The life of a hardcore junkie.
Tag Archives: New Jersey
Thrills: A Retrospective
The life of a hardcore junkie.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club
Great Hamsters I Have Known
Today, a great hamster was laid to rest. His name was Boris.
We must not be sad, and instead celebrate the all-too-brief life of a beloved creature. Boris was curious, friendly, and adored by all who knew him; even the folks who disliked his kind. By some cosmic coincidence, the grey-and-white patches on his back formed a big “B”. Continue reading
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Career Immolation: A User’s Guide
They say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Of course there is, when the public asks;
“Whatever happened to that guy?”
And then the public remembers, “Oh yeah. That happened.”
In the late 1990s, MTV gave Canadian public access personality Tom Green his own show. It was a raucous, prank-filled half-hour wherein Green literally abused and humiliated every single person he encountered, while affecting an oblivious, addled mien. It was for the most part very funny.
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Late To The Party, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All
Fear Of Darkness, Boat Of Love
Recently my editor at Stomp & Stammer asked me how much of BIUL is embellished, and how much is actually true.
Believe it or not, it’s almost entirely truthful. I condense and streamline experiences for space constraints, and add a punchline here and there, but it’s all based in truth. In fact, there are anecdotes that I haven’t used, because I figure that readers will doubt their veracity.
For example, how I conquered my childhood fear of the dark with the help of The Love Boat.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions
The Fifty Percent Rule
Would you like the quality of life to increase exponentially over time? Try this.
Enforce a rule that 50% of the cover of every magazine and periodical must be professionally illustrated. Continue reading
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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Magazine Rack
Rahway The Easy Way
If you’re still reminiscing about a high school field trip almost 30 years after your permission slip was signed, it was probably a pretty sweet field trip.
My Sociology class got to go to Rahway State Prison, circa 1989. It was so awesome, I went again the next year, when I wasn’t even in the proper class.
I’m still surprised whenever I see this actor walking.
In the late 1990s, the grittiest show on cable television was Oz; HBO’s first one-hour drama. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Uncategorized
Tobacky & Me
From BIUL #2.
It’s no secret that I’m an enigma wrapped in a riddle inside a burrito or some such. Wrap your head around this:
I like to smoke. I have a psychotic aversion to burning tobacco.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Magazine Rack, Worst Of All
The B-52s
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Thousand Listen Club
When Broken Broke
From 1989 to 1992, all anyone knew of Nine Inch Nails was prettyhatemachine. Your opinion of that one album was your opinion of Nine Inch Nails.
Before Broken, NIN’s sophomore EP, you could be forgiven for thinking Trent Reznor was the heir apparent of electronic Goth, following the dark path of Joy Division and Depeche Mode. Reznor was the scion of a venerable HVAC company (founded 1888!), and probably spent much of his young life in the presence of gigantic, droning machines. “Industrial” was already wired into his veins.
For all your heating, cooling, and electro-goth needs!
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“Rappin’ Rodney”
You can offend a rapper the same way you can offend a cartoonist; by implying that their career “looks easy”. Cartoonists must compete in the public eye with Internet doodlers who draw in their ample free time, and rappers have to battle the false impression that they’re just boopity-bopping over a beat loop.
Before hip-hop and rap were widely understood, they were exploited as “novelty” records; a passing trend, not something that would dominate and rend asunder every other type of fucking music on earth. Rap was not a “lifestyle”. It was a fad, like the hula hoop and the Twist. So, like many other musical fads before it, rap became a haven for bad comedy.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All
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