View the Fall Issue! - The Burro Lifestyle Magazine

Transcription

THE BURRO
ART
ENTERTAINMENT
DANCE
LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
Layne Fawkes
GORE
UNDERGROUND CULTURE
HORROR
Vol. 2, Issue 3
September 20, 2014
Shashonna Knecht
Nik Sin
J.A.W.Z. The Musical in 3D
Clinton Street Cabaret’s Rocky Horror Picture Show
24 Hours in Hell with Ryan Rogers
The Burro Lifestyle Magazine
“The Final Crow Call” by David Guardado
Vol. 2, Issue 3—Fall 2014
THE BURRO
LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
Special Effects & Stage Makeup with Shashonna Knecht………..…….…Josh the Terrible
Expressing the Darkness with Layne Fawkes…...………………………………....Elle Stanger
The Story of Nik Sin …….………………………………………………………………....…Ari Lynn
24 Hours in Hell…………………………………………………………………………Ryan Rogers
Swimming, Eating, Mating, Shitting: J.A.W.Z. the Musical in 3D………….…………Ari Lynn
The Virgin Games: Rocky Horror Picture Show with Clinton St. Cabaret..……...…Ari Lynn
Huffin Out………………………………………………………………………………………………...
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THE BURRO LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE—
Produced by: Ari Lynn and Josh The Terrible
Edited by: Ari Lynn and Michaell Lynn
Front Cover: photography by Gino Martino of GSG
Photography; featuring Layne Fawkes and Nik Sin; makeup
and special effects by Shashonna Knecht Page 1:
photography Gino Martino of GSG Photography; featuring
Austin Wilde Page 8: Photography by Spencer Watson Page 9:
Photography by Danger Ninja; featuring from (top to bottom)
V Nixie and Shannon Amberg; wardrobe in the top image by
R.A.W. Textiles Page 10: Photography by Vesma Puharte;
featuring Annie Ordway Page 11: photography by Vesma
Puharte (top image) and Danger Ninja (bottom image);
featuring (top image only) Huxley Warren Page 12:
Photography by Danger Ninja; Page 13: Photography by Mike
Larremore; featuring Cara Mia Page 14: Photography by
AmbeRed Photography Page 15: photography by AmbeRed
Photography (top image) and Casey Campbell (bottom two
images) Page 17: photography by Gino Martino of GSG
Photography; featuring Layne Fawkes; makeup and special
effects by Shashonna Knecht Centerfold: photography by
Gino Martino of GSG Photography; featuring Layne Fawkes
and Nik Sin; makeup and special effects by Shashonna Knecht
Page 20: photography by Gino Martino of GSG Photography;
featuring Nik Sin; makeup and special effects by Shashonna
Knecht Page 21: P-Mod Photographies Page 22: Photography
by Gino Martino of GSG Photography; makeup and special
effects by Shashonna Knecht Page 23: Photography by
Rebecca Peloquin (top image) and Robbie Johnstone
(bottom image) Rear Cover: photography by Scott Belding;
featuring Kristie Lauren
I RESPECT
SEX WORK
www.eroticmusepdx.com
Photography by Scott Belding featuring Kristie Lauren
Photography by Gino Martino featuring Austin Wilde
SPECIAL EFFECTS & STAGE MAKEUP
Interview of Shashonna Knecht by Josh the Terrible
Shortly after helping us out
with
some
incredible
makeup work for the cover
photo shoot, Shashonna
took a little time out of her
busy schedule to meet with
me
and
share
her
experiences in the world of
special effects makeup art.
Her stories range from cute
and
heart-warming
to
downright
nightmarish.
Enjoy…
THE BURRO: Tell me how
you got in to special effects
makeup.
SHASHONNA
KNECHT:
Growing up, I had a very
unreligious family.
My
father was a landscaper
and my mom did odd jobs.
One of her odd jobs when I
was younger was working in
a video store. They didn’t
have money to send me to
daycare or anything so a
lot of times I’d have to go
to work with them.
I
believe, honestly, that the
video store and being able
to wander around in the
racks of VHS’s was a huge
influence on me wanting to
do makeup because I
would spend literally hours
in the horror movie section
just staring at the covers in
awe. And I’d always beg
my mom to rent the movies
and she’d be like, “no no
no.” She wouldn’t let me
watch them but my dad
did. Working at the video
store, we got free rentals so
my dad would rent, ya
know, Evil Dead, Gates of
Hell, all sorts of the old scary
ones.
I remember John
Carpenter’s The Thing. He
let me watch it when I was
about five years old. It just
fucked my world up.
[laughter]
I think that’s
where my love of all this
began.
TB: As a kid, could you tell
that there was an art to the
whole thing?
SK: When I was a kid, it
went from being very real
to me, like, these are
monsters and they’re going
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THE BURRO LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE Vol. 2, Issue 3—Fall 2014
to kill me to a weird fascination.
The only way I can explain it is
how, like, serial killers get a weird
fascination with killing things. I had
this weird fascination with these
monsters and it went from me
being scared of them to me being
interested in them to me going, “I
want to make that.” As soon as I
became a teenager, me and my
friends would try to recreate all
this.
My mom got me a VHS
camera and we would put in the
tapes and try and make our own
sci-fi
movies.
point?
TB: Do any of those still exist?
SK: I’ve been doing it well, and making
my rent from it for at least ten years
now. It’s a lot of hustling to get work.
SK: They probably do! In a horrible
attic crawlspace somewhere…
TB:
When do you think that
transition happened then, from the
scary monster to understanding
that this is something I can actually
do?
This is one that I shot with Danger Ninja. They were
doing something for a local lingerie company and the
lingerie had a lot of rust elements. They showed me the
props and off the top of my head, I was like, “Alright,
well, let’s make her head rusty.” (EDITOR’S NOTE: The
designer featured in this photo is R.A.W. Textiles; an
interview with R.A.W. Textiles can be found in the Fall
2013 issue of The Burro Lifestyle Magazine.)
SK: I would say when I was about
seven or eight is where I stopped
being scared of it and it became
an obsession.
TB: Really, that young?
SK: Yeah, I mean, I watched the
scary movies when I was very
young so I became pretty
desensitized early.
TB: Did you go to school for this?
This was another shoot with Danger Ninja. Those are
real slugs. We found them walking down to the creek
and the model, Shannon, was like, “Oh, there’s slugs
out here.” I’m like, “Can we put them on you!?” She
was totally in to it. The whole time, she was like, “It feels
like they’re sticking to my face.”
SK: I never went to school. I was
self-taught.
Basically,
what
happened was that I got a job at
Halloween Warehouse, which is
the only year round Halloween
place, when I was a teenager
because my mom knew the
people that owned it. They were
old hippy buddies and used to
smoke pot with the owner or
something. So, I got the job and
while I was working there, people
would come in that worked at
haunted
houses
looking
for
costumes or makeup. I was like,
“I’m gonna go to one of these.
See how scary it is…” I went with a
group of friends and we went
through the haunted house and at
the end they asked us “What did
you guys think?” and I was like, “It
was okaaaaay, but it wasn’t that
scary…” and they basically asked
me, “Well, could you do better?”
and I could so they hired me. I got
hired on and I did my makeup and
my friends makeup, which very
quickly turned in to me doing the
whole cast’s makeup.
TB: What kind of tools did you
have at your disposal at that
SK: Not very good ones. They said,
“Here’s some liquid latex, some cotton,
and some grease paint. Have at it.”
[laughter] I wasn’t working with any
really nice materials, that’s for sure.
TB: And when did that start?
SK: I believe I was about sixteen when I
started working there.
TB: How long have you been doing this
regularly then?
TB: Is there a lot of competition in that
field?
SK: Surprisingly, there is. There’s enough
in Portland to make it competitive.
There’s only a handful of them but
there’s only a handful of jobs so when
you break it down, we’re always kind of
neck and neck with each other trying
to get jobs and I end up working on jobs
with the same people over and over
again, which is cool. I’m friendly with all
of them. It’s cool to know people in a
community and be able to call them up
and be like, “I don’t have this thing, do
you have it?” and they’ll be, like, “Yeah,
I got it!” and so it’s a cool kind of trade
off.
TB: Tell me about a couple of your
biggest challenges.
Or maybe you
have a disaster story to share?
SK: Oh my god! This would take up
your entire article. [laughter] Let’s start
with
the
challenges…My
biggest
challenge is that nobody wants to
spend money on things but they always
want an amazing outcome. So, I never
get to push myself very far because I’m
always getting a $100 or $200 budget
on something where if I had, say, a
couple grand, I could make something
fantastic.
Biggest disasters…Well, I’ll give you a
few…A lot of times when I’m in
between jobs, I’ll go hunting on
Craigslist. Craigslist is the worst. It’s just
the worst for everything. I’ve never
gotten anything good off of Craigslist
outside of my Formica table. So, I found
a job on Craigslist. He was a director
looking for someone to do zombies for a
short web series they were doing. I
applied to it and I must have been one
of the only ones that did because I got
an instant email back to set up a date
and time and it was at this guy’s place
out in Hillsboro. So, I get there and it’s
at a duplex. One side is pretty clean—
the lawn is cut and stuff. The other side
has an overgrown lawn and garbage
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The Burro Lifestyle Magazine, Vol. 2, Issue 3—Fall 2014
10
I met a lady photographer named Besma and she’s real cool. She had a model that she had worked with in the past
named Huxley that she recommended to me and I looked at this girl’s page and she had no hair and I was like,
“Perfect! I don’t have to put a bald cap on her or anything.” So, I called her up and was just like, “Hey, I wanna do
a corpse-y, swamp-y woman coming out of the water” and she’s like, “Yeah, I’m down for that.” She’s really young.
She has a long neck. She’s a very beautiful model. So, she came over to my house very early in the day and I
basically made all these roots beforehand to be coming out of her. The roots are made of latex. I basically just
painted latex on a sheet and then rolled it. So, she had to put up with me and my weirdness for, like, five hours while
I applied this makeup and body painted her.
This model was in tears when he made her actually get in to the water. There is one good picture of her though,
coming out of the water with her hands up and it took awhile for him to get that without her crying or screaming. I
did her hair, too. I don’t advertise hair though, ‘cause I’m not really a fan… Obviously, I don’t do my own hair, so
why would I want to do other people’s? [laughter] I only do it when the models are so inept that they can’t do their
own. There’s times when it can ruin certain shots with them going in with what they have so I am capable of doing it.
A lot of times, I’ll just call on a friend or someone else so I don’t have to think about it and can focus entirely on the
makeup.
out in front and crystals and
fairy crap hanging from the
inside of the porch and I’m
like, “Oooh…” and I look at the
address again and…it’s the
bad side. So, I knock on the
door and I hear shuffling
coming up to the door and it’s
this old woman in a housecoat
and frazzled hair and as she
opens the door, the smell of
cat pee just punches me in the
face. It fucking reeks. I ask if
the guy was there and I’m
really hoping at this point that I
had
miscalculated
my
directions, that maybe I’m a
block off, but she says, “Oh no,
he’s in the back.” I’m, like,
“Fuck. Okay”. So I grab my kit
and I walk through the house
and it’s literally full of dream
catchers, fairies, and hoarder
shit. It’s ridiculous. So, I go out
back
and
I
meet
the
“director”.
