Whatever happened to all this season’s
Losers of the year
Every time I got to thinking
Where’d they disappear
Category Archives: Bad Influences
Cheap Trick
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned, Worst Of All
It’s Not Real To Them, Damnit
So. As an adult, you have a problem with a movie that you loved as a child. I see on social media that this is a common grievance. I don’t need to name a film. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of motion pictures that don’t stand up to the intense scrutiny and overthinking of 2017.
It’s not them. It’s you. You are the problem.
I’ll begin with a contemporary example: any current superhero movie. Marvel, DC, independent degeneracy like Deadpool and Kick-Ass; it’s all the same. Permit me to make another assumption- you got all worked-up over seeing the latest hero flick, and you left the theater three hours later feeling empty and disappointed, without knowing why.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Unfairly Maligned
Social Justice Whores
A few years back, I was confused as to why so many people on-line were identifying as “Single Jewish Women”. I thought perhaps it was a hacking incident, or a mass gaslighting (masslighting?). The truth was far more banal.
Hey… remember when dudes (you call them Nazis now, due to your low testosterone) would get together after a long week of work and party hard? They were called Weekend Warriors.
Whatever war they fought in, versus weekends, watery beer, or good taste; it was every bit as real a conflict as the one fought by trendy Social Justice Warriors.
As in, not at all.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Idiot's Delight, Worst Of All
Little Girls, Little Guns
“Little Girls” is the first track off of Only A Lad, the first LP from Los Angeles new-wave band Oingo Boingo. When I was only a lad, it was sort of a personal anthem. You probably know it, it starts with:
I – I – I love little girls, they make me feel so good
I love
Little girls, they make me feel so
Bad
When they’re around they make me feel like I’m the only guy in town
I love
Little girls, they make me feel so
Good
Fairly innocuous, right? It’s cute, if you don’t read too much into it. Or, avoid watching the video.
An Elfmanic episode.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Hiatus Hernia
An object in motion tends to stay in motion. An object at rest tends to stay at rest.
From “Prince Variant: Seller of Collectibles”, BIUL #2 (2015).
More accurately, an object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless a force acts upon it. This is Newton’s law of motion. It applies to the average blogger thusly; if you’re having a good posting run, it will continue until some force acts upon it.
Like reality.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Late To The Party, Nostalgic Obsessions, Site Stuff
The Orphanage at Dreary Knolls
Ralph Reese is a brilliant illustrator whose art I first discovered in Choose Your Own Adventure books; he was my personal favorite. His work leapt off the page more than the others, owing to his apprenticeship under the great Wally Wood. In my teens, I found reprints of Ralph’s collaboration with Byron Preiss for National Lampoon, “One Year Affair”. I dreamed of being able to draw like Ralph Reese.
When Ralph did a feature in CRAZY magazine, it was a cause for celebration. Because Ralph wasn’t just a master illustrator.
Ralph was also a master of making you crap your pants.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions, O'Shloktoberfest
On The Turning Away
It’s time for us, as a species, to make a healthy admission.
The world we knew and loved, just years ago, is dead. It’s gone. It’s never coming back. Not even as a side mission in a GTA game. Now we are left with the nagging sensation that things were once better. It’s too painful to consider the reasons why. Hold on to the memory, and carry on.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Worst Of All
King Missile
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current
Million Dollar Extreme
I love great sketch comedy, and as demonstrated on this site, I have tremendous nostalgia for the video industry of the 1980’s and ’90s. By nature I am protective of those things, out of love. I have little tolerance of exploitation of them.
I believe the modern peak of sketch comedy came with two shows; Mr. Show with Bob & David, and The Kids In The Hall (both on HBO). Since the 1990s, these programs set the gold standard. Inevitably, new sketch comedy shows are compared to them, and they seldom hold up. I don’t think The State gelled until they became Reno 911. Broken Lizard has fantastic moments; generally one or two per film. Too many comedy groups nowadays are post-UCB; all manic energy, no focus. That’s fine if the group is performing live for an drunken bar audience. TV is a different matter.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Nostalgic Obsessions, Unfairly Maligned
How To Be Garbage
[Author’s Note: This article is about how to be actual garbage, as in waste and refuse, not how to be the band “Garbage”.]
Here’s a hypothetical and hard-to-believe scenario. You’re talking to someone about how much you like my comics. Just go with it, alright? The person you’re talking to suddenly pipes up with, “Oh yeah, I know that guy. Have for years. He’s a real piece of shit. Let me tell you all about that pussy.”
Congratulations! You’ve had an encounter with garbage.
This could be you!
It’s not difficult. Garbage is everywhere. It stinks, and we all have to deal with it sooner or later.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Idiot's Delight, Site Stuff, Worst Of All
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