One of the Worst Ideas EVER

Paul McCartney the man who brought the world some of the lamest songs ever is teaming up with what is left of Nirvana to perform for the Hurricane Sandy Relief Concert in Madison Square Garden. Haven't the victims of the storm suffered enough?
Paul McCartney as Kurt Cobain? Kurt would shoot himself again if he could! Will they play some Wings songs and maybe pull on Courtney as Linda McCartney? Paul singing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is just ludicrous! Will he fill "Penny Royal Tea" with his saccharine deliveries? The remaining un-nameable members of Nirvana should be forced to listen to hours of "Ebony and Ivory"!

The Sardonic Master Vincent Price

The Yale educated son of a wealthy St. Louis family Vincent Price will always be remembered for being creepy. In real life the man was charming, funny and rather elegant but he knew how to make your skin crawl on film. Price played a wide variety of characters in his multitude of films but it is his role in the horror genre where he stands out. His first real horror film was 1939's "Tower of London" followed by the title role in "The Invisible Man Returns". He was cast as villains in noir films through out the 1940's and 1950's. By the mid to late 50's Mr. Price was the king of horror films. His films included "House of Wax", "The Fly", and "The House on Haunted Hill" He worked with the famed horror-thriller director William Castle known as much for his gimmicks as he was for his films.
Price was also very funny and many of his roles were comic as well as creepy. He was cast in the mid-60's as Egghead on TV's camp classic "Batman" as well as a series of silly films including "Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine" and "Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs". He became a true household name when he was part of the cast of "Hollywood Squares" where he was able to display his quick wit and sardonic humor.

Both Alice Cooper and Michael Jackson used Price's voice in their music classics "Welcome to My Nightmare" and "Thriller". It was during this time he was recording classic Poe stories and doing a BBC Radio's horror series "The Price of Fear". He turned to the stage in the 70's performing as Oscar Wilde in the play "Diversions and Delights". It is considered one of the best performances of his life. He continued working through out the 70's and 80's making guest appearances on television and acting as host for 8 years on PBS's series "Mystery".
Vincent Price was also an art collector and gourmet cook. His art collection was enormous and is now housed in The Vincent Price Museum in East Los Angeles.
The last significant film Price made was Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands". He was ill during the shooting of the film and his schedule had to be curtailed due to his health issues. During this time he was working with Burton on a documentary to be titled "Conversations With Vincent" that has never been released.
Vincent Price died on October 25, 1993. He was 82 years old.

James Whale

You have seen James Whale's movies. They are some of the Hollywood's horror masterpieces. He directed Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and The Bride of Frankenstein among lots of other films.
Born in England James Whales came from a working class family in a working class town. He joined the army at the out break of World War II and was sent to Flanders. Whales was captured by the German's and lived the war in a prison camp. It was in the camp that Whales got involved with the theater. At the end of the war and his release Whales returned to England and started working as a cartoonist. The theater still attracted him and eventually acting and directing became his focus. During this time Whales was living openly as a homosexual but at the same time had a fiancee. Whale and Doris Zinkeisen, a scenic and costume designer were engaged for almost a year. In the late 20's Whale became involved with the war play "Journey's End" in London which eventually brought him to Broadway. "Journey's End" ran for two years.
When the "talkies" came to Hollywood stage directors were imported in droves to help the screen actors talk. Whale was one of them. He first went to Paramount and when his contract expired Whale signed with Howard Hughes. After Hughes Whale moved to Universal where he made a his first film Waterloo Bridge. It was a success and Carl Leammle gave Whale his choice of Universal's properties for his next film. He chose "Frankenstein".

Whale was at this time openly living with film producer David Lewis. They lived together until almost the end of Whale's life. "Frankenstein" was the movie to make Whale's name in Hollywood. He cast the then unknown Boris Karloff as the monster making both of their careers take flight. This was only the first horror movie that Whale was involved in. Horror became a moneymaker and a millstone for him. Films including "The Invisible Man" and "The Bride of Frankenstein" followed. He was offered the film "Dracula's Daughter" but was able to get out of it and finally break free of the Horror director enigma. Whale later directed 1935's "Showboat" considered the best version of the Broadway show ever filmed.
It was after "Showboat" that his career started to peter out. David Lewis, Whale's partner was during this time coming to his own as a producer and worked all the time. Whale was given some paint and canvas and started a new career as a painter. He worked as a painter until the end of his life. Sporadically Whale would direct plays. He worked with Pasadena Playhouse and travelling shows.
Whale went to visit a friend in Paris where he met a bartender who was described as a hustler. He returned to Los Angeles where he informed Lewis he was bringing the bartender Pierre over to work as his chauffeur. Lewis was appalled and moved out. There were a lot of problems in the relationship and Pierre everntually moved out and was put in charge of a gas station that Whale owned. It was during this time Whale suffered a slight stroke. Lewis arranged for a full time male nurse to take care of Whale. This didn't sit well with Pierre who fired the live in male nurse and hired a female day nurse. Whale had for many years suffered with depression.
James Whale was found drowned in his pool on May 29, 1957. There was a suicide not that Lewis held onto for 20 years. He wanted Whale's death to be considered an accident. The Note read:
"To ALL I LOVE,
Do not grieve for me. My nerves are all shot and for the last year I have been in agony day and night—except when I sleep with sleeping pills—and any peace I have by day is when I am drugged by pills.
I have had a wonderful life but it is over and my nerves get worse and I am afraid they will have to take me away. So please forgive me, all those I love and may God forgive me too, but I cannot bear the agony and it [is] best for everyone this way.
The future is just old age and illness and pain. Goodbye and thank you for all your love. I must have peace and this is the only way.
Jimmy"

The film "Gods and Monsters" is the story of the end of Whales life.

