Well I know Boob is on tour with the Easton, PA H.S. Musical Theater Troupe running lights for their reportedly triumphant staging of the Broadway hit "Wicked," but what's the hold up with the rest of us posting and making each other synchronized-weepy? Hopefully nothing. Hopefully, we are all just depressed and uninspired. Even more hopefully, we all got stuck at the Winter Olympics. Vancouver is a hard town to leave. For serious.
And in this serious mood, in these serious, serious times, with the healthcare reform measures being pushed through Congress like a bag of Idaho potatoes up a anus-less preacher's ass, with the earth devestating the already devestated, with whale being served at premeir Santa Monica sushi joints, sad, sad whales, lonely stolen-from-the-great-blue-desert whales, sad giant beautiful smarter than us whales, with Jay-Z running our military, sadly, sadly I give you two versions, serious, serious sad-dubs, dubs that would make Lee Perry cry green tears, tears of mercury, tears of stone, serious tears:
i just got a two dollar bill as change from a gas station (only in new orleans?) and i noticed something:
TOMMY JEFF HAS TOTAL CRAZY EYEZ!
What the fraggle rock, right? What's even weirder is that apparently no one else on the internet has ever brought this up. Here are some similar pics of him with his whiffle ball of a left eye, but clearly these artists had a little more discretion about the dude's ocular misfortunes:
so i guess there's a new "airquotes" trend that is sweeping up the young internet surfers and boogie boarders: typing shit into Google Translate (or your internet translator of choice) and converting it through several languages then back into English (or your first language of choice), much like that game "Telephone," which Wikipedia ironically calls Chinese Whispers.
I've been recently alerted to this by many friends, and that somewhat alerts me. did not everybody do this way back in the early days of the innaweb? i dont wanna sound like i'm sayin i started the trend or nothin, i just remember being in middle school and going to altavista and bouncing the phrase "Barry Schatz Sucks Rusty Wieners" through a bunch of languages until something like "Black Barstool Fingering Hamburger Koala Cock" came out. Of course, we called it Transturbation, which isn't really a good pun name, but it stuck, because we were in middle school.
and even though I wanna call Old Hat on this shit, I still think it's pretty funny, so I took a new stab at it with a story written by me and the wonderifulous necrolander David MacNutt, called Disgusting Dog Island, which is already one of the most non-sensical and unintelligible pieces of drivel put to e-paper. first I transturbated it through five funny languages and it's now called Total Inujima (which I guess is a place in Japan whose name is written with the kanji for Dog and Island [go fig]), but then I went for the gold (pun intended for Dave and Andrew only) and transturbated it through every single language that Google has to offer, in alphabetical order, now called Kennel Barley Island (way worse name).
Needless to say, the story reads just about the same.
Oh shit, I just remembered that we had to have internet pen pals at some point in middle school, and I convinced this kid in Belgium (who spoke perfect English) that I was from the Ukraine by writing only heavily transturbated emails. Sorry Dirk.
I can't wait for open mic nights to be flooded with poets simply reading printouts of their latest livejournal entries transturbated a couple times. i literally cannot wait.
Once again I have invaded the dreamscape of one of my friends like Freddy Krueger, this time my good buddy Anthony. He contacted me via gchat this morning:
Anthony: are you alive i hope? in my dream last night you were in a motorcycle accident Anthony: during part of a parade obama was driving the motorcycle with you and three others were drunk, dangerously clinging to the back you fell off and your spleen fell out Anthony: seemingly you were able to communicate from beyond death, since gmail, facebook, etc. technologies had massed enough of your personal data and language Anthony: there was a youtube video of the fall me: so this in fact might be the e-spectre of bob talking to you Anthony: it was exactly like this.. i think victor vazquez may have also been involved somehow it wasn't clear if he was logged in to your gmail Anthony: so I'm either talking to victor right now, or e-spectre Anthony: is that distinction even meaningful?
Of course, Anthony just confirmed what doctors (esp. Ray Kurzweil) have been telling me for years – that my body is more internet than man right now, and if I die, I could ostensibly live forever, as long as Victor keeps me logged in to shit.
last night i dreamt that i was at a small bar with some friends and we were standing around chatting when nick cage walked in, and not at all in like a celebrity-walking-in way, he just sort of strolled in awkwardly and walked up to our circle and stood on the outside, and waited a minute before trying to laugh at one of our jokes and say something just to say something. he was like a kid in high school who used to hang out but who went away for a couple years and now that he's back he realizes he wasn't really friends with anyone to begin with. it was also weird that he wasn't drinking, he just had his hands in his pockets. he also had a bodyguard of some sort hovering even further behind, and kept nervously looking back at him, for some sort of comfort. at one point he turned to me and said "i heard you like pizza" and of course i confirmed and then he tried to think of something to follow that up with but all he could muster was "cool." then he and i were talking and i realized that his bodyguard was actually a cop, and when he would turn to look at him it was out of fear that the cop would disapprove, cuz at one point he leaned in and whispered to me "do you have any aerosol?" and i said "i have some compressed air, at home" and he looked both disappointed and ashamed, and immediately left, with the cop in tow.
