Be Kind Rewind was a lovely DIY kinda film. And it invented the term “Sweding” which is to remake feature films using no budget. Christ, I can’t talk today. Anyway, here are some of my favorites:
Jurassic Park
Predator
Forrest Gump
Back to the Future
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The Shining
Alien
I’m exhausted from denying my albums right to live. No jokey today. Just some Paul Schaffer.
Audioslave - “Cochise”
They Might Be Giants - They’ll Need a Crane
Golgo Bordello - Wonderlust King
Tom Waits - Chocolate Jesus
Rage Against the Machine - Guerrilla Radio
Antony and the Johnsons - You Are My Sister
The Beastie Boys - Ch-Ch-Check It Out (Fucking incredible performance)
The Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Higher Ground
The Vines - Get Free (in which Craig loses his fucking mind)
Andrew Bird - Plasticities
Tilly and the Wall - Bad Education
Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)
Radiohead - Karma Police
Radiohead - 2 + 2 = 5
The National - Fake Empire
Feist - 1234
Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly
Interpol - PDA
Primus - Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver
Enjoy it.
Who’s Tony V? I’m Tony V. Now forget you ever read that.
Youtube can share video link friendly yes. Links make haha or warm heart sensation. Allow examples make for immediate joy improvement.
What is Circuit Bending?
Gilbert Gottfried Hysterical Rant
Underpants!
Richard Pryor loaded on coke
The Most Culturally Significant Drumloop of all time
Jeff Analyzes the Two Princes intro
I Like Turtles
The Best Jimmy Eat World Kareoke Ever
“We’ll Have Barbecue Jumbo Shrimp, You Motherfuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
Drunk Jeff Goldblum
Real Live Tigers-beyond good potato chips
Redbear performing “My Ghost-Love Jam” Downtown Jamestown NY
Optical Illusions from Bill Nye
Surrealist Sitcom 1
noisekick - terreur boven alles - homemade dance clip
Sleater-Kinney - Modern Girl live
Hope enjoyment occurred more things are going to happen in future time spaces.
Hey, look who’s back? Mr. “I’m gonna post on this blog every day, seriously”. Well, here I am. I’m sorry I’m late, but my alarm didn’t go off. For months.
To quote Michael Iaconelli, “Never underestimate the power of the hook.” Showtime at the Apollo knows it, Tony Todd knows it, and twee folksters Kiki & Peepee (Kendra Senrick and Stephen Hollinger respectively) sure as hell know it, as evidenced by their addictively catchy debut album “The Sun Floods The World With It’s Vomit”.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have reservations about the twee. I’m weary of the twee. Suspicious of the twee. One side of it is just that I’m a miserable bastard, out to kill everyone’s good time. The other part is that I really value honesty in music, and the fact is that twee and sincereity don’t often go together. It seems like there’s always some kind of irony attached, and it can be hard to tell just how firmly the tongue is planted in the cheek. Kiki and Peepee are a notable exception. Kendra Senrick may have a voice that’s as adorable as kittens re-enacting the Civil War, but her songs often come from a real place of pain. In the incredible “Yellow & Backwards”, Kendra uses jaundice as a metaphor for feeling lost, lonely, and different with a refrain of “What stood on this spot?/Who helped me here? I can’t remember/I was born in November/I came out yellow and backwards/I am still yellow and backwards/I will always be yellow and backwards”.
But if there’s one thing that matches Kiki & Peepee’s introspective lyrics, it’s their energy. With a majority of the songs clocking in at under 2 minutes, The Sun Floods The World With It’s Vomit is a fast paced and frantic pop romp. Part of what makes the energy so strong are the hooks (if songs like “My Day Off” and “Gummy Worm Heart” don’t get stuck in your head, I’d see a doctor immediately) but a lot of credit has to be given to the skilled drumming of Stephen Hollinger. His fast and swinging percussive style keeps each song fresh, fun and completely awesome to dance to.
This energy is best experienced in the form of their explosive live shows. Mere words can’t do their live performances justice. Seeing Kiki and Peepee live is something akin to spending an evening with the cast of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’. There’s going to be drinking, screaming, singing, and laughing at the things in life that hurt us the most, all at an intensity that can be overwhelming to the unprepared. While “The Sun Floods The World With It’s Vomit” can’t quite hit with the same power, it makes up for it with it’s more experimental sound collages and spoken word tracks like “Charlie” and “Knee-Deep-Deco”. These are always interesting but, more importantly, they do a good job tempering the rest of the album’s fast-paced pop.
