Showing posts with label Things I Like. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Things I Like. Show all posts

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Someone Wrote A Song About Me



Krista and I kinda loved one another then kinda hated one another. We went close to a decade without speaking. What I didn't know was during this time she wrote a song about how, despite our differences, she missed me. I'd written and recorded some songs about her, too, but mine were far more bitchy and probably won't ever see public release.

We mended our fences, finally, and one night she sang the song she'd written back in the day and it moved me to tears. I know, "just an old softie" is not usually associated with the Puddlewinks camp. But she re-vamped this same song for her CD "Thanks, But No" and it rocks out and I think I might like it even if it wasn't all about me. But I'm sure that helps.

Click on the title to hear it. Or go here to buy the CD which has a number of other songs I quite like.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Final Destination 2: Car Crash Scene

I've watched this movie bunches of times and the car crash always freaks me out way more than the supernatural hijinx to follow. I hydroplaned all the way down an off ramp once, repeatedly smashing the guard rail as the car uncontrollably spun in circles. The car was totaled but I walked away without a scratch. This might have something to do with why the clip gets on my nerves. Or it might be the graphic depiction of teenagers who can afford a vehicle costing more than I make in a year.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Hellzapoppin




Honeypot Christian Cagigal clued me into this one.

I love movies from this era, but Hellzapoppin is something way beyond stupid puns and slapstick. I mean, it's that, but it's also Stanley Elkin put onscreen some thirty years before he exploited metafiction. This 1941 movie self-referenced itself so much that South Park seems a pale imitation in terms of making fun of making fun of pop culture. Just watch the opening few minutes:



The rest of the movie just collapses upon itself and has less to do with storyline than a pointed statement that dumb people will line up to watch anything. If, like me, you just like stupid comedy jokes this movie is hilarious. But if you think we live in an idiot world where we're sucking on the tit of the entertainment industry to keep us distracted from what those in power don't want us to see you'll really find it funny--and of course more sad than you can bear. You weren't allowed to say this outright back when this was filmed but Hellzapoppin absolutely gets this point across in subtle, at-the-time subversive ways and points out that society will watch goddamn anything at the expense of thinking, some fifty years before American Idol.

You can find this on Amazon. Buy it, laugh your ass off and learn we really haven't come that far.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Creature Feature Cards



In 1973 the Topps bubble gum company released a set of trading cards called Creature Feature consisting of horror movie stills with funny (or at least seemingly so to twelve-year-olds)
captions beneath. The one pictured above was the Rosetta Stone of my childhood.

My friend Mark Maynard had it and we thought it was just about the funniest thing we'd ever laid eyes on. Frankenstein coming out of the bathroom! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! Trouble is, Mark had it and I didn't. I chewed my way through hundreds of crunchy, flat, pink gum sticks and had a whole shoebox full of the damn cards but the elusive Frankenstein taking a shit never materialized.

I became a bubble gum junkie, spending my entire allowance and grass-cutting money on stacks of Creature Feature trading cards. I'd tear through the wrappers like it was Christmas morning, quickly scanning the cards and reaching for the next one in the pile. Creature From the Black Lagoon, Wolfman, Phibes, Wolfman...no Frankenstein. Dracula, Mummy, Price from the Wax Museum, Frankenstein!!! No wait, this was one of the boring ones and not the one where he needs toilet paper. Drat! (I wasn't much good at cursing in those days but like to think I've made up for lost time.)

So it went for an entire summer. I never found the object of my desire; a pattern I'm clearly doomed to repeat. I can't help but feel if I'd only latched onto that picture of Frankenstein life would have turned out ever so much better.

You can re-connect with your inner grade-schooler and view the entire series of cards here.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Glen Baxter






Glen Baxter is an English cartoonist whose drawings always punch me hard in the solar plexus of funny. Like Charles Schulz, or my own drafts, his work has gotten considerably worse over time due to medical conditions or the alcoholic shakes. The sense of humor is still going strong, though.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Absinthe



Ah, one of the true joys life has to offer is sipping a glass of a splendidly-crafted absinthe. So much mis-information and crap is out there: if you believe half of what you read on the net you'll think that after half a glass you'll see your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Not so. Here, Lance Winters describes the effects, the myths and the production of this legendary drink.



