Monday, July 21, 2008

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Shiny Happy Monsters

Feist, everyone's favorite Canadian countress finally performed "1234" on Sesame Street:



It's pretty cool, but..."Chickens just back from the shore"??

I don't even know where to start with that one...


I'm a little disappointed though...when I heard of this, I was promised Count Von Count. There is no Count Von Count in this clip. Way to go Sesame Street, great job dropping the ball on that one.

Friday, July 18, 2008

I Guess Once Again, Comedy Has Done It's Job...

I know that everyone has commented on this already, but it seems that people still don't understand it.

The recent New Yorker cover:

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IT'S SATIRE!!!!!!!


The Daily Show made the point pretty well, but still I hear people (read:Newscasters) saying that they think it is offensive...

Look at it like this: If we took all of the descriptions of Barack Obama and his wife Michelle that every commentator on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the such, have said in the past, and given those descriptions to a sketch artist, who has no clue who these people are, this would be the result. The Media has made this image of the Obamas, and now, THEY think it's offensive.

Unbefuckinglievable.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Fear and Loathing In 1903

Picture yourself in a movie theater in 1903. You've just sat down to watch this new "film" thingy called "The Great Train Robbery". The "film" starts, and you're skeptical. "The way that camera moved made me dizzy!". After an exhausting 12 minutes later, the film finally ends, except...suddenly, one of the bad guys from the movie faces you--THE AUDIENCE--and slowly raises a gun. Oh no! We're doomed! He's going to fire upon us! Nooooo!

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Scared? No? Well, that's because we aren't idiots.

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I remember watching a great Simpsons 'Tree House Of Horrors' episode where they did their take on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven".

At the end of the story, Bart questions the poem's classification as horror:

Bart: Lisa, that wasn't scary, not even for a poem.
Lisa: Well, it was written in 1845. Maybe people were easier to scare back then.

Lisa suggests that people in the past were a lot more prone to easy scares than we are today. (How else could the romantic horror of "The Raven" ever give someone the chills they get today while watching something like "The Ring".)

Maybe using this theory, we could infer that in 1903, when Thomas Edison and Edwin S. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery" came out, people were still easily scared, and a fictional character on a movie screen could actually pose a real threat.

No, I'm sorry, I've got to call BULLSHIT.

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I know film was a new medium at the time, and theoretically, many of the people in the theater probably didn't know what "the moving pictures" were capable of, but to honestly believe that a character on a screen can break the fourth wall and shoot you? Come on.

The movie-going audience of 1903 was more familiar with live theater like plays, and vaudeville, so maybe they though the same rules apply. In a live performance, yes, a guy holding a gun on stage has the ability to actually shoot through the fourth wall...but here's the kicker...I bet that if this was an actual live performance, the audience wouldn't have even blinked. I bring your attention to the Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903. At no more than a month old, the theater broke out into flames during a performance. As the fire spread out of control, THE AUDIENCE DIDN'T MOVE. They thought it was all part of the performance. The actors kept on acting and the dancers kept on dancing. It wasn't until comedian Eddie Foy told the audience that it's wasn't part of the act that anybody did anything.

602 people died because the audience wasn't scared of no heat and flames.

But a 2 dimensional movie character shooting through the fourth wall...well now, that's a pants pisser.

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I also have to call bullshit on the idea that people were more prone to be scared back then than today. Case in point.

So, I'm calling every film professor in this country wrong. There ain't no way in hell the people of 1903 were scared of being shot by a two dimensional man. Unless of course, they were idiots.

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Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Coolest Thing I've Seen All Week

This comes directly from Taylor over at T-Sides. It is apparently Neko Case performing Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" on a Chicago-based kids dance program. While that is cool within itself, the fact that they all start dancing to KC and the Sunshine Band afterwards just makes it even more amazing.



Taylor didn't know what show this is, so I did a little research, and found out that it is a public access show called Chic-a-go-go, and it is AWESOME.

According to their website, they've not only had Neko Case on their show, but also, The Standells The 5,6,7,8's, The Pretty Things, The Specials, and Dante's Infernal Racket favorite ? and The Mysterians! Holy Shit! I'm moving to Chicago!

Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/chicagogoshow

Hey, I'm living in a magazine/ Page to page in my teenage dream

Happy Birthday Debbie Harry!

The Queen of New York Punk turns 63 today.

For your enjoyment, Debbie explaining punk rock to a bunch of little kids. It might be the greatest thing I've ever seen.