Kiki and Peepee’s “The Sun Floods The World With It’s Vomit” isn’t available online, but if you contact them, I’m sure they could mail you a copy for about 7 bucks or so. And for such a great collection of pop music from such an amazing band, it’s well worth it.
Mp3’s:
Kiki & Peepee - Yellow and Backwards
Kiki and Peepee - Becky’s a Prize
Justin Waddell is one of the hosts of the CHUD.com podcast as well as being a sometimes contributer to CHUD.com. He’s also written some of the funniest blog posts/short humorous essays ever. Recently, on his CHUD blog, he wrote an entry called “Turtle Rescue” that was so fucking funny I had to share it with you. Be sure to bookmark his blog, cuz you’re going to want to read everything this guy writes. So without further ado, Turtle Rescue:
Hey.
On my way to work the other day, I spotted a turtle in the middle of the road. That’s a weird, unexpected sight - like seeing a peacock on your way home from work, which also happened to me a while back. Maybe my car spits out some kind of Dr. Doolittle-vibe or something. If so, that’s some special feature that was included, care of dealer oversight. I bought my station wagon as bare bones as possible. My in-dash cassette deck stands as a rock-solid testament to this fact.
Anyway, I had basically made it to work when I saw the turtle. The shelled gentleman was smack in the middle of the second to last corporate road I navigate before leaping from my car and sprinting into work to quickly begin a glorious workday. The street the turtle was crossing typically isn’t very busy - but still, what is he? Crazy? I drove past him, instantly felt guilt settle in, and decided to turn my heap-on-wheels around. Now, it would have been pretty exciting to perform one of those screeching turns you see expertly executed in old 70s cop shows. Or even some kind of balletic turn, like the car was on a lazy Susan. I wish I could brag about accomplishing either kind, but my turnaround was pretty long-winded. Picture the blog you are currently reading as a car turning, and you should have some idea.
By the time I got back to the turtle, he had backtracked. He was at the side of the road, and his shell was up against this fairly tall curb that he had no possible way of climbing. And, I guess knowing this - that somehow his decision-making skills had let him down - he had emptied his bladder in terror. He looked like a tossed, green water balloon. This, of course, broke my heart. I mean, I was already gearing up to rescue him, but now it was imperative. The tiny pool of piss he was standing in underscored the fact that my instincts had indeed been correct on this one. This was not some devil-may-care critter crossing the road like some reptilian badass who couldn’t give a shit about what lay in wait for him beyond his comfy habitat. You know, like this guy:
This was a turtle that, like so many of us have done, simply made a bad life choice.
So, I got out of my car and headed towards the little guy who, as I got closer, didn’t look so little, really. He was mid-sized to kind of large. And he looked pretty weathered and old. Plus, he was cornered – not so much by any obstacles (aside from the curb), but by his galaxy-given slowness and his next to nothing reflexes. Surrounded by his own urine, all his faults in relief, I cautiously approached him. Yep. Cautiously. I mean, with all of these little details rolling around in my mind (old, cornered, large, alive), I’ll sadly admit that I started to get a little nervous. I thought, “Don’t some turtles bite? Snapping turtles, right? What does that snapping part mean?” “What if it attacked?” I’m thinking. “Do turtles hiss?” – hearing any animal hiss always gets to me. And then, a flash - what if someone saw me running from a hissing, pissing turtle? Cell phone video begets YouTube begets plastic surgery to change my face. In summary, this was not a proud moment for either of us.
Eventually, my heart won out. I swallowed my sad fear and I grabbed the old guy with two hands…like I was grabbing a big sandwich or a dictionary. Of course, I made sure to keep his possibly-dangerous head full of possibly-sharp turtle fangs pointed away from my body. As soon as I put my hands on the guy, he tucked in. Which, I’ll admit, was exactly what I was gambling on. He went indoors. He hermited up. I wanted to hug the guy.
As I carried the turtle away from the street and over the curb (which I managed in one step, thank you), I felt a bond form between us. Me and him, united inside this gaggle of boring corporate buildings, headed towards a man-made lake. And, I sympathized with him. Because, honestly, the lake didn’t look great. It looked small – to me, at least. Confining. And this turtle, maybe he was sick of the same old. Or maybe there were troubles at home or something. Maybe he was fleeing a bad relationship. Or maybe even some kind of predator or turtle bully was on the loose down there. And maybe this (currently) tucked-in reptile decided to pick up sticks and strike out on his lonesome. Take his chances on the new, the unknown. Maybe he pictured a world full of lakes - better lakes, bigger, cleaner lakes. A clean start. A starched shirt. A warm rock, baked to perfection by the sun’s rays, to lean his tired shell against. And then, I mean, it must have taken him a long time to get to the road on those little radish legs. Hours into the journey, exhausted, reality set in that he might as well be in fucking outer space. It must have been like living a waking nightmare. Sounds up close that he’d only ever heard at a distance while lounging on a pitiful micro-beach that surrounds the lake’s waters. Strange objects, way beyond his understanding, quickly attaching themselves to those sounds. The world like a fucking maze of regrets. Every single thing programmed to end his life. It must have been the single worst experience of his entire existence.
