Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 240: Has the cocktail lounge from Plan 9 finally been found?

Don Davis is blinded by the light.

Ladies and gentlemen, a controversy is currently brewing in the world of Ed Wood. Controversy? Ha! Too weak a word! I should say a tempest! I've not seen the equal of it. Even now, while we're chatting here so enjoyably, a fierce debate rages in Ed Wood fan forums across the internet, turning friends into enemies and vice-versa. (Well, actually, the topic is limited to one Facebook group and the discussion has been quite civil, but humor me.) 

At issue is one particular location, a humble yet intriguing cocktail bar, from Ed's most famous film, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). Has the bar been found? Has it not been found? Is it unfindable? Is knowledge knowable? Words fail, buildings crumble, the ground opens wide.

Way back in 2018, I wrote an article about a long-gone L.A. night spot called the Mocambo that appeared prominently in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) as part of a montage in which UFOs are spotted in various places across America. In that article, I mentioned that there was a scene in Plan 9 in which Wood associate Don Davis staggers out of a seedy-looking cocktail bar and sees flying saucers hovering over Hollywood, much to his bleary-eyed astonishment. The bar's street number, 4092, is clearly visible, but narrator Criswell doesn't bother telling us which street this is supposed to be. Knowing very little of Los Angeles geography, I incorrectly guessed it to be Sunset and left it at that.

I wish that I knew what I was supposed to know now when I was my current age

"Poor old Granddad, I laughed at all his words."

I keep hearing the Faces' song "Ooh La La" in movies, TV shows, and commercials. Why? What is it about this particular track that's allowed it to stick around for decades? As I see it, the song's main appeal is that it takes a near-universal sentiment—"I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger"—and sets it to catchy music. This is a thought many of us have had at some point in our lives, and "Ooh La La" allows us to sing it out loud instead of just ponder it. And so, "Ooh La La" has become a song about the hard-won wisdom that only comes with age.

But I don't think the song, written in 1973 by Ronnie Wood and Ronnie Lane (both 26 years old at the time), is as heartwarming as people seem to think it is. The lyrics of the first verse add some necessary context to the song's famous refrain.

Poor old Granddad, I laughed at all his words
I thought he was a bitter man
He spoke of women's ways
"They trap you, then they use you
Before you even know
For love is blind and you're far too kind
Don't ever let it show"

Try making a heartwarming insurance commercial out of that. Sounds like Granddad is working through some serious issues with women. And his smartaleck grandson does not take him seriously whatsoever. So much for hard-won wisdom.

Still in all, we have that indelible chorus: "I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger." It's a comforting thought. Everything would have turned out better, we tell ourselves, if we'd just been given the necessary information at a young age. Forewarned is forearmed.

As I think about the current, unsatisfactory state of my life, I've occasionally asked myself the question: what do I wish I had known as a child that would have helped me avoid this fate? And, frankly, I've come up short. The problem with the line "I wish that I knew what I know now" is that it assumes you actually know something now! I don't. Nothing good at least. I've only learned how rotten the world can be. I know which choices of mine didn't work, but I don't know of any better ones I could have made or should have made.

And so, despite what the song says, I can't think of any advice I'd give to my younger self that would have helped him or any wisdom that would have prepared him for adulthood. In fact, if it hadn't been for ignorance—the total, blissful stupidity we only tolerate in children—I'd never have gotten any fun out of life at all. The more I learned of this world, the less I liked. So my version of "Ooh La La" would probably go something like: "I wish I knew as little now as I did when I was younger."

Life update: A cry for HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in The Producers.

There's a moment, early in Mel Brooks' The Producers (1967), when meek accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) finds a serious discrepancy while auditing the books of failing Broadway producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel). Max raised $60,000 from his backers for his last flop but only spent $58,000 on the show; the other $2,000 he kept for himself. This is fraud, Leo reminds Max, and could send the producer to prison. Max responds with a soliloquy:

Bloom, look at me. (more forcefully) LOOK AT ME, BLOOM! Bloom, I'm drowning. Other men sail through life. Bialystock has struck a reef. Bloom, I'm going under. I'm being sunk by a society that demands success when all I can offer is failure. Bloom, I'm reaching out to you. Don't send me to prison. (getting very close to Leo's ear) HEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!

