It's always a bit disappointing when you find yourself laughing with the guy you always hated, but Tom Arnold, once possibly the most obnoxious man in the biz, is making me think twice about him on – of all things – a show called My Big Redneck Wedding.
(More on that at a later date.)
Wow. Just… wow.
Really, wow. This is absolutely amazing!
After MST3K, fans had nothing but reruns and DVDs to fulfill the bad movie commentary void.. but no longer. Both Joel Hodgson and Mike Nelson have begun new projects, projects that are hinted to be rivals, which is sad for them, but good for fans because we just get more and more viewing pleasure.
Nelson has been working at Rifftrax, a down-loadable supplementary audio track for current blockbuster films like Harry Potter and The Happening. He also has Film Crew, which takes the MST3K concept with original cast members Bill Corbet and Kevin Murphy making fun of bad b-movies. While Film Crew is officially at an end almost before it began, you can rent the DVDs on netflix (Hollywood After Dark with Rue McClanahan is particularly great). Rifftrax continues on though.
Meanwhile Hodgson has taken the other half of the former cast and made Cinematic Titanic which you can purchase directly from their website (but not netflix… yet anyway). It's classic b-movie wisecracking and a must for those of you who have seen old reruns of the old show enough to quote the movie and the riffing. My family and I stayed up late laughing over Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks.
Soo in the time I've been away, there's been the awesome David After the Dentist and Kittens Inspired by Kittens, but you've all seen those by now, so let's have a chuckle over this inspired love letter to Williamsburg girls?that was recently on craigslist (no longer). Finally another someone who is not at all in the least bit pissed about hipness. Hoorah.
I love you. I can't believe that other guy posted all that noise. The other day, I was on the L train thinking, “Damn, I should post a Missed Connection to every woman on this damn train (I have a limited vocabulary in my internal monologues): 'Women of the L Train. Thank you for making my day. Every day.' (see?)” Sometimes I walk around here and I think, “Is this real? Am I actually living in a place packed with so many attractive, cool girls?” If anything, its kind of intimidating.
Here's an example: the other day, I walked into a crappy restaurant that will remain nameless at like four o'clock pm. There was a girl done up to the nines like she was ready to go out, like she'd listened to Sussudio in her apartment at least three times in a row while getting ready. She's half-sitting, half-dancing on one of the stools. She's all “table for one?” and I was like “wtf, you are at *work*?” The restaurant was pretty slow, so she proceeded to have her dance party for one the entire time I was eating, even though some of the tunes were honestly not that choice, but when you are wearing mirrored aviators at work on sunday afternoon you have to bring it, even if some old lame violent femmes tune is on. Now the whole time this was going on, that girl was _at work_. At a lame hostessing gig at a lame restaurant. That's awesome. The bad attitude to this is that this is some kind of posturing thing, some kind of posing thing, or something bad, but…fuck that. This girl was taking a pretty bunk situation and trying to make it fun, she's basically turnin' frowns upside down FOR FREE! I don't get why people on craigslist are so pissed about all these weird “williamsburg” markers? Did I walk into your film shoot at night on the roof? Sorry, I just wanted to smoke outside, I'll be quiet. I think its awesome you are doing that. What's that? You design and make your own clothes and then sell them with your friends in some kind of crazy coop? That rules. Oh, you are busy tonight at your bizarre secret dining society? I'm happy for you. Dude, the idea that secret dining societies exist is _awesome_. Sure, its easy to be all bloggish and just say everything sucks, but what doesn't rule about inviting a bunch of people over to your house and cooking them an awesome meal while your friend makes really good drinks? I don't know, I even love all your crazy ass clothes, why do people get so pissed about this? I love walking down Bedford or around in freakin McCarren when its nice out. Its OUT OF CONTROL! It's like being in a video or a cool magazine from the future. I mean sure, I've met a surprising number of girls around here who are really into astrology. I've learned more about astrology from bartending girls in the last couple of years than I thought there was to know about astrology. Now, astrology is, well..lets be honest, it's pretty dumb, but I still like hearing you explain it, its like Pokemon or old dudes who are really into wine: “You see the bordeaux 1976 is a water pokemon that was born under the waning pisces, so you can taste a certain duplicitousness on the soft palette.” SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMONDS!
Why is everyone so pissy? Haven't you seen Ghostbusters II? In these troubled times, keeping up this bad attitude will make an evil painting come to life and shoot out pink slime that eats Ripley from Alien's baby, the only way out is to ROCK OUT WITH THE STATUE OF LIBERTY AND LISTEN TO JACKIE WILSON! Or you could listen to Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield (I tried to embed a video of this but CL doesn't let you).
Let's try not to let it get to that point. To wit:
This is from the last anti-dudes post:
“You study advertising without thinking of who is making that oh so important arm chair. You want to be a photographer but loathe getting out of bed before 2. Poor you. Enjoy your bands, the “books” that I doubt you've ever read, your cute outfits, and the never ending search for your meaning.”
