klemjohansen

Are You Talking About The Passion To Me? Bonus Tom Petty podcast: Scott Dragging My Heart Around

Probably a month after I got the VHS tape in the mail, I saw it on DVD for $9 at walmart. I mistakenly left that part out of my shitty anecdote. For me, the Bakshi version represents a certain era when D&D was new and that whole genre felt really unfamiliar, open-ended, and almost dangerous. Subsequent experiences have dulled that memory enough that I really miss it. There are a handful of things I wish I could do again for the first time: listening to Talk Talk's Laughing Stock, making a game in BASIC on the TRS-80, and watching Bakshi's version of Lord of the Rings. Also, I am a horrible nerd.

I can imagine the exasperation of a spirit looking at his datebook and seeing "haunt the shit out of the old mansion on Spooky Hill" on every single page.

Imagine Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings hadn't been finished (it almost wasn't) and all we had was a notebook of drawings. As much as I like the Peter Jackson films, I think the film nerd in me would consider the unfinished Bakshi version more authentic and I would spend hours boring my friends with anecdotes of what might have been (even though it actually was- but you get my point). On a side note, before the first film in Jackson's trilogy came out, before it popped onto my radar at all, I foolishly bought one of the few existing copies of the Bakshi version. Unavailable on DVD at the time, I bought the fucker on VHS for $60 because I'm a sucker. I have watched it a grand total of one time since then.

I want to do a mockrockumentary about Pavement in which Stephen Malkmus is an English professor at a tiny Vermont college, and Mark Ibold owns and operates a dozen Arbys franchises in Louisville.

Best documentary of 1990, Take Back Bring On The Night, in which a hundred women accuse Sting of being a creeper. Very disturbing.

Natasha's TV probably has Tru-Motion turned on by default so it's frame-blending and makes movies look like shitty TV. Turn it off and your TV will suck at least 15% less.

Matt's comment about how every family should binge watch all their stories in one night reminded me of something- the premise for a sequel to Bedtime Stories where they have to go through every story in one night out of concern over copyright. Rogue copyright lawyers have grown into marauding bands, looting and pillaging cities as they cut a swath through the states in which they are licensed. The family knows that when the sun rises the next day, all works thought to be in the public domain will be owned by major media companies and therefore subject to strict copyright rules.

The Harry Nilson box set sounds awesome. I used to work for Beyond Our Control in the 80's and we used Remember as the end credits. It always gives me weird feelings. I wonder if his career would have worked out better if he'd come up with a Macphisto character to call Gerald Ford during his shows. Also was "me and my arrow" about his dick? It sure seems like that. I always thought it was a kids' song. Gross.

Little person racist. That means that you're either racist against little people or a little person who is also racist as hell. Then there's Li'l Grand Dragon, who is both.

Proud member of the Weird Al Street Team (unofficial). This basically consists of tweeting at him twelve to fifty times every day with stuff like "How about a Wolf of Wall Street/Frozen mashup? 'Do you want To Get Some Blow, Man?'" or "I slept in your back yard under a tarp last night. Not a song suggestion." It's all gold.

The time has come for the highly subjective and dubious practice of rating the episodes! 8. Bill Carter 7. Dalton Wilcox 6. Hotdog 6. Danny Mahoney 4. Dom DiMillo 3. Pattrick McMahon 2. Chip Gardner 1. August Lindt DID SOMEONE SAY MY NAAAAAME?

I sent one of the Negative Land guys a sample of some weird sound stuff I was working on in 89 or 90. He actually wrote back and was encouraging. He didn't need to be that nice.

June as a wrestling ref: "Hey, that hold is not going to fly here."

Back in the day, every walk in the woods was like Porno Easter.

I dare anyone to write this next to your address on a job app or loan form: "I live here sometimes when the window is open."

SSSSssssss Coriolanus gets exiled. sssss. Oh, spoiler penis. You've spoiled live theater. Or should I say theatRE?

Recipe for murder Ingredients: 1 gas station

When I first read Lord of the Rings, I assumed Saurman was the rastafarian cousin of Sauron. Apparently, it's a common mistake.

As a Catholic I know all too well that a publicly displayed cross has a very specific meaning: subjugation. As a symbol, a giant cross is a spiked football in the endzone of Western hegemony. It means "we won." It doesn't mean "we're winning," of course, which might explain why giant crosses are so much more prevalent now (I live in Indiana where the comically large crucifix biz is booming) than they were when Christianity had more of a hold on the culture. In the act of putting up a 100' cross by the highway, they are asserting a kind of social dominance that no longer exists. These are a people left behind by the passing of time. They are raging against the tide of history, flapping their arms in the surf in a way that feels like swimming but to an observer on the shore is clearly drowning. If they weren't being pricks about it, we might feel sorry for them. If they would only come out and say "man, remember the days when we could use our superstitions to control people and elevate ourselves to a permanent status above those who are less good at following these arbitrary rules? Sigh. I miss those days." At least then I would respect their honesty.

Next time I'm angry with a friend, I'll definitely steal the phrase "Hey, bro over."

Matt's character had to have been based on Andre Norton. Let's argue about electric blankets in a restaurant!

Harris being snarky about a band someone else likes is hilarious. Scott should say "wait, wait go 14 minutes into this live version of Where the Streets Have No Name. Yeah!"

U2 has diversified into all sorts of industries. If the Scotts are in need of pre-owned transportation, they should hit up Larry at U2sed Cars. What else do you imagine Larry doing when he's not recording or on tour? He's stacking 'em deep and sellin' 'em cheap!