I've reached a stage in my life when I can relate to both men in this scene. Like Leo, I go to a dull, unrewarding office job every day. It's how I'm able to pay my rent and my bills and have medical insurance. At night and on the weekends, I pursue various creative enterprises. Unfortunately, like Max, I have largely met with failure. Despite producing a great deal of work over the course of several decades, nothing I have done has reached beyond a very small audience. Sometimes, the only audience is myself.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 239: The return of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast

Straighten that tie, mister! We've got a show to do!

When my late colleague Greg Javer (1968-2024) started The Ed Wood Summit Podcast back in January 2021, I'll admit that I didn't immediately see the full potential of the project. After all, what could he accomplish through videos that we weren't already accomplishing through our weekly articles about the life and career of Edward D. Wood, Jr.? I was more than happy to participate in the series, but I couldn't yet envision where Greg was going with this thing.

Well, I soon learned what made The Ed Wood Podcast so special. It became the ideal place to discuss Ed Wood and his work, both as a writer and a filmmaker. I was proud to be a guest on the show numerous times, usually reviewing Ed's books and stories. Other guests included such dedicated Wood experts as James Pontolillo, Milton Knight, W. Paul Apel, Rob Huffman, Mike H, and Robert Monell. In a very special episode from April 2023, the show even welcomed actress Casey Larrain, who'd worked with Ed on such films as Love Feast (1969) and Nympho Cycler (1971). 

At the center of it all was Greg himself, the Zen master of Woodology. He had all the qualities of a good host and moderator: curiosity, humor, patience, empathy, etc. The world could use a few million more of him. Greg is gone now, but it would be a shame for The Ed Wood Podcast to disappear with him. In that spirit, a few veterans of the podcast have reconvened to record the long-delayed 34th episode. The topic of discussion is an extremely obscure pulp novel from 1966 entitled Wild Nympho. It's credited to a mysterious one-and-done author named Matt Ronson, but could it really be the work of Ed Wood? That's what we're here to find out.

Our moderator, Rob Huffman, has also uploaded the episode to his own, excellent YouTube channel.

Podcast Tuesday: "Horny Idiot Island"

Dan Aykroyd (left) and Rosie O'Donnell in Exit to Eden.

What made him do it?

It's one of the great mysteries of movie history. Why did Garry Marshall, the genial Brooklyn writer-producer-director behind such decidedly mainstream fare as Happy Days (1974-1984) and Pretty Woman (1990), think he was the man to bring Anne Rice's kinky BDSM novel Exit to Eden (1985) to the screen? And why did he enlist Happy Days showrunner Bob Brunner to cowrite the screenplay? More importantly, what are Dan Aykroyd, Rosie O'Donnell, Dana Delany, and Iman doing in this thing? So many questions. So few answers.

Nevertheless, in the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about the megabomb Exit to Eden (1994), certainly one of the most unusual films of its year (or any year). We analyze the plot (what little of it there is), critique the actors, compare the film to the novel, and speculate about what it all means. This episode, I can tell you, was quite an ordeal to research, record, and produce. It would be rude of you to skip it, and I know you're not a rude person. So click that play button. You wouldn't want me to spank you on your tushy, would you?

Incidentally, this episode marks something of a technical milestone, as it's the first one completely written, recorded, and edited on my new laptop. I think my previous one, purchased from a Best Buy in 2015, has seen its final days. Goodbye, trusted friend. You were enjoyed.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 238: The to-do list

Hope that coffee is strong, pally. Looks like a lot of work.

Let's just do this. I'll warn you in advance: this article is more for me than it is for you. This is something I've needed to do for a while now. Might as well bite the bullet.

Last week, I mentioned the vast amount of Ed Wood-related material I still have/want to cover in this series. But exactly how much are we talking about here? Well, the only way to know for sure is simply to list as much of it as I can. Maybe, once it's all laid out in front of me, it won't seem so intimidating. Or maybe it'll seem way more intimidating. Either way, we must proceed. I think a good way to start is to divide the work into various categories.

REPOST: A day spent (vicariously) with Tom Lehrer

Mathematician turned singer-songwriter turned mathematician Tom Lehrer.

NOTE: Today, we received the sad news that singer, songwriter, and mathematician Tom Lehrer had died at the age of 97. In light of that, I would like to repost an article about Tom that I wrote back in 2012.

Tom Lehrer would scoff at the idea of being anyone's hero. This is part of the reason why he's one of mine.

A native New Yorker born way back in 1928 (one shudders to do the grim calculations here), Lehrer was a child prodigy who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard at the age of 19. Since that time, he has spent most of his career either teaching or lecturing about mathematics at some of America's finest academic institutions, including MIT and the University of California at Santa Cruz. He formally retired in 2001, but he's still listed at the Rate My Professors website with a student review as recent as 2005.

