This Day In Ross History

Michael Ross McConnell
b. Thursday 10 July 1952

Ross Supermoon

37

Ross Solstice (High Noon)

As above, so Ballew

10:10:12

Seven Moments of Ross

Text CC 2012 by MJ Vilardi, Creative Commons – 
May be shared with attribution

1. Skinner Box – Part I

by MJ Vilardi 

            Anyone who knew Ross for more than a a few days (minutes usually) came to the quick realization that he had a voracious appetite and Rasputin-like tolerance for intoxicating liquids and mind-altering substances. At Antioch when he flung open the Doors of Perception great things would swoop in and amaze us: the Space Brothers whispering secrets of the cosmos; Earth sprites and green fairies, like those Ross would encounter at Findhorn in Scotland, hiding behind the monster cabbages; and of course, shadow specters of ourselves, trying, from their vantage point outside of timespace, to offer a few tips on how we should be living. 

            But the DC Edition of Ross was different. He was drawn into the oblivion and little-death that drugs offered, and his writings and drawings became muddy, derivative, and disappointing. Sometimes, through the haze, he produced little gems, like his dark screenplay "The Reaper," based on a film he'd seen years ago. But even then, he had almost no patience or focus to discuss the logistics of getting a film produced. And I noticed something peculiar: every time we came close to a success, Ross would say or do something that would discredit our efforts. The pattern suggested a self-defeating dynamic that protected him against failure. If you never really try, you can't be accused of failure if things don't work out. I suspected this complex had roots in his troubled childhood. "I am not one of life's walking wounded," he said once, with sudden, inappropriate anger. Ross never elaborated, but it was obvious that something weird had happened with his Father. His Dad was a prominent professor of psychology. "He raised me in a Skinner Box in the basement," Ross said cryptically.  

            There was a point at which Ross felt he could extend an olive branch, and patch things up with the old man. He called to say he was going to visit them in Michigan. "Son," the Father said, "You should know that I keep a gun, and I know how to use it."       

The awful depths of this cruel story wouldn't become clear until many years later, when I met Dr. McConnell. At Ross's funeral. 

(Stay tuned for Part II, coming soon!)

 

Seven Moments of Ross

Photo & Text CC 2012 by MJ Vilardi, Creative Commons – 
May be shared with attribution 

2. Take It To The Top 

by MJ Vilardi 

Marc Cherry was a musician with an an uncanny resemblance to Tony Orlando: a smooth swarthy look, 70's style mustache, white leisure suits, and an easy breezy singing style. His band played on a show at the station where I worked, and I chatted him up about doing a music video. They didn't have much money, so Oversight Productions agreed to do the video at cost, with a bonus if they signed a record deal and got some dough.

The song was "Take It To The Top," 
a jazzy ode to "going for it."

           

    So just Take It To The Top
 Cause if you lose your dream 

You lose the prize

            When you give it your best shot 
Give it all you've got

            Cause the only one who fails  
Is he who does not try... 

Of course in exchange for this great deal Marc agreed that we would have creative freedom, and we really pushed it. One might say we veered occasionally from the message of the song, but music videos were pretty new at the time, and nobody really tried to make sense of them. It was assumed that there might be cryptic images and non sequiturs. And so there were. 

Scenes included:

            • a crazy strip club with Ross as the sleazy MC, inciting the crowd

            • Marc rides through Georgetown in a vintage yellow Rolls Royce. In a wonderful synchronicity, at a stoplight another Rolls pulled up next to us! Delighted occupants of both cars rolled down their windows and inquired as to whether there were any Grey Poupon to be had.

            • Marc is portrayed as a bum, shuffling down an alley. We were lucky to catch a shot of someone throwing a bag of garbage out of a third floor window. Sweet!

            • At a disco party, shot at a nice hotel that (for reasons still unclear) agreed to let us use their dance floor, Marc cuts in on a rich old dude, and steals away his girl. The guy turns out to be super-rich and powerful.

            • Rich Guy phones Fidel Castro (played by a teenager with a chronic shaking condition, which actually helped) ... Fidel, puffing a genuine Cuban, in full revolutionary regalia, including a live chicken pecking around on his desk, agrees to help. "Si Señor, I will see to it immediately!" he mouths.

            • Marc Cherry, in his flashy white Tony Orlando outfit, struts down the street. He senses something, looks up.

            • An Oswaldesque figure wearing tele-specs leans out of a window. A rifle aimed at Marc! Zoom in on Marc's fearful face.

            • Marc awakens in a pile of garbage, a bum. Was it all a dream?

            The assassin at the end (played by yours truly) was a last minute inspiration, and Marc didn't know about it until we screened the video for the entire band. They loved it, and at the end when their leader got bumped off, they cheered! Ultimately a good sport, Marc looked confused for a moment but then laughed along with the rest of us. Thanks to my TV connections, the video aired twice in the DC-Baltimore markets on a Friday night video show. It's a cringe-worthy period piece now, but still fun to watch, especially if you look at it as a coded retelling of the Kennedy assassination.

