I'll never know anyone else quite like my (dead) friend Willie Zaza. He was an intensely creative, neurotic, funny, sincere, sweet guy, with a real love of music, who was hampered by his lack of confidence and feeling like an outsider. He was so funny and willing to be so off the wall. He loved John Belushi but was very upset when people would note similarities in their appearance (this happened several times). He never had a serious girlfriend and was very uncomfortable flirting. No problem talking to anyone - but deeply afraid of rejection.
In 1990, Willie Zaza and I made a 90 minute tape called "Danger Jenn" as a birthday present for our mutual friend Jenn Howard. This was at least the third story we'd done starring her as a character (after "Talent Is A Vampire" and "Night Bus to Booty-town") but the first that was longer than 20 minutes.
I had a Tascam 4-track recorder, a couple of guitars and a bunch of effects pedals. Willie had sound effects compilations and his extensive collection of obscure LPs. We both had time on our hands and an affinity for Monty Python.
Earlier in our friendship we had written a long story, also about a high school friend, Elio Mariani, which really didn't have much to do with Elio - much more to do with our various obsessions (Beatles records, Doctor Who, the film Cross Of Iron). We wrote that in a binder that we passed back and forth for a month or two. I think it ended up being 100 or 120 pages. An example from this work was the flying phlegm duck ... the Elio character coughs up some phlegm, which shapes itself into a duck and starts flying around his room knocking everything over.
Well! after a work like that - the universe was our oyster.
Influences.
The actual genesis of Danger Jenn was my reading The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. I liked this book quite a bit but one of the climactic plot elements humorous and ridiculous. The moon colony asserts its independence from Earth by threatening to detonate large explosions under the lunar surface, resulting in massive amounts of debris cascading onto the Earth and destroying civilization. Earth capitulates and the Moon wins its freedom. We lifted this entirely.
This year also saw the collapse of Soviet Communism and the end of the Cold War - now seems so distant - but at the time quite exciting to live through. Growing up in Arlington, Virginia, home of The Pentagon!, it was pretty clear we would be goners in a nuclear war.
The secret agent stuff - Willie loved The Avengers and Twin Peaks.
The movie Deliverance we had recently watched.
Many of the high school things are lifted directly, or influenced, from actual conversations. The purple underwear pizza eating party is a good example here. Our friend Sean Roberts - also dead! - did in fact rebuff the advances of a young woman with purple underwear.
The Madrigals - actual high school singing group that the real Jenn was a member of. They would come to the Baskin-Robbins where Willie and I both worked and spontaneously break into song. We would slide them free ice cream (yeah ... we were terrible employees)
My favorite lines:
"Betamax is for dogs!"
"Stay and watch my rockets fly!"
"those fiendish Latinos!"
"this is no movie and I'm no Gerald Ford!"
Actor, then character(s):
Sarah Arnett (friend of mine from GWU) – Jenn Howard
Angela Miller – Jenn’s sister; also, later, the ringleader of the purple underwear pizza eating party
Tiffany Fabian – Katie Holsinger, Murderous Mormon
Willie – Sean Roberts; Fidel Castro; Uncle Vanya; 1st FBI agent; Barney the dog; JFK, and the “Hallelujah” voice in the JFK crowd; many others
Me – Stephen Foerster; Special Agent Ford Dristan
Steven Wallis – 2nd FBI agent (Melvin)
Mike Miller – President (Brian Newman)
Dan Stone – J. Daniel Howard (Jenn’s father); Assistant to the President “preliminary observations indicate their origin is lunar in nature, sir”
Phil Sweeney – leader of US troops on the moon
Tim Arledge - Dave Robson
I think Matt Hulan was away at New Mexico Tech during this.
In 1990, Willie Zaza and I made a 90 minute tape called "Danger Jenn" as a birthday present for our mutual friend Jenn Howard. This was at least the third story we'd done starring her as a character (after "Talent Is A Vampire" and "Night Bus to Booty-town") but the first that was longer than 20 minutes.
I had a Tascam 4-track recorder, a couple of guitars and a bunch of effects pedals. Willie had sound effects compilations and his extensive collection of obscure LPs. We both had time on our hands and an affinity for Monty Python.
Earlier in our friendship we had written a long story, also about a high school friend, Elio Mariani, which really didn't have much to do with Elio - much more to do with our various obsessions (Beatles records, Doctor Who, the film Cross Of Iron). We wrote that in a binder that we passed back and forth for a month or two. I think it ended up being 100 or 120 pages. An example from this work was the flying phlegm duck ... the Elio character coughs up some phlegm, which shapes itself into a duck and starts flying around his room knocking everything over.
Well! after a work like that - the universe was our oyster.
Influences.
The actual genesis of Danger Jenn was my reading The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. I liked this book quite a bit but one of the climactic plot elements humorous and ridiculous. The moon colony asserts its independence from Earth by threatening to detonate large explosions under the lunar surface, resulting in massive amounts of debris cascading onto the Earth and destroying civilization. Earth capitulates and the Moon wins its freedom. We lifted this entirely.
This year also saw the collapse of Soviet Communism and the end of the Cold War - now seems so distant - but at the time quite exciting to live through. Growing up in Arlington, Virginia, home of The Pentagon!, it was pretty clear we would be goners in a nuclear war.
The secret agent stuff - Willie loved The Avengers and Twin Peaks.
The movie Deliverance we had recently watched.
Many of the high school things are lifted directly, or influenced, from actual conversations. The purple underwear pizza eating party is a good example here. Our friend Sean Roberts - also dead! - did in fact rebuff the advances of a young woman with purple underwear.
The Madrigals - actual high school singing group that the real Jenn was a member of. They would come to the Baskin-Robbins where Willie and I both worked and spontaneously break into song. We would slide them free ice cream (yeah ... we were terrible employees)
My favorite lines:
"Betamax is for dogs!"
"Stay and watch my rockets fly!"
"those fiendish Latinos!"
"this is no movie and I'm no Gerald Ford!"
Actor, then character(s):
Sarah Arnett (friend of mine from GWU) – Jenn Howard
Angela Miller – Jenn’s sister; also, later, the ringleader of the purple underwear pizza eating party
Tiffany Fabian – Katie Holsinger, Murderous Mormon
Willie – Sean Roberts; Fidel Castro; Uncle Vanya; 1st FBI agent; Barney the dog; JFK, and the “Hallelujah” voice in the JFK crowd; many others
Me – Stephen Foerster; Special Agent Ford Dristan
Steven Wallis – 2nd FBI agent (Melvin)
Mike Miller – President (Brian Newman)
Dan Stone – J. Daniel Howard (Jenn’s father); Assistant to the President “preliminary observations indicate their origin is lunar in nature, sir”
Phil Sweeney – leader of US troops on the moon
Tim Arledge - Dave Robson
I think Matt Hulan was away at New Mexico Tech during this.
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