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.
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.
Ariana Osborne just broke my brain with this clip from The Worst Witch, a 1986 made-for-TV movie starring baby Fairuza Balk as a witch-in-training and our preternatural beauty A-lister Tim Curry as a tambourine-wagging warlock in a bat bow tie. Abracadabra:
See, now, this is one of those times where I honestly don’t know whether I’m really turned on, or embarrassed to the pit of my soul. Maybe a bit of both? (You know what I mean, yes? So bad, it’s good? So wrong… yet so right? )
If you’d care to watch the entire movie, well… we won’t hold it against you. It’s under the cut.
Miss Tandi Iman Dupree, ladies and gents. Is that an entrance or what?
No doubt, many of you will have already seen this invigorating clip, shot at the 2001 Miss Black America pageant in Atlanta, Georgia. It was Tandi’s dream to become Miss Black America, and for years she hustled her butt off, giving memorable performances at drag events across the continental U.S. Shockingly, her rendition of “Holding Out for a Hero” did not win Miss Dupree the crown, and she passed away (from AIDS complications, according to the Associated Press) before achieving her goal.
I’m just grateful to have the footage, especially on a cold, murky morning like this one. For many of us, Miss Dupree will always be a reigning queen.
Ganked from the excellent Nightchillers site, thanks.
If you’ve never seen this campy Corman-produced adaptation of Lovecraft’s famous tale, you might want to Netflix it in time for your pumpkin-carving party.* Produced and shot in 1969 in the immediate wake of Manson Family shenanigans, it’s often pooh-poohed by Lovecraft purists for being too cornball. But in my opinion, Dunwich Horror is actually one of the better adaptations of old Howard P’s oeuvre** with its sumptuous matte paintings, capable-if-hokey performances from the cast, a beautiful score by Les Baxter, and a couple of genuinely creepy moments. Lovecraft stories lend themselves really well to the pyschedelic era.
Yes, he really did just say “horrendipity.”
Starring Dean “Uh Oh, Sam” Stockwell in his most brooding role short of Yueh in Dune, a rather weary-faced-but-supposedly-virginal Sandra Dee, and the even wearier-faced Ed Begley (his final role, R.I.P.), Dunwich Horror is worth renting for the gorgeous animated title sequence alone. Other highlights: the sight of young, yog-sothothelytizing Stockwell’s torso covered in pseudo-runic sharpie scribbles, Sam Jaffe’s “GET OFF MY LAWN” geezerdom, and Gidget clenching her butt in the throes of orgasm on the altar at Devil’s Hopyard.
*Or if you’re really cheap, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube.
**Not that that’s saying much, really. Other than ReAnimator, what’ve we got that’s not just crotch-punchingly horrid? Hmmm, let’s see… actually, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at any of these: The Resurrected, Die Monster Die, The Unnameable, that Night Gallery episode Pickman’s Model, and the amazingCall of Cthulhuindie movie that came out recently. Can you guys think of any others? A great suggestion from commenter Jack: Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness.
There are two kinds of people in this world. People who truly appreciate the subtle, sophisticated humor of Benny Hill, and people who should just crawl back into bed right now and cry themselves to sleep because they’re obviously hopeless, sub-human degenerates.
Er, wait. Perhaps I’ve got it backwards…
Well, anyhoo. If you’re still reading, good morning! Show me your knickers! Time for a painstakingly curated, unflaggingly tasteful assortment of undercranked “Yakety Sax” mashups, starting with this inspired pairing of Slim Shady and Boots Randolph with a whole lotta Whovians.
Now, click beyond the jump, or else I’ll pinch your butt!
How intricate a mechanism the body, how elegant the curvature of a clavicle! It’s no wonder so many artists find themselves inspired by the wondrous hidden framework of living creatures. Collected below, some curious work by three jewelers, adventurous artisans who believe in extending the life of anatomical construction well beyond the years of its original owners.
