NinetyForChill: The #Podcast - "Roadside Prophets", @tim_loss & Avery the Cat

NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast

Episode 61: NinetyForChill: The #Podcast - "Roadside Prophets", @tim_loss & Avery the Cat (Amateur Bikers Paying Tribute to Best Friends).

Roadside Prophets, @tim_loss, and Avery the Cat

March 28, 2022

"Sportz Ballz" host Tim Loss (pardon calling him Timothy in the hasty intro) comes on to the podcast to discuss a film that had a seminal influence on his life, "Roadside Prophets". He and Cool Movies Darth nearly spend two hours discussing what would be Generation X's "Easy Rider". It is a mellow suggestion that the counter culture and cheeky nihilism could save the USA from itself. We would have at least been in a better place to handle 9-11.

This film is pretty reasonably priced on iTunes ($6.99 as of March 29, 2022), but I (CM Darth) am glad that Tim did not find it to be too much of a hassle to purchase or rent digitally to have this conversation. Unless he already owned a copy. Our chat would suggest that my jealousy would be warranted if that is the case.

I have quite a Netflix DVD queue, so I may have forgotten half of the features that I remember adding to my list. When I opened the package, finding the runtime to be 1 hour 36 minutes was nice. This could have been one of the rare written reviews for a feature on NinetyForChill.com. After reading the plot summary to see John Doe from 80s punk legends "X" and Adam "Adrock" Horovitz from the Beastie Boys as the leads, this road trip movie was suggested to my social media (@catbusruss) and #FilmTwitter as a film that needed to be podcasted about.

So, Gregory Carl's friend and co-sports broadcaster, Tim Loss, let me know that he remembered the feature and was game for the Zoom meeting. He recalled seeing this film on Sundance (before it was purchased my AMC) in the late aughts. As we chatted along, we discovered the lasting influence the film had on him whether he recognized it then or not.

But first, we had to tell our stories about how we came upon John Doe. Sadly, neither of us found him through "X". As a punk rock fan, this is embarrassing for me. Probably more so than me not realizing that Riot Grrrl icon Kathleen Hannah was married to Horovitz before I saw The Julie Ruin in 2017.

When it came to discovering Doe, for Tim, it was the George Strait vehicle "Pure Country". As for me, it was the 1989, Patrick Swayze (and Terry Funk) classic, "Road House".

This road trip movie is about Doe's Joe Mosely. He works a regular 9-to-5 job at a...foundry and pretty much accepts where his life seems to going. As long as he comes up with $600 a month in alimony and focus on maintaining his 1957 Harley-Davidson, it seems there is not much more to ask for.

All of this changes when he meets Dave, a new hire who just thinks the world is too rough. He immediately takes Dave under his wing to get him adjusted to the job and what to do in Los Angeles with little money. Unfortunately, Dave gets electrocuted playing an arcade game at a strip club only hours later. The deceased said he did not have any family, so Joe takes it upon himself to give him a funeral and pay for his cremation. Out of respect, our protagonist places his ashes in Dave's motorcycle's gas tank.

As he is sloppily transferring the ashes, Angie from HR calls to inform Joe that she can make it look like Dave died on the job to make up for his expenses. The condition is that Joe has dinner with her that weekend. This price is virtually lost on him because she also questioned why Joe spent all that money when Dave has family, well off family at that.

Joe goes to deliver the ashes to the family. As he is about to leave, he witnesses the housekeeper throwing the gas tank in the trash. This will not do, so Joe takes the tank and is determined to find El Dorado, Nevada. It was a town that Dave was fixated on visiting again, so it is only appropriate that Joe makes sure he returns.

And this leads to a Murphy's Law trip. He first gets an unlikely riding body in the young Sam, a loner who is obsessed with the Motel 9 hospitality chain. Around every turn, the two seem to meet weirder and weirder characters. Hence, you get cameos from the likes of a Hunter S. Thompson inspired John Cusack, a doo wop singing Flea, a wise farmer in Timothy Leary, and an even more Zen than usual David Carradine. 

Sam thinks everyone is insane while Joe thinks these folk have it figured out. He eventually wants to figure that out to. The question is, is he aware of the price?

I hope that gives you an idea of what this feature is about. It is definitely about the journey. With so much that the characters end up losing in this comedy, you kind of appreciate the nihilism that eventually motivates our leads. The closest thing that Tim could compare it to was a movie called "Panorama" which he did not provide enough details for me to find anything about. My take on this is that it is a cheery and hopeful version of "The Doom Generation" with Rose McGowan, directed by a favorite of mine, Gregg Araki.

In a tragic turn, this episode ended up being rather timely and fitting. One of my few friends in Champaign/Urbana that I have made outside of work, Brandy Stonum, lost the oldest of her two cats, Avery, on Sunday. As someone whom Eva has given health scares to, I cannot imagine what she is going through. He was her most reliable friend for the past 12 years and I know he was a pretty solid dude. Hopefully, this podcast does a little to serve as a means to kick start his Harley across the Rainbow Bridge. Please send your thoughts to Brandy and his little sister Zooey. Thanks.

Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.