My Month of Bowie, day 30: 'Toy' (2021)

Being dead didn't stop David Bowie from releasing one more studio album.

The album: Toy (ISO, 2021)

The baby who sold the world.

My thoughts: Until now, I have stubbornly resisted talking about Toy, an album David Bowie recorded in 2000 that was shelved by his label and remained unreleased until 2021, five years after the singer's death. For one thing, a posthumously-released LP seems to fall into the dreaded "apocrypha and miscellanea" category that I pledged to avoid at the beginning of the month. (Not part of the canon? Not interested.) Secondly, I knew that Toy mostly consisted of remakes of songs David Bowie had originally written in the 1960s. Unless we're talking about last night's pizza, leftovers aren't usually too appetizing to me.

But I changed my mind for a couple of reasons. First, when I wrote my defense of Bowie's under-loved Pin Ups (1973) album, I said that people should forget it was a collection of covers and just try to experience it as a half-hour of great rock music. So for me to dismiss Toy, which is Bowie covering himself, would be hypocritical. Second, and even more important, I listened to the first few tracks on Toy and enjoyed them enough to want to keep listening to the LP. So I guess we're doing this.

Most of these tracks are from early singles recorded before David's 1967 debut LP, which means that they're entirely unfamiliar to me. Or new, you might say. (Remember that NBC slogan from the '90s? "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you." Hard to argue with that.) Honestly, based on its sound and knowing nothing of its origin, I would have thought Toy to be just another early 2000s Bowie album. Even though it was produced by Mark Plati, who worked with David on Earthling (1997), it takes a lot from the Tony Visconti playbook. This is a very sonically-satisfying, richly-produced album that shows off Bowie's voice to best advantage.

I think it's significant that, when he was in his 50s, David Bowie revisited the songs he wrote when he was a much younger man—a mere lad, really. It's like finding a journal you kept when you were a kid and thinking, "Was that really me? Did I ever really think that way?" Bowie (in great voice, incidentally) brings some gravitas to these tunes that they might have lacked when they were sung by a teenager. Take the song "Baby Loves That Way" as an example. Being in a toxic relationship when you're 18 is very different from being in one when you're 54. And then there's "London Boys," which sounds like the older Bowie is gently lecturing his younger self about the follies of trying to be cool to impress your peers.

If there's a standout track on Toy for me, it's "You've Got a Habit of Leaving," originally a single Bowie released in 1965 when he was still Davy Jones. It's another toxic relationship song, so I'm guessing Bowie's personal life was already complicated in the '60s. To me, the remake could have been a hit in 2021 with its stark refrain: "Sometimes I cry/Sometimes I'm so sad." I was so taken with the Toy track that I listened to the original from '65 and found a charming but disposable Merseybeat bop. Maybe the reason why Bowie dug these songs up in 2000 is that he felt he could do them justice the second time around. He'd sure spent a lot more time in recording studios by then.

And that, I suppose, brings us to the end of My Month of Bowie. Thirty days hath September. But I don't think this is the end of my David Bowie journey by any means. What I wanted out of this project was a basic roadmap of David's career. And I got that. But I got more. A lot more. Who knows? Maybe some additional Bowie content will make its way onto this blog. God knows, there's plenty more to cover. I think I've reviewed about 5% of the man's total discography. So much territory to explore. Let's reconvene in September 2026.

P.S. Before I go, I want to share this clip of David Bowie on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He performs "Life on Mars?" and "Ashes to Ashes." Isn't this neat? Thank you, algorithm, for bringing this to me.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #10 by Greg Dziawer and Joe Blevins

This week, we take a look at one of Ed Wood's novels.

Logo for Rocket Pictures.

One of the more intriguing items on Ed Wood's resume is the two-year period he spent in the early '60s working for Autonetics, a division of North American Aviation. NAA was one of the major defense contractors in the US at the time, specializing in inertial guidance systems for submarines and ballistic missiles. A small company called Rocket Studios loaned Eddie out to Autonetics, where he seemed to have worked on both short films as well as in what they called "closed television"—a novel and pioneering use of closed circuit TV to broadcast live training right into the plant for its employees to view.

This also begs the question: what is Rocket Studios? The closest I can come that fits the bill is Rocket Pictures, a California company that did not typically make government-sponsored defense films, rather specializing in sales training literature and filmstrips through its Better Selling Bureau. They had their headquarters at 6108 Santa Monica Blvd, in Hollywood, just a couple of miles east of Hal Guthu's studio.