The House of Basarab

Many years ago I met a very nice woman, last name was Basarab. She and her older sister were the last members of the House of Basarab. The Basarabs are a Transylvanian family that traces it's roots back a thousand of years. The name was originally Basarabi and they were Hungarian. Basarabi I founded a kingdom independent of the Kingdom of Hungary in the Carpathian in Transylvania. A branch of the family was the House of the Draculesti. My friend was a descendant of Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula. My friend was more or less Dracula's great great great granddaughter. She told me that when she was a teenager she found out the family connection. Her grandfather was an elderly man and his older brother had just died. They went ot the funeral and it was there she found out the family history. Her grandfather and his late brother were the last two Basarabs in the old country. When the communists came into Romainia after the war the old noble families were hunted down to be executed. The Basarabs had long ago lost any power or money, they were just a beloved old family with a big old house in a small village in Transylvania. When the communists came for them the peasants had smuggled them out of the area and eventually to the United States. The grandfather and his brother lived out their lives in the US. My friend's grandfather had one son and his brother no children. My friend's dad was the last male Basarab and she and her sister were the end of the House of Basarab.

Vlad the Impaler was a bloody ruler and warrior. He was known for impaling his foe and leaving them in fields. Vlad made a name for himself in battles with the Ottoman Empire when it was being expelled from Hungary. Vlad was also known for impaling the peasants. His second wife was Ilona and was fabled to have bathed in a mixture of milk and virgins blood as a beauty treatment. This was not your usual family.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Providence, Rhode Island is a creepy city and has fathered some very creepy people but the creepiest of them all was H P Lovecraft. He was the 20th centuries Edgar Allen Poe who was oddly enough another creepy guy who once lived in Providence. Lovecraft wrote what is now called science fiction and in the horror genre. His writing is part of a sub-genre of fiction called "weird Fiction". The stories are weird and creepy and unearthly. As was the man himself.
Lovecraft's father died at an early age after being committed to Butler Hospital, a mental hospital. Butler Hospital is a Gothic pile of a building in the creepiest built in a 19th century mental hospital vernacular. The hospital's grounds on Swan Point abut a cemetery also named Swan Point. This is where Lovecraft's father died of syphilis in 1898 when little Howard was eight. Lovecraft was raised by his maternal grandfather, mother and two maiden aunts in his grandfather's home. His grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, was of an old New England family tracing themselves back to the Mayflower. When he was a child Lovecraft's grandfather would tell him Gothic horror tales. He died in the family home when Lovecraft was 14. Because of a mismanagement of his grandfather's estate the family was left rather poor. They were forced to sell the family home and move to smaller less grand quarters. Lovecraft had always been a sickly child and suffered from night terrors. He was a delicate young man when he attended public high school. He suffered what is now considered a nervous breakdown and never obtained his diploma.
Starting as a child Lovecraft wrote. His earliest works were poetry.One of his earliest poems was"Night Gaunts" a poem about his night terrors and filled with devil-like faceless creatures.  He was always interested in chemistry and astronomy and other early works had those themes as their subjects. Between 1908 and 1913 Lovecraft lived like a hermit. His only real contact was with his mother with whom he lived. At this time Lovecraft started writing for various pulp magazines. It was around then his mother suffered from hysteria and was also confined to Butler hospital for a time.
Lovecraft was a voracious letter writer and correspondent.
In 1921 Lovecraft's mother died. A short time after her death he travelled to Boston to attend a conference and he met a woman. Her name was Sonia Greene and she lived in New York. they married and moved to New York. Lovecraft initially loved New York. His aunts did not approve of the marriage and his wife as she was a "tradeswoman" and owned a hat shop. Lovecraft couldn't secure any work and tensions mounted in their marriage. Greene moved away to Ohio and Lovecraft eventually returned to providence to live with his two aunts in a large Victorian home. This is where he wrote most of his best known works.

In 1936 Lovecraft was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine. He lived his last days with his aunt and in tremendous pain and malnutrition. He kept a diary of his sickness until almost his last day. He died in March of 1937. Lovecraft is buried in the family plot in Swan Point Cemetery next to butler hospital.

 

 

Danny Bonaduce vs. Barry Williams = Genius Casting

Once every now and then a casting agent needs to be given an award! The casting agent for Syfy's upcoming telecast of "Bigfoot" deserves the highest of honors. Bigfoot is apparently discovered in South Dakota and two rivals (here comes the genius part) played by Barry Williams and Danny Bonaduce battle it out to capture the creature. One wants to save it and the other wants to exploit it. Guess who is the villian and who the good guy is. Greg Brady vs. Danny Partridge now there is a grudge match! I don't care how bad this made for Syfy movie is I am watching it. Just when you think the casting couldn't get better; two members of the supporting cast are Howard (Dr Johnny Fever from WKRP) Hesseman and wait for it... Alice Cooper!Casting genis! Who cares what the script is like!