Category Archives: Bad Influences

04/30/2016 · 7:42 pm

Bad Cinéaste

I have a confession to make. Though I consider myself quite the erudite film scholar, in many ways I have no cause to place myself above the average lumpen moviegoer.

  • I confuse the name ZaSu Pitts with Zuzu Petals, a minor character from the execrable Andrew Dice Clay comedy The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.badcin1
  • I am inexplicably incensed at the sight of the cover of the film Metropia, and Audrey Tautou’s picture on the front of Amélie. To date, I have not seen Amélie, even though it’s from a director I like, thanks to its coy, nauseatingly precious cover shot.
  • I haven’t seen Precious, except on YouTube, because apparently I laugh at the wrong things.
  • I can’t stand whispering in movies any more than I can in the theater. A notable exception would be 1982’s Poltergeist. M. Night Shyamalan has abused whispering so much his actors should be forced to use air horns.
  • I’ve never seen Avatar. Any movie that uses a default computer font for its title isn’t worth a billion dollar budget, let alone my attention.
    Continue reading →

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04/23/2016 · 2:02 pm

“Dental Hygiene Dilemma”

Thanks to the generous social programs in my fair city, I recently got my teeth fixed, ending over a decade of busted-molar jokes and references in my work. In essence, I no longer feel like I have a mouthful of bloody razors. Once everything healed up, I couldn’t believe how much better I felt overall. Not that I consider myself a lion, but I couldn’t keep from thinking of that old fable with the thorn in the paw. Now I can chew food with my entire mouth, instead of just a small section, gingerly. It’s the little things in life.

If your teeth don’t hurt, or you have easy access to a dentist, thank your lucky stars. I’ll let you in on a little secret; us artists are merely holding on to whatever choppers we can before we croak. There is no “insurance” or “healthcare” for us; it does not exist. These are the breaks. If you want security, you go into insurance. Not drawing cartoons.

Wanna watch a dental hygiene movie?

Wanna watch a dental hygiene movie?

Unless, you know, you sell out, to a company. Continue reading →

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· 10:20 am

“Retrovertigo”

In 1999, four years after their previous album, Mr. Bungle released California. My friend George and I were/are slavering fanatics of Mr. Bungle. That shirt that says “There’s a tractor in my balls again”? I had that. I wore it so often I destroyed it, even after it survived a GWAR show in 1997.

This is the same one I had. The big B on the back was once stuck to my skin with GWAR semen and blood. Who amongst you would admit to such a thing?

This is the same one I had. The big B on the back was once stuck to my skin with GWAR semen and blood. Who amongst you would admit to such a thing?

So let’s just say we were very excited about Bungle’s third album. The band’s website teased this excitement, with minute-long samples of each track on California. This was 1999. I was using my first PC, the one I got from Gateway, which came with a set of Boston Acoustic speakers that I now use with my Xbox 360. Good, long-lasting speakers, my point here would be.  Continue reading →

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04/21/2016 · 8:08 pm

A Fart In The Face

Earlier this year I crossed a boundary with the dog.

A different dog.

This is a different dog.

I’d eaten some godawful fried thing or another, and feeling a buildup of gas, I leaped over to the dog, crouched directly above his face, and knocked a king-size fart across his nose.

Triumphant, I turned to face the dog, expecting adoration for this generous gastric flotilla. Instead, the dog regarded me with a reproachful look, the kind I expect people receive when they jiggle their comatose grandmother’s breast for a family photo.

“What’s the matter?” I asked the dog in plain English, as though he would reply in kind. “Don’t you, a dog, enjoy the smell of shit?” Continue reading →

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· 4:16 pm

Lao Che

Lao Che (1885-19??) was a Chinese crime lord, who made several attempts on the life of archaeologist Indiana Jones in the 1930s.

Lao Che (c.), with sons Kao Kan (l.) and Chen (r.)

