I tell you this as a friend. It won’t be easy for you, but worthwhile things in life seldom are.
Your feelings deserve to be hurt.
No guarantee exists in life that your feelings will be unhurt. No more so than your bones or flesh. In fact; let’s start off with your bones. Remember when you were a little kid, and your bones throbbed in pain all the time? What did the grownups call that?
Comments Off on Hurt Your Feelings
Filed under Bad Influences, Girls of BIUL, Worst Of All
Imagine if you will, a world parallel to our own, identical in many ways, disparate in others. Long story short, in this mirror universe, Bands I Useta Like was optioned by a major independent film studio, and made into a hit movie. It combined animation and live action, and because the producers had deep pockets, licensing songs for a decent soundtrack wasn’t a problem.
Whether I allowed the film to be produced at all was contingent upon the quality of the music choices. If they balked at a crucial song, or refused to include it, I would walk off the project. Which I did, and they replaced me on-screen with a real actor. Like I said, the movie was a hit.
The 2-disc soundtrack sold out of stores overnight. Even though it came packed in that shitty double jewel-box, which just winds up broken, on the floor of a car.
Comments Off on Bands I Useta Like: The Unofficial Soundtrack, Vol. I & II
Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Movies You Missed, Thousand Listen Club
Whatever happened to all this season’s
Losers of the year
Every time I got to thinking
Where’d they disappear
Comments Off on Cheap Trick
Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned, Worst Of All
I love great sketch comedy, and as demonstrated on this site, I have tremendous nostalgia for the video industry of the 1980’s and ’90s. By nature I am protective of those things, out of love. I have little tolerance of exploitation of them.
I believe the modern peak of sketch comedy came with two shows; Mr. Show with Bob & David, and The Kids In The Hall (both on HBO). Since the 1990s, these programs set the gold standard. Inevitably, new sketch comedy shows are compared to them, and they seldom hold up. I don’t think The State gelled until they became Reno 911. Broken Lizard has fantastic moments; generally one or two per film. Too many comedy groups nowadays are post-UCB; all manic energy, no focus. That’s fine if the group is performing live for an drunken bar audience. TV is a different matter.
Comments Off on Million Dollar Extreme
Filed under Bad Influences, Nostalgic Obsessions, Unfairly Maligned
Comedy stinks right now because you forced it to stink. You vilified every experience in life that makes a great comedian. You made the safe, sponsored version of laughter the norm. You’re so afraid to really laugh in front of other people, that you turned comedy from an anti-establishment weapon into a cottony security blanket.
Comedy stinks right now because of you. Because you’re afraid of your true feelings.
You probably don’t even know who this is.
Let’s take, as an example, one of these pusillanimous women that the media holds up as Queens of Comedy. You know the ones, I don’t have to name them. They’re all over glossy magazine covers at the checkout aisles, making “zany” faces to remind you they’re funny.
Comments Off on No Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom
Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Late To The Party, Thousand Listen Club
A gadfly is a person who interferes the status quo of a society or community by posing novel, potently upsetting questions, usually directed at authorities. The term is originally associated with the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, in his defense when on trial for his life. [Wikipedia]
Imagine if you visited this site, only to discover that I had renounced my acerbic commentary on the world of music, and devoted my time to interviewing popular musicians of the day, in glowing “puff pieces”. How would you feel?
Betrayed?
From BIUL #2.
Comments Off on The Gadfly Trap
Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Podcastery, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned, Worst Of All
A long, long time ago, on a website far away, there was a thing that pulled in page-views like a drunken champion. It was about 50% my creation. The rest was appropriately and totally ripped off.
It was called “Name Your Rock Band”.
For the first handful of years of the 21st century, it was the most popular page on my site, Mike The Pod. In truth, it goes back even farther than that.
Comments Off on Name Your Rock Band
Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Site Stuff
I’m old enough to remember when Bill Maher was a stand-up comedian; i.e., a person who stands behind a microphone and makes people laugh. I have vague memories of Kathy Griffin doing the same thing. As far as I can determine now, Maher and Griffin just make people mad, by saying or doing something deliberately inappropriate, and then flaying open their breast in apology, crocodile tears a-flow.
Then they go back to being unfunny. Because funny ain’t what pays their bills.
More integrity and realism than anything Maher has done since.
I’m also old enough to recall when Maher’s show Politically Incorrect lived up to its name, instead of being a vehicle for trendy virtue-signals. My pal Jim Goad once made an appearance. It was far more fringy and loose. Now it’s a reductive caricature, a safe forum for “differing viewpoints” (vetted by the network/sponsors). It’s a funnier joke as it is than anything that ever came out of Bill Maher’s mouth.
Comments Off on Not For You
Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Idiot's Delight, Worst Of All
I don’t watch Jimmy Fallon. I don’t like him. I never have. Why do I feel bad writing that?
He is robot, yes?
Fallon didn’t get the job because he had the most talent as a late-night talk show host. He got it because he was the available cypher. He never makes waves, or complains about pay. He has no opinions regarding corporations, no matter how toxic they are, or how much pressure they exert upon his artistic freedom. He loves karaoke because he loves to imitate. He is permanently star-struck.
The perfect talk show host.
Comments Off on Where Is The Love?
Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Uncategorized
Ahh, the French!
I adore them. Their art, their culture, their contributions to the enlightenment of our world. Hate me all you want, but I never felt prouder of Donald Trump than I did when he refused to shake Angela Merkel’s hand for a photo op. Trump didn’t want to get France’s blood all over his hand, and Merkel’s mitts are positively oozing with the spilt plasma of Europe.
Comments Off on The Shnoz of Charles de Gaulle
Filed under Animation Analysis, Eatable Things, Faint Signals, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
BIG BOOK OF COMICS (SIGNED)
Original price was: $15.00.$10.00Current price is: $10.00.
You must be logged in to post a comment.