Silly Numbers and Maturity
I turn 30 at the end of this month, but I don’t feel 30 anywhere except my hands. Editing the new Chopsticks songbooks requires almost constant typing, and I’ve literally spent 40 hours of the past 72 working on them. (This really cuts into my masturbation calendar. I’m way behind schedule.) When my poor little handsy-wandsies are in dire need of some rest, of course, that’s when I get the urge to put up an introspective blog post. My creative urge has no respect for my health or well-being.
Did I say I’m turning 30? I’ll avoid any kind of self-indulgent lamentation here. The people over 40 or 50 who read this will just laugh at me and say, “You just wait.” And those kids in their early 20’s, well, they don’t get it, now do they? 30 is not so bad. I already know enough people over 30 to handle it.
Barring self-absorbed fist-pounding at the injustice of human mortality, I wonder a lot about maturity, lately. I find myself having crazy thoughts like, “I should try to maintain a regular sleep schedule.” or “I should try to find a second source of income so I’m not barely scraping by and can have savings.” or even, “I should try to plan more and meet my obligations, instead of giving in to impulsiveness, sloth, and distraction so often.”
What drives such ideas, I can’t begin to imagine. Is it too much thought about an arbitrary numerical barrier? An urge to no longer be financially helpless so that I can put more of my ideas into action instead of dismissing them outright and tossing them into the “could do it if I had some money,” bin.
One thing I know for sure. I”ve more drive to set goals and accomplish them than I ever have before, for better or worse.
I Test A Dictation App
Yesterday I downloaded the free Dragon dictation app for the iPhone. I’d heard it works pretty well, but when I attempted my first test of it a few minutes ago, things didn’t go as planned. i spoke clearly and strongly into the receiver, “I am Elvis Presley. I was born as Elvis Presley and I will die as Elvis Presley. I am the King of Rock and Roll.”
Well, here’s what I got: “I don’t especially, I was bored of this pussy out guy doesn’t stress me I became rock and roll.”
I guess the future’s not quite here yet.
Dogs: Don’t Know
image from KATU.com used in accordance with Federal Copyright "Fair Use" Doctrine for commentary purposes.
I found this image today on KATU.com accompanying a post about a cat that apparently caught the swine flu here in Oregon. Never mind the sensationalism and fearmongering of relating peoples’ personal pets to one obviously bizarre and isolated case of a cat catching H1N1, I think it’s hilarious that they point out that your pet pigs can catch swine flu.
I’m going to let my new friend Crazy Teenage Girl address this one:
Duuuuh!
"Crazy Girl" photo by D Sharon Pruitt
Young Teen Girls Are Voracious, Culture-Destroying Monsters
As a rabid consumer of mediocre and bad media (movies especially ) I often find myself questioning the motivation of those who create and consume that media. Tonight I listened to Friday’s episode of Cort and Fatboy, with Friday guest Mike Russel, who routinely discusses bad and mediocre films. (Culture Pulp) They talked about Twilight: New Moon, which made me think about the success of the first film and why that happened.
Crazy Girl by Sharon Pruitt (cc:by)
First, a few facts. It’s well known that most mainstream media is garbage. Okay. That might be an opinion. Here’s a fact. Teenage girls who’ve reached menarche suddenly find themselves subject to the influence of large amounts of estrogen, thickening the endometrium and causing all kinds of other pretty, flowery things to happen. To the vast discomfort of our collectively sex-negative culture, this influences the young female with an impetus toward sexual activity. (This is not about my opinions on whether or not young teens should be having sex. I think that’s for them to decide. It’s about the biology.) So the result is a highly social creature, entering the fringes of preparation for an adult culture they have no experience with. This produces a sexually-driven taste for media which doesn’t necessarily have to be high quality in any other way. Enter Twilight, every boy band ever, and a number of other phenomena which may confuse someone of more discerning taste, someone with a much higher cognitive capacity than say, a person distracted by the wild hormones screaming through her young body for the first time.