St. George's is by far the best tasting of the domestic absinthes I've tried. Lucid is ok, and I like the convenience of having it available at the liquor store on the way home, but it's not a world-beater. Consumer tip: any brand with the word 'bohemian' on the label will taste like lighter fluid mixed with window cleaner, although not as pleasant. This is not a historically accurate absinthe at all but a clever marketing ploy when people from the Czech Republic found they could put any kind of high-octane hooch in a bottle and call it absinthe. Stay away! You should probably also steer clear of Absente Grande, which tastes like a black gumdrop. Haven't tried it, but hearing good things about Trillium, distilled in Portland, Oregon.

By far the yummiest absinthe I've ever tasted is the Absinthe Eduoard by Jade Liqueurs. It costs an arm and a leg but is astounding to drink. The internet absinthe nerds will say I'm slumming, but I also enjoy Mari Mayans, a Spanish absinthe. Absinthe has never been outlawed in Spain, so supposedly the stuff is about as historically accurate as you can get. The glow-in-the-dark color makes me wonder, though. Still, for taste, I like it a lot.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Driving Drunken Idiot


Ray sent me this after watching 'Kitty Cat Dance' and it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Wasn't familiar with this guy's work but on the strength of this I checked out more. Turns out he's a college kid named Damian and a bona-fide internet celeb among a certain demographic. His older stuff is funny but I think he's really hit a new level with this one. Far more professional than the other dorm-room hijinx. His friend Kyle who plays the drunk guy is a freaking comedy genius waiting to be discovered. Frickin' hysterical.

Edit 3/8: Fuck it, I had an embedded post but Blogger crops the living shit out of any YouTube vid posted, so instead click on this link to go directly to YouTube to see it there. The reduced screen chopped out half the funny, so it's much better watching here.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Five Guys



Have you had one of these things yet? Jesus creeping shit, these folks sell the best burger I've ever tasted. One opened up half a block from where I work and I suspect they must put morphine in them because I've been there every day this week. Five Guys burgers are drippy and gooey and have enough grease to turn your aorta into a Crazy Straw, but man, are they tasty.

When you order a burger there you actually get two patties; you specifically have to indicate that you want a 'little' burger if you want only one. I always go for the cheeseburger, which has a La Brea tar pit of cheese slathered between the meat slabs. Then you get to pick your toppings which includes all the standard burger accessories but also gives you a choice of grilled mushrooms, A-1, grilled onions, hot sauce or whatever. No heat lamps here, each thing you order is cooked right then and there, which accounts for a slight delay in waiting time but oh good lordy it's worth it. They way I figure, it gives me time to stare at the overly-pale Emo dude behind the counter so it's a pretty even trade-off.

Five Guys' French fry situation is off the hook. If you order a regular size, they give you a small cup of fries but then act like total freaks and dump three times as much into your to-go bag on top of the rest of your order. You literally have to dig your way through French fries to get to the main course. These come in either the regular or Cajun spice variety. You could seriously make a meal of the damn fries, which is too bad because a 'regular' hamburger is more than enough to fill anyone up. To look at the hamburger wrapped in foil, no, but looks can be deceiving. The total onslaught of meat, meat, meat puts enough dead cow fat in your stomach to induce a near-psychedelic experience. In between clutching my belly and groaning I saw my deceased grandmother masturbating with a cattle prod and bitch-slapping Wendy.

They only offer burgers, fries and hot dogs. That's it. Today, I opted for the hot dog. It was like wrapping my mouth around God's main vein. Assuming it had been split in half, the pieces placed side by side on a bun and topped with onion, tomato, pickles and mustard. But hell, he's omnipotent; he can take it. Again, more food than I am incapable of ingesting so I spent the remainder of the work day moaning like I was in labor.

Here's a handy tip: At the drink station they have Minute Maid fake lemonade on tap but right next to it they have a caddy full of lemon wedges, presumably for the iced tea. Fill a cup with Minute maid, then grab a handful of lemon wedges and squeeze it into your drink, then plop the rest, peels and all, into the cup. It really sparks things up a notch. Granted, your hands will smell like you've been experimenting with urban legend contraceptive formulas, but it's worth it.

The stuff's a little pricey. But for the amount of food you get and the quality it's an outstanding value.

Okay, my new career as food critic for the New York Times is assured. Assuming that whole giving head to God thing isn't a stumbling block.

Kitty Cat Dance



While most of my time is spent obsessing over serial murders, owl molestation, hot tapioca enemas, anorexics with nipple clamps, skull-fucking Irish Setters, peeling the skin from Karen Black, going up against John Wayne Gacy in a yodeling contest, nuns shitting live mice and forcing the Jonas Brothers to surrender their purity rings inside my bowels...a very real part of my brain looks and sounds exactly like this:

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Konxari Cards

Got my set tonight...



