"The Entertainers"

PERSON: So what do you do online?
ME: I make videos where I examine forgotten and overlooked items of our mass-media culture.
PERSON: What's the appeal?
ME: ... I tell jokes?
PERSON: Is this just an excuse to not get a real job?
ME: I have a job. This is just a hobby!
PERSON: Why don't you just play WOW like a real social outcast?
ME: Because I have fun expressing myself.
(PERSON cannot answer because they are being eaten by a Dimetrodon that I have conjured.)

Above is a typical exchange between myself and an audience member who just doesn't get the purpose of a comedy video/ review/ retrospective. It truly is difficult to pinpoint exactly what I do. No, I'm not a vlogger. My videos involve dialogue, sketches, and alliteration-heavy scripts. No, I'm not a straight-comedian. Sometimes I don't include jokes or a have a punchline. No, I'm not a superhero. Though that would be handy.

Then I came across this video made by The Omega (no relation) which perfectly paraphrases what we video producers are: we are entertainers. So, for your entertainment, here is...

THE ENTERTAINERS

Much kudos to The Omega for this uplifting vid... though I can't help but feel that she forgot someone... someone is missing from this video... as though she forgot to include a reviewer very close to me... ... ... Robert Osborne! She forgot Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies. Oh well, I guess there wasn't enough space for everyone.

The Demon Bluesman: COMPLETE

So for all of you who swore you wouldn't bother thumbing through the novella "The Demon Bluesman" until the full thing was uploaded... it's all uploaded. Enjoy the journey through madness and apathy, through agony and bliss, through Arkansas and Louisiana. If enough of you out there enjoy it, then a sequel might show up which takes the story further in the psyche and deeper into the south. You can find the full story on this blog. Just follow the tabs at the top of the page. You can also download a PDF if that's easier, so you can read the devil's words anywhere, even during church!

Internet Dry Spell

Two weeks ago, I woke up in a new location: North Carolina, South Carolina's richer, snobby, tobacco farming upstairs neighbor. I used to live here back in the day when I had a disposable income, but now, in a post-dot com world, it's a bit tougher than I remember. But the show must go on!

Unfortunately, I've been at the mercy of my Internet provider. You see, this apartment is rather old, so high-speed Internet was like putting a jet engine on a hot air balloon... or something stupid like that. For the past two weeks, while I await the cables and wires and gizmos to be connected, I've been forced to entertain myself without the world-devouring web. Harikari was always an option, but I decided to explore the outside world, and I discovered some scary, weird, indescribable anomalies. Such as...

5. Trees

Man, just look at that gangly motherfucker! It's got arms like eels and a body like a Doric-style column. Where's it's head? Does it have a brain? This Lovecraftian horror can be seen everywhere around here, standing sentry in people's front yards. Sometimes I wander into the wrong neighborhood and there's a whole gang of these things standing around staring at me. I turn around quickly and get out of there. Stay the hell out of those places called nature preserves.

4. Flowers

What asshole thought these were a good idea? They poke up from the ground like traffic cones or tiny lampposts, all bright and frightening. The worst part is that they smell good so you lean over the get a whiff, and then a black and yellow dude jumps out and shanks your face! The knife must be dipped in feces because the stab wound gets all puffy and infected. Avoid flowers.

3. Parking Lots

I kind of like these. There's all these cars lined up in rows with no one watching. Some of the doors are unlocked and there's nice stuff inside, so you go about the aisles trying all the doors like an old game show snatching prizes: an iPod, a GPS, a coffee cup, a wad of napkins, a grandmother, etc. I must have looked at one of those trees wrong because this police man started chasing me. Damn trees. Also, am I the only one who though Ikea was a gigantic Blockbuster Video? It must be the color scheme.

2. Pigeons

Eck, what the fuck is that? RUN!

1. Cows

These people are weird. First of all, their women have four teets! And they're all nudists, which you think would be a good thing, except they all look like furry blimps with stubby legs and four teets. They chew on the ground all day. I'm assuming they eat tiny people like Smurfs and Borrowers. The women are ok, but the men are mean and charge at you with their pointy hair. I would recommend avoiding cows entirely.

Well, my Internet is back, so I've returned to blogging, writing, video producing, and... let's be honest. We all know the Internet is for one thing. One naughty thing that we all watch in the privacy of our own home. Enjoy!

"Really Rosie": Remembering Sendak

I've just learned about the passing of author Maurice Sendak. If this is the first you're hearing of it, then I'm sorry you had to hear it from a stoned hipster. My immediate thoughts were of the wonderful book "Where the Wild Things Are" which taught us to go nuts. However, I then remembered another excellent project Sendak was responsible for: "Really Rosie." The aforementioned work is a musical written by Sendak with music by Carole King. It has become a mainstay in children's theater for it's simple but fun songs and delightful cast of characters including self-proclaimed "sassiest girl on the block" Rosie. The story is based on several of Sendak's books including the "Nutshell Library" collection and "The Sign on Rosie's Door."

What I really remember, though, is the 1975 half-hour animated special (that ran in syndication for two decades) that featured only half of the songs, but brought the production to life for the small screen. Here's a clip below (pending Youtube take-down) for your viewing pleasure.

So farewell, Maurice. Thanks for all the words and pictures and for showing us that children's literature can be a true art form. Internet reviewer Oancitizen pointed me to the perfect quotation:

"Please don't go. We'll eat you up. We love you so."

-Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

Pick of the Now: Ye-Ye

The thing that bothers me most about modern pop music is it's hyper-sexualized image. Now, I like sex as much as the next person (in fact I'm in the middle of an orgy right now, but it's kind of difficult to write with someone's elbow continually hitting my keyboard, so I'll keep this short). For me pop music is meant to be catchy and light-hearted or else solemn and emotionally captivating, even at the most shallow level. So you can see where the problem lies: I don't find music beds and pop-style chord progression arousing. I find rock music, rockabilly, gritty garage, and certain old R&B sexy. That's where the chaos lies. The sexy, sexy chaos. Hell, if I were a club person, I'd add house and techno to the list. But pop music in its classical sense is too innocent sounding to be sexy. It's like getting hit-on by a nine year old. Ick.

Wanting a return to that sexual naivety, I recently rediscovered a style of music called Ye-Ye (aka Yeah-Yeah) which rocketed to popularity in France, Spain, and Quebec in the early 60s. This style of music is notable for its catchy melodies, lightheartedness, and most importantly its aggressively cute European singers. It can be likened to Go-Go style popular in America, but whereas that attempted to be erotic, the Ye-Ye crowd preferred to be naive about it. Yes, the girls were sexy, but they presented themselves as though they weren't. And really, the overall themes seemed to shun such topics anyways.   Francoise Hardy (pictured above) sang about being lonely and wanting to experience romance like all her friends do.

There is something refreshing about finding music like this. It's simple and fun, the kind of sugar that puts a smile on your face. And it's campy as hell. Susan Sontag even mentions Ye-Ye in her essay "Notes on Camp" as a style of music completely composed of aesthetic exaggeration and a departure from seriousness. As she says "the whole point of camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful. Anti-serious." I honestly think Rebecca Black's music would fall into the realm of Ye-Ye style campy playfulness... if it were likably awful rather than intolerably awful.

And now some selections. Links will remain as long as the clips stay on Youtube.

Bubblegum Hookah Episode 1-B: Preview

Coming May 13.

ML: Just No

Memory Lane, Episode 23 (or something) "Just No." Back in the late 80s/early 90s, I remember watching this cartoon called "The Flintstone Kids: Just Say No" in school. It was an attempt by the Reagan White House to curb drug addiction, but I think it pushed some of us towards drugs instead. Look at that pot-smoking cave man! He looks like he's having a whale of a time. So join me as I rip open this stone-age special and see what's inside. Also Michael Jackson... sort of.

Watch "JUST NO."

Record Store Day

Is it a coincidence that yesterday was 420 and today is National Record Store Day? As long as it's not National Random Drug Check Day then record stores should be bustling. Throughout the day, I've witnessed bloggers and Tweeters brag about their amazing purchases and finds, and all I could say was "Goddamnit! What happened to all the record stores in town?"Well, we used to have music shops, but they've all closed. Jacksonville had a fantastic store called "CD Connection" that, despite the name, had a satisfactory collection of vinyl. I remember all the music I bought there throughout high school and college. It closed its doors a couple years ago, citing competition from iTunes. Ah Mp3s, those audio formats of laughable quality. Simply put, Mp3's weren't meant to replace CDs, they were meant to make music more portable and accessible, but they did replace the older formats. And here we are, watching as even the music/movie section at Barnes & Noble shuts down. I suppose I could always get my hands on a CD, cassette, or vinyl by ordering it online, but that defeats the whole purpose of music shopping for physical things.

Let me remind you of the record store experience, ignoring what we remember from movies like "High Fidelity," that was a work of fiction... but didn't stray far from the truth. You'd walk into a store, some new release / standard classic drifting out of the speakers like vapor out of an air vent, and some guy / girl of high importance stands behind the counter. Don't let the self-important facade fool you. If you strike up a conversation with them, you'll find that they were fine folks. Sometimes they were assholes, but they were assholes with a great knowledge of music, and that is helpful.

I still want Kathleen Turner Overdrive to be a real band.

If you remove the racks, the posters, and the glass cases from the store, then you'll realize that the space itself is usually just a grimy hole-in-the-strip-mall. There's really no difference between searching the store and searching an abandoned box of CDs in a radio station's dumpster. So what's the appeal? The fucking ambience! Now there's a fancy word. Yes, the ambience, the pretension, the love of audio. The whole experience peaks into our adventurous spirit, the hunter-gatherer essence of the human soul, where we strive to discover that rare EP, that discontinued album from your favorite band based out of Chico, CA on that now defunct label. What great wonders will we find wedged between Bauhaus and Beirut? Beach House? Perfect!

There's also something to say about Cover Art. Browsing through rows and rows of plastic crystalline cases or stacks of paper sleeves, I am reminded of rushing through an art gallery, my eyes overwhelmed by the stampede of images, of killer robots and pastel deers, of seedy neighborhoods and rolling hills, of a yellowed Polaroid and a CG spark-fest. The variety is never-ending and it's always fun to play the cliche album cover drinking game. Take a drink every time you find: a cute dog, large breasts, a singer-songwriter looking off-camera, typewriter font, the too-clean ghetto, the band posing at random points on the cover, a black and white photo, and even bigger breasts.

In this case, just drink to forget.

Ah the music shop. How I miss ambling aimlessly, discovering new artists, or rediscovering old artists. As I write this, I find The Go Team's "Fire, Lightning, Strike!" in my stack of music. I had bought that on a whim in a record store, having fallen in love with the spirited uptempo and funky disco-flavored beats. I can't replicate this experience online: there's too much to sift through! I know it sounds ridiculous to say I have too much to choose from, but the fact is I feel over-saturated by music and it all blends together, even the good stuff. I guess the reason is that it's easy to click on the next song on your computer rather than the old days where you had to physically change the CD in the player (not counting chain stores that used Mp3s in their listening stations).

So, seeing as how it's still record store day (for an hour anyways), here are some new releases that I recommend.

"Brains" - Lower Dens
"Gold on the Ceiling" - The Black Keys
"Nightswim" - Frankie Rose
"Revolution" - Doctor John
"Serpents" - Sharon Van Etten

And of course, good luck catching one of Jack White's free-floating vinyls released on April 1. Literally catch a copy of "Freedom at 21."

Easter Stuff

For the past decade, Christians have been trying to dethrone the Easter Bunny and reestablish Jesus as the head mascot of Easter. This year it looks like they got their wish, but instead of do-gooder families, the trend caught on with us web-savvy smart-asses who have turned the holiday into "Zombie Jesus Day." In fact, I've heard next to nothing about an Eastern Bunny, but I don't care. Even as a kid, when I believed in Santa and the Tooth Ferry and thought that the monster truck Gravedigger was a sentient being, I thought the Easter Bunny was a bunch of bollocks. Rabbits are varmints, good for nothing but feeding to eagles and anacondas. They ate my vegetable garden and now this cotton-tailed parasite wants to make amends by bringing me colored eggs? Get me my shotgun, ma.

Anyways, it's time for Easter specials. But in all honesty, I never watched these. I was too busy biting the head off a Chocolate Jesus (that was an actual thing right?) But I do remember the commercials on the Disney Channel, as they seemed to run non-stop. Here's a decent compilation.

These all pretty much sucked from what I can remember, but I do want to find "Peter and the Magic Egg." I recall the villain of that one being a cranky robot farmer named Tobias Tinwhiskers. So between Zombie Jesus and Tobias Tinwhiskers, Easter should be a spectacular bloodbath of horror. But instead it's about religion and Cadbury Eggs. Whatever. Happy Sunday.

Pick of the Now: Tennis

I listen to a lot of things with a chaotic beat, destructive lyrics, and feedback like a wildcat chainsaw. Often times, I need to chill out in the melodic zone. That's where modern indie buzz-bands come in handy. So many of them specialize in that chill mood that keeps you from grinding your teeth. With bands like Chairlift, Lowers Dens, and Beach House, the movement now is to focus on harmonies and melodies rather than swift beats and harsh cutting. One of my current favorites is Tennis who wallow in a retro sound not unlike the pop of the 70s, but perfected to be timeless. If I were to listen to this fifty years from now I wouldn't be able to tell you what decade it is from. Here is "Origins" from their album "Young and Old."