DISAPOINTED BY THE KILLER SHEEP

Saw the Godmonster of Indian Flats and I’m disappointed. Yes it was weird in a very special 70’s way and yes it did have an 8 ½ foot tall bipedal Sheep – but the sheep was incidental to the whole thing. Really you could have done the whole film with out it being in it for a minute. The film had something to do with conservation or exploitation or society or something. I suspect that the director was trying to do a real movie like they show on the Indie film channel all the time. Why he popped in the sheep isn’t clear- unless he couldn’t get what little funding he obviously got unless he had it. (“It’ll have a monster” “here’s a check”)

It opens with a young sheep herder (Shepherd? Whatever) getting a lift into Reno and winning big. Then he, wearing a sheep skin vest of all things that seems weird for some reason, falls in with a fast crowd. They drive him up to some old mining down that runs on nostalgia from the Comstock days. He gets pocked picked by a hooker and then beaten up by the local law - they seem to be in on all this.

So then in a jump cut worthy of the master of the “huh- what the hell is this?” jump cut Coleman Francis – we find the young Shepherd being driven back home by some professor type. It turns out he lives near here, so how come he didn’t know about the place he got rolled in? So what with all the foo-fa earlier? Blessed if I know.

So, weary, aching and somewhat drunk, he goes in and sits in the manger with his sheep. They had earlier stated he was Basque rather than Scottish so none of those more disturbing rumors about what Scots do to sheep would come to mind.

In the middle of the night are bright lights, something happens and a sheep gives birth to what looks like a large slab of uncooked raw beef that breathes. The next morning the Professor and his pretty assistant (she and the Shepherd will later spend most of the rest of the film boinking) arrive see the beef and take to the lab where they spend pretty much the rest of the movie growing it until it becomes the 8 ½ foot tall bi-pedal sheep.

Meantime the rest of the cast are off doing another story involving the mayor who runs the town with an iron will and a representative of a mining company seeking to buy up mining rights. Most of the movie is about this. Yes it’s a weird film but not in the manner the lurid cover led you to imagine it. I wanted Mutant Sheep business and I get some stoned allegory for most of the film until the Sheep breaks out.

And the Mutant Sheep is one of those more sinned against than sinning types – he kills like one person and scares some kids and later he dances with the prof’s pretty assistant . And you know, this has been done since god damn Frankenstein, in the damn 30’s for Pete’s sake. Can we once, just once have a monster who having been deeply wronged (I’ll give you that much of a humanizing touch) decides to just take as many down with him as he can in revenge against the world. Just a thought.

So the Sheep – not an impressive piece of costuming I have to say – it could be why they don’t have him in the film a lot – wanders around, get captured – nobody else dies in that, monster’s a bit of whimp if you ask me. Then the mayor in a speech announces that while the towns people did not sell their mining shares to the rep’s company, he, the mayor, after buying same rights from the townsfolk. he has sold the rights to the same company.

A riot breaks out. You are not sure what happens to any of the cast except for the sheep who was in a cage in a truck that falls down a small cliff and then explodes burning the sheep. We just don’t see what happens to the others, I’m not sure if this is on purpose or if the director just ran out of film.

The last shot has the mayor losing it on the podium and laughing and smoke rising from the fire. Meantime sheep are grazing on the grass (it’s a gas) and this smoke comes up. Earlier the professor said that these jets of gas could have caused the mutation. It’s supposed to be a spooky ending but seeing as the first bipedal sheep needed weeks of round the clock care in what looked liked a sheep premature infant/ Oxygen tent, you are willing to take your chances.

In the end – too much other stuff, not enough killer mutant sheep. I'd have had at least a flock of the damn things and have someone say "I'm sick to death of these motherf##king Giant Mutant Killer Bipedal Sheep in this Motherf##king town." Well maybe not. But I would have the mayor try to get the national guard, realize he'd have to say "Giant Mutant Bipedal Sheep" out loud to a stranger and hang up the phone.

Disturbing Ads and Cheap Trick

I don’t watch a lot of commercial TV – the shows I tend to watch have ratings so low that the commercials could almost address the viewers by name – “Ted Ted? We can’t start until you get here” “Ted’s in the bathroom” “Okay we’ll wait” so I don’t get exposed to the new national ads until a while after they have launched.

The new Sprite commercials don’t make much sense – but that’s edgy advertising I guess. But I find the thought of being smashed in the face with the huge bellies of nearly naked fat men painted green and yellow is profoundly disturbing. Really I think I’ll just stick to gin. Splash of tonic thanks, twist of lime or lemon some ice thanks. Yeah more health problems but that stomach smash thing. Ouch.

Which reminded me of the other ad that had my head in bad place – This tweedy looking guy (tweed jacket beard, hair going back a bit, an English professor mayhap) is on a date which hasn’t gone very well. The woman says “well goodnight” and shuts the door in his face. The Tweedy guy, dispirited and depressed, gets into his car, reaches into the glove compartment and takes out a candy bar, a Milky Way to be exact. Okay fine up till now I can under stand, chocolate is comfort food have that now, wait till you get home to hit the bourbon and break out the porn – that’s understandable human behavior. I can follow along.

Then the candy bar turns into a woman, well half of a woman, the bottom half is still a candy bar, it is a weird mermaid like thing. It looks up at the man and smiles.

Then it starts talking.

