TERROR FILLED MONDAYS!

So, here we are on Christmas Eve day and there really only is one movie that seems as if it could fit the bill for a TERROR FILLED MONDAY that falls so close to the holiday:

...it has been featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000 and is also included in the IMDb’s worst 100. Also cited on a 10-worst list in The Book of Lists, in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, and in the 2004 DVD documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made. It features an early screen appearance by Pia Zadora. The Canadian TV channel Space: The Imagination Station airs this film every Christmas as a “salute” to bad sci-fi. KPTS in Wichita, Kansas aired this on Christmas Eve 2005 as family-friendly entertainment...

In the spirit of the holiday, you can actually watch the entire movie online, think of it as my Christmas gift to you dear reader:


I will say though it’s one of those horribly bad gifts you might want to consider regifting!

Video Vault Thursdays!

This week’s jewel from the Video Vault comes to us by way of the band performing it. It’s an interesting song because the phrasing echoes another hit with a rather complicated past. The video is just another example of the kind of tongue-in-cheek playfulness of the band itself:



The Guitar’s chorus, while it has different lyrics pays homage to the classic Token’s hit The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Mbube has an interesting history itself:

“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” began as a 1939 African popular music hit “Mbube” that, in modified versions, also became a hit in the US and UK.

“Mbube” (Zulu for “lion”) was first recorded by its writer, Solomon Linda, and his group, The Evening Birds, in 1939. Gallo Record Company paid Linda a single fee for the recording and no royalties. “Mbube” became a hit throughout South Africa and sold about one hundred thousand copies during the 1940s. The song became so popular that Mbube lent its name to a style of African a cappella music, though the style has since been mostly replaced by isicathamiya (a softer version)...

...New lyrics to the song were written by George Weiss, Luigi Creatore, and Hugo Peretti, based very loosely upon the meaning of the original song. The Tokens’ 1961 cover of this version rose to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and still receives fairly frequent replay on many American oldies radio stations.

Trivia/Info:

• The theme from this song is borrowed from the Tokens hit, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Even though these words never appear in the song, the record label insisted the subtitle appear in the song name. (source: Direct From Brooklyn DVD commentary)
  
• Video features (extremely) brief cameos of Jon Spencer, Joshua Fried, and Robin Goldwasser.
  
• Trumpet: Frank London
  
• Despite what you see in the video, John Linnell does not play bass guitar on this song.
  
• Filming locations: 18 Havemeyer St, Brooklyn (John Linnell's former apartment); McCarren Park, Brooklyn (and surrounding streets in Northside); The Warsaw, Brooklyn

Nice stuff.



Looks like Heath Ledger was an inspired choice and will be way better than Jack Nicholson.

Because sometimes I forget.


Just how beautiful the world around me is.

Terror filled Mondays!

This week (entry 12!) in Terror filled Mondays comes to us from the futuristic year of 1970. It was a predecessor of movies like WarGames and Terminator. There are a couple of other movies from around this time I’ll be focusing on in future entries, it just seems like this was a good time for scifi movies.

This week’s movie closes with this chilling speech:

This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied dead. The choice is yours: obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. One thing before I proceed: the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile two-five-MM in silo six-three in Death Valley, California, and missile two-seven-MM in silo eight-seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos.

Sure there are movies prior to this that deal with technology run amok but, I can’t think of another movie before this that dealt with the prospect of a human created artificial intelligence taking over the world. Even though some of the stuff looks a little cumbersome given the small size of things today, it still works on a level (and hard to believe it’s 37 years old now).



A nice little tidbit that came up in the trivia section of the Wikipedia entry was the similarity between the Colossus emblem and the AOL logo. As prevalent as AOL may have been at one time, its day seems long past so, comparing it to Colossus now seems a bit trite.


The most interesting thing I found out when I was looking around for material for this week’s entry is that Ron Howard is doing an updated version! Seems like all those old favorites from the 70’s are getting recycled these days.

Classic lines.

