BEFORE: For three days we had a rather large spider living on our front porch - OK, so it wasn't tarantula-sized, maybe it was only about an inch or two in length, but it managed to build a web that was right beside our front door, that prevented us from using the majority of the porch, without knocking down the web - and really, the last thing I need is to have a spider mad at me for tearing down its food source. What if it were a brown recluse or something? Plus, my wife goes outside every day and sits on the front porch to smoke, and spiders creep her out even more than they creep me out. We made all kinds of jokes about the spider to lessen the tension - he was a millennial hipster spider, he did freelance web-site design, he was crashing on our porch without paying rent - but nothing could alleviate the fact that he was THERE, and at night if you turned on the porch light, you could see him in the web, just hanging out. To us he was as large and ominous as if he were an Alaskan King Crab out on the porch.
So, he had to go. I have no problem with swatting a mosquito or stepping on a cockroach, but when insects or arachnids get over a certain size, I can't bring myself to kill them. So I put on a pair of work gloves, my wife emptied out a container of peanuts, and I set out to catch him. The problem was, when he wasn't in his web, he was sitting up on the floodlights over our front door, which are triggered by a motion sensor. When the lights were off, it was too dark to see the spider, and when the lights were on, they would shine right in my eyes, so I couldn't see the spider then either. He picked the one spot on the whole porch where I couldn't look at him, and I reasoned it was only a matter of time before he figured out he could turn the lights on and off according to his own needs, just by walking across the sensor.
My wife stood inside and struck the floodlights with a broom handle, and I figured I'd catch the spider after he fell to the porch floor. Only when he fell off, he never hit the floor - he had already planned for the fall, and he had a web-line that enabled him to climb back up. But while he climbed, he was vulnerable, so she knocked him off again, and I caught him in the jar on his third ascent back up to the floodlights. I could have left him in the jar to run out of air, or thrown him away in the jar, but I would have felt guilty about that, so instead I walked four blocks away and opened the jar inside the fence of the cemetery down the street. I figured he could make his webs between the tombstones, and if anything, that would enhance the scene there in time for Halloween.
Later I realized that he'd appeared on our porch right around the time I watched "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars", so maybe in a weird way, there was some connection there? And Alice Cooper's band was once called the Spiders, for a brief time. I don't know, make of that what you will.
Iggy Pop carries over from "Bowie: The Man Who Changed the World", and probably one or two other people do as well.
THE PLOT: The story of Vincent Furnier, a preacher's son, who struck fear into the hearts of parents as Alice Cooper, the ultimate rock star of the bizarre.
AFTER: I think I scheduled this one really well, even though I didn't know about Alice Cooper's connection to Frank Zappa, especially because Zappa wasn't listed in the IMDB (nor were about 40 other people) for making an appearance in this film. (Yep, I fixed that listing too - why are documentary filmmakers so lazy about crediting people?) But it also turns out there's only a very fine line that separates Ziggy Stardust from Alice Cooper. Both were fictional personas created by performers, both designed to create maximum shock value and get the most attention possible - Bowie used androgyny and sexual identity, while Vincent Furnier used the androgyny of a woman's name and then the rest was horror-based theatrics. But it feels to me that they were both using tricks from the same playbook almost, glam rock with their own twist, and then it's just that one was more successful than the other in the long run.
But the Alice Cooper story is really just like the story of any band (and Alice Cooper was the name of the BAND before it was the name of the band's front-man). A bunch of mates get together in high-school, practice a lot and write a few songs, move to the big city, get caught up in the glitz and glamour of the rock scene, meet a manager, get a record producer and a record deal, and then if they're lucky enough to have a couple of hit songs, it's wealth, fame, attention, but then that leads to constant touring and pressure from their record company to make more hits, then it's the wild scene of alcohol and drugs that nearly takes them down, along with the in-fighting for dominance in the band, and the difficulties of trying to maintain relationships and family. Then if they're lucky and they don't die at 27, if they can stay on the scene they may get regarded as sort of elder statesmen of music, get inducted into a Hall of Fame or two, then mount a comeback tour. Trust me, I've seen it a few times by now - that's the Eagles' story, the Rolling Stones story, and it's probably the same story for a hundred bands, including Alice Cooper.
The footage of young Vincent Furnier is probably more jarring than his stage appearance now, because by now we're all used to the stage makeup and the long hair and the heavy metal costumes, so it's hard to believe that he was once a high-school student who looked like a cross between a young George Harrison and Jason Schwartzman's character in the film "Rushmore". (I also never made the visual connection between Cooper and Harry Shearer as Derek Smalls in "This Is Spinal Tap", but now I can't help but see it.) The path across the country from Detroit to Phoenix to Los Angeles is part of what shaped the band that became The Spiders, then Nazz, and finally Alice Cooper. Then they left L.A. and were on the road for years, before settling back in Detroit, where the crowds were more receptive to their hard-edged music and over-the-top stage theatrics. (Oh, that poor chicken...) Certainly you can see how a hard-rock band, somewhere between glam rock and death metal (which didn't even exist yet) would have been out of place in California in the late 1960's, home of hippies and peace and love.
