Finding Doug Jones' Flat Bed
Welcoming a chance to revisit an old friend
In 1991-1995 the late film programmer Doug Jones and I did a zine called Flatbed.
It was mostly Doug.
(“All articles are by Doug Jones unless they’re by Nick in which case he wrote them,” Doug writes in the credits.)
I just contributed articles and the occasional picture of me eating donuts.
I stumbled on a stack of these while cleaning out the closet. They were in a box of old tax paperwork. I don’t know why I stashed them there, I didn’t really remember I had them.
When someone is gone, and you suddenly strike a vein of shared experiences made real in paper or video or film, it’s a bracing slap.
These were like welcoming an old pal.
Perusing them, the names all ring out of the past.
The Official band: Eric’s Trip
A Deep Shag band ad – our friend Jon Hunt who would go on to marry and then divorce screenwriter Diablo Cody, who we briefly knew as his new girlfriend Brook Busey, on the Hipster-Dufuses mailing list, an email chain of Minneapolitan band and media folks.
It’s Oct 2, 2025, and nearing the second anniversary of the day we lost Doug. Those of you who know me well, know this heartbreaking story.
Doug and I met in 1985 through Debate and Speech, most likely Speech, he was such a cool kid and I wanted to latch on to him because girls loved him – his Robert Smith hair and oversized coats.
But he was also a movie geek like me, already deep into foreign films and with an unstoppable love of weird culture, horror movies, anything that wasn’t like the others. He was at Burnsville High School, I was at Lakeville High School – in Minnesota, you had Burnsville, Apple Valley, Lakeville – land of jock hockey rivals and yet a forged community of outsiders who met for late night at Perkins or our beloved First Avenue and all-ages Sunday Nights.
We moved in together in 1988 on Como Avenue with a couple other friends. For years we would move our belongings from place to place, usually the core of me and Doug.
We shot little film shorts together. He led me around a sub-zero freezing Minneapolis in a gorilla suit to promote Inside Monkey Zetterland, a movie so bleakly mediocre we thought the best way to promote it was to dress up as an ape.
We coalesced around an apartment on 15th Street that was supposedly previously occupied by Bob Dylan.
I think every college apartment in Minneapolis was once occupied by Bob Dylan, according to every college apartment landlord.
We worked together at the U Film Society in Minneapolis for the legendary, feisty Al Milgrom. Doug and I and Joel Shepard put on the first annual Sleaze Film Festival, renting out a drive-in theater for a triple feature of The Last House on the Left, Ray Dennis Steckler’s The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies, and Andy Milligan’s Torture Dungeon (I’m pretty sure the last one was Joel and Doug scheming).
We celebrated during the first film as it sold out.
Ten minutes after Torture Dungeon started, there were two cars left in the parking lot.
The legend of Doug among those who knew him is missing a few things. For one, the perpetually shaved-head Doug had dreadlocks for a brief period. I have a picture somewhere, which I kept as bargaining chip in case he ever got a little loose with his ownership of the VHS cassette of me singing in Grease in high school.
We moved together to San Francisco driving a Budget Rental Truck with his Geo Metro towed behind in 1994. It was the beginning of the winter. Once we hit the mountains, we realized neither of us knew how to put chains on, so we drove up to Wyoming instead of actually driving across the mountains. We also took a trip to Monument Valley, from our John Ford movies.
Being Doug and I, we stayed a total of 5 minutes, took a couple pictures, and said “well, let’s get back in the car.”
Years later, when I had a record label and he was in LA, he got my big band Oranger to come down and do a live score for Man With A Movie Camera. It was so wonderful we repeated in back up in SF, and then showed the Flaming Lips documentary at the Castro. When we did stuff, we did it big, and we made it fun. He was the best.
Oranger was Matt Harris and Mike Drake and a slew of other friends. Doug also hosted Ed Ackerson’s Polara, doing a live score for the silent The Fall of the House of Usher.
Doug and Matt and Ed were major collaborators of my life. We did record labels, fanzines, band stuff, writing, editing, working together.
With them all now gone, who’s going to collaborate with me now?
If you live your life experience through the lens of other people or to satisfy or impress other people you will live an empty life, I tell myself.
I find myself recreating what I am at this age, and what I need to survive, fiscally, mentally, emotionally.
At this point, do you really need to do it all yourself?
Flat Bed came about because I had just gotten a Mac Quadra and a bulky, heavy Apple printer that was distinguished because it didn’t use dot matrix printing. It was a LaserWriter Pro 630, 600 DPI. Probably cost $1000. I also had a scanner, which was still a luxury at the time.
Mom and Dad were generous with their post-college gift giving.
Doug used my gear and occasionally my writing to create Flatbed.
When Doug died and his stuff was placed in storage for his son Wylie to eventually deal with, I realized that in that storage unit somewhere is that previously mentioned VHS copy of me singing in Grease, which he often tortured me with by suggesting he was going to release it to the rest of the world. I trust Wylie will do what needs to be done with it.
I’m not one to recount dreams, as I find people who recount their dreams horribly tiresome.
However, last night I dreamt that I was following Doug through a huge open underground space. We were trying to get to a film premiere. Of course I lost Doug on the way and wound up behind a locked door.
Together Doug and I would make videos for Lakeville Public Access. He was up for anything.
We went to see Debbie Gibson together, Doug and I and 5000 little girls and their parents. It wasn't creepy, we just thought it was absolutely hilarious.
A mom and her two kids sat next to us. The opening band, “Bros,” did two songs and then said they had computer issues and couldn’t continue the set.
The mom looked to us and we shrugged. She said, “They sounded loud enough.”
Doug never drank. I saw him try a couple times. Just didn't like it. He would be the sober guy next to me, or run up to the front of the stage to see the band up close.
Doug didn't register great food or anything like that. He had his sandwiches.
Even later in life I would ask him "have you found any great food in North Adams" and he would just shrug. He didn't have an answer. Didn't know. Didn't even think about it.
All he cared about was movies. Paula, Wylie, and movies.
Doug hated when things changed
When he moved from San Francisco back to Minneapolis, to run Oak Street Cinema, he broke down as he got ready to get in the car. I’d never seen such emotion from him before. An avalanche.
I can’t imagine what loss he must have felt after his beloved Paula died.
It must have torn him apart.
I’ve kept a list of the movies Doug loved. Looking back through these zines now, I see mentions of so many of them. Not all of them objectively great. But all of them loved by Doug.
Malibu High, Birdemic (which he loved so much, if that’s the right word for it, he sent me a DVD twice), Horror of Party Beach, The Seven Samurai, Valley Girl, Tokyo Story, Grande Illusion, Demon Lover Diary, even Joel H Reed’s Bloodsucking Freaks!
Trying to get to the bottom of what was Doug was always hard.
He was so private. Stoic.
But we lived together for years.
Since we were 18 years old.
We started hanging out when I was 15.
I can’t say I’m finding any truth in these zines. I can say I welcomed the chance to revisit him.
Doug would probably hate this.
He wanted to know I was ok, the last time we saw each other.
He made a point of it.
He talked about Wylie coming down here to Austin when he turned 21.
He had a beard, which always seemed odd on Doug’s cherubic face.
Doug’s friend Maggie said he hadn’t really laughed since Paula died. Not the laugh we remembered, anyway.
But she also said he seemed like he was on the cusp of moving past the loss, or at least accepting he had to live.
I’m happy for the time we spent together.
I’m glad I have these old zines.
You can hear his voice on every page.
Thanks for reading, and for the new folks out there, welcome to Are You Experienced. I’m Nick Tangborn and this is my weekly (at least, I try every week!) newsletter about aging, media, trying to find a career and purpose post-50, and pretty much anything else I want to talk about.
I just got a copy of Werner Herzog’s The Future of Truth on my doorstep this morning. I know where I’ll be for the foreseeable future. Herzog writing about AI and “ecstatic truth,” if there’s a more “me” book than this, I would welcome the suggestion.
You can always find me at nicholas@areyouexperienced.co
I would pay good money to see that Grease vid.
And it's refreshing to see your 1995 self enjoying milk and a cookie.