Bootleg Mike’s “Rare-Shit Forgotten Video Boots”!
Hi, it’s been one LONG month since I last spoke with y’all, but WHAT a month!!!! I took a short trip to King’s Dominion with my new Elvin lover Amy (don’t worry, she’s also a HUGE fan of Brimstone & Treacle!), and then had a minor procedure done to my neck. But all is well and I’m now more than capable of watching 20 hour BOOT MARATHONS while munchin’ on some snackity-snacks!
This month’s Official Rare Boots Snackity-Snack is . . .
Corn Nuts Real Roasted Crunchies!!!!!
Oh, and the winner of last month’s BOOTS QUIZ is San Francisco Booter Scott MacLeod who correctly answered the question regarding the blooper in the very underrated comedy The Adventures of Pluto Nash!!!! Scott wins a Joe Dirt 1 toy tie-in, STILL in the box!!!
Andy Warhol’s Bowel Movement
This is a good one and ultra, ULTRA rare. In 1967, Andy Warhol filmed himself sitting on the toilet for an entire year. He ate, slept and, yes, went “15 minutes” on the toilet. The film is shot in real time and will take you an entire year to watch, but there’s an abbreviated version that runs about four months. I don’t recommend that version, as you’d be missing out on some really key plot points. The movie was shot on 8-mm, in black and white, with a soundtrack by the amazing 1960s band Black God with a Flower, featuring a very, very young Phil Collins on finger cymbals. Good luck finding THIS soundtrack, though, which is worth about $50! If you’re not doing anything for a year, and need a fun way to pass the time, you could definitely do a hell of a lot worse! (Scene to really watch: Andy pays the Factory rent while on the toilet.)
Styx: Live at the Capitol Center, September 5, 1989
This bootleg was shot on a VHS camera by a man whose name is lost to history but who managed to preserve for infinity the last Styx tour before Dennis DeYoung caught a rare Amazonian virus and left the group to start a boutique candle business in Rhode Island.
EVERYONE knows that Styx is best remembered for their amazing and fully-realized 1983 concept album “Kilroy Was Here.” The story was UNBELIEVABLY prescient in many ways. Prescient means “ahead of its time.” For instance, Asian robots are really popular now and we are all now bossed around by mean, mysterious leaders with bad haircuts (just check out Trump!). But what everyone does not realize is that Styx created another fuck-nominal rock opera, this one in 1989, that was ALSO about robots. This one was called “Bucky” and it involved robots taking over an ice cream shop in Atlanta. They refuse to serve vanilla or chocolate ice cream for political reasons, and the locals go insane. Dennis DeYoung plays Bucky, an assistant manager who appeals to the community through song and handmade lace doilies.
In the beginning of this 1989 concert, Dennis is wearing an orange and brown smock, and he is holding an ice cream scooper. He then launches into the album’s biggest hit, “Bathroom’s Only for Lovers.” At the end of the concert, Dennis is wearing a robot suit and is singing “Flavor of the Day: Happiness.” It’s a fantastic concert and ultra, ultra, ULTRA rare. Known to sell on eBay for as high as $45.
Dennis DeYoung died a few years ago. He packed a ton of love into those 85 years.
M. Night Shyamalan’s Unnamed Fifth, Seventh and Ninth Projects
Shyamalan is a genius, I don’t think there’s much argument about that fact. But here’s something you never knew: This exceptionally talented auteur wrote, directed and released three projects that were NEVER released. It’s true:
The Fateful Night of the Rainbow Catcher (2007)
The Moist Stump (2009)
Space Jive (2011)
The last movie ends with a retarded but brilliant tree pruner being eaten by a pack of wild dingoes. But there’s a twist: The dingoes are aliens …. but the pruner was, too! The aliens ate their own! I still get chills when I think about this amazing idea. The dingoes could also do basic arithmetic (that’s how they found their way to Earth).
I pray that all of these lost classics will one day be released to the general public. Shyamalan is a very humble man, and he deserves a lot more respect and recognition, not to mention A LOT more press.
Jerry Lewis’s The Day the Cowboy Went to Rwanda
For the entire decade of the ’90s, Jerry Lewis was hooked on methadone. Because of that, he has no memory of making this movie that he wrote, directed and starred in. The movie is called The Day the Cowboy Went to Rwanda, and that’s basically the entire plot.
Jerry, playing an unemployed cowboy called Ace, travels to Rwanda to cheer up the poor orphans who will soon face their own grisly deaths. (Ace has cancer.) Ace performs magic tricks, walks a tightrope (only a few feet off the ground) and sprays water out of his fake bowtie and into the mud. The kids really laugh. Even the village leaders find Ace amusing. Three people have seen this movie, including a former reviewer for The Washington Post, Anthony Hoagland, who wrote: “This film made me a worse person.”
I think that’s way, WAY too harsh, but having never seen this movie, I can’t really prove otherwise. I do know that it was all shot in Jerry’s backyard in Las Vegas and features no one of color. Worth a fortune. (Blooper to watch: In the fifty-third minute, Ace sticks an entire glass of water in his mouth but forgets to breathe.)
Pluckett & Farley
Burt Reynolds is amazingly prolific. He has starred in over 500 movies and about 200 TV shows. He never stops. Burt was especially in his prime in the mid-’70s, but even his biggest fans never seemed to have watched Pluckett & Farley, even though it’s now available for a small fee on BurtReynolds.com streaming. I do know that the movie was shown once at an Alabama drive-in theater in ’76 and never seen again. The rumor is that the guy who owned the drive-in traded the movie for enough money to keep the drive-in going for another month, at which time it then went out of business for good (about a month later).
If you’re a regular reader to my Bootleg column, you know that I’m a sucker for any movie that features intelligent orangutans doing human things, like giving a thumbs up, blowing a raspberry or just mouthing off to racist cops.
This movie has none of that, but it does feature a really beautiful orangutan named Farley who was rescued somewhere in Africa and then purchased by Burt for $200 at a Kentucky Derby party. Acting great Dom DeLuise was Farley’s godfather, but sadly did not act in this film, as he was very particular about his film projects.
So . . . whenever Farley gets mad or scared, he attacks everything in sight and rips off limbs. If that doesn’t sound funny, rest assured that it’s hilarious on the big screen.
In one scene, Burt (who plays Pluckett) tells Farley to fetch him a beer. Farley goes straight to the fridge, but comes back an hour later with a soda. Burt curses and kicks Farley out of the house. Farley then goes on a rampage, attempting to kill anyone who tries to stop him, including a redneck sheriff and an uppity woman who hates alcohol but has a sweet tooth for adventure. Both die … but it’s okay, as both weren’t very nice. (It’s interesting … in the novelization to this film, the orangutan is played by an unemployed man wearing a donkey costume. Not sure why they changed it.)
The movie ends with Farley being put down by a zoo-keeper in a helicopter, as Burt stands before a gorgeous sunset on a Ping Pong table and weeps. There was no sequel but there are rumors that Lil Wayne is writing a song about Farley for his upcoming album.
Folks, that’s it for this month! If you’re feeling generous, please donate! Unearthing these gems ain’t free.
Yours,
Bootleg Mike
(RARESHITBOOTS@yahoo.com)