That documentary about the Grateful Dead, "Long Strange Trip", used a Frankenstein's monster metaphor to explain - well, I don't know what it was trying to explain, because it did a really poor job of it. But this doc uses a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde analogy to explain the process of becoming Alice Cooper, having another name, creating another personality that would allow someone to do things he might not ordinarily do if he remained who he was before. Unforunately that also extended to excessive drinking and drug use, in addition to doing scary stuff on stage with snakes and props. Then it took a long time for Alice to get sober and clean, through rehab and some time spent in an asylum, so that happened. But he seemed to come out the other end as a reasonably together guy, and we also know that since he's an actor, DJ and restaurant owner in addition to a husband and father, that the stage theatrics are really just for maximum shock value, as they've always been.
In addition to appearing on stage with a large boa constrictor, Alice is known for chopping up plastic baby dolls with a cleaver on stage, and appearing in mock executions via hanging, electric chair, or guillotine. Really, it's just a bit of stage magic, combined with the fact that audience members seated more than 20 rows from the stage can't distinguish a rubber human head from a real one, especially if the stage lighting isn't very bright. And the story goes that one terrible night, his safety rope broke during the hanging scene, and he almost choked to death for real.
However, some of the stories told here have been discredited over the years, such as where the name Alice Cooper came from. Depending on whom you ask, it either came from the name of a character on the Andy Griffith Show, or from a ouija board session where Vincent Furnier found out that was his name from a previous life, he was the reincarnated soul of a woman who'd been burned at the stake for witchcraft. Since so many of the band's theatrics are horror-based or Halloween-themed, I'm guessing the ouija board story just tied in with all of that.
Just before their three-album deal with Zappa's record company ran out, the band got their first hit, "I'm Eighteen, and with this they were able to get a better deal at a major label. Really, I only know three Alice Cooper songs, and that's one of them, along with "School's Out" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy". And I think I first became aware of him just because he played a villain in the movie "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", which featured the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton covering Beatles songs. I love that film, but I don't recommend it to other people, unless they're really in the mood to watch a terrible movie.
When Alice took a few years off from touring, in order to get clean, by the time he came back to music it was 1985, MTV had been a thing for a few years, and suddenly there was Poison and Ratt and Motley Crue, and glam rock had evolved into heavy metal, and was more popular than ever. It seems that things had progressed pretty will without him, and suddenly when he was ready for the world again, the world was also ready for him to return to it. Then his reputation allowed him to do guest appearances on everything from Guns 'N Roses albums to movies like "Wayne's World" and one of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films. And just this year, he appeared as King Herod in NBC's live broadcast of "Jesus Christ Superstar", and I think he just plain stole the show.
See, you survive long enough and you can become an elder statesman in your chosen field, even if that field is rock and roll.
Also starring Alice Cooper (last seen in "Drew: The Man Behind the Poster"), Elton John (also carrying over from "Bowie: The Man Who Changed the World"), John Lydon (last seen in "27: Gone Too Soon"), Dee Snider (last seen in "History of the Eagles"), Sheryl Cooper, Dennis Dunaway, Jack Curtis, Pamela Des Barres, Robert Ezrin, Ella Furnier, Shep Gordon, Wayne Kramer, Neal Smith, Bernie Taupin, with archive footage of Michael Bruce, Glen Buxton, George Harrison (last seen in "Concert for George"), Paul McCartney (ditto), John Lennon (also carrying over from "Bowie: The Man Who Changed the World"), Ringo Starr (ditto), Andy Warhol (ditto), Jimi Hendrix (last seen in "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives"), Janis Joplin (ditto), Merv Griffin (ditto), Jim Morrison (last seen in "27: Gone Too Soon"), Keith Moon (last seen in "The Kids Are Alright"), Micky Dolenz (last seen in "The Wrecking Crew!"), Frank Sinatra (ditto), Diana Ross (last seen in "Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall"), Johnny Ramone (ditto), Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone, Tommy Ramone, Frank Zappa (last seen in "Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words"), Soupy Sales (ditto), Marty Balin, Jack Casady, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen, Grace Slick, Spencer Dryden, The Chambers Brothers, Sid Vicious, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Arthur Lee, Jack Benny, George Burns, Johnny Carson (last seen in "Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me"), Salvador Dali, Wolfman Jack, Richard Nixon (last seen in "Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown"), Vincent Price, Tom Snyder (last seen in "The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir").
RATING: 5 out of 10 surrealist paintings
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