Podcast Tuesday: "Love in a Cold Climate"

There's a lot going on here, right?

It's now been more than two decades since I was a teacher. It's the only job I ever actually trained to do, and I completely failed at it. I was beyond terrible. After just a few miserable years of "teaching" English and Spanish at the junior and senior high school level in the early 2000s, I crashed, burned, and bailed. Since abruptly leaving education, I've been staggering blindly through the professional world with no game plan whatsoever. Out of necessity, I take literally whatever work comes along just to keep up with my rent and other bills. It's a stressful way to live, but fortunately, I still have some free time to write articles about Ed Wood and cohost a podcast about the sitcom Happy Days. 

Should I have stuck with it? I don't think so. For the first few years after my teaching career ended, I would have occasional nightmares that I was back in the classroom, losing control of my students, and I would wake up in the middle of the night in a total panic. Happily, that went away over time. I don't really think much about my days as an educator anymore... unless something triggers a flashback, that is. 

I had such a flashback this week when my cohost and I reviewed a 1981 episode of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang called "Fjords and Sorcery." The episode is rooted in Norse mythology, and it brought me back to the sad days when I actually had to teach a mythology class to bored, hostile high school kids. I have no background in mythology, so I really knew no more about the subject than they did. So did those experiences color my opinion of the episode? You can find out below, and I hope that you do.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 201: 'Kathy Wood & I: How I Fell Down the Ed Wood, Jr. Angora Rabbit Hole' (2024)

Bob Blackburn (left) befriended Ed Wood's widow, Kathy, in her later years.

Picture this. 

You're about to go on a long bus trip—Tulsa to Milwaukee, let's say. Right before the bus leaves the station, a gentleman takes the seat next to you. With his graying beard, ponytail, casual wardrobe, and overall laid-back demeanor, he seems like he could be a classic rock DJ or possibly an ex-roadie. Maybe he's a distant relative of Jeff Bridges' The Dude from The Big Lebowski (1998). The gentleman notices you're wearing a Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) T-shirt and asks, in an unmistakable California accent, if you're an Ed Wood fan. You say sure. And then, with no more prompting than that, he launches into the story of how he met Ed's somewhat reclusive widow, Kathy, in the early '90s and remained her friend until her death in 2006. 

This was a fairly busy and interesting time in Kathy's life, since it saw the release of two major Wood-related films, Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) and Aris Ilipoulos' I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1997), plus the publication of Ed's long-lost manuscript, Hollywood Rat Race (1998). If that weren't enough, a couple of Ed's vintage novels came back into print during these years, and there were various stage shows and documentaries inspired by Ed's life and work. The gentleman sitting next to you on the bus tells you he was there to guide Kathy through all of this. He even put her in touch with legal counsel, specifically an entertainment lawyer named Robert Weinberg.

Bob's new book.

Imagine further that this conversation were transcribed word-for-word and then published as a book. You now have a good idea of what it's like to read Bob Blackburn's Kathy Wood and I: How I Fell Down the Ed Wood Jr. Angora Rabbit Hole (Bear Manor, 2024). If you can't take Bob himself with you on your next bus trip, taking a copy of this book is the next best thing. Truth is, Bob makes for a very entertaining traveling companion. This book is every bit as informal and unpretentious as its author. Kathy Wood and I is not really a biography of Kathy or Ed; it's more of a collection of affectionate memories being recorded for posterity. Bob jumps around in the timeline quite a bit; you get the sense that he's writing these things down in the order they occur to him.

Years ago, when this series of mine was still in its infancy, I learned you don't get far in Woodology before crossing paths with Bob Blackburn. Forget finding him; he'll find you. The man is relentless. I've called him "the keeper of the flame," and that's really what he is in the world of Wood fandom. Not only did he start an extremely active Facebook group devoted to Ed Wood, he's also the man responsible for the three (count 'em) anthologies of Eddie's magazine work from the 1960s and '70s. Bob tracked down those stories and articles one by one, purchased the (often pricey) publications in which they first appeared, and then arranged for them to be republished so that we could enjoy them today.

