Tantalizer: The Epic That Never Was.

 

                                    Scream Queen Linnea Quigley         

 Director David De Coteau

   

  During those long ago days of the VHS revolution, filmmakers(and I use that word loosely) made horror and sci-fi films for pennies, which ended up populating the shelves of the local video stores. Filmmakers like Fred Olen Ray, Jim Wynorski Ken Dixon and Dave De Coteau churned out a stream of penny ante movies while the audiences who rented them were reasonably entertained in spite of their  woefully threadbare charms. They were the cinematic equivalent of fast food.    

With titles like Creepozoids, Biohazard and Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity, audiences were treated to comic book dialog, nudity, bad acting, dime store special-effects and a "hurry up and let gets this in the can" style of filmmaking. Still, and almost unbelievably, these home groan efforts(and I meant to say home groan) grossed a lot of money for their distributors.

Cut to1989. Bill George for many years harbored dreams of having one of his script ideas being made into a film. This was George's idea of immortality. For reasons that escape me, Dave De Coteau became really interested in an idea Bill pitched to him called Tantalizer. The story was about a sun tan lotion that developed a life of it's own and took control of the user. As for the how's and the why's-well- you'd have to ask Bill George about that and he's dead. Of course, George was hot on the idea that  popular Scream Queen Linnea Quigley be the female star. I can just see the advertising:

                               Tantalizer! A horror film from that triumvirate of terror:

                                            Director David De Coteau!

                                            Scream Queen Linnea Quigley!

                                            Writer Bill George!

During the planning stages, De Coteau announced in a fanzine that Bill Georges script was the most intelligent he ever read. Of course, since most of his films contained all the intelligence of a low level comic book, Georges script must have seemed like pure gold in comparison. 

It was at a Fanex (a film convention held in Baltimore) that Quigley and De Coteau appeared. I had interviewed Linnea a few years before for a book that was never published called Drive-In Madness. At one point, De Coteau, Quigley Bill and myself  were chatting when they decided to go to dinner. Bill says to me," We're going to dinner now. Meet up with us later." I was kind of pissed. So while they're hanging out together I'm eating dinner by myself? I went home. 

I later asked Bill why I wasn't included. He said that Dave had paid for everybody's meal and thought it was unfair for him to pay for mine. I told him I would have paid for my own dinner and wouldn't have expected De Coteau to foot the bill for me. Being the totally mealy mouthed prick he was, Bill replied that  De Coteau would have felt obligated to pay for my dinner anyway.

But knowing Bill the way I did the real reason why: he wanted Linnea and Dave all to himself. Bill didn't want to share the limelight and wanted to bask in the attention of a B film director and a popular Scream Queen. His version of the Hollywood Aristocracy.

For the next year or so (according to Bill) he and De Coteau had a series of phone conversations concerning the making of Tantalizer. As for the eventual outcome, if you've already guessed that Mr. George's Opus was never ever committed to film, give yourself a gold star. You've earned it. 

PUBLIC STORAGE: A GREAT PLACE TO STORE YOUR STUFF, BUT A SUCKY PLACE TO WORK.

   

Photo courtesy of Akimomia.

              

  In 1988 I was hunting for a job. My previous gig as a coffee salesman had come to an end                   and once again I was on the hunt for gainful employment. I saw an ad in the help wanted                      section for relief manager at Public Storage and thought this job would be right up my alley. For the uninitiated, a relief manager works on the live in managers days off. Since I had managed a movie theater and a vitamin store I could do this!

   At the interview, a shit head named Gary Ott, told me Public Storage was a happening company and  I began imagining growing with this company. My goal was to eventually me a district manager. Little did I know was my position as relief manager was where I would be stuck at until I got sick and tired of the job and quit. It seemed to be some sort of requirement that their district managers had previous  experience in the fast food industry. You mean because I never flipped a f***ing burger I wasn't smart enough to be promoted to district manager! Bullshit! 

  I was paid little more than minimum wage. The only benefits they provided was a dental plan that had so many exclusions it wasn't worth using. I had five sick days that if not used were not rolled over in the next year; the days simply vanished. Well, at least I got five days vacation. Whoopie! It was a Mc Job: low salary. No benefits. No chance for advancement. But dick head Ott was always telling me how good I had it. Yeah. Right.

