Two Hipsters and a Bong:

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’s better than BIRDEMIC.

A few weeks ago, Meltdown Comics held a screening for Grant Morisson: Talking With Gods – a new documentary revolving around the life and work of iconic comics trailblazer, Grant Morrison. In this first ever feature-length film about him, Grant talks at length about the extraordinary circumstances spanning his life and career thus far. Intimate, endearing conversations with a horde of esteemed collaborators and friends are interspersed with Grant’s own stories, and feature Warren Ellis, Douglas Rushkoff, Geoff Johns and many, many more. Also spotted in the doc: Allan Amato’s Issue 04 photos of Grant and his wife, Kristan. SCORE.

At Meltdown, the end credits rolled to a standing ovation. During the subsequent Q&A, guest speaker Taliesin Jaffe generously shared a tale which some of us will be able to identify with all too well. He spoke of a young, goth Taliesin, deeply involved in ritual magic and in the process of finalizing his sacred toolkit. The remaining, pivotal piece was a wand, and for this purpose has had acquired a human femur. No ritual tool is complete without a proper charge, and for this purpose young Taliesin brought his human femur to a convention, laid it in front of Grant Morrison, and asked him to sign it. Which Grant did, after some deliberation.

I caught up with director Patrick Meaney to ask if he could share his most memorable experience from the making  of Talking With Gods.

Patrick Meaney: One of the most bizarre moments was watching the film with Grant himself, and participating in creating the next public incarnation of Morrison through his feedback on the film. It was totally surreal to go to someone and present them with ‘the story of their life,’ and then ask them to tell you what they think. We had discussed the idea that this film would, in a way, be his legacy, and would determine how people perceive him from here on out, so it was a big responsibility. Luckily he seemed happy with the final result.

In terms of bizarre magical correspondences, I wasn’t there for this one, but my DP, Jordan, was in New Mexico for a couple of days and wanted to get footage of a scorpion to illustrate one of Grant’s stories. On his last day there, he told the universe, “I want to see a scorpion today”. That afternoon, he was driving down the road and spotted something, stopped the car and there, waiting, was a scorpion. So, we got exactly the shot we needed.

Reviews of the film are popping up all across the ‘Wub – a bunch are collected here. More screenings are being listed here, you can watch one of the official trailers for Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods below, and the DVD is now available through the Halo8 store, and on Amazon.

If you’re a highly sensitive purist, DON’T bother with On the Bro’d: Every Sentence of Kerouac Retold for Bros. It will only sully your palate and piss you off. If you’ve never actually read On the Road, well, you should experience that first, most definitely. Particularly if you are bright-eyed, collegiate (pre or post) and fulla beans. For while it may retain its verve when read at a later age, the classic Kerouac scroll is, first and foremost, a young adventurer’s screed.

via DJ Dead Billy, thanks.

But hey, all you crabby old culture vultures who eat sacred cow burgers with zeal and favor the thigh bones of vegan Sarah Lawrence humanities majors for your walking sticks, pull up to the groaning board and dig the fuck in. If, perhaps, you remain secretly convinced that young Jack and pals could have stood to be a bit less self-indulgent, paternalistic, or just plain fuckwitted, this satirical retelling may provide you with nourishing vindication.

On the Bro’d is exactly what the title describes. References to beer bongs, pimps, Axe Body Spray, Sparks, popped collars, bottle service and “Wonderwall” abound. From its official press release (yes, apparently it has an official press release, ugh): “On The Road is an American classic and the seminal work of the Beat generation, but much of it’s lost in translation when read by the generation that goes to the club and then beats.” The as-of-yet unnamed author insists that his reinterpretation is both appropriate and relevant, seeing as the original book was goaded by the “stirring unrest and genius of a generation of bros.” Nnnngh.

Profoundly cynical and relentlessly obnoxious, On the Bro’d will make you weep and laugh and barf for the future of American culture as only a seasoned NYC designer/writer/humor blogger can make you weep/laugh/barf. So enjoy. Or not. Either way, you have my love and empathy.

Haven’t seen High School Confidential yet? It’s high time you did. (Double-decker pun intended, natch!) Directed by Jack Arnold, it’s a campy, unexpectedly sharp teensploitation romp that peaks with this adrenalizing scene:

The finger-snapping nihilist’s name was Phillipa Fallon, and that was her all-too-brief moment to shine.

Via the ever-entertaining CONELRAD webzine:

Approximately mid-way through the Albert Zugsmith exploitation film masterpiece High School Confidential (1958), an attractive, quasi-bohemian woman strides on stage at a coffee house and belts out a beat poem that provides a delightfully nihilistic snapshot of the Cold War—including references to the space race and atomic evacuation. The fact that she happens to be accompanied by Jackie Coogan (who plays a heroin kingpin in the film) on piano is, like, pure existential gravy. Predictably, the teens in the audience appear to be digging Coogan’s incongruous ragtime key work and disregarding the depressing content of the lyrics.

B-movie actor and writer Mel Welles (1924-2005) was the person most responsible for the hep jargon —including “High School Drag”— in Confidential. He was recruited by producer Zugsmith for help in this regard because, as Welles recalled for interviewer Tom Weaver in 1988, “I was an expert on grass in my day…”

Up until very recently, precious little was known about the sneering sex bomb “who so memorably portrays the hipsteress delivering Welles’ boptastic words.” But just last month, after years of sleuthing and compiling, CONELRAD began to parse out Fallon’s story on a separate site devoted to her life and times. Installments are still going up.