           This project marked the zenith of the Ross-MJ Oversight Productions. We worked on a few other small projects, but tensions over sobriety, vision, and business practices caused things to unravel, and eventually Ross split for Russia. He came back to town for a while with his Russian "common law wife." They lived in a slummy apartment next to a coke dealer buddy, who shall remain nameless; the fellow got high one night and took a knife to his own girlfriend, who shall remain headless.

Seven Moments of Ross

Text CC 2012 by MJ Vilardi, Creative Commons – 
May be shared with attribution 

3. The Projector 

by MJ Vilardi 

       Ross and I became business partners. Our new enterprise was called (after much negotiation) Oversight Productions. I had some reservations about that name, since we would be asking clients to trust us with complex projects and large sums of money – do you really want the word "oversight" floating around like a nagging omen? But Ross said it was in the OTHER sense of the word, so...

            We didn't have much money for capital investments, so we bought a couple of beat up ARRI film cameras from a cantankerous but lovable retired filmmaker, Skip, who let us buy them on the installment plan; I think he just liked having a couple of novices to talk to every Saturday when we showed up with the cash. He doled out sage cinematography advice while quaffing the martinis that his doting wife, Jeannie, supplied him with. We didn't know exactly what was ailing Skip, but he had thin plastic piping running to and from various parts of his body, and his strap-on glasses were fitted with bulging lenses, like crystal balls. One of them was ruby red.

            Parked in their "Sunset Boulevard-ish" garage was a perfectly preserved early '60's red Cadillac convertible. Quite stunning. Skip said it was a gift for Jeannie, and that they had used it to film the very first music video, featuring Jack Jones singing "Got a Lot of Living To Do." 

"He's driving and singing. The car's full of pretty girls, real lookers. They go through the underpass. When they come out the other side, heh, the girls are all in bikinis. Jeannie! Bring me another one!"

            Thanks to my TV station salary and contributions from Ross' Mom, we soon had our cameras. Now we needed equipment to edit our masterpieces. We headed up to New York looking for a deal on Moviola editing machines. We met sound engineering legend and part-time porn producer Walter Sear, president of Sear Sound, located on the mezzanine of the (then run-down) Paramount Hotel. Walter was also a Moog synthesizer pioneer, and worked on classics like the Oscar winning film "Midnight Cowboy." He also scored such forgotten lusty classics as "Disco Beaver from Outer Space." Like Skip, Walter was a raconteur, and talked a mad streak. He showed us scenes from his latest slasher pic, "Blood Sisters," while all around us machines were transferring pornos from film onto the exciting new medium, videotape. (See "Boogie Nights" for more on this historic transition; it will also give you a sense of how gloriously sleazy the place was). We asked about slasher actress and sometime director, Doris Wishman, who we really wanted to meet. Utter contempt took over Walter's face.

            "When you see Doris Wishman you tell her she can KISS MY ASS – really kiss it. I want tongue!" And he was off and running with the sins of Miss Wishman. We reminded Walter about the Moviolas (it was getting late) and he led us to a cavernous industrial loft filled with hundreds of the machines of every imaginable configuration and vintage. We packed two of them into my Izuzu Trooper and drove through pouring rain back to DC, laughing all the way.

            The next vital piece of equipment we needed was a projector we could use to screen dailies and have screenings for our friends. I had imagined something small, like the film projectors we'd used in grade school. But a few days later Ross called to say he found one, and could I help move it into his place. He was breathless. And when I trotted down to get a gander I was speechless. Except to say, "What the fuck?" about a dozen times. There, on the sidewalk at the foot of the stairs up to his front door, was an elaborate hunk of black Steel-age machinery whose scale would not have attracted undue notice at Stonehenge. 

            It was a vintage Simplex Movie House Projector, the kind of behemoth they bring in on a crane and build the theater around. And, they display 35mm release prints – a film stock TWICE as wide as the 16mm we were equipped to shoot. But, all that aside, we faced a near-impossible task: getting it up those stairs and inside. Junior, son of Sam, came out to help, but, strapping young lad though he was, we still didn't have the power to lift the beast from step to step. But Junior pulled some boards out of the basement and we used them as skids. With ropes and grunts, shoves and pushes, we made like Egyptians and raised Pharaoh's stone. Once inside of course it had to go all the way back to the kitchen, so, despite an attempt to use towels as buffers, the hardwood floors took a real beating. 

            But once it was set up, the Simplex looked right at home. Those row houses are narrow but DEEP, so we had almost a forty foot throw. We put up a white bed sheet, threaded up a tattered old trailer, and BOOM! We blew a fuse. But we got the voltage thing figured out and soon we had our own movie house! Black & white faces of Ancient Hollywood flickered at the far end of the living room. Despite the slight whiff of electrical smoldering, we racked up an old Technicolor western, and proudly showed Sam and Junior. Junior thought it was cool, and ran off to get his girlfriend. Sam studied the machine as though it had just risen from hell, and left muttering about crazy white something-or-others... 

            Later that week Sam's wife woke up to a loud CRACK. Some part of a ceiling support beam was complaining, giving fair warning that the load on this old house was just too great. Trouble in paradise. Cracks in the old wood grew longer. Threats were made and ignored. Ross was on notice to get himself and his Iron Devil out soon, before the whole place collapsed.