“The Local Stigmatic” (1990).

Here is your chance to see Al Pacino’s very rarely seen film, “The Local Stigmatic“. It’s particularly interesting as Pacino tries his hand at a…Cockney accent!
Yep.

From Wikipedia:
“The Local Stigmatic is a film directed by David Wheeler and produced by and starring Al Pacino. It was filmed and edited during the late 1980s. It had a showing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in March 1990, but was never released theatrically. It was released on DVD as part of “The Al Pacino Box Set” in June 2007. The film is 56 minutes long. It follows the story of two British friends who spend their time walking about London discussing dog track racing. The Local Stigmatic is based on a stage play by Heathcote Williams.”

From Rotten Tomatoes:
“Two working-class Englishmen spend their free time arguing about greyhound-racing and Winston Churchill. They also read the papers, especially the gossip columns and Society pages. In a bar one day, they meet a film star who they’ve read about, and subject him to a savage, and apparently motiveless, beating.”

Enjoy!

Some Trivia For “The Local Stigmatic” Courtesy Of The IMDB:
* Al Pacino donated a copy to the Museum of Modern Art with the stipulation that it can only be shown with his permission. A small number of screenings have taken place since 1990. The film was not widely released until June 2007.

* Al Pacino and Paul Guilfoyle studied and examined the play for four years before they decided to make a film of it. When they finally decided to film it they spent four months rehearsing before it was finally shot. They approached the production of the film as if they were staging a play and wanted to avoid making it look too much like a film. Pacino deleted any shots looked too cinematic for his taste.

* Al Pacino, producer Michael Hadge and Joseph Maher co-starred in an Off-Broadway stage production of “The Local Stigmatic” in 1969.

* Filmed in 9 days.

* Legendary theatre producer and friend of Al Pacino, Joseph Papp was upset with Pacino for getting the film rights before he did. For many years, Papp had wanted to produce a film version of the play.

* Al Pacino began shooting exteriors for the film in 1984 while was in London doing a stage production of “American Buffalo”.

* Al Pacino strongly considered releasing the film after the success of Pulp Fiction because it is also about two nihilists.

* Director David F. Wheeler wanted Al Pacino to wear glasses throughout the film but Pacino did not want to. So they compromised by having Pacino’s character wear glasses only when he was reading.

* There are several different versions of the film since Al Pacino has continued to re-edit the film over the years.

You May Also Be Interested In…
* Max Koch: Cheetos With AL & BOBBY
* Max Koch: AL & Bobby Do The Laundry
* Max Koch: TONY SOPRANO Stages An INTERVENTION

BBC TV: Dr. Terror’s Vault Of Horror.

I had trouble even remembering his name for a while.
It was so long ago…

I would have been 8 or 9…or maybe even 10. I don’t know but it would have been the 1990’s and almost midnight and I would be awake and glued to the my wee flickery TV with fuzzy reception.
Dr. Terror would appear on the screen to introduce the scary horror film of the evening.

Dr. Terror. That was his name. He was a cartoonishly (That’s a word!) sinister horror host for the BBC. An elegantly scary class act!

Do you remember this guy?

Those were the days.
Back then, there were fields as FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE…
10 pence. That was a lot of money then y’know!

I remember it all and in those days the BBC would run horror double bills at midnight on Fridays and it really was an education.

The good old Doctor introduced me to the likes of “Child’s Play” (1988), “The People Under The Stairs” (1991), “Sometimes They Come Back” (1991) and obscurities like “The Baby” (1973), “VAMP” (1986) and “House” (1986).

I also grew up watching Hammer Horror flicks and Dr. Terror’s Vault Of Horror re-ran a lot of them.
I have a particularly good memory of being dog tired in my dressing gown, keeping myself awake so I could watch “Scars Of Dracula” (1970) at 2am.

Things haven’t changed much since that’s exactly what I was doing at 2am only two nights ago and I’m 30 years old now!

Anyway, it really was a great time to be young and impressionable and luckily for you and me, a few videos of Dr. Terror exist and here they are:

New York Diary: Part V.

New York Diary: Part V.
I Love New York!

Last Day in New York.
The last day in The New Yorker Hotel.

Y’know,
I think if I was to add up all the time I spent in the hotel during the last 5 days it would come to less than 12 hours.
But anyways, there’s no time for all of that.
We gotta get our bags packed and get the hell out of here!

The hotel arranged to keep our bags for us until it was time to go to the airport later.
That gave us most of the day to say our goodbyes to Manhattan.

What to do today?
Maybe I’ll just let some of the photos do the talking.

Y’know,
New York Public Libray is beautiful, it really is but it’s hard to walk around there and not think of yourself as a Ghostbuster.

I didn’t write down much stuff on my last day in New York.
I was too busy trying to make the day last as long as possible.

There are loads of things I haven’t even mentioned in these diary posts but that’s only because they deserve whole posts of their own in the future.

New York is the greatest place on Earth as far as I’m concerned.
There’s always something to do and placs to explore.
You can buy salad at 3am in the morning (That really impressed me) and get drunk at 5am if that’s your thing.
You can walk for 10 minutes and hear 600 different accents,
You can walk down a modern steel city block and suddenly stumble upon an ancient church.
I feel like I fit there and as Sinatra says,
“It’s my kind of town”.

