Sunday, December 30, 2007

Predictions for 2008


Apes unearth a human doll that talks, causing a heretical scientist and his captive homosapien to flee on horseback.

The Rapture occurs only for those whose names begin with the letter "K" in the phone book.

America becomes independent from foreign oil when it's revealed that gushers happen for everyone that goes "shootin' at some food" in their own backyard.

Romney adopts new campaign slogan: "Whatever, we're all going to die anyway!"

A new generation of lost teenagers adopt the "hobo look" and travel the country with knapsacks, stogies and patched jeans in boxcars.

Death from old age becomes "the new 20".

The Earth spins off axis and finds a new lover in the form of Alan Shepard's golf ball.

Gerber brand "Puree of Squash" displaces caviar in scene from new James Bond thriller.

Political speech writers go on strike, resulting in an unprecedented golden-era of peace.

The annual Rose Parade will be replaced by Macaroni Parade. Floats will be covered in pasta wheels affixed with Elmer's Glue and spray-painted gold. Chef Roy-ar-dee will preside as Grand Marshal.

The cotton gin is reintroduced stoking the country into a new industrial revolution.

The Moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars and peace will guide the planets and Cal Worthington will sell used cars.

A time capsule dating 1938 is excavated from the Chrysler Building only to reveal an embarrassing wind-up dancing minstrel doll.

The polar ice caps will melt revealing a delectable chewy caramel center.

The two major political parties will be so traumatized by the vitriolic language from the opposing side that their convictions will flip as a result of Stockholm Syndrome.

Girls will be boys and boys will be girls, its a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola.

Soda pop will flow from drinking fountains in St. Louis, when the first Oompa-Loompa is elected mayor. People will bathe in the stuff and become very sticky.

All electrical devices suddenly stop working when a 10-year-old child realizes that everyone knows how to use electricity but, paradoxically, no one knows what it really is. Angry mobs with torches hunt down the phrase "suspension of disbelief".

The government adds hot lava as a new food group, declaring it an essential part of a healthy diet.

Numbers are abolished in favor of the more accurate finger-counting system.

Joey Polanski walks down the sidewalk, encounters talking squirrel, followed by ticker tape parade.

[your predictions welcome]

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Feral Cat Strut

The current up-tick in the use of the adjective "Feral" has gone too far, especially when adjoined with the word "Cat". Injecting Feral into social banter has suddenly become all the rage, as if it adds an air of personal identification with the plight of the feral. Suddenly everything is Feral... feral chickens, feral monkeys, feral cars and feral presidents of the United States, etc.

Can I get a witness?

Feral-Correctness casualty, the classic Key Largo.
"Aaah, Feral Cat, eh? Yeah. A real FERAL CAT!"

Monday, November 19, 2007

Wrapped Up Like a Deuce

"If you cannot convince anyone of anything, quote somebody else and watch the magic happen" --Geritopia

Yes, you got it here and you can quote me.




Thursday, October 25, 2007

Censorship By And For The People

There's a few blogs that I visit habitually. The first, of course, is my own. I'm always anxiously awaiting my next incisive perspective on the world. Golly, what will I think of next? Next stop is a political blog that conveniently assembles the latest video clips of Maher, Colbert, Stewart, etc. Everyone in the comments section is snarling and easily-provoked because it is, after all, politics. Lastly, there's an excellent blog that showcases the goings on in the world of animation.

Reader feedback on blogs obviously is a tricky affair. There's the "flamers", "spammers", "whammers", "bammers", the "thank-you-mammers" etc. There's always going to be a certain parasitic element that abuses the forum which then forces the moderator to eliminate those kinds of comments. I'm fine with that. Lately, though, I've had a few of my own contributions to the aforementioned blogs eliminated simply because I was voicing an opinion that was at variance with the tribe. My comments were NOT brimming ith invectives, spam, links to 911 conspiracies or any tomfoolery like that.

I find it all rather dismaying and surprisingly thin-skinned.

A threat? Me?

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Monday, October 08, 2007

It's not Junk if you Share it

I tend to be a packrat and that can be a problem. I'm not a compulsive collector of anything specifically but --alright, I confess... my entire living space is lined with thousands of Big Mouth Billy Bass that all play in unison. Just ring the doorbell and see. Meanwhile, being prone to holding on to useless things extends to a pile of random photos I've lifted off the internet for no good reason. These oddities are duly amassed in an electronic junk drawer folder on my desktop. The advantage of computer storage being that at least I don't have to trip over these items in the hallway.