Gaze upon the glory of Krackoon a film about unchecked urban development and political corruption. It may also be about a bloodthirsty raccoon which happens to be addicted to crack cocaine. In fact, it is most definitely about a bloodthirsty raccoon addicted to crack cocaine; a plot perhaps unparalleled in its maniacal greatness. It is unfortunate then that this trailer features only the slightest glimpse of the ring-tailed drug fiend in the form of what appears to be a hand-puppet entangled in offal. Instead, we are treated to a number of gentlemen in varied locales addressing the camera. This strikes me as a grave misjudgment. I realize that a trailer should leave the audience wanting more and it would be a mistake (one filmmakers too often make) to include the best parts of your film only to have little left over for the feature; but for fuck’s sake, your film is about a raccoon that kills people and is addicted to crack. Certainly, it deserves more screen time than what we get here. Still, it’s enough to pique my curiosity in what Bronx Times columnist Fish Altieri has dubbed “[…] an instant cult classic”; a sentiment that I could not agree with more.

Via Videogum

I have only a rudimentary grasp of the work of Benoît B. Mandelbrot. In fact, what I know is basically that through the use of complex mathematical formulas it is possible to create some kick-ass desktop wallpaper. This does, no doubt, a great injustice to the man’s work, but there it is. Krzysztof Marczak, obviously, understands the aforementioned mathematics better than me and has, with the help of a program called Mandelbulber, produced a hypnotic rendering of a flight through a fractal cube. It’s really great and you should go to the YouTube page to watch it in high def. I bet it would make a kick-ass screensaver.

Via Dark Roasted Blend

It should be pointed out that this is, perhaps, not the best video to be watching first thing in the morning or, conversely, right before bed. The above is a clip from late 80s maudlin sitcom Full House, jumping off point for the careers of The Olsen Twins and the show partially responsible for convincing America that Bob Saget was not a perverted lunatic. Were that all it would not be here, of course (Zo’s obsession with the program and her unbridled lust for Dave Coulier notwithstanding).

What pushes this into true bizarro territory — and, hence, this post — is the fact that it has been slowed down by an unspecified number of degrees, an effect that one could be argued is overdone, but one that nevertheless is almost guaranteed to produce pure nightmare fuel. This point is made plain when the aforementioned clip turns to some of the program’s musical numbers at about 3:40, turning what appeared at first to be a bad acid trip into twisted, lecherous dreamscape. It’s really quite astonishing. And horrible. Mostly horrible.

Correction: It seems this clip is not from late 80s maudlin sitcom Full House and is, apparently, from some other, Olsen related venture. Apologies to Zo and all the other Full House aficionados amongst our readership.

“Neverest” is a single of of Star, the debut album from Hey Champ. The song itself is of the electronic variety, the members of Hey Champ playing their instruments from inside the confines of neon tinged pyramids bastardized from Gary Numan’s repertoire. We’re not here for either the song or the set design, however. No, we are here for the beautiful, lithe nymphets gyrating in their underwear, swinging their hips back and forth like seductive pendulums, their sentient dolphin-head breasts swiveling on their chests, eyes glowing with otherworldly light.

Why these women would have cetaceans sprouting from their torsos is a question I am not equipped to answer, nor would I allow myself to pass judgment on those who find the image of the aforementioned cetaceans bound to the human form arousing. I am simply pointing out that it is a thing that exists and we are, all of us, going to have to accept that.

via The Daily What

Every once in a while this happens: I find something hilarious, get excited to post it here, and then realize that it’s only funny to Russian-speakers. However, in the case of this touching love ballad, poignantly titled “My Pepper Misses Paris Hilton”, I’m compelled to share anyway. Even took the time to translate the lyrics, which you’ll find after the video.

It should be noted that “pepper” in Russian is pronounced “peh-rehtz” – not unlike “Paris”. Yes, with that in mind I believe everyone will be able to appreciate the elevated subtleties of Russian humor presented herein.

Pardon the blackface.

[via Eugene Rabkin and Style Zeitgeist]

LYRICS

She’s not idiot, far from it. She’s not the queen of glamour for nothing!
She’s a personalty, a socialite lioness.

Oh, mommy, how I suffer. I don’t know what to do with this pain.
I suffer so, I languish.
I’m in love.
My pepper misses Paris Hilton.
My pepper misses Paris Hilton.

Bottle of whiskey and I have become too close.
I can’t speak English.
A Limp Bizkit CD, two caramels in my pocket – this is all I have to my name.

Oh, mommy, how I suffer. I don’t know what to do with this pain.
I suffer so, I languish.
I’m in love.
My pepper misses Paris Hilton.
My pepper misses Paris Hilton.

RAP BREAKDOWN

Paris, you know full well
I’m out of my mind from you
When you’re not near winter is in my heart
You’re a dream, a beauty, you’re my baby
O, Paris, you’re my beloved,
I suffer so, I languish, I can’t stand it.
What am I to do? I don’t know.
All that’s left is to sing.
I’m tired of drinking alone,
My spleen is killing me.
Baby, call me, we need to talk.

My pepper misses Paris Hilton.
My pepper misses Paris Hilton.

Here’s another Cronenbergian nightmare for you! Been meaning to roll this one out for a while now, but Ross’ Yeasayer post and last week’s focus group scene on Mad Men reminded me to finally get on it.

This Nokia N900 commercial came out late last year, and leaves me a little puzzled even after third and fourth and fifth viewing. The scene opens with a view of a focus group, as seen through glass by the observing parties. A few guys brainstorm desirable phone features, while one – a black-clad, scruffy type – doesn’t seem to be interested in participating. When asked to speak up, he begins to twitching and screaming at his collaborators. Panic ensues. Then, after a series of incredibly cool-looking and terrifying man-becomes-machine contortions, he transforms into a phone. Yep. It’s an insane, abusive man-phone. Enjoy!

(Via Engadget)