Adam Baran

It’s late and i just went to see the dirty projectors at mercury lounge, who were awesome - definitely check out their new record Rise Above, and also this other great band Ecstatic Sunshine who’s CD i bought because it’s called Freckle Wars. Then i went to get a turkey burger at rush hour and then I was walking home and I dropped it on the ground - like the NYC sidewalk, and I stared at it and some awful high heeled girls in party dresses walked by and laughed, and since turkey burgers take so long to make I stared at it for a few seconds and was just like “Ten second rule.” It may be the riskiest thing I’ve ever done. I am worried now I’ll get sick from eating it. It tasted fine, and I only ate half of it because eventually I did get grossed out from it. And meanwhile while I’ve been busy thinking about possibly moving to LA, I’ve been all no, New York is so awesome, etc, but I mean, LA can’t be any worse than living in the hyper-trendy neo-Meatpacking district of the LES. The people are just so hateful and there’s nothing I hate worse than hateful people.

Here’s info on one of the places these awful trendoids gather at the trough:

Ugh, kill yourself! Good night!

More laziness. Check out this crazy 1983 video by Diana Ross where Miss Ross plays a red-sequined queen who lives in Superman’s Fortress of Solitude or the frozen section outside the mall in Logan’s Run where the robot lives. Diana has to face off a group of scary expats from the Island of Dr. Moreau, and does it by singing a smooth cool 80’s jam, and taking off her head wrap thingy. See for yourself.

There may be one too many ambien in my system, but I thought I’d be lazy and post a simple Youtube of Stevie Nicks doing an amazing live rendition of Stand Back on SNL back in 1983. Make sure you watch it until the male dancer shows up. Pretty fantastic.

Just after writing and posting the previous entry with it’s call to arms for channels to program more scary stuff during the month of October, I get an email from IFC telling me that they’ve unfortunately had to push Jinx’s screenings in the October IFC Short Film Showcase to November, because the programmers decided they wanted to make the October Short Film Showcase all scary horror shorts.

Oh well, I can’t blame em. Now that’s irony for you.

So look for Jinx! in November now!

We now pause for station identification:

If you grew up in the tri-state area (for those on the West Coast, that means New York-New Jerz-and Connecticut) like I did, you may remember the original Channel 11 - WPIX, before it became the WB and now the CW or whatever it is. Channel 11 used to run tons of movies, usually in the evenings you could probably catch Pretty Woman or Goonies or E.T. or something of that nature, and then the 10 o’clock news and then at 11:ooPM it was like Cheers heaven. Blech!

The best thing that I remember Channel 11 did was during October, it would rename itself “Shocktober,” and it would air horror movies all month, all the time - well, not actually all the time, but like, at night, and on the weekends round the clock. Now in my memory it was just October, but in the preview below they seem to indicate that it was also during September and November too. This would jibe with the sheer number of horror movies I remember them showing. They would have all the Nightmare On Elm Streets one week, then the next would be Friday the 13th, then Halloween 1-5, Child’s Play, Creepshow 1 and 2, Night of the Creeps, Poltergeists 1-3, Critters 1-3, Tales of the Darkside the movie (which scared the shit out of me during the Gargoyle sequence), Cat’s Eye (which I was also vaguely creeped out by), Psycho 2, 3, and 4: The New Beginning, and probably tons of 80’s horror movies that I can’t even remember.

I just loved this stuff when I was about 11, 12, and 13. I had just started reading Stephen King novels, and I had plowed through the popular teen-lit horror books by people like R.L. Stine, who wrote the Fear Street series, which basically ripped off every famous horror movie ever, and Christopher Pike, whose novels usually featured some sex along with the blood and guts and vampires. There’s something just incredibly comforting about being able to watch these old promos on YouTube. WPIX was pretty loyal to their audience, and the horror craze was as huge then as it is now. They had a popular horror movie program - Chiller Theatre in the 70’s, check out this creepy intro that used to frighten kids more than the movies they showed!

I really miss this stuff, and the channels that used to get that when October rolls around, we wanna watch scary stuff, and not Fast and the Furious Part 7. So in October, I’m gonna devote this blog to all things scary and scary movies. Be forewarned! I’m also thinking of a way to put on a party where I can show all the crazy weird horror movies I’ve been collecting - many of which I picked up on my trip to LA.