Samples:


Hey Kid's, it's the now defunct Santa's Village and the perpetually frozen "North Pole" that you could get your tongue frozen to, until they unplugged it. A rather sad amusement centerpiece.


A true adventure into the bowels of the Hollywood Wax Museum. They've since removed the Hoff and his cohorts.

Walt Disney takes a sledge hammer to some cute iron lawn fixtures for a wartime scrap drive. Or was he really making one of his usual anarchist statements?


All that's left of doggy "White Fang"


Only on Ebay. The ventriloquist section photos will never let you down. Looks like Carol Channing practicing her unorthodox form of deep meditation.

Partridge-era Susan Dey on top of her game. Again, there's no point to this whatsoever.

Something related to the the world of Irwin Allen's Time Tunnel, perhaps? A formidable role model any way you slice it.

Another Disney shot. Here in Spain with Dali and wives. Why is this so intriguing to me?

Ruby and Oswald rock. This looks like the kind of novelty shot that everyone on the internet has already seen a thousand times over. I only came across it recently. Stupid and effective. Just he way I like it.

Thank You for visiting my virtual, and happily odorless, junk drawer. Would you believe there are many dozens of such photos just like these to be found on the internet? Please sign the guest book on the way out.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Dr. Smith's Final Conquest

Still sick. I've been reading up on how colds work. What's the mechanism behind the sore throat and the unrelenting rivers of snot? Meanwhile, everyone has their own holistic remedies and tips to offer but the only relief I can find seems to be from my good friend Mr. Nyquil, cherry flavored.

Cold viruses attach themselves to humans and primates only. Other animals get off scott-free. It only takes from 1 to 10 individual viruses to make you sick.

A cold virus is a tiny warlock killing machine swinging a spiked mace, marauding through the chambers of your upper respiratory system. He'll mess with your DNA and he's a randy pest, causing infected cells to explode with droves of replicant viral spawn. All this sex talk is making me feel amorous.

You might ask if these parasites are from outer space. So are they? The curious thing is that there's no forward-evolutionary purpose to all this. It's as though nature has an anti-social side on the cellular level, because apparently we're not supposed to feel all nice an healthy 100% of the time. These things build character, as well as lead to potentially lethal complications.

Maybe this is a microbial Banksy stunt.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Notes From a Resplended Crawl Space

I'm lying around my apartment congested, wheezing, and coughing. Inspired by a steady intake of Reality TV, I thought that detailing my cold in real-time might make for a thrilling blog experience.

There! --right there, I just sneezed! Ghaaahhhh. It's live coverage as each symptom of the virus unfolds, coming at you thanks to streaming text. Will I survive this? Now I'm stooped and dragging my feet over to the bathroom to fetch another wad of toilet paper for my nose. Oh I just caught my foot on an electrical cable. I've hit the ground. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world. It's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It's smoke, and it's flames now. Oh the humanity!!!

Gripping, eh? If you desire more live drippy sinus coverage, you'll need to subscribe to the exclusive Golden Altar Room.

Meanwhile, very little has been going on, which partly explains my absence. Well, there's very little going on, except for this minor issue of subatomic entropy which is gradually darkening significant corners of the universe. This subject is of so under the radar to the inhabitants of this planet, that it only made the back pages of the Tortoise Lover's Field Guide & Gazette. It's enough to make me sick.

Other topics were pulling at my coattails and vying for attention over the last couple weeks, yet never quite making it to print here at Geritopia (a tax-exempt, semi-nudist enterprise). Among them: How the level of narcissism in L.A. is so grossly all-pervasive as to hamper the acting out of my own self-serving/self-promoting impulses. I'm always amazed at the shallowness of this town and I will do anything and everything to prove that I'm better.

Lastly, I was going to talk about dietary ethics and Domino's new "Oreo Dessert Pizza" --a shit pile concoction of sugary cookie crumbs topped with globs of frosting. But then I sampled one and I was transformed. I found peace and wholeness. Don't be afraid. It's OK to step over to the other side; you'll never need to get uptight again. Eat it. EAT IT!!!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Filler ...but decent filler

Hey Kids, it's the jazzy, abstract "Gumbasia" short by Art Clokey. It's a very trippy vision of the primordial clay world that Gumby's evolved.