It’s him and his
buddy and his buddy is about
twenty years younger than
him.
He’s
a
highschooler…And
then
the
director informs me that, “I
need you to do a makeup test
on him” so I basically do it and
get paid and leave and tell
myself, “I’m never doing
Craigslist
again!”
So, that was a bad one… But it
wasn’t nearly as bad as one
where I was filling in for a friend
recently.
I was up in
Vancouver
and
it
was
basically B-roll footage or
something that they didn’t get
earlier in the movie they were
filming.
It was a sacrificial
scene so I needed to make a
knife wound of a man being
gutted so it would run from his
sternum all the way down to
his belly. I made it with gelatin.
I also needed to make one of
the main characters look like
he was real sickly, like his hair
was falling out, and he had
radiation burns. I get all of this
done and they put us in this
weird barn location on these
people’s property.
So, I’m
working on this actor named
Rocky and he’s a really cool
guy and it’s a very, very hot
day. We’re like, “It’s a good
thing we’re in this barn where
it’s kind of cool.” I originally
thought they were going to
have us set up in the field
somewhere. It was very low
budget. So, I’m doing Rocky’s
makeup and I send him out
and it’s time for him to get
sacrificed so they put him up
on this big, metal tetanus-giver
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contraption alter that they made.
They basically bound him up with
chains so he couldn’t move and he’s
stuck there and the camera guys are
so bad and the directors are so bad
and they can’t decide and they’re
just arguing and this guy has already
been up on this thing for about an
hour and they haven’t even started
rolling yet. He’s literally tied in place
so he can’t move and there’s no
water on set and they didn’t feed us.
We’d already been on set for six
hours at this point doing dumb stuff.
So, poor Rocky hadn’t eaten and
didn’t have enough water and it
gets to the point where it’s been an
hour and a half and they haven’t
filmed the scene yet and Rocky
passes out from heat exhaustion!
Nobody there knows what to do
because it’s just a bunch of kids and
weird A.D.s (assistant directors) that
got called in for free. Everyone’s
trying to look on their smart phones
for what to do for heat exhaustion.
Meanwhile, me and my boyfriend
are yelling, “Get him down from
there! Give him some water!” The
director is so frustrated now that he
faints!
paid the same rate. I keep telling
myself I’m not going to do films
anymore but when I get broke, I get
desperate and I have to. I just did
one in the last couple of weeks that
had me shooting up in Washington
and it was a beautiful location but it
was a mess.
It was really slow
filming, I got bug bites all over my
legs, and they decided not to tell
me until the day of the shoot that it
was going to be from 6 p.m. until 6
a.m. They’re like, “Well, you can
camp if you want” and I’m like,
“Thanks.” So, I found myself working
and driving two hours home every
night on zero sleep. Again, for a
hundred dollars a day…which half
went to paying for gas.
TB: Oh my god!
SK:
Ron Tonkin had a zombie
commercial a few years back and I
did the makeup for it and he had a
Mt. Rushmore/President’s Day sale
commercial that I did the makeup
for.
TB: Well, there must be some more
positive experiences, yes?
SK: I like working for commercials.
It’s fast, it’s quick, and they treat you
right. I’ve worked for Ron Tonkin a
few times and those have all been
good
experiences.
TB: What kind of makeup did you do
for Ron Tonkin?
SK: The whole time I’m like, “This is a
shit show.” It gets to the point where
they resuscitate the director and the
actor and the actor is like, “Let’s just
shoot it. Come on guys, let’s roll it.” I
had to put some fake blood on him
and everyone was so rushed that I’m
pretty sure they got my hands in the
shot. Then it got to the end and they
got him down and he was passing
out again and my poor boyfriend
had to take him into the owner of the
property’s house, in to the shower, so
that he could get the makeup off
and cool down because he was
getting to the point where he
couldn’t stay conscious.
My
boyfriend had to hold up this naked
man that he just met in the shower.
I enjoy working for events also. I
work for something called Super
Geek League up in Seattle. They
have me come up from here
[Portland] because, apparently,
they can’t find an artist worth a
damn up in Seattle. Those gigs are
hard, fifteen hour days, but I get
paid well for it and there’s a big
appreciation. I’ve had some of my
work shown in the New York Times
from it so it’s been good. It’s one of
my main jobs right now. Every few
months, those guys call me up for
something.
TB: That’s a great boyfriend!
SK: Yeah. And at that point I was
like, “This is a disaster. I’m gonna get
my check now or I’ll else I’m not
gonna get it” so I went to the
director and I’m like, “I need to be
paid” and he’s like, “Well…” and I’m
like, “I NEED TO BE PAID.” So, I got
my money and when we were
driving back, we were just like,
“Wow, a twelve hour nightmare for a
hundred dollars.”
TB: Tell me more about Super Geek
League.
SK: They’re actually a band. They
work with performers and get hired
for big raves like Freak Night and
Resolutions and all the ones that
happen at the WaMu Theater in
Washington. It’s a pretty good gig.
TB:
What’s one of the longest
productions you’ve worked on?
TB: That is pretty bad.
SK: I tend to do pretty short gigs. I
work on haunted houses but I’d
rather not talk about them because
I hate them. [laughter] I swear
every year that I’m not going to
SK: Any time I work on film, it’s pretty
much that exact same story. They
tell you it’s only a few hours and it
turns into over fifteen and you get
12
TB: When we did the Burro photoshoot
for this issue, it seemed like you could
have done it with your eyes closed.
work for one again and then I always
end up being broke and have to.
Other than haunted houses, I try to
keep them pretty short. Occasionally,
I’ll get hired for a music video or
something.
I got hired to make a
bunch of They Live masks once which
was awesome. It took a few weeks to
make all the masks because it ended
up being fourteen people I had to put
in to the prosthetics but it was worth it in
the end because they were pretty nice.
I got to do most of it at home and then
one day of applying them on
everybody for them to shoot for, like,
twenty minutes.
SK: You do it for so long and you don’t
have to think about it any more.
[laughter]
TB: Do you have any upcoming gigs
you’d like people to know about?
SK: One local thing I have coming up
this October is the yearly Night Flight
Aerial Halloween Shows (Oct. 17th, 18th,
24th, 25th). If you have never made it
to one of these performances, I strongly
recommend it. Night Flight goes all out
with their Character costuming and
makeup.
I’m their makeup artist.
Shameless self-promotion.
The acts
range from creepy to cute.
So, if
adorable dancing witches and back
bending demons are your thing, this will
be right up your alley.
TB: So, is this something you want to
keep on doing or are there other
aspirations that you want to try?
SK: At this point, I either have to find a
way to make more money at it
because it’s killing me on taxes and it’s
killing me on travel or I need to try
something else. I’m trying to save up
money right now to get my tattoo
license. When I lived in Indiana for a
while, I worked for a prop company
making giant props and I was also
tattooing. I need to save up money to
get a license in Oregon.
Shashonna Knecht is available for hire
to do makeup or special effects work
on films, for stage productions, and
photography. To see more examples of
her work or to contact her about
working on your project, visit her
website
at
shashonnaknecht.com.
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13
EXPRESSING THE DARKNESS
By Elle Stanger
The
Burro
Lifestyle
Magazine
contributor, Elle Stanger, sat down
with Portland’s favorite gory babe,
Layne Fawkes, to talk about her
background
in
theater,
her
childhood, and her ambitious
project that she will be debuting in
the upcoming months. With diverse
skill sets that include singing,
dancing, writing, and stage acting,
the Philadelphia native is finally
getting the recognition here in
town as someone not just to pay
attention to, but to be ready for
the
unexpected
from.
She
describes herself as a, “burlesque
performer, part-time exotic dancer,
classically trained singer, writer,
attempted violinist, horror/geek
enthusiast,
and
overall
hard
worker. We wouldn’t have said it
any
better.
Soon
enough,
everyone is gonna want a piece of
Layne Fawkes.
THE BURRO: Tell me about this big
project that you’re working on.
LAYNE FAWKES: The latest thing I've
been working on is a stage musical
with the current working title,
"Sounds of Bedlam". Set in a neoVictorian asylum for the criminally
insane with an eccentric gang of
merry murderers, a Headmaster
with some secrets to hide, a ghost,
and an accountant that's been
dropped in the middle of it all.
TB: Holy crap, that sounds like a lot
of work!
LF: Yeah, there’s a reason I don’t
sleep much.
TB: How many people are involved
in the show?
LF: So far, it’s just me. I’ve written
the script and the lyrics as well as
the general melodies to the songs.
As far as the actual music goes,
I’ve been talking to Rodya
Hutwanger, who is an extremely
talented musician/singer, to try
and figure out what the hell is
going on in my head. There have
been a couple of people that have
contacted me saying they’d like to
produce it, but that’s still up in the
air. I may end up producing the
thing myself, which I am more than
willing to take on the challenge.
But it’s still early on in the process
and subject to change.
14
about it long enough to get some sort
of story going for it. Plus, I was just really
busy with two jobs and a loaded
performing schedule. Then I decided to
take a break from dancing and really
unexpectedly I haven't been getting
booked for any shows. With all this free
time I decided, fuck it; I'm going to write
this damn show. I also know enough
people to have the resources to get
something I've written to see the light of
day. Usually I'm not a fan of the whole
"no one's hiring me for anything so I'm
making my own show" deal, but this isn't
just another aerial show or burlesque
show. It's a musical. You never see a lot
of original works to that extent around
town. So long story short, no one was
booking me to do shows, and I've had
no time to do actual stage productions,
so I wrote one of my own.
TB: When is it showing and where?
LF: That's still to be determined.
TB: What kind of feedback have you
gotten?
LF: I'll have to answer this one more
thoroughly once I've had the line
reading. But the few that have read it
I've gotten very positive feedback. I
even got a "It's quite good." from a
potential
producer,
which
is
encouraging for me from this particular
person, as I truly respect their
professional opinion.
TB: What influenced you?
TB: What made you decide to create
this?
LF: I used to write a lot when I was
younger. I always got top grades in my
English classes in school. Writing was
always a form of therapy for me, I had
to get my thoughts out in song format
otherwise I couldn't get my brain to
work right. (I don't think the damn thing
ever worked right but that's a whole
other story.) In middle school I would
write songs. One, to help me deal with
my depression, and, two, because I
thought the only way to be a famous
singer/actor/dancer was by being a
pop star. Then in high school I
discovered the wonders of musical
theater and started to write musicals
based on whatever I was going through
at that point in time. None of my
original works ended up getting passed
the written stage (mostly because I
don't actually know how to write music)
but I did co-write a musical with a friend
of mine in high school that she ended
up self-producing after high school, so
that was pretty rad.
Then the ink well kind of dried up for me
after a while and I just had no ideas to
write about. I went on to channel my
creative energy into other things, like
acting
school.
