Can't you just tape me and play it backwards?

Ever wonder what Stella and I look like while we're on the radio at KXLU? Wonder no more!

Arcade Games I Used To Play: Auto Test

Just so you know, I'm 47 years old, born in 1960. This makes me a "junior geezer" in my book, which gives me an excuse to rattle on and on about how things used to be. Growing up on the East side of Long Beach in the 1960s and 70s, I had limited contact with arcade games, save for the occasional trip to the (then) incredible arcades at Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm. Their arcades were truly museums of amusements with dozens of current and vintage games, with a few dating back to the turn of the century. I could drop every bit of change I had in less than an hour. Back in Long Beach, the arcades at the Nu-Pike possessed even older pinball and arcade games, along with an incredibly scary and thrilling atmosphere, thanks to the Pike's ambiance at the time, which could be described as David Lynch Fever Dream. Closer to home, there were four locations within walking distance: Apple Annie's Pizza Parlor (which had the first Pong machine I ever saw), Shakey's Pizza (where all young aspiring magicians hoped to be good enough to play), Zody's Discount Store (pinball and the stench of rancid popcorn grease...not sure why) and Thrifty's Drug and Discount Store (which seemed like an odd location, but they did always get cool and unusual games). My favorite Long Beach arcade was at the old Lakewood Miniature Golf Course, which might have been in Lakewood but what the hell it was on Carson, close to the 605 and across the street from the Naval Hospital. It was a nice little golf course, and they had a great arcade, filled with games from the 50s and 60s. Including this coin-operated driving simulator called Auto Test. Sitting in the vintage 1959 upholstery in 1971 Long Beach, I would aim the plastic car on the dashboard between the lanes of projected traffic, avoiding collisions with the celluloid vehicles and staying under the speed limit. The goal was to drive across America from Los Angeles, to New York, but the Driver's Education footage only showed a generic highway. Still, I was behind the wheel of an automobile and driving, so I got my ten cents worth. I found the image of the Auto Test at the website for Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, which looks like a place I'm going to have to visit if I ever get around to Farmington Hills, Michigan. Marvin seems to have a passion for non-pinball arcade games, and if his page on the Auto Test in any indication, all of you vintage game fans out there will have a lot of reading to do.

The Day I Met a Real Live Mad Scientist

A few years back, Carol got this job assignment to photograph Dr. Gunther Von Hagens. He's the creator of the process of plastination, by which bodies and/or body parts can be preserved perfectly by replacing the natural juices of the body with plastic resin, or something like that. He's also the creator of Body Worlds, a traveling roadshow of genuine anatomical artistry, where cadavers, stripped of their outer layers of epidermis, stand frozen in whatever pose Dr. Gunther may choose. Carol and I had caught his act earlier. Body Worlds was in town at the California Science Center and we had managed to visit the exhibit on a day when Dr. Gunter would be giving a demonstration of the plastination process later in the afternoon. We were fascinated and horrified at the amazing exhibit around us. Two figures in particular really caught our eye. One was of a skinless gentleman, holding his removed skin over his arm like an article of clothing. The skin even swung gently in the breeze of the central air conditioning. The other figure was of a flayed gentleman with his arms spread wide revealing the different layers of muscle and bone in a pirouette of gross anatomy, topped with the hat that Dr. Gunther was always seen wearing. "What kind of person does this for a living?" we wondered. We quickly found out when we caught the good doctor explaining to a group of schoolchildren and few scattered adults, the process of plastinating a placenta. I really only managed to catch about a third of what he was saying, but it didn't matter. I was met with the realization that I was in the presence of A REAL LIVE MAD SCIENTIST! There I was, surrounded by sliced and diced body parts while this very unusual guy in a dark black hat explains to a group of nine-year-olds how to preserve a placenta so that you can cut it up later and then show it to the world. He wrapped up his talk and was taken away quickly. We were stunned. All that was left to do was to stagger through the gift gauntlet on our way to the exit. It could have ended there, but it didn't. As I said at the beginning, Carol got this gig taking a cover photo of Dr. Gunther Von Hagens for a now-defunct weekly newspaper. I became Carol's assistant for the day.

