Kittysneezes

Review: Any Similarity To Persons Living Or Dead is Purely Coincidental

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:04:56 +0000

I think I’ve mentioned before that Liquid Television was both hugely influential on me and kinda turned out to be an animated version of RAW. And it was Liquid TV where I first saw the work of RAW and, later MAD contributor, Drew Friedman. He had a few “Uncle Louie” shorts, featuring the titular character travelling through the sewers to save on travel expenses. I loved the stippling style of the artwork, the amazingly detailed and photorealistic characters — a mix of the perfectly normal and the strangely grotesque — and the cutout animation.

I didn’t know at the time (mainly because I was only, what, fourteen?) that in the 1980s, he and his brother Josh Alan Friedman had put together a book of their comic strips, Any Similarity To Persons Living Or Dead is Purely Coincidental, which has been reissued by Comix Heroes Fantagraphics Books. (I think that’s their official title, anyway, if publishers can have official titles.)

The cover features the amazing portrait of Shemp from — originally published, of all things, as a cover of the pornographic magazine Screw. Shemp acts both as a beacon of Drew Friedman’s amazing artistic skill, but also as a signpost of what you’ll find. Not so much Three Stooges-inspired comedy, but strips starring the semi-forgotten figures of old media. Figures like Abbott & Costello, Chet Huntley, Joe Franklin or Tor Johnson come up frequently. I especially love the Tor strips. And usually, though there’s a surrealist bent like you’d find in the work of Michael Kupperman (Tales Designed To Thrizzle), there’s usually a sense of love for the work of these people. Again, Tor seems to get the most love — there’s a definite sense that the Friedman brothers grew up with Tor’s films and saw them in their natural state (unlike people of my generation who became acquainted with Tor only through Mystery Science Theater 3000).

In fact, the only strip that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is “The Lou Costello Jr. Story”, a retelling of the drowning death of Lou Costello’s infant son in a swimming pool written from the point of view of the dead child. It just ends up being kind of ugly, and doesn’t really fit in with the tone of the other strips, which is sometimes light, but even generally the darker ones don’t get quite THAT dark. Of course, too, when that strip was made, pretty much all of the principals were long dead and thus couldn’t care — which does take a bit of the sting out.

That’s just a one-page story, and the other stories, also generally between one and two pages, are very strong and worth poring over. Not just for Drew Friedman’s art, but the scripts by Josh Alan Friedman say a lot about how we interact with celebrity and tabloid culture in general. The scripts sometimes have a Confidential! type of feel to them, even when reporting on Jackie “Uncle Fester” Coogan wandering through cemeteries and Joe E. Brown collecting his excrement in a swimming pool. And if none of that grabs you, how can anyone not be swayed by the loveable Tor calling Bela Lugosi after a nightmare to ask him how many Tor. HOW MANY TOR?

HOW MANY TOR?

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Crush On Moms

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Sun, 12 May 2013 21:41:32 +0000

8 Tracks cover art (Photo credit: ▓▒░ TORLEY ░▒▓)

It’s a special Mother’s Day episode of Crush On Radio! What makes it so special? EVERY ONE OF OUR PICKS HAS BEEN LISTENED TO BY A MOTHER.

Presumably.

We also talk about the idea of the New Michael Jackson, Sunn O))), pretentious and terrible band names, dance punk, pop, Timbaland, Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane, racism of the allegedly ironic variety, Track 8 (the app, not the track), Pink Floyd, and Andy Ithnako. Whose name is really hard to spell. Did I do it right?

Picks this week: !!!, Justin Timberlake, Wax Fang.

Subscribe on iTunes! Or follow us at CrushOnRadio.com! Or on Facebook! Or Twitter?

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Review: Wax Fang – La La Land

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Sun, 12 May 2013 06:35:31 +0000

I suppose, as it goes, “discovering on a Seth MacFarlane cartoon” isn’t the most auspicious of band introductions… but if it makes any difference, it was American Dad, the best of them (and, like, at least it wasn’t The Cleveland Show). But the great thing about music is that it doesn’t really matter how you find out about it, but that you find out. And besides, I really like American Dad, so there.

