High Drama: The Best Bully Scenes from The Adventures of Pete & Pete

The Adventures of Pete & Pete is the best kids show from the mid 1990s. Well, at least it's my favorite. It's even better watching as an adult. Now, I understand how creative the show was; how they used classic film references in their dialog, lighting, and mise-en-scène. There are moments that get pretty intense. You can tell film noir was a huge inspiration to the directors. It makes it fun for the kids because it adds a level of seriousness to the simple conflicts in the show. At once it gives credence to what kids care about and what they deem to be important issues at their age, and it is as unavoidably silly as a parody in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

In retrospect, my favorite characters were the bullies. Ask 8 year-old Laura, and you might have gotten a different answer. (Bullies are mean, I like Artie). But the bullies had the most depth, and let's face it, were the most bad-ass. The bullies amassed like cold-hearted gangsters, with monikers and all.

Three of my favorite episodes that occurred in the third season (which there is an indefinite hold on the dvd release - write to your congressmen) involve the best skirmishes with bullies.

 In 35 Hours Older Pete turns to his nemesis Endless Mike Hellstrom as a last ditch effort to remove the lovely family Little Pete sold their parent's house to while they were on vacation. After being swayed with the promise of Neopolitain ice cream, we see Endless Mike break down the front door wielding an axe. He shouts, "Welcome!... to my nightmare!" like a freakin' serial killer. How did this get on kids TV? Ah the 90s, the good old days. Also Patty Hurst is in this one, so that's awesome.

In Pinned Endless Mike transfers schools just to compete against Big Pete in wrestling... and I guess murder him. His famous line as he walks into the ring dressed like a skeleton a la pro-wrestling, "I am the Doctor of Death, and I have come to cure you of your life." AH! So bad-ass! This episode has the BEST uses of mob movie/film noir plot devices, moods, music, dialog, and tension.

[Handing Pete a kidney]"Say hello to my kidney, three pounds four ounces" In the weigh-in scene, Endless Mike goes as far as to remove one of his molars to be in Big Pete's weight class. Again, how was this on kid's TV?

In this Little Pete centered story, Dance Fever, bully Pit Stain, antagonizes Pete when he finds out that Pete is afraid to dance at the school dance. One of my favorite lines that makes me laugh out loud in it's absurdity is said by Pit Stain near the end of the episode.
"Dancing is so easy... you just get out there and ruin your life."

This line paired with the music and the tension of Pit Stain walking closer and closer to Little Pete makes the scene ludicrously dramatic, but that's the beauty of it. As a kid you feel like it's that big of a deal.

Also Luscious Jackson play the band providing the tunes for this middle school dance. Let's not forget Iggy Pop as Nona's enthusiastic dad, and that brief appearance by Laurisa Oleynik as a nurse. I vividly remember the commercial bump for that mind-blowing Nickelodeon cross-series cameo made by Alex Mac. This episode is a perfect time capsule for the mid 90s. 

It's the kind of show that I watch now, and feel blessed that I grew up with its influence. Makes me feel a little better about being glued to the TV as a kid. I hope you enjoy these videos and it inspires you to watch the whole series.

Halloween: Conclusion: Nurse Ginger Achieved

"Drop DEAD."

 I had a lovely time being Nurse Ginger for the weekend! The makeup was so fun to put on. I made thick eyebrows with reckless abandon, tons of eye makeup, and pointy fire engine red lips. I know that the beauty marks are not dead-on compared to the picture, but to be fair you see them move on her face from shot to shot in The Devil's Cleavage.

Never thought about it before, but fake beauty marks are pretty odd in general. It's the one aspect of makeup that is a believable facial feature. That's one face-lie you don't want to get caught up in. It would be cool to really have beauty marks, but I'm okay with not actually having monster eyebrows.

Walter White (Matt Aromando) and Nurse Ginger (Laura Miner)

P.S.
Shout out to Jelly Shot Test Kitchen for their Jellied Eyeballs jello shot recipe. I used last year's technique with the Kamikaze shot recipe, and it was a hit at the party I went to. Check out the past five posts they did. They're all Halloween-centric: candy corn, skulls, bats, green potion, and a brand new eyeball recipe.  It will blow your mind!
Happy Haunting...

Halloween: Go Obscure of Go Home: An Homage to G. Kuchar

This is what I'm going to be for Halloween: Nurse Ginger from George Kuchar's 1975 film, The Devil's Cleavage. I am aware that 99% of the people I encounter with this costume will have no idea what I am specifically (unless people actually read this blog entry). However, Halloween is about enjoying yourself and being someone different for a night. It doesn't really matter if people know what my character is, I just know it will still creep people out. And it's not me, so that's step one of having a great costume. Oh no, I'm not a sexy nurse, not a zombie nurse, just a nurse with severe makeup that carries a bottle of fake vomit with her. You know.

Me on 10/31/11

 

Halloween is also about respecting the dead. Director George Kuchar passed away on September 6th of this year. And it was just this year that my love for the films of him and his brother Mike was ignited. After viewing the documentary, It Came From Kuchar, I realized I had seen one of his movies in a film class: Hold Me While I'm Naked.  The film really touched me in it's pre-Water's campyness, but I never knew about the other films until recently. George was teaching film at San Francisco Art Institute and still making awesomely weird movies until his death. 

