- Culture
- 19 Sep 08
Los Angeles’ punkerati were out in force as the Roger Grossman-directed What We Do Is Secret premiered in one of Tinsel Town’s less salubrious cinematic establishments.
The film tells the story of Darby Crash, the lead singer with late ’70s punks The Germs, who has the same anti-hero status in the States as Sid Vicious enjoys here.
The only difference being that Crash’s very public disintegration was carefully choreographed – the high-school dropout devising a five-year plan to become famous, which culminated in him and his girlfriend, Casey Cola, injecting themselves with $400-worth of heroin as part of a suicide pact. Crash died, Cola survived.
“The script was rewritten more times than probably any script I know of,” Grossman says, “because what Darby did was so shrouded in mystery that his character and story revealed itself very slowly. It was late in the process that I heard he had a five-year plan, thereby ensuring his legend.”
Unfortunately for Crash – whose bandmates at various times included Belinda Carlisle and Nirvana’s Pat Smear – the column inches he so yearned for went to John Lennon who was shot dead 23 hours after his body was discovered in Cola’s mum’s house.
See and hear more at myspace.com/germsmovie.
Meanwhile, the small screen is about to be graced by True Blood, the latest deviant treat from Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball who, in case you’re wondering, is not England’s squeaky-voiced World Cup winner.
“Thanks to a Japanese scientist’s invention of synthetic blood, vampires have progressed from legendary monsters to fellow citizens overnight,” reads the hbo.com/trueblood/about blurb. “And while humans have been safely removed from the menu, many remain apprehensive about these creatures ‘coming out of the coffin.’ Religious leaders and government officials around the world have chosen their sides, but in the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps, the jury is still out.
“Local waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), however, knows how it feels to be an outcast. Cursed with the ability to listen in on people’s thoughts, she’s also open-minded about the integration of vampires – particularly when it comes to Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), a handsome 173-year-old living up the road. But as Sookie is drawn into a series of mysteries surrounding Bill’s arrival in Bon Temps, that tolerance will be put to the test.”
We’ve seen the preview tape, and it’s every bit as good as the premise.
From there it’s but a mere mouse-click to youtube.com/watch?v=Da5o_zuJw6A&feature=user where you can peruse the remarkable – but not necessarily in a good way – video for Attic Lights’ ‘Bring You Down’, which features cameos from David Guest, Faith Brown (ask your lecherous dad) and a very convincing Liza Minnelli lookalike.
Which just leaves time for quick visits to etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04102006-103749 (indie bloke does his MA on My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless); usmagazine.com/sarah-palin-tv-sports-reporter (a seriously big-haired Sarah Palin in her TV sportscasting days); store.digitalpraise.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=72 (Guitar Hero for God botherers); and snipurl.com/ebastards (cheated on wife gets her revenge… and then some!)