BACK TO THE FUTURE'S 25th ANNIVERSARY PARTY
AND THE FAILED "MY WEEK WITH BIFF" ART EXPERIMENT
7-3-10 POST KEYWORDS: back to the future, marathon, anniversary, biff, thomas f. wilson, my week with biff, thomas wilson, delorean, art sucks, cojo art juggernaut, artsucks.com, cojo
I guess this story could be seen as sort of embarrassing. About a year ago I re-watched BTTF II on cable (even though I own the box set) and realized that it came out in 1985 and that we were very near the 25 year mark. I checked IMDB and discovered that Back To The Future was turning 25 in just a few short months (Part 1 was released to theaters July 3rd 1985), so decided that I wanted to do something special for it. By something special I mean, I wanted to meet Biff.
You may be asking yourself, why Biff? Well I'll tell you why. A while ago I had stumbled on this classic viral video of Thomas F. Wilson AKA "Biff Tannen" singing about how every day since 1985 he's gotten fans on the street asking him the same few Back To The Future questions over and over ( WATCH THE VIDEO).
It was really funny, which lead me to check out his website where I found not only is he a Stand-Up Comedian , Actor, Writer , & Musician . He's also - - - and most importantly to this site - - - a fellow Artist . I guess you could call him a modern day Renaissance Man.
His pop art paintings are actually very good, still lifes of toys from the 50's, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, bikes, ray guns, and matchbox cars. The fact that he is a visual artist acutally would give me a great reason to get in touch with him - what a perfect angle. All time great film bully is actually a sensitive artist drawing brightly colored toys.
I thought how perfect it would be to do some sort of exclusive interview with him about his art and hang out and photograph him painting in his studio, which would be about as un-Biff as you could get.
I emailed him and introduced myself, offering to write an article about his painting work for Art Sucks.
The same day he emailed me back about how most people just want to talk about the 80's etc and he hates it. . . but that he really liked my portrait work and could we possibly trade an interview - including talking about the 80s- for a portrait of him which he could use as a poster for his comedy act.
If I was gonna make art in exchange for an interview, an interview in which all 80s stuff AKA Back To The Future wasn't off limits, I wanted a "real" and "exclusive" interview. It was possibly late at night when I was brainstorming this and I was overexcited that not only was Biff corresponding with me, but he liked my work- and wanted my work to represent him.
I must stress that I grew-up in the 80s, so Back To The Future, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Ghost Busters were pretty much the cornerstones of my childhood. This for me would be an epic interview, and an odd coup for Art Sucks.com. I knew I would only get one shot at it so didn't want to go fluff, puff piece. I figured I would go big concept.
In my follow-up email I suggested doing a week long interview, where I would fly to California and either sleep on his couch, or put a tent in his back yard and document him for a week. "My Week With Biff".
This was to be an experiment in "transient-bent journalism" a made-up journalistic approach my writer friend Chris Caruso and I came-up with years ago wherein as a journalist you would become part of the story by infusing yourself into the subject's normal life in an awkward way to see how things play out.
I explained how I could document him for Artsucks.com, painting, doing comedy, etc, all while hanging out with his family, sleeping on his couch, eating his cereal. . . yeah after that email he never got back to me. Maybe he just got really busy. The photo above is from his press kit sadly, I would have liked to have met him.
So even though I couldn't meet Biff I still had a party. . .
The original Back To The Future was released to theaters July 3, 1985, so for the 25th Anniversary I just had a few friends over, some food and drink, and we re-watched the box set back-to-back from 6 PM - Midnight.
Now I am excited for the 30th anniversary, I will be throwing a bigger party next time. I think it won't be on the 3rd of July either, it will be on October 21, 2015 (make sure you are available). That's the exact day they leap into 2015 in the beginning of Back to the Future II. So since the Back To The Future "Future" is only five years away, here is how my next Back To The Future viewing party will differ from the first one.
In 2015 invites will be sent via satellite fax, and on dust-repellent paper.
There will be plenty of parking for your hover-converted cold fusion engine vehicles, I will also add additional storage for hoverboards and hoverbikes. The movie will be shown in Holomax 3D. Although this time we ordered our pizzas online and were able to track their cooking and delivery, as well as greet the delivery man by name- next time we will just hydrate a bunch of them in our home black and decker hydrator.
And remember, at my party entry requires thumb print identification, don't forget your self lacing Nike's and self drying and fitting jackets,
AND DON'T EVEN BOTHER SHOWING UP IF YOUR POCKETS AREN'T TURNED INSIDE OUT!
Above are a few things to look forward to at my next party.
