The Madison-Felix Awards- Miscellaneous Hogwash

The Madison-Felix Awards was an awards show in Buffalo New York, which ran from 1995-2005. It was put together by my friend Big Brian and I. In reality it was a parody of an awards show mixed with an open bar drinking contest. Still it was fun and irreverent and some of the best parties I've ever had. But like all good times, they eventually drifted off to the land of nostalgia. The next four blogs are dedicated to their memory.

Location

          The first year Big Brian and I had the Madison-Felix awards it was in a rented back room of a bar in North Tonawanda (those who know the city, recognize it to be the least of the Tonawandas), which was also being used by another party. We were separated by a partition, but that didn’t prevent them from continuously sticking their mullets in to make a stupid remark or just gawp at us. The only means of we had to show clips was a borrowed 24” TV and a VCR. Hardly satisfactory, but then we didn’t put too much effort into it.

         When we made the decision to do a second year, we had to find something more suitable. One day, I went to the DMV to get my license renewed, it being located then in the Northtown Plaza in Buffalo, and I happened to notice a place, called The Screening Room, tucked away in a corner of the plaza, completely unobtrusive. It was primarily a place that rented itself out for private parties and business seminars, though occasionally showed films on the weekends.

          I walked in and was overjoyed. A large screen filled an entire wall. Seating was done with café style table, adorned with a candle, and could handle up to 60 people. We could have the place to ourselves, no uninvited jerks. It was perfect. I talked to the owner and we reached an agreement.

          The Madison’s had found its home for the next nine years. On the day of the last show, we presented the owner (he was a great sport) with a plaque commemorating the show, which hangs on the Screening Room wall to this day. 

                                                             Ode to Knockers

One of the traditions at the Madison-Felix Awards was the reading of Jeff Death’s (RIP) epic poem Ode to Knockers. Jeff’s greatest passion in life was large women, specifically large women with large breasts. And he immortalized his love in verse.

          I hope I shall never see

    A bra size smaller than double D

          Hazel Court running down the stairs.

          Knockers are best because they come in pairs.

          I like knockers (said with a wolfish grin)

          Oh Kitten, oh Tiffany, oh Chastity

          Come away with me

          We’ll go to my farm

          And live high on the hog

          And have big-titted daughters

          That’ll take turns on my log.

                                                        Lisa’s Story

          Every year Lisa P. would entertain the crowd with a soft core pornographic short story, often involving her pet, Tucks the Masturbating Cat- a beast which spent way too much time rubbing its genitals. My mother, of all people, delighted in these tales more than anyone else.

          Her stories were great because they transcended the genre which they were lampooning. By themselves they were lonely housewife romance fodder, littered with the standard cliché’s of “his staff sprang free” and “she grew moist with anticipation”. And yet they revolved around some of the most ridiculous situations I have ever heard. She really was a pioneer of the comedy porno niche- which if it isn’t a thing should be one.

          My favorite one was a story she wrote about Matt Schultz, a frequent guest who habitually had a fight with his on-again off-again girlfriend at the Madisons. In it Lisa described a sexual encounter that Matt had in the bathroom of The Screening Room. Most of the details escape me, but it involved much soap spilling and the roll of toilet paper spinning with every thrust. They were truly unique works.

          BTW Schultz has since declined to add his voice to the menagerie assembled for the guest blog position which will be in two weeks’ time. As to the Schultz fights with his girlfriend, they became an expected part of the festivities. They were so anticipated that one show his girlfriend accidentally knocked a glass on the floor and the entire audience dropped to silence, thinking it was finally going to go off. Then a slow chant began to rise up from the crowd “Fight fight fight fight!” The crowd kept at it until the girlfriend stormed out of the place, Matt chasing after her. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

Benny Hill

          We started the tradition of slipping a Benny Hill clip into every show during the 6^th Madison-Felix awards. We were tallying up votes and discovered that everyone had unaccountably voted for Jessica Tandy in Fried Green Tomatoes for the Best Supporting Actress Award, rather than Mink Stole in Pink Flamingos – which is what we wanted to show. Brain and I grumbled and moaned at the thought of having to dredge a clip up from the turgidly sappy flick. It went on until I said,

          “Fuck it. Let’s not do it.”

          “Then what are we gonna show?”

A man of subtle variations

          It hit me. Benny Hill had been dead a few years by then, but I still loved his material. I had grown up watching him on late night television, sneaking downstairs to see the show when I was supposed to be sleeping. Most males of my generation who grew up in Buffalo had an appreciation of him. To many he was the English guy who had lots of ribald sexual jokes, in-between songs and slapping an old guy on the head. But I have to say that Benny Hill was one of the best physical comedians that ever graced the screen. A latter day Charlie Chaplin.

