I don’t talk about I much, but I have a sort of ongoing quest to become superhuman on the cheap using only willpower and widely available drugstore products. This is probably not as silly as it sounds. I do believe it’s entirely possible to level up my very being, if I can only find the right combo of stuff to ingest. In this quest, I’ve subjected my body to all kinds of experiments. Most of them have done nothing but I’ve discovered a few things that actually, shockingly, do what they’re supposed to do and make me a better, higher-functioning creature. What do you do to become a more efficient, better human?
B VITAMINS. Know why Red Bull makes you feel so peppy? It’s not just the caffeine, or you’d be getting the same sustained buzz from Coke and coffee. It’s the B vitamins, the lack of which in our systems leads to such symptoms as depression, anemia and sluggishness. While some critics claim the marketing of B vitamins is just a gimmick, I don’t believe it for a second and invite you to draw your own conclusions. Beginning a regimen of daily B complex supplements last year boosted my energy and pretty much kiboshed about 75% of my persistent battle with depression — kicked to the curb, to an astounding extent, a lifetime of feeling too tired and unmotivated to do things. The stuff is water-soluble and all excess B vitamins in your system will come out in the form of neon green urine, so don’t worry about taking “1000 percent of the RDA!” Just take a little and see what happens. THIS SHIT SAVED MY LIFE.
VALERIAN ROOT. I was introduced to this stuff by a Russian co-worker, who calls it “Valerianka” and claimed it made her calm and relaxed enough to deal with screaming clients and bosses, without the drowsiness of other tranquilizers. It’s also a natural product, available cheaply and without a prescription, with no harmful documented side effects. It’s been used to treat everything from insomnia, anxiety, depression and gastrointestinal disorders. I find it takes effect almost immediately, producing a detached, sardonic feeling and leaving me clearheaded enough to work productively without emotion—perfect for the office or working in a distracting environment. MIGHT MAKE ME A BETTER PERSON.
SLIM FAST OPTIMA. Though I’m not trying to lose weight, I thought I’d try this because having to eat when my body decides it’s hungry instead of when I decide it’s convenient is a huge pain in the ass. It claims to control hunger for four hours. Instead, this product removes appetite for about four minutes with its nasty, chalky taste. It is most definitely not food. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
EMERGEN-C. These little packets of magic have been favorites of mine since middle school when we used to pour them straight on our tongues at recess and laugh at the weird bubbly tingly sensation and funny smell. The “champagne of energy drinks” comes in a million flavors and makes me feel nice and peppy for short periods of time. Sometimes I chug a packet with water first thing in the morning so I can make it to the bus stop. After all these years I couldn’t tell you if it’s the placebo effect or not. Maybe I should replace it with pop rocks one week and see if I feel any ill effects. Once I get a grant. FURTHER STUDY REQUIRED.
You work in this soul-crushing business for as many years as I have, you relish the chance to do some pro-bono Cause advertising, the chance to Do Some Good. For me, that chance came a few years when I got to write a Drug-Free America TV spot which dramatically illustrated that Drugs Don’t Work in the office — which is of course a position I wholeheartedly disagree with.
I’ve never gotten the chance to work on AIDS awareness/prevention like the lucky creators of this :60 spot from ad agency Lowe Mena in Dubai. It’s for MTV’s staying-alive.org. Such a slick motherfuckin’ spot, huh? The editing. The spot-on casting. The trippy, ethereal music. The cool voiceover…”Can you hear me, taste me? Barroom brawler or prom queen…” And of course, the simply brilliant creative linchpin: chewing gum. Such a perfect metaphor for casual sex. Except of course, you can’t get AIDS through saliva exchange, or drinking lover’s spit. But then, why let “logic” or “responsibility” get in the way of the sacred artistic ad process? What are you, copyranter? An asshole account executive?
Gather round, loves. One of our favorite longtime readers, Renaissance man and gentleman pervert Jerem Morrow, is finally dipping his toes into our fetid staff jacuzzi with this fond review of one of the most depraved Australasian cult films east of Bad Boy Bubby. Lets give him a warm round of nervous laughter and stifled coughing, shall we? The subject matter calls for nothing less!
