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.

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.

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!

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?)

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?

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.

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.

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

Lookie Hear

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.

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.

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.

Andy Devine vs. Slim Pickens

Cast Your Vote Now

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.

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]

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.

I Shall Never Be Fit To Run For Congress

"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?

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.

When Suddenly...

Hey gang, get a load of this!