from bosco macavoy's website: www.boscosworld.tripod.com/boscomusicvideopage.day3int

THE MAKING OF THE INTELLIGENCE'S 'DATING COPS' AN INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKER MONTY BUCKLES

i met monty buckles at a mexican restaurant he has been known to frequent in los angeles. i arrived early, monty was already sitting in a corner booth, drinking beer and eating chips. "hi, i'm bosco", i said. monty was unresponsive."you must be monty", i stated, as all evidence pointed to this. monty went back to glumly drinking a beer and looking off into the distance. after a minute of uncomfortable silence on my part, it managed to sink in and he apologized. "i'm sorry. for some reason i thought'd you be a girl," he explained, in a matter both warm and disappointed. monty is tall, with big glasses. he wore a vastly oversized black t-shirt with a illustration of a pitbull riding a four wheeled truck, a jean shorts of the cargo variety and construction boots. monty chainsmokes, and gestures wildly, his arms swinging around the table as he talks. in others, this quality would quickly become tiresome, but for some reason, i found it endearing. puddles of spittle collate on the sides of monty's mouth as he speaks. after informing a garishly dressed woman seated next to our booth that he was in the mood for a "sex burger", monty told me "crabs are these horrible, horrible disgusting monsters: giant spiders with pincers, armor, and hair that live on the bottom of the sea eating dead things. but they look cuddly with a pair of googley-eyes, like, what the fuck, you know? fucking eyes..."

(the following has had much - but not all - of the profanity removed)
BMVP: how did you first hear the intelligence?
MB: i've known lars since i was a kid. he grew up in british columbia and my family would spend winters there in our cabin. our families were very close. we would spend christmas together, thanksgiving... lars and i were friends. we were very outdoorsy. we'd go out camping in the snow. eat berries. we'd tie bowie knifes to saplings and hunt for beaver and flush out boars and kill them with hatchets. set bear and elk traps. we'd tan the hides and store them in canoes filled with whale oil for the winter and they would keep all good and shit. all that stuff kids up in canada did back then. i remember we both entered a musket sharpshooting competition, and he won the junior division, and i came in third.
BMVP: do you still shoot muskets? i know many of my readers love the rush that comes with firing a musket in the early morning.
MB: i used to, i set up a target in my basement, but the fucking noise was so loud and i would inhale so much musket smoke and all my neighbors would be screaming outside "it's four in the morning! what's you're fucking problem? blah blah blah" - that whole trip. i finally had to fire over their heads to get them to scatter.
BMVP: wow.
MB: yeah, fucking assholes. anyway bro, so lars was doing really well on the amateur extreme snowboarding circuit and decided to go pro, and i was doing so well in my freestyle rap battles, i decided to put my hat in the ring and try to become a professional, dog. then, we, and by we i mean my homeboy lars & i, just kind of lost touch.
BMVP: when was this?
MB: i don't remember, really. i have a terrible memory.
BMVP: okay.
MB: so anyway, after i got expelled from the hip hop world in a flurry of derisive, mean spirited laughter, i went through some tough times. i moved to florida and was doing pretty well making moonshine. i slept in my vw bus and i had a couple of stills scattered around town. then somehow a family of rats nested in one, fucking up my whole operation. i wasn't gonna meet the qouta i owed one of my clients. i cut corners and tried to improvise with a little turpentine, some rubbing alcohol and pond water, and before you know it, i had a few blind men with shotguns after me, so i decided it was best that i skipped town. i changed coasts. so, i was working as a logger out in oregon. i was making a comfortable sideline making syrup, i had a few acres of birch that and a great distilling space. i was sitting in with the house band at a jazz bar one night after work, and on my break i was bullshitting with the hookers and pimps and operators, throwing darts, and i heard lars' voice coming out of the jukebox. i asked the bartender, this beautiful hepcat named gus, what band it was and he said it was some band called the intelligence that was catching on like wildfire in rural logging communities. i contacted lars through the record label, and it turned out he was living in seattle. this was pre-internet, and by the time i heard back from him i was living at a commune in venice, around the corner from here actually [this is strange, because i met monty in, curiously enough, the los angeles area subarb of el monte - which monty claimed was named after him, "like tarzana being named after william s. burrough's book about cavemen" - and is nowhere near venice, unless you mean in very vague terms, like "america is close to greenland" when compared to the distance between far off galaxies - this all fits in with monty's studies in astrophysics], i was doing well selling fake wheatgrass to tourists and rolling street performers, all while and shooting b-roll on 'cribs' a few times a week. it was weird, because lars had seen me on an episode of 'cheaters' and wanted to get in touch, but when he contacted the producers they told him to hitch a ride in a shit canoe and float himself back to asshole river. lars and i talked for awhile and the idea of doing a video came up.
