Tom LaBrie is a man’s man and a ladies man. He’s a man with a form fitting, wide collared shirt and slim, flared pants. He’s a man with a moustache and an unfortunate haircut. Tom LaBrie is also a man on a mission, and that mission is to get you into the squishy embrace of a fabulous new waterbed. Tom LaBrie made his pitch as the host of “Night Comfort Theater” on Sacramento-based UHF station KTXL in the 1970s and ’80s. In soft, sultry tones he hypnotizes the viewer, his words washing over them like warm, honeyed laudanum, enveloping them in their easy chairs, beckoning them to taste the aqueous pleasures his waterbed warehouse has to offer. Like a polyester siren, his song is nigh irresistible to all but the most steadfast insomniac Odysseus.
Is it even necessary to discuss the utter insanity of Japanese media? I mean by this point I think it has been firmly established that, to the Western sensibility, their commercials are bat-shit crazy; 30 second recordings of spectacularly horrible acid trips. The Japanese version of Mad Men would require the talents of David Lynch and Takashi Miike working in concert. To stare into the mind of the ad man of the Far East is to stare into the face of God. We blink, for our feeble brains cannot process its wonder.
This ad for Dole bananas is no different. The Dole Banana Man struts down the street as people accost him; demanding satisfaction, which he obliges. A woman sitting on a bench despondent, it seems, from a lack of bananas. Not for long, however, as the Dole Banana Man comes upon her and, smiling at the camera, his bananastache atwitter, he bestows on her a bounty of fruit sprayed forth from one nostril; a potassium rich snot-rocket. In doing so he joins the ranks of other, food-bestowing characters like the Cheese Man who shills for Nissin, assaulting people in their homes in order to add cheese to their cups o’ curry. He even has a love interest now. No doubt Dole will do the same and give the Dole Banana Man a female counterpart; someone who he can grope with his sweet, fleshy digits.
Another week comes to a close here at the catacombs. Once again on I am on 24 hour lock down as my lithe and mysterious superiors sequester themselves in the lower levels to commune with the Ogdru Jahad in preparation for the dissemination of horrible and blasphemous texts. This isn’t as much of an inconvenience as one might think, as my movements are usually kept to a mere three hours outside of my cell. The current situation just means that I have to call for a eunuch in order to send faxes or make copies. It’s really not that bad, though it does mean that I know longer have access to the aging and, admittedly understocked vending machines. This may be a good thing. It really depends on how you feel about consuming soda past it’s sell-by date I suppose.
Besides, I still have the internet to keep me company, entertain me when I’m bored, and distract me from the horrible chanting and voices from outside time and space emanating from caverns miles beneath me. To that end the Friday Afternoon Movie presents the BBC Channel 5 program David Icke: Was He Right?, detailing the history of the chief crusader against the alien lizard people who control the world, who previously had gone on television to declare he was the son of God, and looking at whether or not he may, in fact, be correct in his various, outlandish assertions about What Is Really Going On. Icke has made an appearance on the FAM before, but I think it’s well worth further exploring his theories, because they’re just so damn crazy. There’s almost a perfection to his insanity, as to ignore it is to let him carry on about alien lizard people controlling the world but to argue it is to acknowledge the idea of alien lizard people who control the world. Either way, David Icke has won. In that regard, the man is a genius. In every other, he is endlessly entertaining.
I was torn over this post. You see, I’ve been suffering a bit of a blogging identity crisis. More and more I feel like I’m becoming “That guy who finds stuff on YouTube” which is fine, I suppose, if you’re looking to make a career as a human search engine, but maybe not so much if you’re trying to become a well rounded writer. On the other hand, human search engine could be an unfilled niche; something I could get into on the ground floor. Something less disastrous than my forays into hardcore mollusc pornography and fish whispering.
But enough about my self-doubts. It would behoove you all to watch Patrick Duffy and the Crab starting with the episode above in which Patrick and the crab discuss their first forays into the sexual arena. It’s full of insights into the worlds of fame, sex and the cultural fascination with the sexually predatory older woman. There’s a good reason for it, and it has nothing to do with sex.
Coilhouse is pleased to introduce a new project by Jeff Wengrofsky (Agent Double Oh No). Jeff explains: “The Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers (SHIT) is an independent film production nexus whose mission is to provide exposure to art, cialis artists, movements, events, and organizations that we believe are unusual, timely, and provoking. Our current project is a series of short (10 minute) documentary films that examine the politics and aporias of creativity. “The Gospel According to Reverend Billy” is the first in this series. It is being published on the Coilhouse blog and is very much an extension of my work for you folks. We hope to web publish a little film once a month until the close of 2010.”
“Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains.” – Rousseau
The prime, often countervailing logics of 21st century America – capitalism and democracy – seem dangerously out of balance today. Meanwhile, vestigial factors, like Puritanism, sometimes affect public life in surprising ways. Since the Giuliani years, America’s largest city – New York – has seen lower crime, infrastructural investments, an infusion of capital, a proliferation of chain stores, a vast profusion of surveillance devices and, perhaps, the general evisceration of democracy. Just recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ignored widespread opposition to the construction of two billion dollar stadiums and the much-maligned Atlantic Yards construction project. More egregiously, he bullied our City Council into overturning a term limits law that had been passed fifteen years earlier by public referendum. Now running for his third term, Bloomberg’s campaign war chest has intimidated all prominent Democratic challengers.
As politics appears as (yet another) massively-financed spectacle of buzzwords, scandals, outsized personas and deep psychology, is it possible to enter the political fray without selling your soul? Can you get the attention of the public eye by taking on an identity at once striking and also familiar to our public culture? Fifteen years ago, William Talen began the process of becoming a New Yorker and re-inventing himself as “Reverend Billy.” Today, armed with this identity, he enters churches of consumption – like the Disney store in Times Square – to project a powerful message opposing corporate retail, a culture of consumerism, and the encroachment of our public spaces.
Reverend Billy’s charisma, energy, and smarts have gathered him a gospel choir, the attention of CNN, a documentary film by Morgan Spurlock, and now the nomination of New York’s Green Party for the 2009 mayoral race. Reverend Billy combines a Nixonian charm with the overly stylized tropes of a preacher, and, perhaps as prime mover, a rich Calvinist heritage. America has a long history of Calvinist preachers – you may know them as “Puritans” – who rail against impure desires, “the moneychangers,” and fret mightily for the souls of their congregants.
COILHOUSE: Words like “community” and “neighborhood” have a special resonance for your choir. Are you a New Yorker? REVEREND BILLY: I grew up in Watertown, South Dakota and Rochester, Minnesota, and I always dreamed of being a New Yorker, the way you can dream of New York on the prairie. When the satellites would go up across the night sky, I used to think they were New York City flying through space. I first moved here in 1974, stayed a couple of years. Moved back again in the early 80s and, for a longer period of time, in the late 80s. I was like a hitchhiker, I would come and crash in the Lower East Side. In March of 1994, I don’t know why exactly, my commitment became permanent.
Do you feel like a New Yorker?
I do now because I perform in so many neighborhoods. I marry, baptize and bury New Yorkers in so many different boroughs. We – me and Savitri and the choir – some of us were born here and many of us are immigrants, we like the idea of a homemade spirituality that does not necessarily come from an organized religion. That idea became a New York idea after 9-11. Many of us gathered in rooms. The Reverend Billy idea of a different God or Goddess every day with another name, staying out of trouble with deities that cause us to kill each other, that kind of fellowship, I needed it, too.
This has been on the web for a couple of weeks but it bears mention here. “COMBO” is the newest animated graffiti film from Blu, capsule whose previous work “MUTO” became a YouTube sensation. This time he has collaborated with fellow artist David Ellis. There is something really fantastic about these films taking, salve as they do, shop traditional street art and, with the help of some video-assisted time manipulation, using it to create cartoons; treating buildings and courtyards as animation cels.
Kishka is a Slavic word, meaning gut or intestine.
Eastern European kishka is a blood sausage made with pig’s blood and barley or buckwheat, with pork intestines used as casing. Ashkenazi kishke, on the other hand, is traditionally made from kosher beef intestinal links stuffed with matzo meal, schmaltz, paprika and other spices.
For no readily apparent reason, the trials and tribs of this venerated dish seem to have inspired a YouTube trend: scores of youngsters (and the occasional strong-armed adult) are shooting homemade music videos (of varying degrees of complexity) for versions of the classic polka tune, “Who Stole the Kishka?” It’s inexplicable, ridiculous, and totally friggin’ adorable. As of this moment, some of the videos are even stealthily linked to (hurr hurr… link… geddit?) on the kishka Wikipedia page.
OK, it’s official. For the first time since relocating my base of operations to the southern hemisphere, I’m homesick:
Right now just about all of my talented fabricator/maker/builder chums back in California are gearing up (hurr hurr) for the second annual Santa Rosa Handcar Regatta, which takes place Sept 27th. That’s exactly a week from now. From the Handcar Regatta’s “Philosophy” page:
The railcar races at the center of the Regatta highlights Innovation and Human-Powered Ingenuity to devise cheaper, viable, and hitherto undreamed of methods for bizarre transport beyond the standard notions of today. Additionally, commuter rail transport is highlighted in our era of rising fuel costs. Together with an emphasis on biking, the Regatta provides a platform for playfulness and sustainable concerns within the realm of human-powered alternative transportation.
