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.

People Only Steal the Airwaves.

WTTV Chicago - Max Headroom Pirating Incident - November 22, 1987

NSFW : brief male nudity, butt smacking, Doctor Who footage.

I'm not exactly sure how the word piracy came to mean anything other than robbery committed at sea. That being said, in the modern world, there are two definitions of the word that are heard far more often. These days, I'm sure the most common use is to denote copyright infringement, but only just behind that, and only because it has become both harder and less rewarding to do, is the act of broadcasting without a license. There are plenty of resources on the net relating to pirate radio broadcasts, but actual acts of video piracy, particularly those overriding mainstream broadcasters' signals have only happened on a handful of occasions.

On November 22nd, 1987, during WGN TV's 9:00 news broadcast, one such event happened, the sportscast was interrupted for 20 seconds with the image of a man in a Max Headroom mask in front of a moving piece of corrugated metal. There was no sound. The station hurriedly switched transmitters, and sportscaster Dan Roan appeared flustered. If that was all that happened, this wouldn't have been such a big deal.

From Wikipedia:

Later that night around 11:15pm during a broadcast of the Doctor Who episode Horror of Fang Rock on WTTW, the signal was hijacked by the same person. It was the same video that was broadcast during the WGN hijack, but this time there was audio. The person in the Max Headroom mask interrupted the broadcast, saying "He's a frickin' nerd" before laughing and stating "Yeah, I think I'm better than Chuck Swirsky!". The person continued to utter strange phrases including a Coke advertising slogan (Max Headroom was a Coke spokesperson at the time), humming the theme song to Clutch Cargo (pausing midway to say "I stole CBS"), before finally undressing below the waist and was spanked by an unknown woman with a flyswatter before the masked person cut off his transmission. It was over in about 90 seconds. The pirate was never caught. WTTW, which maintains its transmitter atop the Sears Tower, found that its engineers were unable to stop the hijacker because at the time there were no engineers on duty at the Sears Tower. Also, the station's master control center was unable to contact its transmitting equipment remotely to switch the STL (Studio To Transmitter Link), unlike their counterparts at WGN-TV, who were able to thwart the intruder by switching their John Hancock Center transmitter STL remotely within seconds.

Who was this guy? No one knows. Why did he do it? No one know that either. Why did he want to be smacked on the heiny? It's all a mystery. He joins Captain Midnight (the man who hacked the HBO Sat uplink in '82) and Thomas M. Haynie (who jammed the Playboy channel just a few months prior to this incident) in a select group of people who've pulled this off. He's also the only major perpetrator who was never caught. There has not been a major pirate TV disruption recorded since.

Whoever you are, Max Headroom Guy, I salute you, for Sticking It To the Man. Maybe your actions did not destroy the broadcast TV paradigm. Maybe all you wanted was to dress funny and have your butt smacked on the air. Whatever the reason, your actions inspire others to dare to talk back to the Terrible Machines of Media Compliance. That and you gave me something to write about on a Friday.

Nerdcore II

Nerdcore Rising f. MC Frontalot

What better way to follow a trailer for a documentary on Nerdcore Hiphop, than with another trailer for a documentary on Nerdcore Hiphop.

MC Frontalot is arguably the founder of the Nerdcore genre. As such he is also one of it's best known proponents. From his Wikipedia entry:

Early days

Damian Hess began releasing music as "MC Frontalot" in 1999. His first successes came through Song Fight! where he was known to roll over the competition almost at will. Throughout his history at Song Fight! MC Frontalot has never lost a single competition, though he has entered only seven entries in the traditional fight style. He went on to make a song specifically about his winning ways in a competition titled "Romantic Cheapskate"; that song went on to get four times the votes of the rest of the competitors combined.

Nerdcore

In 2000 he released the song "Nerdcore Hiphop". From the first words spoken ("Initiating startup sequence") to the countless references to a proud geekish lifestyle and nerdly leanings ("Pish posh, man, I come as whack as I like!"), the song became an immediate hit in the geek and nerd communities. The rap subgenre of nerdcore hip hop, which had been around though unnamed beforehand, embraced the name and since has been expanding rapidly.

Many consider Frontalot, if not the founder of nerdcore, certainly the man who shone the torch on it. Front himself though is quick to point out the many artists who came before him and those which he considers his peers on his info page.

