Speaking Ill Of The Dead, by Mike Gold
As we were driving back east from two weeks in Detroit, Columbus, Chicago and Toledo – next time, I’m getting a campaign bus – we heard the news of Evel Knievel’s death. No, this blather isn’t about him, although I do think that saying you’re going to take your motorcycle and jump over 50 school buses loaded with nuns and orphans and then strapping rockets to the bike is cheating. Nope, this blather is about Irwin Allen, noted dead movie and television producer/director/writer and former cover story in Modern Asshole magazine.
Allen was best known for his disaster movies, “disaster” in the sense that the plots involved some sort of serious event (The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure). His connection to Knievel? When I was at DC Comics back in 1976, he called me in a fit of pique about his upcoming movie, Viva Knievel! It seems he heard we were doing a big ol’ comic book teaming Superman up with Muhammad Ali, and he thought a Batman vs. Evel Knievel companion volume was a lovely idea.
I didn’t, and as it turned out somebody quoted my arguments to him. Irwin was more than mildly annoyed. He called to try to talk me out of it, not that the decision to make or not make such a comic book was anywhere near my capabilities at the time. His technique was rather unique: instead of sweet-talking me or convincing me of the error of my ways, he used invective and attack. He wanted to know where some 26 year-old pissant got off sabotaging (honest) a big Hollywood macher like him. He started screaming an unending list of curse words that would have impressed George Carlin. He threatened my unborn children, promised to destroy my career (coming short of “you’ll never have lunch in this town again,” as I was in New York City) and I think there was something in there about my mother and an orangutan.
Perhaps it is not geekdom to celebrate, but it is geekdom nonetheless and it is to be remarked upon for the path it has set the world on since. Today in 1942, the Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, and his team initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction as part of the Manhattan Project.
Here in the east, we are getting our first look at snow. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than tossing a few issues of 52 on the fire and clicking our way around the cool spots we found for you:
The third of my favorite summer ‘007 films, Superbad, is arriving as a “2-Disc Unrated Extended Edition” this coming Tuesday, with too many special features for its own good. The best of the many extras are the ones which share the raunchy, soft-centered, spirit of the film itself. The ones I could’ve done without are the ones which feign outrage, anger, or disgust.