Now about now I would be screaming and tossing away the candy bar. I’m still haunted by the image from the original fly where the tiny half man half fly is trapped in a spider web screaming “help me. Help me!” in a high squeaky voice. And the candybarwoman image is just too much like that for comfort. Hell my hold on reality is tenuous enough with having my damn food start talking to me okay?

The other rational response here is “Damn I need to get my meds checked” which is what I thought was going through the Tweedy guys mind since he wasn’t screaming. But no, he talks to the candy bar. A comment about the date or something.

The candy bar talks back, he laughs and then he eats the candy bar, which turns back into a candy bar just before the tweedy guy's teeth sever the Candybarwoman’s spine and our lives are haunted forever by her bloodcurdling scream.

This (his lack of surprise that the candy is speaking to him) implies that this clown carries on conversations with his food on a regular basis. It also explains his failure on the date. I think it was very brave of that woman to get back in the car with him after he’d spend the evening muttering to the meat and quoting Proust to the vegetables and then cursing at the coffee. I’d have maced the insane gimp and ran like hell. There are taxies everywhere.



Influences: Cheap Trick – The first group that I followed that routinely added ambiguity to their act. And there was that very strong (if very odd) visual presence what with Rick Neilsien’s Huntz Hall on speed act, Bun E Carlos looking like a German banker and the other two Robin Zander and Tom Petterson and looking like standard 70’s blow dry rock stars. And let’s not forget the importance of their logo.

In their image is where the ambiguity first shows up – who the hell are these guys? What’s going on here? And it showed up elsewhere – in their huge supper colossal hit that they will have to play forever “I want you to want me” there is a line “I’m begging you to beg me” huh? What does that mean? What the hell is this relationship all about?

And in concert - they follow the glorious Surrender – a song which says “We’re all alright” (and shows the obvious insanity of those who say you are not – and that there isn’t any damn point in taking them on it since they are so bloody nuts, best to nod, keep things close to the vest, and move on) with Auf Wiedersehen – an absolutely hopeless howl of Nihilistic despair – I like it very much (‘There are many here among you who fell you’re lives are a joke, for you we sing this final song for you there is no hope”). I may have identified a bit too much with that song but no matter.

Of course they could just be singing the song because its title is Auf Widersehen (goodbye in German). They sure as hell won’t tell you.

I like ambiguity and contradiction in things – keeps you on your toes.

And the baseball cap and the suit look is of course a nod to the Tricksters.

Feeling Scattered

You know you’re tired when you wake up thinking about how good it will be going to bed when you get back from work. That’s tired. Which is what I am – I feel beat in my bones. My brain is lethargic and scattered and this post will be as well.

Well DNA samples proved that the creepy guy they flew in first from Thailand didn’t kill the little girl. I’m not sure why anyone should be surprised. His story had big holes in it (he was saying the death was an accident. Not going into the creepy details the girl was murdered.) And they hadn’t gotten a DNA match before booking him made me and some other folks suspicious. People confess to crimes all the time. It’s why police will hold back details of the case so that they can help weed them out – and to determine if a tip they got was genuine or not.

I don’t know what kind of bozo the clowns they have in the boulder CO DA’s office but sweet Jesus on stick if this is any indication of their professional competency, they must have a conviction rate of about 12%.

The media, well since the idea of checking to see if something was true or not seems to have gone out the window , you can’t really be surprised at there reaction. They rolled in this like it was catnip. They wanted this to be true, they wanted to be able to show the pictures of the little girl dressed up in those disturbing costumes again, they wanted to be able to tut-tut over the whole tabloid creepiness of it (I keep using that word but it’s the only one that comes to mind). This sleaze is what gets the ratings, not the boring and depressing stories about the mess in Iraq, the mess in Afghanistan, the mess in the middle east, the mess in New Orleans, the growing gap between rich and poor, the hideous state of pop music these days, why are all the movies so bad, and so on. All of this is depressing and they get yelled at by the GOP noise machine when they accurately report things. So why do it? Let’s run with the dead girl. Gets the ratings.

The creepy guy will be put into a jail cell in LA somewhere which in the end I suspect he wanted. Nobody confesses to a murder you didn’t do unless you are dealing with mountain size guilt. Which I have no doubt he has, he wasn’t in Thailand for the food. He couldn’t stop but on some level he knew how sick he was and the guilt (and lord he should feel guilty) twisted his mind into a knot.

Enough I have to go take a shower now. Long one very very hot water lots of soap.

We're kicking around a very sarcastic song idea. We have noticed that almost everybody thanks god or Jesus for good things. Well the time has come to complete the circle, to thank god that you didn’t get the job, that you didn’t get the girl and that your life is a meaningless, hopeless mess.

Speaking of not getting the whole god concept, Pope Benedict is having people come to talk to him about evolution. Word is that he wants to endorse intelligent design. I can understand pig ignorant; I just can’t understand willfully pig ignorant. Ah well – I guess 500 years from now whoever is pope will release a letter apologizing to Darwin. Like they did with Galileo.

More random thoughts:

Finally saw Shawn of the Dead. And yes it was very very good, and I liked it a lot. Sometimes Shawn’s character was too close to my own wishy washy private persona for his romantic and personal problems that funny to me. And I liked that they never explained why people were now flesh eating zombies. And that it was set in a suburb away from London. Funny and scary and it didn’t make mock the zombie concept. A late recommended list add.