So this year, in honor of a great film-maker/makeup artist, and a weird character, I will try to do Ginger justice. Stay tuned to see the finished product.

So You Liked Absinthe When It Was Cool

Isn't Art Nouveau great?

Absinthe was hugely popular until right around WWI, when it became illegal. Before then, it was mysterious in it's qualities, and widely available. Then, bootleggers began making it on their own, and it continued to be mysterious underground.
A major discussion in the documentary, Absinthe (2010), is how will the drink change since absinthe has become legal again? Most of the persons interviewed said that absinthe would never be the same after legalization. The number of bootleggers during the prohibition created many different versions of absinthe that will be out-shone by mainstream competitors. They reason that the legalization will lead to only a couple major companies making the absinthe, taking away the mystery, the variety, and most importantly the "charm."
It's like the simple ecological concept, that taking the diversity out of our environments will ultimately destroy them. If we take absinthe out of the underground who knows how a major corporation will alter it for mainstream consumption. Mainly it just wont be as much fun.
However, in the film there were a few supporters of the legalization of absinthe, and very rationally, their point is that the legalization would officially discredit those making a bottled green slurry with the name absinthe on it. Standards will be established to make a true absinthe that will give you an authentic experience, and will not make you go blind. That might out-way the fun of drinking something illegal and unchecked. 


Why Aleister Crowley is the main image of this video is unclear, but it certainly caught my attention.

It's the conundrum of wanting to keep things the way they used to be, but being very particular of how far back your "used to be" is. Ironically, the way it was before the prohibition seems to not be in the forefront of their minds. The absinthe scene of 1800's Paris sounds like the kind of everyday life hipsters wish existed: artists, poets, scholars, bohemians and aristocrats alike getting wasted together nearly everyday from 5-7 (the "green hour" as it was called). Instead these people seem to be pro prohibition just so they can stay underground. The bootleggers worked too hard, the clandestine drinkers worked too hard to find the bootleggers, to have it come so easy for everyone to enjoy.
I don't think (to the delight of people who care about things being too mainstream) that absinthe could ever be as big as it was at it's inception, even after legalization. But if we all had access to the real, pure thing, you have to admit it would be sweet. [Insert cheesy metaphorical quip involving the sugar cube used in absinthe preparation] 

The original absinthe craze sounds like nothing American's have ever truly experienced in alcoholic mania. One could say Four Loko was like absinthe, in that it was an extremely potent and infamous alcoholic beverage that was like nothing else out there. However, it only lasted about a year before it was banned, and I don't believe it was ever sighted as a catalyst for any great paintings or poetry, or converging of classes.

As for the documentary it self, it's pretty bare-bones, but informative. The only real complaint I have is that at a certain part, someone said commonly bootlegged versions of absinthe had copper compounds to make it green, which can explain commonly reported symptoms of absinthe drinkers at the time. However, it is never said what the symptoms of copper poisoning are. It was an easy Google fix, but it would have been more compelling to hear it from those interviewed. Clocking in at only 69 min, Absinthe is short and sweet... (much like the life of a sugar cube over a glass of absinthe?)

Radiators Empty, Check.

Last night I felt a little too comfortable being home alone, so I popped Eraserhead in the player.




Yup. Right in the player. It made me think about the first time I saw Eraserhead (David Lynch's first full-length film).
The first Lynch-directed thing I saw was the entire Twin Peaks series, which I own on VHS. I was in the 7th grade when I first got into Twin Peaks. Bravo was playing it in reruns in 2000, but before they aired the whole series, it abruptly ended and was replaced by reruns of The West Wing. Back when Bravo used to be good, damn it!
My obsession never waned, and my cousin was nice enough to give me some VHS tapes of the first 3 episodes as they aired in 1990, as well as some fan books left behind by an old roommate. When I was 14, my parents got me the Twin Peaks Box set for Christmas. Every day of winter break I was captivated and hungry for more of that puzzling feeling you get when you watch something directed by David Lynch.
Never following his filmography chronologically, it wasn't until after viewing most of Lynch's films, and being well seasoned in his archetypes and quirks, that I saw Eraserhead. The film is unsettling, to say the least, pulling on nightmarish thoughts that use nearly no gore or traditional terror. What I always admired about Lynch's brand of fear is that he mostly plays on the uncomfortable. It's random, it's different, and sometimes it is the unknown that is the scariest of all.
While Eraserhead still makes me check the radiators before bedtime, I have to say I wish I saw it as a Lynch virgin. I went in for the first time wondering what kind of twisted psychological terror was to be unleashed on me. But I left the experience feeling like I knew too much to ever have a pure reaction. The film explains how Lynch's films have progressed; where his blond vs. brunette, timeless world, creepy music, awkward pauses, and random spasms all came from. If Eraserhead was the first thing I saw of Lynch, especially when I was 12, I honestly don't know how my current level of fandom would stand: super-duper fan, or reluctant and traumatized.  But Eraserhead is still my go-to movie for a sufficient creep-out.  It's a classically confounding Lynch movie. To me, the film is about a man's nightmare, which easily explains away why a lot of it doesn't make sense.  In researching the film I found this intriguing and frustrating passage on Wikipedia,
 He went on to write about the difficulties he was having making sense of the way the film was "growing" and didn't know "the thing that just pulled it all together." He then reveals it was the Bible that provided the solution:

So I got out my Bible and I started reading. And one day, I read a sentence. And I closed the Bible, because that was it; that was it. And then I saw the thing as a whole. And it fulfilled this vision for me, 100 percent.