Click on the image to see the flick.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Weekly World News: Yet Another Thing That Isn't

This post arrives a bit behind the curve but I just learned that the Weekly World News' last publication was August 27th. Almost more disturbing than the passing of Merv Griffin, I am stunned and saddened at the demise of this fine publication. The WWN was nothing less than conceptual art that you could buy for pennies at the checkout line.

WWN had it right all along.

I'm usually ambivalent about garden variety tabloids but the World Weekly News was different. It was unabashed dreck, which made it dreck with integrity. I would buy them knowing it was a complete waste of my money but there would always be least one payoff article along the lines of "Chupacabra Honeymoons with Amy Carter in Lincoln Bedroom".

For a time, I contemplated moving to Florida and working for the Weekly World News in any capacity. This is what happens when you let opportunities pass.

It almost goes without saying that Weekly World News' uber Right Wing Ed Anger was my favorite editorialist for many years. He was knee-jerk, ignorant, and negative enough regarding just about any subject to make for a fine role-model. Unfortunately, the guy who wrote the Anger articles was replaced by someone else and maybe that's when the rot began to set in.


I think I need to find the last issue of Weekly World News real quick, if it's still around. This is my quest (bidding on Ebay would be too humiliating) ! If anyone sees one, please purchase it and I will reimburse you with rubies and silks from the far East.

Perhaps, in the final analysis (...at the end of the day, when all is said and done...), the problem was that the world didn't deserved a weekly newspaper about itself. You maniacs!

Friday, August 24, 2007

Gene Scott Overdrive

Hey Kids, I've got this runaway hit over at my annex YouTube site. Someone has even copied my video and re-posted it. But the ultimate tribute goes to Dr. Scott, of course.



There's thousands of hits on this thing! More people than I would have guessed either recall seeing Dr. Gene Scott's "Festival of Faith", along with his monkeyband antics over the years, or are haphazardly grazing the seamy underbelly of fringe TV for lack of direction in life.

The clip was transferred from a VHS reference tape that was recorded a while back when I was thinking about painting a Gene Scott lunch box (Yes, I said I was going to paint a Gene Scott lunch box). A friend had given me a vintage Gentle Ben lunch box, you see, which I always found amusing and so I figured that the world needed a companion Dr. Gene Scott lunch box. Instead of running from TV culture like a sane person, I did an about-face and ran headlong into it. It was a very good idea, if I do say so, but I never got around to making the damned lunch box, although you never know.

ART'S INSPIRATION: TV so good, you have enshrine it on a lunchbox

It would be too difficult to explain why Gene Scott was the phenomenon that he was to the uninitiated. Just Google his name and save me the trouble, OK ? I'm way too tired and cranky.

I will say that one of my fondest TV memories was seeing Scott's last live broadcast before the FCC pulled the plug and the screen went to snow. He was going gangbusters with the aforementioned wind-up monkey band which he used to mock the Sacramento bureaucrats who were on his ass for tax-evasion. I'm just glad I had the vision to witness the spectacle, along with my friend Dennis, who's mother once said of me "He's an odd duck". Anyway, Dr. Scott later returned to television via a satellite network to get his revenge on the world.

Now Dr. Gene Scott is dead but if you look up in the starry sky you can still see his his giant silver-haired grinning head orbiting the Earth. And now you know the rest of the story.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Merv

Merv Griffin passed away and did you know that it was the very same day last year that talk show host Mike Douglas died as well? Don't ask me how I know this, I just do.

OK, but the weirdest thing that Merv and Mike had in common, I think, is that they both started each show crooning a song. Then they'd sit down for some intellectual chat with heavyweight guests like Henry Kissinger, Adlai Stevenson, Buckminster Fuller, and Charo. Just think of how alien that custom is to the modern talk show scene. What if Larry King or Letterman began every show by scatting like Mel Torme?

Maybe it would be a good thing. Or perhaps a test pattern would be inspirational, or a book.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Puh'otoshop

Photoshop. I use it. You use it. It's everywhere and you just can't hide from it. Photoshop knows what you're thinking and will haunt your dreams.

Occasionally, I'll find myself just pushing pixels around in Photoshop with no particular goal in mind. True, it ain't no Etch-a-Sketch or Spirograph but it can still be an engaging tool.


Here are tonights' "results". Don't they look heavy, dark and symbolic? Well they're not, so just forget about it.

If I only had my fantasy computer-to-oil-on-canvas robot painting machine, I'd be pretty stoked dude!

