Capitain Hook

PULPit BY ROBBIE CONAL Special thanks to Alison Johns for info and Chris “Chuckles” Donham for cheesy Photoshop effects. JACK VALENTI, president of the Motion Picture Association of America since 1966, is so paranoid about piracy, he’s forcing Academy members to effectively sign a loyalty oathbefore mailing them “screeners,” so they can watch the movies they’re voting on for the Oscars. No lending to friends and relatives! No DVDs, just VHS. This is the same man who, in all his wisdom, testified to a House Subcommittee in 1982 “that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” Two decades later, video sales and rentals account for most of the film industry’s profits. Captain Hook could take a tip from the porn industry and just make movie tix less expensive and put legal downloadables on the Internet for easy access. As porn entrepreneur T. Lassiter Jones puts it, “Free is very anarchistic and hard to deal with and you don’t know what you’re getting… cheap is more convenient.” Robbie Conal and many others will be at the L.A. Weekly & Golden Apple book signing! Saturday, Feb. 28, from 4 to 6 p.m., at 7711 Melrose Ave. Go to goldenapplecomics.com for more info.