Lynch states in the book that he doesn't think he will ever reveal what the vision-fulfilling Biblical verse is.
The Bible has never been of more interest to me as it is right now.
But I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who appreciates David Lynch's idiosyncrasies. Notdavidlynch's YouTube channel, features some extremely funny and spot-on Lynch impressions. I'm a big fan of the David Lynch & Crispin Glover's Big Blockbuster featuring pimplywimp. It pretty much sums up the Lynch experience in a hilarious way.
Enjoy!

Woo! Berry

Several years ago I heard the whisperings of the great Pinkberry.  At the time they were only in major cities like NYC, but some small town copycats soon surfaced. The first time I had the tangy plain yogurt with fruit toppings, that we currently identify as fro-yo, was at Juniper on Thayer St. in Providence, RI. At this point I was quite used to the sweet soft serve fro-yo that you can get at Greek pizza restaurants all over Boston. You watch them take a log of white and put a drill to it, and you get a one-size-fits-all pint.
Then the fro-yo craze came over like wildfire. In Boston you got your BerryLine (my personal fave), Berry Freeze, Mixx, Chill, Bubble Berry (now open in Allston) and even Pinkberry made it to Boston and Cambridge this year. There are even some rumblings about Tasti D Lite. Now Worcester has gotten in on the game, and they are doing an exemplary job.

WooBerry, located on the corner of Highland and West st. in Worcester, MA, has the most toppings available that I have seen to date. They have a good amount of frozen yogurt flavors, rotating about five or six, but it's the toppings that really impressed me.
They have about five different flavors of boba including lychee (yum!), and they offer locally farmed peaches from Massachusetts. They even have a menu of topping combination suggestions, named after the employees, and I assume concocted with their expertise. Seen in the image above, my bf and I got lemon fro-yo topped with orange flavored boba, and Dr. Gonzo's Gummie Bites. An eclectic combination, I know.
Let me tell you a little bit about the two toppings I mentioned. Though they are called boba, these little spheres are not what I would consider traditional tapioca balls. It was not the gummy, slimy, brown stuff you get in bubble tea, they are like giant fruit-flavored caviar. It's a thin membrane filled with juice. Nothing like I've ever had before. Different, and awesome.
Dr. Gonzo's Gummie Bites were given to me with some caution. Upon ordering them I was asked "Are you sure?" There were regular gummie bears on the menu, but I thought I would choose one I haven't had before. My boyfriend, Matt, a native of Worcester, informed me of Dr. Gonzo's Emporium of Uncommon Condiments. What we didn't know was the subtitle of this name (as you can see on the website) was All-Natural Mega-Spicy Emporium. So the clerk asked "Are you sure?" We said yes. The gummy bears were covered in chili powder. They had a nice slow burn, but it didn't linger, and eating them on cold frozen yogurt helped. Also, the citrus/chili combo was actually very appropriate. 
This frozen yogurt joint is not just a Pinkberry copy-cat; they made it completely their own. And once you thought it couldn't get better, all their bowls and spoons are bio-degradable. WooBerry guarantees a special and appetizing experience. I highly recommend it if you're in the Woo (Worcester). 

Nightmares in Red White and Blue

Have you ever recalled one of your dreams and really analyzed it? Did you gather all the elements and realize that they represented deeper desires and fears you have in the material world... and that you are really f'ed in the head?
We could say from looking at what America has produced in cinema, that America has it's own collective conciousness. America's hopes and fears are fairly obvious up front, but when America dreams and makes art, something very scary comes out.
Nightmares in Red, White and Blue is an excellent documentary for the horror buff, history buff, and anyone asking the question, "Why the heck are American's obsessed with violence?"

If you enjoyed Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (one of my top favorite countdown shows!) you will love Nightmares. You see the evolution of the horror movie genre shaped by social upheavals, changes in standards, politics, and most importantly, war.

Psychologically, we see the movie monsters alter to society's changing fears.  In 1910 Thomas Edison made a film adaptation of Mary Shelly's Frankenstien. A decent attempt at adapting a novel to film, it was a failure in theaters. It wasn't until after The Great War (WWI), when men were coming back injured and deformed like from no other war in history, film makers responded with the horror genre. They made their "monsters" mortal men who were hideous and cast aside by society, their ill fate causing them to be bitter and evil.

Nightmares explains how each decade's events, events that shapped the American psyche, were latently placed in horror movie topics, such as foreign evil-doers, body snatching, atomic insects, zombies, etc. Post Manson murders (and the end of the hippie era in general) gave way to extreme sexual blood lust movies, films about gangs of murderers senselessly terrorizing good people, and movies about the occult.

