"We're all here and we're all sincere, including our
friend Fred!!!"
Steve, Chris, Fred, Jeff and Herb - October 17,
1986
Early one evening, in the summer of 1986 a group of young
men met in order to attend a screening of the newly
released James Cameron film, Aliens. After viewing
the film twice, cheering loudly each time an Alien "got" a
human, these self-same individuals decided to continue the
evening's revelry among
the glorious streets of the upper West Side of Manhattan.
After a brief respite at All American Diner which consisted
of cheeseburgers, fries and several cups of coffee, these
untiring young fellows
continued on their journey, stopping every few blocks to
liberate hundreds of Learning Annex magazines from
the vendors which housed them. Tossing these priceless
pamphlets into the air
they yelled, "WE WANNA LEARN," as loudly as humanly
possible. By sunrise the following morning there was a
trail of over one thousand Learning Annex brochures
scattered along the sidewalks and roadways of Broadway,
stretching from 72nd to 96th Street. Needless to say the
neighborhood locals were not amused...
While the summer of 1985 hosted the creation
of V&R Productions first film, That "Old Proud" Look
which starred actor extraordinaire Steve (Big M) Mirande October 17th-18th,
1986
yeilded yet another milestone, the now legendary
firstTelethon to Benefit the Boat People.
What made these dates even more auspicious was the fact
that
this was the first time that both founding members of
V&R Productions Herb and Jeff and Bliss
Products founder, Chris (a.k.a "The Walnut) would work
together as one entity. Others present for this event were,
Jimmy DeKay and the
great Steve (Big M) Mirande. While tens of thousands of
dollars were raised for the boat people, by telethon's end
it was all down to nothing. It turned out that all of the
viewers who had donated money had taken it all back. The
last quarter (each quarter in the Fred Flintstone bank
represented twenty-five dollars in donations) was taken by
an irate contributor all for a phone call. An extremely
disillusioned Chris could only
mutter, "Yabba dabba do..." While this first
Telethon wasn't a great success it still gave the Boat
People the exposure that they both needed and deserved, and
established the V&R Productions / Bliss Products team as a
force to be reckoned with!!!
"We're all here and we're all sincere, including our
friend Fred!!!"
Steve, Chris, Fred, Jeff and Herb - October 17,
1986
In January 1987 Doomers, Chris, Herb, and Jeff the Joker would perform what were to
soon be known as The Friday Night Jam Sessions. Save
for the two occasions in which Steve attended, the first
where he screwed up the tempo by "playing" the maracas, and
the second where he stepped on the cord to the video
camera, killing the audio (which earned him the nick-name
Steve Big M - 'Step on the Cord' Mirande), these sessions
were not attended by any other member. The sessions got
progressively better, and the final jam was recorded, and
later released as a bootleg and was V&R Audio's first
unofficial release. These sessions also gave birth to the
musical
trio of Troy, Maximillian and Ray,
and in doing so catapulted this self-same trio into rock
music history!!! In a New York Times interview
conducted after the last jam session, all three went on the
record as saying, to quote Troy, "We're all ahtists... we
are totally devoted to our aht... do we look as if we need
influencing?" While Max and Ray would later
drift off into obscurity, alcoholism and drugs Troy (once
he'd done away with his partners) would go on to be a
guest,
via sattelite, on the Ben Franklin Telethon to Benefit
the Boat People in late 1988. His first record album,
"I'm Troy, You Ungrateful Bastards (Live at Wembley
Stadium)" would go multi-platinum selling over 25 billion
units and propelled Troy into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame as the only non-categorized musician to be
inducted. As per his own humble admission, Troy is said to
encompass ALL musical styles, and genres, in their purest
forms, and thusly defies categorization.
Being the hard headed forerunners that they were, one
failed telethon was not enough. On November 19, 1988 Chris,
Herb, Jeff, Jimmy and Steve would again attempt to raise
money for the Boat People. With special guest host
Ben Franklin (brother of J.F.) (FCC) they produced The
Ben Franklin Telethon for the Benefit of the Boat
People. With high hopes, and numerous special guests
such as Troy, The Camel Boy from Illinois, Dr. Finneus
Parsons (from Hofstra University), and the late, great
Steve (Big
M) Mirande what began as a great work was doomed once
again. Although over $1.93 million was raised, it was all
stolen. At first it was purported that it was Fred
who filched the funds, but upon further investigation it
was discovered it was none other than Steve Mirande
owner and operator of the famous chain of Steve's Porno
Palaces posing as a phoney fed, that was the true
traitor. Fred, being freed (see
"Road-Kill Review #1" for the full story) found Steve put in his place, in prison.
Two failed telethons did little to hamper the creative
output of the Doom Patrol. While each member
continued to work on "outside" projects, the nucleus of
Jeff, Herb and Chris remained. By the end of 1990 however,
Jeff and Herb, would once again
bring it all together. Their latest coup was the Doom
Patrol
based 'zine The Road-Kill Review that did it.
What began as a newsletter for the group, quickly
avalanched into a whole lot more. The first issue of the
Review (cover date January 1991) featured work from all
seven members, and included poetry, satire, essays, and
comics. Herb's "That L'il Bastid" and Jeff's "The
'80's" became RKR staples, and have been featured in
all five issues to date. By issue two, the 'zine was being
carried in three shops in Greenwich Village: Mosaic Books,
St. Marks Books and St. Marks Comics. Issues two and three
quickly sold out at all three stores, and during the hiatus
between
issues three and four, the response from the readership
poured in. In January 1996 issue #5 of The Road-Kill
Review was released, and a sixth issue is currently in
the works.
Since then Chris, Jeff, Herb, Jimmy, Johnny, and Tom P.
'97 have continued to gather for sporadic jam sessions,
at their retreat in beautiful Blissland
in upstate New York. As ever, they have been genially
hosted by
The Walnut and have progressively gotten better and
better. An excursion into Blissland in the summer of 1996
brought Jeff, Jimmy, Johnny and newest member Ray-O-Vac into the fray. Much beer was
consumed, much music was played and a good time was had by
all. Video documentaries were shot of both the 1995 and
1996 Blissland jams.
What does the future hold for this off beat and
uncompromising group of artists, writers and musicians? Not
one of them can say...Yet now, as in the beginning, the
group credo says it best: "We're all here, we're all
sincere, and we wanna learn!!!"
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