I do have to say I had a problem with Shawn’s friend Ed. The idea is that they are friends but Jesus what a f#king wanker. I mean the man has to have some redeeming qualities. I have friends who are I have to admit can be complete pains in the ass but there is something about them than redeems them. Not here. And once the zombie stuff starts in earnest Ed doesn’t seem to react. I’m sorry no matter how stupid and self absorbed you are – the dead walking about to feed on the living is going cause some a change in your behavior patterns. The bit with the coin machine in the pub was funny but nobody’s that stupid.

Also saw William Shatner in White Comanche. He did this in Spain during a break in the original Star Trek series on a budget of about 123 dollars. Ever since it was mentioned in the Golden Raspberry book I’ve wanted to see this. It features Will was Johnny Moon and Notha twin half breed bothers. Johnny Moon is the loner good guy caught between the white world and the Comanche accepted by neither. Notah is peyote eating bad twin leading a renegade band of Indians to kill and murder. Until you have seen William Shatner in war paint doing an Indian war whoop you have no idea what bad acting REALLY looks like. I’m not going to go into details because it doesn’t deserve it but a few things stand out.

One – Will makes a very bad Indian, yes he’s supposed to be a half breed but he’s just sooo white – esp. as the shirtless Notha that he looks like will glow in the dark.

Two- It’s obvious that nobody who wrote the script knew a damn thing about peyote. There is an early scene where the twins confront each other and Johnny Moon says “eat the peyote and dream the dreams of the devil” and Notha snaps back. If Notha had actually done as much peyote as he’s supposed to have, he would have been too busy throwing up to say anything and when he finally did manage to speak he would have been saying something like “Gulubba nosh for Blabba geep geep.”

Three – in the climactic gun battler, Johnny Moon is hit in the shoulder by Notha. Johnny clutches his shoulder and then carries on killing Notha. I’m sorry, you get hit in the shoulder with a soft nosed bulled from a colt .45 peacemaker you’ve knocked flat, you’ve just lost an arm and you are going to be damn lucky if you don’t bleed to death in the next few minutes. A lot of westerns have this happen but it’s really bad here.

Four – the music is beyond wrong. It sounds like what they would play in a Los Vegas lounge in the 1960’s when Vegas was afraid of Rock n’ roll. Or a movie where Sinatra was playing a cop in Miami or some place in the same era. Not the old west.

I placed the DVD back in the pre paid envelope and sent it on it’s way. I didn’t think seeing it again would cause clinical depression but I wasn’t about to take any chances.

(Blogger doesn't like pitctures all of a sudden.)

BEWARE KILLER SHEEP!

Just when the world seems completely stale flat and unprofitable something comes into
my life that makes me think there might be a force guiding things (it may also be by our definitions batshit insane but let that go).

I was looking through a movie website (scifilm.org) – that I’d hit via a link from Badmovies.org – both fabulous sites by the way just wonderfully done. And yes I do research on bad films. Idly browsing I found a film called. “The Godmonster of Indian Flats”. This film was done in 1973 with a budget of maybe 200 bucks. It is the tale of the rampage of a mutated 8 ½ foot tall bipedal sheep. I'm goning to write that again because it fills me with a strange insane joy an 8 ½ foot tall mutant bipedal sheep.

That kills people.

Somebody made a movie with an 8 ½ foot killer sheep. You could take powerful hallucinogenic drugs for years and not come up with a concept that weirdly twisted. And then to acually make the movie.

It’s a wonderful world.

Of course it’s in my net flix queue and there is no way I am not seeing this movie. Yeah it’s probbably just god-awful and cheap but just to see a movie that features a mutant killer sheep is what makes my life worth while.

ADEU PLUTO

Word has come down that Pluto is no longer considered a planet – instead it, along with its companion Charon (no not that kind of companion) and some other object I never heard of will be considered to be dwarf planets. And they will be made to act as the munchkins in the planets version of the Wizard of Oz – well not really but that’s the first thing that came to my mind when I was thinking about dwarf planets.

Pluto’s always been a bit of an odd duck very small (size of the earth’s moon or so – I think) with a famous irregular orbit that takes in inside of Neptune for a part of it’s year and it is on incline compared to the rest of the planets which all more or less rotate around the sun on the same plane. (Boss boss the Plane! The Plane! – shut up).

Of course the way my mind works I found myself wondering what the Astrologers are going to do – will they accept this or no? Or will they toss in the other dwarf planet (which is called 2003 UB313) into the mix and charge you more for a full reading?

I’m ambivalent about astrology, it’s fun to read a chart and what not but I’m not going to base my day to day decisions on how I lead my life on it. For one thing the horoscopes keep talking about things happening in my romantic life. Trust me, there is nothing happening in my romantic life. So I take anything it says with a 5 Pd bag of salt. I mean its’ not like the Tarot or the I-ching is it? Those are accurate (actually Isaac Newton thought very highly of Astrology and studied it and Carl Jung thought that the I-Ching and the tarot were by their randomness excellent ways to get in touch with the subconscious. I’m in contact with my sub-conscious a lot, when it isn’t making bad fantasy Island jokes, it’s stumbling around my mind in an old bathrobe, bitching abut how long it’s been since I got laid, and screaming for more gin. It’s a pain really. Oh yes on occasion it sends up a song idea or two.).

Meantime in band news – you knew we have a band yes? We were going to be interviewed on the 30th for the show Art or something like it – see the website Artorsomethinglikeit.com. But the Enemy Below had to bow out (and I’ll never do an interview without him – it’s Bob Muir and the Enemy Below after all) so it will get pushed back to October – which is okay.

