Monday, October 25, 2004
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
I DIG EVERYTHING
Here's the audioblog that Lori and I started up. It doesn't play on the computer here at Westward Seafoods, so take a look, and if the buttons don't work for you either, let us know.
Here's the audioblog that Lori and I started up. It doesn't play on the computer here at Westward Seafoods, so take a look, and if the buttons don't work for you either, let us know.
Monday, October 18, 2004
MUNDO DEPRAVADOS
Formerly a vocalist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the star of several all-black westerns from the 30s (Harlem on the Prairie, The Bronze Buckaroo), actor Herb Jeffries made his first and only stab at film direction with this addled comic nudie-thriller. When a madman stalks and slashes a group of strippers (who also moonlight as TV aerobics models), it’s up to a pair of wisecracking cops to get to the bottom of the mystery. Jeffries’ wife, stripper Tempest Storm is the leading lady, sharing the spotlight with Johnnie Decker and Larry Reed, two third-rate nightclub comics who stumble their way through the plot tossing out leaden one-liners and unrecognizable celebrity impressions. While Mundo Depravados isn’t funny, sexy or scary, the film is a good-natured slice of cheesecake, despite the bald-faced misogyny on display. Their profession may involve public disrobing, but these poor girls are spied upon no matter where they congregate. Whether it’s in their changing rooms at the TV station or a private all-girl party, there’s always some pitiful peeper enjoying the view through a secretly drilled hole or convenient vent. With only two real “suspects,” the mystery’s conclusion won’t surprise anyone (except the moronic onscreen detectives), but by that point the viewer will have either been lulled to sleep by Storm’s wooden monotone or charmed into submission by the sweet, daffy dancers who relax after hours by stripping for each other. - FRED BELDIN
Formerly a vocalist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the star of several all-black westerns from the 30s (Harlem on the Prairie, The Bronze Buckaroo), actor Herb Jeffries made his first and only stab at film direction with this addled comic nudie-thriller. When a madman stalks and slashes a group of strippers (who also moonlight as TV aerobics models), it’s up to a pair of wisecracking cops to get to the bottom of the mystery. Jeffries’ wife, stripper Tempest Storm is the leading lady, sharing the spotlight with Johnnie Decker and Larry Reed, two third-rate nightclub comics who stumble their way through the plot tossing out leaden one-liners and unrecognizable celebrity impressions. While Mundo Depravados isn’t funny, sexy or scary, the film is a good-natured slice of cheesecake, despite the bald-faced misogyny on display. Their profession may involve public disrobing, but these poor girls are spied upon no matter where they congregate. Whether it’s in their changing rooms at the TV station or a private all-girl party, there’s always some pitiful peeper enjoying the view through a secretly drilled hole or convenient vent. With only two real “suspects,” the mystery’s conclusion won’t surprise anyone (except the moronic onscreen detectives), but by that point the viewer will have either been lulled to sleep by Storm’s wooden monotone or charmed into submission by the sweet, daffy dancers who relax after hours by stripping for each other. - FRED BELDIN
A weekend of Rebel Yell and water-filtered smoke has drained me of anything usable. Sore-throated, vague headache, dislocation ... I slept late, had a bad breakfast and here I am at "work," not even trying. I assume I'll have a few good hours later, like I usually do, just enough time to get the mandatory tasks out of the way before I crash again.
Saturday was great, Lori and I spent all day shopping. Normally I don't go in for consumerism, but we needed to pick up gifts for a friend's wedding, and that's a good excuse to haunt the bookstores and second-hand joints. I got a few publications for myself (tax write-off stuff) plus a nice double-feature DVD of GLEN OR GLENDA and JAIL BAIT. We got a lot of stuff packed for the big move, but we're still way off the mark ... if anyone has any moving boxes we can use, mail them to us, please.
I encourage everyone within eyeshot to run out and find a copy of THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION ... it's easily the best giant spider invasion movie ever filmed in Wisconsin. "Starring" Alan Hale Jr. and no one else, it's quite sublime and is sure to tame any demons you might be battling.
We tried starting an audioblog this weekend, but it really hasn't worked the way we want it yet. We signed up with audioblog.com, which promised a fool-proof way to post songs for $4.95 a month. Unfortunately we don't have the proper software to transform CDs into MP3s ... also, the format is a little screwy, the end result isn't a downloadable song file, just something you hit "play" and listen to. Does anybody know anything about this subject? We sure as hell don't, but I have so many wonderful records to share with the world ... not to mention the celebrity impressions I've been working on.