BMVP: how did it come up?
MB: y'know just one of those things. lars was saying that their performances were really visual, he kept referencing all kinds of things that i thought were interesting, like flashing pedestrians in an artistic way, the theater of cruelty, the exploding plastic inevitable, the monkees... you see, at the time, the intelligence wasn't really a band. it was more of a performance troupe. the music was secondary, just auditory background for the "freak out" nature of the piece. lars would dance with a snake, kind of like sally rand's fan dance, but instead of big feathers, lars cleverly utlized a big boa constrictor snake that he kept sedated (it was always super pissed when it wasn't, constricting the shit out of everything). then lars would start moaning and speaking in tongues and paint his body, and transfer the paint off of his body onto the floor, which was layered with transparent material. lars would then cut the floor up into strips with his teeth and run it through a projector over the audience, and all these weird patterns would project over the people, who would normally be totally wide eyed and terrified. i mean, he was my friend and all and i respect creativity, but to be honest, and please don't print this, it was all horseshit. but i liked the music quite a bit. especially when lars would get down on the turntables. he'd tear that shit up, yo. but lars wanted to concentrate more on the performance, the whole visual aspect, but once the intelligence started taking off and they were asked to play in different countries, where transporting the proper snake would be next-to impossible... i mean, shit, i once tried to carry-on my custom fiberglass crossbow on delta and they had a shitfit. there was another time i stuffed my iguana, who i hate to travel without, in my overcoat, and i shoved the fucking thing into the little pouch in front of the seat. you know that thing where they got the card that tells you that if the plane goes crashing into the ground how to properly jump out on to the slide? that pouch. my iguana was biting the shit out of me and i wanted to sleep, so i stuffed him in that little pocket and some old lady reached in to steal my duty free shopping guide and when she got a handful of biting thrashing reptile she freaked the fuck out and i got in trouble again. and here lars is, waiting at the gate at quantas, explaining to some clerk that he needs to take his big deadly snake for a festival in sydney. they tried to boomerang him right there at sea tac. who the hell needs that kind of hassle? so he had to abandon that part of it and concentrate on the music. and thank christ, because that other stuff was crappy.
BMVP: where did you get your idea?
MB: i actually owned some little crabs. i have a fishtank, i got a big suckerfish, some little frogs, and some other fish were you can see their spines through their bodies. anyway, i was buying a replacement filter at the fish store when i saw these little crabs in one of the tanks. i thought they were hilarious, and the way they would hold up their claw made it look like they were doing gang signs. so i asked the fish employee if it would be okay if i got some crabs in my type of tank, and he said yes. so i brought the crabs home and they were very entertaining. i dumped one in the tank, and you could see his little legs running as he floated to the bottom, then he ran over and uprooted this big plant, looked at me, and started shaking it. it was like seeing a toddler shake a telephone pole at you. then the crab ran over and started pinching a frog. when i dumped in the other crab, they made a beeline for each and immediately started fighting. i would watch them for extender periods of time and it was always entertaining. a crab would be walking around, harassing the other fish, then he'd see a crab and they'd run at each other and fight. if they could speak english, which i know is unlikely but bear with me, i know they would just be screaming: FUCK YOU! at the top of their lungs all the time. their dialog would be "FUCK YOU!" "FUCK ME? FUCK YOU!" "FUCK YOU!!!" [this portion of the tape includes very accurate sounding crab fighting noises monty made with his mouth, as well as the feint sound of children crying in the background]. eventually the crabs kept escaping, no matter what kind of barrier i'd put up, they'd manage to climb out. i felt horrible, i mean, i was responsible for these creature's welfare and they keep getting out. i'd catch 'em walking around on my floor. i did some research on the internet and it turned out the cocksucker at the fish store had lied to me, and i wasn't supposed to have crabs in my kind of tank.