This would be fine, if these things would stay snugly isolated in a cultural pocket to be ferociously consumed by the pubescent fires of this squealing subset of humanity. Unfortunately, money talks, as always, and once those numbers get up, no matter what demographic a piece of media appeals to, we’re going to be forced to hear about it, ponder it, make fun of it, etc.
Some adults find themselves dismayed by this. Especially vocal about their distaste are the young-men-not-getting-laid subset, who are not only infuriated and confused by women in general, but especially enraged by women of all ages cooing over some guy who’s way cuter than them up on the big screen. Never mind that the young man is probably not interested in vagina, or that he probably has a small penis, or any number of other issues. But while they’re gnashing their teeth down to stumps, trolling blogs, and getting their colons all tied up in knots, I’m laughing at these phenomena, at these girls, and at them, just like anyother ridiculous thing in our ridiculous existence. Tschuess!
Cort and Fatboy Return Tomorrow
Yes!
In case you’re in Portland and you’ve been living under a rock, or in case you’re not in Portland, Cort and Fatboy, radio personalities and podcasters, were fired from the Portland Station KUFO a couple weeks ago. The new ownership is deciding to go with a more “masculine” (read: moronic) image.
But I always listened to Cort and Fatboy on their podcast, and, starting tomorrow, I can continue to listen, because they’ve managed to pull it together and they’re going to start putting out shows again. I can’t wait to hear it!
Even if you don’t live in Portland, check out the show, they’re funny and sharp as tacks. TACKS. Ow!
UPDATE: Looks like the site is live and has the RSS feed with the old episodes on the main page now. Check it out: cortandfatboy.com
7th Planet Caption Contest
Tomorrow is 7th Planet Picture Show, my movie-themed event at the Mount Tabor Theater, complete with live mst3k style commentary. Take a shot at captioning this still from Despiser, either here in the comments or @me on twitter (willradik) with your captions and the hashtag #7thPlanet.
The winner gets free entry for him/herself and one friend. (A $6 to $10 value! OMG!)
I Watch Weird Movies
I’ve been pretty busy the past couple of weeks. Of course, you wouldn’t think so if you just looked at me, sitting in my room watching movies. (sometimes with popcorn, sometimes sans popcorn) But I have been busy, mostly watching and reading up on movies. I figure, if I’m going to run 7th Planet Picture Show right, I should really know my stuff when it comes to weird, psychotronic films. Therefore, I’ve been stuffing as many into my mediaholes as I possibly can.
Here are the movies I’ve recently watched for the first time, complete with brief synopses. (mostly devoid of spoilers. mostly. Title links go to imdb.)
Laser Mission (1989) Brandon Lee is a mercenary/spy for the US Government, trying to get a scientist away from the Soviets who could make a superweapon. There are no lasers in the movie but I assume the title comes from the fact that there’s a DANGER of lasers, should the scientist be put into a lab with the LUDICROUSLY BIG DIAMOND that’s also in the movie. Editors were clearly on drugs. Either that or someone accidentally thought the storyboard was acid blotter and ate it. Public domain, baby!
Star Slammer A. K. A. Prison Ship (1987) – Sandy Brooke plays Taura, a miner who gets picked up by a corrupt galactic government official and thrown on a sleazy women’s prison ship. Lots of wacky/sexy? things happen on the ship. It’s kind of a comedy.
Act of Piracy (1990) – Some pirates, who are pretty douchey, and clearly criminally insane decide to fuck with Gary Busey, a bad idea in any decade. Then they get what’s coming to them, when he gets time after reuniting emotionally with his estranged ex-wife, that is.
Alice’s Restaurant (1969)A little, douchey hippie folk-singer (whom I know is the genuine article, but can’t help equating with arrogant kids at my high school in suburban Illinois in the mid-90’s.) named Arlo Guthrie gets to star in this movie adaptation of his goofy song, which is about half as long as the movie anyway. He almost fucks a 14 year-old. And he does fuck Alice, and some cute asian chick. Alice also nails a bunch of dudes and gets beaten by her husband and some guy is a junkie and dies, but it all makes about as much sense in the movie as it does when I explain it here.