I really miss New York but what the hell,
I’ll get back over there.

…Might even buy a one way ticket next time 🙂

The Tragedy & Comedy Of Jerry Sadowitz.

There’s Billy Connolly, Eddie Izzard, Rik Mayall and then there’s Jerry Sadowitz.

That’s the kind of comedy I’ve always been into but whilst Connolly, Izzard and Mayall are Worldwide household names, Sadowitz is practically broke and out of work for most of the time.

I’ve liked Jerry Sadowitz ever since I clapped eyes on him in the early 1990’s. He was right in your face and I liked the way he looked and I still think that he’s the best magician alive today. But most importantly, I think he’s funny as fuck!

I never got around to seeing Billy Connolly live but I’ve seen gigs  by Izzard and Mayall and just 2 weeks ago, Sadowitz.

A Jerry Sadowitz gig could be a terrifying experience for most folk. Resembling a psychopathic Punch & Judy puppet in a top hat, he saunters onto the stage and straight away gets ripped into everything that’s ever pissed him off.

He’s loud, aggressive, highly offensive, unapologetic and swears like machine gun fire. Whilst giving you both barrels at once, (Even though machine guns don’t have 2 barrels), he’s doing mind blowing  magic tricks without even giving it a second thought. I like him a lot and you can tell that most of the audience are glad to see him but he’s a hard guy to get a hold of. He almost never tours, has no merchandise on release and he personally removes almost all traces of himself on the internet.

Most folk in the know know that Frankie Boyle is the poor man’s Jerry Sadowitz. I’ve always thought that Frankie Boyle was a prick. (*2013 EDIT: I still think that but he’s awrite) Boyle comes across as if he’s been up for days on end, carefully planning his jokes out in an attempt to shock people. And Jerry Sadowitz seems to agree.

There’s a sadness to Sadowitz and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I always thought “Well, maybe it’s because he can’t get work” but then I’d think “All he needs to do is release some merchandise and he’d be fine”.
I think he thinks that he’d be selling out in some way if he released DVD’s etc… and I can only admire that.
(*2013 EDIT: I think that Jerry Sadowitz should NEVER release ANY merchandise!)

He sold out Glasgow’s Kings Theatre for a solid week and as I understand it, pissed off loads of easily offended people. One of his jokes was: “What’s blue and won’t fit?”
– “A dead epileptic”.

He spoke about rape, raping Z-Lister Vanessa Feltz while holding a meat cleaver to her throat, how soldiers are idiots and also how Madeline McCann‘s Mum would be attractive and worth raping if only she smiled more often. He’s never gonna be everyone’s cup of tea. But then again, not everybody drinks tea, do they? It’s easy to see how Jerry earned this reputation of being a complete and utter cunt.

Personally, I love the guy and I love that his website is fucking useless. He seems determined to make no money and at the same time, pissed off and bitter that he doesn’t make any.

At the end of the show I saw, he seemed to come out of character for a second to thank everyone for taking the time and money to come and see him – A wee glimmer of the man behind the psychopath.

Sadowitz granted The Daily Record (*2013 EDIT: THE DAILY RECORD ARE CUNTS!) a rare interview last month which has now mysteriously disappeared from the internet and it was one of the saddest things I’ve read in a long time. For the time being, you can read a similar interview with him HERE.

You May Also Be Interested In…
* Sadowitz On Savile
* Home Decorating: Ed Gein Style
* Max Koch: “Cheetos With Al & Bobby” (Al Pacino / Robert De Niro)

*

Homesick For A Place That Ain’t Even Home.

So that’s me back from New York City.
I took several big bites outta The Big Apple and it tastes sweet!

I was over there for only one week and it went past in lightning time.
This was my 3rd time over there and now it’s all over.

I’ve got the ‘came back from New York 2 days ago’ blues.
I’m bluer than Joni Mitchell’s blue face on the cover of her album “Blue“, playing the blues on a blue guitar from Picasso’s blue period with my face painted blue in front row seats watching Blue Man Group whilst punching Anthony Costa‘s face in 😦

One day you’re standing on the corner of 34th and 8th then…WHOOSH!
Next thing you know you’re standing in the middle of Duke Street with a what the hell just happened look on your face.

I’m tired as hell.
I’ve pretty much been up for a whole week and 3 hours after my plane landed back in Glasgow,
I went out on the town to see the terrifying stand up comedy of Jerry Sadowitz.

Needless to say I had the time of my life over in New York.
It feels like home more than home feels like home.
Out all day doing all kinds of interesting things and tearing the town up at night,
I know my way around NYC better than I know my way around here.

I kept a diary in New York which ended up being pretty long.
I wrote it in bars and cafes at night as I wandered around looking for the kind of New York you see in Scorsese films and the good news is that I found it!
I also took around 1500 photographs and met some great people…BUT!
I’m gonna have to tell you all about it later.
I’ll get it typed up and post it all up on here over the next week or so.

So here I am feeling homesick for a place that’s ain’t even my home.
Maybe one day it will be.