On the recent 150th episode, “Lost In Space”, American Dad hired Wax Fang to do the score, and used the opening track of their 2007 album La La Land as the centerpiece of the episode as sung by a grotesque alien named The Summoner. The song, “Majestic”, grabbed me immediately and I was trying to figure out whether or not the song was original to the episode, or something grabbed from 70s AM radio that I obviously somehow missed, despite being a music nerd and someone who works in radio to boot.

The next morning, I read The A.V. Club’s review of the episode and found it out it was neither — and promptly followed a YouTube link in the comments to the full version of the song. After listening there about twice, I went immediately to iTunes and bought the full album. And about halfway through the album, I bought the rest of the Wax Fang stuff available in the iTunes Store. That’s… relatively rare to fall in love with a band so… immediately and completely — particularly in the span of about 12 hours, most of those spent sleeping. Especially since the album cover is, admittedly… lacking.

But weird punk-rock babies aside, this album is phenomenal. Every track is amazing — and it does have that 70s-Lost-Classic feel to it. A common reference point I’ve been reading in reviews is Pink Floyd — but for me, Pink Floyd isn’t quite right (though maybe on the track “At Sea” — which also appeared briefly in “Lost In Space”). There’s a bit less… pretension there than with Floyd. (And that’s not necessarily a diss on Floyd… though I do prefer Wax Fang.) For me, I really do get a Ween vibe. And I do love Ween. Though I think Wax Fang is much less prone to genre hopping — but they’re doing the 70s Rock Hit thing so well, I’m fine with it.

Also — don’t confuse that with saying they’re mere pastiches or knockoffs. Not only is this the real thing — aside from the obvious timeshift — but it’s… well, better than a lot of stuff from that era, too. It’s not so much a pastiche as a glimpse into another, more awesome dimension.

And, you know, as good as “Majestic” is — I’m not even sure that’s the best song on the album. After all, “Cannibal Summer” exists, and that song is super awesome. In fact, I think it was “Cannibal Summer” that made me buy the rest of Wax Fang’s stuff.

I suppose I should tell you a bit about the band — I don’t know that much, honestly, beyond what Wikipedia has to say. They’re apparently friends of My Morning Jacket (oddly enough, another American Dad-approved band, though one I’ve never clicked with), and also from Lexington, KY like MMJ (I think — that’s what other folks seem to say, so sure, why not). And it’s, like Ween, basically two guys, Scott Carney and Jacob Heustis. And they are super duper awesome. So, yeah. Do you really need to know more?

If for some reason, you’re not convinced, their Soundcloud has everything up for free streaming, as does their official YouTube channel. So go get a sample, and then discover for your own that I’m totally right. And thus you will have found out about Wax Fang via American Dad-By-Proxy. You’re welcome.

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The Best Movie You’re Not Watching: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Dr. Daryn Cash — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:54:04 +0000

I learned that the movie Thunderbolt and Lightfoot existed in May of 2010. I was in Santa Fe, New Mexico visiting some friends and we had gone to a local video rental store and each of us chose a movie to rent. I was careful to choose a movie that was not available at the time on DVD or Netflix (it now is). I chose a Jeff Bridges movie called Against All Odds (if you don’t know the movie, I know you know the Phil Collins theme song which is called “Against All Odds” but it’s the “Take a look at me now” song). I was looking at Jeff Bridges’ other movies on the IMDB app on my iPhone when the title jumped out at me and I made a note to see if I could find the movie.

It took me a little over two years after that before I was finally able to see Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. If I’d been passionate about seeing it, I could have hunted down a copy sooner, but I didn’t know then how much I would love the movie. I had almost forgotten about it when I saw that it was scheduled to screen at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley in July of 2012. I was extremely excited and so I was disappointed when I realized that the movie was set to screen on the day that I was supposed to go backpacking in Yosemite with my dad. I resigned myself to it, taking comfort in knowing that there was a print out there getting theatrical play and knowing that if I really wanted to, I could hunt down and buy a copy of the movie. Then my father’s secretary passed away and, in order to attend her memorial, he called to ask if we could push the backpacking trip back by one day. Of course I told him that was fine and, though I am very sad about her passing, I was glad to take the opportunity to see the movie.