          Brian agreed, loving the idea. We inserted the clip which began with several women dancing- the audience being a little confused since it obviously wasn’t Jessica Tandy- then moving onto the back of Hill’s head wearing one of his patented fuzzy blonde afro wigs. When he turned around and revealed his face, the audience went wild, surprised and overjoyed at this inclusion of an old friend. How could they not be?

          After this it became a Madison’s tradition to slip a clip of his in unannounced. He always appeared to applause.

Threatened by Faye Dunaway’s Lawyers

          One of Big Brian’s assumed duties (he assumed them since I didn’t bother) was to attempt the monotonous task of attracting someone famous to the show. In the days before email was commonplace just finding where to send the letters to was a long and arduous task. As with many things with Big Brian I was never quite sure whether he was serious or not, and it was probably both. Brian’s main goal in life was to be amused and it amused him to write letters year after year, only to gather deafening silence in return. Until we didn’t.

          It wasn’t an acceptance letter, but a cease and desist from the lawyers representing Faye Dunaway. Brian has always had a red head fetish and his greatest lust in life was the notable actress (her and Wilma Flintstone). Every year he invited her and every year the letters got weirder and weirder, to the point where he was offering to “let her stay at his place as long as she wanted” (understand this was just Brian’s sense of humor) and describing the delights of Buffalo in such a way as to sound like it was the worst place in the world this side of Beirut. Hence the threatening letter. I’m just glad my name wasn’t attached to any of them- at least I think they weren’t.

          And this leads us to…

Threatened by the Academy Awards

          Apparently not all of the letters sent out ended up directly in the trash. Around the time Brain and I were putting together the 6^th show, he received a letter from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (the Oscars). Someone had gotten wind of our “rogue” awards show and for a completely inexplicable reason were demanding that we place a disclaimer in the ceremony stating the Madison-Felix Awards were in no way associated with their little show. We complied. Why not, we thought it was funny. From then on we opened the show with this denial and a picture of an Oscar crossed out.

The Award was Stolen Once

          The Madison-Felix Award, a plastic VHS tape spray painted gold, and glued to a faux marble base- symbol of our renegade status- was once kidnapped. After the 7^th show, Brain called me up to ask if I had the award. I replied negative.

          “Someone’s stolen the damn thing.” He roared.

          “No way. Who the hell would want that?”

          He hung up unhappy. About a week later a letter was dropped in my mailbox. In it was a Polaroid of the award tied to a chair and a ransom note made from cut up advertisements.

          “Bring one million dollars to the Amherst Theater at midnight this Friday or else the award dies!”

          Well we couldn’t have that! That Friday I stuffed an envelope with 10 $100,000 bills from my old Game of Life set and placed it in the designated spot. We received no reply. Like the Lindbergh baby villains, the kidnappers took the cash and absconded away never returning the prize.

          We never found what happened to it- apparently it was lost. But the next year when giving away the Most Annoying Use of a Child Award, Matt Schultz admitted to being the culprit. Very good.

Buffet

          This is where my obsession for every little detail comes in handy. Part of the package of the Madison-Felix’s was a buffet to stabilize your body after all of that beer (We assumed that they got drunk and if they didn’t, they weren’t doing their job damn it!). It was standard Buffalo buffet fodder consisting of pizza and wings and a slathering of celery and carrot sticks- which are traditional with wings in Buffalo for some reason. It wasn’t great, but then no one was there for the food.

          The placement of a meal was initially a problem for us. Originally we served the meal at the beginning of the show, everyone got their fill except for a few stragglers, but by the end a lot of people were still hungry. So we decided to move the buffet until the end of the show- that lasted a year. Half way through the show there was a mutiny and most of the crowd charged into the room where the food was kept, whereupon they gorged themselves. Then they relaxed and started chatting. As the years went on and people moved in different directions they lost touch and would only see each other at the Madison-Felix awards. So they decided to catch up and the babble of their voices drowned out the show. Never let it be said that we didn’t learn from our mistakes. Thus ever afterwards we stopped the show half way through and opened the trough for all.

The Madison-Felix Awards- Guess Who's Coming to the Madisons?

