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Review: PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA / Chris Meltzer & Jeff Springer (2004)

November 21st, 2008 by Scott Marks

Leonard Knight, Mountain Artist or Madman?

Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea (2004)
Written, Photographed and Directed by Chris Meltzer and Jeff Springer
Narrated by John Waters
Running Time: 73 min.

Rating: ★★★½☆

The Salton Sea, once billed as California’s version of the French Riviera, is a patch of land 35 miles long and 15 feet wide located fifty miles south of Palm Springs. In the 1950s, developers’ dreams of turning the Salton Sea into “Palm Springs with water” became a reality and California’s biggest lake became a booming resort town. Desi Arnaz put up a hotel and soon the rich and famous would make this sports fisherman’s paradise their choice destination. Frank Sinatra, The Marx Brothers, Linda Darnell and The Beach Boys all spent time quality time on the California Riviera.

After its brief vogue, the desert playground, “accidentally” created by an engineering error in 1905, quickly became deserted after a series of hurricanes, floods, and fish die-offs. The streets now sport less businesses than the locals do teeth and the Salton Sea lives on as one of the greatest sewers the world has ever seen.

A sea flood twenty years ago put half the State Park underwater leaving 7.6 million dead fish. Nature wanted no part of the Salton Sea which has clearly become one of America’s worst ecological disasters. For miles, all one sees is trash, stagnant salty water, decay and thousands of dead fish that sound a dinner call for hundreds of fetid birds. The film couldn’t be more pungent were it shot in Odorama.

In addition to toxic Talapia, the Salton Sea’s main exports are drunks and seniors living out their remaining days in sunshine and stench. Much of the populous consists of former Hungarian freedom fighters and blacks, or “welfare types,” as one of the townsfolk affectionately calls them. She goes on to admit, “Some of the black kids are delightful, but there’s a group that are in trouble.”

The official sport of nearby Bombay Beach appears to be alcoholism. Hunky Daddy, Bombay Beach’s unofficial Mayor, is a lecherous (he “moons” kids), unintelligible (he needs subtitles) rummy. Leonard Knight, Mountain Artist/Sacerdotal Nutjob, hopes that his Salvation Mountain will attract other Religious types eager to find the word of God in a man-made mound of garishly painted garbage.

The Salton Sea found its champion in the late Mayor of Palm Springs and Cher’s former husband, Sonny Bono. Sonny remembered the great impact the sea had on his youth and wanted to return it to recreational glory. As one of the residents points out, “I think he was good for the sea. Unfortunately he went skiing.”

With its parade of trailer parks and anomalies and curiosities of humanity, it’s no wonder John Waters agreed to narrate the film. His wry recital of the “string of catastrophes” that befell the Imperial Valley also provides an expertly researched history lesson. Never has environmental tragedy been this funny.

The DVD offers several bonus films including Miracle in the Desert. Film-chained from a faded 16mm print, this hilarious 13-minute travelogue from the early-60s is a precursor to real estate infomercials.

San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Arts will show Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea at 7 pm tonight and co-creator Chris Meltzer will be there to conduct a Q&A after the movie.

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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical

“Garfield Goose and Friends” & “Clutch Cargo”: Vintage WGN Chicago TV Memorabilia

March 22nd, 2008 by Scott Marks

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The success of WGN’s Garfield Goose and Friends (1952 - 1967) transformed the Goose Who Thinks He’s King of the United States into a household name throughout Chicagoland. When merchandising tie-ins were still in their infancy, Gar became a celebrity spokes-clacker for Pepperidge Farm baked goods.

These oversized buttons (the picture is just slightly larger than the pin-back itself) were handed out as promotional items in the early 60s. Mine came to me while working the counter at Flashback Collectibles on Clark Street.

One day a fellow sauntered in with a box containing rare items of unknown origin. (The store adhered to a strict “we ask no questions, you tell no lies” policy.) I probably blew two weeks pay on the contents. A half-dozen original glass slides from the opening credits, the header card for the elusive hand puppet, 8 x 10 pictures, a Chicago American TV guide, buttons and even a poster featuring Gar, Romberg Rabbit and Frazier Thomas hawking Ked’s Redball Jets (which fetched a handsome price on eBay a few years back).

So much gold! There was also an unused Garfield patch identical to the one that Frazier wore on the breast pocket of his blindingly yellow Century 21 sport coat. (Who says fat people have to hide behind dark colors?)

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Here is a rather glaucomic clip from the affectionately name Fuzzy TV Memories of the opening credits and Gar in drag doing a Norman Bates-ish turn as Mama Goose.

Also contained in the corrugated treasure chest were several items featuring show regular Clutch Cargo. In fact, the only goody that I didn’t grab up was the mint (and I do mean mint) Clutch Cargo Coloring Book.

Postcards:
CLUTCH CARGO

SPINNER AND PADDLEFOOT

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Not sure whether the bobble-heads pictured on this postcard ever hit store shelves or were just prototypes.

Adventure Club Certificate:
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Sticker:
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Easily the rarest jewel in the pile was a 16mm, dye-transfer print of the show’s opening credits. The colors remain eye-popping, particularly the kaleidoscopic burst emitted throughout the WGN logo. When I moved to San Diego in 2000 to assume the position of the Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) inaugural film curator, you can bet that the credits came with me. What I didn’t anticipate was how quickly they would hit the museum’s screen.

It was the theater’s black tie, opening night gala and each plush seat in the 226-seat auditorium was packed with wealthy donors. Since it was the newly-installed theater’s maiden voyage, I thought it fitting to baptize the film program with student shorts by major directors. (Godard’s All the Boys are Named Patrick, Truffaut’s Les Mistons, Jane Campions’ Peel, David Lynch’s The Grandmother and, what else, Martin Scorsese’s It’s Not Just You, Murray.)

According to Theatre Management 101, the projectionist has final cut and my operator was a doozy. Introduced through a mutual friend, Zosch (not his real name) certainly had the background and experience to do the job. He was also, how should I put this…a bit eccentric, something expected from anyone who enjoys spending their nights alone and in a cramped booth. Zosch was a “nervous” type, frequently covered in what my boss later referred to as “100 proof flopsweat.”

After completing my liturgical preamble before the erudite aggregation I set about introducing the evening’s first offering, Marty’s Murray. The hush that fell over the crowd was soon replaced by puzzled gasps. Instead of my mint 16mm print of Murray, the strains of Monkey on a String and a cartoon flicker of a Technicolor goose assaulted the assemblage.

It’s one thing to misplace reels, but any professional projector-threader, drunk or sober, should instantly be able to detect the difference between black-and-white and color film stocks. (Didn’t he know that Marty couldn’t afford color film stock until The Big Shave?) The auditorium doesn’t have direct access to the booth and in the time it took me to rocket my way through the atrium and up the stairs, the brief credit scene had unraveled into a Clutch Cargo cartoon spliced to the end of Gar’s celluloid tail.

After seven months of blowing more reel changes than a Vegas hooker does conventioneers, Zosch was shown the door. Nine years later and it’s funny, but at the time images of a projectionist dangling by a thread of countdown leader invaded my every thought.

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