Wedding Day at The Old Town Music Hall

I've long considered May 29th to be a significant day since it appears to be a nexus point of various parapolitical and High Strangeness events. May 29th marks Mae Brussell's birthday, JFK's birthday, John Hinckley Jr.'s birthday, Bob Hope's birthday, and G.K. Chesterton's birthday. It's the day Manuel Noriega died, the day Barry Goldwater died, and the day Dennis Hopper died. It's the day David Lynch began filming ERASERHEAD, the day Sir Edmund Hillary climbed to the top of Mount Everest, the day in 1950 that Captain Willis Sperry spotted a mysterious UFO hovering over Mount Vernon, and the day Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity was first tested. Now we can add the wedding day of Gary D. Rhodes and Kristin Dewey to the list!

On May 29th, my wife Melissa and I were honored to attend the wedding of my BELA LUGOSI AND THE MONOGRAM NINE co-author, Gary D. Rhodes, at El Segundo's The Old Town Music Hall (Home of the Mighty Wurlitzer!) where the late Korla Pandit delivered so many legendary performances back in the 1970s. Tom McLoughlin (director of FRIDAY THE 13th PART VI and several other horror films) officiated the event. Other attendees included author/filmmaker Don Glut, Bela Lugosi's granddaughter, Lynne Lugosi Sparks, and her husband, Bob Sparks (the best man). Immediately after the ceremony, Gary's favorite living jazz singer, Janet Klein, performed two songs. Candace Hilligoss, star of one of my favorite films, CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962), recited a poem Gary wrote specifically for the occasion. It felt somewhat surreal having the opportunity to chat with Candace about the making of CARNIVAL OF SOULS, since I've been low-key obsessed with that particular film ever since I stumbled across it by accident late one Halloween night on KCET at some point in the early 1990s. Fractured memories of watching that strange, phantasmagoric film unfold on a tiny black and white television set still haunt my brain.  

During a conversation with the volunteers who operate the theater, Melissa discovered that The Old Town Music Hall is home to a panoply of benign ghosts, which seems fitting. After all, the only location more appropriate for a horror film scholar's wedding day than a silent movie theater in L.A. would be a haunted silent movie theater in L.A.

By the way, this is an important month for Gary in more ways that one. May 20th marked the publication date of Gary's latest book, WEIRDUMENTARY: ANCIENT ALIENS, FALLACIOUS PROPHECIES, AND MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS FROM 1970s DOCUMENTARIES. WEIRDUMENTARY is a lavishly illustrated, oversized, 334-page survey of the most obscure feature-length "documentary" films ever made. Though the bulk of the tome deals with the 1970s, this historical overview reaches as far back as 1923, to the earliest roots of this very odd cinematic sub-genre. 

Wisely, Gary invited artist/film historian Stephen R. Bissette to provide the foreword. Bissette's insightful opening salvo sets the proper tone for everything that follows. His fond reminiscences of seeing some of these "weirdumentaries" in the theater when they were first released makes me wish someone would invent time travel technology so I could catch THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK at the local drive-in during the summer of 1972 without knowing what was about to unfold on the screen.

Feral House Press timed the release of WEIRDUMENTARY quite well, as I can't imagine a more perfect summer book. Not only is it a fun, breezy, nostalgic tour through an extinct form of cinema, but it's also a thought-provoking analysis of how Hollywood's hybridization of fact and fiction evolved through the twentieth century, paving the way for our current state of affairs in which reality and simulation are so often strategically conflated. If you want to join in on the celebration of Gary's nuptials, please consider purchasing a copy of his new book TODAY!

Here are some photos of my wife Melissa, Gary D. Rhodes, Candace Hilligoss, Tom McLoughlin, and Yours Truly. Alas, we neglected to take pictures of the bride, but I'm sure Gary will be posting some official wedding photos on his Facebook page very soon...