The Madison-Felix Awards was an awards show in Buffalo New York, which ran from 1995-2005. It was put together by my friend Big Brian and I. In reality it was a parody of an awards show mixed with an open bar drinking contest. Still it was fun and irreverent and some of the best parties I've ever had. But like all good times, they eventually drifted off to the land of nostalgia. The next four blogs are dedicated to their memory.

     An ordinary evening, or was it?

     Big Brian called me up excited, “Rex get over here. You’re not going to believe this shit!”

     Getting ready not to believe this shit, I sped on over to Brian’s. I had no idea what to expect, but I was sure it would be hilarious. All I knew was that it had something to do with the Madison-Felixes.

     It had always been our practice with the Madisons to send invitations to anyone that was going to receive our award. Those whom we could locate. I mean how do you find Alan Ormsby from “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things,” or Eric Stern from “The Love Butcher?” For the first couple of years we actually held out hope that someone might condescend to reply, but by the 10^th year all of those ideas were gone. We only sent them out as a joke, and sat around snickering when the “I regret to inform you that we cannot attend” letter (when they even bothered to do so) rolled in.

     This was the end of the Madison-Felixes. The last show. I actually lived in North Carolina, so most of the burden was on Brian, and he was getting tired of handling everything himself.

     The old days of it being just fun fun fun were over, and now it was more of a hassle. We worked harder at it, and the shows improved, while our enjoyment waned.  Gone were the days of creating our master tape, by hooking two VCRs together, the night before the show. I asked Brian how this happened, and we remembered back in time we would show up drunk to the show and go from there. Remember when I inaugurated the 3^rd Madisons by drinking a 21 shot salute. The last being a flaming shot of Rumple Mintz? I kind of do.

     When we first started the show, our intentions were to pay tribute to the less known and forgotten masterpieces with a few jokes tossed in. That lasted a year. We quickly followed suit and descended into clips of llama fucking, Divine eating dog shit, unspeakable horrors from Salo, men getting their dicks chopped off, old women playing Russian roulette, boy in the Nazi uniform getting a blow job from his sister, an accident clip were a man gets hit by a car and flying 20 feet (met with uproarious applause) and the unforgettable girl-masturbating-with a-severed-arm clip from “Entrails of a Virgin.”

Classics like this!

     Our normal stable consisted of films like: Night of the Bloody Apes, Make ‘Em Die Slowly, I Spit on Your Grave, Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, Brutes and Savages, and our ultimate award winner (7 Madison-Felixes) The Love Butcher. A film I could see win over and over and over again with out getting tired of it.

        One thing we always had each year, was our Lifetime Achievement Award, with accompanying song. It was called the Mike Horner award, after the first winner, a porno star that we enjoyed watching. Other noteworthy recipients were Don Knotts, George Peppard, Jabba the Hutt, Christopher Reeve, Alan Hale Jr., Bob Newhart etc. The purpose was to give an award to a person that everyone knew, but that was never honored. No one ever honored us back by showing up. Except for now.

     I arrived at Brian’s and bounded up to his apartment “WHAT‘S UP?” I yelled. He stood there massively, smoking a cigarette, and handed me a piece of paper.

    “Remember who we're giving the Lifetime Achievement Award to this year?” He asked with nervous excitement. Somewhere between hysterical laughter and panic.

    “Yeah, Charles Bronson.”

    “Well read the letter.”

     I looked at it. “Dear sir, I am delighted to inform you that Mr. Bronson will be honored to accept your very prestigious award…”

    I glanced over at the “prestigious” award, sitting on a dusty shelf above Brian’s TV, wedged in between his Bob and Doug MacKenzie Action Figures, and some George Orwell books. A plastic tape glued to a fake marble base. I looked at Brian.

    “What the hell are we gonna do?”

     The only other time something like this had happened was when we received a threatening letter from Faye Dunaway’s lawyers. It stated that criminal prosecution would take place if we did not cease and desist our correspondence. I say “our” correspondence, but it was really Brian’s last letter that had spawned this response. I never read it, but it went along the line of him getting upset with her ignoring us, how it wasn’t nice of her, and if she needed a place to stay then she could stay at his. Brian states that this was a joke, like when he sent out Christmas Cards full of Bible-beating “Praise Jesus” material to every Jewish name he could find in the phone book, and I believe him. Everyone who knows Brian could believe this. Still, he always had a thing for redheads.

     Charles Bronson coming to the show? THE Charles Bronson, of The Dirty Dozen and Death Wish fame. Christ? What’s he expecting? I supposed a lot of fancy big star treatment, like a place to stay or food. How cheap were the Motel 6 rates again? I suppose we could pick him up in my Mom’s Honda Civic hatchback. Does he like Cheetos? Because I could get a lot of them cheap from the corner gas station. Oh God. I’ve seen his movies. If he doesn’t like the show, he might machine-gun our entire families.

