Tag Archives: NYC
Shonen Knife
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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL
Career Immolation: A User’s Guide
They say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Of course there is, when the public asks;
“Whatever happened to that guy?”
And then the public remembers, “Oh yeah. That happened.”
(l-r:) Glenn Humplik and Tom Green, with one of Canada’s accursed “milk bags”. Hopefully I won’t be legally pressured to remove this photo.
In the late 1990s, MTV gave Canadian public access personality Tom Green his own show. It was a raucous, prank-filled half-hour wherein Green literally abused and humiliated every single person he encountered, while affecting an oblivious, addled mien. It was for the most part very funny. Continue reading
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Late To The Party, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All
Puttin’ On The Hits
I don’t hate karaoke. Really, I don’t.
I don’t do it myself, either, but I don’t equate it with actual performance. Karaoke is for fun; a diversion. Plus, I’m old enough to remember the first karaoke joke on The Simpsons, when the gag was that it was something Japanese people did. It was the successor to the camera strapped around the neck.
Now, not only is karaoke available in a home version, but late-night talk show hosts burn air time “lip-syncing” “popular” (corporate-backed) songs. The boring blond from Amos & Andy For Nerds, excuse me, I mean The Big Bang Theory, lip-synced her way through a Ludacris song where almost every other word is “bitch”. The idea being, look at this little white girl act “gangsta”. As long as the star is corporate-backed, this is “empowerment”. What do you imagine happens if someone without a hit show* tries this? Continue reading
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Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Worst Of All
Windows of America
In college, I split-majored, in both graphic design and illustration. I’m a cartoonist, but when I graduated high school, that wasn’t a common part of art-school curriculum. In illustration, I learned the most important aspect of rendering; figure studies. After all, there will never come a time when human anatomical knowledge is unnecessary. The skill to draw any part of the body you inhabit will never hold you back.
However, I was naive in my choice of studies. I was so eager to learn all that I could, I didn’t grasp that graphic design requires the left (analytical) side of the brain, and illustration (creative) requires the right. For a green teen, it was too much; I burned out and then dropped out. I couldn’t jockey back and forth across the hippocampus day after day. While trying to ink the sewer grate for the cover of the second Mike The Pod Comix, I had a psychotic episode and hurled my sketchbook down the dorm hallway.
The sewer grate, folks. The sewer grate. (1991)
If none of this makes sense to you, then hello, normal person. Continue reading
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions
Comedy = Tragedy + Time
At least I didn’t put this up yesterday. (From BANDS I USETA LIKE II.)
Otto Petersen was a ventriloquist who entertained audiences from the early 1970s until his unfortunate demise in 2014. He was a living encyclopedia of show biz minutiae, and was admired even by the likes of Jeff Dunham and David Copperfield. He wrote the obscene nursery rhymes that made Andrew Dice Clay a star. His crowd work with dummy George Dudley was so sharp and quick, no one ever gave a shit that his mouth moved. Otto & George was one of the funniest acts in the business; maybe even the funniest. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Late To The Party, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions, Podcastery
Atlanta Is My Lady
You wanna know how to tell if a city is your home? When terrible things happen to you there, and it never occurs to you to leave. You don’t abandon your home. You stay and tough it out.
There was a night during my stay in Fulton County Jail where all of us were herded into the rec area, so that the guards could search the ward for contraband. Apparently some inmates had been smoking weed in their cell. Since that cell was mine, and one of the inmates was me, I spent my time in the rec room deep in contemplation. As time wore on no quicker than molasses, we all started to chat to break the tension.
The cement room was sweltering. The walls were nine feet high, rimmed with cyclone fencing. If I jumped vertically, I could catch a glimpse of the glimmering Atlanta skyline I missed so terribly. This was soothing. Some of the inmates I’d befriended took notice, and I eagerly explained myself. It was the first view of the city I’d had in a month.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL
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