You thought that the b-movies, exploitation and slasher films were just mindless fun, but like the rings in a tree trunk, they reflect our own history back to us. So you sit down with America. Because you love America, you read between the lines of their dream journal and say,
"America, that's some heavy stuff. I think you might be paranoid about communists, have ptsd from the war, and were disenchanted by how the hippie movement went. Maybe you should talk to someone... Pft! Who am I kidding!? Repression is the backbone of these films. Get off on the blood and violence, or enjoy the allegory, who really cares? You got a good thing going America, don't change."

Prisoner of Paradise: The Making of a False Film

We have all seen our fair share of Holocaust films and documentaries.  Though many of the stories are comparable, the atrocities committed are never easy to swallow. When I saw the description of Prisoner of Paradise, it was apparent to me that I had never heard of anything like this. For starters, the title of the film, Prisoner of Paradise, is and unexpected title for a Holocaust documentary. Even facetiously, how could any part of this period be considered a paradise?
 The documentary follows Kurt Gerron, a Jewish German actor/entertainer from the 1920s and 30s, director in the 1940s. Gerron was captured like so many other Jewish talents, however, he was given a strange assignment while in captivity at the concentration camp, Theresienstadt.

Theresienstadt was the camp in which many Jewish actors, musicians, writers, and intellectuals were taken during the Holocaust. It was advertised as a more comfortable concentration camp for the privileged few. Not surprisingly, this was a lie. While the facilities were grand in appearance, they were altered for the Jewish guests. For extra money, a room with a view could be reserved for a prisoner, but they never taken to these better rooms. There was an auditorium that was available for the actors to put on performances, but the space could be used as a crypt at anytime. 
It was Gerron's job to use his skills as a director to make a propaganda film that would try and prove to the Danish Red Cross and the outside world that the Nazi camps could be cultural centers, and a happy place where Jews could live separately from everyone else.
You discover what Gerron's existence was before the Nazi take over, and how he desperately tried to hold onto his freedom, and then his life. His story is moving and unique. You see a man with a literal and metaphorical gun to his head, extracting every ounce hope to put on celluloid. Hope from men, women and children that are surrounded with death. Simply put, Prisoner of Paradise is the best Holocaust documentary I have ever seen.

Care Package #1: Boyfriend

Today I'm going to try something new, and dedicate a blog post to someone I care about. We're going to call this one a Care Package. I hope to do more of this type of post in the future.
In this installment, the Care Package goes out to my boyfriend, comedian, Matt Aromando. Things about Matt you may or may not know: he likes Nirvana, Sailor Jerry Rum, and playing pinball. Here are three good documentaries that discuss all of these topics.

Watch here

Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry documents the life of Norman K. Collins aka Sailor Jerry, famed tattoo artist from the 1940's and 50's, and rum producer. Setting up shop in Hawaii, Collins pretty much brought tattooing to mainstream America. Tattoos went from being a criminal signature to a cute thing a young sailor could get as a souvenir while on tour. His tattoos were pretty risque for the time, but now they're a cool vintage statement. While his style might be considered a bit cutesy to current tattoo standards, Collins was no wuss. According to the film, Collins owned a pet monkey that he kept in his tattoo shop, which he personally tattooed. Watch the movie to find out what it said and... where he put it on the monkey. Also find out Ed Hardy's connection to the Sailor Jerry legacy, and how the title of this movie is a tad bit racist. (It's okay if you already got it).

Watch here

Hype! was directed in 1996 by Doug Pray, making this one an oldie but a goody. I don't know if it's just me, but I find older documentaries harder to take seriously because the topic could have advanced further past the date of the film. Like reading a science text book from the mid 1980s that doesn't have all the elements on the periodic table. However, this film benefits from being made right at the end, if not still during the grunge music craze. All of the opinions and knowledge are still fresh. This is truly an eye-opening documentation of how the genre began and how it got over-hyped. Of course Nirvana is a big part of this film, but it focuses on a lot of popular and not so popular grunge era bands from the Pacific Northwest.

Watch here

 Special When Lit discusses the history of a forgotten pastime, pinball machines. Why this documentary is important: you learn where in the world you can still play pinball, who has unreal amounts of pinball machines in their possession, where the Pinball Museum is located, the evolution of the machine, and the fact that pinball was illegal in America at one point. Also, if you've ever seen a Bally Total Fitness, and then got really confused when you saw the same logo on a pinball machine in a bar, you have made the correct connection, they are owned by the same company (whether that makes sense or not). Definitely watch if you like pinball, and it's still interesting even if you don't.   






I hope you all will enjoy this care package as much I think Matt will. Maybe some day if you get in my good graces, you too will find something special in your rss feed.

Rip! A Remix Manifesto

While looking for this poster I found Unseen Films

Ever think about what our culture will be like in 100 years? Will it be something we never dreamed of, something so new and original we couldn't even predict it in some kind of Epcot ride?  Or will it be a tired, reconstituted, cannibalized mess? Rip! A Remix Manifesto explains beautifully how our culture continues to evolve and rejuvenate. The main point is that we depend on the past to form the future, and that's the way it's always been whether your parents want to admit it or not.