     Now it might be pointed out that he had been deceptive in offering him the award in the first place. It was a Lifetime Achievement Award, and may be flattering for someone who hadn’t received attention for some time. I believe his last film had been Death Wish 4, and for a man who had a lot of staring roles in good films, it might be a bit of disappointment to have been almost forgotten. If indeed he was. Still in your declining years and all that comes along is a pack of lunatics from Buffalo, putting on a mockery of a show, simply to have a good laugh. Is it better than nothing? Perhaps.

     Then I thought of the collection of clips we had prepared in Mr. Bronson’s honor. It consisted of lots of scenes with him killing, stabbing, shooting and garroting people, all to the tune of The Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You.” What was he going to make of that? 

     We’ll never know. Those who attended the final outing of the Madison-Felix Award will note that there was no celebrity present. We went out as we went in. Completely ignored by the film industry at large. Bastards. While it might have been a disaster, we would have at least tried to handle it, but Charles Bronson did something to make the entire potential-fiasco go away. He died.

Hopefully doing what he loved!

     Perhaps it was the knowledge that at least someone somewhere remembered his work and that felt it was deserving of recognition, and at last he could die in peace, content that he was not forgotten. Perhaps it was the heart attack. It will be a mystery lost to the ages.

      Still to the end the Madison-Felix Awards always remained a place where those of dubious credentials and past glory could, for one night, remain among the stars.

Charles Bronson 1921 - 2003. RIP!

The Madison- Felix Awards: The Categories of Oddity

The Madison-Felix Awards was an awards show in Buffalo New York, which ran from 1995-2005. It was put together by my friend Big Brian and I. In reality it was a parody of an awards show mixed with an open bar drinking contest. Still it was fun and irreverent and some of the best parties I've ever had. But like all good times, they eventually drifted off to the land of nostalgia. The next several blogs are dedicated to their memory.

         The categories of the Madisons-Felix’s varied over the years, but they were what set the show apart. It was the one aspect I always loved working on. Now several of them were your standard lot- Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Actor, Best Makeup/Special Effects, Best Musical Score, Best Animation, Best Dialogue, and Best Picture .

          But we never filled them with nominees one would consider to be conventionally Oscar material or which even made much sense in the context of the category. Such as one year we gave Best Makeup/Special Effects to My Dinner with Andre. Another time we gave Best Dialogue to The Wild Bunch and showed the blood soaked finale where the only discernable dialogue was William Holden yelling, “Bitch!” at a woman before shooting her in the face. And, of course, Best Picture was always reserved for the foulest clip that we had scrounged up that year. Ones that a person would need a few drinks to laugh at.

          But, to us, these were minor categories. The ones which were expected from a fake/real awards show. Our true joy was all the others we came up with.

          Traditionally we started the show with three non-categories. Ones that didn’t mean anything to most people. Best Best Boy, Best Gaffer, and Best Key Grip- later to be replaced with Best Executive Producer. These were the slots where we decided to show great bits and pieces of films. They were the final hold-overs from the high minded notions with which Big Brian and I started the Madison-Felix’s. Great scenes from good films. 

          The categories which most interested Big Brian and I were the ones that are never seen in an awards show, not even The Razzies or Golden Turkey Awards, and perhaps with good reason.

          Awards such as:

Best Unintentional Cameo (small parts played by actors before they became famous, such as Denzel Washington in Death Wish, a fat Richard Simmons in Satyricon or John Ratzenberger in Ghandi)

Most Predictable Plot (Usually went to something obvious like Titanic or JFK or La Bamba)

The Overacting Achievement Award (Take your pick on this one)

Most Stilted Performance of a Rock Star in a Film (The whole band in Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, Madonna in Who’s that Girl, Paul McCartney in Eat the Rich)

 Worst Sequel (I’m sure everyone can fill in the blank here. It’s actually more valid now than when we first came up with it)

  Most Annoying Person in a Film Award (Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, Franklin in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre- everyone clapped when he got skewered.)

The William Shatner Award for Acting Excellence (where William Shatner was nominated for every category. We did this for a few years before the joke wore thin. He first won it for Judgement at Nuremburg)

Most Annoying Use of a Child in a Film (Why were we the first to come up with this? It’s something everyone complains about!)