When we got there, we discovered that a few of the exhibits had been covered behind lucite. The Skin-Man's skin no longer swayed in the breeze. It made sense to protect the exhibits, but the Skin-Man was just so perfect. Dr. Gunther soon arrived and did not disappoint. He was happy to pose anywhere with any of his friends. That's what he calls 'em, and I believe him. We explained our disappointment of the lucite covering of the Skin-Man, and Von Hagens quickly suggested that we have the enormous cover removed right then and there! It would have taken a while and whole lot of effort, so Carol politely declined the offer. He did pose with the flayed Hat-Man, wearing a truly Lugosi-type grin. We then moved to the solarium area of the Science Center, where he had given the talk on preserving the placenta. We were standing next to his vertically sliced man, a guy sliced vertically into two-inch slices. I noticed that the sliced guy had a tattoo. Between photos, I had a moment to ask Gunther a question. "So, doctor, what kind of music do you like?", "Classical, I love to listen to Brahms" he may have answered. I'm really not sure. His English is very very German. I had a follow-up. "Do you play an instrument?" "Piano. I play to relax." Again, maybe he said that. "Well, I'll let you get back to the shoot, but thank you very much for your time!" We shook hands and I realized that I was shaking hands with A REAL LIVE MAD SCIENTIST!

I asked his him if I could take a photo with one of his figures, particularly, the front slice of the guy that he is holding in the above photo. The slice of the Slice-Man that had his face. He said it would be okay, so here I am, looking through the Slice-Man's eyelids. Yes, it is an unusual experience. Carol took a few more photos, and then Dr. Gunther told us of his plan to plastinate an elephant and then cut it into three-inch cubes. Or something like that. I think that's what he said.

In the movie Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie, Mike Nelson makes a comment about a point in time when science didn't have to have any specific purpose. That wonderful, golden era of the Mad Scientist. And that era still lives, for I have shaken hands with a man who wants to plastinate and cube an elephant. For science. For art.

So Now I'm Blogging

Hey Hoodlum,
Thank you for visiting the latest in the saga of Reverend Dan's Music For Nimrods...the Blog! Hoo-Ha! So let's see what I can come up with.

To bring you up to date, Carol & I are now OFFICIALLY engaged! Here's a photo of the happy couple.



This was one hell of a busy weekend for me! In addition to doing the radio show, I had two other events which took me out of hiding and into to public eye. Saturday night, I was DJing Ralph Carrera's big Tigermask Club show at Safari Sam's in Hollywood, with The Joneses, The Lords Of Altamont, Throw Rag and The Love Me Nots. As usual with these Tigermask shows, everybody did a hell of a job. The Lords of Altamont claimed that this would be their last show for a while (don't they always say that?) but seeing the MC5's Mike Davis on bass was uber-cool. It was great to see Jeff Drake of The Joneses. We used to work together at the Tower Records in Anaheim back in 1981, and we hadn't seen each other since we were in The Phantoms with bassist Steve Olson and drummer Brian Wassman (Jeff played lead guitar, I sang and played rhythm guitar).

Sunday night brought Stella and me to Beyond Baroque in Venice, where we took part in one of Gerry Fialka's Media Ecology Soul Sessions (M.E.S.S. for short), where we discussed the History of Alternative Radio in Los Angeles. Here is a photo of moderator Gerry Fialka, me, your humble narrator & Stella of Stray Pop (representing KXLU), and former KMET dj and current KCSN program director Martin Perlich. Folks actually showed up, and a very cool discussion of all things radio took place. We were invited to bring a old sample of our radio work. I brought a clip from my old KPFK show, where transsexual go-go dancer Vida DeVille explained how to look your best while incarcerated. Stella brought an amazing clip from 1985, when the studio was filled with Lux & Ivy from the Cramps AND Screamin' Jay Hawkins! His description of the recording session for "I Put a Spell On You" was hysterical!

Well, there be the first post. Now let's see if I delete it all in the next few minutes.