Tinkerers, artists, and eccentrics both young and old are invited to participate in Artistic and Mechanical Innovation upon a playful and inspired mixture of fond remembrance for a stylized industrial railroad past remixed with progressive styles and technologies of today.
The elegantly feisty Hennepin Crawler, winner of the Erasmus P. Kitty Honorary Award at the 2008 Handcar Regatta.
If you live in the area and appreciate thoughtful, gonzo DIY fun on a massive scale, you will not want to miss this. Indie vendors, circus and dance performances, yummy foodstuffs, live music and multiple geekgasms await you. More info here. Have fun at the races, comrades.
One of the things that I love about living in Chicago is that it’s merely a hop, skip and a jump away from Wisconsin. For those of you on the coasts, that statement may make little sense. Still, I am wholeheartedly convinced that there’s magic there. Wisconsin’s had far more than its share of brilliant eccentrics, outsider artists and charming crackpots. From Alex Gordon’s jaw-droppingly magnificent House on The Rock –a place whose wide-ranging wondersutterlydefydescription— to the architectural gems of Gordon’s sworn enemy, Frank Lloyd Wright, to the strange and beautiful man-made grottos that dot the countryside, Wisconsin is a treasure trove of wonderful weirdness.
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983) was a true Wisconsinite, in the very best (and most eccentric) sense of the word. He lived in a world of his own making, hidden away in a modest house in Milwaukee with his beloved wife and muse Marie. During the days, he worked as a baker, but in his own words, he was a “Freelance Artist, Poet and Sculptor, Inovator [sic], Arrow maker and Plant man, Bone artifacts constructor, Photographer and Architect, Philosopher.” In each of his chosen disciplines, Von Bruenchenhein was incredibly prolific. When his work was discovered shortly after his death, his home was literally stuffed to the gills with his creations. His paintings are vivid, apocalyptic explosions of color, swirling with mysterious monsters and elusive, organic forms. The distinctive surfaces are partly a result of his process. Since brushes were often an unattainable luxury, he used his fingers, twigs or bushes made of his wife Marie’s hair. Marie herself is a lovely enigma. Eugene clearly adored her. She was his one and only model in a series of photographs influenced by the pin-up imagery of the time. In his images, he turned her into a queen, a goddess, a siren… constructing crowns out of tin Christmas ornaments and adorning her with wreaths of pearls.
Left: one of Von Breunchenheim’s bone chairs. Right: A photographic portrait by Von Breunchenheim of his beloved Marie.
It was Von Bruenchenhein’s bone chairs that first caught my eye. They are tiny and intricate, constructed from the detritus of many a chicken dinner. Apparently, he ate a lot of chicken, because he also constructed wonderful little bone towers. They look almost like architectural models of the Watts towers.
I am also fascinated by a snapshot of a wall in his home, probably in the basement, scrawled with his philosophical musings. “Death haunts men forever and finally wins” is written directly underneath “Electric meter” and “Water and Gas.” It’s as if he felt that his revelations needed to be put somewhere permanent, somewhere that could not be misplaced like a sheet of paper. It’s like having the rare chance to peer into his head. Next to a pin-up in a bikini, ever the romantic, he writes: “All go down the drain. Collect yourself. Tomorrow it is too late. Make love worth ALL” – and above a dark water stain, there is “Love is a fire ever bright.”
Goddamn, your manager is a douche. I mean, it’s not just me, right? Like, he’s a total douche with his douchey paisley tie and his douchey, meticulously pressed pants, and his douchey attitude all sauntering over to your desk to “see how that proposal is going” and then launch into another retelling of his Labor Day weekend away from the “bitch and the brats” to go golfing with his buddies who are also, no doubt, just as douchey or perhaps more douchey than he is. Nah, that can’t be possible. This guy is too much of a douche; there can’t possibly be another person who could eclipse the blinding glare of his douchiness. This man is like the Platonic Ideal of a douche. Just…argh, such a douche.
Well, at least he’s reminded you that, at least in America, it was only a four day work week. This is good. Your boss, standing by your desk, reeking as though he bathes in Drakkar Noir, is not. Time to drive him away. Tell him you need to get back to work; have to finish that proposal. Is he gone? Yes he is. Don’t worry the Drakkar will dissipate soon enough, just power through it for now; for now is the time for the FAM.
This afternoon: David Cronenberg’s Videodrome. Many of you may have seen it. If not, I’m only going to drop a few, key phrases on you. They are, as follows: whipping, televisions, pulsating, hand gun, stomach vagina, Debbie Harry. That is all. Press play and enjoy.