Thing in I’ve never been interviewed – at least not like this. I’ve been interviewed for jobs lotsa times. Not this – and yes I’m afraid I will end up looking and sounding like some pompous dork “well Ted our influences cover the entire gamut of recording western music really” or self satisfied hipsters giggling at our own jokes or an older version of Bevis and Butthead (“Do you use a tube amp?” “Heh heh you said tube”).

Am going to a wedding this Sunday so I may be somewhat under the weather (read screaming for more gin) by the time the open mike gets rolling.

And I want to come up with a good logo – a lot of the bands I like (Ramones, Cheap Trick, Motorhead et al.) have very very identifiable logos. Hell even the stones have that tongue (what that has to do with the Stones music is vague – still it looks right). Logos that also had something to do with the sound of the band – you couldn’t look at the Motorhead logo and except ballads could you?

Later.

Oh yes - See Taladega Nights the Legend of Ricky Bobby. Great dumb funny.

Pics from the gig.

As promised. For all you little droogies who couldn't make it. (Bonus points if you spot the moive ref.)


The one and only Enemy Below deep in the tasteful solo.


Singing away



Some times you must...



Me doing a lousy Rick Neilson impression



Pictures of me tend to horrify me - this is a slight exception

MALAISE? ISN'T THAT WHAT CARTER HAD?

Had the gig, great thanks to everybody that showed up. We were expecting nobody and we got people. Applause to you all. Pictures later today when I home and put them in. so it was a better gig than we thought it was going to be.

Still not all went well – the sound system sucked and the Enemy Below had to deal with the worst guitar amp in the history of amplified music. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get anything resembling a decent (and we’re saying decent as in not sucking, as opposed to decent as in good) tone and half way through the set just gave up trying. But we are professionals (even when we are only doing this for comp tickets) and we did the show. I then drank too many umbrella drinks for my own good and spent most of Sunday staring at soccer or just noodling about the net.

Today I’ve having what can only call my typical post set depression. I feel a sense of what’s the whole point here? The other day I skimmed a magazine that reviews the indie cds in the NYC area. None and when I say none I mean not one damn one featured stuff anywhere close to what we are doing. None.

When I’m like this I think about these Martha Graham quotes (taken from a letter Agnes DeMille):

“There is a vitality, a life-force, a quickening that is translated through you into action; and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.

And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares to other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.

Keep the channel open... No artist is pleased...

There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching - and makes us more alive than the others.”

Now what this exactly has to do with writing songs about people with insect heads and watching porn I’m not entirely sure. Still it sounds good yes? I supose blessed unrest is better than nothing.

Speaking of more alive than others – can someone please inform the tourists in New York that there are people here that need to get to work? It’s big time tourist season now here and well you see them all over midtown, families of 4 or 5 all walking side by side at glacial pace. They seem so overwhelmed by the size of the city that their brains have shut down. The other day I saw a New Yorker (you can tell it’s the way they move) an older grey haired women practically dive like a running back going for the goal line when the two people were holding her up by walking a pace a heavily drugged snail would consider slow stopped walking shoulder to shoulder for a minute. In that second she ran to daylight shoving both of them aside. They were upset but they should be grateful that NYC does not allow concealed carry because judging by the woman’s expression, they would have been shot.

Snakes on plane has opened – with a good but not great box office, well now have to see what the motherf##ing word of mouth on this motherf##king movie does.

Feel free to post comments – I like the feedback.

edit - can't always get the right words the first time.

I EAT YOUR SKIN

And then I pull my head off to stop watching this film.

Lord, another rotten film to add to my list. I don’t know why I do this to myself. I could be living nice life, I could be enjoying the company of friends, I could be out improving my mind, I could be having hot sex (well maybe not that at least I could be looking for that), but nooooooo. I find myself watching a film that is worse than Del Tenney’s infamous rotten film – The Horror of Party Beach – a film that the long ago Monster Times (it’s gimmick was that it was a printed on newsprint like it was a newspaper – lasted about 6-8 issues) called aforesaid Horror of Party Beach not only the worst monster movie ever made but the worst beach party movie ever made (they knew not the horror that was Manos but I digress, I always digress but this is more so).

What happened is a few days ago I was lying in bed in that strange state between waking and sleeping when I half heard in my imagination some voice of doom death metal guy singing in that larynx busting growl they all have these days I…EAT…YOUR…SKIN (metal riff ) I EAT YOUR SKIN (same metal riff goes here). I got up, like I usually do when things like this happen and wrote it down (plot of the song is – well it maybe okay now but I will eat your skin – I being something not sure hey I was almost asleep). As the day went on I got puzzled “where the heck did that come from?” so I googled and sure enough there was a movie by that name – by Del Tenney no less – he of Horror of Party Beach. So off I go to netflix and sure enough they have it – and they send it to me.

The film stars nobody – the story makes no sense and the production values are awful. The film’s original title was Zombies but it was changed cause it was going to be shown in double feature with “I drink your blood” (not done by Tenney – but still bad).

The story revolves around some writer of adventure stories who is flown someplace called Voodoo Island (we know there is voodoo because the opening scene featured a voodoo style dance by very mostly very pale people, it’s as if preppies had gone in to voodoo) by his agent –who brings his wife with the voice that could cut glass. The writer glad to leave Miami cause a bald man is chasing him because he’s been fooling about with bald guy’s wife, this is, I assume, intended to show us what a playboy stud he is, it just made me depressed.