I’ve been remiss updating the blog because I’m trying to finish this story I’ve been working on. The best line out of it so far has been this during a confrontation between two characters:

‘First I’m going to snatch out your eyes and then I’m going to fuck with your head by sticking my dick into the warm, wet eye socket left behind.’

Needless to say there is a certain amount of violence involved in this one.

Eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww!

Today on the Weather Channel there was a piece on health and the woman in the piece made the statement, ‘Did you know your tv remote can have more germs on it than a toilet seat?’

I really didn’t need to hear that.

Video Vault Thursdays!

As we make our way down to the Video Vault for this week’s music video, you would think we’d come up with something old having a nice layer of dust on it. Thing is, videos get picked for inclusion into Video Vault Thursday for a number of reasons. Sometimes, simply because I like a song. Other times it’s because I think the video in question is an example of the form (music video) taken to the next level.

Music videos today are no longer the novelty they once were when MTV made it’s debut back in the early eigthies. Today, it appears videos themselves are almost an afterthought, just another part of the marketing plan in producing music as opposed to another means of expression to an artist.

There are exceptions though and this week’s video is one of them. While it is not brand-spanking-new, it is only a few years old and stands out as one of the more creative endeavors I have seen. It’s a great song too and wickedly funny to boot! Enjoy:

I am the Walrus!?

I read this news article today, oh boy...

LONDON - Imagine that. A lock of John Lennon’s hair sold for $48,000 Wednesday in an auction of Beatles' memorabilia collected by the band's hairdresser.

The hair — inside an autographed copy of Lennon’s book “A Spaniard in the Works” — sold to an unnamed telephone bidder.

...and my first thought was like some scifi movie if we wouldn’t be seeing a John Lennon clone at some point down the road.

Terror filled Mondays!

So, it’s hard for me to believe I’ve already done 11 of these things. I can’t imagine it will go longer than a year but, I guess you never know.


This week’s entry into Terror filled Mondays! is a classic of the genre. So much so, it was lampooned many years later!

In the film, “Project Skyhook,” a U.S. effort to launch a dozen satellites, is visited by a flying saucer. A misunderstanding leads to the aliens being fired on, and they respond by immediately attacking in retaliation. The sequence of events quickly spirals out of control and leads to a full scale invasion. Flying saucers attack Washington, DC, Paris, London and Moscow. In the end, the alien saucers are defeated over the skies of Washington by a device using high-power sound.

Tim Burton’s 1996 film Mars Attacks! consciously spoofs several aspects of this film, especially in the design of its flying saucers (right down to the ray weapon deploying from the bottom of the spacecraft) and the climactic battle over Washington, DC—specifically the famous scene of the collapse of the Washington Monument crushing bystanders, which in Mars Attacks! becomes a deliberate act on the Martians’ part. The weapon used to defeat the aliens is also similar, sound, although in the case of Mars Attacks! this happens to be country music in particular.

Storm chasers.



Last night I was flipping channels and I caught this show on the Weather channel. It’s called Full Force Nature and it has all the usual weather footage by storm chasers.

Now, I’m as susceptible as the next person when it comes to watching this sh*t. I've been on the periphery of a couple of twisters in tornado weather locally and out in Oklahoma and I can truthfully say it isn’t a good feeling when the sky takes on this sickly greenish color and has this unnatural stillness that precedes one of these things. Watching it in the safety of a living room on the tube is definitely preferable to being out in it.

So, as I was saying, I’m flipping around and I stop to watch a few minutes of this show. They’re interviewing some guy who along with his friend ‘chased’ a tornado and captured footage of it. Thing is, while they were filming it, you can hear the running dialog from the inside of their car while they were engaging in this stupidity.



I’m not talking about meteorologists or climate scientists, these are just a couple of goofballs in a car with their DV camera doing this. This has the potential to be one of those Darwin moments when the species gets thinned out for the better but, it doesn’t happen.