Saturday was great, Lori and I spent all day shopping. Normally I don't go in for consumerism, but we needed to pick up gifts for a friend's wedding, and that's a good excuse to haunt the bookstores and second-hand joints. I got a few publications for myself (tax write-off stuff) plus a nice double-feature DVD of GLEN OR GLENDA and JAIL BAIT. We got a lot of stuff packed for the big move, but we're still way off the mark ... if anyone has any moving boxes we can use, mail them to us, please.
I encourage everyone within eyeshot to run out and find a copy of THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION ... it's easily the best giant spider invasion movie ever filmed in Wisconsin. "Starring" Alan Hale Jr. and no one else, it's quite sublime and is sure to tame any demons you might be battling.
We tried starting an audioblog this weekend, but it really hasn't worked the way we want it yet. We signed up with audioblog.com, which promised a fool-proof way to post songs for $4.95 a month. Unfortunately we don't have the proper software to transform CDs into MP3s ... also, the format is a little screwy, the end result isn't a downloadable song file, just something you hit "play" and listen to. Does anybody know anything about this subject? We sure as hell don't, but I have so many wonderful records to share with the world ... not to mention the celebrity impressions I've been working on.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
CNN.com - Study: One in 100 adults asexual - Oct 14, 2004
Oh, great ... now we gotta give THESE assholes equal rights under the law too. When will this madness end?
Oh, great ... now we gotta give THESE assholes equal rights under the law too. When will this madness end?
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
CHEERLEADER CAMP
Simple-minded teen sex humor is punctuated with graphic slasher murders in this mediocre genre effort. Also known as Bloody Pom Poms, the film takes advantage of its central character's frequent nightmares to clog up the narrative with disturbing dream sequences. Further confusing matters is the fact that all the pretty young cheerleaders look about the same, so once the bodies start dropping it's easy to stop caring who gets it and when. Cheerleader Camp tries hard to win us over, offering goofy setpieces like horny old men spraying themselves in the face with hoses, a football-themed sex fantasy and the most horrible "mooning" sequence ever filmed. Cheerleader Camp won’t hold pleasure for any except for the most dedicated Z-level celebrity watchers. Exploitation vet George “Buck” Flower mumbles and scowls his way through his role as a crusty red herring, and future hardcore porn star Terri Weigel gets some practice from a garden tool. Ex-teenager Leif Garrett is bloodless as a philandering boyfriend, and his performance is distinguished only by an awful gelled-up hairdo and his weak, white rap duet with morbidly obese sidekick Travis McKenna. Betsy Russell had a healthy career in low budget, low effort exploitation films during the 80s, playing the title characters in Tomboy and Avenging Angel along with starring here. There are two Playboy Playmates and one Penthouse Pet among the toothsome castmembers, and director John Quinn went on to helm an assortment of softcore sex films like Fast Lane to Vegas and Sex Court: The Movie.
Simple-minded teen sex humor is punctuated with graphic slasher murders in this mediocre genre effort. Also known as Bloody Pom Poms, the film takes advantage of its central character's frequent nightmares to clog up the narrative with disturbing dream sequences. Further confusing matters is the fact that all the pretty young cheerleaders look about the same, so once the bodies start dropping it's easy to stop caring who gets it and when. Cheerleader Camp tries hard to win us over, offering goofy setpieces like horny old men spraying themselves in the face with hoses, a football-themed sex fantasy and the most horrible "mooning" sequence ever filmed. Cheerleader Camp won’t hold pleasure for any except for the most dedicated Z-level celebrity watchers. Exploitation vet George “Buck” Flower mumbles and scowls his way through his role as a crusty red herring, and future hardcore porn star Terri Weigel gets some practice from a garden tool. Ex-teenager Leif Garrett is bloodless as a philandering boyfriend, and his performance is distinguished only by an awful gelled-up hairdo and his weak, white rap duet with morbidly obese sidekick Travis McKenna. Betsy Russell had a healthy career in low budget, low effort exploitation films during the 80s, playing the title characters in Tomboy and Avenging Angel along with starring here. There are two Playboy Playmates and one Penthouse Pet among the toothsome castmembers, and director John Quinn went on to helm an assortment of softcore sex films like Fast Lane to Vegas and Sex Court: The Movie.
Friday, October 08, 2004
Thursday, October 07, 2004
My paternal grandfather died today. I must come from good genes, though, since he was 90 years old and this is the first immediate relative I've had pass on ... at 37 that's not a bad average, but it's getting late and none of us have all that much time left. I'm not sad, exactly, but I am worried about my father and grandmother, who are certainly feeling this loss a hundred times more than me. So don't cry for me ... far as I'm concerned, anyone who makes it to 90 has won the trophy and should be celebrated rather than mourned.