‘Decade or more ago, I frequented an antiquated video store. Kinda place that still had VHS tapes. Crappy paintings of giant monsters, gangsters and vixens adorned the walls. It was called Video Adventures. The proprietor, Brian, was a true film aficionado, someone you never got tired of listening to ramble. That wonderful place saved me from whatever blockbuster atrocities the theaters were pumping out at the time.
Still, I wanted more. Something beyond the Evil Deads, Rocky Horrors and Blade Runners. Love them though I did (and do), I needed more boundary-pushing. My friends and I began an experiment: Proprietor Brian compiled a list of his 100 Least Rented Movies, and we endeavored to watch each and every one. Now, in my twilight years, my brainmeats aren’t what they used to be, but something tells me we didn’t make it quite so far. Still, a few gems passed before our cinephile eyes.
Pre-LoTR Peter Jackson at his most outrageous. It’d be theBraindead/Bad Taste creator channeling Weird TV, had WTV happened first. It’s manic. It’s horrid. It’s brilliant trash cinema. Sweet transvestites find a kindred spirit in this fox puppet crooning a song entitled “Sodomy”. (Five words. Giant. Golden. Glitter. Splooging. Penises.)
Before I saw Bakshi‘s film version of Crumb‘s Fritz the Cat, I was traumatized by walrus-on-literal-sex-kitten soft-core. How about a journalist fly on the wall, mouth full of shit and wee insect heart full o’ spite? Check. Bunnies doing what bunnies do best, but with terrible, terrible consequences? Check. Strung out frog/lizard thingies languishing in a P.O.W. camp? Check. Lovesick singing hedgehogs? Check. Cow-on-cockroach fetish video? Hoo boy, check. And that ain’t the half of it.
Yes, Jackson and crew made me spew “WTFOMGODZILLA” before most anyone else. Maybe Richard O’Brien popped my cherry, but Rocky felt like home, whereas Meet The Feebles was outright alien territory. I was utterly unprepared for the brainpan dervish that played out before me, wracking me with I’MNOTREADY joy.
I can say, with absolute certainty, that renting it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
What you hold in your hands is more than a book. If we are lucky, it is a revolution.
—
It is “steam engine time” for the writers of speculative fiction. The millennium is at hand. We are what’s happening.
-Harlan Ellison, from the Introduction to Dangerous Visions
They are two volumes: old by now and a little yellow around the edges, imposing both in size and scope. Seventy-nine stories by as many authors. The overloaded dynamite clump of an era.
The world had never seen anything like 1967’sDangerous Visionsor its 1972 follow-up,Again, Dangerous Visions. Enfant terrible Harlan Ellison bought together sci-fi’s old masters and a grand array of new talent to unleash a wave of stories sexy, violent and far enough out there that they’ll still shock the living hell out of you today. Attacking “the constricting narrowness of mind” that ran sci-fi, Ellison urged the authors: “Pull out all the stops, no holds barred, get it said!” They did.
If “All Tomorrows” is your informal classroom on the glories of the Deviant Age, consider these the fucking primers. They personify everything great and terrible about this time. Here, in paper form, are seventy-nine utterly genius minds cutting loose.
Here too, is the trilogy that was never finished. It is thirty-six years later, and The Last Dangerous Visions, the long-touted finale, is lost as the holy grail. Like its era, the Dangerous Visions series broke the old into tiny pieces and screamed towards the future — only to fall sickeningly short in a mix of bile-ridden hubris.
More on one of the greatest triumphs and tragedies science fiction has ever seen, after the jump.
Anton LaVey, Scott Cunningham, Ayn Rand – oh, the follies of youth! I’d nearly forgotten my 14-year-old Objectivist phase until I stumbled on the hilarious “Free-Market Meat Market,” an article over at New York Magazine that features posts from an Ayn Rand Dating site, with precious gems such as this:
thustotyrants, Selden, New York [I am] short, stark, and mansome.
You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice. If you’ve seen the meatbot, the walking automaton, the pod-people, the dense, glazy-eyed substrate through which living organisms such as myself must escape to reach air and sunlight. If you’ve realized that if speech is to be regarded as a cognitive function, technically they aren’t speaking, and you don’t have to listen.