Most Embarrassing Skeleton in the Closet for An Established Actor (Some shit stain of a movie that an actor took to pay the bills. Ala Russ Tamblin in Cabin Boy or Henry Fonda in Tentacles. We later shortened this to the less cumbersome Most Respected Actor in a Bad Film)

 Most Smoking in a Film (The novelty of this one wore off quickly and it only lasted two years.)

Best One-liner (Bits and pieces which struck us as funny, but we canned this one after four years as the lack of context would yield little more than a chuckle.)

Pretty Boy Actor You’d Most Like to Whack (Whatever talentless collection of duckface-posing nonentities where cluttering up Tiger Beat that year)

Ditzy Actress You’d Most Like to Strangle (The sister of the previous category. Same criteria, just switch genders)

          Looking over this list fills me with such schadenfreude. The last of the regular categories were our favorite and the ones which Brain and I had the most evil joy. Most Deceiving Title might sound innocuous, but when we nominate The Greatest Story Ever Told or It’s Good to be Alive: The Roy Campenella Story you can see the cynicism bubbling over.

          Same for the next one, Best Comedic Performance in a Non-Comedic Role and we showed such wonders as Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker, Christopher Reeves in Superman, Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot and so on. We perhaps got too much joy from coming up with the nominations.

          The next category requires a bit of explanation. In the third year we can up with the Best Plot of a ____ award. The blank would change each year and represented a genre of film (or sub-genre, or whatever) which were pretty much exactly the same. For example the first year was Best Plot for a Zombie Film (of which at the time there was only a limited selection the Romero trilogy and Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things).

After that it was Best Plot for a Mind Transfer Film which is always the exact same movie over and over again (Freaky Friday, Vice Versa, 18 Again- refried crap shoveled in a new package). We then moved onto Best Plot for an Ernest Film (which really dates us a lot). It was given away by our good friend Frank, who delivered a heartfelt non-ironic speech on what the Ernest franchise meant to him and how it brought joy into his life. The next two years we did a few obvious ones Best Plot for a Police Academy Film and Best Plot for a Friday the 13^th Film.

This is the one Rob hated, which is why I'm showing it.

Next was a flash of genius from Rob Leftwich- Best Plot for a Talking Pig Movie (there was a plethora of them at the time), in which he delivered a heartfelt speech on the wonders of Babe: Pig in the City. We began running out of ideas for this and it wasn’t until two weeks before the show, in a fit of adrenaline fueled inspiration, I came up with Best Plot for a Pregnant Man Film. There were exactly four at the time- The Pregnant Man, Rabbit Test, Junior, and Enemy Mine. The last one won.

The last year, completely out of concepts, we came up with Best Plot for an Awards Show- We nominated Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Grammy Awards, and The Madison-Felix Awards. Guess who won?

          Finally we come to the Lifetime Achievement Award. Initially Brian and I floundered with this, not really knowing what we wanted to do with it. Hence the first three winners: Mike Horner a proliferant porn actor from the 80s and 90s, who always played his roles with a comedic bent. If there is a comedy porn niche, he should be considered its Charlie Chaplin. And Monkeyhead, Brian’s brother. For his clips scene- every winner got a montage footage bit with a song playing in the background- we showed a bunch of monkey’s doing horrible things to each other, of one sort or another, to the tune of I’m an Ape Man by The Kinks. And then Marlon Brando where we showed clips of him interspersed with those of Jabba the Hut, with the Mr. Yuck song. I must say here that these three were all chosen by Big Brian. He thought they were a laugh riot, while I, and everyone watching, got only the mildest of chuckles.

So for the next year I put my foot down. We would only give the Lifetime Achievement Award to someone who was well known, having had a long career, but who you would never think to give an award to. Boom, we had our criteria and I must say that the audience received the award with much more applause and enjoyment as it went on.

 For the fourth year we gave it to Don Knotts to the tune of He’s Got the Look by Roxette. The fifth it was George Peppard to the tune of Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler. The sixth was Bob Newhart to He’s Got Personality by Lloyd Price. 7^th was Alan Hale Jr. (The Skipper from Gilligan’s Island) to I’m Too Sexy for my Shirt by Right Said Fred. 8^th, our most evil year, Christopher Reeve to the tune of Walk Like a Man by Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons. And last, but not least, Charles Bronson to the tune of I Think I Love You by David Cassidy and the Partridge Family.

          We spent a lot of time putting these together. And reading them over on paper, it scans as just kind of cute. A novel idea, but the execution always made the crowd roar. As in a lot of these things about the show, you had to be there.