Hey everybody! Remember this?
You didn’t think we were fooling around, did you?
Tag Archives: marijuana
Meet The Musical Meddler Squad
Comments Off on Meet The Musical Meddler Squad
Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Valentine’s Vern
My dwarf hamster Vern (aka Vernal Squeequinox) has a Valentine just for you!
You might notice that Wheeljack makes an unscheduled cameo, and that my camera is busted (hence the cinéma vérité/shaky camera effect). Cheerios are like crack to Vern.
Comments Off on Valentine’s Vern
Filed under Eatable Things, Girls of BIUL, Great Hamsters I Have Known
Joe Satriani
Comments Off on Joe Satriani
Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Matty’s White-Knuckle, Sober Christmas
Like many adult Americans, I prefer to be intoxicated on Christmas day. Some call this addiction. I call it self-medicating for the benefit of others.
Purple = sober and confused.
I’m not a role model, or a regular person. I’m alone on Christmas because I’m belligerent and undiplomatic by nature. I lack the ability to mask contempt or disdain. Just days ago, I told three separate strangers to go kill themselves. I make jokes and draw comics to keep from screaming death threats at people.
Oh, and if at all possible, I try to stay high, all the time. Continue reading
Comments Off on Matty’s White-Knuckle, Sober Christmas
Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Idiot's Delight, Late To The Party, Uncategorized, Worst Of All
Tobacky & Me
From BIUL #2.
It’s no secret that I’m an enigma wrapped in a riddle inside a burrito or some such. Wrap your head around this:
I like to smoke. I have a psychotic aversion to burning tobacco.
Comments Off on Tobacky & Me
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Magazine Rack, Worst Of All
The Sifl and Olly Show
A time slot on a major cable network is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you couldn’t ask for a larger audience. On the other, you’re the property of the company store, and you bend to their whim.
For example, MTV aired Beavis & Butthead, but to pad out the episodes to sitcom-length, they inserted music videos with Mike Judge doing commentary in character. At the time, I could appreciate the necessity of this, being that ink-and-paint animation takes time to create. Still, it was obvious that the idea was cribbed from MST3K, and much of the music was unlistenable, or not worth the mockery.
MTV pulled the same jazz when they aired the extraordinary sock-puppet comedy The Sifl and Olly Show, from 1997 to 1999.
Videotape artifacts are subconsciously comforting.
Comments Off on The Sifl and Olly Show
Filed under Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
The Extract Experiment
Videodrome, my local video store, often features used DVDs at clearance prices. There was a copy of Mike Judge’s Extract for $3. I’m a huge fan of Judge’s film and television, so I Netflixed Extract upon its release, and truthfully, I was underwhelmed. But a friend who also enthuses upon Mike Judge loved it, and $3 was just right to give it another chance.
What happens when a company has no idea how to market a film.
“I didn’t really get this one,” the clerk said as he rang up my purchase, “and I love his other stuff.” I told him a theory I’d read that Office Space was for the workers, and Extract was for the bosses, reflecting Judge’s ascent in the studio system. I also noted that Idiocracy was an impossible act to follow, and that it wasn’t well-received upon its (delayed) debut. I figured if I remained ambivalent about Extract, I could gift it to my friend.
After watching Extract for the second time, I decided to keep it. Continue reading
Comments Off on The Extract Experiment
Filed under Animation Analysis, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Movies You Missed, Saturday Movie Matinee, Unfairly Maligned
Why I Love Jar Jar Binks
As the venerable Star Wars imprint slowly transforms into an empowerment series for little girls who wear costumes and bitter old fanboys, one of my favorite aspects is being scrubbed from the narrative:
Weird, stupid aliens.
He attempts to eat that dead Woodring monster.
I’ll never comprehend the segregationist nature of the “Star Wars fan”. Watching the fandom dismiss George Lucas, the creator of everything they care about, has been like observing a schism of zealots. Since general audiences weren’t born in the 80s, when ripoffs of Star Wars abounded, they gladly accepted a ripoff from J.J. Abrams. Continue reading
Comments Off on Why I Love Jar Jar Binks
Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Unfairly Maligned
The Thing With Smails
Caddyshack is a rare film for me, in that I’ve been afforded a relationship with it since childhood, based purely on the timing of my birth, and the easy-going nature of my parents. When I was 8, and parties at the public pool were as common as skinned knees, one scene from this 1980 comedy was legend.
The doody scene.
I’m not here to talk about that scene, and how it changed the way the world looks at a Baby Ruth, however. I’m talking about that other thing.
The thing with Smails. Continue reading
Comments Off on The Thing With Smails
Filed under Bad Influences, Eatable Things, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee
The 10 Best Kenny vs. Spenny Moments
From 2002 to 2010, two childhood best friends competed for dominance in a Toronto apartment house. Those friends are Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice, and on the Canadian reality show Kenny vs. Spenny, these competitions and their outcomes would be recorded for posterity. Each program, the loser would be subjected to a humiliation of the winner’s choosing. It provided a clearer picture of the male psyche than anything on television before or since.
Men think in terms of winning and losing. We see humiliation as undesirable but often inevitable. This runs counter to the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. You want a trophy? You better walk through fire to earn it. Otherwise, what does it mean? And why should your trophy be on the shelf with the others?
Even though the competitions in KvS are often simple, they become psychological endurance tests, and because Hotz and Rice have such magnetism as a team, we get a complex picture of the struggle for victory. Kenny is conniving and will resort to cheating; Spenny is guileless and strives to compete honestly and respectfully. They’re a compelling yin and yang, and since they’re Canadians, they are to funny what birds are to flying. There are cameras trained on them because they are funny simply being. Continue reading
Comments Off on The 10 Best Kenny vs. Spenny Moments
Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Thousand Listen Club
You must be logged in to post a comment.