So, to cheer him up, since I was holding him like a sandwich, I pretended to take a bite. And he giggled.
-Justin Waddell
I told you he was fucking funny. Now I’d like to leave you with a random song that you should love, Donovan’s “Young Girl Blues”. Donovan is a totally underrated British Invasion artist, best known for his 1966 singles “Mellow Yellow” and Sunshine Superman”, but he’s written a ton of amazing folk songs that rarely get the attention they deserve. So enjoy him.
For a while there TGIF was ruled under the iron fist of Thomas Miller and Robert Boyett. Miller-Boyett first hit it big with Happy Days, a show that I want to hate, but can’t because of how much it contributed to American culture. It contributed Ron Howard, who’d go on to narrate amazing television shows and direct utterly mediocre films. It gave us Weezer’s best music video. It gave us the term “Jump the shark”. Most of all, it gave us the Happy Days theme song, finally making the days of the week fun again.
After Happy Days, they had a couple more hits in the 80’s with Bosom Buddies and Perfect Strangers. But I was hardly alive in the 80’s, so fuck those shows. To me the golden age of Miller Boyett was in the early to mid 90’s with TGIF. They hit it big with Full House, a conservative television show about three men living together in San Fransisco. Oh irony. That show was super boring, but it was followed by Miller-Boyett’s masterpiece, Family Matters.
Family Matters is a spin-off of both Perfect Strangers and Die Hard. So shit was destined to be weird from the get go. It was groundbreaking from the start, setting a record for ugliest cast ever in an American sitcom. Harriet looked like Mrs. Huxtable, except a few steps to the left on the evolutionary charts. Not that Carl minded. I’m not saying Reginald Veljohnson is gay, but according to IMDB, he enjoys “singing and dancing in his spare time.” Imagine Carl Winslow singing and dancing through his house and tell me that wouldn’t be the gayest shit you’ve ever seen. But Family Matter’s greatest achievement was it’s spectacular descent into utter lunacy. From cloning to the Nutty Professor inspired “Stephan” to rocket packs to time machines to goddamned evil ventriloquist dummy versions of Carl and Steve, the show spun out of control in a completely glorious way. And don’t get me started on that theme song. Christ, that was a great theme song. I always tear up at “it’s the bigger love of the faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamily”, without fail.
Miller-Boyett hit it’s peak with Family Matters, but as quickly as they rose, they fell even faster with the abysmal Step-by-Step. I imagine the pitch for Step-by-Step went something like “what if all the characters in The Brady Bunch were trashy and unlikable?” I feel sorry for those kids. They had Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers as parents. JT, Dana, Al, Karen, Mark and the ever personality-deficient Brendan had no choice but to end up awful people. That shit’s genetic, my friend. But the worst offense the show committed was trying to stuff it’s own brand of Urkel down viewers throats: Cody. Code-man. Dude! Ch-yeah! Danaburger! He combined annoying catchphrase-ism with an annoying voice and a uncontrollable lust for his cousin, Dana. Dude could kickbox though, I’ll grant him that.
As Step-By-Step destroyed Miller-Boyett productions (not to mention Lorimar productions), another show took the proud torch of TGIF and held it high. That show was Boy Meets World. Boy Meets World is the greatest television show in the history of televison shows. What makes it particularly special to me is that it was one of the first shows to allow it’s characters to age. Hell, that was the focal point of the show. Shawn and Cory are now in high school! Cory is now dating Topanga! They’re going to college! Cory and Topanga are getting married and making everyone uncomfortable by constantly making jokes about fucking! That shit was groundbreaking.
