Bear with the somewhat sluggish posting schedule, folks. We’re slogging through last-minute corrections to the final proofs of Issue 02 and losing our minds in the process. I do mean that literally. Earlier tonight, poor Nadya sneezed and a big chunk of her frontal lobe fell out. I called her just now to discuss a kerning issue and the conversation went a little something like this. Meanwhile, Zoetica’s delicate alien grey matter has liquefied entirely from overexposure to laptop radiation. As for me, well, I’m having flashbacks of that one time I accidentally took ‘shrooms laced with bathtub LSD and ran out into traffic on the I-580 yelling “FLESH TETRIS, FLESH TETRIS, EVERYTHING FEELS LIKE MATH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP THE FLESH TETRIS, STOPPIT, HNNNGH” until someone threw a tarp over my head.
It certainly doesn’t help that this 8-Bit version of “Angel of Death” has been lodged in my noggin for several days now.
Loy Krathong is held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar (which usually falls in November here in the west). This month in the Northern Thai kingdom, case ritual symbolism and Lanna Thai Buddhist tradition intertwine as communities gather together to celebrate a vast healing ritual.
In a ceremony possibly derived from the Hindu celebration of Diwaliin India, hundreds of thousands of candle-lit krathong (banana leaf rafts) and elaborate, glittering floats are set adrift in rivers, streams, lakes, and canals:
Soy represents dense nutritional life. Bomb is, obviously, an explosive destructive force. So, “soy bomb” is what I think art should be: dense, transformational, explosive life! —Michael Portnoy
I sometimes wonder how the NYC folks I’ve lost touch with are doing these days. For instance, my former roomie and occasional partner in performance art/music/fashion shenanigans, Michael Portnoy. A multi-talented, mischievous fellow who rented me a room in his flat on the Lower East Side when I first arrived in town, Michael’s “diverse practice spans dance-theater, metafunctional sculpture, fascist socials, experimental stand-up, prog-operatic spectacle, an aerobic restaurant where food leaps out from the walls, and Icelandic cockroach porn.” Noble pursuits, one and all! However, Mister Portnoy remains best known for his balls-out impromptu guerilla dance’plosion during Bob Dylan’s performance of “Love Sick” at the 1998 Grammy Awards:
(I love that it took almost a full minute for anyone to realize Soy Bomb wasn’t part of the show and “escort” him offstage.)
A bit of background info: the Grammys production team had hired Michael and two dozen other extras to stand in the background and wriggle in a shambolic, vaguely beatnik fashion to “give Bob a good vibe.” $200 to do a bit of insincere finger-snapping on live television? Not bad work if you can get it. But Michael had more grandiose visions, and of course, the rest is history. Love it or hate it (and to be sure, I love it a little more every time I watch it) “the Soy Bomb incident” has become one of the most memorable moments in televised award ceremony history, right up there with Sasheen Littlefeather declining Marlon Brando’s Academy Award for him to a chorus of boos, Jarvis Cocker interrupting Michael Jackson‘s pretentious BRIT Awards spectacle, and Sally Fields mewling “you like meee!”
A very wise, oft-quoted fellow named Joel Hodgson once said “we never ask, will anyone get this? We just assume the right people will get it.” On that note, without further explication, here’s the infamous “Twelve Tone Commercial” raillery (recorded back in 1977 by some super-awesomely eggheaded musicians) more recently set to an inspired collection of moving pictures by some wacky genius who may or may not reside in Austria:
The audio on this was recorded 40 years ago by Robert Conrad, founder of WCLV classical radio. A prolific American conductor named Kenneth Jean produced it, and revered Swiss composer/conductor Matthias Bamert is said to have had a hand in it as well. Bless ’em all.
To anyone peeing their pants and rolling on the floor laughing right now: you are officially the nerdiest music nerd that ever nerded from Serial Composition class.
Yep… definitely had a severe case of the Mondays today. Also, I think I may have suffered a mild stroke. Is it possible for an entire group of people to simultaneously suffer a stroke? Because there really isn’t any other rational explanation for DRGBLZ.com. (Or that phantom smell of burning hot dogs I can’t seem to shake.)
