I never throw anything away that's mine
And I'd collect you too if I was given half a chance
And trap you under the glass and add my autograph..."
Index - Steven Wilson
Don't Worry, Be Happy
by a very pissed off (and justifiably so) Cory Udler
They’re called “collectors”. They’re fucking psychotic. For those of you not aware (and if you are one of those who is not aware I’m envious of you) there is/was a huge underground market for collectors of VHS tapes. Horror and exploitation, kung fu, porn, screwball comedy, all genres. As an example, Chester Turner’s “Tales From The Quadead Zone” on VHS sold for something around a quadzillion dollars. I love Chester Turner to death, but this had nothing to do with the “art” value of his movie. This was just a weird competition between young people with obvious expendable income. So, what the fuck is “Quadead Zone” and who is Chester Turner? Chester was a low (no) budget filmmaker from Chicago in the mid 1980’s. He made two films, “Black Devil Doll From Hell” and “Tales From The Quadead Zone”. The first film had modest distribution but, not unlike every single fucking distribution story you will hear from any filmmaker at any level, he got fucked by the distributor and decided with his next film to do it all himself. Duplication, box art, tape labels, everything. Chester and Shirley Jones, the lead in both films, would take copies of the movie and drive them around to various video stores and sell them that way. No middle man, no worries about where your cut was going, he handled it all. Chester, like most of us, had a life and couldn’t drive coast to coast selling a weird horror movie on VHS to every Podunk, jerkwater, mom and pop video store along the way. So, the movie became a thing of legend due to only regional and limited release and availability. Chester dropped out of sight soon after and wasn’t heard from for decades. Louis Justin from Massacre Video spent an incredible amount of time and effort tracking Chester down a few years ago. His company released special editions of all of Chester’s movies and even laid down some dough for Chester to make “Tales From The Quadead Zone 2”. Anyway, this isn’t an article about Chester Turner, so moving on.
A few months ago I sat down to write an article about how nobody’s happy with anything anymore. In a day and age where everything is convenient, nobody’s happy. At all. Ever. But, I didn’t know what I wanted to say so I watched “Death Wish 4” instead. But after an interaction online with a vinyl collector I finally had my inspiration.
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| Cory and the Kiddo |
During the shipping, the inserts had slipped into the adhesive on the box and tore some of it off upon opening. This motherfucker lost his fucking shit. He posted at least 12 pictures with a four paragraph rant on a social media page dedicated to vinyl collectors about it. Then sent me every single picture along with an even longer rant including about how I “ruined his day” and how he “missed a Derby party” because he wanted to open the albums up but was now too upset to go. Now, any rational person would look at this response and just chalk it up to “fucker’s insane”, but I didn’t. Not this time. Most other times I would and just go on about my shit. But this struck a chord. I QUICKLY refunded his money and apologized. I’m pretty sure the opening of the package to the money refunded was somewhere in the 15-30 minute range. I told him to just keep the albums because now every time I’d go to fucking play them I’d think about this delightful interaction. The packaging was fucked up, I refunded him, situation cool.
It wasn’t the fact that I sold him the albums for $20 less than I paid, even though I only played them once, and then refunded his money and therefore don’t have enough to buy my daughter the Thomas The Train station for her 2nd birthday and also now don’t have the albums, either. It was the fact that something so fucking trivial as a vinyl record’s inner sleeve being damaged could cause this much distress to someone. What would it take to make you post 12 pictures and a four paragraph rant on social media because something “ruined your day”? A death of a loved one. A cancer diagnosis. Your house burned down. Everyone would understand. Those are extremely traumatic, and in situations like that sometimes people are under so much distress that they cannot properly express themselves. But a vinyl record inner sleeve is torn? The cover had some adhesive stuck to it? Ok, you send the guy a picture of it, just a “thought I’d let you know” sort of thing and hope the dude’s stand up enough to say, “Oh, fuck, dude, I’m sorry, do you need a refund?”. That is the proper way to react to that situation. The proper way to react to the police shooting your dog is to post 12 pictures and a four paragraph rant on social media.