Then
after
that,
burlesque. Throughout that time I had
this idea to write a musical again based
around an insane asylum and my life
experiences but just never thought
LF: Well I've always been very inspired
by what's around me. Admittedly, I
haven't had the easiest way through life
so I tend to gravitate towards the
darker side of the spectrum. It's not all
doom and gloom with me. I do have a
goofy side too, but the darker things
resonate more from me because it's
what I relate to the most. I've also been
very theatrical from a young age. I
would even make people sit down to
listen to me sing when I was younger
and instruct them what to do before
and after. "Now when I walk out I need
you to start clapping! Don't forget to
cheer, but not until after I've walked
out!" Being exposed to a lot of Tim
Burton when I was younger probably
had a lot to do with it too. Edward
Scissorhands, Batman Returns, and PeeWee's Big Adventure were staples of my
childhood. Then as I grew older I was
introduced to Alice Cooper and Emilie
Autumn who have been big influences
on me. Cooper, being the pioneer of
the so-called "shock rock" genre
incorporating Broadway style theatrics
into his stage show with "Welcome to
My Nightmare", and Autumn with a
whole back story and elaborate stage
show
including
fire
and
circus
15
performers. Which, as someone who
went to a professional acting school
and wanted to be a performer her
whole life, those two definitely stuck
with me. Both are highly theatrical and
tell stories through their performance
which I try to incorporate in everything I
do. I never liked just going up on stage
and just doing something. While I have
done that plenty of times I try to put
more effort into it. There needs to be a
reason for doing it—a motivation. I want
to tell stories with what I do. Even to the
point where it's almost performance art.
Even if it's just me up there singing I'll
come up with something to work into it
just to give it more panache. For
instance, one of the songs I sing,
"Cosmic Love" by Florence and the
Machine, I come out blindfolded with
blood dripping from my eyes as the
lyrics describe a star falling into a young
woman's eyes leaving her blind. Even if
it's just a simple thing like that it leaves a
more lasting impression and that's what
I want to do.
TB: Why do you think nobody was
booking you to do shows?
LF: I honestly have no idea. It could be
a variety of reasons. A lot of the acts I
do involve specific character work. Just
a few I've done are Wednesday
Addams, Pee-Wee Herman, Tom Servo
of Mystery Science Theater 3000, even
both the Joker and Harley Quinn. While
they're fun and entertaining, most of the
time you can only save them for
themed shows. Meanwhile, my other
acts can portray very dark, sometimes
disturbing, and maybe a little gruesome
situations. It's not unusual for me to be
covered in blood splatter or use a
noose or straight razor in my acts. Now
granted, I don't do the really extreme
ones too often, only if I'm at a show or
convention that it would fit in with or be
appropriate for, and only after the
producer has given me the free reign to
do so. Even at my most extreme it's
nothing you wouldn't see in a horror
movie or at an Alice Cooper concert.
Hell, even when I performed at a local
Gorelesque show, my acts were pretty
tame. Even though those acts don't
happen a lot, I think I got stuck in that
brand. While I love doing my darker
acts, unless it's Halloween, it's a bit
difficult to do them at a run-of-the-mill
burlesque show….Who knows? But this
summer I've been getting rejection
letters from almost every show I've
applied for, and I've gone from doing
around five to six shows a month to
begging just to be in one. I don't know
what happened there. But if someone's
got a grudge against me out there it
doesn't matter. I will continue to be
professional no matter what my
personal feelings are, I will smile and be
polite even if you don't like me, and
16
even if I'm told “no” I'm still going to get
back up and try again. One, because
I'm incredibly stubborn. Two, because
that's how show business works.
TB: Would you be willing to explain what
you mean by having a harder time in
life?
LF: Well I've struggled with depression
and self-harm/suicide since I was very
young—like, elementary-school-young.
Pair that with being bullied until middle
school, a brief legal matter where I had
to go to court due to truancy, moving
across the country to be with my father
who turned out to be an emotionally
abusive pill addict—and you've got
quite an interesting childhood. It's not as
bad as what others have gone through
admittedly but still not all that great
either. Most of my teenage years were
spent in constant stress and fear from
not knowing what kind of mood my
father was going to be in. One day he's
encouraging me to wear make up then
the next day telling me to take it off
because I look like a whore. Another
time he took the door off of my room
because he thought I was spending too
much time in there. And one time I was
told I couldn't eat with the family
anymore since I was being too
antisocial. Then when I tried to get food
later on he came into my room and
took the food away. He even
threatened to commit me to an asylum
when he rooted through my things and
found my razors. Hence why I have a
strange fascination with asylums. I had
some pretty close calls with the self
harm, hitting veins—sort of close calls.
After I graduated high school I was
kicked out of the house for these
reasons. I didn't have a job at that time,
and I didn't have any immediate plans
to go to college. The best part was my
father didn't tell the rest of my family
that he kicked me out. They all thought I
just moved out on my own accord.
Yeah, because moving out of the house
with no job or mode of transit is a
wonderful idea. After that I lived with
this crazy religious lady for a while
where I was essentially her live-in maid
in exchange for living there. I didn't
even live in the house—I lived in a room
attached to the house. To give an idea
of what this lady was like, one time she
sent me outside after dark into her
compost pile looking for a piece of
moldy goat cheese that she didn't give
me
permission
to
throw
away.
Eventually she booted me out too for
not keeping up with the chores she
wanted me to do and I ended up living
with my father again until I left for
college a month later. Though I still
struggle with depression almost daily I
no longer harm myself. That's not
including my love life. Ha-ha!
TB: How
industry?
would
you
describe
this
LF: There are quite a few industries in
Portland, and I could go into a lot of
detail about the few that I'm involved
with. But to save us all a lot of time I'll
keep it generalized. It's a bit of a
melting pot. Everyone does a bit of
everything here.
TB: What are some of the positives of this
industry?
LF: For the most part everyone is very
encouraging and welcoming. Because
of that it's easy to get away with a lot
here. There are plenty of eclectic
performers to choose from and if you
need someone to help out with a
performance and you need someone
with a particular skill set, you can
probably find the right performer you
need very quickly. Even if you can't find
a performer yourself there's probably
someone who can find a particular
performer with the skill that you need.
There are connections to things
everywhere if you know where to look.
TB: The negatives?
LF: Unfortunately some of the positives
count as negatives. We have plenty of
people to choose from, mostly because
it's over-saturated. You have to have
multiple skills because if you want to be
consistently booked for shows you can't
just be one thing. There's so many shows
and performers that the quality goes
way down. Everyone's a bit too nice,
but then again I come from a
background where if you're bad at
something, oh boy, will the instructor let
you know about it. I've heard from
various people that they believe it's not
necessary to tell people the negative
aspects of a performance. It's not
meant to be insulting—it's critique. But I
firmly believe that people need to hear
the negative so that they can work on
it. In the real world if you mess up in any
way, you get replaced, because there's
a million other people waiting in line to
get your part. I could go on and on
about the subject, but at the risk of
having people hate me, I'll shut my big
mouth before I say something stupid.
TB: What would you change? How?
LF: Overall, not much. It's so interesting
here. I'm excited to see how things
change and where this path takes
people, including myself.
Layne Fawkes can be found on
Facebook, Twitter, @LayneFawkes on
Instagram. and Model Mayhem just to
name a few places. The best place to
catch her is on stage.
THE BURRO
LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
Vol. 2 Issue 3—Fall 2014
Vol. 2, Issue 3— Fall 2014
LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
THE BURRO
THE BURRO
Vol. 2, Issue 3— Fall 2014
LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
THE STORY OF NIK SIN
By Ari Lynn
The Burro Lifestyle Magazine sat down
with our good friend, Nik Sin, to find out
how a kid from Massachusetts ended
up getting his start as a performer in L.A.
with Minikiss before continuing his
performance career in New York, and
finally landing in Portland. When we
initially asked him what the Nik Sin story
was all about, he told us, “The Nik Sin
story is about chasing around a little
dog picking up poop.” There’s more to
it than that.
THE BURRO: What’s the Nik Sin story?
NIK SIN: When I was about 20, I moved
down to New York City, because I was
literally sleeping in my car at the train
station. I was working in the
nightclubs down there, going
back and forth—it was like a
four hour commute—so it got
to the point that I was
sleeping in my car because I
couldn’t go back and forth. I
started doing entertainment
and theater stuff when I was
in high school. I went to
college
and
didn’t
get
accepted into some stupid
play that I auditioned for. I
hated college in general. My
parents told me I had to get a
job
because
obviously
dropping out of college and
living at home was not what
they wanted. So, I emailed a
guy who happened to own
Minikiss, which is a Kiss tribute
band, and like two months
later I was at my first gig with
Minikiss in L.A. It was kind of
funny because my parents
were bugging me to get a job
and two months later I had a
ticket to L.A. and was opening
up for the Sony Playstation
release party or something like
that.
TB: Do you still do those Minikiss gigs?
NS: I don’t do the Minikiss stuff anymore.
I only did that for about eight months. I
remember I got called from New York
City and they were asking about the
Minikiss stuff and I said, “I don’t run it. I
don’t own it.” They said, “Well, what
else do you do?” and I lied. I blatantly
lied. I said, “I do mini Ozzy Osborne, mini
Alice Cooper,” and I threw it out there
and said, “I also do mini Marilyn
Manson.” They said, “Okay, we’ll see
you Tuesday as mini Marilyn Manson.” I
think it was a Friday, so I was like, “Fuck!
TB: Fuck! You had to come up with an
act!
rehab! Heath Ledger hung out there all
the time.
NS: So, I remember I stole my brother’s
contacts—he had those white-out
contacts. I was like, “I need these more
than you right now.” I showed up in
New York City and started doing mini
Manson.
TB: And you’re there as sort of the
weirdo, freak show entertainment?
TB: When you’re doing that stuff, are you
lip-syncing to the songs or are you
actually learning and playing the
material?
NS: Initially it was lip-synching and a lot
of people kind of pushed me to do
more karaoke-type tracks, but the
NS: Yeah. We’d open the doors to the
outside and there’d be a line out the
door and paparazzi because they’d
know the celebrities would be going
there. It was very surreal.
TB: How long after that did you come to
Portland?
NS: I worked at The Box up until the
recession hit in 2007 or 2008. Of course,
when you’re getting a paycheck on a
weekly
basis
that
will
accommodate it, you’ll go
out and get an apartment
and collect everything I can
collect and be an asshole
because I’m getting paid.
TB: That’s how it is, right?
karaoke tracks always sound like shit.
They always sound like somebody
made them on their keyboard. Minikiss
was always intended to be us playing
our own instruments, but we never got
to that point because there were so
many members coming in and out, and
to try to find little people that actually
have musical talent was always a pain
in the ass. I did learn how to play guitar
in that time, but I never got to do it on
stage. For mini Manson I literally brought
an iPod to the club, which turned out to
be a somewhat infamous club called
The Box. It was an A-list club. Lindsay
Lohan and celebrities like that—that’s
where they went before they went to
NS: Yeah. You’re getting
paid good. You’re working
at a nightclub and the high
cost of living in New York
City doesn’t catch up to
you until one day you get a
text message that says,
“We’re making budget cuts
and we’ll let you know
when we need you.” Up
until then, I was really
onboard with New York City
and didn’t want to do
anything other than live it
New York City. I started
working for an art gallery. I
had a friend who was a
bartender who found an ad
on Craigslist—I was always
looking for shit to do
because I didn’t have a
regular job anymore—that
said, “Gallery pitching reality show
looking for little person to round out
cast.” So, I went and that’s how I met
my business partner, Noah, from
Lonesome’s Pizza. I started working the
art gallery and I was only supposed to
work for one night. It’s six years later.
