Are you ready to have your mind blown? If the answer is yes, prepare for the bass stylings of one Hyunmo Kim, a South Korean man who “hopes to be the world’s greatest stupid idiot bass player”. He does this in a dress. With pigtails. He is a pigtailed man in a dress with mad bass skillz who does not drink milk until he gags or examine his delicate faux-cleavage with the aid of his camera. You must be imagining things. It’s probably the awesomeness of his bass, frying your brain.
Whether it’s jet-lag delirium, an abiding love for handcranked slapstick comedy, an abiding love for my homeland’s Rayban-wearing forefathers, or an abiding love for Tony Millionaire that has sent me over the edge, this is making me die:
By the way, The Art of Tony Millionaireis coming out on Sept 2nd. A most beautiful and long overdue collection of gorgeous, fanciful and hilarious art. Geddit.
HOLY SHIT. I just discovered the website Everything Is Terrible (which should really be called Bad Touch Central, or Kill It With Fire). JACKPOT. I kind of feel like a kid who’s just come downstairs on Christmas morning and discovered grandma giving Santa a hummer a living room filled to the brim with goodies.
Be warned: at about 1:45, this clip gets downright demonic.
After discovering stuff like RE/SEARCH, those Incredibly Strange Music comps, zine culture, and wandering the specialty video store booths at the (then much smaller, homegrown) San Diego Comic Convention, I realized there were entire fringe communities of weirdos compelled to do exactly the same thing! I was so excited! We were all trading these grainy, janky 4th generation bootlegs of our favorite oddball material. Pre internet, those communities were more localized. One the internet kicked in, it went global. Of course, now we have YouTube [and better yet, Vimeo]…
…and Everything Is Terrible –bless their black, festering hearts– has a channel chock full o’ madness. These are only a few of the more soul-rending clips they’ve culled from the etherstatic for our pleasure. If you’ve got an hour (or several) to kill (as violently and memorably as possible), you should probably head on over there. Or, if you quailed upon viewing these clips, click here instead.
More Everything Is Terrible curated gems after the jump.
EDIT 1 2009/08/04 1:50pm: Oh no! YouTube just suspended EIT’s account. “[You] won’t be able to watch most of our videos until we find a new home for them. We’re working hard to rebuild, but it’s going to take a little while. Sit down, breathe into a paper bag, and try to relax. We will keep you updated. Don’t worry, we will continue to post new videos.”
Summer stretches on, dear readers, the air thick and heavy, set to a steady, slow broil. I anticipate these many, seemingly endless weeks with fear and loathing, knowing as I do the horrors that await, squatting, therein. I am decidedly unfit for such fiery months despite my heritage, my people being born of the arid deserts. Perhaps in the many years separating my ancestors and I, my genes have forgotten those traits that made survivable those wind-swept climbes. In the end, it doesn’t matter for the present remains the same, my time during those days between Spring and Fall consisting of scurrying from air conditioned room to air conditioned room in a vain attempt to thwart the heat and the body’s disgusting method of cooling itself. It is a battle I have yet to win and by now, already into the horrid month named for Augustus, my existence is a slick, damp, and sticky nightmare punctuated by frequent showers.
Were that the only plague visited upon this part of the Northeast it would be a blessing but, alas, this is not the case. With this infernal heat comes, of course, vast multitudes of insects. They are ubiquitous, gathering in great swarms that blacken the sky, yet do not provide shade. No, they bring no solace, only pain and itching. Truly it is a terrible time, each day finding me a salty, flailing golem shambling down the street flinging my arms, slick with perspiration, like a spastic and broken marionette as I am pursued by any number of buzzing parasites. It would, perhaps, be bearable were the nights to offer some sort of reprieve, but no. Holed up in my climate controlled habitat I can see them, gathering around the street lights, dancing on the humid air that rises from its dormancy in the asphalt. They are like flecks of summer snow. Filthy, disease-ridden, evil summer snow.
Charles McCarthy has documented this particular blight. His time-lapse photography makes them appear almost beautiful, belying their festering malevolence. Oh, how I long for Fall.
It’s been days since we hastily cooked up that batch of bathtub MDMA in honor of the Zobogrammatron’s incept date. Still, I don’t think I’ve quite come down yet, so I’m not really sure what we’re watching right now, folks. I do know that it is very colorful and shiny and retro and Japanese and somehow vaguely Lovecraftian by way of Fisher Price, and thus, it cannot help but to be better than coffee.*
OctopieInTheSky, who has created an entire YouTube channel devoted to the show, may be able to clarify:
A messed-up kids program which first appeared on the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation’s JOCX-TV on October 1st, 1973. Every episode is basically about Kure Kure Takora wanting something that belongs to the other characters and then tries to steal it. While the episodes only run 2 and a half minutes each, you’ll be treated to acts of:
antisocial behavior (always guaranteed)
random violence (guaranteed)
cannibalism
Love triangles that cross not only species but also plant/animal classifications
Bet you didn’t know the Bird of Death was such a funky chicken. Or a Criss Angel fan. More toothsome tidbits over at his YouTube channel. FANGTASTIC. WOULD BITE AGAIN A++++.