I still have my ticket stub from that fateful trip. From the moment the movie started, I had a feeling that it was important. I’ve had this feeling before and it’s never been wrong. I loved the hell out of the movie and was so glad to have been able to see it. But I was quickly distracted by backpacking and getting an interview for the job that I have since gotten and I didn’t think much more about the movie until it screened at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco a few months later as half of a Jeff Bridges double feature with The Big Lebowski. I was able to see it a second time from a 35mm print and it was even better seeing it the second time.

Cover of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

The official DVD release in North America has long since gone out of print, and copies on Amazon can go from around $20 to around $90. I was able to find a bootlegged copy for sale on ioffer.com (sometimes a good source for such things) which I bought and received and was refunded for – I have no idea why, the Paypal message said something about the product not being new. I’m not going to complain about free movies though. I now own this movie on DVD and the DVD includes the theatrical trailer. I would love to see this movie released (preferably on BluRay) with a ton of special features – commentaries and making-of documentaries and retrospectives in which Eastwood and Bridges would chat about the movie and how much fun it was to make. Assuming of course that it was actually fun to make.

So why should you see this movie? What’s so special about it? What makes it worthy of your time?

It’s a difficult movie to describe. It’s a bit of a road movie, it’s a bit of a crime thriller, it’s a very 70s movie, but at its heart is the story of men being friends. The film opens with Eastwood preaching in a church as a man with a gun arrives and chases him out of the church. At the same time, Bridges is shown approaching a used car lot, where he cons the salesman and drives off in a flashy car. Eastwood literally runs into Bridges in his escape from the man with the gun, whom Bridges hits with the car. Eastwood crawls into the car despite Bridges attempts to throw him off. At first, Bridges – Lightfoot – is bothered by this preacher joining him. After driving a while together, though, Lightfoot is sad to see the preacher leave. He insists that they make a good pair and were beginning to become friends. Through a twist of plot and without much time for reflection, Eastwood – Thunderbolt – rejoins Lightfoot in his car and they continue together.

As the movie progresses, the men bond over a mutual interest in petty cons and Lightfoot’s interest in Thunderbolt’s history as a successful criminal. They eventually are joined by two more con men and begin to plan a large, dangerous, and complex heist. The process of preparing for a heist is not an uncommon sight in this kind of movie, but the preparations and the execution done in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot are unlike any other movie I’ve seen. And at the heart of it all is this bizarre, yet utterly believable and charming, bond between the two men.

I know there is speculation of a queer reading of the friendship between the two men –and the canon of the film does little to discourage it (though they are clearly established as heterosexual and each have encounters with women in the film). But I really believe that it’s rare to see a movie that treats male friendship so well – it doesn’t take much and Lightfoot and John (Thunderbolt) are friends — they absolutely trust each other and have each other’s backs; one of my favorite moments in the movie shows John buying them ice cream cones after they receive some bad news. There is no need for a heterosexual romantic storyline in the movie — there are actually very few female roles in the film — and no need for a homosexual romantic storyline either. The movie is about a heist but also about the relationships between the men working to pull off that heist. It’s a bromance movie. (All that being said, there is some wonderful gay subtext sprinkled throughout the movie, making it fun to watch on many levels – there’s a 45+ page thread on some Clint Eastwood site all about the subject – it’s called “Gay or No Way?”)

The movie has a lot going for it – it has Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges in the heydays of their respective careers. Aside from Jeff Bridges unfortunate choice of pants throughout the movie, both guys look super foxy (Clint Eastwood especially – through most of the movie he’s wearing a very flattering checkered shirt and when he removes it in favor of a white undershirt… YUM). Gary Busey has a small role that’s fun to see – that’s some SUPER young Busey (his name is spelled ‘Garey’ in the credits). Jeff Bridges looks awesome in 70s drag. George Kennedy has a great supporting role that gets better with each repeat viewing. There are surreal moments (a trunkful of white rabbits), funny moments, touching moments, plenty of excitement and thrills, and the ending is moving and well done. There is minimal music used in the movie, with the theme song “Where Do I Go From Here” written and sung by Paul Williams (who wrote “The Rainbow Connection” for The Muppet Movie and played Swan in Phantom of the Paradise, he’s a fucking legend).

