Stage Setting :
In the gutter lie dead leaves, scraps of paper,
burnt matches and cigarette butts. It is early
morning.
Now the CAMERA leaves the sign and MOVES EAST, the
grey asphalt of the street filling the screen. As
speed accelerates to around 40 m.p.h., traffic de-
marcations, white arrows, speed-limit warnings, man-
hole covers, etc., flash by. SUPERIMPOSED on all
this are the CREDIT TITLES, in the stenciled style
of the street sign.
Oh wait. that's the intro to Sunset Boulevard. For this is not the tale of Norma Desmond, but the one and only George Alley, and his memoir of Summer Love.
BR : So we've been talking about the video experience. How long did it take? we're you soaking it up? Because I know you were.
George : Because it was all about me?
BR : Yes because you recently said to me that your biggest obsession was dot dot dot.
George : and you answered that I would say myself.
BR : Exactly.
[Laughter from both]
George : I was into it! But sometimes those situations cause pressure. I think that I'm a self involved person but then when I actually receive attention from other people It bothers me. I think "why are people paying attention to what I'm doing right now?!"
BR : So what you are telling me is that you might have trouble dealing with any new found fame.
George : I think I'm mature enough that I can handle a little. Ha. Maybe not when I was 21, I would have done a lot of drugs and ended up like Marilyn (the 80's gender bending pop star) .
BR : So now you are saying you didn't do drugs at 21?
George : Well I'm talking about heroin or something. But luckily I stayed in Ohio for that period.
BR : I would never say "luckily."
George : BUT YEAH it was a two day shoot, filmed by the production company Optique, and directed by Adam Peditto in a huge warehouse in Kensington that is the residence of one of the dancers in the video Carolyn Merritt and the second day where I did the "illumanati hand movement" that you and I previously discussed, was filmed in my apartment in Olde City, Philadelphia.
BR : Optique?
George : Yes, isn't that the french word for glasses store?
BR : Um, Let me look that up. I was thinking more like something to with an illusion or vision or sight.
George : I love how we are these Ohioans talking about the french language.
BR : By the way Optique means Optic, Of or relating to the eye or vision... So how many people worked on this set?
George : Three performers : Carolyn, Julia Crawford and Philip Moore and three people working for Optique.
BR: I loved the lighting in the video. I like to light space like that, it felt very film noir.
George : That's kind of your aesthetic isn't it? Your photographs and your place is like that.
BR : Totally. It's all black, white, grey and some hints of the colors of the chakras. Tell me about the wardrobe in "Summer Trophies"
George: Well there were five "characters" in the video. There's some Gaultier and Westwood and some weird things I've made with the local dry cleaner or accumulated. Each one of the characters is doing a "screen test" in the video. The were all Me as Me but they were nods to actors in certain movies like Leslie Ann Warren in Clue or with the tux character; Christopher Walken in A View to A Kill.
BR : Oh really I though that one was your tribute to "Just One of the Guys" You know, when she pretends to be a boy because she's a high school journalist trying to get a scholarship?
George : So you thought it was some kind of gender thing?
[Laughter from both]
yes I know that actress she was in "Some Kind of Wonderful."
BR : Screen tests can be degrading for an accomplished actress.
George : Yes, so degrading. What inspired Adam and I when making this video was watching Joan Crawford do screen tests in her late 50's for the axe-murderer film "Straight Jacket" in some cases playing characters that were supposedly in their 20's. It's a B-Movie but the acting done by her in the tests and subsequent film is transfixing. Also, because the song for "Summer Trophies" is really about someone getting older realizing another summer is passing by and looking at the mementos from a romantic fling as a nostalgic symbol of past interactions. I don't know as I get older at the end of every summer gets a little more sad.
BR : Summer Love. I know what you mean.
George: Love yes! And as we get older love gets more and more nostalgic. And in the beginning of each season I get flooded for a few days with memories of all the summers, or springs or winters I've lived.
BR : It's like a right of passage. And every year you show what you have learned from the past summer and you start a fresh but you build yourself a little bit stronger. So what is next for you?
George : I have I am working with Sy Boccari who produced Summer Trophies on a few more dance orientated songs I wrote for another double single coming out this fall and hopefully by Spring my album "Schemes" will be out. There will be more videos with Optique. Possibly one for the b-side to "Summer Trophies"
called "Bad Movie" but if not certainly for the new songs. And I'll be performing live a few dates in Philadelphia in November and December, and this mothers day the collaborative arts festival I co-curate COLLAGE will be be back in effect.
FADE OUT. THE END
