The Drink Tank 036 (2005).pdf

I am known as

The Kicker

Elves

The

DRINK

I am also

Known as

the Angel

Crusher

TANK

*446&5)*35:4*9

Garcia@computerhistory.org

James

‘Scotty’

Doohan,

dead at

paper plate.

Despite being forever known as Scotty,

Doohan was a ine Canadian actor whose

TV credits were long even before Star Trek

(Space Command, several of the old antholo-

gy shows) and a lot of TV after Star Trek.

He did get pigeonholed into the SF genre for

the most part after Trek, but he did have

a few series that he managed to be a part

of. He did some voice-over work, which was

perfect for Doohan as he was a master of

dialects. He played several computer voices

over the years.

Often forgotten about Doohan is the

fact that he was a WWII vet with the Royal

Canadian Artillery Division. He lost part of

his middle inger in the D-Day invasion. I

know he was fairly well-decorated for his

part. He was hit six times with machine gun

ire, and the reason he lived to tell the tale

was a silver cigarette case that he carried

with him that stopped a bullet that would

have pierced his chest.

And so, another legendary TV per-

former is gone. I’ll always remember him as

the reason I loved so much of Star Trek.

There’s

a part of me

which always

knew this day

would come,

and another

part which

always de-

nied it. Scotty, the most lovable of the origi-

nal Star Trek crew, dead. I’ve always loved

Scotty, and I got a few chances to meet him

over the years.

The irst time I was about ten and my

Pops took me to a Creation Con at Ricki’s

Hyatt. He was there and answering ques-

tions and I asked if he would recite the cap-

tain’s opening from the original Trek series

as Scotty. He did and the room went nuts.

Then he did it in his imitation of Shatner

and I’ve never heard a Trek crowd go more

nuts.

When I was con-crashing, I made my

way into one of the Creations in Boston and

actually managed to get to the Green Room

by posing as a Hotel employee looking into

the catering needs. I only stayed for a few

minutes, but I did get to talk to James for

a bit, including getting his autograph on a

If Band Geeks, the folks all the cool

kids mocked, had members that they

thought of as Band Geeks, those would be

Surf Rock musicians. So many Surf Rock-

ers are only known for i nger-shattering

guitar work, but there is so much more

to surf rock. Sadly, a lot of folks call the

Beach Boys and Jan & Dean Surf, which I

just don’t get. When I hear the words Surf

Rock, I think of The Ventures, Dick Dale

and His Fabulous Deltones, The Phantom

Surfers, and the i nger-melting guitars of

Los Straightjackets. The heavy reverb, mas-

dary Invisible Men) and even politicians (the

1980s act Ron, Dick, Jimmy & Gerry). The

love of science i ction and horror shows in so

many of these bands, but the one that gets

my vote for the best of them is The Ghastly

Ones, those hard rockin’ undertakers of the

planet surf.

The Ghastly Ones are a band out of

the mythical cauldron known as Southern

California. Few would argue that SoCal

was the hot bed for B-Horror and SF in the

1950s and 60s, with several TV hosts like

Vampira, Jeepers Creepers, and Ghoulita

running programmes with those legendary

horror i lms and doing brief bits between the

i lms and after commercials. Vampira was

the i rst and best known of them, though

she wasn’t actually on the air for too long

and she is better known for her time as one

of Ed Wood’s actors in Plan 9 From Outer

Space and she also did a few other movies.

This atmosphere certainly made LA a likely

site for horror fans to be built.

Of course, Surf Rock originated in

SoCal, in and around the beach communi-

ties. The music scene in the early 1960s

was an eclectic blend

of styles, but surf was

the most dominant,

with guys like Dick

Dale. Many claim that

he invented Surf Rock

with his tune “Let’s Go

Trippin’”, though as is

the case with all i rst,

there are arguments.

No one can deny that

Dale really launched

it.

sively wet

sounds of

those guys

are my idea

of what Surf

Rock is, and

it’s also why

I listen to far

too much of

Perhaps the reason so many Surf

bands are branded as the nerds of the music

scene is because there are so many genre

surf acts. There are

tons of science i c-

tion acts, like Man or

AstroMan or The Del

Ninos, as there are a

few that claim to be

aliens (Far-Off Planet),

Robots (Pursued by

Robots, not to be con-

fused with Captured

by Robots), Universal

Monsters (The Legen-

the genre and made it the de facto sound

of Southern California.

In the early 1980s, there was a

resurgence of horror hosts led by Elvira:

Mistress of The Dark. There was also a

small return for Surf with Dick Dale re-

turning after a several year retirement

and several bands had formed around

this time that brought some new found

glory to the genre. I am irmly of the belief

that these two things happening at the

same time are responsible for the rise of

Genre Surf bands and speciically for The

Ghastly Ones.

I heard someone once

describe these guys as the

house band for 1313 Mock-

ingbird Lane. I would not

argue. The combo formed

in the mid 1990s when

a surge of great new surf

bands rose from the Ocean

like Purple Haze. They

quickly grew a following

among both the surf and

the horror community. The

guys adopted horror-themed

names, which made me smile when I irst

heard them. There’s Dr. Lehos on guitar,

Sir Go-Go-Ghostly on the bass and Baron

Shivers on Drums. The tradition of assum-

ing different names goes back to those days

when horror hosts would call themselves fun

names that were typically puns.

And I think they it the outits better.