Friday, August 03, 2007

Of Our Elaborate Plans, The End

So, like I was saying, my parents recently sold the family business which had catered to private pilots for nearly 50 years. It's an ignominious end to a lot of history; a slow fade due to economic strains, plus the need to retire and watch even more television.

In homage, here's a small sampling of photos that only partially conveys the bootstrapping ambiance of the airport scene. Not only that, but it was the last outpost on planet Earth to vend Nehi Soda in bottles. I'm gonna miss the place.

A burgeoning enterprise. --mid 70s???

I wasn't going to post any photos with people in them, because they'd just see this, get mad, and yell at me. This color shot is exceptional, however, because it fits my memory of the early years the best. While I don't know who these folks are, the girl in the short skirt is standing provocatively at the entrance to a sketchy-looking shack masquerading as an aviation business.

That's where it all started!

Aside from being born on a riveting table, I spent my entire youth pulling weeds around the place. Later, more dignified office digs were acquired elsewhere on the airport field.

I trust that someone reading this can decipher the overt body language in the above shot and comment.


Corrugated aluminum is the key building component to any aviation establishment, or FBO (fixed-base-operation).

Standard hangar with standard scrap heap.

The mythical double doors of flying, once painted with question-marks to confuse customers. It was part of a game to make sure that pilots stayed alert. Which door opened to the big money prize, or, alternately, the foaming rabid wolf? No one ever knew for sure. Many died finding out.

The famous workbench where anything imaginable was fashioned out of corrugated aluminum faster than balloon animals. Great for kid's parties or Bar mitzvahs.

Music was enjoyed throughout the day and blasted over loudspeakers to overcome the sound of pilots starting up their planes. Featured here is a favorite LP for many years amongst the crew called "Demanding, Hard-Nosed-Perfectionist". Waltz music.

A look into a maintenance shed, with a disciplined arrangement of critical supplies. Efficiency equals safety.

I'm not sure if this was a mascot or a very small mechanic frozen in terror. Suffice to say, while he had his back to the Christmas spirit, he really loved gazing at piston parts.


The End
_______

(or is it?)

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Blog Jam

I have several topics on the back burner that, so far, haven't gelled to my demanding standards.

These include:

My parents selling the family business. Reflections of Zen and the art of aircraft maintenance.

Walking into giant spider webs on otherwise tranquil summer nights.

My review of Sicko.

Larry King and Marlon Brando kissing on YouTube, not that there's anything wrong with that, or is there?

Standing in line at Trader Joes and being subjected to "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton John.
_____________________

Any requests?

Sunday, July 22, 2007

New Car Smell Update


Back in March I blogged about how the used car I'd purchased had been sprayed inside with a "new car" smell and how terrifically annoying that was. Since then, thousands of letters have poured in expressing concern for my discomfort, offering a bosom to rest my weary head on. Some months and many bosoms later I can say that most, but not all, of the new car smell has subsided.

I'm hard-pressed to think of a single artificial smell that I cotton to. I just don't groove to colognes, perfumes, scented soaps, smelly detergent or stuff like that. Ewwww.. yuk! Then again, while the smell of Coppertone, crayons, Playdoh and Elmers glue may have nostalgic power, it's not exactly what I'd call enchanting. I've heard people say that they like the smell of gasoline fumes but they're all dead.

"drooper-scented" car

My cursory investigation has revealed that the smell inside a freshly made car comes from the epoxies and adhesives that bond interior panels together. People are indeed drawn to these odors in some sick Pavlovian way but the chemicals have an deleterious effect on the human body. So now that we've all been made sick beyond repair, there's a push to discontinue the use of these compounds. So I guess that cars in the future will be held together tongue and groove style.

Hooray for that.


Sunday, July 15, 2007

A lot of Esoteric Hooey for the Developmentally Stunted

Last night I saw one of several films from the "Mods & Rockers" series assembled by the American Cinematheque in Hollywood. Yes, HOLLYWOOD!!! It was a documentary called "Who is Harry Nilsson and Why is Everybody Talkin' About Him?" --actually, everybody isn't talking about him, which is why they can't find a proper distributor for the film.

unrelated cow etching

After the movie, there's was a live discussion with filmmaker John Scheinfeld who said that "the cracks were beginning to show" in terms of Harry's alcoholic spiral and tendency toward self-destruction on his Son of Schmilsson album. There were a couple of additional remarks generally downgrading the quality of work on that record. I would assert that they are wrong and that Son of Schmilsson is Harry's finest release. Perhaps the alcoholism actually made a positive creative contribution in this case.