I'd like to publicly thank him for taking me fishing in the Atlantic ocean, where I caught a hammerhead shark (no exaggeration ... it was a short one, about two feet long, but a fuckin' hammerhead all the same and I got to eat it too). Also thanks for helping me paint a crude and fanciful picture of a Viking ship which still adorns my wall ... my grandfather was an amateur painter in his retirement years, cranking out hundreds of landscapes and lots of bird paintings. What a life, man, he spent thirty years of retirement in Florida painting and fishing, twenty of which were spent in good health with his wife in a pink house with a canal in the backyard and lime trees in the lawn. He worked for it, of course, a full stretch with General Motors in Flint, but he was one of the few who actually got the reward he earned.
I want to go to the funeral but I'm deathly afraid of flying. Taking off work, who cares, jacking up my credit card, who cares, but the thought of having to get up in the air in one of those rattling death traps is already making me sick. But I think I'm gonna go, regardless ... if the plane ends up crashing you can enjoy this entry as an "eerie" "premonition" of my own "death." Hold on to those Clutters singles, they may finally be worth something by next Friday ...
AGAIN WITH THE GRANDFATHER ...
How could I forget ... my grandfather (Marion Beldin) also taught himself to play the organ during his retirement, and he played often, mostly popular standards from earlier in the century. However, one of his many songbooks also had a few contemporary numbers, and when I was first goofing around with the guitar, I stumbled upon the charts for Bob Seger's "Night Moves." I never cared much for that song, still don't (although I'll fistfight anyone who puts the man down), but that instantly recognizable riff was also written out in guitar tabliture. G-G-G-G-F-C-C-C-C-F-G ... a fuckin' monkey can play it, but it's the very first time I was able to pick out a recognizable tune, and it made all the difference towards whether I was going to keep hammerin' at the thing or simply set the guitar down next to my trombone, model rockets and Boy Scout handbook.
This is why I think of my grandfather whenever I hear "Night Moves" ... and vice-versa.
I'd like to publicly thank him for taking me fishing in the Atlantic ocean, where I caught a hammerhead shark (no exaggeration ... it was a short one, about two feet long, but a fuckin' hammerhead all the same and I got to eat it too). Also thanks for helping me paint a crude and fanciful picture of a Viking ship which still adorns my wall ... my grandfather was an amateur painter in his retirement years, cranking out hundreds of landscapes and lots of bird paintings. What a life, man, he spent thirty years of retirement in Florida painting and fishing, twenty of which were spent in good health with his wife in a pink house with a canal in the backyard and lime trees in the lawn. He worked for it, of course, a full stretch with General Motors in Flint, but he was one of the few who actually got the reward he earned.
I want to go to the funeral but I'm deathly afraid of flying. Taking off work, who cares, jacking up my credit card, who cares, but the thought of having to get up in the air in one of those rattling death traps is already making me sick. But I think I'm gonna go, regardless ... if the plane ends up crashing you can enjoy this entry as an "eerie" "premonition" of my own "death." Hold on to those Clutters singles, they may finally be worth something by next Friday ...
AGAIN WITH THE GRANDFATHER ...
How could I forget ... my grandfather (Marion Beldin) also taught himself to play the organ during his retirement, and he played often, mostly popular standards from earlier in the century. However, one of his many songbooks also had a few contemporary numbers, and when I was first goofing around with the guitar, I stumbled upon the charts for Bob Seger's "Night Moves." I never cared much for that song, still don't (although I'll fistfight anyone who puts the man down), but that instantly recognizable riff was also written out in guitar tabliture. G-G-G-G-F-C-C-C-C-F-G ... a fuckin' monkey can play it, but it's the very first time I was able to pick out a recognizable tune, and it made all the difference towards whether I was going to keep hammerin' at the thing or simply set the guitar down next to my trombone, model rockets and Boy Scout handbook.
This is why I think of my grandfather whenever I hear "Night Moves" ... and vice-versa.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Friday, October 01, 2004
Had trouble sleeping again last night … I dreamt of barbed wire and poison ivy, forced to choose which I would walk upon, with a pair of exultant comrades who found the game exhilarating and life-affirming. I awoke with vivid memories of an old girlfriend from my pre-drinking age era whose virginity I took reluctantly (at her request) … somehow one recollection led to another, skipping across the years and a hundred forgotten co-workers and acquaintances, a flood of anecdotes dislodged at two AM to threaten my rest. It took a while to relax, thank God for my fortune and count to one hundred before I could drift off again into puzzling dreams of murky messages.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