Speaking of groundbreaking, Boy Meets World featured a casual interracial relationship between the characters of Shawn and Angela. The best part about it was that it was never the focus of a show, never a big deal to anyone, and they never tried to play it up, even for an easy “you so white!” joke. It was just a pretty white guy and pretty black girl getting together. And that’s beautiful! Angela wasn’t the stereotypical African-American woman you normally see on television. She never snapped her fingers and said “no you di-in’t!”. As far as I know, she hates Koolaid. In fact, now that I think about it, she was a pretty boring character. No real personality at all. Is that more or less progressive than a stereotypical sassy black woman? If she was a teenaged Jackée, would that be better or worse? These are questions I’m not qualified to answer, but I am fully-qualified to say I’d tap that. I’d tap Topanga too, though, cuz I like a little meat on the bones. My father always said that an hourglass was better than an egg timer. Then he’d beat me. But above all I’d tap Jack and Eric’s roommate Rachel.
Goddamn, Rachel was a dream. That redheaded Goddess may have been a thinly veiled excuse for eye-candy, but boy was she FUN! Did you see how bright red her hair is? That’s really bright! How FUN! What a perfect counterpart to the wackiness that is latter-day Eric Matthews. Eric’s transformation was much like Family Matters, going more and more bizarre til it began to bend the very reality of the show. I think at one point he was a caveman who talked to squirrels. Thank God they had William Daniels to lend the show his gravitas. Mention Mr. Feeny to anyone age 16 to 21, and they will at least smile. They may even hug you. It’s like a 90’s youth fraternity. The same way previous generations were linked by their experiences in Vietnam, kids of the 90’s are united by their common love of watching Shawn yell “it’s because I LIVE IN A TRAILER, isn’t it?”, run his fingers through his hair, and storm out the Mathew’s kitchen while Mrs. Matthews covers her mouth and looks at her husband, who just frowns and shakes his head. What will he do about that boy?
Boy Meets World ran out of steam towards the end, mostly because they unable to accurately portray the decadence of college life under the watchful eye of TGIF, but we grew up with these guys. We were there when Shawn learned the truth about his real mother. When Shawn’s dad died. When Shawn joined a cult. When Shawn got caught up in the Philadelphia’s illegal undergound street fighting tournaments. Jesus, Shawn was fucked up. If tragedy visited me as frequently as it visited Mr. Hunter, I too would run my fingers through my hair at every possible opportunity. I too would grow a goatee. I too woul-UNDERPANTS! Wow. That came out of nowhere. Now I can’t stop watching it. Hypnotizing.
Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Aunty.
Aunty who?
Aunty-climatic ending to this blog post
If you own a computer and you own an internet vehicle device, and you watch movies, and you’re interested in movies, and you want to hear news and rumors about upcoming movies and you also want to hear movie people’s opinion on movies that are currently at the movies, then you should look no further than www.CHUD.com, which, IMDB and Netflix aside, is the most wonderful place for cinema on the internet machine. It’s got writers who are either intelligent, funny, assholes, a combination of all three, or Phil Owen. To be fair to Phil Owen, he’s got a more impressive head of hair than any of ‘em.
Devin, the Editor-in-Chief/Self-loathing nerd/Kubrick lookalike of CHUD.com has started a column entitled
“Chudsploitation” that I’m really really excited about, all about exploitation films. Exploitation films are films that exploit shocking or sensational content to attract audiences. They range from Shaft to Faces of Death to Meet the Spartans (which exploits the fact that Americans aren’t really picky about what movies they watch, as long as it’s not too long to make them late for something). Famous balding fugly awesome fugly director Quentin Tarantino has been a champion of them for sometime, culminating in his box-office failure/artistically dubious/undisputably awesome collaboration with Robert Rodriguez Grindhouse, in which his testicles melted off. Since then, the interest in these “grindhouse films” has boomed into an all-time slightly higher.
According to Devin, the column’s goal will be to “write about the sickest, strangest movies ever made, films with almost no redeeming value.” And when he means sick and strange, he doesn’t mean something simple like The Truth About Cats and Dogs or I Spit on Your Grave. Too easy. His first entry was on a film entitled Goodbye Uncle Tom about “An Italian documentary crew [that] goes back in time to the pre-Civil War American South to document the excesses and horrors of slavery, intercut with modern riot footage and pro-violence black power musings. In Italian.” According to Devin the film is “racist in every possible direction, brutally misogynistic and leeringly cruel”. I don’t know about you, but my ears perk up anytime the phrases “racist” and “leeringly cruel”. Must have been all those years I grew up in Texas*.
Even though Devin is a hell of a writer and entertaining as a chimp having sex with another chimp and them both having a cigarette afterwards, you don’t even have to take his word for it. Apparently the American edit** is apparently up on Youtube, in parts. I don’t know how long it will be up for, but I have a feeling that filmmakers Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi aren’t the type to troll Youtube to make sure their work aren’t being pirated. I know I say this all the time, but I wish NBC was more like Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi. Anyway, here are some links to offend you. Even if you don’t plan on watching the whole film, I’d reccomend skipping around various scenes just to learn how awful it can feel to be a member of the human race. I’d note that they aren’t safe for work, but really, they aren’t safe for anything. Shit is vile.
