Cinema Canada (Apr-May 1978)

Peter Brawley, twice busted. March 1974; Brawley had just returned from a threemonth stay in Miami to begin work on The Rubber Gun.... a project that was ostensibly Bozo’s and Stephen’s while Frank Vitale pursued commercial filmmaking. Frank, though, ended up shooting most of The Rubber Gun, along with Jim Lawrence, a master still photographer as well, who introduced Lack to cibachrome, which was much in evidence at his last one-man show (at Vehicule). The first audio takes were supposed to take place on a Sunday afternoon at Lack’s loft, but a storm made things almost impossible. Brawley was horrified; “I knew it, I knew it, as soon as I get back it snows, I never should have come back, I could have stayed you know, I knew it, I knew it...” I was allowed to sit in on the first audio takes for the film; Bozo just suggested what the scene might be about and the rest was improvised. Most of the dialogue took place between Brawley and Holmes, and centered around turkey sandwiches, toasted turkey sandwiches, old turkey sandwiches, and cold turkey sandwiches. Together, both on and off camera, Brawley and Holmes are absolutely brilliant, and it was great fun watching them perform like this. Then they would play back the tapes, note down the best lines, and improvise over and over again. This probably accounts for a lot of the film’s spontaneity, and that documentary feeling. In the summer of 1975 Stephen Lack employed the services of a very nice and very patient man named Rick Fisher, to construct a leather mask for him. There were endless fittings as it had to be “just perfect” because, after all, Lack’s concept was “‘just brilliant”, as I was reminded over and over again. The following Halloween, it was finally ready, and Lack decided to wear it with a simple navy trenchcoat and go out photo: P. M. Massé-Connolly trick or treating. I know of at least one glass of wine that was thrown into his face — the mask seemed to have triggered some hostitility, and was strangely unnerving. I went out as the bride of Dracula and Pam Holmes went out as Big Bird from Sesame Street but she had lost all of her feathers by the end of the evening. Since then, Lack’s mask has appeared in Italian Vogue, The New York Times, and is put to its best advantage when worn with Lack’s white tuxedo. Rick Fisher, the man who built the mask, has since been putting his talents to full-time use as a commercial artist, with a concentration on record jackets, notably for Toulouse, Boule Noire, and most recently a new group, Minuit. Spring 1975; I was walking down St. Catherine Street when I did a double take and realized I had just walked past Brawley and Lack. As far as I knew he was in India, and now he was here, on the street, 30 pounds lighter, pale and ashen. We slipped into a restaurant, and I kept saying what’s wrong, what’s wrong? Stephen: Oh he’s just a little shaky, jet lag, and he’s got a terrible cold. He had pneumonia, and had just been busted at the airport. In a classic confession, he had gone through customs, and when asked what was in the suitcase, he replied; “Books, religious books, you know, presents for my friends.” The customs man opened the books and out slid 30 pounds of hash. Brawley turned white and said; “Great fucking packing job!” I had just put myself on the waiting list to be admitted into the Allan Memorial Institute, for, as a spokesman for Mrs. Gerald Ford, the former first lady, put it, “I was not April-May 1978/25