BMVP: so, did you always want to use crabs?
MB: yes. i mean, lars really wanted to do this performance video, with the whole band, but it would have included so much nudity that his idea wasn't really feasible, you know? when i told lars what i wanted to do he just got really quiet and sad, but whatever. his feelings aren't my responsibility. i'm no psychiatrist. me a headshrinker? that's absurd. shit.
BMVP: but don't you think that his input [monty waves his hand in front of my face]. okay. so, did you used trained crabs?
MB: well there were some people i found through the la411 that said they were professional crab wranglers. one guy came to my apartment. little old man, with a suit, bowtie, combed hair, the whole bit. he comes into my place and i tell him "let's see what you got, old-timer", and he brings a tiny little hermit crab out of his pocket. i told him that wasn't what i described in my fax. then he started crying, telling me he bought the crab at the store after taking a bus ride to my place, he just wanted attention and someone to talk to. i had to hug this old guy while he weeped in my arms. then i gave him a ride back to monterey park and a few bucks, it was just so sad. this other guy, he tells me to meet him at pink's [a hot dog stand in los angeles]. says he has a trained alaskan king crab. i'm dubious, but whatever. i put on my rollerblades and skate down there from my place in sherman oaks and meet this guy. he's outside standing on labrea, wearing a yellow rain slicker and rain hat, big beard, giant rubber boots. you could just smell the alcohol seeping out his pores. anyway this crazy sonofabitch had a whole king crab in a cooler! i could see the bigass legs protruding out, probing around. i see this wacko, i skate up to him, introduce myself and he goes "i'll sell you this crab for fifteen bucks - it's worth way more then that, and it can play fetch", i wanted to buy it, but the whole thing was just too weird, so after two delicious chili dogs, i went home empty handed.
BMVP: did you want to try stop motion animation?
MB: no fucking way. i like animation, i have nothing but the utmost respect for it, but i can barely watch it. i just cringe at the amount of effort involved and can't begin to enjoy it.
BMVP: so how did you settle on puppetry?
MB: well, my friend used to work at the long beach aquarium before he got fired for sexual harassment and 'inappropriate conduct'. it was a trumped-up charge, like a seal gives a shit, fucking political correctness. but yeah, he gave me like, a big industrial bin, you know those giant rubber bins they sell at target? like one of those, except bigger and tougher. i am not up on my industrial aquarium terminology, it's one of my failings as a person. but he had one of those. the thing must have had like a hundred live crabs in it. it was heavy as shit. so i brought that home, and spent a week just playing with the crabs. getting to know them. shot tests with different lighting setups. HD technology? my ass. i called up grass valley and give them a piece of mind. "michael mann shot 'miami vice' on our camera. and david fincher shot 'zodiac' on our camera, so who are you to call up with that language and those threats?" the nerve. i tell them "hey fuckface, i'm a customer, asshole. you ever tested your fucking camera with a fucking crab? it looks like fucking shit, dickhead! put me on with your supervisor so i can berate them for hiring you! i'm out of line? what's with the rudeness? give me your mother's phone number so i can kick her in the crotch!" i mean, here i am, buying this viper and it doesn't work for shit. i left it in the fucking trash. i mean, you can go to film school and all that crap, but they tweedy fussbuckets at nyu don't tell you the important shit, you know? like ray carney, i used to take his class. bunch of bullshit if you ask me. "cassavettes this, cassavettes that, blah fucking blah", i yelled at him "hey jerk, i got a newsflash for you, nobody gives a shit, you ever see 'the boondock saints'? that shit where they shot those dudes while they were all tied up and shit? that's fucking filmmaking. way better then some dude talking a bunch! you're a published writer? big deal! i don't read books, asshole!" i would tell my commie professors, with