And now, with this book, Bob has given us the most intimate portrayal of Kathy Wood that we're likely to get. Ed and Kathy met in late 1955 and were married in Las Vegas in 1956. Kathy remained with Ed until the truly bitter end in December 1978. She was his other half for the last two decades of his life, and yet, how much do we really know about her? As portrayed in Ed Wood by actress Patricia Arquette, she's a demure, soft-spoken lady who warms to the quirky yet lovable Eddie (Johnny Depp) quite quickly and isn't scared off by his cross-dressing or his dicey-at-best showbiz career. 

Rudolph Grey's oral history Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992) gives us a few more glimpses of Kathy's tumultuous, sometimes violent life with Eddie in the 1960s and '70s. These are some of the most depressing passages in Grey's book, as Ed's alcoholism worsened and his career and lifestyle deteriorated dramatically during these years. No matter how bad things got, however, his wife remained by his side. Kathy Wood essentially grabbed Ed's hand as he dove headfirst into hell. And, for better or worse, she never let go. How many of us can say we'd have done the same?

Kathy Wood's favorite soup.

By the time she met Bob Blackburn in 1992, Kathy Wood was 70 years old, retired, and living on a fixed income in a modest Hollywood apartment not far from the one she and her husband had shared during their tragic final years together. In the 1980s, she'd had to undergo open heart surgery due to years of smoking, and this had slowed her down somewhat. Like many older people, she was quite set in her ways and not especially keen to make new friends or even talk to strangers. She was especially wary of Ed Wood fans who only approached her because of her famous dead husband, a man she both loved and hated.

But Bob was not discouraged. He was living in the same building as Kathy and gradually gained her trust, one interaction at a time. Eventually, their friendship progressed to the point that Bob would hang out at her apartment regularly and hear stories of the old days or just shoot the breeze. He even took Kathy to movies from time to time. (An appendix in the book dutifully lists all the films Bob and Kathy saw together.) As Kathy's health declined and her social circle shrank, Bob truly became one of her closest companions. In the abstract, Bob and Kathy's relationship bears a passing resemblance to the unlikely friendship that Ed Wood forged with Bela Lugosi toward the end of Bela's life in the 1950s.

The best thing about Kathy Wood and I is that it lets us spend some quality time, so to speak, with its title subject. We readers may never have gotten a chance to meet Kathy or speak with her, but Bob Blackburn certainly did, and now he's telling us what that experience was like—right down to fairly minute details, like Kathy's love of Andersen's split pea soup and her devotion to then-acclaimed actor Kevin Spacey. This book reminds us that Kathy Everett O'Hara's life did not end when Ed died in 1978. She survived for two and a half more decades and experienced such major events as the L.A. riots of 1992 and the Northridge earthquake of 1994. Above all, she was a human being, with all the foibles and complexities you'd expect anyone to have. Bob's book may be our last, best chance to get to know this woman.

Kathy Wood and I: How I Fell Down the Ed Wood Jr. Angora Rabbit Hole is available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions right here. Or you can purchase it directly from the publisher.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: Was Ed Wood, Jr. the author Charlene White? (Guest Author: James Pontolillo)

Ed Wood had many pen names. Was this one of him?

A copy of the 1966 Charlene White sleaze novel Not So Funny was recently listed on Ebay with an asking price of $950 and authorship attributed to Ed Wood, Jr. But what evidence is there that Charlene White was one of Eddie’s pseudonyms?

Background

In 1966, Satellite Publications (Stanley Malkin and Eddy Mishkin's New York City-based operation that employed multiple other addresses in an attempt to mislead authorities) issued two books by Charlene White: Mask of Evil (hereafter Mask; [1] ) and Not So Funny (hereafter Funny; [2]). Both were mass market format paperback originals priced at 95 cents ($9.70 in 2024 dollars) and featured cover art by renowned commercial artist Eric Stanton [3]. The books also included black and white Stanton cartoon work as interior advertisements [4,5]. 

The print run sizes for these novels are unknown. Sleaze publishers like Satellite treated their paperback books just like the magazines they distributed – limited shelf life with new replacement titles issued monthly. Leftover stock was usually sold at a significant discount to a secondary market reseller. In some cases, the books were returned to the publisher who would strip off the original covers, glue on new ones, and then send them back out to market. As a result, the unwary customer could inadvertently purchase the same book twice.

Mask and Funny are rare collectible books that, due to the Stanton covers alone, currently command prices in the $200-$600 range depending upon their physical condition. Copies sometimes hit the market with considerably higher asking prices ($700-$1000) buoyed by the claim that Ed Wood is the author. Reputable antiquarian booksellers inform customers that this identification is unproven; individual online sellers rarely do so.

