Category Archives: Nostalgic Obsessions

04/23/2016 · 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 · 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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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Late To The Party, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Unfairly Maligned

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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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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions

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04/14/2016 · 1:31 pm

When Mike Replaced Joel

By the year 1993, I was hooked something fierce on a cable show called Mystery Science Theater 3000. It combined everything I adored about weird television; puppets, obscure humor, cheesy sets and B-movies. One could learn about the golden age of TV from the well-rounded cast and writers, through their rapid-fire gags and “riffs”. Nobody knew it was a show that would shape the world of entertainment, and become a household word. It was just this wonderful thing we all watched for two hours on Sunday morning, instead of church.

Then word began to spread that the host and creator of the show, Joel Hodgson, was leaving.

Continue reading →

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Filed under Faint Signals, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club

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04/12/2016 · 5:02 pm

Chevy Chase

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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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04/10/2016 · 6:55 pm

Quicksand

What, you’ve never heard of Quicksand? Post-hardcore band out of New York, early nineties?

Okay. Here’s the best song of 1993, and why some of us didn’t care about Nirvana and grunge.

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.

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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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04/03/2016 · 1:07 pm

Forrestal

Forrestal (?-1936) was a competitor of the archaeologist Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr. (1899- ). He was good. He was very, very good.

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On June 12, 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark was released in theaters. It was rated “PG”, which stood for “Parental Guidance”. The basic idea behind this MPAA rating was that parents should be ready to provide guidance for any offspring that might be negatively affected by the film. When things get too “scary”, it’s time for a parent or guardian to step in and say “it’s only a movie.” Which it is. It can in no way physically or mentally hurt you, and anyone who tells you differently is an escaped lunatic.  Continue reading →

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03/24/2016 · 4:05 pm

Reborted

Moviegoers today act like naked Kate Winslet in Titanic, coyly demanding Leonardo DiCaprio to draw her like a French girl. A preternatural relationship has been forged between audience and studio. A production falls all over itself to seduce a fandom, because that’s where the blindly loyal dollars are. If a popular intellectual property is even slightly altered for a motion picture adaptation, it’s headline news, even above mass murder and election-year chicanery.

Eventually, this film will be remade, and this scene will feature different actors, pretty much just to fuck with you.

Eventually, this film will be remade, and this scene will feature different actors, pretty much just to fuck with you.

The movie industry has become such an intellectual wasteland that the 80s era of numerical sequel-mania looks dignified by comparison. Honest promotion and word-of-mouth don’t work anymore; attention span is dead. The only way to really sell a remake is to get people steamed. Take the things viewers loved about an original film, and subvert them. Serves the suckers right anyway, for falling in love with a fictional universe. The names P.T. Barnum and J.J. Abrams aren’t similar for nothing. Continue reading →

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Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Idiot's Delight, Late To The Party, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All

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