There was a pizza place right around
the corner, and he said, “What if we
take this pizza place—this style pizza,
this New York gourmet stuff—and print
the pictures of the art that’s on the wall
and put it in the pizza box?” I was like,
“Yeah, whatever.” Sure enough, like a
year-and-a-half or two years later I get
a phone call, and he was like, “Either I
21
want to be in Austin or I want to be in
Portland. What do you think about
coming to Portland and checking it out
with me?”
TB: So, he’d been working on this idea
still, and developing it?
NS: Yeah. It sounded really serious. I got
in touch with a couple of friends and
they hooked me up with a gig at
Dante’s. I walked into Dante’s and
Stevie came up to me and said, “What
do you need?” I said, “I don’t know. A
bottle of Jager.” They were doing
Polerotica the same night, and they
said, “Is there any chance you want to
be a judge for this?” I said, “Yeah, sure.”
I had never seen anything like it with the
gogo dancers, the fire performers, and
the whole thing. That was something
that New York was missing at the time.
We didn’t have that. We still don’t have
that. We don’t have that big, open
space
with
just
wall-to-wall
entertainment going on like that. So, I
just stayed. In New York I hated strip
clubs. I wouldn’t go. I went to a couple
strip clubs here like Devil’s Point and
Lucky Devil and Sassy’s and was like,
“Wow, this is cool!”
come up with another act or who can
do something else—who can adapt to
what happened. I think the scene really
took a big hit.
I think right now
everyone in Portland is looking for
something new to come.
TB: Where do you think Portland is at
right now? It’s gone through this arch of
being raw and it’s past raw. Now we’ve
got a lot of rules. A lot more rules than
we had two years ago.
TB: I guess it’s sort of one of those adapt
or perish things where you either adapt
or fall off, which is really unfortunate
because there’s a lot of really great fire
performers out there and that’s what
they do. It’s not that they’re incapable
of learning other skill sets, but that’s
what their expertise is, and that’s what
they’ve been doing for their whole
performance
career
and
they’re
fucking awesome at it.
NS: I think when the fire got banned a
lot of people kind of got pushed into a
corner—especially the fire performers. I
know a lot of people got pushed into
that corner where it was do-or-die and
if they didn’t come up with something
else, you literally didn’t have a job,
which is a shame because a lot of
people that did fire—like Michael Price
and Peach—all of sudden you don’t
see them anymore. They just dropped
off. It got whittled down to who can
NS: I think Portland’s kind of suffering,
too, because we’ve become so jaded.
I’m really hoping that Portland can get
out of this funk where we haven’t yet
discovered
the
next
step
of
entertainment because we’re all so
used to so much weird shit, and so
much sex, and so much nudity, and
everything that we’re used to. What
else can go on stage to be the next
thing?
I’m hoping with venues like
Dante’s always doing what Dante’s
does and the Analog giving a lot of
performers freedom to do stuff, I’m
hoping that the weird funk that Portland
is in, we’ll get out of it. I feel like
everyone just got punched in the nuts
when we got fire taken away.
TB: So, have you always been a fan of
horror and all that?
NS: Yeah. I was always into Alice
Cooper and Ozzy Osborne and the
shock rock stuff. I had a buddy in high
school that was really into horror films,
and not the A-list stuff, but things like
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That’s when I
really got into things like horror and
underground metal. I’d be in the movie
store like three or four times a week just
stacking up movies. That’s kind of what
shaped me. As soon as high school was
over, I was like, “Shit, I’m already weird. I
might as well make myself even
weirder.” I went and got a box of black
hair dye and sat there at my friend’s
sink trying to dye my hair black.
TB: What are some of your favorite
horror films?
NS: I love anything that’s not CGI
[computer generated imagery]. If I see
anything that’s CGI, I’m automatically
not into it. I’ll still watch An American
Werewolf in London for that one scene.
TB: That’s a scary ass movie.
22
perfect
middle-American
lifestyle, and his next-door
neighbor is a stoner alien who
comes over. You’ll see a lot of
Portland landmarks in the
movie. You’ll see the Kit Kat
and stuff like that.
NS: I just watch it for that
one scene where he
transforms for five minutes.
Basically, I like anything
that’s creature-based. I
wasn’t into slasher films. I
would watch them. I was
more interested in the
makeup though. By the
time you see Jason or
Freddy
goes
to
Manhattan, you’re like,
“Okay, how can he chop
somebody from the dick
up to the head and make
it look good?” I was always
into Aliens, Predator, and
anything that was makeup
based.
TB: What else
working on?
are
TB: So, was there green
screen footage in California,
and then you guys came up
here?
NS: We didn’t do any green
screen. We actually took a
1970s Camero and put it on a
flatbed and drove through
Portland. There was no CGI.
As much as I’m like, “Fuck
CGI,” there were a couple of
times when I was sitting in
that mask for a couple of
hours where I was like, “Fuck,
CGI it.” I can only wear the
mask for like ten minutes or
twenty minutes at a time. The
mask was actually equipped
to do cocaine. There’s a little
vacuum in it.
you
NS: Well, I’m going to take
this moment to plug my
film, Daniel. It should be
out by the time this issue
releases. It’s sort of a
sitcom-gone-wrong kind of
thing. It’s basically a
“rated-R” A.L.F.
TB: Does Daniel do cocaine?
NS: Oh yeah! Daniel is a little
asshole. He ruins the perfect
lifestyle that his next-door
neighbor has.
TB: It’s a full-length movie?
NS: It’s about 45 minutes.
We had to go down to
Spectral Motion’s studios in
California—they did all the
things for movies like
Hellboy and Lady in the
Water.
TB:
So,
this
next-door
neighbor gets completely
corrupted by Daniel?
NS: Exactly!
interesting.
TB: So, you play Daniel?
It
should
be
TB: And it’s set to release in
October?
NS: I play Daniel. He’s a
little alien. The entire mask
and
everything
is
puppeteered. There’s no
CGI. The hands are my
hands. The mask is almost
25 to 30 pounds. Literally
when I was in it all I could
see was gears and motors
running and stuff.
NS: Yes. Essentially, what
we’re trying to do with it is to
pitch it as a pilot. We have a
fanpage for it on Facebook
for Daniel the film.
You can find Nik Sin on
Facebook and Twitter or at
Dante’s on Burnside or the Kit
Kat Club here in Portland.
TB: So, there’s somebody
else controlling that?
NS: I had two puppeteers
for the face—one for the
bottom half, and one for
the top half of the face.
They had a walkie-talkie
hooked up to me. The only
visual I had was out of the
mouth, and when the
mouth
was
closed
I
couldn’t see. It’s going to
be with Rich Fulcher who
was on The Mighty Boosh
and a lot of BBC like Snuff
Box. Basically, he’s a
dentist
who
has
the
23
24 HOURS IN HELL
by Ryan Rogers
The Challenge: spend 24 Hours in Hell!!
Specifically, I was going to watch
thirteen films, back to back, in a
Twenty-four hour period (without sleep)
all having to do with The Devil, Hell or
Demons.
We order pizza. I’m two films in, but I
have to admit, I’m already sick of this
project.
FILM #3 (4:00 p.m.)
Night of the Demon
Finally, one of the more culty films we
have in store. The film starts with the
feeling of a classic Mystery Science
Theater Three-Thousand torture fest, but
I have to say, I truly enjoyed it. Yes, it
was a British film made in the 1950s,
which means the special effects are
one step above Ed Wood, but this is a
testament to what you can accomplish
with good acting and strong dialogue.
I loved this film, and I was totally
engaged.
FILM #1 (12:00 p.m.)
Oh God! You Devil!
I started at noon on Saturday, and
predictably for Portland, no one was
there. So, I got to pick the film on my
own. I decided to go a little easy on
myself (or so I thought) and watch Oh
God! You Devil! Starring George Burns
as the Devil (and George Burns as
God), and a bunch of people who
never made any movies after the 80s. I
remember loving this film when I was a
kid, but I have to admit, the cheezy 80s
pop ballads, outfits, and campy
George Burns acting made the first
milestone in this long, long road a rather
choppy beginning.
First appearance ever of an evil,
murderous clown? Did I discover patient
zero?
Ultimately, the moral of the story is:
yeah, it’s probably not a good idea to
fuck with the Devil. Which, to be fair, is
a lesson I kinda already knew. But
thanks.
Now, if you haven’t seen this film, and
don’t want a spoiler to a 30 year-old
movie, don’t read any further. The
thing that most bothered me about this
film is that God (Burns) and the Devil
(Burns) play a hand of poker to try to
win the main character’s soul back. (He
sells it to the Devil but there is a
loophole, etc.) God doubles down,
and bets every soul under his care
(millions) to the Devil. The Devil folds
because the stakes are too rich for his
blood. God then shows his hand and it
was a bluff. Which means that either:
A) God had the game rigged so he
would win (which means that God is a
big cheat); or B) God just chanced
millions of souls on a lousy hand of
poker. Seriously, what a dick!
This great film has energized me. I’m
awake again, and ready for something
more great. What’s next?
FILM #4 (6:00 p.m.)
Angel Heart
Oh man, remember when Mickey
Rourke used to be great? Well, I guess
after The Wrestler he’s great again, but
this is fantastic. There’s also, lots of a
naked Lisa Bonet (Dr. Huxtable is going
to be pissed), blood orgies, and Robert
DeNiro with long hair and longer nails.
Overall this is a truly great, engrossing,
well-made, well-acted, well-directed,
well-shot film.
Frankly, it’s pretty
incredible.
I’m getting the feeling this is going to be
a long, long day.
Except, the goddamned ending! What
a cop out. I have to say, this is true of
all four films I have watched. It’s as
though the Devil is just too powerful,
and so the only way to wrap up a film
like this is to just sort of tack an ending
on that doesn’t make any sense. Angel
Heart is the best movie with a terrible
ending I’ve ever seen.
FILM #2 (2:00 p.m.)
Hellraiser
Finally people arrive and the first vote is:
Hellraiser. Already I’ve got a problem
with my system. This film doesn’t really
feature Hell, despite the title. There is a
hellish pain dimension, and some could
say that Pinhead and the Cenobytes
are demons but it’s a stretch. Really it’s
just one big industrial S&M club. With
bad, bad acting.
FILM #5 (8:00 p.m.)
Legend
Ok, now the screening room is starting
to buzz. There are probably fifteen
people here watching the film with me.
The booze is flowing, and people are
starting to get a little….interesting.
Wrestling in the lobby and naked girls
running around?
Are all these Hell
movies having an impact?
The biggest lesson from this film is that,
no matter how much you want to, you
probably can’t trust the murderouswalking-undead-corpse of your exlover. I know, you would like to think
you could, but sure enough…no luck.
24
Alright, let’s get this out of the way:
number one, I somehow have never
seen Legend; number two, I hated,
hated, hated this movie. I was bored
mercilessly throughout it. It was irritating,
fluffy, confusing, and ultimately, yet
again, had a dumb, rushed ending that
made little sense. I have now alienated
half of my audience, but I don’t care.
Legend equals suck. Luckily people are
kinda drunk and the heckling is really
picking up.
Most did not seem to be there for the
films. If they came into the theater at
all, they talked loudly and played
games across the aisle. Out in the
hallway, twenty or so people were
gathered. And my liquor went fast. So, I
get pissed. All the stuff was for the film
viewers, not for people to just hang out
and drink. Wrestling starts. Two girls
almost have a fist fight. I have to kick
people out (kindly) like I’m some kind of
Hell movie bouncer.
