Jason of Star Command

A memory of this show wormed its way into my brain as I sat writing of something else, or rather trying to write of something else; an unclear mind wandering as light streaks of rain on the window superimposed themselves on the stunning variety of greens the park behind me provides.

I saw Jason of Star Command at a friend’s house during my junior school years. He loved it, which was just as well as he was a huge fan of Doctor Snuggles as well, which even the 8 year old me knew was dippy nonsense.

Jason on the other hand was sci fi, and the opening titles excited me, as it reminded me of the even longer ago Space 1999 – i.e people in cool costumes flying awesome spaceships. How young eyes deceive us eh?

Jason and his rather constipated looking crew

Of the show itself I can remember next to nothing, I didn’t even remember that James “never had beam me up Scotty said to him” Doohan was in it. I just thought it was a random fat space guy with a beard. Jason was a bit chubby too for a space hero, and any peril he was ever in was solved by him getting out a little pocket robot called “Wiki” and using it to laser open cell doors etc.

"Is that my agent? Get me on Buck Rogers NOW!!!"

And presumably look up which Popes were Spanish, or the diameter of Pluto, in his spare moments.

I remember that eventually Jason’s boss became a boring man with a blue face.

Serve you right for stealing Mr Wonka's bubble gum

What perhaps remained in my memory most was the one eyed enemy Dragos, and his asteroid spaceship that looked like it had giant satellite dish arms reaching out towards you. Scary stuff!

Dragos, disguised as Voltan from "Hawk the Slayer"

Copyright Simon Hodgson / Bloody Mulberry 28/12/14

Irvine Welsh, Jimmy Savile, and the Violation of the Dead

It struck me years ago, as I read the collection of short stories within the lurid cover of “Ecstasy” that a certain character in one of the stories bore more than a passing resemblance to a real person. A very famous television personality in fact.

The short story concerned - “Lorraine Goes to Livingstone” features many things – novelists, bi curious nurses, but what sears the memory like a psychic brand over the 20 odd years since I last read the book, is the character of Freddy Royle.

Freddy is an Adge Cutlerish Somerset TV personality, presenter of a show that makes dreams come true for children amongst others and trustee and charitable sponsor of a major London hospital, has a dark side indeed. It is described by Welsh how the wriggling of a young girl on his lap had caused Royle a rather sticky afternoon, but this is nothing indeed compared to what he gets up to in the hospital mortuary, where he pays off staff to turn a blind eye to his favourite activity; having sex with the dead...

Sound a little familiar?

Amidst the depravity, a new coroner arrives at the hospital, and begins to investigate why some of the corpses are stained with semen and bruised around the anus. Well, this will never do! Freddy and the hospital's top administrator conspire to kidnap the coroner, shoot him full of muscle relaxant, and film him being penetrated by a prostitute with a strap on, this blackmail ensuring all their secrets will never come to light.

Hmmmmmmmm.

It all must be pure coincidence, of course! Welsh himself has neither confirmed nor denied that Savile was the inspiration for the Freddy Royle character, but to me, this is that word that you use when people do that...um...dissimulattion!

To me, there must have been stories freely circulating abbout Savile's proclivities in certain circles. But his celebrity and financial power prevented them from coming into the light. But who else was bought off? I doubt it stopped at hospital workers...

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 27.06.14

Amy Winehouse plus Nick Cave equals…?

...Kai, the cottage loaf headed dead assassin of the 90s sci fi weirdathon “Lexx”.

Played by Canadian actor Michael McManus, this pale skinned proto -blood needing member of something called “The Brunnen G” was merely one of a cast of oddities populating the living ship Lexx, the others being a platinum haired sex-slave lizard hybrid called Zev Bellringer, the accidental captain Stanley Tweedle, who always wanted to get it on with Zev but was more likely to end up being hung upside down by bondage loving cannibals; and a weird disembodied robot head 790, also much in love with Zev and occasionally inclined to babble poetry to that effect.

Michael McManus as Kai

It used to be on “Sy-Fy” a lot. I used to see it occasionally. I understood it never.

I can’t remember any plot at any point. I can’t remember any guest stars apart from the compulsory appearance in crap of the latter-day Malcolm McDowell. I can’t remember why the original Zev - Eva Habermann - turned into the ferociously be-lipped Xenia Seeberg.  Above all I can’t remember why a series set in a largely CGI universe suddenly found itself in what looked like a Toronto car park.