Seriously, we all temporarily lost our friggin’ minds. We’re talking spontaneous collaborative lollercaust. Our sudden, inexplicable obsession (and regression) would no doubt make for a fascinating study in the viral progression of online memes for some MIT graduate student. Or not.
Morning, mein lieblings. Not that it looks much like morning out there, with the streetlamps still on at nearly 7am and a sky as cold and dark as Satan’s bunghole. The only sign of life in the street below my window: two scabby possums going at it atop a mildewed stack of phone books over by the garbage bins. Dunno what drugs they’re on, but I could really use some right about now. Stupid uncontrollable yawning. Stupid irrational mid-November mood slump. Stupid Seasonal Affective Disorder with its stupid, STUPID boohoo abbreviation. How is anyone supposed to take that name seriously, anyway? “Hey boss, sorry about my general nonproductivity, irritability and/or copious drooling… I haz TEH SAD.”
Guten Morgen. We’re German, we’re mod, we’re impassive, and inexplicably, we’ve changed Ozzie’s lyrics to reflect our deep admiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s masterful mystery story, The Hounds of the Baskerville. PS: Bert took the brown acid. Do not make direct eye contact.
Consider this week’s Better Than Coffee clip a kind of “could be worse” meditation. Judging by their sickly pallor and glazed eyes, phlegmatic-bordering-on-undead “dance moves” and seeming recalcitrance to the sainted spirit of Sabbath, I’m certain that Cindy, Bert and the rest of the Hits a Go Go kids are in far more desperate need of full spectrum light therapy than any of us. (Especially that one ‘luuded up little bitch with the unfortunate Friends-era Jennifer Anniston hairdo. Gah. What a dog!)
No, home-brewed coffee just ain’t cutting it today. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to catch one of those possums and gnaw the hot, steaming pineal gland right out of its face. Tschüss!
Frank Capley and his partner Joe Alfano hug as they hold signs during a same sex marriage demonstration October 15, 2007. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Twenty-four hours ago, like so many Americans, I was wandering the jubilant streets in a daze. Complete strangers cheered and danced together, wept and embraced. The tension we’d held in our bodies for untold years seemed to flood out through the soles of our feet and into the gutters. It was a historic night for everyone.
But the joyful tears have already evaporated on my cheeks. My heart is still breaking, because at this point, it looks like California’s Prop 8 will pass by a narrow 3-4 point margin. Prop 2 in Florida and Prop 102 in Arizona have been voted in as well. Once again, majority rule has demanded that we inject the most base and despicable kind of bigotry into our constitution.
Don’t get me wrong… those of us who supported Obama’s campaign have many reasons to rejoice right now, and we should. Keep dancing, keep hoping. Please know that I don’t mean to detract from everyone’s happiness today. But the success of three constitutional amendments written explicitly to deny two people who love each other equal rights and recognition under the law is devastating.
Many of you have already seen the footage I posted two weeks ago in Nadya’s Prop 8 thread after being assaulted by a group of Prop 8 demonstrators. Just in case you haven’t, I think it’s worth reposting. Be warned, the screams are deafening. You’ll want to turn the volume down:
The Face of Proposition 8 from Theremina on Vimeo.
Read my full account of the incident here, if you like. I’ll freely admit my bias, but this is not agitprop. Rest assured, their behavior was just as horrific in person.
In the weeks leading up to last night’s election, in my experience and that of millions more activists across the country, this was the true face of Proposition 8. If you can watch it and still insist there’s nothing inherently cruel, disturbing or divisive about the underlying motivations to ban same-sex marriage, forgive me, but I’m not open to discussing the matter further with you. It would be pointless. How could I ever reach affable agreement with anyone who insists on relegating gay Americans to second class citizenship?
Silver lining: the main reason supporters of a ban on same-sex marriage are kicking up such a row is that on some level, they realize they’re a dying breed. That sooner than later, this kind of litigation won’t be any more acceptable than the irrational mob rule endured by other minority groups in the past.
Traditionally and historically, the institution of marriage has been more about security and property than religion, or even love itself. Ironically –given the rage and denial of so many people who claim to follow the teachings of a loving and compassionate Christ– I dare say marriage is never more purely about acknowledging love than in this context. I know that if she were alive today, Mildred Loving would agree. Because keeping folks “separate but equal” never results in equality.