The highlights: Tim Curry (as always), Tim
Curry’s makeup, and most of the other
makeup. Yep…that’s it.
Then I spend the next forty minutes
cleaning up everything. So, my twentyfour hours in Hell just got hellish. Now I’m
ridiculously tired, but full of adrenaline.
I’m starting to get wiggy. Eight straight
hours of movies about the Devil, and
I’m not even half-way through this
project yet. I pray we watch something
significantly good next.
FILM #6 (10:00 p.m.)
The Witches of Eastwick
Thank God! Firstly, this is the film that I
am most familiar with thus far. The
infamous cherry pit scene, for example,
scarred me as a child (and it’s not a
great movie to eat snacks to either).
Everyone in it is amazing.
Jack
Nicholson is at his most Nicholsony.
Susan Surandon, Michell Pfeiffer and
Cher are all gorgeous, smart, spunky,
and powerful.
(Alright, side rant…when you watch a
bunch of movies back-to-back, you
start to notice that people really
behave stupidly in films. They do
irrationally dumb things. For example,
as Jack is vomiting on everyone in the
church, near the end, no one seems to
freak out, throw up themselves, or run
away screaming. They just stare on,
shocked, covered in his goo. What is
that? And these films are full of this
garbage: people behaving stupidly, in
order to move the plot forward. There
should be a rule in screenwriting that, if
they wouldn’t do it in real life, then you
can’t do it in a script.)
Oh man, I’m getting tired. By the end
of this film I’m at half-way and I’m
getting chunky….real chunky. And I am
only half way. The last quarter of this
project is going to be a real bear, I can
tell you that.
Oh wait, another totally thrown
together ending that was utterly anticlimactic.
I think that either most
movies never work on their conclusion,
or Devil movies have a specific
problem.
FILM #7 (12:00 a.m.)
The Ninth Gate
Okay, so lets get something out of the
way: I barely saw this movie. Why?
Well, because when a local bar that
was around the corner from the
screening room got out, everyone from
that bar decided to come by and drink
all my free booze and eat my food.
FILM #8 (2:00 a.m.)
Bedazzled
And now people are just being dicks.
So the rule is: whoever is there when the
next movie starts gets to pick it. I had
put both versions of Bedazzled in my
stack.
The original—starring Dudley
Moore, Peter Cook, and Raquel
Welch—which is absolutely fantastic,
and the new one starring Cro-Magnonman and a nearly naked Elizabeth
Hurley. Despite me begging and
pleading not to have it be so, the group
that was there picked Brendan Frasier’s
Bedazzled and then all of them left!
That’s right, they threw a stink-bomb
into the theater and ran away.
So, I watch this schlock. Yeah, Elizabeth
Hurley is hot, and as one patron said
has the “worst fake British accent of a
real British woman, ever.” I couldn’t
agree more. At least she looks good in
a bikini…and leather….and an evening
gown. Wait, what’s happening in this
movie? I’m pretty sure that this entire
film was made for Elizabeth Hurley to
remind the world that she was hot,
despite Hugh Grant cheating on her.
pissed. Apparently you don’t yell insults
at the Devil from the comfort of a
theater seat all day and not pay some
price.
Anyhow, we packed up the snacks and
food, people were trundled into cars,
other people taken to urgent care, and
I’m left after a couple hours of drama
with a decision: Do I see this through, or
do I end it? I’m eight films in to a
thirteen-film movie marathon. That
means that I have five films left to
watch. I’ve broken the twenty-four hour
straight rule. What now? What can
happen? Well, after everyone was
taken care of, I decided screw it, I’m
going to take this to the end.
FILM #9—take two (8:00 a.m.)
The Devil in Miss Jones
This classic 70s porno felt like a funny
thing to mix into it. I started playing it at
the theater, which is what triggered a
lot of the drama. That’s right, a hellish
porno (and some acid) drove everyone
insane. Apparently you can’t watch
twenty-four hours in Hell and keep your
sanity.
Firstly: what porno starts out with a really
graphically shot suicide? I mean, if you
have to, imply it. But they do a long,
close-up shot of her prepping herself
and then killing herself. What the living
fuck?
The movie is far, far more graphic than I
thought a 70s porno would be, and
honestly, it’s really realistic. The
dialogue, movements, and everything
about the film feels like you are really
watching your uncle and his old lady
having sex back in the 70s.
It’s
unsettling. So, at scene two, we stop it
(special drama). I then pick it up at 8:00
a.m. when I restart the movies.
Of course, I’m tired. My booze has been
ravaged, there has been drama all
night long, and I’m done. Colette has
to keep convincing me to keep going. I
swear I’m walking at the end of it. Hell
has officially tortured me dead.
I am now officially on the edge. I’ve
been yelled at for an hour. I’ve dealt
with a sick friend. I’ve been physically
injured. I’ve broken up a fist fight
between two girls. What the hell can I
watch at this point?
FILM #9 (4:00 a.m.)
The Devil in Miss Jones
Before you put on a 70s hell themed
porno at 4:00 a.m. with a drunk and
drug-addled audience, maybe rethink
that decision a few times, or at least
know how intense the film is.
FILM #10 (10:00 a.m.)
Incubus
Oh man, I’m way beyond tired. I’m the
kind of tired that makes your face hurt.
Okay, so this film is apparently a long,
lost cult classic. It’s a black and white
Italian film. (At least I think it’s Italian.)
So this movie is about these beautiful
women who are really succubusses
from Hell who try to seduce men to their
doom. Through the first act all this chick
does is talk a guy into following her to
the ocean so he can see her naked
and then drown the shit out of him.
Which, I don’t think is a very damnable
action. Wait, is that William Shatner
speaking Italian? Apparently, yes, it is a
very, very young Shatner. The Shat. This
just became my favorite movie.
THE UNEXPECTED SEVERAL-HOUR
INTERMISSION FOR SPECIAL DRAMA
Thanks to a whole lot of booze, a whole
lot of tired people doing stupid things,
some
ill-chosen
drugs
taken
to
accompany hell movies, and a lot of
just dumb decisions, there was a special
kind of drama—the kind of drama that
got me, literally, kneed in the balls.
There was yelling. There were tears.
There was an epileptic seizure. There
was a hospital visit. Oh baby, The Devil
has come to take his due. And he’s
I’m tired.
25
So, I’ve noticed that whenever demons
or the Devil are in female form, they use
sex to seduce their prey. Elizabeth
Hurley was in one skimpy outfit after
another in Bedazzled, and although she
does not try to hook up with Brendan
Frasier specifically, it’s all about her
sexuality. Same for (spoiler!) The Ninth
Gate and now Incubus.
Yeah, Tim
Curry and Jack Nicholson both
seduced their victims, but Jack was old
and overweight by then, and Tim Curry
was a twelve-foot tall red beast. In all
three female cases, the Devil took the
form of a beautiful, sexy, promiscuous
woman. I would love to see Dame Judi
Dench or Meryl Streep play the
goddamned devil. But no, the Devil can
be George Burns or an unfortunately
long-haired Robert De Niro, but if El
Diablo is La Diabla, she has to be willing
to fuck her victims.
FILM #11 (12:00 p.m.)
Stigmata
Well here’s an interesting twist: by only
accepting suggestions from other
people for films I either have never seen
(like this) or haven’t seen in ten years, I
have no way to verify that they actually
follow the other rule: that they are
about the Devil, Hell, or demons. Turns
out, Stigmata is about none of those
things. Sure, it’s about a possession
(spoiler alert), but the possessor isn’t a
demon. (Or a bad guy.) Ain’t nothing
here about the Devil. I’m almost
wondering if I have to watch another
movie now because this one is a cheat.
But my lord I am tried. It’s going to take
everything I can to get through the final
films, not to watch another film at the
end of it all. To hell with that! (Get it?)
Oh the movie? The Catholic Church is
evil, but not demonically evil—just
douchey.
Am I supposed to be
shocked that organized religion is
protective of its structural dogma even
if new evidence contradicts it? I’m not
going to start slathering religion as a
whole, but…c’mon. Churches are
powerful, wealthy entities that protect
their power and wealth.
Is this a
surprise? Do it behind a pious robe and
it’s still protection of power and wealth.
What institution is just going to tear
down its walls (or its racket) just
because some evidence contradicts it?
I’m now in the super emotional phase of
exhaustion. I’m laughing at my own
jokes. I’m pretty silly right now. Also, I’m
pretty sure Rosanna Arquette should
have died at least three times along this
storyline. On the other hand, Gabriel
Byrnne is pretty sexy.
Also, worst soundtrack I have heard in
ages. It somewhat ruined the entire film.
26
FILM #12 (2:00 p.m.)
The House of the Devil
Ok, so when I planned this marathon, a
bunch of people turned me down to
come to it because they said they were
not into “scary movies.” I have been
laughing about that because to be
honest, I haven’t had a movie scare me
yet. The Ninth Gate was silly and rather
predictable. And to be honest, the
movies have been more funny or
thrilling than scary. So, let’s just get this
out of the way. This movie scared the
fuck out of me.
Now maybe I’m tired and maybe I’m
hallucinating, but this one actually did
it. See, Hell isn’t scary. Obviously, as a
concept, it is, but truthfully I think most
of us have written off the idea that Hell
exists, or that there is a fiery pit of
torture, etc. Even my Catholic friend
once said that he conceives of Hell
being the “absence of God’s love.” As
an agnostic, I guess I just figure we all
just need to be good, do our best, don’t
do horrible things to other people, and
let the chips fall where they may.
The scary thing about Satan movies is
not Satan….it’s being killed. Horribly.
Fans of The Conjuring would eat this
movie up with a spoon. Why this didn’t
get more play is beyond me. Long,
eerie pauses of a girl alone in a house is
terrifying. Top it with the fact that I’m
sitting here alone, and every time my
house creaks, while I’m watching this
movie, I have a moment and freak out!
I’ve had to pause the thing three times.
Nothing is more terrifying than the
imagination.
So bravo, film. You did a great job. Rent
this movie if you like scary movies. Tell
me if you agree.
FILM #13 (4:00 p.m.)
Bedazzled
Wait, didn’t you watch this one
already? Did I? No, I watched the shitty
one. Now, after getting the heebiejeebies messed out of me, I need
something that is going to allow me to
go to sleep. For those that don’t know,
back in the 60s, Peter Cook and Dudley
Moore were the Fry and Laurie of the
British comedy scene. (If you don’t
know who Fry and Laurie are, then you,
my friend, need to watch more BBC.)
It’s good—really good, actually. Silly
and funny, and very “mod” 60s, and just
sort of all around awesome. And I just
need to finish up this twenty-four-hour
marathon of Hell that actually turned
into Hell and get it over with. Which
means, Bedazzled.
One creepy thing about this movie is
that a very young, incredibly gorgeous
Raquel Welch is in it as Lust. (Because,
of course she is.) And when you find
yourself dreamily wanting a woman
that is now as old as your grandmother,
it really puts the whole time, space,
youth, sex thing into perspective. Or
maybe it doesn’t. I haven’t slept in two
days. I’m physically and emotionally
exhausted and I’m now on my third
wind. (Getting kneed in the balls tends
to do that to a man.)
FILM #14 (6:00 p.m.)
