Well, that's not really possible, seeing as how The Residents are officially anonymous and don't exist outside of their performances/creations. About as close as it gets is to meet Hardy Fox or Homer Flynn, the public face of the collective, the guys who have been there from the beginning dealing with everything but The Residents' side of being The Residents.
So, I already had plans to head back to Cali to catch a double feature of Cinematic Titanic at the Castro, when suddenly it was announced that Homer Flynn would have a gallery show in Oakland displaying a ton of original material from the eyeballed greats, and the reception was to take place the day that I flew in. Luckily all of the pieces fit together and at 4pm, right when the studio opened, Rob and I were the first to stroll through and glimpse the original designs of some of the most iconic of The Residents' visual work. There were black and white photos that on close inspection could be seen to be cobbled together from multiple sources, pre-PhotoShop. There was the original photo of one of my faves, the eventual Duck Stab cover. And, holy crap, the original Polaroid of THE Santa Dog, a real, live wiener dog with Santa outfit including beard, that had gone on to become a recurring design/release from the group. There were giant, wall-sized hangings from The Mole Show, images from Vileness Fats, and, of course, one of the original eyeballs with top hat above.
We were examining the correspondence between Hardy and Hal from Warner Brothers, when a fellow came in wearing sunglasses and pulling a wheeled case behind him, and I'll be damned if it wasn't the man himself, Mr. Hardy Fox. I'm sure I had a goofy grin on my face as I stared, which prompted a "hi", from him and an overly-familiar "HELLO" from myself. It seems he was dropping off another impressive gem, the original reel recording that the band had submitted to Warner Brothers, perhaps the one that was returned to simply "The Residents", and spawned the name. Another piece of the legend.
Watching the time, we knew it could be dicey getting downtown for the CT show, but as of 5pm and beyond Homer had yet to make an appearance. We were watching out the front window as Hardy and another person chatted on the corner, and we had fooled ourselves into thinking that it might be Homer he was with. I knew that Homer was supposed to give an interview shortly after arriving, so it seemed it may be the only chance to meet the man. However, after emerging into the sun, I could plainly see that the man in question was not the man of the hour, and I turned to Rob and said, "that's not him." Rob said something like, "no, but THAT is." I turned and there he was, grey hair, granny-type glasses, and a bundle under his arm. Loudly I exclaimed, "There he is!", which caused them all to look my way and there was no turning back. I shook his hand and thanked him for making all of these wonderful items available for us to take in on such a personal level, that I was of course a "big fan" and that it had all been awesome. Rob then shook his hand and we dazedly made our way to the car. Once I got my head on straight I grabbed my camera and shot the below video as we passed the scene from which we had just come:
So that was the day that we didn't meet The Residents.
And then we laughed ourselves silly with two dumb movies and some of my favorite funny people, after which I was really exhausted but yet again shook the hands of all of the Titans, and shared with Joel the fact that he and I "go way back" to Halloween of 1988. He seemed to think it was amusing. And I have to say that Dave "Gruber" Allen remains one of the most warm, and hilarious folks I've ever met. The man acts like you are the special celebrity. I had chatted him up in Portland in the past, and as I said goodbye and shook his hand, I told him it's always great and that he's so damn funny, and he did this little bow with a two hand grip...just a great guy.
The following day we hit The Rock
And, of course, on the last day there was pinball. This game caught our fancy:
With magnets and chains, bumpers giving you car lengths, and a race between friends, it was a definite winner. I, however, was suffering from THE CURSE. This is something that afflicts me every once in a while and seems to have no rhyme nor reason, and I've simply grown to accept its power when it hits. It's when suddenly things keep going wrong with a specific aspect of my existence, usually affecting technology.
It started after I had realized that with the older games you are able to launch multiple balls at once if desired, which can be fun until you have a game with an automated kickback lane that cannot handle more than one ball at a time. As I watched the game I had been playing feebly attempt to correct this mistake, I knew that I could not just walk away..but how to fix it? Rob had the answer, pick the damn thing up and make the balls go where they needed. Ah, yes, we can do that here. I managed to then slam a ball under the chin of a rotating head on the Party Zone game, and picking that one up didn't seem the way to go. I then had to tilt the hell out of the Indiana Jones game to free a ball.
Finally, I managed to actually wipe out on the above racing game so badly that nothing we did got the car moving again. Luckily it kept racking up my laps and the fellow working there exclaimed that he didn't realize the score even went that high. So while failing at racing, I had excelled at racing. And here's my proof:
Note the hazard that I had become....to myself and fellow racers. Sorry folks!
