Trash Video store West End

TALES FROM THE TRENCHES: THE MAKING OF A MUSLIM SUPERHERO by Andrew Leavold

To say that Trash Video was a freak magnet could be the greatest understatement of the 21st Century.

For fifteen years myself and Trash’s loyal counter monkeys witnessed the passing parade of misfits, ratbags, unmitigated foulups, fetishists, carpetbaggers, bon vivants and those who can only be filed under “misc”.

One such customer my partner-in-crime Lance Sinclair and I dubbed “Sad Kuwaiti Porno Guy”. He was a refugee from the first Gulf War, balding and bearded, round like a badger, and I could only imagine a similar covering of fur over his shoulders and back. Softly spoken and with limited English, he nevertheless had a prodigious appetite for Sixties and Seventies pornography. Not the good stuff, mind you, but the cut-down to R rated stuff we had on our shelves for more kitsch value than erotic function. Regardless, Sad Kuwaiti Porn Guy would rent a seven-for-eleven-buck pile each week, one tape for each lonely evening, then bring them back and announce with mournful eyes that “he couldn’t see anything”. It was a ritual of ours for months, him pleading for the genuine article, and me shrugging apologetically like an Israeli rug salesman.

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Andrew in Las Vegas

TALES FROM THE TRENCHES: LAS VEGAS PART ONE, GOD’S PEED by Andrew Leavold

May 2008: I still remember in cinematographic detail this vivid movie dream after the first two days in Los Angeles with no sleep.

It was a warped alternate version of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, in which Hunter S. Thompson had joined the writing team of Saturday Night Live during its inaugural 1975 season. Johnny Depp as Hunter is driving his Shark through the Nevada desert over jarring techno and credits obscured by tacked-on labels which read “The Actor”, “The Film”, “The Animation”.

Cut to the writers’ Kombi van, in which a bloated Dan Akyroyd from 2008 is playing Dan Akyroyd circa 1975. Dan is yelling at the driver, in a Foghorn Leghorn voice, about his concerns over employing Hunter: “Sir, ah said sir, I do believe we have made a SERIOUS mistake!” On the Kombi’s back seat, John Belushi freebases through a small tuba.

I realize at this point: I AM JOHN BELUSHI, and the cocaine smoke tastes like metal.
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The First Church of Fernando Poe

TALES FROM THE TRENCHES: THE FIRST CHURCH OF FERNANDO POE JR by Andrew Leavold

…in which your humble narrator, and Dani Palisa, his tattooed Sancho Panza, are on a Search For Weng Weng shoot in Manila, only to discover Christ in his Second Coming is to take the shape of their former King of Action Movies

Andrew: It’s January 2008, on the fourth trip to Manila for the yet-to-be-finished Search For Weng Weng documentary, and I take the text message summons from former SOS Daredevil, Sixties and Seventies action movie goon and Weng Weng’s co-star Steve Alcarado. I’d stumbled upon Steve quite by accident on my first shoot in November 2006 while he was drinking coffee with his fellow out-of-work goons at Quezon City’s Tropical Hut. I got to know Steve quite well; he’s a wily goon who’s constantly pitching me projects. One of my proudest souvenirs from The Trenches is a hand-painted poster for “Tomorrow Is Another Day” along with a two-page synopsis which features, among other action essentials, ninjas, samurais, exploding speedboats, and the Pinoy James Bond himself, Tony Ferrer, in the starring role of the debut from “Leavold Productions”. Ferrer is now well into his Seventies and has managed to elude my barrage of requests to interview him. And I’ve been persistent. After all, he did play Weng Weng’s boss in For Your Height Only, and his Agent Falcon’s trademark white suit had inspired Double O’s similar if somewhat shrunken attire.

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