Exhaustion Ahead

I sometimes spend my days sleepwalking through life, not entirely awake. That happens mostly when I've had very little to no sleep at all, or what is commonly called in a few exclusive circles as the "no sleep 'til Brooklyn" phenomenon. With Mutek starting tonight and the ignition of 72 hours in a row without sleep set to begin tomorrow morning, I can already feel the pain. I'm no longer 20 years old, and will in fact be 30 in less than a year. But I must insist : I like to party very much, thank you.



Tomorrow, while most people will slowly prepare for their happy hour, or mentally spend all their pay check in expensive Italian ties bought at Carrefour Laval, I'll be writing several articles that have long been due. The deadlines are here, folks, and it's time to pay them bills. Knock knock, who's there ? "A deadline". I've never been good with these things, but since I began gettin' paid by the word, I magically respect every time frame my editors are giving me. There's been this safari movies article floating around my head, and that's about the only thing I haven't done and for which I'm REALLY late. My public apologies go out to Mike White, editor in chief of Cashiers du Cinemart, as well as to the magnificent chimpanzee appearing in both Michele Lupo's AFRICA EXPRESS and Duccio Tessari's SAFARI EXPRESS (both from 1976).

My assignments for Contamination are going well; I just put my hands on the DVDs of THE THIRST and Howard Avedis' very promising THEY'RE PLAYING WITH FIRE re-release, and I have to see CAPTIVITY pretty soon. I have interviewed Bender for the upcoming issue of Nightlife Magazine and have three other pieces to write.



Over the week-end, I'll be writin' and partyin'; on my schedule of artists to hear are, in chronological order, Magda & Richie Hawtin, Carl Craig, Mossa, Gamall, My My, Chic Miniature, Claude VonStroke, Audion, Miskate, Someone Else, Gui Boratto, Michael Mayer, Heartthrob, Jesse Somfay, and the Wighnomy Brothers. I might very well drop dead after this breath taking marathon, but one thing's for sure : it'll be pure ear candy !

So if you walk past me on Sunday at Piknic, don't be surprised if I'm all zombie-like and don't even look at you; my brain most probably will be at "off". I remember going to DiskHo's Matthew Dear party last year, on a Friday night, and leaving just to pop a On*Star and head over to Aria to hear Felix da Housecat. I didn't sleep all night or day, had a great meal at La Caretta on St-Zotique, and then went to a house party above Inbeat on St-Laurent on Saturday night to play a set at 2 AM, after drinking TONS of vodka / Guru. The police crashed the party at 3 but I couldn't be bothered; the guy owning the flat reduced the music's volume to a minimum, and I kept on playing like a madman. My first real night of sleep after that was on Monday night, after an orgy of sushis.

I ain't feeling like a million bucks right now and I could use a few days of rest, but I'm afraid that won't be possible. We'll just have to keep up with what we have and party like there's no tomorrow ! The recipe for that is to avoid sleeping, to make your week-end seem like an uninterrupted Friday night binge. Brilliant.

*

Since Bud Spencer, alias Carlo Pedersoli, is a likable guy, I quite like him. I believe there's enough misery in this world without seeing the need for people to be rude on top of it all. That's why I rather like people who are in a good mood, or "good guys". And girls. The use of the masculine form everywhere on this blog is, of course, for convenience & speed purposes only.



My love for Spencer, for Italian cinema at large - and for Enzo Girolami Castellari's work in particular - made me seek out an episode of the "Extralarge" series, these hard-to-find TV movies shot in Miami between 1991 and 1993. Thirteen were made, and the one I've seen is called EXTRALARGE : BLACK & WHITE. In them, Bud plays Jack "Extralarge" Costello, a Miami private eye pretty much ressembling any role he's ever played : not very fast, but big, and with a heart of gold. He has a latina neighbor, in his Art Deco building, who happens to be his girlfriend, and many friends in the Miami Police Department.



From then on, anything is possible. In BLACK & WHITE - which I strongly believe to be the pilot, or at least the first in the series - it starts with a kleptomaniac ("Wendy", played by knockout Lela Rochon) inviting herself to a senator's garden party, and posing as a maid to infiltrate the rooms and steal stuff. However, she ends up fleeing with something very precious to the senator, and he sends his men after her with one mission : to kill her and come back with the stolen goods. While running away from them, she stumbles upon Costello's office, and decides to seek out his help. Meanwhile, good old Jack's met Dumas (Phillip Michael Thomas, found jobless and aimlessly wandering the streets of Miami by the producers), a French cartoonist interested by his physique, and has tied him up in the bathroom. The "Black & White" of the title implies, of course, that they'll team up to help save the girl, and that all things will come to an end without too much bloodshed.



But keep in mind : it's an italian TV movie; people die, people cry, and most stay clothed. Bad guys and corrupt politicians are more than common in this shark-infested city, and we can feel a bit of Enzo's love for MIAMI VICE here and there. However, everything seems cheaper than in the hit Michael Mann-produced TV series, and the running time is undoubtedly longer. The cars aren't as slick, and the wardrobes neither. The theme song, surprisingly, is an entertaining hip house hit that's very pleasant to hear. Played over the opening credits featuring sea-doo daredevils in traditional Castellari slow-motion shots, it has a certain effect.

What's also a nice surprise here is that old Bud's own voice is used in the final sound track; no silly dubbing is to be heard anywhere, which probably means that the whole production was shot directly in english. Which is a funny phenomenon; with all the late 80's Corbucci-shot movies Spencer & Hill did in Miami, and this Extralarge franchise, lots of people are still surprised to learn nowadays that Carlo Pedersoli, the irresistible bearded fatso, is not an American.