Pay no mind to the occasional tumbleweed blowing across you screen, comrades. The three of us are neck-deep in Issue 02 deadlines right now. Come Tuesday or so, postings should pick up again.
Meantime, please enjoy a rare clip of David Bowie speaking on behalf of his fellow nelly boys back in 1964. This was our reigning Preternatural Beauty King‘s first ever television appearance. He was 17 years old.
Aw, darlin’. I’ll carry your handbag any time.
Here’s an even more delectable baby Bowie tidbit, via Siege:
Getting busted for pot with Iggy Pop in NY, 1976. (Frank Sinatra, eat your heart out.)
And since Halloween draws ever nearer and you’re (hopefully) not at work, there’s one more for the road under the cut…
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!
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.
In 1994, Margaret Cho starred in an ABC sitcom called All-American Girl – or, as Cho called it, “Saved by the Gong.” It was the first show about about an all-Asian American family on television. If you remember seeing it on TV, you remember how quickly it disappeared. Mainly, it failed because of network meddling with Margaret’s on-screen persona.
First the network decided that she wasn’t skinny enough, and put pressure on Margaret Cho to lose weight to play the part of herself. It didn’t help that show was met with minimal enthusiasm by the Korean-American community; one 12-year-old Korean girl wrote in to say, “when I see Margaret Cho on television, I feel deep shame.” Panicked by this type of reaction, the network decided that Cho wasn’t Asian enough. To improve the situation, they hired an “Asian consultant” to teach Cho about chopsticks and not wearing shoes in the house. For some reason, that didn’t help! After consistently low ratings, the entire cast was fired except for Cho and the grandmother. Shortly thereafter, the show went up in smoke.
Since then, Margaret Cho has done many wonderful things, including eight tours, two books and a burlesque show. But one thing she’s not done since All-American Girl was star in a television show – until now, with the arrival of The Cho Show. It’s the second-ever show about an all-Asian American family; no one’s tried since All-American Girl. Margaret vows that this time – along with her parents (real ones this time), her gays and her elegant 3’10” co-star Selene Luna – this time, the show gets made on her terms. Episode 1 premiered today, and I quite enjoyed it. The full episode is posted on Margaret Cho’s blog. Go Cho!
MTV was once amazing! Not to go there or anything, but what I miss most are the cartoons. Aeon Flux, The Maxx, Liquid Television (Nietzsche Pops!), and yes, even Beavis and Butthead had its moments (like when they watch the music video for Bull in the Heather and think that Kathleen Hanna is a 5-year-old who can’t dance). But the show that came back to haunt me this year? Daria. Smart as a whip and cynical as a roomful of reporters, Daria “misery chick” Morgendorfer was my age when the show first aired, and quickly became my hero. Recently, I decided to revisit the show now that 10 years have passed, and happily found that it’s as funny and true now as it was back then.
This time around, my favorite characters aren’t Daria and her artsy sidekick Jane, but the adults. Hands-down, my favorite character is Mr. DeMartino, the Chrisopher Walken-inspired history teacher with some anger-management issues and a serious gambling problem. A classic example of DeMartino’s temperament can be seen in early on in Fizz Ed, an episode in which the school runs out of budget and seeks sponsorship from a cola company. Then there’s Helen – Daria’s workaholic lawyer mom, whose parenting techniques backfire terribly but hit the mark when it matters.
Until the music liscencing issues get worked out, the show survives only in bootlegs. In the meantime, the legend lives on; if the obsessiveness/slash quotient of the fan art is any measure of a work’s impact, then Daria rivals Harry Potter. Actually, the show itself presented a myriad of character alter egos at the end of every episode during the credits. Every week, familiar denizens of the Daria-verse transformed into R. Crumb characters, historical figures, athletes, dinosaurs and canned vegetables. Amidst her turns as Mother Goose and Bella Abzug, Daria was sometimes shown in a more realistic context: a journalist, an author, a talk show host. Watching the credits roll, I always wondered: what will happen to Daria when she leaves high school? Is life really better after that? What will she be? What will I be? Now, I kinda know.
Daily Drag Queen Affirmations (DDQA) offers 365 videos of different drag queens who each offer you a fresh, life-affirming nugget of wisdom for every glorious new day – all for just 20 bucks. “Buy it for yourself. Buy it for a friend. Buy it for that bitch you know!” They offer some samples on their YouTube channel, including my favorite one, above.
The all-star cast of this endeavor includes Willam Belli, the mastermind and star of Tranny McGuyver, a show that Belli describes in the following terms: “Basically, it’s In the Heat of the Night meets Tootsie without all the heart-of-gold, positivity bullshit. We’re not trying to out-dyke Cagney & Lacey or anything. Just watch it. It’s fierce.” No, really. Just watch it!
“You want the beef taco or the fish taco?” Priceless.
Windom Earle: Garland, what do you fear most… in the world?
Major Garland Briggs (drugged with sodium pentothal): The possibility that love is not enough.
Q. Gauti has just informed me that Don S. Davis, the prolific character actor best known for his role as General Hammond on Stargate SG-1, passed away last weekend following a massive heart attack. Oof.
Stargate’s rad and all, but I’ll always remember Davis as the stern but gentle Major Garland Briggs on Twin Peaks, truly one of the most lovable supporting characters in television history.
Rest in peace, good sir. Safe travels to the White Lodge.
A while back, my talented chum Danny Cantrell landed a gig composing all of the music for a new animated children’s show, and he enlisted me to fiddle for it. The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack is the cracked brainchild of Thurop Van Orman (previously a writer for Powerpuff Girls). I’m at a loss to describe Orman’s vision properly, but if you were to picture Ren & Stimpy style shenanigans unfolding in a beautifully watercolored Treasure Island setting, you wouldn’t be too far wrong.
Flapjack is an innocent young cuss with an unquenchable thirst for adventure on the high seas. He’s being raised by a somewhat overprotective blue whale named Bubbie, and his best friend/partner in crime is a scraggly, no-pants-wearin’ pirate with two peg legs who goes by Captain K’nuckles. Hilarity and high jinks ensue.
In addition to being gorgeously drawn and painted, Flapjack is rife with non sequiturs, uncomfortable silences and gross-out humor, so I thought you perverts might appreciate a heads up. We’ve been working on –and giggling over– this weirdness for months now. (Wish I could show you the Tentacular Lovecraftian Horror episode. So warped.)
Nothing says quality children’s programming quite like a pair of hairy, floppy, tattooed man teats. Unless it’s fart noises. Flapjack has plenty of both.
The first episode premieres today on the Cartoon Network at 8:30pm, EST. Folks with cable and a hankering for “ADVENTURRRRE!!!” are encouraged to tune in and report back.
Hot on the heels of its coverage of Anonymous and its commentary on Suicide Girls, Fox News goes where only mainstream news outlets the Boston Globe and Newsweek have gone before – coverage what they call the “SteamPunk Underground.” This morning, Fox made associations between steampunk and Columbine, describing the burgeoning movement as a “trenchcoat mafia for adults.” Concerns were raised by a team of “analysts” about the disturbing elements of steampunk fashion (rayguns, gas masks) and Steampunk Magazine’s unpatriotic attack on the TSA. Watch the clip below:
From the made-for-TV anthology, Spine Chillers, comes this short comedy Goths, starring Mackenzie Crook (The Office) and Mark Heap (Jam, Big Train). Our pathetic heroes, struggling to find a flat in London, think they’ve finally found the perfect gaff from the perfect landlord, when they discover they may have bought into more than they’ve bargained for:
You may recognize the pub in the first scene as being that of the iconic Devonshire Arms; you can even spot some of their current staff in amongst the punters.