My first encounter with the claim that "Charlene White" was one of Eddie's pseudonyms occurred in an online Ed Wood forum/message board sometime around the year 2000. The idea gained significant traction with the 2012 release of Cornell University Library’s finding guide for its Ed Wood Collection. The core of the collection derives from a posthumous donation of works assembled by book collector and science-fiction editor Robert Legault (1958-2008) [6]. It was subsequently expanded with materials donated by writer/editor/publisher/collector Johan Kugelberg [7]. The Cornell collection is the largest publicly available repository of Ed Wood's published works. While Mask is in the collection, Funny is not represented there.

The Books

Mask of Evil cover.

Mask of Evil – This novel follows the sexual awakening and subsequent promiscuous escapades of Brigitte Lamersay, a 20-year-old, perpetually-innocent French nymph as she wends her way through Long Island (NY) high society in search of her adoptive mother’s long-lost American lover. There is a plot amongst all the sexual debauchery, but just barely. Much of the sex is non-consensual, fairly transgressive for the time, and leans heavily into sadism. 

One highlight of the novel is an unusual costume party (men as trees; women as flowers) that quickly degenerates into an anything-goes orgy. This is followed by masked sexual rituals that blogger Joe Blevins described as "Eyes Wide Shut with a brain injury… an enfeebled, lobotomized Eyes Wide Shut. It’s rich people having kinky mask parties." After many adventures, Brigitte finds her man and then a different kind of fun begins. 

The novel initially appears to end with Chapter 14. But after typesetting, the novel would have been 16 pages short of the publisher’s standard book length. So, we are then treated to a new, more complex ending spun out over Chapters 15-17 (meeting the required number of pages) written as if the events of Chapter 14 had never occurred. To complete the reader’s sense of déjà vu and disorientation, the last three paragraphs of Chapters14 and 17 are virtually identical.

Not So Funny cover.

Not So Funny – This novel follows Olga, a well-endowed 18-year-old girl who grows up in a small coal town. She runs away to the big city to escape the clutches of a filthy, physically abusive, and sexually predatory stepfather. While working as a waitress, Olga meets and quickly falls in love with a ruggedly handsome circus animal trainer named Craig. They marry and Olga goes on the road with her new husband. She immediately gains three sworn enemies in the closed community of the circus: her new father-in-law Andrew (who had pledged his son to marry a circus girl), Hilda (the circus girl in question), and Tina (jealous that her brother Karl – for whom she has an incestuous love – is attracted to Olga). 

Much of the novel is devoted to the ins and outs of this swirling melodrama and repeated attempts to undermine Olga in her husband's eyes. The most memorable part of the book revolves around Olga’s friendship with Elmer, a perpetually sad and reclusive clown. One night Elmer takes her in his small clown car to a rundown house in "the village." What transpires there is a phantasmagoric mix of a gay bathhouse encounter and the mirror maze scene from the movie Something Wicked This Way Comes leading to Olga’s sexual humiliation. Ultimately, all of the plots against Olga collapse as death and serious injury are visited upon her rivals by a seemingly just universe. Olga performs an illegal sex act on her husband Craig in the last few sentences of the book, making it clear that they will have a beautiful life together.

Having read both books several times, I have yet to decide whether they were written by the same author. The writing styles are dramatically different with the author of Mask appearing well-educated while the author of Funny seemingly barely escaped grade school. Mask is full of graphic, transgressive sexual acts. Funny is much tamer and, with few exceptions, stays on a "straight and narrow" path, sexually speaking. 

Moreover, Mask is overrun with characters, including many with no role whatsoever in advancing the plot, while Funny has a much tighter focus on eight individuals. The events of Mask take place in real-world locations (Long Island; Pelham, NY; Midtown Manhattan), with the Pelham, NY sequence accurately describing the town's geography. Funny, on the other hand, exists in a featureless void whose locations (the big city, the circus lot, the village) are simplistic generalities that are never described in any substantive way. 