Eva Habermann as Zev. "If you do this, I will do it with you Stanley." She never did.

 I am not bothered that I can’t remember. I just liked the undemanding madness and imagination of it, which was the best way of coping with the fact it was impossible to follow even if you were a Cray 2 supercomputer on brain pills. You just loved Eva Habermann and Xenia Seeberg even though you had no idea what they were doing. You loved Kai singing the crazed Brunnen G anthem as he crashed his spaceship into whatever he was sacrificing himself to defeat.
And poor Stanely, his creepy sexual failures always brought out a chuckle, as Lexx the big space dragonfly flew ever on. 

Xenia Seeberg as Xev. There's a reason for the "X"

  Copyright Bloody Mulberry 23.06.14

Lord Moth Sends out his Moon-a-Mucks

Lord Moth has settled in, and after an evening of rain so heavy the droplets cratered the roads and pavements and a mist formed at ground level you couldn't see through, the moon is out and he is sitting with a up of tea in his garden.

He has an art deco table next to the hidden entrance to his black crystal cave, and the Hawk Moths circle protectively above, watching out for intruders.

The sky is as black as his cave home, and so it is time to send out his moon-a-mucks, who are sad that they can't find any moonflowers to sing at to make the crystals grow. They are not sad for long however, for Lord Moth in his decadent wisdom has tasks for them to enjoy.

On the moon, the moon-a-mucks sing to crystals to make them grow. On earth, they make dreams grow and flourish by the same means, dreams that are broadcast through quantum space back to the observant mind of Lord Moth for him to enjoy. It doesn't matter who it is, the most unimaginative old catankerous whisky bibber, or a flighty 19 year old who has had nothing but joy rain down on her life. The moon-a-mucks sit outside their windows on their hind legs, and sing softly, reverberating window pane, sheets of glass, all in perfect sub atomic harmony.

The song penetrates the nerve systems of the sleepers, and no matter who they are, they find themsevles dreaming. They might be happy dreams, sad dreams, violent ones or even violet ones. Dreams of achievement, dreams of disappointment...and best of all the dreams that dreamers are sad to wake up from.

And when they start, Lord Moth puts down his book and his tea cup, relaxes back, and takes it all in. He watches every dream his twelve moon-a-mucks make every night, and he misses nothing.

He misses nothing, sees everything, and decides what to do about the dreams later, when the first rays of the sun begin to lick along the horizon, a solar cat with cream

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 03.06.15

George Pal's 1953 War of the Worlds

Found this classic movie on DVD at a market stall a couple of days ago, and couldn't resist adding it to my 50s sci fi collection.

Which I'd love to say is "Burgeoning" but really isn't.

I remember as a child I saw it for the first time as part of a wonderful regular weekly slot of sci fi films on BBC2, a halcyon time when I saw "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "It Came from Outer Space", "The Forbidden Planet" and many other classics for the first time. I loved watching every single one of those films, they thrilled me so much.

But somehow the War of the Worlds was a disappointment. It may have had an incorrect American setting, but that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was Jeff Wayne. Having been introduced to that classic album by my stepfather to be in about 1979, when I thought of Martians, I didn't think of Pal's cutesy ET creations with multicoloured eyes flying around in underripe bananas with a streetlamp stuck on.

I thought of terrifying, tentacled blood drainers destroying the best of Victorian England in their Mike Trim designed death machines, the fighting machines of legend. And the creations of Pal's movie just didn't measure up in the childish imagination.

But watching it again, it stands up well to the test of time, and certainly delivers a well placed Heat Ray blast to Spielberg's 2005 very silly effort with its hideous children, and Tim Robbins. Gene Barry with his glasses on makes a rather less obvious action hero than other movies of the time, and although the constant screaming of Ann Robinson is a bit of a cliche, and the religion and churches aspect a bit of a drag, the special effects aren't. The fighting machines, apparently based on manta rays, are a mile away from the usual flying saucers every movie of the time was chucking at the drive-in audiences, and the heat ray and "skeleton beam" weapons effects are far ahead of anything else that was in cinemas in the 50s.

The martians, although strangely cute, are more otherwordly than in other sci fi efforts of the period with exception of the single eyed horrors of "It Came from Outer Space", and I also like it because of the proto-geekery weight given to science, as opposed to military might.

If only the Priest had been played by Phil Lynott...

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 07.06.14