Directed in 2009 by Brett Gaylor, Rip! explains how the current issues over ownership of our culture (copyright laws) is promoting stagnation. But the big to do over the laws is also causing a wave of rebellion that will be a sure fire way to keep the creative juices flowing. By following Napster, Girl Talk, Air Pirates, and many more artists involved in music and or video, we see how they are misunderstood as thieves and hacks.   

Shot from Rip! A Remix Manifesto

For me, this film was great because I got to see how Girl Talk makes his music. His concerts look like a religious ceremony where the religion is about worshiping the structure of modern songs, and understanding their harmony... and dancing like a mother.

Also the graphics in this documentary are excellent! They simultaneously present facts and entertain. There are several scenes where a point is powerfully made with artful video time lines.  Rip!'s plot has a lot to do with modern music file sharing, but it also makes it's point about the pattern of recycling culture throughout history by presenting examples from decades ago.  While The Rolling Stones sue the pants off of The Verve for sampling their song, you see that the Stones actually weren't being very original themselves.
This documentary goes at the top of my favorites. The things that are said are extremely important for all of us to hear as a society. If you ever wanted to do something creative, watch Rip! A Remix Manifesto.    

Ew... smell this.

So far I have only talked about documentaries that I liked watching. I'm sure you have taken my advice and viewed them (wink, wink). Documentaries are not all stuffy and boring. If I've taught you anything, it's that they can be entertaining, and give you a ton of conversation pieces for parties. However, there are still some films out there that have killed my buzz on one occasion or another. Today you will know about several documentaries that maybe you shouldn't watch, but I won't hate you for watching anyway... at least to see that I'm right.
In no real ranking order, but I numbered them anyway, here are the top four documentaries that I could not finish because they were so... terrible.

1. Eyes of the Mothman

This was surprisingly boring, since this film is about a man who looks like a moth, has a history of terrorizing a small town, and is the basis of one of the best horror movies. Heck! It's a true life monster movie! It was way too long at 2.5 hours. The first thirty minutes were spent discussing in detail a battle between settlers and Native Americans, told with the same three shots of an old white man playing the chief who supposedly cursed the Virginian town and summoned the Mothman. I love history, but this was so dry. If you still hold a flame in your heart from 2002, when you saw Mothman Prophesies, Eyes of the Mothman will blow on it until you're like, "stop it!" Then you should run away. That happened to me a half hour in.  

2. American Scary

 This could have been so fun and informative! American Scary is about the late night horror hosts of the 50s and 60s. (Think Elvira, the Cryptkeeper, Vincent Price). Apparently there were hundreds of these hosts; one for each local TV station across America. The film lacked what most documentaries have: an over-arching voice. Instead, it was all talking heads; one person after another expressing their opinions about favorite hosts and what was great about them. Heavy on the opinion, light on facts. I couldn't finish because I needed to take a break from hearing 50 different people smelling their own farts, and there was no end in sight. Look at the cast on imdb, I'm not exaggerating too much about the number. Imagine a merry-go-round of all these people recalling their fond memories of ghoulish hosts of yore. It's nice and all, but please someone make me feel like I'm learning and not just having a biased and one-sided conversation at a party with a lot of 45-year old cape enthusiasts.

3. America's Most Haunted Town

Other people don't like this either

 Cool concept, crazy boring. It's always hard to listen to interviews with people who are not public speakers. They can't all be camera-ready I suppose. People are people, and how appropriate to have real people in a documentary about a haunted small town. I don't remember what town it was, doesn't matter. The film had a rhythm of "um"s and "ah"s, that would drive you insane. More "um"s than interesting facts. I didn't even make it far enough to see that the movie get's even worse. Once it get's into the ghost stories, (you can see by the comments on the hulu page) the whole movie was pretty unconvincing anyway.

4. Tales of the Rat Fink

Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, car designer and creator of Rat Fink, is awesome, but once his cars started talking to the camera, I was out of there.

The French Kiss @ Hana Sushi

Look at that. Don't you want to do nasty things to that maki?  This is The French Kiss at Hana Sushi in Cambridge, MA.

The French Kiss at Hana Sushi photo credit Matt Aromando

The contents: tempura shrimp, smoked salmon, tuna, crabstick, three colors of roe, cream cheese, avocado, cucumber and "special sauce."
It has the most variety of fish in one maki roll I have ever eaten. The tuna is the only raw fish besides the roe. The shrimp is fried, the salon smoked, and the crab stick... whatever they do to make crab stick they certainly did it. It's like a beautiful little feast of fish in your mouth. The roe in colors of black, red, and bight green, reminded me of bunches of grapes...fed to me by a lover...on a moon lit night...in the ocean. A bit much? What can I say it was a sexy roll of maki.
Despite the copious amount of fish and caviar, this culinary make-out session only costs you $10.50 for 5 pieces. Highly recommended, left satisfied.

Easy TV: Celebritiy Ghost Stories and I Survived...

Last week I was sick. I was not going to make a post during my bout of viral pinkeye. Instead I watched an inordinate amount of two television programs: Celebrity Ghost Stories and I Survived.... Both shows are made by the Bio network and are remarkably similar in structure. These shows take little effort to watch and follow, so it was like crack to me during my illness.

