Some Days My Life Sucks Less Than Others...

As I mentioned last week, I was busy putting together a video shoot.  I'm doing a commercial for my forthcoming novel Video Pirates from Mars! — 

It's the first in what I hope will be a series based on the adventures of B-Movie icon Brinke Stevens.

"Hi, I'm Brinke Stevens... and after appearing in over 150 B-movies, I thought it was time to let all my fans in on a little secret...… they're not stories. Well, not the real stories. I mean, do you think the guys who made those movies could make up anything that strange? No, the movies, they're sort of the stories in front of the real stories... like the story in my exciting new novel, Video Pirates from Mars! It's sex and slugs and rock and roll as aliens who believe our raunchy sitcoms, commercials and rock videos come to Earth determined to put on the most unreal reality show of them all! With of course, guess who (indicates herself) as the main attraction and maybe the main course. (Sigh.) The things a girl has to do to get work..."

My goal is to write a novel that reads like The Benny Hill Show scripted by Terry Pratchett.  I'll also be looking at relationships, careers, ambitions and the disappearance of genuine popular culture.

Brinke has the distinction of being the only woman I know who was both denounced on the Senate floor by Jesse Helms AND a guest of President Ronald Reagan.  She's also an absolute sweetie and totally fits the role of Sexy Grownup in these juvenile times.

We shot Brinke's footage at the fabulous and now fabulously redecorated M Street Coffee in Studio City.  This place is so terrific I'm almost afraid to plug for ruining the joint with arriviste customers.

Anyway, this last weekend we shot the greenscreen footage (we being me and the mouse in my pocket; I was director, cinematographer, key grip, best boy, wardrobe mistress and craft services).  I was lucky enough to get the talented and charming Camille Solari, a woman of a thousand (okay, several) faces.

Also Starring Camille Solari

And featuring Camille Solari

...plus a special guest appearance by Camille Solari to be revealed in the commercial.  

It was a terrific shoot and I'm looking forward to the results when I get it back from my SFX guy.

Rule 5 -- Brinke Stevens!

Brinke Stevens

Rule 5 -- Brinke Stevens!

If you visited a Times Square grindhouse anytime in the 80's or ever watched Skinemax Cinemax, you've seen Brinke Stevens.

With over 150 films to her name she is an icon of the B-movie era, a petite brunette with a gleefully wicked smile and a voice, as Raymond Chandler put it, "that could make a bishop kick out a stained glass window.

Whether victim, vamp or vixen with a great big gun, Brinke continues to work today, in features, cartoons, even historical documentaries.

With a degree in Marine Biology and substantial credits as a screenwriter, essayist and author of short fiction, she brings a degree of intelligence and wit to her performances not usually associated with the average scream queen, another aspect of the appeal of the petite actress, a torrid tempest in an A-cup who has outlasted many more pneumatically-blessed but gravitationally-vulnerable peers.

Of particular interest to the eeeeeevil conservative readers of this blog, Brinke donated over 24,000 copies of her comic miniseries to the troops through Operation Gratitude.

Brinke is the only "scream queen" ever condemned on the floor of the US Senate, by no less than Jesse Helms. Hard to see why.