San Franciscans, tonight you are in for a special treat. Mer is performing with the Ragwater Revue at The Stork Club! If you have never seen Mer perform, let me tell you: it’s an experience. I’ve seen her twice, so far. One time, she played violin with The Dresden Dolls, and the other time, it was at our launch party, rockin’ the theremin. And let me tell you people – people faint when she plays. She’s that good.
So imaginging Mer with the Ragwater Revue – “a lethal concoction of booze-fueled swamp lust” – makes me want to hop on a plane to the Bay Area right now. Ragwater Revue combines elements of swampy blues, rockabilly and 1960s garage rock with lyrics that invoke alligator babies, glass eyes and cemeteries. “Imagine an old seedy bar in the 1930s where women adorned in puffy mink shawls smoke using long Cruella DeVille-like cigarette extenders and dark-haired men in suits slowly tap their feet to some jazzy blues,” writes Artsweek California. “Ragwater Revue would be the band on the stage.” As an added bonus, tonight’s show also debuts Coilhouse’s own star commenter Gooby Herms on bass! This show is not to be missed.
21:00 at Stork Club: Death Rock Dive Bar!
2330 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, California 94612. Cost: TBA.
Yes, we’re back in a public restroom! (Hi George Michael!) But instead of discussing your shit, this time we’ll be discussing your shit-facedness. Russian Bear vodka apparently placed this poster in some clubs and bars around Cape Town, South Africa. It’s a pretty damn cool idea, using fake Cyrillic lettering. Because when you’re a high-proof spirit presenting a “don’t drink and drive” ad message to drunks, doing so with a little fun and a wink strikes the right tone. But…yes, I have a problem with the execution. “Real Men…?” Really? You couldn’t come up with something better than that idiotic cliche? How bout simply “Comrade?” Or something like “Party Members Don’t Drink And Drive.” The Soviet propaganda-style art direction is begging for something else, right? (Image via adgoodness.)
Wode, the revolutionary art fragrance from Boudicca explores further the myth around Queen Boudicca [or Boadicea]. Legend has it she and her tribe wore a cobalt blue paint on their skin that gave them a ferocious and mythical look when advancing into battle. When finally defeated by the Romans Queen Boadicea killed herself by swallowing hemlock, an extract of which is included in Wode. When Wode is sprayed a vibrant cobalt mist appears and settles on the skin and clothing. Whether touched or not the ‘Wode Paint’ begins to fade and disappears completely leaving the scent behind.
That’s the official story. However, after watching the painfully seductive concept video below, my imagination went entirely elsewhere.
Perhaps half-dreaming before my daily dose of caffeine, I was whisked away to another time, where countless mermaids were enslaved and sacrificed for a wicked queen. Something of a Countess Bathory, she soaked in their cobalt tears to gain a mystical quality that made her irresistible in every way. With each bath, her skin would glow an opalescent blue, her voice would hypnotize and her eyes would leave you breathless. Alas, the magical effects of the tear potion were short lived and the slaughtering of mermaids went on until none remained on Earth.
There was another, Hentai-friendly scenario, best left to your own imaginations. Now I will have my coffee and try to make peace with spending $200 on this beguiling squid spray.
If you’re in the UK, Wode can be acquired here, otherwise consult the stocklist for a purveyor near you.
Does your skull feel like it might shatter in a million pieces at the slightest movement of your head? Are you on the verge of vomiting into your valenki? Is a little too much weekend boozing to blame? Take the advice of Russian punk pioneers Sektor Gaza and try a more natural method next time.
Formed in the wake of 1980s glasnost Sektor Gaza was the first band to take full advantage of this newfound freedom of speech. Combining extreme vulgarity with elements of folk they quickly gained a distinct sound and a devoted audience. In a rare display of modesty, this song resists mention of sex and murder in favor of opium and marijuana. Sactor Gaza urge their listeners to give up nasty Vodka, toss that old samogon and indulge in Mother Nature’s own hangover cures.
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.