This is a perfect movie. It’s hard to say without the benefit of more time, but this is a movie that I could easily see becoming a very very top favorite of mine. The night that I got the DVD, I watched the movie twice in a row and would have watched it more if I’d had the time.

I highly recommend tracking down a copy and making it a part of your life.

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Crush on Radio Shirt!

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Sun, 05 May 2013 23:16:49 +0000

Crush On Radio Tee

No new Crush On Radio episode this week — we’ll have one next week for you — BUT there is a bit of news! Mainly that we’ve got a new Crush On Radio Shirt available via Tee-Spring! It’s $15 (US), plus shipping (which when I ordered 2 shirts was only $4.10 (US, again). So that’s not too bad at all. What better way to proclaim your love of a music-based podcast! (… or, perhaps a certain Visqueen song, but yeah, let’s go with the podcast thing.)

And if you want Kittysneezes stuff — no shirts yet, but you can still get some swag! Information is here on getting buttons/magnets/stickers for $5 (US – including shipping). So check it out!

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A Platonic Crush on Grimes

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:38:34 +0000

Crush (OMD album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s been a little bit due to schedules, but there’s a BRAND NEW CRUSH ON RADIO! Whooo! This week, we talk about feminism, feminism, feminism, seeing Sparks live, feminism and Grimes’ recent post cancelling her tour and expressing her dissatisfaction with the music industry! Also, feminism.

Picks this week are: Harry Nilsson, Kurt Vile and OMD!

Subscribe on iTunes! Or follow us at CrushOnRadio.com! Or on Facebook! Or Twitter?

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A Note on Fluffsplosion

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:07:15 +0000

Fluffies Playing Poker by Janet Brusselbach

I realized that the previous Fluffy Pony report involved a phenomenon known colloquially as “fluffsplosion” that not everyone may be aware of. I will attempt to clear up any confusion or misconceptions in this brief appendix.

Early breeds of fluffy pony were known to solely reproduce by the process known officially as langioequuruption, where the fluffy dam would swell to bursting, leaving a small litter of foals behind to be taken care of by adult human caretakers in a controlled breeding environment. As fluffies were released to the wild, this behavior was more or less bred out of them, and most modern fluffies give birth in the usual way, which is to say vaginally. It is believed that the stage of fluffy pregnancy where a dam becomes almost completely round and must be rolled around by fluffies assigned to her by the herd’s Smarty Friend known as “attendants”, is a remnant of this now dormant behavior.

In modern fluffies, however, fluffsplosion is rare but not completely eradicated. Fluffsplosion may occur when a dam is terrified, known amongst the fluffies as a “scaredy fit”. When a dam suffers a scaredy fit, she begins to swell — which makes her even more frightened as she doesn’t know what’s happening to her body and why she’s beginning to hurt — until bursting. In a scaredy fit, amniotic fluid typically covers the area and foals may be thrown from the area depending on the force of the explosion. Most foals birthed through a scaredy fit do not survive regardless of whether or not they have been thrown. Scaredy-fit foals are typically premature and may not be viable. They may also be thought of as “runts” and thus rejected, or perhaps there is no other fluffy pony ready to be able to provide milk. Most dams who suffer scaredy fits are already swollen to the point of needing attendants, though not always.

There have also been reports of fluffies being so enraged they go into an “angry fit”, and thus bring fluffsplosion on themselves. In contrast, most scaredy fits are brought on by an outside stimulus. A dam typically cannot scare herself so badly to trigger a scaredy fit; she typically needs to be not only startled or scared by something, but the stimulus needs to remain in the fluffy pony’s attention for some time, due to the fluffy’s extremely low attention span, which is protective in this case. Some examples include a particularly bad and long-lasting thunderstorm, the prolonged sight of wounded or dead fluffy ponies, or a human or animal threatening them. If a dam is able to escape the sights, however — by an owner or her attendants coming to the rescue, for example — she will typically forget about whatever has made her upset and is in little to no danger.

