Grinders Island: Fancy Park Motels, Metallica, Alice Cooper and Robe Lowe

There was a suggestion in the comments about instead of a cabin in the woods for $275 per sq foot to instead get a "Fancy Park Motel" instead. WELL - that would be GREAT for 2 people but 2 grown ups with 3 kids it might get tight and really - those are $240 a sq foot houses. LOL AWESOME cute though.

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We watched three documentaries this weekend. Two on AXS TV which is outstanding for music and concerts and one on NETFLIX.

First was Metallica and how they never ever even thought about becoming famous. Their first 3 albums were sort of bombs with big drums, big guitars and zero bass guitar and they pretty much figured to be a lifetime road band playing small gigs and eeking out a living.

Then their next album was actually produced by someone who knew what they were doing - the Black album, which STILL sells 1 million copies a year.

There is a story about how one of their slow songs was calling for an orchestral part and they contacted a conductor Michael Kamin who had never heard of Metallica. He did his thing and sent it back and NEVER heard back for them. Not one word. vapor ware.

A year later he saw them accepting an award and heard them fir the first time live. THESE GUYS ARE GOOD!! He went back stage and introduced himself and they all got up and shook and and said they LOVED LOVED what he did . . . but they went a different direction. He hung out a while and they kicked around the idea of Metallica playing with a full orchestra.

Nothing happened.

EIGHT years later Kamin's agent, out of the blue calls him and says - Hey - so and so from Metallica wants to do a concert with you . . .WHAT????

Metallica S&M was my first experience seeing metal rock and a full symphony orchestra ( San Francisco Symphony ) and if I would have seen this earlier in my life I would still be playing cello. And thus my absolute love for symphonic metal.

https://youtu.be/qJj3xrkqdWU

Then we watched a thing following Alice Cooper.

Our band Wonderhorse in highschool sort of took some the groups theartics and used them and our grammy nominated drummer wore eye makeup like Vincent (who became Alice). Mike Marquart went on to play for A Flock of Seagulls and created Windmark Recording and can be heard on a number of recordings with Coldplay, Jeezy, J. Cole, YG, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell, Kanye West, and Kendrick Lamar . . .but I digress

Seems Alice was HATED in Los Angeles and were a road band surviving on peanuts and booze. They got a gig in Detroit with MC5 and stole the show with their antics. HOWEVER - they were made UBER famous by something they did not even do at a different "fest".

They were suppose to play before John Lennon and near the end of their gig they had feather pillows that they ripped apart and with a fire extinguisher and feathers were going nuts on stage.

Then from somewhere a chicken (nobody knows where the chicken came from) appears and Vincent (who soon becomes Alice Cooper) does a " I HONESTLY thought chickens could fly" thing and tosses it into the crowd thinking it would fly away . . . . . . It didn't.

The crowd was in SUCH a frenzy never seeing anything like Cooper before the chicken met its demise and chicken parts were thrown onto the stage. WELL - media says Cooper ripped apart a chicken on stage which was not true but . . . . . . as you can imagine . . with every newspaper in the country reporting it the band had to make media appearances and they only wanted to talk to one person - Alice Cooper. WELL - Alice Cooper was the band, not a person.

WHO IS ALICE COOPER . . . . SOMEONE has to be Alice Cooper and they all pointed at Vincent.

So Vincent becomes Alice Cooper and as the years go by he becomes more and more and more Alice and less and less Vincent and drinking continually until he goes into rehab.

Time goes by and he is sober but his bandmates are snorting coke and . . well . . .he can do coke . . it's not beer right? And he gets deeper and deeper into cocaine until one night he has locked himself into his house and a chunk of coke the size of his fist. He has not slept for 3 days and at one point he looks in a mirror and his eyes are bleeding. He sees this and realizes its not makeup - it's blood and in that one second he says at that point he had to make a decision - live or die. An ephoney.

He goes to bed - sleeps for 14 hours, gets up and tosses the coke down the toilet, calls his parents and said I need Help.

Goes to rehab where for the first time in a decades he is not Alice Cooper but Vincent Damon Furnier again. And that is the Alice Cooper we see today, a scratch golfer with 29 albums who still tours.

I saw Alice Cooper a few times.

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Then there is a documentary on NETFLIX called The Attack of the Movie Cliche'

https://youtu.be/BC_mPcjsh1M

Rob Lowe who is a cliche' himself (I totally love Rob lowe) helps us understand. It's fascinating and a little disconcerting when it comes to The Hero Negro. There is a reason nobody brags about The Green Mile or Bagger Vance. And then there's The Wilhelm Scream which is an industry inside joke.

A scream created in the 1950s and still used today in hundreds of movies. When you hear it you will know.

https://youtu.be/BC_mPcjsh1M