From the Vault

Or maybe it's a glorified, should-be trash can. Or maybe not. Just realizing some things should never see the light of day...on a completely related note, this photo is from the film LOVE HAPPY.

I'm having a lot of fun -- or I guess you could call it fun; fulfilling in the artistic sense, yet upsetting to me personally is probably a more apt description -- writing my ongoing series, unofficially entitled My Days in Vaudeville. Tis autobiographical fiction (times fiction) at it's absolute worst! But I don't care. The Marx Brothers and metaphors are what I need right now, so why argue?

Anyway, while pounding out the next few pieces of it, I thought I'd post some stuff I wrote but never shared.

My Draft pile back here behind the red curtains of the Phoenix Theater is massive. I have nearly ninety unpublished posts! Dating all the way back to August 2008. Probably the first time I ever inked out on you ladies and gentlemen.

-- What am I, an octopus?

[Rimshot]

Thanks, Chico.

Chico Marx on the drums, ladies and gentleman.

The Vaudeville audience claps...well, what's left of an audience: a kid asleep in her chair, and two men with their sketchbooks on their laps.

-- How is it not silent in here?

While I continue on with this stage-anchored nonsense, and dramatic confessionals of self-doubt, I thought you might enjoy reading some actual film reviews. Ah! There's a novel idea...film reviews on a film blog. Why didn't I think of that??

I've got reviews for the following movies:

IT HAD TO BE YOU
JOHNNY EAGER
LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN
THE STORY OF MANKIND

And the film noir with Richard Conte AND Cornel Wilde?? I can't think of it...

Anyway, they're all here. All written somewhere. Two by hand, and three if by sea. No wait. Two by hand, and three of 'em already typed and edited -- been typed and edited!! Since 2008/2009 -- but I was too scared or shy or something to post them.

As if they matter, but fun is fun, and art is art, and if you stew Chico's underpants in the soup-pot it tastes more like clam chowder than tomato bisque.

Now you tell me what you know.

...

Other Vault Goodness coming soon to this theater!

-- "What?! Vaudeville's dying?!! Bring on the talking pictures!!!" shouts Groucho.

• Dead End Kid Poetry.
• Marx Brothers Poetry.
• Several Sketches.
• A Dana Andrews piece (yes, I remember him).
• A series I vaguely recall promising, consisting of 38 pieces of Marx Brothers insanity, and not of the fictional variety!

"Hooray!" shouts the audience.

-- No, I don't know where I'm going with this. Further down the page, I imagine.

But I hope you'll enjoy what film-stuff I do throw out here, good people, because with every piece of fiction I write, despite the kind words and support, both in front of, and behind curtains, I feel worse and worse about myself as an actual writer, and want to run away again.

"Quick! Someone tie her to the stage!" shouts Chico.

And you think it's for your sake...this is a game we play. ;)

...

Back to my fantasies...or no; away from them.

I'll denote at the top of each old piece when it was originally written, just for kicks, right? Because it doesn't matter if I wrote it last year or last Tuesday...but for the sake of my blog: if it's not denoted, then I just wrote it. As in While You Were Sleeping, Elvis Perkins. I write fiction while you're sleeping, and dreaming of a girl who likes men in black socks. And she eats Clam Chowder.

-- Actually, I've never even tasted Clam Chowder.

See? You learned something.

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