Inferno
Well, crap, I’m about an hour off of
twenty-four hours, and if I’m gonna do
this, I better do it right. So, I put in
Inferno, a silent film that was remastered and the score was done by
Tangerine Dream…
…Let’s be perfectly honest here, I’m no
longer writing this in real-time. I fell
asleep.
The soundtrack and the
dreamy black and white images lulled
me into a dream-like state and
eventually, I just passed out. But it was
nice while it lasted. I honestly don’t
remember anything that I saw except
that it was pretty awesome. I will plan
on going back and watching it.
I was originally going to watch another
film to make up for Stigmata being
totally inappropriate as a choice for this
marathon, but my friends, no, I’m done.
Done! During my twenty-four hours in
Hell, I have learned the following things:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Movies about Satan or Hell
generally suck. I know that isn’t
terribly articulate, but I would
argue that most of the films we
watched were either pretty weak,
or had weak endings. Satan is just
too big and complex a character
to be done properly, and, honestly,
films about Hell aren’t terribly
frightening.
The misogynistic use of sex goes up
two-fold
in
Satanic
movies,
because it demonizes female
sexuality, which I think is actually
rather damaging to sex-positive
female empowerment.
People in films really never do what
they would in real life, but I suppose
if they did, it’s unlikely that you
would ever see many films.
Some of my friends have terrible
taste in movies.
The scariest thing in the world is
anticipation, not reaction. Tension
without release is one of the most
challenging things to face.
If it were not for emotional
exhaustion from drama, even as I
get older, watching twenty-four
hours of movies is not really as hard
as I originally thought it was going
to be.
If you offer free booze at a movie
marathon, many, many people will
show up to enjoy the free booze
and not watch the movies. And
they will start fights. And ruin things.
Never, ever have someone you
were dating and someone you are
dating at the same place, while
both of them are high at the same
time, and there is a rather graphic
porno playing, or you will get
kneed in the balls—straight in the
balls.
Photography by Scott Belding featuring Kristie Lauren
SWIMMING, EATING, MATING, SHITTING
Interview with Jason Wells by Ari Lynn
Photography by Jeff Schneider
TB: It would have been super current,
back then, wouldn’t it have?
Just a few days before Jason Wells
descended upon California to take the
show to audiences at far flung shores
such as San Francisco and Los Angeles,
we caught up with him at Manifestation
PDX to talk about the show and the
upcoming tour. For those of you who
haven’t seen it yourselves, J.A.W.Z. the
Musical in 3D is one of the most wacky,
ridiculous, cohesive, rambling pieces of
satirical musical theater to be produced
probably ever in Portland, Oregon. The
jokes and gags dive from historical and
political waters into the depths of
absolute raunch all while lampooning a
film that has taken moorage firmly
amidst American film lore. The show
begins by taking a very clear and direct
shot at the famous Hollywood director
by
having
“Steven
Shpielberg”
introduce the musical show as his “true
vision”.
He
then
makes
various
appearances
throughout
the
production driving home the schtick of
a
leisure-suit-wearing,
party-boy
character stuck in a disco-infused,
Atlantic City time capsule. The show
doesn’t
stop
with
one
famous
Hollywood director, though. It goes on
to have Jaws (the shark, himself) be
portrayed as a charicature of Woody
Allen, who to be fair, isn’t actually a
murderer in real life. The characters of
Quint, Matt Hooper, and Sheriff Brody
are played flawlessly by their satirical
counterparts. Ariel the Mermaid is
featured in an underwater scene with
Jaws, and Celine Dion graces the stage
all the way from Canada (or is it Las
Vegas) in more than one scene. These
are just a few of the highlights. To see
more photos and videos from J.A.W.Z.
the Musical in 3D head over to their
website jawzthemusicalin3d.com or visit
their Facebook page. We’re all keeping
our
fingers
crossed
for
another
production of this fantastic show soon!
And in case you don’t know already,
“We’re gonna need a bigger boat!”
JW: Current enough. Jaws came out in
75 and this was probably around 1980
or 1981 when she was doing it. Ever
since then, I thought that this could go
a lot further. It just sort of burned in my
conscience forever. I wish I had done it
sooner because there are two other
Jaws the musicals that originated in
New York City. Of course, I’ll claim that I
had the first idea. I had a book where I
had been sketching the thing out for
the last ten years. I finally started putting
lyrics down and writing dialogue. I had
an idea that the shark should be played
by a neurotic fish, and I thought it would
be funny if Woody Allen played the
shark. Ultimately, the shark is just a fish
eating things, which is what all fish do.
The ocean is just a big aquarium. The
only thing that makes Jaws menacing is
the soundtrack, so I thought it would be
funny if the soundtrack was played by a
character, who is played by our bassist,
Stacey, who is dressed as sort of a gothdominatrix. So, the two of them quarrel,
because, honestly, he’s just trying to eat
and she’s constantly gives him away
and makes him this sinister evil being
with this horrible music. So, I had a lot of
that stuff sketched out, and I was really
ready to go for it after we did The
Nightmare Before Christmas as the
Saloon Ensemble, which is a project I’ve
been involved with since 2005. That
was the first time we took our material
and turned it into something mature
and
actually
did
a
theatrical
production. We brought in actors and
learned the entire Danny Elfman score.
It really showed what we were capable
of. I wanted to do something original
and this seemed like the perfect
window.
To everyone’s shock and horror, I
booked it in June of 2013 at the Clinton
St. Theater for a four-day run, because I
believe in the power of deadlines.
Everyone couldn’t believe it. They said,
“Shouldn’t we write the thing first?” I
was like, “No, I think this is the only way
it’s going to happen.” So, we spent a
good two months just watching Jaws as
a team. We brought in Noah, who is
now the co-director and my partner in
crime—he has an amazing background
in theater and is very detailed in his
approach and really caresses the
scenes and really works well with the
actors
and
choreographers.
I’ve
definitely fallen more into the producer
role. I’m constantly focused on the big
picture of it. Anyway, he came on
board with his wife, Martina, and
THE BURRO: How long have you been
working on J.A.W.Z. the Musical in 3D?
JASON WELLS: Well, it really started with
my mother, who is an actress and
stand-up comic. And in the early 80s
she was doing a lot of stand-up
comedy in Los Angeles, where I grew
up, and one of the bits in her routine
was suddenly coming out with a big
double-bass and a bow. She would
suddenly bow, and sing lyrics to the
Jaws theme. That was the gag, and it
brought down the house. She wrote all
these funny lyrics and I actually helped
her write the lyrics as a ten year-old kid.
28
they’ve done tons of comedy in the
past. They had a troupe called
Laughing Matters, and had a lot of
success with that. I brought in my friends
Laura and Rob Sams, they’re brother
and sister. They’re great actors and
great songwriters, and they had done
these children videos called Riddle in a
Bottle—it’s a whole series of half-hour
shows—and one of them was called
The Shark Riddle. There was a whole
show about sharks. They had written
songs for this kids show, including “The
Great White Shark” song, which closes
our show, and “The Shark Lullaby” which
Laura sings—she plays Ariel the
Mermaid. Of course, they love sharks,
and because of Jaws, sharks have
been trophy hunted by fishermen and
every year thousands upon thousands
of sharks are killed just because, and
really Jaws has a lot to do with that.
Their show is a lot about how sharks are
good. I thought that was perfect
because that’s the whole spin of our
show.
So, they came on board, and after two
months of hysterical laughter, really the
whole team wrote what became our
final script. We were all just taking notes
on all the jokes and everything and
filtering out the ones that didn’t seem to
work, and then I took the actual script
of Jaws and sort of mashed them
together, and then we were off and
running. From that point, we had four
months to go, and we started
rehearsing twice a week. We brought in
a choreographer. Lo and behold, the
show happened. It was probably the
biggest Hail Mary of my life and
everyone
involved.
I’ll
always
remember on opening night, right out
of the gate, when we hit that first,
“Swimming, eating, mating, shitting,”
and the whole audience just burst out
laughing and I knew that we had
them. It’s a pretty magical feeling.
TB: You hit a homerun with the first
punch line!
JW: Totally! You know, our friends
came that Thursday night thinking it
was the Saloon Ensemble. We’re
known for being a bunch of sort-of
wacky, whiskey-drinking, anythinggoes people who take their clothes
off on stage. We’ve had these
shenanigans in years past. We’ve
lampooned Phil Collins songs and
stupid things. So, I don’t think anyone
saw it coming, and our friends who
were just being nice coming on
opening night walked out in shock,
and the next day, this bomb hit
Facebook, with everyone going, “Oh
my god! They’ve really done it. You’ve
got to go see J.A.W.Z. the Musical in
3D.” The next thing I knew, it was sold
out for Friday, Saturday, Sunday night
for the next three shows. So, we
29
brought it back this year to the Alberta
Rose for an upgrade.
TB: That’s a much bigger theater.
JW: It was a packed house for every
show. In my heart it was a sell-out, and
we decided it was good enough to
take on the road and see what we
could do with it. We did misspell ours
deliberately to separate it from the two
New
York
productions.
They’re
completely
different
plays.
I’ve
researched what they’ve done and
they’re very different. Our show is very
different and zany and really off the
page of the Peter Benchley novel. We
take a lot of strange left turns.
TB: How many people including cast,
crew, and tech go into making the
show happen?
JW: Sixteen.
TB: And of those sixteen, are most
people acting, too?
JW: We have eleven actors, and two
prop managers that play the lifeguards,
and we have a lighting guy—Chris
Herring—and Jason Rappaport, who is
great tech guy that does all the video
projections, and the sixteenth member
is miscellaneous. We did have a
choreographer, but her work is done.
We sometimes need a sound engineer,
sometimes not. That’s the team.
TB: When I have watched the show, it
felt like a natural extension of Saloon
Ensemble, to me. It’s like Saloon
Ensemble does a theater piece. You
guys are bawdy, you’re humorous, but
at the same time, it’s real. Everyone can
play the shit out of their instruments and
are accomplished musicians, so why
not do it more?
JW: I agree. And we’ve always had the
sing-along element, which is huge.
We’ve always put the lyrics up on a
screen. That’s a schtick we’ve been
doing forever, so it’s definitely still
Saloon Ensemble. And there’s a
looseness to the show—our mission has
always been about fun and not taking
ourselves too seriously—and that’s kind
of what that project has been about.
It’s been my release valve for all the
other projects I’ve been involved with,
like March Fourth. And even J.A.W.Z.—
with as much work as we’ve put into it—
we’re always laughing, and I think the
show has just a general loose energy to
it and invites everyone to join in the
party.
TB: How do you think J.A.W.Z. will be
received in San Francisco and L.A.?
JW: It’ll be interesting to see what
audiences there think of it. There is a
30
perception that anything that comes
out of Portland is going to be halfbaked—or too baked! I really believe in
the show. Beyond anything else, it’s
funny. And that’s a testament to
everyone involved, because, again, it
was written by eleven people, who all
put their best into it and all eleven of
them are quite funny. Teresa plays five
characters throughout the show, but
the two that stick out are the Cougar
Shark and Celine Dion—or as we call
her now, So-wrong Dion. It’s just pure,
blistering Teresa, and it’s obvious that
it’s her creation. She steals the show
time and time again.
right at home performing there. In L.A.,
the venue is perfect for us. They stage a
lot of musicals just like ours—Exorcist the
Musical, Nancy and Tonya the Rock
Opera. They’ve done tons of stuff like
ours at that venue, so I think we’re
going to feel right at home there as
well. We’re all pretty connected. The
years being in March Fourth certainly
have done us a lot of good in terms of
having a large network, and I do a lot
of film work, myself, so I have a lot of
clients and old friends that live there.