Instead these clowns are chasing after a fairly sizable twister (one that is broader than it is higher - an F4 to boot) and the string of expletives that accompanies the footage is just verification of how stupid these guys are. I’m watching this and the idiots are following the path of destruction in the tornado’s wake - lots of ‘Geeezzz!’ and ‘God’s. They’re driving by houses marveling at the total devastation of these obliterated structures. And the thing that struck me in that moment more than anything else was that these morons just continued along their merry way following the tornado. It never even occurred to them to get the f**k out of their car and go and check to make sure people were okay!



You have to figure how wonderful it is for the people whose houses are just gone, to have someone come along moments afterward and marvel at their tragedy without the merest thought of how they might help. Got to love some people’s stupidity and insensitivity, maybe they’ll get lucky next time and get a shot from real up close, like inside the funnel.

Yeeesh! What morons!

Rediscovery!


Every once in awhile, I come across some piece of music from long ago and it brings me as much joy now as it did when I first heard it. I’ve been slowly loading all my cds into a huge iTunes library that I’ll eventually have to get a separate drive or two for (one to hold it and one for backup). In the meantime, I was loading this tune into the library today and it’s just such a great tune I had to share it. People my age will remember it clearly but I got to thinking that there’s a very good likelihood if you’re under a certain age you’ve never come across it because it doesn’t get a lot of airplay on the radio.

We’re so sorry uncle albert, we’re so sorry if we caused you any pain
We’re so sorry uncle albert, but there’s no one left at home and I believe Im gonna rain
We’re so sorry but we haven’t heard a thing all day
We’re so sorry uncle albert, but if anything should happen well be sure to give a ring

We’re so sorry uncle albert, but we haven’t done a bloody thing all day
We’re so sorry uncle albert, but the kettles on the boil and were so easily called away

Hand across the water (water)... heads across the sky...
Hand across the water (water)... heads across the sky...
Admiral halsey notified me, he had to have a berth or he couldn’t get to sea
I had another look and I had a cup of tea and butter pie (the butter wouldnt melt so I put it in the pie)

Hand across the water (water)... heads across the sky
Hand across the water (water)... heads across the sky

Live a little be a gypsy, get around (get around), get your feet up off the ground, live a little, get around
Live a little be a gypsy, get around (get around), get your feet up off the ground, live a little, get around

Hand across the water (water)... heads across the sky
Hand across the water (water)... heads across the sky

Ooo... Wa... Ooo... Ooo... Ooo... Ooo... Ooo...
Ooo... Wa... Ooo... Ooo... Ooo... Ooo... Ooo...
Ooo... Ooo... Ooo... Wa... Ooo... Ooo...
Ooo... Ooo... Ooo... Wa... Ooo... Ooo... Ooo... Ooo... Ooo...
Ooo... Ooo...
Ooo... Ooo...
Ooo... Ooo...

There’s a great story behind this too:

Recording the rain and thunder effects that help glue the first two sections together would be easy today, but it was no small feat in 1971. “I remember Paul telling me that Armin Steiner went out to the edge of a cliff to record that storm, and that it was Paul’s idea to add the effect at that point in the track.”

Very few artists in 1971 had the clout to release a single comprising 12 discrete sections, but McCartney’s artistic vision was so solidly commercial that no record execs would cross him. Still, Van Winkle was unprepared for the success of “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey:” “Despite Paul's charm and ability to pull off anything, I was surprised when the record went so big.”

Anyway, it just reminded me what a big fan I was of Wings as a teenager and how much I still love that music.

Because really, you’re not that f**kin’ interesting.


Scheduling being what it’s been the last few weeks, there hasn’t been much in the way of expansive writing going on around here. There has been lots going on but, little time to spend writing about it.

Something I have been wanting to write about for a long time now is the whole Twitter phenomenon. Twitter is defined by Wikipedia thusly:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, email, or an application such as Twitterrific. Twitter was founded in March 2006 by San Francisco start-up company Obvious Corp.

Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application. For SMS, currently three gateway numbers are available: short codes for the USA and Canada and a UK number for international use. Several third parties offer posting and receiving updates via email.

So, this coming March, Twitter will be in its terrible twos. Before that happens though, let’s take a long look at that definition of Twitter via Wikipedia.

Updates?

