Thursday, May 19, 2016

"I Love You Alice B. Toklas" The Blades of GRASS

We're heading into another "Summer of Bummers." We'll be hearing about record heat and humidity. We're already getting record sludge heaped on us by our do-nothing dumbass political leaders. They ignore climate change as they bicker with each rival in attempts to gain or regain power. What power? The power to rule, and make things worse. And yes, "there will be blood."

The traditional summer diversion is going to a beach full of screaming babies, barking dogs, and jackasses blasting boom boxes. Enjoy the stench of barbecued meat, salt water and pollution. It only takes half the day to get there and back, leaving you exhausted, spent, and burnt.

Plan b is hiding inside a nice cool movie theater full of screaming babies, barking mad idiots texting or talking on cellphones, and jackasses talking back to the screen or using laser pointers on any woman's titties. The stench of stale popcorn and the odds of gooey residue on your shoes or on your seat, will add to the joy of spending way too much time to get there and back. You'll leave wondering why you wasted money on that miserable stupid comic book hero movie where everybody does back-flips when they fight, and there's an explosion every 3 minutes.

Summer SUCKS. It always did, but many have nostalgia for, or wish they were alive during... "The Summer of Love." It was a more peaceful time, give or take a motorcycle gang stabbing, police cracking students in the head, and people overdosing on paisley.

A favorite song of the era was "Whiter Shade of Pale," sung by Boko Haram long before they went rogue and began raping and killing people in Nigeria.

Ah, but that was the time for hippie-dippie chicks who were into drugs and free love and looked and/or dressed like Leigh Taylor-Young. You had to just try and find them. At the beach. At the movies. Where the fuck were they? In a dorm room fucking somebody other than you!

There were some heavy movies back then, some anti-hero films, some radical stuff, some experimental things, and...uncomfortable sitcom movies trying to be funny and cool at the same time. "I Love You Alice B. Toklas" is pretty dated, but it did attempt to take a sympathetic look at nerds (young or old) trying to find meaning in life and trying to bang a hippie chick. Oh yeah, and wondering if drugs would be the Great Answer.

The movie can be summed up by its theme song, which is silly psych, more Captain Crunch than Sgt. Pepper. Auteur Paul Mazursky probably handled the minimal lyrics, while Elmer Bernstein did a Bacharach with the melody. And, nudge nudge wink wink, it was performed by The Blades of Grass.

THE LEAVES OF GRASS I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS

2 comments:

Rich said...

Actually, the version used in the film is performed by Harpers Bizarre.

Ill Folks said...

Thanks! They were on odd group...but they had some quirky semi-hits, and covered some offbeat Randy Newman tunes, too.