Bonus Clip: Check out this promo for an episode of the Tales from the Darkside show. Renee Taylor plays a nagging Jewish mother with a voodoo charm! I’m calling Eddie Brandt’s tomorrow to see if they got this on tape. I just gotta see this.

Now go to sleep, before you all turn into a piece of date bread.

This past Friday evening, I had a small group of friends over to my house to watch my short film “Jinx!” premiere on the Independent Film Channel. I had invited girls and cast members, but the only people who showed up were all my gay boy friends. It was really chill and that’s just what I wanted. I had cupcakes and beer for everyone, and by 10:30 the group had arrived and we all stood around chatting in anticipation. At 10:40 I ordered everyone into my smallish bedroom, and told them to grab whatever free space they saw and make it comfortable for the next fifteen minutes.

“Jinx!” was set to screen at 10:45PM - bookended on one side by Party Monster, which I thought was funny since I had met with Jon Marcus, the film’s producer, while I was in Los Angeles. The Henry Rollins Show (an inexplicable idea if every there was one, but hey, I can’t dis IFC now, so scratch that thought) was set to follow Jinx! at 11:00PM. We sat huddled on my bed, like a super cozy slumber party and suddenly there it was - “A Film By Adam Baran,” “Jinx!” - the titles rendered in adorable little girl script by my friend, cartoonist Dan Acton. From the first moments of the actual film I was immediately swept up again in the story. The film looked superb onscreen, much better than it did at LA Shorts, where the projection diminished the fullness of the candy-colors featured throughout. What’s more, there was something about it that just worked on TV. I can’t really put my finger on what it was - maybe it’s that because the short film has a lot in common with the types of sketch comedy we’ve become accustomed to seeing on TV, that it just seemed like seeing it in that format fit the film perfectly. Any weaknesses I might have felt or things I wished I would have changed or done differently evaporated in that context. My friends all laughed - and though most of them had seen the film and knew that if they didn’t laugh that I would remember, I still like to believe that they were laughing because they genuinely found the film funny.

What’s more - I was happy with it - the demented Todd Solondz meets Whatever Happened to Baby Jane tone I was going for - and which I became convinced at times was too multi-genre to work - actually came across, and I happily saw my original idea oozing out of the finished film like the spirit of Joan Chen when she dies and gets trapped in the doorknob during the second season of Twin Peaks.

It went by quickly - it is only an eleven minute short, after all, but my friends hung around for a while, finished off the beer, went up to the roof to smoke cigarettes and gaze out on my gorgeous view of the Empire State Building to the North and the hideous Blue Building to the South. Then I had mentioned going to Sugarland, which is a new gay club in Williamsburg that’s all the rage, and so somehow we coordinated well and by 12, we were all dancing un-self-consicously to Britney’s Gimme More and some new cover of the Pet Shop Boys “Domino Dancing” that everyone went nuts over. Props to the DJ for throwing on the sensational Cranberries song Zombie, which somehow fit into the dance mix perfectly. And if you couldn’t tell that I’m a child of the nineties by my love of the Cranberries, perhaps you were given an early clue by the fact that I still use the phrase “Props.”

All in all it was a wonderful evening, and a good time was definitely had by all. I look forward to seeing it again when it starts airing more frequently in October (and you should too, for those of you who didn’t set your TIVO’s and DVR’s in time). Till then, I’ve just been watching it over and over again on my DVR. Sometimes, when nobody’s watching, I decide to mimic James Woods in Videodrome and make out with my television, while my name is on screen. Oh well, at least I’m in the privacy of my own home.

To all my friends who came over (and those who didn’t) and all the other people around the country who tuned in and sent me emails, I offer a deep and heartfelt “Thank you!” For the rest of the week, while I try to avoid the inevitable post-partum from the whole experience, it’s the fun of this night that will keep me reminded of what it’s like to be happy.

PS. Oh yeah, that flower on the wall, that came with the apartment. I did not paint that and have been meaning to paint over it for like 3 years! Don’t hate! I love you!