Wow. The “lost” episode of WAY USA (Niagra Falls), directed by Peter Lauer, starring Tesco Vee, was one of my first productions ever. Hopefully one day that tape will also surface, but it is great to see the first episode of the show itself has returned to pop history, and even better to be elevated into the realm of “the greatest cult video you’ve probably never seen“. I have long been a fan of Dangerous Minds, but now I am even more so for sourcing this and bringing it to our attention.
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/way_usa_sleazy_punk_comedy_travelogue_is_the_greatest_cult_video_youve_prob
The director Peter Lauer was in an incredible batch of original MTV interns that graduated into the director class the subsequent year. If my memory serves it included Mark Pellington, Ted Demme, John Polson and others. I think my first production with Peter was the “Run’s House” video for MTV. In those days, in addition to producing, I also AD’d the shoot. Peter’s concept for the video was to create riots wherever we filmed. I believe we closed down both 125th street and Times Square on the shoot. If memory serves me, if you look closely you can find the 24 year old me caught on camera (kinda akin to a similar moment I have in Jem Cohen’s Fugazi doc INSTRUMENT), but to tell the truth, I can’t find me in when I look through it now.
RUN-DMC – Run’s House from Arvoredo on Vimeo.
I did a couple of videos with Peter, including Rob Base’s “It Takes Two“. I remember doing MTV spots with him and some of the original VJ’s, like Alan Hunter. We never did get to make a movie though. In the universe where everything goes as I want, WAY USA would have been a huge hit and an ongoing show, as big as RUN DMC perhaps. But it is a joy for me to go back now.
I hope we never run out of things that we get to do for the first time. Even more, I hope each of them is as exciting as this next one will be for me. I have never given a bookstore reading before, but I am going to do one very soon.