So I figured, I'm game, and gleefully ignoring the instructions to never use the cards alone (which technically wasn't the case since the cat is here, I did my first spread. You shuffle the cards, and lay them out in Who, What, Where, When, Why, How order, along with two other positions representing The Problem and The Solution.

Oh. My. God.

The Where position was a card called 'The Closet' (keep your jokes to yourself.) What makes this creepy is that my apartment back in Victorian times, used to be a home for unwed mothers. Upon moving in I discovered a boarded up

Monday, March 1, 2010

Good Times/Bad Times


I'm currently reading Riding James Kirkwood's Pony, a biography of one of my favorite authors. I read his novel Good Times/Bad Times when I was 18 and it felt like someone had peeped inside my head and stolen my soul. I had just graduated from the crazy Christian nightmare world of private school, and this novel, about a boy away at prep school, was so on target with not only that world but the one inside that I almost felt violated. How dare someone put in print the things I was feeling but could not speak!

My mother found and read the book and immediately declared it 'filth', probably because the religious headmaster in the story is revealed for what he is instead of being seen as the mouthpiece of God, which in my world the people who were teaching me were supposed to be; at least they'd better be for the tuition my folks were paying. The book completely zeroed in on religous people's penchant for turning the most innocent of situations into fuel for their outraged need for drama. But it also focused on EVERYONE'S need for a best friend.

Kirkwood wrote a number of novels, including P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, another good one, but Good Times/Bad Times remains my favorite. I read it every couple of years or so and it always takes me back. Always. As an adult, I realize the prose is not nearly as genius as I thought it was at 18, but the story and the mindset is outstanding. I hope this thing never goes out of print.

If you want to read it, you can order it insanely cheap from Amazon here.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Stiffed!



My friend Richard made a hilarious yet informative short film about the funeral business. It's on YouTube in two parts:

Stiffed part one is here.

Stiffed part two is here.

So click on the links, already.

Friday, February 26, 2010

The Magician and The Gates of Love

Mn, I posted this on facebook but it needs a more permanent home here at Der Spookhaus. Nathan is a friend and fan from Langley, British Columbia and he does music as "The Magician." He's teamed up with the band The Gates of Love and the result is splefindiferous pop magic. To me his sound is a hybrid of The Boy Least Likely To, Throbbing Gristle and The Beatles. This one sounds more like the latter; it's very pretty songwriting and performance. I like it when someone can go weird on one track and total pop accessability on another. This song is called "Take A Trip."

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Animalada



Another one playing in heavy rotation here at der spookhaus. Just your average, sensetive, chick-flick kind of love story about a man and his sheep.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Listen To Jesus, Jimmy



This is from Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical and while the whole thing's cool this has to be my favorite bit. Joe pointed out that some of the choreography (how this guy wound up with a wife and kid I'll never know) was taken directly from 'You Cannot Fart Around With Love.' The guy doing Jesus as a lounge singer just nails it. Some of the cleverest lyrics ever. Satan does a spit take. What's not to love?

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Apple

Bryan had a movie review website I was going to write for but he got offered bigger bucks to do the same thing for a local TV station. I don't blame him in the slightest for going for the gold; it's just my style of yammering won't play with the 'look how much we care' media lapdogs. So instead, I'll post some of the reviews I wrote for him here on Der Spookhaus. Funny, this never-realized column was the first incarnation of what you're looking at now. This particular review was to be the first for Bryan (a/k/a Dr. DVD) so I guess it will be the first one I'm putting up here. Click on the title to read the review; below you can watch the original 1980 trailer.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Monday, February 15, 2010

Gigantopithecus



Gigantopithecus is a truly remarkable local band. One guitarist, one drummer, that's it, but they can sound like a huge band backed by a symphony orchestra. I heard their music from blocks away (they were appearing at an oudoor concert) and as I approached I kept wondering, "Is someone playing a cello? Oh, it's a band with a cellist. Oh, it's a band with a full string section. Jesus, how many guitarists does a band fucking need? What is that?" and was blown away to discover this massive sound was only two people. Nick and Colin are technical virtuosos; the playing was just amazing. Plus at first I thought Nick was a woman. There is nothing hotter than that sort of confusion. The video really doesn't do them justice, but it does feature a surprise walk-on cameo.

Click on the title to go to their myspace page. Be sure and check out Untitled 1 and Untitled 2. Yummy, delicious and dreamy music. (Untitled 2 is especially lickable.) Thing is, when you listen to this you'd think they'd filled up 48 tracks but those boys can do it live. You watch their set and you just want to puke with jealousy. Absolutely incredible.