their dumb sweaters, "shut the fuck up about kuleshev, nobody gives a shit. ‘intellectual cut’? what the hell is that? some kind of dissolve? i'll give you an 'intellectual cut' to your fucking balls! i mean, battleship whatevertheshit, i don't care. just spit it out, hippie: does a crab look better with a kino or a fucking 10K off of a showcard?" i called up my friend g-sep [guiseppe rotunno] and screamed at him, "look dude, i got these goddamn crabs here - how should i light them to make that shit look hot?" and he kind of helped me out. i mean, he's old and shit so sometimes his stories would get kind of boring, but whatever. so i would take these crabs and shoot tests with different light setups, affixing instruments to their extremities, and seeing which ones were most responsive to training. i tried to get them to accurately look like a band and play properly, but i just kind of gave up and started eating them. i mean, i got some really good footage, but the types of crabs i had just weren't working. they were some kind of japanese crab or something, and they lacked discipline. i am a hardworker. nose to the grindstone. i make werner herzog look like a fucking bum. but all those crabs, all that waiting... it was far too impractical. for a real shoot would have been impossible, cost even more then the budget we had already, which was very lavish.
BMVP: so what did you end up doing?
MB: i decided on dungenous crab, because they are big, delicious, and responsive to negative reinforcement. i was shooting in alaska, freezing my fucking nuts off, recording sound, on this documentary on these indigenous people up there, they live in the cold and whatnot and the governments always on their backs, and on my day off i went down to harbor and bought as many live dungenous crabs as i could afford. i had to cash out my life savings. i put them in all in a giant cooler, punched some airholes in the lid, filled it with tapwater, sea salt, and a pack of frozen hotdogs and fedexed the entire package back to LA. they arrived a few days later. only two crabs survived.
BMVP: where did you shoot it?
MB: at universal studios, stage 28. had three weeks of building the set. the first one looked like, in my opinion, refried shit, so i threw my malt liquor bottle at the dirty fucker that had the balls to call himself an "art director", and told him to walk around the set with no pants on while all the crew whipped him with their belts. i always screen "salo" before my shoots for the crew to let them know what i'm all about anyway, so they were on my wavelength. so then crew took the whole set apart and i hired some other guy to build a new one. that one sucked too, so we just put up a shitload of blacks and shot it outdoors at tejon ranch. we skipped out on paying universal, too. [loud, raucous laughter]
BMVP: so, how did you get the crabs to move?
MB: well, they were still alive, so i hammered them to the table, and then put glue on all their joints, except for the ones we needed to move. and then would kind of flail their little legs around, and we had to put monofiliment line to guide the limbs so they would move correctly. then i tore the eyes out of a live panda and glued them to the carapaces.
BMVP: that seems rather cruel.
MB: how so?
BMVP: well, i mean you nailed a living thing to a floor, then paralyzed some of it's limbs, tearing out eyes...
MB: can i ask you something?
BMVP: sure.
MB: have you ever worked on a music video?
BMVP: no.
MB: then shut the fuck up.
BMVP: sorry.
MB: you'd better be. anyway, we're doing a massive flame session right now. i was able to drive out here because our render time takes fucking weeks. but shit should be done any day now. so yeah, we shot two 24 hour days. 70mm ananamorphic, six fisher lights. just backbreaking. our telecine session took two 18 hour days, man. dude,i mean, it had to look like sick, bro, as in "awesome" not as in "i feel bad". so i would jab the colorist guy with my foot and tell him "make it look more fucking awesome" and that shit takes time.

at this point the interview ended. i for one, would really like to see the video when it is finished editing. (editing = the process of combining the different shots into a cohesive whole).



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