It's Not Easy Being a Green Junkie

NIN's Hurt, as performed by Sad Kermit.

(Probably NSFW: language, Heroin Junkie Kermie, general wrongness)

The AccordionGuy blogged this before I did. That doesn't make it right.

Kermit the Frog is beloved by millions. Not just liked. Beloved. How could any star, amphibious or not, handle that kind of pressure?

Sure, it's easy when you start out. Do a little kids show, get noticed, go on a few talk shows, pretty soon you get on a bigger kids show, you're the king of children's TV. Then you get a variety show. You're the star. You're on top of the world baby! But do you think this is easy? 5 years of tantrum throwing co-stars, Hollywood has beens, the constant pressure of a live show, and everyone wants you to be that funny, cheerful muppet they expect you to be. Sure, there's love affairs, movies, and all the trappings of fame, but is it really enough? Enough to compensate for that empty feeling inside?

No one talks about the dark years, after Jim died. About losing your voice. Lesser muppets told all, but not you. No one knows what it's like. To be the sad frog. to be the bad frog. Behind white eyes.

I don't know what a zomedy is, but I like it.

The Mad A Johnny Kalangis film.

About a week and a half ago I got a call out of the blue from Kyree Vibrant, a long time friend and crime partner of mine. "Are you doing anything tonight?" She asked. Remembering that the last time she asked me to do something for her I had wound up dressed as a garden gnome for her wedding, I prepared to dig in my heels. "Well, I -" I said. "You have to come to Johnny's movie tonight. He has a screening. You have to." I'm not sure how she managed to convey a puppy dog look to me over the non-visual phone lines, but somehow I wound up at her husband's film.

This last minute call had come because her husband Johnny Kalangis had a film in the Canadian Filmmaker's Festival, and had originally expected a small screening that maybe the cast and crew could get to. It turned out that the festival had decided to make his film the opening night Gala. It might have had something to do with Billy Zane being the star. Or maybe they just really liked zombies.

I really like zombies. I especially like them when they're powered by diabolical meat. On those two factors alone I would have liked this movie, but what I got was a surprisingly good film. I say surprisingly not because I am surprised that Johnny made a good film (I'm not - he's pretty good at all this), but because of the unexpected twist at the beginning of the film. (You can open with a twist? Who knew?) It's really a heartwarming story about a father, a Dr. Jason Hunt (Zane, who's actually very funny in this) and his daughter Amy (The beautifully petulant Maggie Castle) who need to reconnect after the death of Amy's mother. They've left town for a getaway weekend with Dad's new girlfriend Monica (The bitchtacular Shauna McDonald) and Amy's new boy. This would all be a terrific setup for a TV Movie of the Week, If it weren't for the fact that what drives dad and daughter together is a ravenous horde of mindless zombies.

In all of my years watching horror films, I can honestly say I never expected to see a father and daughter coming to understand each other while beset by zombies in a farmer's field, or hear the words "Are you flirting with him?" after they meet a potential psychopath (incidentally, the room on set that Johnny referred to as 'The Sex Barn' during production is worth the price of admission). There's plenty of blood and guts flying, fulfilling the horror quota, but this film is just plain funny. See it if it gets to the theatres near you, rent it if it comes to your video store, or stay up 'till 2 on a weeknight if it's playing late on the teevee. You won't be disappointed.

Oh Fonzie, Why?

Strong Kids, Safe Kids!
(Possibly NSFW - frank discussion about bad touching)

Okay, yes. It's been a Looonngg while since I've posted. I got pretty busy with work, and the dog ate my blog posts, and I'm feeling some kind of existential angst anyways....

The bottom line is I became a giant blogcrastinator, if there is such a word. I inadvertently almost fulfilled this prophecy (it's French for it's in now the hip thing to have abandoned your blog), lovingly posted to my MySpace blog page by Amy soon after I started (Thanks ;-}).

Not like Fonzie. When he sees a problem, he not only does something about it, he enlists the help of all of his celebrity friends, including Henry Winkler (don't think about that too hard), John Ritter, and Mariette Hartley.

So why does this '80's era PSA feel so horribly, horribly wrong? It has famous people. It has rainbow colours. It has puppets! It has a child psychologist! Okay, maybe it's the child psychologist, Sol Gordon. He's one of Oprah's pet experts now, and has been doing this for years, but there's something wrongtacular about the way he says vagina. It could also be Chris Wallace, the fellow in the overalls with the ukelele guitar. Henry Winkler says not to forget him. How could I? That song will be in my head every time I look "down in front". And if I'm not supposed to forget him, how come history seems to have? These questions will haunt my dreams.

Damn you, Fonzie. Damn you to heck.

UPDATE 23/03/07 9:27 AM
Fixed the link to Amy. Also, I forgot to mention that Myya sent me this. My apologies.

Are You Ready for the Transit (Camp)?

Transit Camp
(from CityTV)

Alright,

Something even more timely than Saturday's post, a current event!

Yesterday, Joey the Accordion Guy and several others organized something that, weirdly, has probably never happened before. A bunch of tech-savvy, bleeding edge, [Insert web cliché here] geeks, who also happen to be transit nerds, got together for self organized Bar Camp style get together to figure out how to improve the Toronto Transit Commission (or at least it's website).

Transit Nerd-dom is usually a little weird even for geeks, but there's plenty of geeks who spend their commutes (you know, that time you spend going between one computer screen and another) on the TTC. A subset of those geeks blog, and one geek recently posted something about how terrible the TTC website was. TTC Chair Adam Giambrone responded (he's actually web savvy [cliché]) and it snowballed into a whole weekend afternoon with geeks suggesting solutions to the TTC. And TTC staff were there and paid attention. Weird.

I actually wanted to attend this thing, being a transit freak myself, but it happened to coincide with my first day of real work this year. Hopefully there'll be another one. God, I'm such a nerd.

The History of Oil

I've had some writer's block for a little bit, I'm afraid. I've got a wealth of vids to write about, but I've been having trouble doing it. I think it's the winter weather. I've decided to try and just muscle through it, so here goes.

I haven't posted a longer piece in a bit (this one's an hour), but since I've been talking about supposedly limitless resources I can't get at, here's a piece on the History of Oil.

Robert Newman is one of those people we don't see enough of on this side of the Atlantic, namely an unashamedly intelligent stand up comedian (Lewis Black not withstanding). This piece is almost as much a lecture as it is a piece of comedy, follows the history of the 20th century through Newman's jaundiced, conspiracy minded eyes. Seeing as even the president is acknowledging that We May Be In Trouble Now where oil is concerned, this might even be vaguely timely.

Enjoy.

Jesus Christ, Super Cop

(NSFW : Language, rude gestures, kick ass fighting saviour)

I'm back from my inpirational reload break, and I've got a few quickies to post over the next few days to get back into the swing.

Previously, while talking about Channnel 101, I mentioned Channel 102. Well here's one of my favourite from the New York version of this "TV" fest. As you'd expect from a New York show, the 102ers have way more attitude. And what's more attitudey than Jesus Christ as a badass cop?

Created by one Austin Bragg, bio (along with another version of this clip) here.

UPDATE
It's occurred to me you might want to see more of this show. Archives here.

Just a Quickie (Apache)

Apache

Sorry posting has been sporadic. I need to take some time to get ahead of the game again. Regular posting will resume shortly.

In the meantime, here's Apache by the Tommy Seebach band.