Despite this, the books do share a number of elements: the sexual awakening of a young woman; the grateful sexual abuse victim trope; a similar approach toward introducing nudity and the initiation of sexual acts; orgasms described as planets crashing together (and on one occasion each as a kaleidoscope); repeated instances of sexual sadism; and masked, ceremonial sexual rituals. On this last point, both books feature women dressed as flowers erotically dancing to Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" (from the 1892 ballet The Nutcracker).

Is This You, Ed?

There certainly is a smattering of elements in Mask and Funny that might lead one to think that they were written by Eddie. One of Mask’s main characters has the alliterative name of Randy Ransome/Randon Ransome. Both books contain a sex scene where an orgasm is described as a kaleidoscope of colors, a practice that Eddie used in 17 of his 27 known novels (a rate of 63%; see Sources for the list of known novels). Funny includes a snake element that plays a pivotal role in one of the failed attempts to drive Olga away from the circus. Snakes, in some form, appear in 23 of 27 of Ed’s known novels (85%). 

Finally, there is this inspirational section of text from Mask:

Suddenly, she knew she had to scream. Her lips parted without volition and a harsh, rough sound poured from her. At the same time the young man's breathing became jagged, cutting litany. Infinity became finite and stood still.

Eddie had a penchant for invoking the concept of infinity in his writings.

On the other hand, Eddie never explicitly claimed that "Charlene White" was one of his pseudonyms. Neither Mask nor Funny was included in a list of published works that Eddie generated in the mid-1970s. Nor do they appear similar to the titles of any of his still-missing novels. As the participants on The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #22 concluded, the Wood-like elements in Mask are part of a larger text that was clearly not written by Eddie. His typical obsession with angora, excessive drinking, and a close attention to female clothing are nowhere to be found in either of these novels.

In an attempt to identify diagnostic features in Eddie’s writings, since 2016 I have applied grammar and language analysis tools, as well as statistical measures of word usage and textual complexity, to a group of 27 known Wood novels (see the list in Sources). After several iterations, a group of 45 keywords emerged that are common in Eddie’s novels. His use of this group averages 75% (Side-Show Siren is low at 53%; The Gay Underworld is high at 91%). By comparison, Mask and Funny infrequently use only a handful of the keywords, scoring a paltry 28% and 11% respectively. A twelve-word subset of the 45 keywords is particularly diagnostic because of their very high prevalence in Eddie’s novels.

• angora, fluff, lovely, pink, sheer, simply, sweater – 100%

• delight, nylon, panties – 96%

• furry, negligee – 92%

Mask uses only two keywords of this subset (negligee, pink); Funny does not use any of them.

One final metric that I’ve developed I like to call (tongue-in-cheek) Woodiness. It’s a numerical measure of keyword usage that is prorated to the average use of each individual keyword. Thus, an instance of a more commonly used keyword "scores" more points than a less commonly used keyword. The following plot shows this data [8]. Eddie's known novels have an average Woodiness value of 2754 (Side-Show Siren is low at 1224; TV Lust is high at 5493). In comparison, Mask and Funny score only 176 and 23 respectively. By all measures, these two books in no way resemble Eddie’s known novels.

Mask of Evil and Not So Funny are certainly worth collecting for their iconic Eric Stanton cover art, quirky story lines, and as relics of the battle waged by American publishers to expand the boundaries of our First Amendment protections. But don't collect them thinking they were authored by Ed Wood, Jr. Because all of the evidence is that they were written by someone else.

Sources

• Ed Wood, Jr. Collection, #7779, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library (https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM07779.html).

• The Ed Wood Jr. Sleaze Paperbacks Collection (https://www.boo-hooray.com/pages/archives/67/the-ed-wood-jr-sleaze-paperbacks-collection)

• The Hunt for Edward D. Wood, Jr. website (http://www.edwoodonline.com/thehunt/MAIN.html).

• The Ed Wood Summit Podcast, 2022, Episode #22, “Tearing off the Mask of Evil,” Greg Dziawer with James Pontolillo and Joe Blevins. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eV1nxszQDh0&t=3s&pp=2AEDkAIB).

• Brittany A. Daley, et al. (Eds.), 2005, Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties, Los Angeles, CA: Feral House, 287 pp.

• Charlene White, 1966, Mask of Evil, FN 226, Buffalo, NY: First Niter Books Inc., 157 pp.

• Charlene White, 1966, Not So Funny, AH 145, Buffalo, NY: After Hours Books Inc., 157 pp.

