Recently in The Glass Teat Category

The other day my brain wandered all the way back to a dim, cobwebby memory of my childhood in the 1970s, to something I thought I recalled seeing in those long ago days of macrame' and man-perms... a made-for-TV movie that had something to do with two kids and a sea turtle into whose shell they carved their initials... and then as grown-ups these two encounter a gargantuan monster turtle, which naturally enough is revealed in the very final shot to be their turtle, for it still had their initials in its shell...

Now, I tend to have surprisingly good recall of the stuff I saw and heard as a kid -- uncannily good, according to The Girlfriend, who despite being only two years younger than me remembers practically nothing of the '70s -- and my memories of TV are often especially clear, despite not having seen some of this stuff since it was originally broadcast. There was, for instance, an episode of Space: 1999 in which a monster pulled screaming astronauts underneath its body and then spat back a smoking, human-shaped pile of cinders. (It's called "Dragon's Domain," and looking at the comments over on YouTube, it appears I wasn't the only one who was completely traumatized by it.) And then there was an episode of the Patrick Duffy series Man from Atlantis in which people were infested by mind-controlling "spores" that looked like little blue lights. I remember KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park and The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (which also featured KISS, interestingly enough). Hell, I even remember a cheapo TV movie about Captain Nemo of 20,000 Leagues fame going up against a submarine-based laser weapon controlled by some kind of alien. All of those things are -- and always have been -- pretty clear in my mind. I've always known that those experiences did happen, that those movies and episodes existed. I retained at least a vague idea of the plotlines and casts and titles. But this turtle thing... all I had of it were the kids and the initials carved into the shell, and that stinger ending. I couldn't remember a title or a plot. Just... images. I briefly wondered if maybe I had dreamed the whole thing -- there are certain, very intense dreams I had years ago that I still recall in flashes, and I considered the possibility that this turtle movie was one of those.

There was only one way to be sure... so I fired up the Google-ator and typed in three words: "tv movie turtle." And lo and behold, one of the very first items it returned was a cult-site review of something called The Bermuda Depths:

Broadcasted on Friday, January 27, 1978 on the ABC Friday Night Movie, THE BERMUDA DEPTHS is an American made-for-TV movie that was released theatrically in some foreign countries soon afterwards. Often sought out as the "giant turtle movie" or "that movie with the girl with glowing green eyes" by IMDB.com and Ebay searchers who cannot remember the film's title...

Well, that's all I needed to read. The review goes on to describe in great detail a story that doesn't ring even small, unobtrusive bells. But I know that was my turtle movie. And from the sound of the review, it was very surrealistic, which explains my impression that it could have been a dream.

Curiosity aroused, I clicked the mouse a few more times... and learned that, of course, this thing is available on DVD as one of the manufacture-on-demand offerings from the Warner Archive, only $14.95. I filed that little tidbit away, thinking I may take a gamble one of these days and buy a copy, just to see what the heck it is that's lurking in the musty corner of my memory. And that's basically where this story would've ended... if later the same day I hadn't spotted a news item about a man finding a turtle into which his son had carved his initials... in 1965.

Sometimes the echoes and resonances get to be a little spooky.

Amusing quote of the day, taken from an article about Ryan Seacrest, the terminally bland television and radio personality whom many say is the new Dick Clark:

Seacrest has become so entwined with Clark's story that when news of [Clark's] death broke, it was hard not to picture Seacrest kneeling in some dark rite, screaming to the heavens as Clark's power possessed him, "Highlander"-style.

I long suspected Dick Clark must have been immortal, so, no, that's really not such a difficult thing to imagine at all. Hmm.

Happily ganked from Jaquandor:

History has already recorded that Barack Obama was the first black president of the United States, but personally I think it's important to note that he's also our first Trekkie president... at least the first who's willing to own up to it! Look at that grin... he's as thrilled as any of my fellow nerds to be standing next to a pop-cultural legend, the lovely Nichelle Nichols, a.k.a. Lt. Uhura from the original Star Trek.

For the record, Nichelle was the first celebrity I ever encountered. It was at a one-day Star Trek mini-con held at the Salt Lake Airport Hilton back in '87 or '88, during my freshman year of college. To place that in some context, the last Trek movie to play in theaters had been Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home -- that's the one with the whales, for you civilians out there -- the previous year, and Star Trek: The Next Generation had just gotten off to a bumpy start in television syndication. (I didn't think it would survive its first season, to be honest. Boy, was I wrong!) I'll admit to being a wee bit awestruck when I found myself standing on the other side of an autograph table from a woman I'd been watching on TV since before I could remember, but to my everlasting gratitude, Nichelle turned out to be as warm, gracious, friendly, and beautiful in person as she'd ever been on screen. It looks to me like none of that has changed...

Ah, the 1970s...



Hat tip to Christopher Mills for bringing my attention to this.