So there ya go. He is relevant to this whole Nerdcore thing I'm obsessing about. So relevant, in fact, that someone's doing a Nerdcore doc just on him, called Nerdcore Rising - The Movie. Well, OK, mostly on him. The site, which also features another trailer on the start page, mentions other artists and notables in the film, such as Al Yankovic, MC Chris, MC Lars, Jello Biafra. The synopsis ends thusly:

Nerdcore Rising will unlock the secret world of nerdcore - a first glimpse into a growing phenomenon where computers are the ultimate instrument, where the smart guys are cool, and where the geeks finally get the girls!

Geeks get the girls! Bring it on! Finally a film about what music is all about!

Nerdcore I

Nerdcore for Life Trailer

NSFW : Language

I'm not actually sure what order I should have done today's and tomorrow's posts in, so I asked both of my roommates whether they thought I should go general to specific or specific to general. One said the first choice, and one wouldn't say.

Okay, now that I've got the meta-blogging out of the way, today and tomorrow I'm going to talk about Nerdcore Hiphop, or Geeksta Rap. I have found trailers for not one, but two trailers for completely different, yet oddly similar, documentaries on the subject due out this summer.

I have always self-identified as a nerd, or geek, primarily based on my roots. Sometime not long after it was determined that there might actually be money in this Internet Thingie, it actually became socially acceptable to do so. But perhaps the truest expression of the arrival of the Chic Geek was the rising popularity of our own genres of music.

Nerdcore Hiphop is rap music for nerds. It's just like regular hiphop, but instead of rapping about pimps, ho's and glocks, you rap about otaku, j-girls, and 9-sided dice. As a genre of music it's a relatively recent phenomonon (the term was coined in 2000). Nerdcore for Life is a documentary about the culture growing up around this undrground genre (almost all Nerdcore music is 'Net only - very few CD's have been released) and the artists that perform it. According to a recent article on Canada.com:

Dan Lamoureux, an audio-visual technician in Chicago, was inspired to make the 90-minute film Nerdcore for Life after he and a friend ended up in a nerdcore audience last year "almost as a joke."

"It was the most insane thing you could imagine, it was so bizarre," he says. "We were at a pretty hip Chicago club and the place was filled with nerds! All the fans were nerds, they were doing nerdy dances. It was not a group I've ever seen at a club before."

So far all we have to go on for this film is the trailer (the site does not even mention a release date, unfortunately), but as a Nerdcore fanboy I'll have to see it when it's out (assuming it does - there's a donation page on the site, but see yesterday's post for why I have no money to donate).

Tomorrow I'll be posting about the other Nerdcore doc, and the artist who got me hooked. Stay tuned.

Even Skeletor Gets the Blues

Unemployed Skeletor's Blog of Evil #1

Hands up anyone who's been unemployed. All of you? Most I'm sure. If you have (and probably if you haven't) I'm sure you can empathise with an Evil Genius who's down on his luck.

I'm unemployed right now. There's very little work for actors in January, and my day job has laid me off until next month. So like Skeletor, I too know what it's like to sit around at home, at loose ends, too broke to go and do anything interesting, with nothing but a computer to keep me company. I too have whiled away my days puttering around online and trying to think of a new way to destroy He-Man...

But enough about me. Kevin Conn, a stand-up comic from Mahwah, New Jersey, has been doing this Skeletor thing for 8 months now, and is up to 40 episodes. So like everything else I've been doing since New Year's, I'm a little behind.

I'm also posting this fairly late in the day. My New New Year's Resolution is to get at least one day ahead in posting. I'll let you know how that goes.

Terry Jones, The Mathematical Python?

The Story of 1

Okay, so, what am I doing mentioning math, of all things, in a week I've devoted to slack?

My father was an uncelebrated mathematical genius who worked in computer graphics before computer graphics was cool (we're talking the 60's and 70's here). I discovered sometime in High School that, although I was suitably bright, I had not inherited the math genes. Dad was very, very good at doing math (there are, apparently, bits of his old , 70's FORTRAN and COBOL code that are still in use in hydrographic mapping systems for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, all of which work beautifully) but not so good at explaining it (one piece of the aforementioned code, for calculating True North from Magnetic North, is completely incomprehensible to those without an extensive background in this particular kind of advanced and esoteric math, and as the government has very few such people now, if any, there is, at present no one who can understand his code well enough to write a more modern replacement). After a few head scratching sessions trying to follow his notes on the back of a used punchcard, I stopped asking for his help with my homework. To this day I still don't understand what a cosine is.