Without the cracks there wouldn't be a story in any case.



There I said it.

Still, the only reason that I'm mentioning this at all is because I was fleeced 10 bucks just to park in a lot off Hollywood Blvd.. So naturally I have to blog about it to justify my folly.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Dead Arm Chronicles

The other morning I woke with my right arm positioned in a Benny Hill salute above my head. Somehow I'd lodged it where the circulation got pinched off and the whole length, from my hand to my shoulder, was paralyzed and cold. No feeling whatsoever. Any sort of grazing vermin could've ambled up and feasted on it, chewing up sinew and veins, and I wouldn't have felt a thing. I had to use my other arm to position the cold appendage down and coax it back to life.

I experienced a mild panic wondering if maybe it had been without circulation to the point of no return. What of gangrene or amputation? Or what if a different extremity had gone numb like, say, my head? Then what?


Well, the old arm did finally come 'round with some rallying slaps and a victrola playing John Philip Sousa marches full blast. I scolded it to never venture so far from home again, as I'd discovered it clutching a knapsack and a mini travel-sized bottle of Jim Beam. I mean, who knows where it had been in during its wild sojourn?

master blaster

Everything seemed OK and I'd pretty much forgotten about the whole episode, until I noticed that my right arm seemed hairier than the left and the opposable thumb was positioned on the reverse-side like a second left hand! It began spontaneously writing ransom notes and threatening letters to somebody named "J. Edgar Hoover".

Should I be concerned?


Signed,

"Lefty" The Icepick Jones

Friday, July 13, 2007

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Sweepstakes Bonanza Challenge


I'm in San Diego for a couple of days. Whoever finds me here and hands me a live fish will win 74 dollars and 83 cents. It's all part of my personal reality TV Show.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Pics, Pans, Puns & The Case of the Missing Underwear

Pic of the week:

Murry Wilson's Opus

Pan of the week
is to avoid seeing the film "Fido", which is having limited release here in town. Fido, made with Canadian taxpayer money, is about domesticated zombies in a 50's-era neighborhood. Sounds interesting enough on paper, yes? However, like most contemporary films portraying life in the 50's, what comes across on the screen amounts to a zealous art director's showcase of retro-kitsch sets, costumes, and cars, while the script is nothing more than an afterthought. It's the stock portrayal of repressed families in neatly manicured neighborhoods living blithely in the atomic age, bla-bla-bla. That kind of smug treatment always drives me totally crazy, perhaps because I'm just such a huge Hugh Beaumont fan.

Beaumont in non-repressed repose

Might as well go rent the 1989 flick: "Parents" with Randy Quaid, which is a superior close-cousin in theme, although it too had more potential than it lived up to.

Pun of the week: Did'ya hear'bout the fire down at the circus? -Yeah, it was in tents! Ha-ha-ha.

Finally, if anyone can find my missing underwear, please let me know.

Thanks.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Yet Another Cartoon About Oil Drills

Here's a High School animation project that I dredged up. It's not an entirely horrible effort, I suppose. Towards the end of making this I found myself slightly in over my head, running out of time and, consequently, things got more limited as it went along. The quality here is total crap, as it's derived from a VHS recording of a Super-8 projection off a bedroom wall.

If you'd like to discuss the deep social profundity of "The Wandering Man", then by all means do. I don't have a clue what it's all about. I was much smarter when I made it and now I just shuffle down the street and keep to myself.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Friday, May 25, 2007

Ebay Archaeology Update

I noticed that the notorious Ventriloquist Dummy commode painting has resurfaced on Ebay. I couldn't help but wonder if this was the same one as before, or if they are massed-produced and installed in various mansions in Beverly Hills. I forwarded that very question to the seller/artist and this was the reply:

"Over my years of being an artist I've found that a lot of people would rather buy a painting that they can use than to just hang on their wall. You see that at a lot of craft shows artist painting on flower pots, end tables, shelves etc. for buyers who like to decorate their homes with art and not just hang it on their walls.......... This is about the 6th. Vent[riloquist dummy] figure I've painted on a toilet seat, I've sold all the others"

That's a pretty unassuming answer from the source of the most subversive work of art since Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" in 1917. Duchamp's piece, which shocked critics when it was unveiled in 1917, was selected ahead of Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" and "Guernica" -- chosen second and fourth, respectively -- as the most influential work of art.