• List of 27 known Ed Wood, Jr. novels: Black Lace Drag (1963), Parisian Passions (1966), Side Show Siren (1966), Drag Trade (1967), Security Risk (1967), Watts… the Difference (1967) Watts… After (1967), Devil Girls (1967), Death of a Transvestite (1967), It Takes One to Know One (1967), Suburbia Confidential (1967), The Gay Underworld (1968), Night Time Lez (1968) Sex, Shrouds and Caskets (1968), Young, Gay and Black (1968), Purple Thighs (1968), Hell Chicks (1968), Carnival Piece (1968), The Sexecutives (1968), Toni: Black Tigress (1969), To Make A Homo (1971), The Only House (1972), Mary-Go-Round (1972), Diary of a Transvestite Hooker (1973), Forced Entry (1974), Sex Salvation [Saving Grace] (1975), and TV Lust (1977).

• A number of Eddie’s well-known works were not included in this list because they were either not novels (e.g., socio-medical studies [The Oralists] and SECS Press collaborations) or they were written under goal-based restrictions that limited the content (e.g., movie tie-ins [Orgy of the Dead], photo novels [Raped in the Grass], and stage adaptations [Casual Company]).

Podcast Tuesday: "A Nice Pair of Cupcakes"

The future chick Cupcake (Didi Conn) meets her exact double on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

I'm sure you've heard the theory that, somewhere in this world, there is a person who looks exactly like you. Same facial features, same hair, same body type, etc. There may even be more than one such person. The scientific validity of this is dubious at best, but it's still fun to think about. And it's a great plot device for writers, which is why it has turned up in so many movies, TV shows, plays, novels, short stories, etc. Two lookalike characters could intentionally switch places with each other, or one could simply be confused for the other and get into all kinds of wacky predicaments. Everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Mark Twain has had a go at this kind of story.

The sitcom Happy Days was not exactly immune from clichés and stock situations, but they never did the classic "doppelganger" plot, unless you count the fact that actor Al Molinaro played two characters: amiable restaurateur Al Delvecchio and Al's rarely-seen brother, Father Delvecchio, a Catholic priest. Have no fear, though. The animated version of Happy Days did this type of story at least twice. In Season 1, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) is mistaken for an outlaw in the Old West. Then, in Season 2, Cupcake (Didi Conn) meets her own double in 19th century Siam.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about that Season 2 episode, appropriately titled "Double Jeopardy." As usual, we talk about a bunch of other stuff, including Peter Lorre's career and whether or not all the races will blend into one by the 25th century. We'd love it if you would join us.

Did you know I have a YouTube channel? I do. It's awesome, and you should definitely check it out!

How can I "pivot to video" if no one pivots with me?

If you're reading this article right now, you obviously know I have a blog. Thank you for reading it. But I'm a multimedia, multi-platform artiste, baby. I cover the waterfront. I'm everywhere all at once. I hope by now you're aware of my podcast, which has been going for six years now. (New episode on October 29, by the way.) If you look to the right-hand margin of this blog, you'll see a sidebar with links to all my other social media accounts and places online where you'll find my work. So much stuff there, well beyond the scope of this blog. I'm posting this little article to alert you to the existence of my YouTube channel. Lots of fun, goofy content over there, some of it Ed Wood-related and some not. Check it out and consider subscribing.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: A look at Ed Wood's 'A Study of Fetishes & Fantasies' (1973) (Guest Author: James Pontolillo)

Ed Wood gets kinky in this rarely-read 1973 book.

Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Norman Bates, 1973, A Study of Fetishes & Fantasies, Edusex Press ED 113, Los Angeles, CA: Gallery Press, Inc., 191 pp.

In 1973, the wisdom contained in this book commanded the princely sum of $3.95 ($27.98 today). By comparison, a gallon of regular gas was 40 cents, a copy of Playboy magazine was a $1.00, a gallon of milk was $1.31, and a first-class postage stamp would set you back eight cents. Careful editing has never been a hallmark of the adult publishing industry. So it is not surprising that the interior title page bears a slightly different title (A Study in Fetishes and Fantasies) and different author names (Norman Bates and Dick Trent) than shown on the covers. The introduction is also credited to Dick Trent and Norman Bates. As Ed's fans know, Dick Trent was one of Eddie's most commonly-used pseudonyms. Norman Bates, meanwhile, was fellow wage-slave writer Charles D. Anderson. 