A heads up to anyone with a hankering for some really fantastic “practical” steampunk worldbuilding and storytelling who isn’t yet familiar with FreakAngels: the first story arc of Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield’s groundbreaking webcomichas been collected in a scrumptious 144 page trade paperback. It’s available today in North America, and tomorrow in the UK and other territories. Meanwhile, all past installments of FreakAngels will remain online as a free serialized weekly. You can check them out, starting here.
As far as how it works: it’s the TV model. FreakAngels is free-to-air, but the eventual collected editions will cost money. I can watch pretty much any TV show I want, on the box or on the net, but for something I like, I’d rather have the complete DVD handy.
It’s a given: many of us will be prone to spontaneous fits of hysterical laughter and/or tears today. On that note, Amanda “Gams” Palmer has just released a grim-but-hilarious new music video promoting her solo album. Directed by longtime Dresden Dolls collaborator Michael Pope (a man who always manages to make micro-budget videos look like a million bucks), “Oasis” is a vicious little slice of tongue-in-cheek indie pop featuring Amanda as a ditzy teenage wastrel, producer Ben Folds as her stricken boyfriend, and various chums of Amanda’s as abortion clinic nurses and pro-life wingnuts. “Never again will you be able to see me get drunk, date-raped AND get an abortion ALL IN ONE VIDEO!” Appropriately, she’s dedicating it to Sarah Palin.
In the late 60s and eary 70s, the Rankin/Bass production company made a slew of endearingly hokey holiday-themed “Animagic” flicks that I’m just barely old enough to remember watching in early reruns. I couldn’t have been older than seven or eight when the popularity of such saccharine-injected TV specials as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and The Year Without A Santa Claus had begun to wane. While I’m too sentimental to harsh on any of that star-studded, sticky-sweet fare, only one of their films has really stuck with me all these years later. Tellingly, that movie is Rankin/Bass’s Halloween special, Mad Monster Party, and it’s all MAD Magazine‘s fault.
Classic Mad Monster Party illustration by Frank Frazetta.
Let’s talk for one sec about MAD. Who here read it growing up? Who still does? If you did/do, I bet it’s high on the What Made You Weird list. Founded in 1952 by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines, this last gasp of the EC Comics line remained one of the most consistently clever, intelligent, and merciless satirical publications in print until at least the late 90s.* Nothing was sacred and no one was safe. Founded at a time when aggressive censorship and Cold War paranoia muted the voices of activists and humorists alike, the broadly grinning face of MAD’s mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, was a cheerfully innocuous “fuck you” to authority, and has remained so for generations. Honestly, I could rant and rave about the importance of MAD for hours, but it’s Halloweenie time, so I’ll shaddup for now, at least.
So! Mad Monster Party. Kurtzman and longtime MAD cartoonist Jack Davis were very hands on in writing and conceptualizing this island of classic horror movie monsters, and it shows. Appropriately, Boris Karloff loaned his voice to the character Baron Frankenstein (his final role). Phyllis Diller basically plays herself in it, which is even creepier than it sounds. One guy I know has claimed that the redheaded, husky-voiced fembot lab assistant, Francesca, gave him his first boner. Obviously, MMP influenced the hell out of Tim Burton. Studded with Forrest J. Ackerman-worthy puns and ridiculous musical numbers –including the song “Do the Mummy” performed by a skeletal Beatlesesque quartet called Little Tibia and the Fibias– MMP is campy, witty, and surprisingly risque for children’s fare… I’m pretty sure this is the only kiddie film that’s ever ended with a mushroom cloud!
Whether you’re revisiting it for the umpteenth time or watching it for the first, I hope you’ll enjoy Mad Monster Party with me on this most darque and spookylicious eve of Goth Christmas.
*I haven’t read the magazine since the late 90s, so I couldn’t honestly say if the rag’s still in top form. A lot of folks have said Mad’s gone downhill since becoming dependent on ad-revenue in 2001. The publication had been ad-free for decades until that time (beginning with issue #33 in April of 1957). It was, by a long shot, the most successful American magazine that ever published ad-free, and of course, by staying independent of ad revenue, Mad was free to tear American culture’s less savory, more materialistic aspects endless new arseholes without ever having to answer to financiers.