since i've been having nothing but physically debilitating dreams lately, i haven't been privy to posting my nocturnalisms as much, but here's a pretty dope one my friend had (is this against the rules?), which she sent via text after visiting me in new orleans:
"I just had a dream that i ws at ur new hs and it was a lake hs on a swamp n u lived w 2 frat guys n the viscious killer lady from the comic im reading. then we went to the beach n jumped into a giant plastic tub filled w wheat grains n stomped them into corn mash to make moonshine. like grapes."
suffice to say, that's a pretty accurate description of what my life is like.
i am here to introduce you to one of the most amazing and respectable film production companies on the streets today:
The Asylum is a straight-to-DVD movie company that is noted for it's extensive revue of "mockbusters," ie low-budge, unabashed rip-offs of high-budge action and scifi flicks, released right before their big brothers hit theaters. Four examples:
The head of the company has this to say: "I'm not trying to dupe anybody. I'm just trying to get my films watched. Other people do tie-ins all the time; they’re just better at being subtle about it. Another studio might make a giant robot movie that ties into the Transformers release and call it Robot Wars. We’ll call ours Transmorphers."
But really, folks, what we should be talking about here is:
Yes. This is a movie stars Debbie Gibson, Lorenzo Lamas, a Mega Shark, and a Giant Octopus. It is not a rip off of any movie in particular, but is rather a wholly unique piece of pure schlock genius.
I had the good fortune to be able watch the whole thing last week, totally sober, and it was more enjoyable than any shitty d-grade action movie that we grew up watching on TNT or while in a Blockbuster, waiting for our moms to pick out a good Chevy Chase movie for us to watch that night. Anyway, I happened to discover what twitter is for, and live-tweeted my experience watching MSvsGO. here are some highlights:
now on a drilling platform in japan. dude says "everything's gunna work out I promise" THEN ENORMOUS TENTACLES RIP THE PLATFORM APART #IRONY Sun Sep 20 18:22:03
haha debbie says "let's get a drink" and it cuts to her and oliver platt on the beach drinking pints in brown bags. Sun Sep 20 18:28:38
debbie gets fired. evil boss: "Don't love the ocean too much. It doesn't love you back." Sun Sep 20 18:38:58
im going to stop starting tweets with any variation of "haha," but they should still be implied for every single one. Sun Sep 20 19:01:09
commander: "No." cut to shark, back to commander: "NO!" shark, commander: "NOOOOOO!!!!!!!" Sun Sep 20 19:25:31
2nd science montage! so many test tubes with dyed water! staring in a microscope and shaking heads! mixing dyed water and shaking heads! Sun Sep 20 19:49:57
making out in the supply closet! crossfade to post-coitus on the floor. now they're discussing how attraction is based on smell. Sun Sep 20 19:56:37
holy shit this movie is only half over. Sun Sep 20 20:07:56
If you're so inclined, you can read the full livetweet by clicking that tempting "Read more..." link at the bottom of this post, or this separate webpage dedicated to it.
Also, future plans include watching another Asylum jam (DEATH RACERS starring INSANE CLOWN POSSE!!) and livetweeting it simultaneously with the Godfather of Gartrelle himself, Hollywood Heems (whose livetweet of Sex and the City with @JamesDewey inspired me to LT in the first place). Stay tuned, you lazy blog-readers you...
so in the early 80s in Ghana, when the movie market wasn't booming and VCR technology had yet to make into most households, some dudes got the idea to make a 'mobile cinema.' they'd drive a VCR and TV from town to town, showing bootlegs of the biggest releases of Hollywood and African cinema. so not only is that brilliant and awesome (case in point: they sometimes went by Rolls Royce Video, though there's no indication of what they were driving), but it also inspired a seriously striking art form: the movie posters.
dudes would get artists to paint huge promotional posters on canvas, in whatever way they wanted. Les Artistes were given total freedom to put in whatever shit they could dream up, which helped because many of them weren't able to see the movies beforehand. Many are pretty good interpretations of Western flicks:
The heart instead of an O is the winning touch for me here they obviously saw the original poster, but serious kudos for good taste here toothere's sort of a theme emerging... FAS Bond! Dickfish! Infinity Space Car!I think this one might be utterly accurate. dude looks so surprised a giant demonic chainsaw is ruining his family vacay Cujo, the Stephen King horror flick about a ravenous St Bernard, is now a feel-good family film about a sedated French Spaniel who cries blood sometimes. I haven't seen Twins in a while, is this what it's about?