On the flight to the island – in a little one engine puddle jumper – they get lost in the fog and can’t find the island. I’m watching thinking – Hey Lindberg why not use the radio? The one right in font of you/ and then they start to run out of gas and I’m thinking where did they get this pilot? The Playboy stud (forever afterwards PS) gets control of the plane and lands on the beach.

The beach – right. In the real world, the instant that plane hits the sand it goes nose first into the ground and all the people die. Which would have shortened the movie. I have to assume the island has an airport – if it didn’t what the hell were you doing flying to the damn thing? But the plane never leaves the beach.

After the landing, PS goes off and looks for help and the camera goes off into the woods to show us a man who looks like he’s had papier-mâché slapped onto his face, covering it, and then someone painted eyes on it. I presume it’s intended to look scary – but you end up wondering how the actor sees in that get up. He walks stiffly because he’s a zombie.

As the PS goes through the woods looking for help but then he sees a pretty girl swimming in a lagoon. I think she’s supposed to be naked but the editing is pretty clumsy so I’m not sure. This is of course the Female lead (FL) I’m not giving names on purpose. As PS goes into lust overdrive – well pretty naked girl swimming I’d forget what the hell I was supposed to be doing as well – Zombie comes out of the woods menaces FL – PS yells tries to help and doesn’t really. There is some confusion and PS meets a fisherman who says he will guide him to help. The fisherman then has his head chopped off by the Zombie (rule of thumb – never help the hero, your chances of surviving are about as good as the guy with the red shirt beaming down with Spock, McCoy, and Captain James T (“Widomaker”) Kirk.) and PS empties his revolver into the zombie to no effect.

This is when the movie lost me permanently (not that I was paying that much attention) but I put 4 shots from a .32 policeman’s special into some one’s chest and he doesn’t fall I’m going to be pretty flipped out for a while but the PS merely says something odd is going on here while he is sipping his drink.

Later we meet the rest of the cast – none of whom matter – there is an estate keeper of some kind, and a scientist who is the farther of the FL and other odds and ends. The drums beat in the background as the group eats. There is cutting to odd voodoo dances – most of the people are blindingly white and dressed in preppy looking clothes, not your normal voodoo folks).

It turns out the natives are demanding a virgin sacrifice of some sort – so later that night PS takes care of the FL’s virginity (this is something you don’t see in movies much – virgin’s picked to be a sacrifice tend not to take this easy way out) but it doesn’t matter girl is snatched anyway, PS goes after her, we see zombies wander around (not a bit of skin eating in the film by the way) and more dancing (time waster ahoy!). There is a lot of to and frowing – the only good scene is where PS opens up what looks like storage shed and it’s full of zombies – well what the hell else would you do with them). It turns out the estate keeper was forcing the scientist to uses discovery that exposing snake venom to radiation changed men into mindless slaves and messed up their face (the bullet proof bit is NEVER explained). The estate keeper dies, the scientist dies and the island blows up and sinks – Yo! Islands are not fucking boats. Jesus.

The movie ends with PS and FL in a pool in Miami and me wondering why on god’s green earth did I bother to waste my time with this garbage. I have now seen 2/3rd’s of Del Tenney’s 60’s out put. I suspect I’ll see the other one The Curse of the Living Corpse (a title that doesn’t make much sense by the way) just to finish the job.

Like I said I could be going out or doing something useful with my life like playing an online multiplayer game or watching a real movie, but no – I fill my hours with junk like this.

DEAD ELVIS

Yesterday was the anniversary of Elvis’s death in 1977. I suspect next year there will be more of a fuss made but this year it passed quietly.

When he died in 77 it seemed so apt. The absolute most self indulgent of self indulgent Rock Stars – lame as hell with the white cape and his singing appalling ballad after appalling ballad for god’s sake, died the year punk was tearing up England and making a weird noise in New York and LA, things were changing the world was changing. Elvis was not part of the future.

Still one Hollywood agent, with a clear mind, and flint for a heart, heard the news and said “good career move.” And so it was, Elvis dead became bigger than Elvis alive. So much so that I think it’s way the “Elvis is alive” rumors started.

By the way if you have not seen Bubba ho-tep do so. It features Elvis and JFK in an old age home in Texas fighting an evil Mummy. And it works – Bruce Campbell of Evil dead fame plays Elvis and Ossie Davis plays JFK. You have to see it, actually as wild as the concept sounds they really manage to make real movie out of it. Yeah it’s cult film but come on – what do you expect me to fricking watch eh? And it touches on some real things like how we take our old folks and shove them into these people u-store its well away from the rest of the world. It’s pretty damn horrible when you get right down to it. I’ve only seen one of them and it was a nightmare. People with Alzheimer’s wandering the halls, a TV set on all the time in the common room, I think I’d rather eat a glock than end up like that. But anyway it’s a great film. See it.

Back to Elvis – I’ve always had a fondness for Elvis junk; my kitchen features an Elvis clock with swinging hips a gift of my brother. However I regularly listen only to the Sun Session material and the stuff he made before he went into the army. After that well – while there are bits here and there (the ’68 special and so on) mostly it was a long coast down a road paved with dull movies, cheaply produced live albums and drugs until he ended up fat dead and blue on the toilet. His desire to please overcome his desire to say something to express what was inside him, not what Parker thought would sell.