You see, the Ghastly Ones

are the hard rocking under-

takers of surf rock, which

means that they dress like

old school undertakers dur-

ing their performances. To

paraphrase the guitarist for

BloodHag, They make up for

their gimmick by not suck-

ing.

With their highly en-

tertaining stage show and

their sweet tasty riffs, they

caught the eye of White

Zombie front man and the director of ilms

like The Devil’s Rejects, Rob Zombie. Rob

put out their irst CD on his Zombie-A-Go-

Go records. A Haunting We Will Go-Go was

a great album with the amazing and in-

stantly recognisable voice of Zacherley, NYC

Horror host and star on the horror conven-

tion circuit. He narrates a bit, and there’s

a great bit about Dr. Diablo and his Go-Go

Ghouls (more on them later) but the mu-

sic is the highlight. The guys make spooky

surf, with is inluenced by everything from

Link Wray to Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion

soundtrack. And, as if they were creating an

album just for me, they have a track called

Campeones de Justicio all about El Santo,

Mil Mascaras and Blue Demon, three of the

greatest Mexican Masked Heroes of All Time!

Sweet touch. The entire album is perfectly

listenable, especially is you’re planning a

beach party to be attacked by atomic robots

or zombies controlled by a sinister mage of

one sort or another.

The

Ghastly Ones

also have

their own

Go-Go-Ghoul

in residence.

Kate Carter is

a lovely young

lady...until

she joins The

Ghastly Ones

on stage. She

then becomes

the undeni-

able

Necrobella,

the dark

dancing fool

MAKE ART NOT WAR

Frank Wu

Artists and terrorists have a lot in

common. We both see the world as it is, and

say “Why not?” We long for transformation.

Politically, many artists lean left, far left

(I’m more moderate, but I sympathize with

my art friends’ politics). We are troubled

by the idea that the U.S. is the last world

power standing, politically, militarily,

economically and culturally. Though this

may change in the next decade with the

economic rise of China, the present situation

is fundamentally unfair.

American corporations and culture spread

like cancers, stamping out religions and

traditions which have stood for centuries.

The American military swaggers across the

planet, toppling governments and setting

one nation against another. In America sex

is used to sell everything, and women are

objectiied.

Curiously, these left-wing positions are

remarkably similar to those held by many

terrorists. Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri, for

example, grew up admiring the west. Later

he fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, but

felt betrayed by America when the U.S.

disarmed and abandoned their Afghani

friends after the war. Now he leads a radical

mosque and says: “When a president

stands up before the planet and says an

American comes irst, he is only preaching

hatred. When a president stands up and

says we don’t honor our missile treaty

who shakes it like a bad martini at The

Ghastly One’s shows. She’s one of those

characters that inhabit a band, like the guy

in The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones who just

stood around and danced and was called,

simply, the Bosstone. She adds a giant dol-

lop of atmosphere and fun and really gets

into the part.

Sadly, immediately after I irst dis-

covered them, they took an extended leave.

While I played their album over and over,

I thought long and hard about how to get

them back. Thankfully, no goat sacriice

was needed and they recently returned and

have been playing great shows. They’ve even

released another album and a sweet t-shirt I

have already ordered. Now if I could just get

my own Go-Go-Ghoul...

with the Russians, he is

only preaching arrogance.

When he refuses to

condemn what’s happening

in Palestine, he is only

preaching tyranny.”

(Christian Science Monitor,

Sept. 27, 2001). As another

example, it’s been said that

what inally pushed Osama

bin Laden over the edge

was the sight of a Coca-

Cola billboard on his way to

Mecca.

The key question for

our times is: How do we

respond to injustice? Do we

repay evil with evil? Or do

we repay evil with good? I

have lived my life trying not

to be judgmental, but it’s

hard to see the justiication

of blowing up innocents

in subway cars, buses

and skyscrapers. Yes, the

terrorists have legitimate

grievances. Yes, this world

is messed up. Yes, I love

America and think it is the

best country in the world,

but I also see its faults and

the troubles we have stirred

up across the planet. Most

of all, I am troubled by the

wasted potential - American

power could be used to

do great good across this

planet, but isn’t.

So what do we do? While

artists and terrorists may

agree on some principles,

the methods are opposite.

Artists seek to make the

ugly beautiful, terrorists

want to make the beautiful

ugly.

By nature I am not a

martyr, I am an artist. I

have tried to express some

of my political views in my

art, though I freely admit

that most of the time

people “don’t get it.”

Oh well. At least I

am not alone. There is

a growing movement

of artistic dissent in

America. Call it what

you will: Guerilla art,

culture jamming, arty

disobedience. Major

targets are billboards

and corporate symbols.

[It’s very disturbing

that most Americans

recognize fewer than 10

plants but more than

1000 corporate logos

(Adbusters magazine,

May/June 2001).]

Primary weapons are

paint, lowers and an

anarchic Dadaist sense of

humor.

In Billings, Montana,

a Ronald McDonald

statue was stolen from

a Ronald McDonald

house and lynched

from a tree, later to be

cut down by the police

(Adbusters, May/June

2001). In 1996, after his

father nearly died from

smoking, psych professor

Scott Plous of Wesleyan

University invented the

spoof character “Joe

Chemo,” a camel dying of

lung cancer (Adbusters,

Winter 1996). In Oxford,

England, a billboard

declaring “Get a free

minidish and digibox”

was appended to say:

“Or get a life. TV Turn

Off Week, 23-29 April.”

(Adbusters, July/Aug

2001). Another fellow

was upset that the

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