So, when those updates go rolling around are they earth-shattering events? What is the kind of information conveyed in those ‘updates’ (think of it as late-breaking news)? One such example would be the following:

responding to email after not having been online for a whole two days!

Now, I’m only using that one as an example but, I have to ask the question... who cares? I used to get the same kind of updates in email form from a person and I wound up blocking their email. It’s not that I don’t want to know what is going on in the lives of my friends and family but, I really don’t need the incredible minutiae of their days. I can’t really say I’m all that interested in getting an update on whether or not they had a cup of coffee, met a friend for drinks, checked their email or raised a cheek to sneak one out.

It’s just not that f**king interesting!

I was thinking maybe it’s an outgrowth of our culture these days. Maybe there is that deep-seated need on the part of people to think they are starring in the movie of their own lives and it is full of celebrity and excitement. Each of us are starring in our own little movie and in order to be a star we have to be out there as a publicity machine pumping out the latest and the greatest news on our lives. The truth is though, much of life can be pretty mundane and sending out updates doesn’t make it more exciting.

Let’s take it a step further for a moment. Suppose someone like the Pope or the President had a Twitter account. Wouldn’t you think someone who was really busy wouldn’t have the time to bother with this crap?

Pope’s twitter:
4 hours ago - Getting ready to say the mass in Saint Peter’s square.
1 day ago - Getting ready to receive some diplomat whose name escapes me.
1 week ago - Monthly get together with the cardinals for bowling.

or maybe this?

GW’s twitter:
2 hours ago - Chasing Condie around the Oval Office.
1 day ago - Prank calling Hugo down in Venezuela.
3 days ago - Planning exit strategies with Dickie.

See, those things I might want to check out but, at the same time I would really wonder about the whether or not those people were really on the ball if you catch my drift. So, maybe what I’m saying in all of this is if you are doing the whole Twitter thing, you may want to rethink it. You may find yourself sending out the wrong kind of message to the people in your life. Besides, doesn’t Twitter rhyme with Fritter as in Fritter away the day.

Silly wabbit, Twitter is for twits.

Belated Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday and Good Luck.


A big shout out to Elayne Riggs (whose Pen Elayne blog is prominent in the sidebar). Being lax in my blog reading because of the extended hours working these last few weeks, it was only yesterday when I was perusing Elayne’s blog to find her Bday just passed! So a very big if belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Elayne and also to Robin, her beau whose bday is today. As well as good luck wishes for her interview today!

Bon voyage!

Today my good friend Ed and his wife Marcel left for a wonderful cruise off the California coast. It just gives me a great excuse to post this wonderful picture of Ed and me.


A bear of a man, when Ed throws his arm around you in friendship, it’s like the irresistible force has thrown itself around your shoulders. I am hoping they both have a wonderful trip!

Video Vault Thursdays!

Okay, so here we are and it’s December and boy! Is it cold outside!

As for Video Vault Thursdays, this week we are at number 9 in the parade of music videos for songs from the past.

If you haven’t been keeping track, here’s a rundown of the videos that have been pulled out of the vault over the last bunch of weeks:

Week 8:

Nick Lowe’s Crackin’ Up from Labour of Lust (and featuring Rockpile) 1979

Week 7:

Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody from A Night at the Opera 1975

Week 6:

The Art of Noise’s Close (To the Edit) from Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise? 1984

Week 5:

The Breeder’s Saints from Lust Splash 1993

Week 4:

Deee-Lite’s Groove Is in the Heart from the album World Clique 1990

Week 3:

The Traveling Wilbury’s End of the Line from Traveling Wilbury’s Volume 1 1988

Week 2:

The Flying Lizard’s cover of Barrett Strong’s classic Money from the band’s debut album 1979

Week 1:

Lene Lovich’s Lucky Number from the album Stateless 1978

So, with that brief recap and the awesome lineup of songs, the question was what to present as this week’s entry. While I had a few songs already tracked down and prepared to slot into the number nine spot, this morning while I was putting together this post, I was captured in a moment of inspiration and suddenly realized what song (video) I wanted to use this week.