An eye-catching front cover.

The book's most noticeable feature (and primary selling point) is its numerous pornographic photos. As one latter-day observer put it: "The photos are quite graphic, very 1970s, and are as easy on the sensitive eye as a papercut across the eyeball might be." Eighty-three black-and-white photos are arranged so that almost every two-page spread throughout the book consists of a page of text on the left and a captioned full-page photo on the right. Two eight-page full color photo inserts are also included, one near the front and one near the back of the book. 

The photos' subject matter is overwhelmingly heterosexual, including a selection of interracial couplings. There are a limited number of photos of lesbianism but – uncharacteristically for Gallery Press at this time – no photos of male homosexual acts. Three of the photos depict a man and woman having sex in a casket and are seemingly taken from the final sex scene in Eddie’s movie Necromania (1971). But the photos represent angles and depict actions, e.g., Maria Arnold on top of Ric Lutze during intercourse, not shown in the film itself. The photo captions throughout the book have that slightly odd ring to them that was the Gallery Press house style.

As is usual for an adult "sex study" from this era, a large portion of the book consists of extended quotes taken from other publications. The bibliography is entirely composed of medical and sociological textbooks or citations to mainstream news articles. Nothing is referenced from the contemporaneous sleaze literature. These borrowed portions are held together with the authors' paraphrasing and riffing on ideas drawn from the same sources or their fertile imaginations. There are sections throughout Fetishes & Fantasies that have Eddie's stylistic fingerprints all over them as seen in the excerpts which follow.

The small indignities of being Freddy Krueger

R.I.P. Ernest Rutherford.

The character of Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) started out as a serious threat in Wes Craven's horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). In that film, Freddy is a vicious, hideously scarred killer who preys on suburban teenagers in the dream world. As the series progressed, however, Freddy became a pop culture sensation and, improbably, an icon to children and teens across America. The movies became campier in tone, and Freddy started cracking a lot more jokes between murders. Do you think he ever felt pressured to come up with clever one-liners and puns? I pondered that issue and turned it into the web comic above. Hope you enjoy.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 200: Ed Wood at 100

Ed Wood recently reached an important milestone.

October 10, 2024 was just another average Thursday to most people in the world, but to Ed Wood fans, it was something like a holy day of obligation. For that was the day that the notorious director of Glen or Glenda (1953), Bride of the Monster (1955), and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) turned 100. Or would have turned 100 if he hadn't died of alcohol-related heart failure in December 1978 at the age of 54. 

We used to call such special occasions "birthdays," even when the honoree was deceased. In more recent years, though, we've collectively decided that dead people don't have birthdays anymore. Now, they have "birth anniversaries" or "birthdates." I guess we were afraid of offending dead people. So let's say that October 10 was Ed Wood's 100th birth anniversary.

Whatever you call it, the day was marked by screenings of Ed Wood films at theaters across the country, especially in his home state of New York and his adopted state of California. It warms my heart to think that this man, largely ignored during his own life, should inspire such tributes nearly half a century after his death. I knew that I would probably have to attend at least one such event. But which one? Would there be a screening within reasonable driving distance of my apartment?

An Upstate Films screening in Ed's home state.

Fortunately, a few weeks ago, I was contacted by a nonprofit organization called Upstate Films, whose stated goal is to bring "transformative cinema experiences" to the Hudson Valley region of New York State. The group's screenings take place at a few venues, including the Starr Cinema in Rhinebeck and the Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties. Rhinebeck is in Dutchess County, just half an hour north of Ed's hometown of Poughkeepsie. It was their plan to honor their (almost) hometown boy with a screening of Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) on October 10, and they wanted a Wood expert on hand to offer some remarks.

I'm not sure how Upstate Films found me, but somehow they did. Even more unusually, they called me on the phone and left a voicemail. This is hardly the normal way to get in touch with me, but I'll admit that it got my attention. Eventually. See, I don't check my voicemail very often. But when I heard their message a few days after they left it, I gave Upstate Films a call back. A gentleman eventually put me in touch with the woman who was spearheading the event: a filmmaker in her own right named Katie Cokinos. We had a delightful chat that lasted about 40 minutes, and I exchanged emails with Katie and a few other folks from Upstate Films in the leadup to the show.