Addio Zio Tom (Goodbye Uncle Tom):
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
*Texas is in close proximity to Alabama, which is where racism comes from.
**The American edit is dubbed and may have some cuts from the original Italian version. Not that it isn’t already utterly depraved, but if you’re a completist, I thought you should know.
I know this fellow over in England. He’s a complete bastard. Almost as much as I am. His name is Spike. Do you like brief sentences? I like them. Spike has a blog. See blog run. Run blog, run.
Sorry about that, I haven’t been myself since I quit smoking. Anyway, Spike’s blog is called What Spike Likes and it contains meditations on everything from Vampire Weekend to the Hiroki Yamaguchi 2004 masterpiece”Hellevator”. I wish he’d refrain from other content, since the internet needs a good blog that is exclusively about Vampire Weekend and Hellevator, but I wish a lot of things, none of them ever ever come true. Pity.
Anyway, check his shit out because despite being an absolute cunt the brother can write, and he knows shit. And there ain’t nothing wrong with a brother sharing shit with his fellow brothers. Even if he’s white.
I’d like to conclude with my favorite knock-knock joke:
Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Holy shit.
Holy shit who?
Holy shit, this Sesame Street parody of Twin Peaks is one of the fucking greatest things ever.
“Honesty is so addictive/I can’t get enough of these songs” James Eric sings in his song “Off Key?”, a cute tribute to the growing DIY folk scene. That sums up James Eric’s Fire In The Mountains for me. Fire In The Mountains is a rare album, in that is both intimate and lushly produced. For being recorded completely in Mr. Eric’s bedroom, the album sounds beautiful, with all sorts of orchastration, from trumpets to violins to pianos to lo-fidelity electronic sounds. But what makes this album truly special is the thematic string that ties it all together, James Eric’s lyrics.
James Eric is a frank and honest songwriter. Most of his songs are tales from his life, told matter-of-factly. It opens with “Daddy Don’t Cry”, a tale of James on his near deathbed which sets the pace for the rest of the album. While he occasionally breaks away to tell other stories (like his folk/court report “Something’s Not Right Here”), he mostly sticks to what he knows, or at least what he feels. Thankfully, they all aren’t as grave and serious as the opening track. Most notable is the upbeat and catchy “Could’ve Been Like Ben”. With lyrics like “I could have been a mentor according to my English professor/Or assistant to a lawyer, but I got too bored with college” it serves as the James Eric origin story. That’s what’s so great about the album, it’s a comprehensive portrait of the artist, how he feels, where he’s been, where he’s looking to go. It’s all delivered simply and matter-of-factly, with minimal pretense.
Unfortunately, sometimes the very plain and direct lyrics come at the cost of melody. Most of the songs have at least a few clunky lines and phrases where James tries to shove too many syllables where they don’t fit. I have no doubts about James’ talents as a musician and a songwriter, but if I had to pick one thing that could use improvement, vocals would undoubtedly be it. Luckily, with the lyrical style and subjects of the songs, it comes across much more earnest than annoying. In a way, the disregard for vocal melody only serves to add to the conversational feeling that makes the album so special. The album is worth checking out just for it’s rare combination of intimacy and vibrant production. So go on, get to know James Eric. He’s a friendly personable guy who’s made a friendly personable album.
Stream, Download, Molest, Love, Snuggle With, and Worship “Fire In The Mountains” on CLLCT
James Eric’s Myspace
James Eric’s CLLCT Artist Page
Music Video for “Could’ve Been Like Ben”
MP3:
James Eric - I Hope
No words needed. Also, I’m lazy. Anyway, here ya go (I’d embed them as videos, but it’s not letting me. If anyone on the Blog staff can fix this, let me know):
MST3K short - Posture Pals
MST3K short - What To Do on a Date
MST3K short - Spring Fever
MST3K - A Patrick Swayze Christmas
MST3K short - Here Comes the Circus
MST3K short - A Day at the Fair
MST3K short - Johnny at the Fair
MST3K “Best Of” Montage - The Final Sacrifice
MST3K “Best Of” Montage - Werewolf
MST3K “Best Of” Montage - Santa Claus
MST3K “Best Of” Montage - Devil Fish
MST3K “Best Of” Montage - Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
MST3K “Best Of” Montage - Time Chasers
MST3K - Squirm part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Enjoy this.
