My lovely Girlfriend has informed me that yesterday’s entry may fall into the dread category of “Too Much Information.” To anyone whose sensibilities were offended by my description of my physical symptoms, I apologize.
Still… I thought the hand-cranked egg beaters were a pretty powerful image. Sometimes I actually believe I might be one of those writer fellows you hear so much about…
Chugging a Starbucks grande caffe mocha and then immediately going to The Old Spaghetti Factory for a gargantuan plate of spinach tortellini with alfredo sauce is a really bad idea. I had the lousy night’s sleep last night — during which my torso felt like a 50-gallon drum packed with Crisco that’s being gently whipped with a set of old-fashioned hand-cranked egg beaters — followed by the sour stomach all day today to prove it. Ugh. Off now for another swig of Pepto… hope everyone reading this is doing better than me.
Remember that slightly off-color item I posted last week, the one about the 130,000 inflatable novelty breasts that had gone missing somewhere between China and Australia? Well, they’ve been found… turns out there was a paperwork error and the plastic mammaries went to Melbourne instead of Sydney. Employees of Ralph, the men’s mag that purchased the boobies, are even now frantically stuffing them into bags so the holiday issue of the magazine will go out on time.
I must confess to being somewhat disappointed. In the words of one commenter over at Boing Boing, I was looking forward to reports of these things washing ashore somewhere. On the positive side, the article I linked above says that Ralph “is expected to break the Guinness world record for the most boobs given away at one time.”
It’s the story that keeps on giving, I tell you!
I can’t say I’m unhappy with the results of this “Which Action Hero Would You Be?” quiz:
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Suave, sophisticated… yeah, I like the sound of that. And I do look good in a tux, on the very, very rare occasion I’m called upon to wear one. I find it kind of weird, however, that I scored equally on Bond and Batman. What do these characters have in common, aside from access to high-tech gadgets and seemingly unlimited financial resources? Hm. Well, maybe I just answered my own question.
As for the equivalency of Indy and Zorro, well, I suppose they both use a whip, even if Zorro is better known for his swordplay. But wait, none of the questions asked about whips. And since when is The Terminator a hero? Strange…
Via Jim by way of Konstantin.
Something occurred to me yesterday while I was watching a re-run of The Incredible Hulk on our local RTN affiliate. Well, actually it occurred to me during a commercial break: of all the “as seen on TV” crap products that used to fill the airwaves with their seductive flim-flammery during the ’70s and ’80s, how is it that the only one that seems to have followed us into the 21st century is the Chia Pet? Seriously, this is what turns out to be the timeless kitsch classic that endures? Whatever became of the Pocket Fisherman, Mister Microphone, and those el-cheapo plastic boxes that were supposed to let you mold snow bricks and build igloos but somehow never quite worked as advertised? I wonder about these things…
Incidentally, that episode of The Hulk was an unbelievable confluence of nostalgic awesomeness… first of all, it was The Incredible Hulk, a series I watched pretty faithfully as a kid (and yet oddly, I can’t really remember a single individual plotline; of course, they were all pretty much the same plot, weren’t they?). It was set in one of my favorite cities, San Francisco (even though it was obviously filmed on the Universal backlot in Burbank), and the story involved a young cop struggling to choose between the path of peace offered by his zen martial-arts instructor and the violent quest for revenge advocated by his older brother. The older brother was Gerald McRaney of Simon & Simon, another childhood fave series, while the young cop was played by none other than my main man Rick Springfield. The episode felt like it might have been intended as a stealth pilot for a vehicle for Rick, as by the end of it he’s become the new master of the dojo (following the death of the old master) and a private eye who promises to take only the clients he can really help. If it was a pilot, it’s too bad it wasn’t picked up… it might’ve been interesting. Kung Fu meets The Rockford Files, maybe…
Business writing is so painful sometimes…
Some see the emergence of UC&C as the catalyst for a sea change in long-established business organizational models, particularly as new methods of team productivity supplant conventional corporate hierarchies as potent mechanisms for wealth creation.
The first half of that sentence isn’t too bad, but everything from the comma forward… oy. It makes my heart hurt.
A few excerpts from a particularly astute piece at the ever-amusing McSweeny’s called “Fifty Years of Popular Songs Condensed into Single Sentences”:
In case you haven’t noticed, I devote a lot of my energies around this place to memorializing, eulogizing, or otherwise trying to recapture, through whatever magic my words may posses, the recent past: the pre-digital, pre-Internet, pre-adult-responsibility (for me, anyhow) era of the 1970s and ’80s. But sometimes words just aren’t up to the task. Sometimes a little visual aid is helpful. So, for those whippersnappers in the audience who never knew The Way Things Used to Be and for you older folks who still pine for 1985 — you know you do, just admit it! — allow me to present BetaMaXmas.