Katie is a big fan of the Burton biopic but admitted she wasn't all that conversant with Ed Wood's movies, not even the "famous" ones he made in the 1950s. That was where I came in. I've been studying and writing about these movies for years now and can talk about them for hours. But there are some potential pitfalls here. For many people, Ed Wood is simply a wide-eyed dreamer who made a handful of quirky low-budget movies in the 1950s. Such viewers are typically not comfortable delving into the darker, sadder, sleazier aspects of Ed's story, namely his descent into poverty and pornography, fueled by his out-of-control alcohol addiction.

On the very rare occasions when I am asked to be a podcast guest or interview subject, I try to gauge whether the host is okay with talking about the more sordid aspects of Ed Wood's life and career. If not, I know to stick to the relatively benign 1950s stuff: angora sweaters, UFOs on strings, plywood cemeteries, etc. From my discussions with Katie, I knew this was going to be one of those "keep it light and fun" kind of interviews. I explained that it would not be possible for me to travel to Rhinebeck to attend the screening in person, but I would be happy to make my presentation via Zoom. This was amenable to Upstate Films, and arrangements were soon made. Before it vanishes forever from the internet, here is a listing for the event, including my self-penned introduction.

It's wonderful to be here. It's certainly a thrill.

In addition to making some remarks and answering questions after the film, I was asked to prepare a highlight reel from Ed's 1950s movies. I wanted to focus on what I considered the "greatest hits" from this era, especially the moments that were relevant to the Tim Burton film. Below is the video presentation that I created for that night, containing my favorite moments from Glenda and Bride. (For Plan 9, I merely suggested they show the film's iconic trailer.)

On October 10, I was asked to do a soundcheck a couple of hours in advance of the screening. This was how I realized that not everyone at the Starr Cinema was as interested in Eddie and his movies as I was. Katie had been very keen to hear what I had to say, naturally, as had the Upstate Films people I'd been dealing with up to that point. For some of the other employees, however, this was just another screening, and I was just some random dude they had to deal with that day. I also learned that it was quite unusual for a guest speaker to appear via Zoom rather than in person, so I was presenting them with some unique technical challenges. The fact that I was speaking after the movie also meant that they had to stay a little longer at the end of their workday. Sorry, folks. What can I say?

I want to emphasize that no one was rude or hostile, just curt and businesslike. A tech guy asked me to start talking so he could hear how my voice sounded over the speakers. I responded by reading a passage from Ed Wood's short story "The Night the Banshee Cried." For some reason, I started hamming it up a bit for this employee, who was busy adjusting various things around the theater. I thought he'd get a kick out of it. After a few minutes, though, I noticed he had not said anything or responded in any way.

"W-was that good? I asked, tentatively.

"Mm hmm," he responded flatly. "You're coming through very clear. Maybe a half-second delay."

He sounded like a bored drive-through employee telling me to pull up to the next window. Or a traffic cop letting me off with a warning this time. I have to admit, I was a little deflated. 

My post-movie presentation, however, went swimmingly. Katie Cokinos acted as moderator and was as enthused as ever. Fielding questions from both the audience and from Katie, I talked about how I came to be an Ed Wood fan and how accurate or inaccurate the 1994 biopic is. Other topics included: the long-planned yet seemingly never-to-be statue of Ed Wood in Poughkeepsie; the fate of Ed's mortal remains; Ed's somewhat embellished war record; and whether or not Lillian Wood dressed her son in women's clothing when he was a child. Katie was kind enough to ask me about Ed's "monster nudies," which gave me an opportunity to plug Dad Made Dirty Movies (2020). The whole thing lasted about 45 minutes.

The way the Zoom call was set up, by the way, I could see the Starr Cinema auditorium from my end. As I suspected, the audience was incredibly miniscule, and a few sleepy folks shuffled out as my portion of the show began. I think, by the end, I was talking to no more than a dozen people. But that didn't bother me. It's about comparable with the stats on many of my articles, videos, and podcasts. What mattered was that I was able to spend this day doing something Woodian. I'd have felt guilty somehow if I hadn't marked the occasion.

Ed, wherever you are, I hope you appreciated the gesture.

The interior of the Starr Cinema. (And this is pretty much how it looked when I spoke.)