By extension, that would make this ventriloquist dummy toilet seat the über-influential work of art in the history of man. Now, if it could only talk.

And now I've redeemed myself for making this whole sordid exercise educational.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Romancing the Throne

The things I could've bought on Ebay, if I'd only been more drunk. Ain't it a beauty?

[it's yet another token image for a "guy blog" & the lame tawdry bathroom humor outlet]

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Loitering Pays


Recalcitrant bohemian Paul over there at The Goldstate has acquired what looks like a very nicely-preserved Optigan. This has stirred up one of the deadly sins in my soul which is sloth. ...meaning that I want to eschew my responsibilities and greedily sleep off my envy and lust for this much sought-after instrument which is so rare that I'm impelled to gobble it up with gluttonous abandon. If not for my pride, I will nonetheless show my wrath one day. [I would like to pitch to the Vatican that being excessively cute on one's blog should be included as the deadliest sin].

If you want to know more about the Optigan keyboard then go Here. Tom Waits and others have used this kitschy kontraption to good effect. Paul found this at a certain second-hand store which has turned out to be a wellspring of impossible luck and gold dubloons for free.

Monday, April 30, 2007

"What If" --aka: Happy Fears pt.1

What if all the bees that have gone missing from hives all around the United States have simply gone shopping to help boost the American economy?

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Free Dirt

This scene from George Axelrod's "Lord Love a Duck" is required viewing if you want to ascend all 12 vibrational levels of Bloggy-Blog's cosmic enlightenment program. The disciplines here are rigorous. The navel-gazing intense. Consider the cost and proceed with humility and focus. Whoever decodes the symbolism of the clip first wins a Nehru jacket, complete with underarm sweat stains from 60's troubadour Donovan.

I'm not kidding. This is serious. Stop joking around.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Jumbo's Clown Interactive Rumpus Room

As you well know, BloggyBlog is nothing if interactive. You just tell me what sort of crazy stunt you want me to perform any time of day and I await your request via our exclusive "1-800" line or in the readers' comments section. As you can see on the live Bloggy-Cam below, I reside in a cramped low-budget video studio. I'm here for your entertainment beck and call, clad only in my Depends briefs and reclined on a circular rotating water bed. I'm all yours, although Larry King sometimes comes 'round to visit unannounced.

It's all part of promoting the betterment of society in the electronic age.

Live Video Feed

I hope my colleagues at work are reading this to see just how plugged into technology I really am!

Monday, March 26, 2007

The New Used Car Smell

I recently bought a new used car. I'm OK with most everything about it but someone at the dealership sprayed the interior with some sort of new car smell. Or, perhaps, the previous owner was a stripper at Jumbo's Clown Room because it smells like the cheapest, gamiest, perfume in the world.

It makes me wonder how many lunkheads, finding themselves dubious as to the purchase of a used car, were brought over the threshold by the seductively tacky new car smell? I'd personally prefer the moldy sandwich under the seat essence, if given the choice. At least the object can be located and removed --or dangled fetchingly from the rear-view mirror.

Can anyone recommend an antidotes for getting rid of the fake new car smell so that my shallow consumerist world won't be unsettled?

Monday, March 19, 2007

The Gang's All Decapitated

I won't try too hard to distance myself from the fact that there are two films of the musical genre that I can actually watch, being that I'm just that secure with my masculinity. They are "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Gang's All Here". The latter film, by far the most bizarre, is noteworthy because it has a finale segment sung by various disembodied heads.

The movie is bookended by heads singing over a neutral background. This floating head sings a stirring rendition of "Brazil" in the open of The Gang's All Here.

proto cool: slouchy & stoned benny goodman

better hide, 'cause he's a shark that can't go in reverse

a journey into edward everett horton's nostril

the gang's a colony of bacterium under a microscope

The Gang's all Here not only features songs sung by disembodied heads but also features a child's hand that glides off the wrist and morphs into an electric parade float.

the lovely severed paw

a procession of women from venus proceed to remove the neon hoops from the giant sleeve (above) and rotate 'em around in unison. yes, we've seen it all a million times. it's a technicolor fever dream for the entire family.


What I like about this whole spectacle is that it all happens gloriously for no apparent reason other than to freak you out. This film, directed by Busby Berkeley in the early 40's, delivers a bold style that pushes into the Avant-garde but I don't think most people even know it exists --although they DO subconsciously , because it features the famous number with Carmen Miranda and her damn hat o'fruit.

finally, everything makes sense!