John Waters on Celebrity Ghost Stories

The format of Celebrity Ghost Stories is a one-sided interview with four B to D range celebrities (think dancing with the stars dancers, VH1 celebriality stars, and surprisingly, nearly the entire cast of the Sopranos). While the celebrity tells their tale of dealing with the paranormal, blurry quickly-cut footage of people who have their matching hair color, reenact the scene. They make scenes from the past or other countries look vaguely accurate, but one can tell it's probably all shot in willing crew-member's property, and the director uses as many diversions as possible. It appears that each reenactment only uses about three minutes of actual footage. The editor loves repeating shots to add emphasis, jiggling photographs of people dressed like ghosts. The best time-eating trick is to nearly explain the whole story over again after every single commercial break.
The show is not scary or creepy to any degree, but it is really entertaining.  Every couple of episodes you get a gem, like David Carradine, John Waters, Dave Foley, Tracy Nelson, or Daniel Stern. Stories like theirs keep you sloshing through the muck. The muck is tall tales about entire buildings disappearing, drops in temperature, and departed loved ones saying hello. The aforementioned gems have more layers, history, evidence, terror. Good. Clean. Fun.
Similarly, I Survived... is a one-sided interview with three ordinary people who have survived horrific events. In this scenario, there are no reenactments and only a few still photographs that I can assume are never from the actual scenes. A friend suggested I watch I Survived... as therapy to help with my sensitivity to blood.  I Survived... was not difficult for me to watch, but it did help me gain perspective on almost dying (and every episode has at least one person getting their throat slit). Since there are no reenactments, just the person talking, there is nothing to close your eyes over. You just cringe and take it.
On the other hand, the recounting of the events is told in such a mater-of-fact way, some of the bloodiest moments have the wind knocked out of them. Maybe it's just their way of coping, and remembering, or that they were in such shock they just didn't feel the pain. While a woman says here attacker's first move was to cut her in the arm, I'm thinking "That's it, that's the wost part". But he actually kidnaps and rapes her for 24 hours, and the fact that she was cut in the arm is never mentioned again. I guess my worst fears are not as crucial in the big picture. It is also depressing as hell. It's a good show to share a cathartic moment with yourself. I subjected myself to hours of these moments.
By what I've said it's obvious you don't actually need to watch the shows closely to get the gist. Listen to it like old time radio... but you'll find yourself needing the shitty ghost footage or a photograph of the bloody hairbrush having the Tim Burns kicked out of it.
It sounds like I hate these shows. Really, I just don't respect them too much. I have fun with them, but we both know we can never have what Breaking Bad and I have.
The truth is, I watched such a marathon of Celebrity Ghost Stories, Hulu asked me to take a break. I wish I had thought to take a screen shot of this pop-up window, but I was all like, never show me this again, no thanks.

Everything is Free...

You want to learn about the beginning of the internet, you should watch We Live In Public. 
You're right, I was not asking you, I was telling you, because this documentary explains everything.
Made in 2009 and directed by Ondi Timoner, We Live In Public follows internet pioneer Josh Harris, who in 1999 started a break-through social experiment in a New York City basement.

Before reality TV exploded, while online video streaming required extreme patience, and chat rooms were a thing, Harris created a prophesy of what the next 10 years of the growing internet would bring us. The film opens with a coldly casual video message from Harris to his dying mother (very similar to a scene on Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job). He says, "Speaking to you virtually is how I know how to do this best... This is what art is now."

Harris started Jupiter Communications in the early 1990s. It was a company that simply attempted to gather investors for the burgeoning internet, and find out what people would actually do with it. Stemming from this came Pseuedo, Harris's first online TV channel. It was completely interactive with live chat-rooms.  It was all about young hip kids sharing ideas, and they became millionaires because of it. And around 2000, most companies like these went bankrupt.

In 1999 Harris walked away from Pseudo, and began his art project / month-long party / utopian fascist commune / psychological experiment called Quite: We Live in Public. In an NYC basement at the turn of the century, with free food and drink, a communal shower, firing range, cameras in the bathrooms, bunk beds with cameras and TVs, and Stasi style interrogations, Quite was a physical embodiment of the internet and what Harris predicted it would become. Prophetically he said, "Everything is free except the video we take of you, that we own."

I was about 11 years old and in Rhode Island when most of this happened, so I was pretty clueless about social experiments in NYC basements (though there was an 11 year-old boy in there! Hope he turned out okay). I did watch MTV, and I did see an episode of Daria where her dad gets hired to a dotcom company that appropriately crashes and burns.  So when I saw this film I wasn't completely lost. It always excites me to discover subcultures and movements that happened while I was too young to be apart of them. It's like discovering something new about yourself.
The film ends with the befitting song, Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai, which was probably my favorite song at the time this film was based.

Allow me to quote,

Futures made of virtual insanity now

Always seem to, be govern'd by this love we have

For useless, twisting, our new technology
Oh, now there is no sound - for we all live underground 

Style Wars

Just as a disclaimer, I know it can be annoying to watch full-length movies on YouTube. Rarely are they in one piece, and good luck if you can find all of parts 1 of 8 in a logical order. Don't fret, because for your viewing pleasure, I found the full length version of the 1984 documentary, Style Wars.  Directed by Tony Silver, Style Wars follows the graffiti culture of New York City during the early 1980s. The film has a gritty, 70's quality to it, some of it shot in black and white.  If you like Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, and other movies about NYC before it got cleaned-up, this is for you. It is apparent that everyone is just trying to deal with this chaotic environment. The upright citizens bemoan the graffiti on the trains and lump the graffiti artists with other criminals, while the artists defend their craft, and paint whenever possible despite efforts against them. It is apparent that both sides are victims of their society. 

