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All I Want For Christmas Is The Old You Back
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Nostalgic Obsessions, Podcastery, Site Stuff
Not For You
I’m old enough to remember when Bill Maher was a stand-up comedian; i.e., a person who stands behind a microphone and makes people laugh. I have vague memories of Kathy Griffin doing the same thing. As far as I can determine now, Maher and Griffin just make people mad, by saying or doing something deliberately inappropriate, and then flaying open their breast in apology, crocodile tears a-flow.
Then they go back to being unfunny. Because funny ain’t what pays their bills.
More integrity and realism than anything Maher has done since.
I’m also old enough to recall when Maher’s show Politically Incorrect lived up to its name, instead of being a vehicle for trendy virtue-signals. My pal Jim Goad once made an appearance. It was far more fringy and loose. Now it’s a reductive caricature, a safe forum for “differing viewpoints” (vetted by the network/sponsors). It’s a funnier joke as it is than anything that ever came out of Bill Maher’s mouth.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Idiot's Delight, Worst Of All
Not The Nineties!
The May 2000 issue of The Last Laugh contained a do-it-yourself board game as its centerfold. It was called Not The Nineties!
I don’t know if anyone ever played it; I doubt it. The potshots are pretty brutal for a fun diversion. What can I say, the 1990s were actually pretty brutal themselves. The game provides a reasonably accurate simulation of trudging through ten unpleasant years.
(Printable game board included at the end of this article!)
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Magazine Rack
A Toast To Absent Friends
Imagine if legendary and revered comedian Bill Hicks hadn’t died in 1994.
Some people believe Alex Jones is really Bill Hicks. I am not among them.
What if- just hear me out- he supported Trump in 2016? How would that make you feel about him? What if he’d gone “right-wing”, pre- or post-9/11? Would he still be referenced in Tool songs?
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions
Avuncular Nation
avuncular (adj.); of or relating to an uncle.
That’s right. There’s a word for that.
Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan)
That means there’s a behavior paradigm necessitating a descriptive adjective. A better term than “uncle-like”, which is hard to say.
Avuncular.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Podcastery, Thousand Listen Club
The 10 Best Kenny vs. Spenny Moments
From 2002 to 2010, two childhood best friends competed for dominance in a Toronto apartment house. Those friends are Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice, and on the Canadian reality show Kenny vs. Spenny, these competitions and their outcomes would be recorded for posterity. Each program, the loser would be subjected to a humiliation of the winner’s choosing. It provided a clearer picture of the male psyche than anything on television before or since.
Men think in terms of winning and losing. We see humiliation as undesirable but often inevitable. This runs counter to the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. You want a trophy? You better walk through fire to earn it. Otherwise, what does it mean? And why should your trophy be on the shelf with the others?
Even though the competitions in KvS are often simple, they become psychological endurance tests, and because Hotz and Rice have such magnetism as a team, we get a complex picture of the struggle for victory. Kenny is conniving and will resort to cheating; Spenny is guileless and strives to compete honestly and respectfully. They’re a compelling yin and yang, and since they’re Canadians, they are to funny what birds are to flying. There are cameras trained on them because they are funny simply being. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Thousand Listen Club
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.
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Filed under Faint Signals, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club
The Mute Button
Now that everyone has a smartphone, no one cares about remote control.
The remote control used to be a powerful object. Couples fought over it. Some televisions would not operate without one, necessitating a trip to the local Radio Shack for another “universal remote”. Dads would exact a stranglehold over the remote, and moms would hide it on purpose, feigning ignorance while secretly enjoying the resultant frustration.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions
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