My personal tribute to Elvis was done a few years ago, when I sang That’s all right Momma at a gig for a friend who is a huge fan while wearing my Mexican wrestling mask. It made sense then and still does so now.

Thank you, Thank you very much

Nobody’s Coming & Strippers

It doesn’t look like a lot of folks are going to be able to make this gig – a few reasons it’s the summertime, people are busy and what not. I’m more relaxed about this than I would be normally – I figure we’re going to be playing in other places, places that pay us and it’ll be more important to get the claps out there than this time.

Also my friend Cisco is having his second bachelor party that night so off those people go – They’ll still be at it when we finish up but I think I head home after the gig one – couple three Mai ti’s and I’m not going anywhere but home and two – they are, after the Met game going to get a hotel room and a stripper or strippers. (I’m not sure).

And I’m not so hot on the stripper thing, I’m a pretty old guy and as of this week I’ve never been to a strip club in my life. And the combination of naked women and booze always has the potential for bad things to happen.

This is not to say I’m a prude – for god’s sake I sing about watching porn – but it’s just not me. Can’t say why but it just don’t work for me.

Meantime mad thanks to the Enemy Below for helping me with my writers block. Someday I’ll remember it’s okay to suck and that in order to be really really good you have to be willing to be really really bad (zen thing that) As a result we have love song to a Glock “Hand gun” that we have to figure out where to fit in the set. I love this band.

Tony London will be playing at the bitter End again – Sunday 8/19 before heading back to Wisconsin (Packers! – sorry obscure MST3K joke there). Damn shame he’s leaving but that’s the way things go.

We’ll be working on the poster for the Florida gig this week – I’ll put it up here when we get set.

Later my little droogies. (name the picture)

Broken Hearts are for A##holes

Well I stayed up too late last night, got up too late this morning, managed to cut myself shaving – which is bloody hard to do with a Mach 3 razor but I managed somehow. And had to, reluctantly spray the damn ants in my kitchen. Yes we share the same planet and, yes, as I’ve gotten older I have more respect for living things and all that but there are limits.

So in a mood I popped Zappa’s Sheik Yerbouti on the i-pod (as a side note my i-pod has 6,596 songs on it – that scares me somehow.) mostly to listen to Broken Hearts are for Assholes. It’s a bitter and sardonic song which pretty much sums up my feeling on the matter today – tomorrow who knows, feelings are not facts, they change, a good night’s sleep, not cutting myself when shaving and who knows I’ll love the world again. Well let’s not go too far, but at least I won’t be regarding life as a kind of grim joke told by someone who can’t remember the punch line.

Yes, I’ve had me heart broken, more than once – the big one was a long time ago, longer than I’ll admit in public blog but, but except when I get maudlin and lord do I hate when I get maudlin, I don’t see how that makes me any different from every other person on the planet. Hell, even the women who have broken my heart (and you know who you are) have had their heart broken, it comes with the human condition. (And lord do I sometimes hate the human condition).

Speaking of the human condition, I notice that both Hezbollah and Israel are blowing people up. In the old days armies would find a flat plain and fight it out there, leaving the civilians out of the (not entirely true of course see the 30 years war for example), here both sides seem to be better at killing civilians then the other side’s troops – I don’t think this should be called progress.

With the fighting in Lebanon, there has been a disturbing trend where people who criticize Israel’s actions or even those who suggest that bombing everything in sight might be counter productive as anti-Semite. That’s wrong. Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite. Yes he was drunk, but being drunk doesn’t give you opinions you didn’t have before you got trashed. Being drunk just hits that small little voice that says “you know, maybe you shouldn’t say/do that” in the back its head with a brick and leaves it in the alley while you go on to destroy your career. I’m frustrated and grumpy and get jealous of couples as I find myself entering my 4th year of involuntary celibacy – but I know this not the fault of the Jews or even women, this is my fault. Which really sucks.

My troubles all boil down to the old Groucho Marx line “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.”

Speaking of sexual frustration, I notice that some right wing churches are pushing to have porn movies in hotels banned. All I can say is good luck guys. There is but one true god in America and he is Mammon (look it up) . Yes we talk about Christianity a lot but the instant money is involved, Jesus gets blackjacked and left tied up by the side of the road. Porn makes a lot of money for hotels so folks this crusade is going nowhere. I have to wonder why get they so bent out of shape about porn, if you don’t want to watch porn you don’t have to. It’s not like it’s being beamed directly into their brains by Martians. But it seems fundies can resist anything but the temptation to watch other people have sex or drink or steal money or or or

And this is the most disturbing Darth Vader I have ever seen.

The Junction Gig and the Astro Zomibes

Got the word, we are playing at the The Junction, Oct 20, 9 pm
Here’s the info on the club –
The Junction
705 Franklin St.
Clearwater Florida, 33756
(727) 799-1100

Web site: thejunctionclearwater.com

A very cool place – their poetry slam slam ad uses a picture of Betty Page and they offer Ninja classes. I’m not as worried about fitting; a place with Ninja lessons is right up our alley.

Gig at Otto’s approaching apace – new and silly flier (as above) the main picture it taken from a god-awful (by reputation I have yet to see it but I trust those who say it’s god-awful) Mexican horror film called Brainiac. The villain is a 500 year old baron who eats brains by burrowing into the skulls with his tongue and then, one assumes, slurping down the brain through the hole like they were Italian ices, but, as I said I haven’t seen it. The stills look god-awful though. Perfect for us.