Lao Che (c.), with sons Chen (l., Chua Kah Joo) and Kao Kan (r., Ric Young)

Lao’s nightclub, the Club Obi-Wan, was a front, and the headquarters of his criminal empire. The Manchurian government hired Lao to secure an urn holding the cremains of the first Manchu emperor, which had been stolen by thieves in 1903. Jones brought the urn to Club Obi-Wan, trading it with Lao for a huge diamond, but Lao double-crossed Jones by poisoning his drink. Thus begins a thrilling action sequence as pandemonium and balloons overtake the club, while Jones flails to recover the antidote Lao had taunted him with. Continue reading →

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04/19/2016 · 5:46 pm

“I Touch Myself”

I first saw it in the dormitory, in 1990. I knew the song, but I’d never seen the video before. Myself and about five other male freshmen, stopped cold in front of someone’s TV. Upon the screen of which, a voluptuous, thick woman rolled around in a fishnet that seemed to conceal everything and nothing simultaneously.

She sang about touching herself.

Even still, the tone of her voice felt innocent somehow, like it was a surprising confession. Also, the singer had very large breasts. It was a lot to take, for a music video.

Continue reading →

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04/16/2016 · 3:39 pm

Windows of America

In college, I split-majored, in both graphic design and illustration. I’m a cartoonist, but when I graduated high school, that wasn’t a common part of art-school curriculum. In illustration, I learned the most important aspect of rendering; figure studies. After all, there will never come a time when human anatomical knowledge is unnecessary. The skill to draw any part of the body you inhabit will never hold you back.

However, I was naive in my choice of studies. I was so eager to learn all that I could, I didn’t grasp that graphic design requires the left (analytical) side of the brain, and illustration (creative) requires the right. For a green teen, it was too much; I burned out and then dropped out. I couldn’t jockey back and forth across the hippocampus day after day. While trying to ink the sewer grate for the cover of the second Mike The Pod Comix, I had a psychotic episode and hurled my sketchbook down the dorm hallway.

The sewer grate, folks. The sewer grate. (1991)

The sewer grate, folks. The sewer grate. (1991)

If none of this makes sense to you, then hello, normal person.  Continue reading →

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04/12/2016 · 5:02 pm

Chevy Chase

chevychase3

It really gets my goat when people talk shit about Chevy Chase. Not just as a fan of his work, or as an admirer. I think some people judge Chevy Chase unfairly, with a scrutiny they do not apply to other comedians or entertainers.

Okay, you read an article relating an incident where Chevy Chase was a jerk. So what? Did he come to your house and fuck with you? Did he push your mother into the street? This is Chevy Chase we’re talking about. I give him absolute carte blanc to be as big a jerk as he likes. Continue reading →

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04/08/2016 · 6:03 pm

Stickers All Over The Door

Those of us who were children in the late 1970s remember a form of schoolyard wampum that was ubiquitous at the time. We traded them with each other, and bought them from the corner sweet shop with our allowance, for 25 cents a pack. We’d huddle and inspect each other’s collections, muttering “got it, got it, need it, got it, need it.” We carefully stored them in plastic sleeves for the future, in meticulous fashion.

stickers1

Haha! I was totally kidding about that last one. We stuck them all over our bedroom door, until our parents grew furious and made us scrape them off with a putty knife, turning them into garbage.

They were STICKERS. Continue reading →

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04/06/2016 · 4:04 pm

I Don’t Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)

"The sedative for coughs", until 1913.

“The sedative for coughs”, until 1913.

Here in Atlanta’s Little Five Points neighborhood, we lost another local musician to heroin. I won’t write his name here, because I don’t want to inextricably link him with the drug that killed him. But there’s an anguished frustration every time this happens, when the needle takes yet one more.

Junk has been a cancer on music since before Charlie Parker played a note. It has taken too many casualties to list here. It seeps into cinema and art like toxic groundwater. No one does better work while on heroin. It improves no experience; it only makes one atrophy. What it does, is put your soul in terrible pain, and then dulls it. Nothing it does helps you or anyone else in any legitimate way. Continue reading →

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