But really the best posters are for movies I don't think made it to our shores. I don't know how much of the poster content is made up, but regardless, pretty much every single one makes me want to fly over there and buy up a couple dozen VHS copies and then show them around the states:
have you ever heard of this dude Dock Ellis? he was a major league pitcher in the 60s/70s, whose attitude and antics outshone his stellar athletic achievements. but still (or because of which) he has since been forgotten by the vast majority of sports journalism and fandom – i had never heard of him or a single thing he did before WFMU's post about him. the post is pretty damn long, not because of that type of biographical facturbation that a lot of hey-history-forgot-this-dude writers like to use, but instead because this guy did so much crazy shit in his lifetime that it takes 2000 words to document it all. here's a quick rundown:
when playing the minors in the 60s in Alabama, he was faced with a lot of racist banter from game goers, and once climbed into the stands, sat next to the offending fans and said "What happened to all those niggers up here? All those niggers calling me a nigger?"
once he was so hungover at a game that he was passed out in the dugout, and when it was time for him to pitch, so someone gave him some liquid amphetamine, which quickly roused him. he then never played a game without some sort of upper, and said that he got so addicted he'd have to take them even if he were just sitting on the bench.
playing in the minors in the DR, he heard about zombies in neighboring haiti, so he rented a jeep and drove through the haitian countryside looking for zombies. he says he saw some and tried to talk to them, but they freaked him out so he split.
in his most noted antic, he once pitched a no-hitter while on acid. he said he couldn't see the batter or feel the ball.
he made such outspoken and livid comments about the suppression of blacks in baseball that Jackie Robinson sent him a letter telling him to cool his jets.
he consistently pitched while wearing curlers in his hair. because of this Pete Rose sent him a copy of "All You Want to Know about Curling" (the Canadian ice sport), and he retorted with a line to the famed gambler: "Now Rose better learn to play [curling] because I'm gonna challenge him at $500 a game."
he was once pepper sprayed by a security guard while trying to enter a stadium he was playing at.
there was a game where he decided he would overtly try and hit every single batter he faced. he beaned four out of the first five batters he saw (one avoided the pitches and got a walk) before the manager took him out of the game. he was also on acid at the time.
continuing his pro-beaning strategy, he once threw a massive fastball right into the face of reggie jackson, shattering the infamous glasses of the-most-famous-man-in-baseball and causing his nose to bleed. jackson had to be taken out on a stretcher and ellis thought he had killed him. this was apparently retaliation for jackson hitting a home run off ellis six years before in an all-star game, a completely amiable and pointless event.
after leaving baseball he tried to remake American Graffiti, which he loved, into Black Graffiti, which never happened.
he once went to a Fatburger and got in argument with the cook about how the fatburger he was eating wasn't a real fatburger: "Bullshit. you may have that Fatburger sign up there, but i've eaten fatburgers and this is not a fatburger."
he spent most of his later years touring prisons on an anti-drug campaign.
okay that wasn't that quick, but there are many more details outlined in the article that add that type journalistic breadth that we here at GG avoid like swine flu on sunday. anyway here are some folk art pieces based on him, via this thing:
i guess tis the season for GG dreamin, cuz last night i had another slumberbubble with you in it, victur. you were probably there for only like 60 seconds, but it was one of the most memorable parts. me and my pregnant girlfriend (i dont know who it was, kinda looked like clea duvall) were at a parking garage structure, but instead of driving one's car up and inside the thing, one would park it on this small square platform outside, which then gets launched – catapult-style – into a parking slot in the structure. you were our attendant, dressed in a dandy green uniform like an old hotel porter (circle hat and all), with a nametag that had some real whitey name on it like Wally. you came over to launch us but when you saw my gf's belly you were all "May I?" and she said yeah so you put your hand on it, then you put your ear to it, then you made a joke by pretending to look through her belly button like a peephole (we all laughed). then you asked me "Is it yours?" and i said yeah and then you go "Is this yours?" and pull out a bacon egg & cheese on a bagel, but instead of like sesame seeds on it, it has rainbow sprinkles. i said no thanks and you started eating it, then pulled a giant wile-e-coyote-style lever and launched us into the air.
that was the only part you were in, but later me and the g were at a mall kiosk getting an ultrasound (i know, right?), but instead of a fetus on the monitor it just showed a picture of that sandwich.
yo vic i actually had a dream about you, and i thought this was the only appropriate place to tell you about it. we were called to an official lawyer-like meeting in the batcave, and alfred was there to inform us that you were my uncle. alfred handed you a large teddy bear and said "Congratulations." you took the teddy bear to a concert hall (i don't know where i went) where you gave a speech at a podium that just consisted of some pretty ok cosby jokes, and the crowd was loving it, until you said a joke that mentioned the word "pilgrimage" and suddenly you stepped back from the mic and screamed, like a dictator, "MUCH LIKE THE PILGRIMAGE OF THIS MAN HERE" and held the teddy bear up over your head. the entire audience went silent and many left, even though you went on to say some more pretty ok cosby jokes. then i "woke up" in my car, with all the doors missing except the one I was leaning against, and the whole thing with overflowing with apples.
I apologize for the large photodump to follow, but it's almost impossible to whittle some of these out, for the site features documentation of all sorts of terrible parents...
Parents not afraid to expose their kids to sex...
Or to liquor...
Or to both...
Also guns seem to be "a thing"
Snakes also pop up every once in awhile
So does the hot topic of (pre)teen pregnancy
Speaking of pregnancy...
There are also parents who just have some simple moral quandaries
But really my favorite are those with alternative transportation methods...