I'm only vaguely aware of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire -- I've heard the title and know that it's a period piece set in Atlantic City, and that it stars Steve Buscemi, an actor who could radiate a clammy aura of sleaze even while baking an apple pie in a field of sunflowers -- but this has got to be the most awesome (and possibly the most expensive) promotional idea I've ever run across:

Starting on Saturday, September 3rd an authentic vintage 1920's train will run on the express 2/3 track in Manhattan throughout September (specifically, from 12 to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays). Originally operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) system, the train began service back in 1917 and will once again be operational. Customers who have the opportunity to ride the vintage train will be transported back in time to the Prohibition era with authentic details such as rattan seats, ceiling fans and drop sash windows, as well as a custom branded interior featuring Boardwalk Empire-inspired period artwork.

Scott Beale over at Laughing Squid was lucky enough to encounter this vintage train over the weekend. Here's a little video he made of the experience:

What a cool idea. Somebody in HBO's promotions department ought to get a bonus for this one. Scott also took a few stills; you can see them here. And the passage I quoted above came from here. And even though I live 2,000 miles away from New York, I am sufficiently intrigued by this stunt that I just may give Boardwalk Empire a look, so I guess the promo worked, eh?

I know I just recently did a TV-themed meme, but this one (already done by Jaquandor and SamuraiFrog) looked sufficiently different to be worth the time, and besides, last week was one of those weeks when I couldn't seem to produce an original and coherent blog entry to save my life -- even the weekend was a washout, thanks to a overnight snowstorm that brought down tree branches all over the Compound and left me with a chainsaw in my hand for most of yesterday -- but I could answer a couple of questions here and there in between doing other things. Maybe I ought to try one of those "Ask Me Anything" deals like Jaquandor and John Scalzi both do...

Anyhow, the meme begins below the fold:

Yeah, I know, I'm a little late with this one. Usher, would you please show that heckler to the door? Thanks. I'll wait until he's... oh, okay, good now we can talk.

Last night, I was trying to look something up when I realized that I never got around to doing my customary overview of the books, movies, and home video I enjoyed in 2009. I've managed to hit every other year since 2005, but somehow '09 got away from me. Well, anyone who knows me knows I can't tolerate that sort of inconsistency! Luckily, I was able to find my handwritten notes for that year -- yes, I keep notes about these things -- so I've now been able to put together the official Simple Tricks and Nonsense 2009 Media Wrap-Up.

(I realize, of course, that this information is likely of very little interest to anyone but myself. I'm only going to the trouble of making a blog entry at this late date for my own records, and to satisfy my OCD. Thanks for your understanding. If you're vacillating about whether to read on, it might help you to know that I'm not going to bother with any commentary on this one, it'll just be lists of titles.)

I struggled all last week to compose one of my occasional political cris de couer, this one motivated by the nonsense currently going on in Wisconsin. If you've been in a cave for the last month -- and I know at least one of my Loyal Readers whose circumstances could be described as such -- Wisconsin's Republican governor is using a budgetary crisis, which he seems to have engineered himself, as a pretense to try and force his state's public-sector labor unions into giving up their collective bargaining rights. In shorter words, he's union-busting. But he's not busting all the public-sector unions. No, he's only after the ones whose members tend to vote Democratic. The Republican-leaning police and firefighter unions are safe. Which means this whole exercise is transparently partisan and blatantly ideological. I'm not interested in debating the pros and cons of unions -- Kevin Drum pretty much sums up my opinion here, and says it better than I could anyhow -- but the more unsavory political truth of the Wisconsin deal makes me mad. It is only the most obvious example of how Republicans nationwide are trying to take advantage of a shaky economy to ram through a radical right-wing social agenda that they haven't managed to accomplish in decades of trying. In other words, they're trying to kill things Republicans hate on principle anyway, while saying they have to do it to get the economy going.

Bullshit.

Here's the thing: if you really care about cutting the deficit, then you've got to be willing to at least consider letting the Bush tax cuts expire. The tax rates during the Clinton years were hardly onerous -- they were lower than the taxes in the prosperous 1950s -- and they'd go a long ways toward balancing the books. And you also ought to be trying to find a way to convince the wealthy -- who seem to think they're above paying taxes -- that they are still part of this country, even if they live behind locked gates, and it's immoral of them not to contribute to the common good. Oh, and you'd get serious about making corporations pay their fair share too. And while I'm pipe-dreaming anyhow, how about re-regulating the financial industry that caused this mess anyhow? And sending a few CEOs to jail? Or at least taking their solid-gold parachutes away from them and giving the money to the employees who got laid off to bolster the stockholders' dividends last quarter... but noooo, that's class warfare and we can't have that. Not unless it's being waged on the middle-class people who actually do the work in this country and are fast on their way to becoming vassals of a new feudalism. The sad thing is, a lot of them seem to actually want that...

Yeah, anyhow that's the gist of what I've been trying to write, but the damn thing just hasn't wanted to come together in a satisfying way, so tonight I decided "Screw it, let's do a nice harmless meme." And as fate would have it, SamuraiFrog recently provided one...