I love bad films – always have, can’t quite tell you why. I remember years ago I read the Melved brother’s first book The Fifty Worst Movies ever Made (this was long before they drank the neo-con Kool-Aid and Michael started writing witless gibberish about how Hollywood hates America. Hollywood doesn’t hate America any more than any other entertainment industry hates their customers, they do think they are idiots, but they don’t hate them.) If was the first ‘bad movie’ Book I ever read, and of course I had to see each and every film in the book. I’ve never been the same.

Bad movies give you the chance to not only see something you never saw before (after all good movies can do that too) but something you never saw before and have no idea why you are seeing it now.

As an example – I give you Astro Zombies – In this John Carridine who I hope didn’t need the money, is making human beings into Astro Zombies – which are solar powered walking dead. Really, he drains the blood and puts a helmet on their head which has a solar cell in the forehead. Why he’s doing this, other than for science, is never quite laid out, but no matter, John makes his cyborg and his cyborg goes off and kills women (I get the sense a lot of horror film makers have serious issues). Problem with the formula or some such says Dr. John.

Here’s a scene I love: After much toing and frowing, involving a Mexican lady spy (?) and other nonsense, the dwarfish leading man is in a fight with the Astro Zombie in female lead’s bedroom, in the fracas, the Zombie’s Battery storage pack – I’ll say that again in case you missed it, battery storage back (it looks like a bizarre fanny pack or purse) is knocked off by the hero, the Zombie grabs a flashlight and escapes, holding the flashlight to the solar cell on his forehead. It’s one of the most bizarre images I have ever seen on film. I was transfixed, taken to another place by the sheer awe inspiring cosmic stupidity of it. It was almost an out of body experience.

Later in the laboratory, Dr John’s assistant Igor (he’s not Igor in the film but who cares) is preparing an experiment. He has a women in a bikini strapped to a table (those issues again) and he is moving vials of foaming liquids around (“it’s not a bad life, I get to drink foamy liquids” line from 200 Motels) and smiling in most unpleasant manner to the girl who whimpers from time to time but never says a word. (Didn’t want to pay for a speaking part Ted is that the deal?) While Igor is doing this, we start to wonder, what the hell is going on here. Who is this woman, how did she end up here? Other questions like does life have any meaning at all? Are Nihilists over optimistic? Come as the scene slowly drags its way along. It’s as exciting as watching a sound man set up for a band and seems to take as long (actually having a woman strapped to a table and wheeled out while a sound man is setting up for a band would at least give you something to look at as they keep checking the bass amp out – but I digress), And then after all that, Dr. John says Igor, stop that I need you here. Igor goes off, the film ends and we never find out anything about the woman. It’s an exercise in found Dada is that it is. A movie that absolutely refuses to make sense even goes out of its way not to make sense.

That’s what bad movies are for me.

Might write about Bolero with Bo Derck some time but not right now. It has the stupidest thing I have ever seen.

Later to all.

GETTING SERIOUS

Well this is interesting – we have a gig for October 20th in Florida, the Java Junction in Clearwater. The Enemy Below is getting married that weekend we figured as part of the festivities we can shock the hell out of some people at a venue that The Enemy Below cheerfully told me, is the largest we’ll be playing for a while. Their web site seems to be off line for the moment so more details as I get them.

At the very least this gives us some pressure to get the album done by them – if nothing else it will give us something hard and pointy to throw back at the audience if they start flinging things at us. There is a reason Stacy is the last song in the set folks.

Anyway I get the sense of both of us wanting to move this forward, get to new venues, and get some publicity “as seen on Art or Something like it” stuff but even more so. Get a buzz going, beard some reporter to write about us for example and see where it takes us.

This is new territory for me – heck I’ve just been happy to have a place to play (I spent a lot of years playing at the late Orange Bear about once every 3 months or so.) the idea of going forward never even entered my head. Like ever. Low self esteem I suspect. It’s been the root cause of everything else, body issues, insecurity, my inability to stand up for myself, so why not this as well? Hmmm?

I see where we are not going to be able to bring liquids on a plane. So much for the hip flask full of gin to help the flight along (I’m a terrible flier – drinking doesn’t really help but it’s something to do). So liquids are out, snakes are okay I guess, judging by the hype I see for Snakes on A Plane. I love Samuel Jackson but other than being able to listen to him say “I’m sick of these motherf##king snakes on this motherf##ing plane” what’s the point? Snakes are scary and some are poisonous, after that, unless they learn how to use automatic weapons there isn’t much else they can do. Snakes on a Plane with Guns doesn’t really rip off the tongue.

But we’ll see, lord knows I’ve been wrong before.

Just Great

They are talking about layoffs at my job – lot o’ fun that is.

You know, I’ve pretty much played it safe my whole life, didn’t do that, didn’t do this, didn’t X, did Y, kept my day job and the whole 9 yards. Good little white Collar suburban volk, do your job and you’ll be secure Well I’ve been laid off twice in the last 4 ½ years and it looks like it will happen again sooner rather than later.

Anyway it looks like we might be playing down in Florida when the Enemy Below gets married in October. More details to follow.

In other news I'm waiting for the results of the CT primary. Liberman's been just such a putz in the Senate with his love of W and any piece of leglistion that hurts people who work for a living and has been so nasty to people in this race that any other result than his absolute drubbing by the voters (who he doesn't much like) would come as great shock and damage my already low view of humanity.

