{"id":2083,"date":"2016-06-21T17:23:35","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T21:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bandsiusetalike.com\/biul\/?p=2083"},"modified":"2019-05-21T10:01:22","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T14:01:22","slug":"soul-coughing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bandsiusetalike.com\/biul\/soul-coughing\/","title":{"rendered":"Soul Coughing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BIUL_SoulCoughing\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All comics I\u00a0produced from 2006-2008 were written and drawn during the production of my movie,\u00a0John’s Arm: Armageddon.<\/em> I jumped the gun by putting a “release date” on my shirt in the opening panel. Here’s why.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One of these days, you’ll wake up, and think to yourself “my god, every single piece of entertainment in my life is co-opted by corporations. That scrappy, let’s-put-on-a-show feeling is long gone, locked out of the limelight by rich people playing dress-up. What happened to the crazy moviemakers?”<\/em> Simple. The pharmaceutical industry cured them.<\/p>\n

Legitimately crazy movie people can’t be insured, so they’re replaced with film-school naifs who have photographic knowledge of the work\u00a0of crazy people.\u00a0Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Animal House\u00a0<\/em>cannot happen; too many employees are afraid of losing their precious jobs. This is why you get safe-as-milk movies like\u00a0Insidious<\/em>, and\u00a0The Hangover.\u00a0<\/em>Dangerous films made by outsiders still happen, you just never read about them in the paper.<\/p>\n

The solitary method by which I could get\u00a0JA:A<\/em> made was to animate every frame myself. If I knew the rule that a page equals\u00a0a minute, I must have forgotten it. Immediately following a complete nervous breakdown, I began penning what would become a 186-page script. I trusted my girlfriend, a handful of buddies, and nobody else. My rejection letter from Adult Swim became the spur.<\/p>\n

For the better part of two years, I animated from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. The first sequence I completed\u00a0was the\u00a0Skullfuckers 5000<\/em> bit… back in\u00a02005.<\/em> I couldn’t preview any of the movie before its\u00a0premiere, without possibly “spoiling” the jokes or the story. This is why I put the first few minutes on YouTube, because I was paranoid about accusations of making “vaporware”. In reality,\u00a0no one had a clue what the fuck my problem was.<\/em><\/p>\n

Many of the BIUL<\/em> strips from this period are weirder than usual, and came out tardy. I would unintentionally wait until the very last second to write them, after long periods of animating or editing, and sometimes this was more obvious. However, one of the main foci of the strip’s first decade is overtly referenced here: the\u00a0Ohrwurm.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many, many songs have been destroyed by my\u00a0Ohrwurm. The reason I become belligerent when I’m forced to hear music I hate is simple:\u00a0I’m afraid I’ll hear it for the rest of my life, in my head.\u00a0<\/strong>I don’t even have to hear it more than once. I can describe the music from\u00a0the commercial bumpers for\u00a0The Deliberate Stranger<\/em>, a 1986 TV-movie with Mark Harmon as Ted Bundy. I’m obsessed with a tune I heard 30 years ago on a PBS show called\u00a0Alive From Off Center<\/em>, which accompanied “Nine Person Precision Ball Passing<\/a>“, and can sing it\u00a0a cappella<\/em>. I can call to mind the theme from\u00a0Saturday Supercade<\/em> faster than you can YouTube\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

This is a serious issue, folks. It’s a kind of\u00a0Hell.\u00a0<\/em>There have existed advertising jingles that I have had to concentrate to keep from driving me to madness. Women\u00a0never understand this.\u00a0<\/em>They always<\/em> think I’m overreacting. Read these words carefully:<\/p>\n

I have been alone with my own thoughts.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okay? Maybe,\u00a0just maybe,<\/em> when I’m alone with my thoughts, I don’t want to waste psychic energy\u00a0trying to get a fucking tune\u00a0out of my head.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u00a0hate<\/strong> song parodies for this reason. “Weird” Al Yankovic is more or less grandfathered in, but everyone else is piggybacking their corny jokes on a well-known tune. I would rather passionately fellate a hissing cobra than experience\u00a0Famous Rap Battles.<\/em> When and why did that shit become accepted? When nerds did?<\/p>\n

In 2008, the strip was ten, and I planned a collection in a book that never happened. The whole “ohrwurm” thing was completely in my head, of course, which is less appealing to readers than themes with which they\u00a0personally identify. Thus, the Ohrwurm was demoted\u00a0not long after I did a test cover, with\u00a0a nice ugly watermark thanks to\u00a0some asshole who ran\u00a0Mike The Pod<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Note<\/a>

Note Saturday Supercade album. Fun fun fun.<\/p><\/div>\n

That nonsense from panel three\u00a0of the SC strip\u00a0is legitimate, from the maw of the Worm itself. While enjoying some Freddie Hubbard, my mind cued up black and white footage of Mary Tyler Moore from\u00a0The Dick Van Dyke Show<\/em>,\u00a0dancing awkwardly\u00a0in Capri pants. This won’t happen to you, because your<\/em> brain doesn’t have a broken actuator arm, like mine<\/em> does. Correct, human?<\/p>\n