So why math now? Because it's Terry Jones, dumbass. The Monty Python Terry Jones. And he's explaining math from it's very beginnings, by following the story of the numeral 1. You see, the BBC has a history of finding very bright people who are good at explaining things in an entertaining way, and having them do documentaries that actually do just that. About all kinds of subjects. Just because it's interesting. From a Canadian perspective that's a surprising thing for a public broadcaster to do (with apologies to the CBC).

What this means is you can sit back for an hour on a Sunday afternoon (or whenever you read this) and watch a very funny man talk about math throughout history. And if anyone gives you grief, you can tell them you're learning something. And who knows, it might actually be true.

Now if only he'd do a doc on cosines.

The Uncensored Reply

My Box

(NSFW: language, references to Canada's National Symbol)

The Internets work at lightning speed.

How else to explain this reply to the Justin Timberlake / Adam Samberg video I posted just before Christmas. Well, OK - It had been on the air a few days before that, and I'm actually posting this a week after it first hit the net, but I'm saying that the Internets work at lightning speed, not me personally.

So anyways. She calls herself Bunny. Her voice sounds pretty good. She's been blogging about it. She has a box. For You.

I usually post only one thing a weekend, but since I was lazy on Tuesday, here ya go. There'll be something else tomorrow.

Spiders on Drugs

(video from Collegehumor.com)

Spiders on Drugs

Late in the day, but I'm still trying to post every weekday. Keeping with my slacker theme this week, this is what happens when you put spiders on drugs.

This is a parody (created by First Church of Christ, Filmmaker), but experiments like this really happened. Someone actually got sizable grants to get arachnids all doped up and shi^H^H^H stuff.

As for the source of the parody, for any non-Canadians in the audience (at this point probably nobody, but I dare to dream) or anyone young enough to have missed them, this is based on Hinterland Who's Who, a series of wildlife related PSA's for the Canadian Wildlife Service that were produced by the NFB and which aired on the CBC and most other Canadian networks at one time or another starting in the 1960's. What is interestng about this stuff from a web perspective is that when the CWS set out to update these spots for a new audience, they released the orginal footage to the web for non-comercial remixing. This spawned a number of parodies, some of which are posted on their site, and is a fine and remarkably early (2003, I think) example of a content producer actually 'getting' the web.

Thanks to Myya for the link.

He's The Computer Man

He's The Computer Man

In the spirit of slacking off after the holidays, here's one I know little about.
Apparently he's a computer man, and by computer, he means Mac. To each their own.

this was Dugg a while ago, and there's a thread about it here.

This guy seems to be the one that put it up, and claims to work for the White Hatted One. This is obviously from the mid 90's and there's probably some sort of ritual embarassment of one's employer involved, which I wholeheartedly support.

Just watch it. It's weird.

Open Your Mind

Timebelt

Happy New Year!

...

Am I a bit late for that?

Okay well, now that the holidaze are out of the way, back to some serious vid posting.

Speaking of being late for things, time to switch on the wayback machine, at least in Internet time - back to the far off year of 2003. Before 2003 I was interested in online video in a fairly abstract sense. I thought that somehow, some way, eventually something interesting might happen and enable independent artists like me to magically Do Something On The Internet. I just didn't quite see how. Then somebody told me about a weird little festival-type-thingie out of Los Angeles called Channel 101 (self styled as "the unavoidable future of entertainment"). The idea was simple: Once a month a group of video makers would put on a screening of "TV Shows" - each under 5 minutes in length - and the audience at that screening would vote on which ones they liked the best. The top 5 would be "picked up" like any network show, and allowed to make more episodes for the next month. Any other show, whether "pilot" or "prime time" coming into that month's screening, would be ruthlessly cancelled. It all sounded brutally fun, but I never would have cared much if they hadn't put the shows up on the Internet. I discovered them about three screenings in, watched every show and was hooked. The show I liked best at that time was Timebelt. A quirky sci-fi series in the best tradition of bad 70's television, Timebelt was one of the top five shows from the first Channel 101 screening, and was the last of those original Prime Time shows to be cancelled. Over 8 episodes Dr. Daniel Bloom, who had lost the love of his life to a space shuttle accident, travelled through time looking for a way to save her, and righting wrongs along the way. Seemingly undefeatable at screenings, Timebelt creator Chris Tallman voluntarily ended the series a year later. At the time it was the longest running show in Channel 101 history.

Speaking of Channel 101, this weird little festival has attracted quite a following. Jack Black, and Drew Carey have both had shows in Prime Time, a pilot was produced for the F/X network, the creators of The 'Bu have gone on to Saturday Night Live (and were responsible for my Uncensored Christmas post), and there is now a sister festival in New York called Channel 102.