 One time, Ott suggested to me that my soon to be ex-wife and I get back together to co-manage a property( Public Storage hired husbands and wives, mostly elderly, retired people, who lived on the premises.) He said," I think you'd be so good at it." At time my wife had a job pulling in $25.000 to $30,000 a year. I told her about Ott's offer. I said, and not with a straight face, that working for Public Storage she'd be making around $13,000 a year. We had a good laugh about that. 

  Ott always made the live in managers do his work for him. When one of the live in managers complained about this he replied with a smirk, " I'm good at delegating authority." I wanted to say to him that since he made more than twice what they did, he should do his job, earn his keep and not palm off his duties onto them. Since I wanted to keep my job, as menial and underpaid as it was, I kept my mouth shut.  

  He was also the biggest kiss ass I've ever met. And I've met my share of ass kissers. Every time the upper management would take something away from us relief managers as a supposed cost cutting measure, Ott was totally on board with it. One time I heard him tell one of his "masters" that the relief managers had been "spoiled for too long ." How I despised him.  

  And then there was Bill Dunn, Gary Ott's higher up. I talked to him on a couple of occasions                about a possible promotion. I might as well have been talking to a f***ing tree stump. I was known as a hard worker yet received no real raise, beyond a yearly twenty cent bonus. Ott was always calling me Superstar. Shouldn't a Superstar be making decent money with benefits? All I ever got was empty flattery. You can't buy things with flattery. Flattery cannot be put into the bank. I put up with this shit for two years. 

  Ott, sadly enough, was a henpecked wimp. He once told me his wife had him on an allowance. A grown man working as a district manager on an allowance? Grow a pair of balls, dude! No wonder he was always throwing his weight around. At home wifey poo called the shots. If I didn't dislike the prick so much I'd feel sorry for him.

  Another annoying district manager was Roseanne. The poor thing was as flat as an ironing board, yet she thought she was the shit. Even Ott had a perpetual hard on when it came her. Perhaps it was because his own wife with underdeveloped and he had a thing for flat chested women. At one of the storage facilities where I worked, live in manager Randy came into the office one day with two light globes holding them to his chest saying, " Breasts for Roseanne." and we both cracked up. 

 Anyhoo, there are some people get big headed when  given positions of power and Roseanne, like Gary Ott, was a textbook case of power going to ones head. On one memorable day, Roseanne bounced in-no I can't use the word bounce since she was flat chested and had nothing to bounce-more like strode into the office with an announcement: All relief managers would be working four days a week instead of five. The company now considered thirty two hours a week to be full time. 

 I knew damn good and well Public Storage was cutting our hours so they didn't have to give us the same benefits given to employees working a forty hour work week. Roseanne made this proclamation with a big smile on her face. No f***ing wonder. Her salary wasn't going to diminish and she'd still be getting full boat benefits. Why should she give a shit. I realized it was time to look for a new job. Four days a week wasn't going to cut it for me financially. Even with the side hustle I had going on. 

 What I did was, if a customer came in needing help loading their storage area I'd help them move in and they always paid me between ten to twenty dollars. That extra money sure came in handy. The kicker was that management frowned on their relief managers doing that. My attitude was f***' em, I needed the money. 

 Oh, while I have your attention here's an interesting side story: my friend Larry's father co-owned a storage facility but was thinking about leasing it to Public Storage. At this meeting, one of the Public Storage muckety-mucks said to him ," We lease your storage area. You make the money." One of those muckety-mucks happed to be Bill Dunn. When Larry mentioned my name, Dunn said," He's a good worker." If I was such a good worker where was my decent salary, my benefits package, my chance for advancement?

Eventually I found a better paying job, gave them a one week notice instead of the customary two, said Adios and never looked back. Although, for a number of years there was some rancor concerning Public Storage and Gary Ott. When Pulp Fiction came out on VHS, I went out and bought it because my friend and his Dad raved about how good it was. There's a scene where Ving Rhames character tells Bruce Willis's character, " You've lost your LA privileges." As I was enjoying the film, I imagined myself punching Gary Ott in the face telling him," You've lost your Delaware privileges." But that was a long time ago. Nowadays, I'd just give him the finger and call him an asshole. The same as I would Bill Dunn.