This week’s video is not a great video as videos go but, it provides an interesting glimpse into a very important period in musical history. The late 80’s saw the growth in prominence of Grunge as Glam Metal started to decline in popularity. This week’s entry into Video Vault Thursdays has elements of both movements. The hairstyles and dress of the band are very much reminiscent of Glam Metal but the tune itself could easily be considered ‘grungy’ in tone and foreshadows what would become popular in music over the successive years.

This week’s entry from the album Earth • Sun • Moon is Love and Rockets’ No New Tale to Tell:

Dedicated to Jamelah and Caryn.

The twin beauties whose love of bacon knows no bounds. I give you Pork! The other white meat, in its natural state prior to the transformation into that most delicious breakfast treat!

Terror filled Mondays!

This week’s flick is one of my favorites. I haven’t seen it in a long, long, long time but I have fond memories of it:

Dr. Cal Meacham, a noted scientist, receives an unusual substitute for electronic condensers that he ordered. They are un-Earthly in their ability to carry overloads of electricity; he sends a letter to the company that supplied the parts, and receives a package which appears to be a catalog. He begins ordering parts from it, and eventually is given a kit to build a very complex communication device called an interocitor.

When finished, Meacham receives a message on it: A mysterious man named Exeter tells him he has passed the test he was given. His ability to build the interocitor demonstrates that he is gifted enough to be part of the special research project Exeter is running.

It is then that Cal and Ruth learn that Exeter and his band are aliens from the planet Metaluna, come to Earth seeking scientists to help them defend their planet in the war against the evil Zagons. Though they protest, Exeter informs them that he is taking them back to his war-torn planet, in the hope that they can do something to aid it.

Exeter decides to help Meacham and Adams escape, thus revolting against his own kind, before they enter the brain-reprogramming facility. Cal overpowers the mutant creature accompanying them (but not before it wounds Exeter) and the three make their escape and journey back to Earth.

Video Vault Thursdays!

Finding myself still at work today and having one of those days putting this song up as this week’s entry to Video Vault Thursdays seemed only appropriate.

In 1979, Lowe married country singer Carlene Carter, daughter of country singers Carl Smith and June Carter Cash and step-daughter of Johnny Cash. He adopted her daughter, Tiffany Anastasia Lowe. The marriage ended in the mid-eighties, but they remained friends, and Lowe remained close to the Carter/Cash family; he and Johnny Cash played and recorded together, and Cash recorded several of his songs. 2005 saw the birth of Nick Lowe's first son, Roy Lowe.

This is one of those tunes that if you ever heard it you couldn’t help but notice the bass lick in the song because it’s really catchy. The whole Nick Lowe/Rockpile/Dave Edmunds thing is quite the interesting tale as is Nick Lowe’s life in general:

Rockpile was a British rock group of the late 1970s and early 1980s, noted for its strong rockabilly and power pop influences. The group was central to the rise of New Wave music and appeared on six albums as a featured act, although three of them were released as Dave Edmunds solo albums, and two more were released as Nick Lowe solo albums.

Cracking Up

Cracking up, l’m getting ready to go
Had enough, I can’t take any more
No pills that I can take
This is too real and there ain’t no escape

It scares the daylights
it make a nightmare
l’m tense an l’m nervous.
Everybody all around me
Shakin’ hands and sayin’ howdie

l don't think it’s funny no more

Craking up, iike a worn out shoe
Ain’t wet, but the world’s leakin’ through
l’d run, but I’d find no pace
l laugh, but it’s wrecking me... wrecking me

It make a shiver, it make a shake
It make a monster, just like an earthquake
Everybody havin’ fun
l don’t know how they can carry on

’Cause I don’t think it’s funny no more

At dead of night time, at crack of dawn
It comes upon me without warning
If I were a gunman I would shoot
l’d tear the hair out by the root
l’d make a knife out of a notion
All at sea in an ocean of a emoton

l don’t think it’s funny no more
l don't think it’s funny no more... crackin’ up!
I don't think it's funny no more... crackin’ up!

I simply had to post this: