My Car Is My Lover

I love British docos that focus on narrow interests and obsessions. Animal Passions is probably my favorite of all. I have reviewed it on imdb, but for reasons I'm unable to fathom, nobody else has. I had this to say:

"One of the most extraordinary documentaries I have ever seen. I watched it with mouth agape as half a dozen Americans spoke of their love for animals and their intimate relationships with them. Producer Christopher Spencer reserves judgment and provides us with a very clear picture of why some human beings' love for animals extends to having sex with them. This is not an XXX-rated, Brazilian bestiality film featuring bad photography, crappy sound and pornographic imagery. This is an English documentary from a renowned documentarian who introduces us to some of the most marginalized people on Earth.

"The interviewees, both men and women, are incredibly candid about their zoophile lifestyle (an illegal lifestyle in most parts of the world) and come across as intelligent, articulate and resigned to their unconventional sexual proclivity. I admit that one early scene in which a group of male zoophiles admire a couple of horses and make lustful comments about their bodies even made me feel slightly uncomfortable and reminded me that I'm more conventional than I thought. Animal Passions (not to be confused with the often bootlegged Color Climax porno film, Animal Passion) is beautifully shot in rural America and stands as the most non-exploitative word on the subject so far.

Who said dogs and cats don't mix?!

"Although some of the docos on famous animal lover Bodil attempt to penetrate the mind of a zoophile, these are still geared towards the porno market and are only superficial "documentaries". Though this is sexually non-explicit, it is the most explicit exploration of this inflammatory subject I've seen and stands as a fine anthropological document. Highly recommended. "

Other recent British docs of note have been Sex Change Soldier, My Fake Baby, and Love Me Love My Doll.

All are mandatory viewing for readers of this blog.

I had high hopes for Lars and the Real Girl...

Fuck the "whimsical", Lars!

...but that film was a confused, stupid, idiotic cop-out.

This morning I was bowled over by My Car Is My Lover, an amazing British doco that focuses on mechaphilia (sexual attraction to machines).

It focuses on Jordan, a young, shy mechaphile from Missouri, and Edward, a more outspoken mechaphile from Seattle.

Both fellas have a strong passion for their cars (VW Beetles)...

... but are capable of "loving" other machines, too, such as trucks and helicopters.

Edward confesses that he made love to the helicopter from from the Airwolf TV show...

...before a terrible tragedy retired it and killed its four occupants.

Photos of Edward rubbing himself up against the Hollywood chopper and kissing and stroking it are featured.

Edward with the Airwolf whirlybird

Although Edward and Jordan met on-line, they had not met each other in person prior to the doco. The producers create a scenario in which Edward and Jordan drive from their respective homes to Pamona, California, home of one of the biggest auto swap meets in the country, to meet.

The Pamona Auto Swap Meet

Both journeys are documented.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Edward's story is his uncontrollable urge to stroke, kiss, and ejaculate onto cars. While staying at a motel with the film crew, he sneaks out into the lot at midnight and secretly fondles a parked SUV. A couple of nights later, while staying at another motel, he strips off completely and wanders into the lot to have sex with the guests' vehicles. Both incidents are captured on video.

When asked why he agreed to make the doco, he explains: "I want people to know that I appreciate beauty and I go a little beyond appreciation of a car."

Jordan's reasons? "I want to make it more comfortable for people with similar strangeness."

Although Jordan preps his beloved bug for the journey, engine problems force him to take his Trans Am, "Todd", instead.

He ends up admitting that the journey was a great bonding experience for him and the Kit-like "Todd". Edward, on the other hand, has trouble admitting to Jordan that he molested and ejaculated beside Jordan's Trans Am while Jordan was sleeping.

This doco is the best!

Discussing his sexual approach to automobiles, Jordan admits that when he first gets them, he's "not inclined to fuck them". It takes a while for him to get comfortable.

Not a shot from the doco, but not off topic, either

Edward doesn't have this problem. When he is seen admiring a 1919 Ford, the interviewer suggests that having sex with the vehicle would be like fucking an old lady. "Would you go there"? Edward smiles, doesn't think too hard, and says, "It would be an honor to go there."

The scenes of the boys admiring and commenting on various parked vehicles reminded me of similar scenes in Animal Passions where the zoophiles admired (and commented on) horses in a paddock.

My Car Is My Lover deals with a serious, interesting subject honestly and with some helpful humor. It examines the possible origins of this fetish/sexual proclivity, and doesn't treat its subjects as freaks.

It is not to be missed.

A Real Vampire Family

My 10 year old brain was working overtime trying to figure out how Village's "Blacula Protection Kit" worked. I hadn't seen the movie, of course, but as I sat in my 4th grade classroom on that cold Thursday morning in 1972, my mind was fixated on this vampire I'd never heard of -- although his name did have a familiar ring -- and the special kit that protected you from the scariest aspects of his movie.

You have to remember that this was twenty years before the internet (at least) and I hadn't even heard of "Famous Monsters" magazine (yet). I was getting no advance intel on anything. The newspaper WAS my horror film grapevine, my bible, although I wouldn't have told my Catholic mother that. That's why the Thursday edition of "The Sun" (new movies always start on Thursday in Australia) was such a source of excitement and anxiety for me. Usually, I'd rise an hour before my parents and run outside to rip the paper out of the letterbox ("mailbox" to some). I'd race back inside, jump back into bed, switch on the bedside light (waking my snoozing brother), and devour the Thursday listings. Those mornings were fifteen minutes of absolute heaven. Entire worlds of possibilities were presented to me. Images that fired my imagination, fed my sense of wonder, and stirred cravings of a more biological nature, came at me with the fury of vampire bats. It was almost too much for my young, Catholic mind to take.

I admit that I didn't fully understand the reasoning behind the "Blacula Protection Kit". Who was it protecting? The audience? That didn't make sense. If you had paid to see 'Blacula', why would you want to be protected from him? It seemed self-defeating. Perhaps the kit was meant for people who fought vampires in the movie. Now that made sense. It also gave me some idea of what the "kit" probably contained -- a stake, some garlic, a crucifix, perhaps a bible. I didn't want to be "protected" from a black Dracula, but I could have done with some official vampire-fighting items.

It took me some time to notice the last item on the screen above -- an announcement that you could "meet the vampires" at the Albany cinema. No doubt about it, the Albany was where it was at in those days. A year earlier, 'Frogs' had been showing with 'Chrome and Hot Leather'. Now, you could meet live vampires there. Correction: not just live vampires, but a "family" of live vampires for Pete's sake. That meant mum, dad, and their kids? Jesus! There was no way I was going to miss this. Meeting real life vampires was not something a kid did every day. It was one of those once in a lifetime things.

"Can we go and meet some vampires?" I asked my mother the minute I got home from school that afternoon.

"What are you talking about?" was her reply. She said that a lot.

I enthusiastically showed her the 'Blacula' ad mat and stabbed my forefinger on the part about meeting a family of vampires. "They're real vampires," I said with 100% conviction. "They have kids, too."

My mother donned her glasses and leaned in close to the ad mat.

"Where's it on?"

"In the city."

She looked at me slowly, her brain in decision mode.

I looked back, full of hope, and smiled a puppy smile that I hoped would tip the scales in my direction.

"What a load of absolute rubbish!" she said, and returned to making dinner.

I never did get to meet the vampire family, but I did encourage other kids at school to pester their parents into taking them (and me) to see them. Unfortunately, none of those bozos shared my passion for white or black Draculas. One kid, David Hagen, did talk constantly about 'The Blob', a film I hadn't seen. It had screened on "Awful Movies With Deadly Ernest", a late night horror show hosted by a deformed undertaker with a clawed hand named "Claw". A year later I'd throw myself into his arms at a school fete, but that's another story. Hagen talked about 'The Blob' like a converted Christian rhapsodizing about finding Jesus. There was always such reverence in his tone, and his passionate description of the movie got me salivating and checking TV listings. Eventually, the film did return, and I was more than impressed. The creature wasn't as destructive as I had imagined, but it did possess the "gelatinous immensity" that the disappointing "Frogs" (see my "RWC" blog) sorely lacked.

Even today, I think about the contents of the "Blacula Protection Kit" and how, in order to if be effective, it needed to be used "in accordance with directions". What had happened to those poor souls who had not followed the directions to a tee. Were they still amongst the living?

Whenever I was denied a movie, which was often, opening the newspaper a week later was a traumatic experience. Usually (and especially with horror flicks), what I had failed to convince the pares to let me see was gone from screen already, quickly replaced by something far inferior like the seventeeth return season of 'The Sound of Music' .

I finally saw 'Blacula' on TV and enjoyed it immensely. William Marshall made a great black Dracula and there were plenty of scary scenes and beautiful women of various exotic shades.

But what of the vampire family? Where are they now? The kids would be grown up and mum and dad would be quite old, I suspect. But I'm comforted by the knowledge that they'll never die. Unless, of course, they meet someone still holding a "Blacula Protection Kit".