I have a copy of KISS’s seminal 1975 breakthrough album, “ALIVE!”, on vinyl. It’s a piece of shit. It never had an inner sleeve to protect the albums. The cover is warped and torn and someone wrote “C. Vine. 1963” in the upper right hand corner. There are other pen marks and scribbles all over it. The cool thing was is that it came with the original tour book insert. It sounds like hell. But I just had it on the other day. Scratchy and loaded with pops but doesn’t skip anywhere on the two discs. I have no intentions of upgrading it. Ever. This is my copy of “ALIVE!”. To me, it’s almost like someone in your life. You know at the core you love them or care about them and can overlook their shortcomings. Just like my copy of “ALIVE!”. Put that in a fucking greeting card.
Instead of lamenting the fact that I don’t have and will probably never have $30 to drop on a new vinyl of “ALIVE!”, I instead embrace the one I have. Pleased with the fact that I’m able to listen to it on a decent turntable. Starving children in Russia don’t have such luxuries. But I do. I’m a lucky guy.
But nobody’s happy and nobody feels “lucky” anymore. My wife and I tried having children for somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 years. We tried everything. And by everything I mean every single fucking thing we could come up with to have a baby. Neither of us was diagnosed with any reproductive issues. We just couldn’t for whatever reason. We put our names on a list for adoption in 2010. We waited. And waited. We went through every miserable inch of the waiting process. At Christmas 2012, we told our families that our adoption shit was up for renewal at the end of 2013 and we weren’t going to go through it. We were 37 years old and finishing this chapter in our lives. In April of 2013 we found out about Adelaide Marie. Today I can tell you, I’m a very lucky guy. I have a beautiful, funny, healthy, active, smart 2 year old baby girl that I wake up to every day and lay down to sleep every night. It’s been an amazing profound change in my life and even on bad days I am extremely grateful and happy and content. It takes a lot for me to lose my shit. But when I do, it’s for a good reason. Normally because I’m being disrespected or ignored. When I’m made to feel like I’m less than you, I’m done. But, my vinyl album shows up with a bit of damage and THAT is enough to ruin my day? I spent every single day of 8 years wondering what my future was. What was I doing? Was I going to make any difference to any one, anywhere at any time? What was I going to leave the world? My “career” wasn’t anything to celebrate.
In August of 2012 a close friend of mine from childhood on contacted me. She was pregnant and was in no position to keep the baby. Abortion wasn’t an option for her. Not that she was opposed to it, just wasn’t an option for her in this situation. She wanted my wife and I to adopt the baby. We went through all of the legalities between the states we lived in, made phone calls to lawyers, the whole shmear. She lost the baby at the end of her first trimester. We were devastated. I was working at a tv station for people who didn’t like me. The feeling was mutual. I was fucking lost. We felt worse for her as that is an overwhelming wave of emotions to go through. We just had the one. Disappointment. We were used to that, we knew how to handle that one. We couldn’t imagine what she was going through. When she found out about Adelaide she sent us a KISS onesie that I now have tucked away in a box for her when she’s older. I know what it’s like to have your fucking day ruined. I also know what it feels like to be a “lucky” guy.
In October of 2012 I premiered the third movie in my trilogy of “Incest Death Squad” projects. I also said I wasn’t doing anything in 2013 and I didn’t. My daughter arrived midway through 2013 and it wasn’t until February of 2014 that I came up with the idea to do another movie. This one, however, I was going to do on a timeline. I set a release date before I even had the script done. This was my Roger Corman experiment. We shot the entire thing in 3 days. Two 9 hour days, one 6 hour day. During the filming I decided that this was it for me. I spent more time putting out drama fires than I did actually DIRECTING a movie. I no longer felt the burning passion to make movies. I did 5 movies and one short in 6 years. Basically by myself. This was an experiment in many ways. To see if I could do a movie on a timeline and to see if this was really how I wanted to use the tiny bit of free time I actually have. That movie answered all my questions and since then I have distanced myself completely from any “scene” I wasn’t really a part of in the first place. Why? Because I, like everyone else, wasn’t happy with how the scene was going. Everything I watched I found lazy, boring, contrived or cliché. I also saw how people weren’t in this because they had a burning desire to tell stories or be creative. Many people were doing it because they wanted to be famous, or rich, or a convention darling. It’s high school for people with tattoos and Fulci shirts. Instead, I put my focus on my family and my day to day life. I also poured myself into my newest podcast dedicated to The Three Stooges. The only one on earth, I might add. Movies just don’t fit into my life at this point. I started writing this article 2 weeks ago. It isn’t taking so long because I’m stuck for something to say, it’s because I get about an hour a day to myself and sometimes that hour is spent staring at a wall because my brain is fucking oatmeal.