TB: How big are the capacities of Inter
Mission SF and King King Hollyhood?
play gigs with the bands and whatnot,
but I’m gonna rest.
TB: No big productions?
JW: We’ll probably do New Year’s
again. The Saloon Ensemble has been
doing big events here: The Wings of the
Cock Ball, The End of the World Ball,
and Horns and Halos. We learn a bunch
of songs and play into the themes. We
had a massive New Year’s party which
was probably the most fun New Year’s
Eve I’ve ever experienced. It was right
here at Manifestation. We had 300
people show up to it. It included the
giant penis sculpture that you see in
there with the wings and dangling
testicles which slowly descended—we
called it the “balls drop”—right at
midnight and sure enough the head of
the penis shot confetti—a cum shot all
over the audience. We’re kicking
around themes for this year.
TB: There’s one last thing about J.A.W.Z.
that I’m curious about. I know you and
the whole team have worked hard at
developing and tweaking the script, but
how much of the jokes and gags still
have an element of improv to them?
JW: That’s the magic of theater. That
happens all the time, especially with
Richard, who as the drunken pirate,
especially in Act Two, which is pretty
much all him. He just goes. Every night,
the objects that he throws at the shark
after they ran out of barrels is the
inflatable doll and the bouncy ball
unicorn, and I don’t think he’s ever
called the unicorn the same thing
twice. There are always original things
that happen. Our whole rehearsal day,
we had a bunch of new jokes and
things that came up.
TB: Isn’t that the magic that happens
when everybody knows the script like
they should? You get loose enough,
and so you just start playing. That’s
when funny stuff happens.
JW: Well as they say, “You have to learn
your lines so you can forget them.”
TB: There is a certain school of thought
that some of Portland culture actually
does better outside of Portland, and that
San Francisco is one of those places
that just gobbles up Portland culture.
JW: That would make sense to me. A lot
of us go to Burning Man, and San
Francisco is Burning Man central.
Probably the most Burners per square
mile live there, and we’re promoting the
show through the Burning Man network.
The venue we’re playing at—Inner
Mission SF—has a “Man” statue right at
the entryway. I think we’re going to feel
JW: The capacity of the venue in San
Francisco is actually rather large. It can
pack 300 people. The King King is about
150.
TB: What are your plans after you return
from this run of shows in California?
JW: When I set foot back in September, I
intend to take all of October off entirely.
I’ll still take jobs—I run an audio postproduction company out of my
basement and do a lot of feature film
work. I want to see autumn leaves and
do as little as possible and sleep. I’ll still
“J.A.W.S. the Musical in 3D” Credits
Directed by Noah Veil and Jason Wells
Produced by Jason Wells
Written by and Starring: • Richard Cawley as Quint • Aspen Walker as the Mayor • Teresa Michele Bawd as the Celine
Dion, the Cougar Shark, and more • Martina Oskarsson as Ellen Brody • Noah Veil as Matt Hooper • Jason Wells as Jaws • Stacey Ludlow the Soundtrack • Andy Shapiro as Steven Shpielberg • Mike Danner as Medical Examiner • Rob Sams as Sherrif Martin Brody • Laura Sams as Ariel the Mermaid 31
Photography Gino Martino featuring Mindy Acosta
THE VIRGIN GAMES
By Ari Lynn
Last fall at about this time, I was furiously
preparing for the production of a stage
rendering of the Rocky Horror Picture
Show, which I titled “Rocky’s Horror”,
and was to be performed one night
only in a condensed fashion running just
over an hour. “Rocky’s Horror” was
based more-or-less upon the cult-classic
movie that had spawned a culture of its
own since being released in the mid70s. I had transcribed the entire movie,
reworked a bit of the dialogue to suit
the specific confines of our stage at the
Bossanova Ballroom, and cut out
scenes that dragged or heavily
featured characters that I thought were
boring. (ASSHOLE!)
I had assembled an all-star cast of some
of Portland’s finest performers featuring
some of my dearest friends and
collaborators: Blake Hicks as Rocky,
Layne Fawkes as Magenta, Ivizia as
Columbia, Mad Marquis as Dr. Scott,
Petra DeLaRocha and Treya Bushell as
The Lips, Sorn Yung as Brad Majors, Meg
Russell as Janet Weiss, Jon Dutch as
Eddie, Noah Mickens as Riff Raff, and
Zora Phoenix as Frankenfurter. On a
very limited rehearsal schedule we all
learned our parts, gathered the props
and costumes, and on October 18,
2013, performed with only a few glitches
and hitches an approximately accurate
rendering of the Rocky Horror Picture
Show in front of a live audience of
several hundred people at the final
Night of Kink that I was in charge of
producing and organizing.
It was
something of a swan-song for me.
But this story isn’t about that. This is
about the Clinton Street Theater’s run of
showing the Rocky Horror Picture show
at 11:59 just about every Saturday night
since 1978. In fact, their website boasts
that this is “THE LONGEST RUNNING
CONTINUOUS SHOWING OF THE ROCKY
HORROR PICTURE SHOW IN THE
WORLD!!” I don’t doubt it. This story is
about the Clinton Street Cabaret and
their
impeccable
shadow-cast
performances of the Rocky Horror
Picture Show featured at the Clinton
Street Theater. This story is about how
my family and I all got deflowered at
the Clinton Street Theater on October 5,
2013.
It’s not as if I hadn’t ever seen the
movie. I’d seen it countless times,
played the role of Rocky in Alex
Kennedy’s production of the Rocky
Horror Pastie Show, and had just finished
transcribing the movie itself, so I was—
ahem—intimately familiar with the
movie. I’m sure my folks (aging hippies
that they are) had seen the movie
countless times—after all they totally
knew what they were getting in for
when I suggested the late night
excursion for one of their visits to
Portland last fall…at least they thought
they knew what they were in for.
You see, none of us had been to the
Clinton Street Cabaret’s presentation of
the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and we
had come straight from dinner, so we
were dressed nicely, but we weren’t in
costume as one of the movie’s
characters.
That evening, we were
certainly in the minority as most of the
people who showed up that night were
in full costume as their favorite
character and were clearly prepared to
be more involved with the film than a
typical night out to the movies would
entail. While we stood in line outside the
theater that crisp fall night a few
minutes after midnight, a cast member,
while squealing in delight, proudly
declared us all “VIRGINS” and wrote a
big capital “V” with bright red lipstick on
all of our foreheads. We also purchased
a couple bags of props being sold by
the cast members that included a few
playing cards, a piece of toast, a bag
of rice, party hats, and noisemakers. All
of these props would come into play
during the show.
We worked our way into the theater
and picked some seats roughly in the
middle of the room. The theater itself is
fairly small, and to put it plainly, it
doesn’t look like it’s been updated
since 1978. Soon enough, everyone was
seated. And that’s when the fun began.
After a few announcements, a general
question was posed to the audience if
there was anyone there that night who
was at the Clinton Street Theater to see
the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the
first time. A bunch of hands went up in
the
audience,
including
ours.
Somewhat predictably, we were all
called up on stage to be thoroughly
embarrassed. (And to test our theater
chops.) To be honest, I can’t remember
what we did initially—we may have
learned the Timewarp or something
somewhat bland like that—but I do
remember my step-mom quickly and
deftly retreating to her seat after that
first bit of group humiliation.
What came next was “The Virgin
Games”. Everyone on stage was
teamed up with someone else
randomly and then selected to
participate in a game. From my
perspective,
the
games
and
participants were selected at random,
and just by luck and chance, my dad
and wife were partnered up in a team.
And by luck, they were selected to
participate in the first game. Needless
to say, their teamwork and theatrical
prowess led them to be the winners of
that round of games and they were
able to take their seat in the theater
again. The game they had to play was
to act out what a zombie having an
orgasm would look like. Yes, it’s quite
the image, and it was quite the
spectacle.
So, there I was still on stage waiting to
be paired up with another virgin given
some sort of game to play. Team after
team was picked and game after
game was played. It was all really pretty
funny and entertaining. And then I got
picked and teamed up with a woman I
had never met before, but like in all
things in life, I play to win. Several other
teams were picked, and we all stood
there waiting for our instructions on how
to play the game. The game we were
assigned to was one of the more
scandalous, gender-bending games of
the evening. My female counterpart
was given a banana and instructed to
hold it proudly out from her groin. I was
given a condom and instructed to get
on my knees and using my mouth alone
to get the condom as far down the
banana as I could. Like I said, friends, I
play to win!! After a few attempts at
jamming
that
condom-encased
banana down my throat, I quickly
incorporated my tongue to push, push,
push that condom as far down that
yellow fruit as it would go. And, yes, my
technique was that of a champion!
I reclaimed my seat with my family, and
for the next couple of hours we sat in
awe and in utter and complete joy as
the Rocky Horror Picture Show was
played on the movie screen while the
Clinton Street Cabaret acted out each
and every scene to perfection. And the
entire
time
the
rowdy,
rather
misbehaved audience screamed out
the call-back lines (and call-backs to
the call-backs). There really is no way to
adequately describe it. If you don’t
understand what I’m talking about, you
really have to just go to a show. And if
you do know what I’m talking about,
you’re probably still ready to go to see
the Rocky Horror Picture Show with a
live theater audience and complete
shadow cast.
Fortunately, in the month of October,
you have a lot of opportunities. There
are full shadow cast performances on
the first and third Saturdays of the
month. On Halloween, there will be
showtimes at 8:00 p.m. and 11:59 p.m.,
and on November 1, there will be the
usual showing at 11:59 p.m. There will
almost certainly be costume contests at
the Halloween shows.
For more information about the Clinton
Street Cabaret visit their website at
rockypdx.org, and for more information
about the Clinton Street Theater, visit
their website at cstpdx.com.
33
Photography Gino Martino featuring Austin Wilde
HUFFIN’ OUT
Every once in a while, Josh the Terrible and Ari
Lynn give a call to their rambling,
unapologetic, older buddy, Huff, for some
much needed avuncular words of wisdom. In
his own day, Huff ran several successful
entertainment businesses and was intricately
involved in the so-called sexual revolution of
the 1960s and 1970s. From time to time,
though, due to the endless amounts of drugs
that Huff consumed over his life, he forgets
who Josh the Terrible and Ari Lynn are. Hell,
sometimes Huff doesn’t even know who he is.
Uncle Huff:
Who is this?
Hey, what’s happening?
Josh the Terrible: This is Josh the Terrible.
Happy Halloweeeeeeeen!
Uncle Huff:
Josh the Terrible?
Halloween!? Holy fuck. How long have
I been asleep?
Ari Lynn: It’s been a little while, Huff.
How you doing?
Uncle Huff: Oh, I’m all right. Hanging
around in a little bit of a drug-induced
stupor, as usual.
Ari Lynn: Yeah, we heard you took a
tumble and hurt your leg or something
like that. What’s up?