2019 – After the Fall Of New York (1983) – Pretty much the Italian Escape From New York, hence 5x the goofy. But the main plot centers not around retrieving the President but the last fertile female in existence. Maybe the people who made Children of Men watched this and then cried and then made something better.
Cyborg (1989)- A craptastic gem brought to you by the movie crap kings Golan Globus. Van Damme is in the post-apocalyptic future. He’s not a cyborg. But there is a cyborg. And she sorta shows up here and there and he has to help her get to Atlanta. (Atlanta!?) And he beats up a lot of people. The sets and costumes in this were recycled from Masters of the Universe, after Mattel’s licensing prices were found to be too high for a sequel to a film that barely broke even.
Cyborg 2 (1993) Has absolutely nothing to do with the first Cyborg movie. Stars Angelina Jolie. She is a cyborg. And she also beats people up. and she also gets naked and it’s… well it’s fucking hot. All in all, this movie is separated from Cyborg 2 even more in that it’s actually not too bad of a flick. Jack Palance has a very kick-ass part in this and it’s too bad no award ceremony would touch a movie with this premise with a ten-foot pole, cause he delivers an outstanding performance. And did I mention Angelina Jolie sex scene? Naked? Yes?
Double Trouble (1992)- A silly but fun buddy comedy in which twin actors David and Peter Paul play cop and criminal twin brothers and join up to fight jewel thieves.
Think Big (1989) – A silly but fun buddy comedy in which twin actors David And Peter Paul play trucker twin brothers and try to help a young girl, fleeing an evil corporation that’s exploiting children in their school/think tank.(I had seen this one previously but added it to this list because I recently watched it again and was surprised to find it’s really not that bad of at all. I rather like it.)
Garbage Pail Kids, The Movie (1987) - I could see an atheist using this movie in an argument against a religious person as proof there is no god. Or at least that he hates us.
Journey to the 7th Planet (1962) – A bunch of astronauts fly to Uranus and kill the monster that lives there. I found this movie while looking to see if anyone was already using the 7th Planet Picture Show title. To my pleasant surprise, it’s just the sort of film that works for the 7th Planet Picture Show. Look for it in an upcoming web show and probably at the live 7th Planet some time, too.
Lady Frankenstein (1971) – When her father dies, Dr. Frankenstein’s daughter continues his research and, you guessed it, makes monsters. This one is pretty dry but there are some genuinely funny cheeseball moments.
The Giant Claw (1957) – The monster in this movie has got to be the stupidest one I’ve ever seen. Plus there’s a silly French Canadian guy. Those wacky foreigners!
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) – The original Roger Corman flick that later gave rise to Oz’s musical starring Rick Moranis. You can see why they made the musical. This movie is downright wacky. In fact, the performances in this original almost seem more rambunctiously over-the-top and ridiculous than the later film that made fun of them.
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968) Once upon a time some Russians made a movie called Planeta Bur. Then a capitalist American swine redubbed and edited the footage, added a few things and called it, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. Then some other hack came along and took that movie, re-edited it again, added a bunch of footage of chicks on the beach with shells covering their no-no parts and, well, that was this movie.
Warrior of the Lost World (1983) – A very skillful movie in that it rips off Mad Max and Escape From New York at the same time, leaving room to cram in hackery stolen from other successful films. Great stuff.
Zontar the Thing From Venus (1966) – Some nerd keeps playing his mmorpg and his wife gets mad at him. Except his mmorpg is an alien from Venus called Zontar who’s coming to enslave humanity. Of course, no one believes Kevin until Zontar arrives and mind control MADNESS ensues!
The Galaxy Invader (1985) – There are so many bad and awesome things I could say about this hackjob “alien vs. redneck” sci-fi film. It’s one of the gold mines that makes these movies so worth combing through.