Latter-day Lehrer

What sets Tom Lehrer apart from other mathematicians, apart from his claim of inventing the Jell-O shot, is that he devoted much of his time in the 1950s and 1960s to writing and performing some of the darkest, funniest songs I've ever heard -- deceptively joyous musical theater-type ditties with droll, sardonic lyrics about such topics as sex ("I Got It From Agnes"), drugs ("The Old Dope Peddler"), violence ("The Masochism Tango"), religion ("The Vatican Rag"), death ("I Hold Your Hand in Mine") and war ("So Long, Mom") with a candor that set him far apart from both the singers and the comedians of that era. Today, comedians can joke openly about pornography, incest, cannibalism, bestiality, and necrophilia on prime time network television, but this wasn't true 60 years ago when Tom's records couldn't even be played on the radio during respectable hours.

As with much of the music that now clutters up my brain, the bizarre and sometimes brutal song stylings of Tom Lehrer first entered my life through The Dr. Demento Show. This was back in the 1990s, before the internet was any damned good, and it was difficult to come by information about Tom's life or career back then. I couldn't even find a picture of the guy! I knew instinctively, though, that he wore glasses. Somehow, that was obvious to me. His myopia was audible. 

Despite the apparent rudeness of his lyrics, Mr. Lehrer conducted himself with the utmost decorum onstage, using impeccable Ivy League diction, eclectic and impressive vocabulary, and carefully-curated grammar. On his records, he comes across as man far too smart to take life the least bit seriously. Lerher's musical career occurred during the Cold War when it seemed ever-more-likely that mankind would annihilate itself with increasingly-deadly weapons. This looming apocalypse is the topic of several Lehrer songs, and he treats it the way he treats all other subjects: with an air of detached amusement at the absurdity of it all.

Tom Lehrer's 1953 debut

Today, almost two decades after I first heard "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," (the song that made me a fan) I spent some quality time listening to virtually every Tom Lehrer recording available to the public. That's not a great investment of time, honestly. There are roughly three hours of Lehrer audio in total, nearly all of it consisting of Tom singing solo and accompanying himself on piano. 

His musical output boils down to two brief studio albums (Songs by Tom Lehrer and More of Tom Lehrer), three live albums (Revisited [a.k.a. Tom Lehrer in Concert], An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer, and That Was the Week That Was), plus a handful of miscellaneous recordings. He recorded a handful of his most famous songs with a full orchestra, for instance, plus he did a few well-remembered educational songs (like "Silent E") for a PBS children's program called The Electric Company. There are a few good CD compilations out there of Lehrer's work, but buyers should know in advance that the same exact songs from the two studio albums are heard on his first two live LPs as well. And I mean, they're note-for-note the same. If you buy the boxed set with his "complete" recordings, be prepared to sit through the same songs two or even three times.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 237: The not-so-endless reaches of time

No matter who you are, time is coming to get you.

Ed Wood died at 54. My colleague Greg Javer, who researched the life and work of Ed Wood, died at 56. My own mother died at 46, her father at 54. I turn 50 in a couple of months. I am acutely aware that my time is rapidly running out. You know the scene in The Wizard of Oz (1939) in which Margaret Hamilton shows Judy Garland a giant hourglass full of red sand?

"Do you see that?" she yells, turning the hourglass upside down. "That's how much longer you've got to be alive, and it isn't long, my pretty! It isn't long!"

Cut to Judy Garland, sobbing in mute horror. That's how I feel right now.

I'm currently working a full-time cubicle job as a clerk at a mortgage company. Most days, I come home from the office feeling like garbage and not wanting to do much of anything. In what spare time I have, mostly nights and weekends, I do a biweekly podcast and maintain this blog. If you're reading this article, you probably think that I only write about Ed Wood. In fact, you may think this entire blog is called "Ed Wood Wednesdays." It isn't, but I've stopped correcting people on that point. 

SIDEBAR: The name of this blog is Dead 2 Rights. "Ed Wood Wednesdays" is a series of articles on that blog, sort of like how Saturday Night Live (1975- ) is a series on NBC. Most weeks, the Ed Wood stuff on D2R isn't even what gets the most clicks. My articles about Fat Albert, What's My Line, and Patience & Prudence consistently outperform Ed. In fact, of the ten most-viewed articles in the entire history of this blog, only two are about Ed Wood. And one of those is the index page.