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| Cory and the IDS. |
An author I highly respect went on a social media rant about the new Mad Max movie, transitioning that venom into a new Star Wars assassination. I posted a cute little meme of an old guy in a Native American headdress that said, “Now get off my lawn”. A little levity. The picture was funny. I save it on my phone for when I need a little pick me up. He went off. A caps lock and exclamation point bukkake about how I’m “so original” and “did you come up with that all by yourself?”. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being talked down to. Especially by someone who isn’t any better of a human being than I am. Unfriend, block. I have no time anymore. And this guy is older than me. Why are you fucking flipping out about Mad Max and Star Wars? Grow up.
It’s this sort of thing that really makes me wonder what sort of world we’re living in. For days now I’ve been seeing articles and posts about Louis CK’s Saturday Night Live monologue. I haven’t watched Saturday Night Live in 15 years, and I couldn’t pick Louis CK out of a police lineup. That shit has nothing to do with me, yet people who haven’t been in Saturday Night Live’s “demo” for 20 years feel the need to chime in. Why? Why the fuck do you even care? Do you know what has nothing to do with me? American Idol. It never has. I’ve never watched an episode. It’s cancelled. That has zero bearing on my life. It was never meant for me, never a part of my life. Now that it’s going away I can honestly say I won’t notice. Just like the Mad Max movie, the Ninja Turtles movie, Baby Metal, etc, etc. It is not meant for me, I’m not the target audience, it has no place in my life and therefore I ignore it, pay it no mind and focus on my life and the shit I love.
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| Sean Yseult |
Back to the collectors. I follow a Star Wars collecting group on Facebook, mainly because it brings back good memories of the toys of my youth. Someone posted a picture of his garage which was loaded, floor to ceiling, with Star Wars shit. He even commented that he has about “4 of each figure” and isn’t sure what he’s going to do once the garage is full. Maybe build a pole shed. Fuck. You’re a sick man, my friend. They have shows dedicated to your mental illness. Hoarders: Buried Alive. Granted, it’s cooler to be buried in Jabba The Hut figures than petrified cat shit and McDonalds bags, but still. He also pointed out that “nothing is for sale”. Two parts, why do you need that shit and why did you feel the need to put that out into the world? Collectors are just like that neighbor you have who doesn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. Their kids eat processed fish sticks 7 nights a week and they never take a family vacation. But that motherfucker’s got an Escalade. Just to show you that he’s better than you. Same with the dipshit hoarding 30 copies of “Three On A Meathook”. Ooooh, you’d like to have one of these, wouldn’t you? I have 30 of them. That’s 30 of them you can never have. It’s complete insanity. But, I’m also a firm believer in that this rampant assholism isn’t anything new, it’s just that information travels so fast now directly into the palm of your hand. These fucking maniacs have always been around. Now they just have a way to rub more people’s nose in their opinions, psychosis and unfiltered weirdness.
I have to wrap this up. I could go on for another year.
Nobody’s happy with anything. I’m sorry, your opinion fucking sucks and doesn’t matter to anyone but you. Keep it to yourself. And when you throw it out there for the world you can’t expect everyone to pat you on the head, hand you a participation trophy and tell you you’re a good boy. If you lash out at someone for calling you out on your bullshit, you need to grow up and look in the mirror and realize that maybe your thinking isn’t right. I know, it’s hard. But it’s worth it. And it’s really the only thing that matters. Self awareness.
I am thoroughly enjoying not making movies. I haven’t watched a horror movie in 8 months. Well, not counting “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein”. I will not watch “The Babadook”, it’s been way too jizzed over and really doesn’t seem like anything I’d like.
We all need to take a fucking step back and realize that our dog and pony show isn’t original, it isn’t funny, it isn’t important. You’re not special. Your opinion isn’t any better or more correct than anyone else’s. So just keep it to yourself, or risk people knocking you back into your place.
And please, for fuck’s sake, just enjoy things. If you didn’t like Mad Max do the world a favor. Shhhh. It’s going to be ok. It’s just a movie. And a movie probably not meant for you anyway.
Now, get off my lawn.
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