While some of the graffiti is impressive and obviously took a lot of skill to execute, I do think the young taggers for the most part were unwittingly sustaining the broken windows theory: basically if you leave a broken window, then crimes escalating in severity will be committed. The interviews with the young graffiti artists are eye-opening. These boys between the ages of 12 and 20 are well-spoken, and have strong beliefs in their art. It's amazing to hear them talk about why they tag, how they are building names for themselves.

Shots of the train yards at night are chilling. It's a place most people don't see, but the graffiti artists are very familiar with it. At one point an extremely panoramic shot of a fabulously painted subway train moves across the screen for about 2 minutes. As a photographer I am still a bit baffled at how they got the shot without any visible breaks in the image. Style Wars is beautifully filmed, a worth while exploration.

Burger King Whopper Bar NYC

This past weekend my boyfriend Matt Aromando and I went to the BK Whopper Bar in New York City. I had first heard about this magical place from the blog This Is Why You're Fat, where the New York Pizza Burger was featured. This is a burger that is made of 4 patties, a giant bun, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, and pesto sauce, cut into wedges and served like a pizza. Sounds like an insane idea right? An insanely awesome idea! Matt and I looked into it, and found the location in NYC. It became our mission to check it out, try the pizza burger, or another equally crazy concoction.

Karly Domb Sadof for The New York Times

When we arrived on a Saturday afternoon, we were disappointed to find that the pizza burger was no longer on the menu. This was not a problem, as there were plenty of heart-stopping options to choose from. Premium toppings such as guacamole, blue cheese crumbles, jalapeños, and a variety of cheeses and sauces, are available to top your burger.

Steakhouse XT a la Matt

Matt ordered the Steakhouse XT, which offers the thickest burger patty, and normally comes with lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayo. Matt added guacamole, jalapeños, and cheddar cheese. He thought it was yummy, and was easily satisfied for the rest of the day.
This is what I got:

Stuffed Steakhouse Burger

the Stuffed Steakhouse Burger, with jalapeños and cheddar cheese cooked into the burger patty, lettuce, tomato, and poblano cream sauce. Well it actually looked more like this, but it was amazing!

The real Stuffed Steakhouse Burger

Overall, the burgers looked like regular Whoppers, but the improved ingredients made it worth the trip. I seemed to have fresh jalapeños in the burger, and we both agreed that the tomatoes were top notch. The atmosphere was similar to other Burger Kings, but the decor was more modern. The Whopper Bar has been compared to McDonald's McCafé.

on the left McCafé , on right BK Whopper Bar

Matt and I went to a McCafé in Chicago. While it did offer gelato and leather chairs, I think the BK Whopper Bar is a much more unique experience for the mouth area. At this time the New York location does not serve alcohol, but it is planning to in the near future. Right now, their location in South Beach, FL is the only one that sells beer. I will be interested to see what kind of brews BK New York will decide to pair with their food. Will they go for Bud, or Chimay? Also, their menu items are exclusive. Like in the case of the New York Pizza Burger, don't expect to find every crazy meal you hear about on the menu consistently. Get it while it's hot! You will, however, find something worth talking about regardless. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Morbid Curiosity Double Feature: Cropsey and H.H. Holmes America's First Serial Killer

Horror movies are good fun entertainment, but what to say of films about real life horror? I find documentaries about murderers to be more intellectually gripping and less anxiety provoking - at least until the magnitude of it sinks in. There are two sides to the coin. The horror flick might suck you into the story, but in the end you can feel good knowing it's just a movie. The documentary about serial killers allows you to watch with objectivity but leaves you questioning humanity.
If you are in the mood to question humanity, please enjoy these two documentaries Cropsey and H.H. Holmes America's First Serial Killer.

Click to watch

Cropsey, a 2009 documentary by Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman, follows the story of Staten Island's underbelly of misplaced patients from the closed Willowbrook State School for the mentally ill and handicapped. Officially closed in 1987, the area surrounding the institution was a breeding ground for urban legend. The word "Cropsey" was coined by youths of Staten Island Boy Scout camps, defined as an insane man who lives in the woods near the asylum and murders children. For decades the stories were pass down, but it became very real in 1987 when a 12 year old girl with Downs Syndrome, Jennifer Schweiger, was abducted and murdered, her body found near Willowbrook. Chilling footage from Geraldo Revera's expose on Willowbrook, and aching testimonials of a community torn by disillusionment and terror make for a gripping film.
 