Cherry 2000 (1987) – In the future, a white man in the future gets determined when his robot housewife slave burns out and he can’t find parts to replace her. He decides to go out into the lawless wasteland to find a duplicate for this rare machine and his guide is none-other than Melanie Griffith. Then it gets wacky.
Hardware (1990) – Moses (Dylan McDermott) finds a robot head and leaves it at his girlfriend’s apartment, her future apartment, in the slums. But she’s got really good locks. Then the robot head comes to life and rebuilds itself and tries to kill her and everyone else. A lot of black guys die.
Omega Doom (1996) – Rutger Hauer is once again a robot. But this time it’s in a movie that’s like a bad sci-fi RPG, and you don’t get to play, you just get to watch someone else play, and he’s an idiot.
Solarbabies (1986) Imagine if the Goonies was about a roller-hockey team but in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, and you’ve got Rollerbabies. Actually not bad at all. This one slipped by me as a child, which is too bad. I would have loved it then, too.
Cherez ternii k zvyozdam a.k.a To The Stars by the Hard Ways (1981) A sci-fi film from Soviet Russia in which a genetically-engineered superclone is found aboard a destroyed space-station with no memory of her purpose or prior life. Not at first, at least. Very cool!
Death Race 2000 (1975) In an oppressive future, David Carradine plays the leader in a violent sport which is used to control the populace.
Rollerball (1975) – In an oppressive future, James Caan plays the leader in a violent sport which is used to control the populace.
I’m a real glutton for punishment.
Thanks and The Future from 7th Planet Picture Show
December 14, 2009 at 3:42 pm (7th Planet Picture Show, PDX, Portland, my interesting life) (7th Planet Picture Show, commentary, events, film, fun, movies, mst3k, PDX, Portland)
Last night was, in terms of turnout and general fun, the best 7th Planet Picture Show yet. I’m really happy so many people came out to the show and it was great to see new faces! Robert and Cami were a lot of fun (And very patient with my microphone cord tech fail problems early in the show) My roommate and good friend Tim performed a rousing and deep song for us about the meaning of Christmas and generosity. (A cheeseball song called Christmas Shoes that was popular enough for Hallmark to make a movie out of it.) And I got to give away prizes! Andrea (bandgeek.etsy.com) generously provided some buttons and a t-shirt and I raffled them off with a VHS copy of a Mark Hamill movie called Laserhawk that I bought from the Hollywood Theater.
Tuning into PDXSucks this morning, as I am often wont to do during breakfast, I was delighted to hear that Robert will be donating a few mics and cords to 7th Planet Picture Show. It’s an act of generosity, undoubtedly inspired by pity at watching me fumble with the tech last night when a couple of the mic cords turned out to be janky. (Is that how you spell that?) So, thanks a million Robert, that’s really nice of you!
On Friday at Midnight, you can watch 7th Planet Picture Show on 30hourday.org as we attempt to get through A Christmas Without Snow, a movie that would fit perfectly on Lifetime Television, if not for the fact that the characters might just be a little too realistic even for that channel.
On Sunday, Dec. 27th. We’re having a Mark Hamill double feature at Mt. Tabor Theater. We’re going to explore some of Mark’s bearded, post-Star Wars adventures. And we’ll also make lots of references to Star Wars because we know he loves that. Joining me for that show is Sabrina Miller and Doc Normal. The details haven’t all been hammered out yet, but I believe we’ll be starting out an hour earlier than most 7th Planet Picture Shows. (We’ll probably start at 7pm) I’ll have the event up on Facebook and upcoming as soon as I’m sure about that.
The 27th will be the last live show at Tabor for a while as the theater wants to “take a break” from the show. I’ll be shopping for a new venue for live shows over the next couple weeks so we’ll hopefully have a new home by January. The show on the 27th promises to be a hell of a good time, though. Hope to see you there!
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