the rooms were only $14.50).

Out of money, I spent the last two days of my trip in the airport, waiting for my scheduled ride home. But regardless of the discomfort of sleeping on hard airport benches, even that period of limbo was enjoyable. The important thing was that I had broken with my routine, had reenergized myself and was ready to handle the new work ahead. I arrived back in town with a good tan and a positive outlook, ready to once again set up my kinetic sculpture and smash the glass, hopefully to ’get it up’ at a show called “The Metal Experience,” at the Oakland Museum.

While I was in Hawaii, unbeknownst to me, my artist friend Joe DiVincenzo had written and designed a “Living Legend” newspaper for me, a take-off from my CCAC project description for graduate school, and I handed out copies at the opening. I must have looked horribly straight to those people who knew the old me, like I’d enrolled in a business school or something. When sculptor friend Don Rich saw me in my new persona––white suit and short haircut––he almost gagged, saying, “I just can’t relate to you at all!” Still, I enjoyed the evening, and later appreciated the photo snapped of me at the split-second I shattered the glass – the time-warp quality of my appearance. It felt like I had been successful in reinventing myself.

Back cover of my 12 Dead Frogs memoir, with photo from Oakland Museum “smash-in (with my “new Hawaiian” tan, and temporary “straight” look!!)

Later, back on campus at CCAC, I continued to drift toward video instead of sculpture, getting more and more involved with the activities of media artists. It was while attending a live performance at Diablo College, near Oakland, California, that I met my most influential collaborator, actor Ed Nylund, the future co-star of my first three features; A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER (co-directed with then-roommate Wayne Wang), SHOWBOAT 1988, and EMERALD CITIES

DIABLO VALLEY BUST (1971)

I first encountered Ed Nylund, actor and raconteur, when I was asked by Phil Makanna to videotape a performance at Diablo Valley college in the Bay Area. Ed stood at a blackboard in suit and tie, a mature-looking older man of 55, and preceded to strip down naked as he gave his art history lecture to the full auditorium of men, women, and children who had come to see something new, called “Performance Art.” When Ed removed the last fig leaf from his paint-smeared body, somebody called the police.

What I mainly learned from my part in documenting his act was that I was a slave to whatever I was filming. I knew that if I shook the camera, or missed a focus point, I would ruin the one recording in existence of whatever I was recording—Ed’s fantastic creation for one. But as I hand-held the camera, keeping it as steady as possible while I listened to his monologue in my earphones, it became more and more difficult to physically withstand the strain. Ten minutes into his performance my arm muscles started to cramp up and my face was covered with sweat. But I was ready to destroy every single muscle in my arms rather than fail to deliver adequate coverage of what I considered by that point to be a masterpiece. By the end of the performance I knew I’d give anything to use this guy in a movie.

THE MASSEUSE (1971)

The idea for my next movie came from the coincidence of my then girlfriend, Gail, mentioning how she hated the lecherous old men at her massage job, on the very same day that my new acquaintance, Ed Nylund, exclaimed how he hated massages, while we drove along together in my 1939 Dodge pickup. When he added that he had, in fact, never even had a massage, it became obvious to me that here was a good film begging to be made.

I rented a nurse’s outfit for Gail, while Ed arranged for us to shoot at his friend Tony’s Knatso’s house in Oakland. I didn’t explain much about what I was after (may not have been able to put it into words anyway), but had a hunch that something great could transpire when my “actors” were before the camera. What resulted was that Ed got drunk, and spoke eloquently about his damaged life, in response to Gail’s standard masseuse questions.

One sequence that remains my favorite was when she asked him “Are you married?” He lifted his flabby hulk up from the dining room table on which he was being massaged (she had supposedly made a house call) and passionately rebuked her. He said, “That’s a way of tricking me, that’s a way of catching me. Look at my beard, look at the grayness of it. When you ask ’Are you married,’ you’re really asking ’Are you a success?’ Don’t you ever ask that, ever, really, from any human being again!”

In the course of the evening, Ed talked about his youth, his failed marriage, life and death. Speaking of death he said, “When I’m gone I’ll have no one to love. No one to talk to. No one not to care for. No one for someone to care for.”

Later when I reviewed the footage I became entranced with his words and thoughts, in particular “no one not to care for.” I knew how he felt.

Later, when I discovered that the soundtrack was not as clean as I’d hoped, I made the commitment to subtitle each and every spoken word and sentence. The dialogue was just too good to miss. And during this process of adding English titles for English words I discovered how to add an interesting new effect to my movies. After establishing the normal use of sync titles (like any foreign film you’ve seen) I thought of holding some titles so they lingered on the screen, long after the words they represented had been spoken. In other places, I made them fade in and out or dissolve, allowing them to create a little dance of their own (this exploration of subtitle usage would continue to be a passion of mine throughout my filmwork, most notably in my first feature-length film, A Man, A Woman, And A Killer, which included more than 550 subtitles in the final cut.

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