This is from the last anti-ladies post:
“But why do I want to waste my saturday night talking to some uninteresting person? Someone who is amassing wealth so that they can raise their children in the same manner that their parents did? I'm not interested in your job. I'm not interested in how long you've lived here or what you think of Brooklyn. I know what you're really after, and I'm not interested. I would say “good luck,” but I know one of these days you will find your future husband — the one who appreciates your boring little quirks, your for-appearances-sake interest in foreign films, your intent to appear “cultured” above all else”
Why don't you guys just freakin' move? There's no jobs here, the rent is insane, and basically, you can throw a dart at a US map and end up in a cheaper town where no one wants to be a photographer, no one really cares too much about any particular bands or books, no one wears cute outfits [ed: how could this possibly be annoying?], no cute girl in a bar will talk to you about what you think of brooklyn or their boring job, and no one even gives a crap about movies or being or appearing “cultured”. I mean, you must know that, right? That's probably what the place you moved from was like.
In conclusion, girls of williamsburg, I love you. I love you because you are beautiful and stylish and always seem to be doing *something* and usually just the fact that you are excited about it is pretty awesome. Don't let those jerks get you down. Hang out with me! Post a missed connections about me (I'm embarassed to admit how compulsively I check it)!
This was my favorite little thing I purchased for myself while in Paris, well, next to the newest Playboy at half the imported price. It's from Bon Ton, an adorable kids store with the greatest colors, and it means “grouchy”. I found this out by asking the lady who worked there, and not knowing the English equivalent she pouted and scrunched up her face in a perfect facsimile of the emotion. It was super cute.
Well, it cost Bill Grundy a two week ban, but the now infamous interview with the Sex Pistols squarely put the charming host in the annals of pop culture history. Johnny Rottens' provoked use of obscenities shocked the world, but my favorite part is when Bill half mockingly tries to hit on Siouxsie Sioux.
Why do I mention it now?
Since recommending Heavy Metal Parking Lot, the beloved cult classic video has surprisingly been released on DVD! You can even add it to your Netflix cue.
Here's what I said back on 7/17/06:
When you are making a documentary sometimes the stars line up and you get nothing but gold. Heavy Metal Parking Lot has a basic premise, wait in the parking lot of a Dokken and Judas Priest concert and talk to the people, but John Heyn and Jeff Krulik had one of those golden days.
I have seen the same premise, even by the same filmmakers in a shortlived TV show on the shortlived Trio and countless times at film school, but all fail to live up to this 1986 cult classic.
It is available on DVD and can usually be rented at any local “cool” video store where the staff has tattoos and treat you like shit.
Also worth checking out is this amazing 20/20 expose about Heavy Metal (just to hear Barbara Walters say the words 'heavy metal music' is hilarity). (Part Two) .
Post porn modernist Annie Sprinkle has been a grand figure in the movement to demystify and embrace sexuality as a healthy part of human life; a former porn star and prostitute she has since worked as a performance artist and an educator.
In a recent performance in France, she was inspired by the space's winding staircase and, in homage to Marcel Duchamp, she and partner Elizabeth Stephens disrobed. Sprinkle had this to say: ??br/>
As we had not appeared nude in public since gaining some extra pounds, it would take some courage to show our new bigger bodies. We were in the Yellow Year, the Year of Courage, and Year of the Belly. So there was no doubt that we had to do it. Sometimes we love our big bellies, sometimes we don't. But when we do performance art, we always love our bellies exactly as they are.
My friend Luke was flown out to Las Vegas to watch Miss Indiana win the Miss America Pageant recently because of this hilarious video.
In it, he adds his own sensitive heart wrapped in purple glitter sweaters and rose petals touch to the classic pageant theme song.
Prompted by another friend that works at Myspace to enter the less than popular contest, our own Awesome Brother ended up winning and ended up blowing minds because they opted not to play it during commercial breaks.
I know what Mickey Rourke was up to when we all didn't care about him – playing a villain opposite JCVD who surfaces at amusement parks. I know because I watched a third of Double Team a movie in which a (initially seemingly blind) Dennis Rodman wears cheap Halloween costume grade cyber tech bondage gear and goes by the name “Yaz“.
It cracked me up and while I usually don't have a difficult time explaining why something is funny, here I don't feel like I have to – his name was Yaz and it was Dennis Rodman.
The movie, sadly lacked the charm of a fine Seagal and insulted the late great Patrick McGoohan and Iron Maiden alike by ripping off The Prisoner, so we didn't it all the way through – but I did want to see more of Yaz, so I thought we might be going about it the wrong way: screw Double Team – let's just find more Rodman pictures..
Ends up there aren't very many. His other films available on Netflix include a Point Break rip off with skydiving in place of surfing and Stephen Baldwin in place of Patrick Swayze and another where Rodman is a “hip interpol agent” who has to team up with Dane Cook!
Needless to say, I didn't watch these and decided Double Team was a masterpiece by comparison. but Rodman just enjoyed making the film because there were “no refs”.