July 31st: untold years into the future. The incept date of a mysterious being known in this dimension as Zoetica Ebb. Deep in the dank, aromatic depths of the Coilhouse Catacombs, we’d all been wracking our brains as to how to best celebrate another year of the glorious Zobogrammatron’s dalliance in our own space/time.
We know she likes shiny baubles. And pure electricity. And raw meat. So, for weeks, we all pooled our modest resources, collecting them in a special porcine receptacle with the intention of taking Z out for sushi tonight, followed by dancing and Jacob’s Ladder-licking at the Edison Lounge. Also, Nadya and I spent countless nights sneaking away to a top secret, tucked-away laboratory alcove of the Catacombs. Combining our formidable thaumaturgical and soldering skills, we crafted a Rundell Tiara facsimile from unclassifiable, glittering glassine fragments found lining the deep crater in Siberia where Zoetica was said to be discovered.
The ominous crown was finally completed in the wee hours of this very morning. So very proud we were, and so very tired, we forgot to engage the Catacomb’s alarm system before passing out cold in our cots. Or to feed Ross Rosenberg (our brilliant but pathologically ill associate whose cage office is also located here) his daily can of uncooked Spaghettios.
A few hours later, we were awakened by the sound of maniacal cackling. Rushing into the central chamber, we caught a glimpse of Ross clambering out of the jimmied escape hatch with our piggy bank tucked under one arm and the precious Doom Tiara perched askew upon his malformed cranium. “I’M A PRETTY PRETTY PRINCESS. SAY IT!”
“Yes, Ross! You are! You’re the prettiest princess in all the land! Please, just put down the pig!”
“NO. I’M GOING TO SPEND IT ALL ON WHIPPETS AND PTERODACTYL PORN AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME. MOOHOOHAHAHAHAHA.”
“Ross! Nooooooooo!”
“SEE YOU IN HELL!!” With that, he slammed the escape hatch shut, leaving us bereft in the moldering darkness. But let it never be said that we are not resilient, resourceful gals. At the very last minute, through the magic of some hastily cooked up bathtub MDMA, Ross’s discarded balloon stash, and the Craigslist strippergram directory, we are still going to be able to observe Zoetica’s special day with an appropriate degree of sexiness and aplomb.
Does anybody else who wore a flannel tied around their waist in the mid 90s remember the band Whale? Anyone? Kinda? Barely? Yeah… I know most of the hissing, static backwash of post-grunge era MTV Alternative Nation had all but evaporated from my palate. But to this day, there’s a place in my heart (and pants) for that frizzy-haired “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” and her mouth full of braces. In the Venn Diagram where silly and sexy intersect, stands Cia Berg.
Years after Whale had receded into distant memory, I stumbled across the above video of a super young, extra svelte Cia goofing off with her first band, Ubangi. I’d never heard of ’em before, but it was love at first listen. The guys in the group are hilarious; they reminds me of a low-rent, less dignified DEVO (if they’re derivative it’s in the best possible way!) and baby Berg looks quite fetching without the punk rock perm.
A few more adorable Ubangi clips (including a ditty called “Where Have All the Good Sperms Gone”??!) after the jump.
Hey, can we all pool our resources and send fresh bouquets of snapdragons n’ dafferdillies to British ballet choreographer Frederick Ashton every day for the rest of his life? Seriously:
Piggy pas de deux! Jemima Puddle-Duck on pointe!
Must. Stop. Squealing.
The original film version of Tales of Beatrix Potter, shot in 1971, has twice been staged by the Royal Ballet, once in 1992, and more recently in 2007. The score –arranged and composed by John Lanchbery– delightfully interweaves melodies from old vaudeville ditties with more classical forms. The masks, costumes and production design are all so squee-inducingly adorable as to border on the demented. But it’s the incredible range of expression and dynamicism of Ashton’s choreography that brings beloved characters like Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Squirrel Nutkin and Hunca Munca so vibrantly to life. I’d give just about anything to see a production of this at the Royal Opera House. Here’s hoping it comes back sooner than later! Meantime, there are tons of clips to watch online, and a DVD to buy.
Via the most brutal and unrelenting Ben Catmull. \m/
If a Speedo-wearing, paddle-wagging, KVLT AS FUCK individual and his demonic friend headbang in the forest, does it make a sound? Apparently not, save for the mesmerizing voosh voosh voosh of dewy black metal tresses sluicing through crisp mountain air (and some Attila-worthy bellowing at the very end, there).
Canadian YouTube user and Dark Overlord of the Perplexing Non SequiTORRR, esy87, explains: “the music is coming from a headset close to us but the camera hasnt picked it up. for natural perservation of the vid we didnt edit it to put the song on it, but for ppl interested it was ‘Decade of Therion‘ from Behemoth.”
Ah. Yes. That explains everything. Except the banana hammock. But in any case, well done, good sirs. I’d throw you some horns, but I’m still doubled over in hysterics.