As for the show that got me hooked, for some reason the first episode is no longer available at the Channel 101 site. I found it at the official Timebelt site, along with the rest of the episodes in ipod format (most video players should handle this, and certainly Quicktime will).

So here it is. Timebelt Episode 1.

UPDATE 03/01/07 2:51 PM
The link to the video has been fixed. I wrote the first draft for this post in November, and the link had moved since then. It should work now.

Happy Festive Occasion

White Christmas, as animated by Joshua Held.

From my cousin Matt, who got this from his brother Ken (also my cousin ;-} ).

Just a quick little number for the holidays. Joshua Held animated this in 2002. The music is Irving Berlin's White Christmas as performed by Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters in 1953.

I missed posting yesterday due to the usual holiday madness, and I'll be posting lightly until the new year. So a happy generic holiday to you, the viewer, and I hope you all come back in Ought 7.

It's Johnny Reb!

I'm continuing the festive spirit by posting another commercial. This one I found embedded in an article at Radar Online. The article counts down the top ten worst toys ever.

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that I personally had Number Nine on that list (oh, to be late 70's naive again), Number Eight, the 'Johnny Reb Cannon' was a real hoot of a toy. This commercial from 1961 demonstrates the 30 inch spring loaded civil war cannon replica firing eye-socket sized 'cannon balls' a perfectly gouging 35 feet. It comes with it's own rebel flag (children's secessionist uniforms not included, presumeably), and a theme song including the immortal line "we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home." - says the article,

"For only $11.98, young rebels got a cannon, six cannon balls, a ramrod, and a rebel flag. What better way to permanently maim your little brother while spreading valuable lessons about states' rights?"

The thing that worries me slightly more than the cannon though, is this excessively complex civil war re-enactment (in which the South clearly has the upper hand) being perpetrated by ten year old boys. With all that fire power, could the South Rise Again?

Lest you feel that this commercial is sexist as well as encouraging violence and dangerous anti-unionist sentiments, Remco wants you to know that girls love their toys too.

Thanks to Myya for sending the original article.

Happy Holidays.

An Uncensored Christmas

A Special Box from Saturday Night Live (NSFW: language)

Kelly Z sent around this one. I dug up the uncensored version elsewhere.

Andy Samberg is someone I've been following for a while. He and the rest of the Lonely Island crew are one of the main reasons SNL doesn't suck as much as it used to. On SNL the trio now focus on shorts, often music videos, and they've started to develop some real street cred for the show online (virtual street cred? GTA cred? who knows). Of course, NBC responded by sending cease and desist letters to posters, but they're new to this online game.

This music video featuring Andy and guest host Justin Timberlake, is about the ultimate gift a man can give his woman to show his love is real. Check it out.

This simplifies my Christmas shopping enormously.

Will an Ipod Blend?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

And what better way to celebrate than taking last year's hottest gadget, and sticking it in a blender. Will It Blend is a series of videos produced by Blendtec, makers of the Total Blender, a high end blender that they claim can blend anything. And they've set out to prove it.

Alright, yes. This is a glorified commercial. This video exists only to sell this product. But any nerd will tell you that using a device in a way you're not supposed to for random weird acts of destruction is endlessly satisfying. And Tom Dickson's matter of fact confidence is strangely charming. They've blended all manner of things with this monster, including lightbulbs, golfballs and rakes, and even a complete thanksgiving dinner. There's even a page where you can suggest items for them to blend. It's all very Web 2.0 and Cluetrain Manifesto. Plus blending stuff is cool.

There always seems to be a point where I have to fully disclose things in connection to this video, so this looks like a good time to point out that the embedded video for this is from Revver.com a video sharing site with an ad based revenue model, of which I am an affiliate, which means I make some negligable amount of money when you watch their video through my site. Rest assured that I don't have any further connection with Blendtec (I have a competitor's cheap assed blender at home), nor did I post this video solely for the revenue (trust me, it's not that much). From time to time I will use a Revver link if the video is interesting, and if it exists on more than one vid site and Revver is one of them, I'll use Revver. So now that I've gotten selling out out of the way, and in the second week of active posting, we can all take this dirty feeling and channel it into holiday cheer. And after all, isn't that what Christmas is all about?

Thanks to Voodoo Walters for this link.

UPDATE 12/18/06 9:06 PM
Corrected spelling of 'thanks' in the last sentence. All this filthy lucre made me forget to spellcheck.