SUMMER READING

For some reason – related to the enemy below lending me the first two seasons of the X-files to me to watch – I’ve found myself reading either paranormal/ speculative books I have meant to read (THE SIRIUS MYSTERY ) or ones that I’ve read some time ago.

Just finished F.W. Holiday’s SERPENTS OF THE SKY DRAGONS OF THE EARTH – and well. I guess I have to be getting older or something but the book's off the mark. His main point is that Bronze Age Man worshiped UFO’s and Lake Monsters. In his terms the dragon and the disc (Which was the original title for the book).

I don’t have much of problem with this as a possibility. As far as I have been able to tell people have been seeing odd things in the sky and weird things in the deep lakes of the world for as long as there have been people. That being the case, treating this in a religious manner would not be surprising, given human nature. Hell we’ll worship anything – I hear there is a real church of Elvis out there somewhere, not a joke web site but really worshiping the man – so doing that wouldn’t be out of the question.

The trouble here is that Holiday tosses all sorts of completely irrelevant junk into the book –IN one chapter, he goes of on Darwin for some reason. This came while he was talking about lake monsters (Loch Ness et all) and it just came out of left field. IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MATTER AT HAND. And had the unfortunate effect of undermining the rest of the work. Nothing is going to get you labeled a lunatic crank quicker than bitching about Darwin’s theory of evolution – except maybe talking about Atlantis (we’ll get to that some other time). His major objection seems to be that Darwin doesn’t explain the origin of life; well sorry that wasn’t what he was trying to do. That’s like rejecting Quantum Theory because it doesn’t talk about Gravity. All Scientific theories are by their nature limited. Dwain proposed an underlying mechanism to explain existing facts (Species arise, continue then go extinct.). Holiday cites some well debunked hoo-haw about how human foot prints were found along side dinosaur footprints. I saw a picture one time – damn stones weren’t even the same color and there is a suspicion that the human looking foot prints were helped along by someone with a chisel.

Then later in the book – when discussing the nature of the UFO, real, par-physical, some kind of link to higher reality he goes off again about the Cottingley Fairy pictures and pretty much sinks any hope of someone ever taking the book seriously. Between 1917 and 1920 two young girls (last name Wright) claimed to have seen and have taken photographs of what they called fairies. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by this time in his live a devout spiritualist believed fully in the authenticity of the pictures. As did many others, including I guess Mr. Holiday.

The only trouble is they were fake – years later the girls admitted they were fakes. One girl claimed that they actually did see fairies in the fields but even she admitted the pictures were fake. And they are painfully fake – maybe it’s just we so much more visually aware of photographic trickery than they were but heavens above – the damn fairies are cut outs – a blind man could see it. But the need to believe is strong in man – and will very often disregard anything that it doesn’t want to hear. The present nightmare in Iraq is one example and on a much small scale my romantic disasters (No she’s not going to dump me, just because she doesn’t return my calls or want to see me as much or sleep with me anymore, no it’s just a phase we’re going through) are ample proof of that. So you have Holiday following in Doyle’s embarrassing footprints.

And the sad thing is it had nothing to do with Holiday’s central idea – not a one, he just stuck it in there and off he went.

Very disappointing.

Another gig and other news -

Back at Otto’s one more time for more nonsense
Date: August 19, 2006
Time: 8 pm
Location: Otto’s Shrunken Head
538 East 14th Street
Between Ave A&B

I know this isn’t a good time for some folks but we’re going to get another gig after this.

We’ve checking out other venues as well as our march toward world domination continues.

We are also going to be on Television if things work out – The show is Art or Something Like it. Details as they emerge.

Looking foward to seeing you.

Peace Love Shonen Knife.

(edited to add a couple of letters - I've mentioned I'm a tad dislexic - and my keyboard is dying so edit we must)

e-Harmony can bite me

You keep seeing their ads on TV – couples oooing and awwwing about how compatible they are how at the very first glance they “knew” and then this smarmy looking guy comes on to say how you too can experience the joys of emotional compatibility at e-Harmony.

Well – a while ago I took their personality quiz (which took at least 25 minutes) then I hit the button and what I got was this:

“UNABLE TO MATCH YOU AT THIS TIME

eHarmony is based upon a complex matching system developed through extensive research with married couples. One of the requirements for successful matching is that participants fall within certain defined profiles. If we find that we will not be able to match a user using these profiles, we feel it is only fair to inform them early in the process.

We are so convinced of the importance of creating compatible matches to help people establish happy, lasting relationships that we sometimes choose not to provide service rather than risk an uncertain match.

Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching model could not accurately predict with whom you would be best matched. This occurs for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply will not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand, and we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time. “

Well damn – why don’t you mention that in your gooey ads? Huh? Now a days every time the ad comes I think “yeah bite me” and change the channel.

Not that I’ve have the best luck with any of the other million and half e-dating sites. I suppose if there was one for neurotic folks with self esteem issues I’d be in gravy but knowing those folks as well as I do, nobody would join cause well, neurotic folks with self esteem issues would think what the hell’s the point?

And while we’re on TV when on earth did this creepy guy with the John Waters mustache start showing up in every paid program time slot talking about the need to keep you colon clear? It’s creepy and sickening at the same time and the last thing I want to hear about when turn on the TV is a guy who looks like a child molester talking about the size, width and length of your bowel movements. It’s almost as bad as the e-Harmony ads.