This fun little website runs YouTube clips of old Christmas specials, holiday-themed episodes of ’80s-vintage sitcoms (watch for a mulleted George Clooney on The Facts of Life!), and appropriate vintage commercials and music videos, all of which would be entertaining enough on its own. But what makes BetaMaXmas a real treasure is the cleaver virtual environment, which you can see in the screengrab above. Yes, kids, that’s really what the world used to look like: tacky wood-veneer paneling, ugly upholstery, a TV screen smaller than the window on a modern microwave oven, and of course the rabbit-ear antennae that make a snowy picture, um, somewhat less snowy. (You can even manipulate the rabbit-ears, for the full old-tymey effect!) The Star Wars poster peeking out from behind the Christmas tree is an especially nice touch, I thought, and don’t neglect to click on the copy of TV Guide up in the corner.
And now if you’ll excuse me, a Very Special Episode of Alf is about to begin, so I’m going to pour myself some ‘nog and put my feet up…
(Via Boing Boing, of course.)
The Girlfriend just called me at home to ask if I’d heard the news: Forrest J. Ackerman, the original and possibly greatest fanboy of us all, died yesterday at the age of 92.
I imagine a lot of my readers probably have no idea who old Forry is, but to those of us who travel in certain rarefied circles, the man is a legend. He founded the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland way back in 1958; it was, so far as I know, the first professional publication devoted exclusively to genre movies. He was a writer and editor, and a literary agent for such giants of science-fiction literature as Isaac Asimov, A.E. van Vogt, and Hugo Gernsback (for whom the distinguished Hugo Awards are named). Forry was the first to publish a short story by some kid named Ray Bradbury. And he is credited with coining the term “sci fi,” much to the chagrin of a certain strain of too-serious-for-their-own-good fans who think this contraction of “science fiction” too undignified and childish.
But most of all, Forry is known for collecting stuff. To every fan with a basement full of cherished memorabilia, Forry is our spiritual godfather. He spent his entire life amassing books, magazines, posters, original art, movie props and costumes — anything and everything that had to do with his beloved horror, sci fi, and fantasy genres. His collection at one time reportedly comprised 300,00 pieces, and was valued in the mid-1960s at $10 million in today’s money.
Some people, maybe even most people who had a collection like that would treat it as a mere investment, keep it to themselves, and worry constantly about its worth and safety. Forry, however, and to his great credit, was always happy to share it with whomever was interested. I’ve heard that all you had to do was show up at his California home, the “Ackermansion,” on a Saturday morning, and he would greet you at the door in Bela Lugosi’s Dracula cape and take you on the grand tour. Anne and I talked several times of making our own pilgrimage to the Ackermansion but just never got around to it.
Sadly, Forry’s collection is mostly gone now, sold off a little at a time over the past decade to cover medical and legal expenses. It’s a damn shame. To paraphrase Indiana Jones, all that stuff belonged in a museum as a monument to one man’s life and passion, and to a big chunk of Hollywood and publishing history. C’est la vie, I suppose. (For the record, I’m proud to own a small piece of Forry’s collection, a few American Cinematographer magazines I purchased off eBay a while back when I heard he was liquidating his stash.)
I never had the opportunity to meet Forrest Ackerman, and that is something I will long regret. He was, by all accounts, one of the truly good guys of this world. And probably of several others, too, given his life’s pursuits. His LA Times obit is here; an older piece containing more information about his collection is here.
Rest in peace, Dr. Acula…
A pretty good laugh, courtesy of SamuraiFrog:
Paris Hilton can’t find a record label willing to release her second album. Between that and Ann Coulter having her jaw wired shut, atheists appear to be losing the argument.
In an unrelated note, the Frog also mentions that remakes have been announced this week of more movies from the ’80s, specifically They Live, Romancing the Stone, and Arthur. While new versions of Romancing the Stone and Arthur sound like disasters waiting to happen, remaking They Live actually isn’t such a bad idea. I just watched this one last week for the first time in 20 years (good lord, how I hate saying things like that!), and I think it’s the exceedingly rare case I mentioned the other day of an idea that didn’t live up to its potential and deserves a second attempt. It had a great premise (an ordinary joe accidentally discovers there are aliens among us disguised as normal human beings, and that they’re controlling us with subliminal messages in our advertising and entertainment) and, if anything, the film’s social commentary probably applies even more now than it did back in 1988 (people are more obsessed than ever with mass media and self-destructive materialism), but holy crap was that movie a mess. All set-up, no pay-off, and a big disappointment coming from one of my favorite directors, John Carpenter. So, assuming that They Live Redux is more thoughtful than the original and not just an amped-up FX spectacle, this is one remake I might actually be interested in seeing…