Fist up, Julia Deville. Miss Deville’s biography hints at an interesting character I’d love to have over for tea. She is a trained cobbler, silversmith and taxidermist enthralled with nature and its inner workings. Fusing these areas of expertise she created her line – Disce Mori. Inspired by Victorian mourning artifacts and jewelry, Julia’s beautiful website‘s dark clockwork theme is as entrancing as her pieces. Jet is paired with silver cast from animal bones among a selection of cuff links, buttonhole adornments and fob chains alongside necklaces and bracelets. Also here are less orthodox items – a brooch featuring a preserved mouse, for instance. Bold, yet far from costume fare, Disce Mori pieces are as timeless as they are macabre. The “Taxidermy” section is small, but shows a sense of humor with its “Kitten Rug” [exactly what it sounds like]. Viewing her works as reminders to enjoy the present, Julia makes a point to mention that the animals she uses have all died of natural causes.
Follow beyond the jump for two more purveyors of life-affirming adornments.
In Heaven Everything is Fine: The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre by Josh Frank and Rabbi Charlie Buckholtz (New York: The Free Press, 2008)
Every decision you make is the chance to become a hero.
– Peter Ivers
Political correctness notwithstanding, some people are born with a creative pulse and an innate set of skills that set them apart from the rest of us. In Heaven Everything is Fine: The Unsolved Life of Peter ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre is the oral history of one of those people – Peter Ivers – and the cultural milieu he helped create. It’s a celebration of the bizarre, a story of love, and a tale of the magic of creative combustion set at Harvard in the early 1970s and in Los Angeles for the duration of the decade and into the early ‘80s. It ends in murder.
Who was Peter Ivers and why should we care? He was the epicenter of some of the most influential American artists in film, theatre, music, and television of his day: David Lynch, Devo, National Lampoon, Harold Ramis, Francis Ford Coppola, Saturday Night Live, as well as perfomers in the burgeoning Los Angeles punk scene. More than just a lynch-pin, Ivers brought a dazzling array of talents and sensibilities to his work: he was a blackbelt in karate, a yoga enthusiast, and a habitual pot smoker. And it was none other than the great Muddy Waters who called that Jew boy “the greatest harp player alive.”
45 Grave performing “Evil” on New Wave Theatre.
Ivers’s accomplishments and collaborations included: writing the theme of Eraserhead (for which this book was named), dating Stockard Channing, working with John Lithgow on college theater, recording five albums of distinctly strange music for unappreciative major labels (Epic and Warner Brothers), performing in diapers and bunny slippers at Lincoln Center, and, as opener, on separate occasions, for the New York Dolls and Fleetwood Mac (whose fans booed him off the stage). Most of all, Ivers is known for championing all things genuinely queer as the puckish host ofNew Wave Theatre, an early cable access program showcasing the efflorescence of musical talent then found in the Los Angeles underground.
While some people are takers – they take your ideas, they take your time, they take lives – others, like Peter Ivers, the tragic hero of this tale, are BUILDERS. New Wave Theatre began on Los Angeles cable access and was soon picked up by the USA Network as part of its “Nightflight” programming, making Peter Ivers the Johnny Appleseed of American alternative culture. New Wave Theatre simultaneously created a space for people to shine and projected the generated light into the American living room, inspiring a thousand flickers of oddness across the country.
Ivers interviews the Castration Squad on New Wave Theatre. (Photo via Alice Bag, thanks!) L-R: Tiffany Kennedy, Elissa Bello, Dinah Cancer, Shannon Wilhelm, Peter Ivers and Tracy Lea.
(Yeah, we know. This is already yesterday’s poos. Don’t care. Must blog for sake of prost… er… posterity.)
Via the Nainamo Daily News (and ten gazillion other websites): “A giant inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again, the museum said Monday.”
A strong gust of wind carried the gargantuan pile of crap several hundred yards from the Paul Klee Centre in Berne before it touched down again on the grounds of a children’s home, where it broke a window. No word yet on whether or not the home’s inhabitants have been traumatized for life. Museum director Juri Steiner claims the piece of art has a safety system which normally makes the cacadoody deflate during stormy weather, but something went wrong.