All of which is mere backdrop setting the stage for Ed's 1967 paperback novel Security Risk. In it, a movie studio making government-sponsored defense films is being attacked by a shadowy group of political baddies ("Lice! Maggots! Germs!") who want to shut them down at all cost. Ex-Korean War vet Colonel Harvey Tate, now a successful New York filmmaker, is called in to investigate.

Join us as we break it all down in this week's Ed Wood Summit Podcast:

BONUS MATERIAL: Here's a detail from a 1959 ad for the Better Selling Bureau, along with the section of Ed Wood's resume dealing with his stint at Autonetics.

(left) An ad for the Better Selling Bureau; (right) Ed Wood's resume.

If you still need more, here are Joe's complete notes on Security Guard, including a breakdown of all the characters, memorable quotes, and Woodian motifs in the book. I've also included the novel's front and back covers, as well as the cover of a latter-day reprint (under the title Two Dicks for Danger) from Woodpile Press.

And if you'd like to see a particular novel reviewed on a future edition of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast, let us know in the comments section of the video.

All episodes of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast can be found here!

The only good video on the Internet

Don E. Russell, aka "DR Live," giving his Flower Power pitch.

Scientists now estimate that there are well over two dozen videos available for instantaneous viewing on the Internet. With that kind of volume, there are bound to be the occasional duds. I am happy to report, however, that I have discovered a clip that is well worth three and a half minutes of anyone's time. It is entitled "Flower Power," and it is a movie pitch by a Phoenix, Arizona resident named Don E. Russell, who also goes by the nickname "DR Live."

Information about the video is exceedingly difficult to come by, but judging from some of the then-topical references it contains, I'd say it dates back to the early 1990s. The Found Footage Fest, which posted the video to its website back in 2012, refers to it as "an oldie-but-goodie from the tape-trading days," suggesting that it first circulated as a VHS cassette that was then duplicated and re-duplicated by connoisseurs of oddball entertainment. The FFF clip is obviously just a condensed "highlight reel" of a much longer presentation, but I have been unable to find the full-length pitch.

Still, what's there is absolutely mesmeric and definitely leaves me wanting more. Mr. Russell, a middle-aged ex-hippie who seems like a first cousin to Jeff Bridges' "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski, has an idea for a "magical musical masterpiece" called Flower Power and wants to get some investors for his ambitious cinematic rock flick. He clearly put some time and effort into this presentation, and the concept art he shows us is fairly impressive. But it's Russell's salesmanship and enthusiasm that truly put this over the top.

You know what? As crazy as this may sound, I actually think Flower Power could work... as a comedy. This is not a total betrayal of Russell's original intentions, though, as his script obviously contains some intentionally comedic elements of its own, such as the sequence in "Satan's Bar and Grill" and the Bill and Hillary cameos. I'd cast Will Ferrell as David, John C. Reilly as Kalvin, Danny McBride as Lightning, Aubrey Plaza as the Bitch Demon, Jack Black as the Jealous Demon, and Bruno Ganz (reprising his role from Downfall) as Hitler.

Clearly, a big chunk of the film's budget would go towards music rights, since Russell's proposed scenario uses such definitely-not-public-domain tracks as "Smoke on the Water," "Popcorn," "We Are the Champions," and "Bad to the Bone." Maybe the cost could be offset by including, as Russell suggests, a full-length Pepsi ad from the early 1970s. Like this one, for instance:



As I said earlier, information about Don E. Russell and Flower Power is scarce, and I haven't yet located the full-length version of the movie pitch. What I can say, though, is that Addresses.com does list a Don E. Russell as living in Phoenix, AZ, and it's at the same address included in the video: 15421 N. 30th Ave. The phone number, which the website specifies is a land line, is the same, too.

And guess what else? Just on a lark, I decided to Google the phrase "Kalvin's Kool Klothes," and I discovered a listing for a defunct clothing manufacturer with that very same name. A site devoted to Arizona Companies lists it as "an inactive business incorporated in PHOENIX, Arizona, USA on January 17, 1990." And the business' address? Yep, it's 15421 N. 30th Ave. So in addition to trying to get this movie made, Russell was apparently running a clothing business out of his house. He seems like an interesting guy. 

Don E. Russell, if you're reading this, get in touch. Please.