Click to watch

 H.H. Holmes America's First Serial Killer is... well it pretty much explains it in the title. Superb conman, H.H. Holmes with his "murder castle" in Chicago, managed to make countless people disappear for roughly 20 years before he was caught in 1894. It's the stuff every horror movie is made of, from Secret of the Blue Room to Hostel. John Borowski made a documentary about Holmes in 2004. The idea of him being the "first" serial killer is intriguing. It's like saying Holmes invented mass murder, along with the inception of the steam engine. But along with the steam engine also came slightly improved police investigations. Holmes was one of the first serial killers who was actually found out, and studied, defining the concept of a serial killer. Watch this documentary for the bizarre story. It is positively edifying [straightens monocle].
If you want to watch in chronological order (by topic and movie release date) watch H.H. Holmes first. If you want to get the bad news first and then the good news, watch Cropsey first. Even though Holmes seemingly set the standard for serial murder, H.H. Holmes will be refreshing in it's lack of grisly news footage. Enjoy!

The Rock-afire Explosion

1981 was a magical time. Everyone in this documentary seems to agree. Brett Whitcomb's 2008 The Rock-afire Explosion documents the rise and fall of the most famous animatronic bands from the Southern United States. You might be familiar with the Youtube videos of this band of rubber-faced anthropomorphized animals performing hilariously non sequitur songs like Bubba Sparkxxx's Miss New Booty.  Turns out, these are not dubbed-over videos, and it is not meant to be ironically funny.

  You will not hear She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain behind the rap music. A roller-rink dj named Chris Thrash bought an out of commission Rock-afire Explosion animatronic band, erected it on his property, and makes videos where he reprograms the band to play modern songs.  Rock-afire Explosion was the main attraction at Showbiz Pizza, a child-oriented pizza restaurant and arcade from the 1980s that would later be bought out by Chuck-E-Cheese.

As it turns out, there is a serious following of Rock-afire Explosion fans. They all remember the band being one other best things they ever saw when they were 7, and have not completely let go... at all. Everyone has their favorite band member, each with their own personality and back story. The kids who REALLY liked this stuff appear to have been immune to the "band's" terrifying appearance. It takes a special kind of child to truly love this show, and grow up to collect their memorabilia, listen to their music, and aspire to own a copy of the actual band. 
You also get a glimpse into the creator of Rock-afire and founder of Creative Engineering, Inc., Aaron Fetcher. It's tragically touching to see how emotionally invested the fans are, or how the Fetcher's business went from 300 employees to just himself as The Rock-afire Explosion ended.  There is a longing for this place in time when the show was a magical thing to see, (or a lucrative business for that matter), and no one was jaded by it.

Watching The Rock-afire Explosion being assembled in Fetcher's factory was a creepy thing to see, but an even creepier moment in the documentary is watching them be disassembled. A corporate video for Showbiz Pizza explains how employees of the resturant should remove parts in a certain order, warning, "destroy these items as they will never be used again." All that is left are the metalic skeletons waiting for Chuck-E-Cheese's skin.

It Came From Kuchar

If you're a John Waters fan, you will love the films of his major influence, the Kuchar brothers.  2009 documentary by Jennifer M. Kroot, It Came From Kuchar, explores the past and present of underground film makers George and Mike.

Starting in the 1960s with a super 8 camera and an extremely low budget, the Kuchars collaborated on bizarre films that can be described as zany home movies made by some kids who spend most of their time watching b-films. What the Kuchars made was truly unique for the time. Simultaneously, Warhol was making his underground films, but the Kuchars were funnier, and not as suave in their sexuality. Staying close to the genres of fantasy, horror, and exploitation, their work is a pure expression of the ideas and aesthetics gathered from popular movies from post-war America.

I had the privilege of seeing an original print of Hold Me While I'm Naked, a portrait of a down on his luck director who imagines his tardy actors having wild sex.  It Came From Kuchar discusses this film, and lead me to many other gems I would love to get a hold of. Hearing George and Mike speak is extremely entertaining, whether it's recalling childhood memories of their often absent father and immigrant mother, or explaining their thought process behind such films as Sins of the Fleshapoids (a film about an android revolt one million years in the future).
It Came From Kuchar is a documentary that will leave you giddy with the idea that these films exist in the world.

Banana Tootsie Roll Pop

Today, in an inconspicuous cardboard display of Tootsie Roll Pops, on the bottom shelf in a convenience store, an unfamiliar color caught my eye. It was yellow and brown, representing banana.

Banana

I'm not a fan of Tootsie Rolls on their own, but the pops are one of my favorite candies. Grape is the best, chocolate is the worst. 90% of all grape-flavored candy taste like cough medicine, but the grape Tootsie Roll Pop is like sweet sweet Welches grape juice. The chocolate Tootsie Roll Pop is chocolate flavored hard candy (that's not even opaque like real chocolate) covering chocolate flavored taffy. A big chocolate masquerade.
Banana maybe my new favorite. It doesn't taste like pure potassium like some other artificially flavored banana candies. Believe it or not, I would describe it as Indian. A banana chai. It was one of the more complex flavors of candy I have eaten. People on the train were definitely envious of the love affair I was having with this lollipop. Or they were curious about how a yellow and brown thing on a stick could be so tasty.
Apparently there are two other new flavors, pomegranate (will this superfruit stop being trendy?) and green apple (surprised it's not already in the original flavor line up). I suppose I wont jump the gun and say banana is the best, but I'm willing to bet it is.
If you have tried all three new flavors click here to vote for your favorite.