Uncle Huff: Oh, you know, it’s that time
of year when there’s ripe, delicious
apples hanging from all sorts of trees all
over the place and, wouldn’t you know
it, ol’ Uncle Huff saw a ripe, red,
delicious, juicy looking apple just
dangling from the top of a little-bit-tootall apple tree. I thought to myself, “I’m
gonna get one of those mother fucking
apples. You mark my words!” I declare,
here and now, that I, The Great, The
Huff, will have that mother fucking
apple hanging on that tree right there
and I’m gonna get it and I’m gonna put
it in my mouth and I’m gonna enjoy
that mother fucker and I’m gonna take
the nutrient rich enzymes in to my body
and nourish myself so I can enjoy
health, life, happiness, etc.
Ari Lynn: Are those metaphoric apples,
Huff? Or are those literal apples?
Uncle Huff: Oh, this was a literal apple
to which I attributed a multitude of
metaphorical attributes.
Josh the Terrible: Well, did you get the
apple?
Uncle Huff: I’m getting to that, Mr.
Terrible. For, you see, as it turns out, as I
leapt up in to the air, I failed to notice,
down at the bottom of the tree, a minor
depression in the soil, a bit of a pothole,
if you will, with yet another apple inside
of it. As I leapt up in to the air and
seized the apple of my desire and
attained the juiciness that my heart so
longed for, my right foot came down to
that pothole and connected with that
apple and did some really weird physics
shit involving a spear and disc shape in
which my foot was simultaneously
hyper-extended and had numerous
bones dislocated in its general
physiology, which, then I reconstituted
myself with my own hands right there on
the sidewalk.
Ari Lynn: You’re pretty spry for an old
codger, aren’t you Huff?
Uncle Huff: Well, you know, this ain’t my
first rodeo, sir. I’m broken and reset a
lot of bones in my time. You don’t do as
many drugs and fuck as many assholes
as I have without learning how to put a
splint on some shit.
Josh the Terrible: And now you’ve got
some bunnies to get those apples for
you, yeah?
Uncle Huff: Oh, fuck yeah. And I got a
bucket of dope over here, as usual.
But, the government is paying for it now.
Hehe. I got shit from the cartel, I got shit
from the pharmacy, I got shit from the
liquor store, and I got shit from the Red
Light district if ya get my drift…
Ari Lynn: Good stuff, Huff. Sounds like
you’re all taken care of over there.
Uncle Huff:
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I’m
touching my nipples right now and I
can barely feel it. It’s amazing.
Josh the Terrible: So, what are you
going to be for Halloween?
Uncle Huff: For Halloween? Well, I was
thinking about your mother at first…
Josh the Terrible: Oooh…!
Uncle Huff: And then I was gonna do
your father and then I was gonna dig
up…Ah, never mind. I haven’t really
thought about it. I live in the moment,
you know? I’m a bit of a Taoist. I don’t
really apply the Western Gregorian
calendar to anything. I just live in the
moment and let my mind flow like
water…straight in to the fucking gutter.
Ari Lynn: Well, I think Josh the Terrible
has a surprise for you.
Uncle Huff: Oh!? A surprise!?
Josh the Terrible: I’m gonna dress up as
The Huff for Halloween.
Uncle Huff: You’re gonna dress up as
The Huff for Halloween?!?!
Josh the Terrible: That’s right.
Uncle Huff: But no one has even seen
me in twenty years! I’m a reclusive
billionaire!
Don’t I have an arctic
compound somewhere? I swear to
god, I gotta get one of those.
Josh the Terrible: I mean, it seems pretty
easy. Throw on a robe, do a bunch of
coke, and have a bunch of bitches
around. It’s that easy, right?
Uncle Huff: What!? I make it look easy,
Mr. Terrible! Don’t get me wrong, I
make it look like a fucking breeze! But,
you know, shit ain’t like that for reals.
Ari Lynn: So, Huff, I’m wondering if ever,
during your multitude of careers and
endeavors, did you ever dabble in
producing horror or gore movies?
Uncle Huff: Whore movies!?
Ari Lynn: Horror movies.
Uncle Huff:
Whore movies, yeah.
Everyone in show business is a whore,
Mr. Lynn. Certainly, you’ve figured out
that every movie is a whore movie. Or
are you talking about horr-or movies?
Ari Lynn: Yeah, horror movies.
Uncle Huff: Oooh, yes. In the 70’s,
everyone was doing that stuff. You
know, Hollywood was making porn,
porn was making drama, and there was
a little bit of that horror shit thrown in
there. As a matter of fact, if you look
back in my extensive magazine
catalogue, you will find a few comic
strips dedicated to a storyboard movie
that was filmed but never released
which was a Shakespearian porno
Friday the 13th Nightmare on Elm Street
crossover featuring the Dallas Cowboy
cheerleaders and Ron Jeremy himself.
Ari Lynn: Well, that sounds like quite the
cast and concept.
Uncle Huff: Yeah, yeah. It was really
high-brow stuff. We were trying to be
artsy fartsy back then, you know?
35
Ari Lynn: Sounds totally high-brow and
only one of your conception I’m sure.
Ari Lynn: Huff, did you go “Home”!?
Were you at the Playa?
Uncle Huff: Oh, yeah, yeah. I was
doing a lot of acid at the time so you
could say I was “really creative”, you
know? More creative than normal.
Uncle Huff: Yeah, yeah…I was at The
Burn this year. Yeah… Uncle Huff likes to
go out to The Playa every now and
then. In disguise, you know. I don’t
bring my celebrity wives out there. I just
bring the hookers down from around
the alleyway. Nobody even notices.
Ari Lynn: Tell us about your favorite trip,
Huff.
Uncle Huff: My favorite acid trip? Oh
Jesus…That would be a tough one. You
know, you ever sorta, like, just drop acid
and then forget that you dropped acid
and then take a nap and you sorta, like,
find yourself sitting outside of time and
all of time is this little golden ball and
you look at it and you can rotate it and
examine it at your leisure and all of time
and creation and space and every
thought and idea that’s ever been had
and all of Kepler’s inventions and all the
ones he never wrote down and all of
the shit that you could possibly imagine
that’s real and alive and dead all at
once. Human history and the universe
and then, let me tell ya, there was a lot
of upstarts to be had up in that
motherfucker.
Ari Lynn: Reminds me of this one time
that I tried to take a nap and then I got
too scared to leave my room for about
six hours.
Uncle Huff: Oh shit, what did you do for
those six hours?
Ari Lynn: I was busy trying to get the
bugs off of me that were eating my
flesh. It was pretty horrifying.
Uncle Huff:
Yeah, you should try
covering yourself in lotion if you’re
having a bad trip. Cover yourself in
lotion so that all of the available dust
and cat hair sticks to your skin and you
can’t really get it off ‘cause you’re so
oiled. It’s really the way to go.
Ari Lynn: I like this. Tips from Uncle Huff
while you’re tripping balls: Cover
yourself in lotion.
Uncle Huff: Yeah, if no lotion is available,
any oil from the kitchen will do. You just
want to be greasy enough so that any
pet dander and dust bunnies will stick to
your body and face.
Ari Lynn: Does that help the bad vibes
just roll right off of you too?
Uncle Huff: Oh, yeah, yeah. It creates
a psychic armor around you.
You
know, one of the things I learned at the
Burning Man was that my spirit body is
impenetrable to the negative forces
that surround us, you know?
Like,
destructiveness and Drum and Bass
music
and
that
sort
of
thing.
36
Ari Lynn: The local Gerlach hookers,
huh?
Uncle Huff: Yeah, you’d be amazed.
It’s like they’ve got an invisibility spell on
them.
Nobody looks at Gerlach
hookers.
Ari Lynn: I would sort of imagine you’d
be on one of those $20,000 per day, all
paid for, pimped out luxury camps or
something like that? But no, you’re just
rolling around with lotion on, fucking
kicking it with all the regular old hippies,
aren’t you?
Uncle Huff: Well, what can I say, you
know?
Everyone on the Esplanade
already knows Uncle Huff. I’ve already
fucked ‘em or they wanna kick my ass.
One of those two. I like to hang out on
the fringe, you know? Kids these days,
they don’t know who I am, I don’t know
who they are and that’s perfect for me,
you know? I guess you could say Uncle
Huff’s got a thing for the “fresh meat”.
The Burner virgins, you know what I’m
saying?
Ari Lynn: So what have you been doing
to keep yourself busy now that you’re
all laid up with this leg injury?
Uncle Huff: Oh, absolutely nothing. I tell
you what…I got a bucket of pills, I got
probably two bricks of China White
heroin over here, and I’ve got one of
my most adorable wives. I’m squeezing
her nipple right now. Listen. [Faint
sound of girl being pinched.] I can’t get
her to scream. That’s okay, she’s pretty
pilled out. Dammit. Yeah, you know, it
don’t take much. I’m a one man party,
you know? Uncle Huff only needs a cup
of water and his imagination and he’s
good to go. The sky’s the limit up here,
baby! I may not be able to walk but,
fuckin-a, I can dream.
Ari Lynn: As long as you’ve got your
dreams, right Huff?
Uncle Huff: Yeah, and a bucket of
smack too, of course…
Ari Lynn: Yeah, and a couple bricks of
China White.
addiction as a mental health issue and
no longer prosecute it criminally. How
about that?
Uncle Huff: That’s fucking crazy! Heroin
addiction has always primarily been a
spiritual issue.
Josh the Terrible: Are you going to
move to New Hampshire?
Uncle Huff: No, I’m upstate, away from
that stuff. Anywhere where there’s a
high rate of heroin addiction, there’s
also a high rate of Couch Wizards. You
know what I mean?
Ari Lynn: No…Tell us about the Couch
Wizards.
Uncle Huff: Couch Wizards. Oh, they’re
wizards that live on your couch and do
lots of heroin and eat your food and try
to sleep with you. A lot. If you try to get
them off your couch, they just sit there
and cry until you feel guilty enough to
let them keep living on your couch and
eating your food. It’s their magic that
they do.
Josh the Terrible: Oooh, like your mom!?
Uncle Huff: Wait, what!? My mom!?
My mom is not a Couch Wizard! She’s a
Couch Sorceress. That is besides the
point. My sainted mother, whatever
couch she’s on right now, is probably in
heaven. She’s eating God’s ramen
noodles now.
Ari Lynn: Saint Peter’s pearly couch.
Uncle Huff: Oh, yeah. I’m sure she’s got
something going on with him too.
Ari Lynn: It’s not the only pearls that
she’s working with is what I heard…
Uncle Huff: Pearly Gates. That’s like Bill
Gates’ cousin, right?
Ari Lynn: Well, Uncle Huff, you got
anything you want to share with us?
Uncle Huff: No, you can’t have any of
my fucking smack, you junkie dog!
Ari Lynn: Uncle Huff, we love you.
Uncle Huff: Well, you know, I kind of
love you guys too. You make me laugh
and, sometimes, that’s all an old man
has.
Josh the Terrible: That warms my Terrible
little heart.
Uncle Huff: Yeah, fuck it.
Ari Lynn: When you finish up those
couple bricks of smack, you should
come hang out with us some day.
Ari Lynn: Hey, did you hear? New
Hampshire is trying to reclassify heroin
Uncle Huff: Oh, yeah, yeah. I’ll be right
over…
Photography by Oblique Foto featuring Brittany Evans
!
THE BURRO
Vol. 2 Issue 3—Fall 2014
LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE

View the Fall Issue! - The Burro Lifestyle Magazine

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