Once a scaredy fit has started, however, it is extremely difficult to impossible to reverse the swelling. Fluffy pony enthusiasts have shared home remedies to stop the scaredy fits, but it is unknown at this time as to whether or not any of these methods actually work or are merely rumors. One method must be debunked here — a fluffy dam swelling due to a scaredy fit cannot be pierced to drain the amniotic fluid. The pain of being pricked will upset her even further, and not only cause an increase in the speed of swelling but will reduce her already weak structural integrity to make the explosion more violent and happen much more quickly.

The best way to stop fluffsplosion among domestic fluffies is to prevent it from starting in the first place. If your fluffy is pregnant, it is best to keep things as calm as possible. Keep her in her safe room during pregnancy, and you’re likely to have a happy fluffy family rather than a messy tragedy.

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Review: OMD – English Electric

Richard J. Anderson — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:06:41 +0000

When Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark reformed its original lineup and released History of Modern, I wasn’t sure what to expect. OMD’s post-Junk Culture material left me a bit cold, but I decided to give the album a chance. I was pleasantly surprised to find OMD keeping pace with contemporary electronic pop. Though the album was uneven, it showed that the band could still teach the kids how its done. It was enough to get me to see them live on the History of Modern tour, though I only bought my ticket after contemporaries The Human League cancelled their show. The show was a high-energy synth-fest, with new material standing side by side with tracks from across the band’s career. I left hoping they’d keep at it for a while.

Now, OMD is back with English Electric, an album that sounds so much like vintage OMD, complete with Peter Saville artwork, that one could accuse them of being retrograde. It’s an accusation that doesn’t hold up. It owes a debt to their classic albums, which still sound ahead of their time 30-plus years later, combining the pop sensibility of Junk Culture, and the melancholy heart of Architecture & Morality, with the abrasive avant-garde of Dazzle Ships. It’s an electronic elegy to a future that never arrived, or rather, as the opening track says, “has been cancelled.” If anyone has the right to complain about the lost future, it’s OMD, who were at the forefront of a revolution in popular music that was first shoved aside by fetishistic reverence for guitar rock, and then resurrected with only minimal acknowledgement of its progenitors.

The heart of English Electric is the seven-and-a-half minute “Metroland,” a wistful ode to the future that borrows more than a bit from Kraftwerk’s “Europe Endless,” which isn’t a bad thing. It’s as progressive as OMD has ever gotten and they make it work. If any band can pull an homage to Kraftwerk, it’s the band who threw their guitars away after seeing Kraftwerk play. Karl Bartos, Kraftwerk’s former percussionist, helped with the album, including co-writing “Kissing the Machine” with Andy McClusky, originally for Bartos’s own Electronic Musik project in the 90s. Elsewhere, tracks like “Decimal,” “The Future Will Be Silent,” “Atomic Ranch,” and opener “Please Remain Seated” channel Dazzle Ships, a side of the group that’s typically been in the background since that record’s poor reception.

Sometimes, English Electric can feel a tad too retrograde. “Helen of Troy,” for example, begs comparisons with “Joan of Arc” from Architecture & Morality, that it can’t live up to. “Our System” comes off as a bit overwrought, erring more towards the Morality of Architecture & Morality, but these slight missteps are more than compensated by the album’s highs. Paul Humphrey’s requisite lead vocal on “Stay With Me” is saved from feeling like a rehash of “Forever (Live and Die)” or “Souvenir” by the powerful, vintage synths that give it a necessary grounding in OMD’s past, and Paul’s voice, which has been clearly preserved in amber. (Andy’s voice is in fine form too, deepened with age, but still able deliver the punch it needs to on every track.)

If History of Modern is OMD’s attempt to show it can stand toe to toe with the acts it influenced, English Electric is their way of showing they don’t have to. By planting the flag in the sonic aesthetic of their prime, OMD return to the niche they created at the start of the synthpop revolution in 1978 to find it in perfect condition. Nobody made music quite like this then, and nobody makes music quite like it now, except for Andy, Paul, Martin, and Malcolm. The future wasn’t supposed to be like this, but the in 1978, the future was at least supposed to sound like this.

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The Saga of Bluey and Smarty, Part II

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 05:03:55 +0000

Art by BDB/Black Dragon Blood

You’re the smarty friend of your herd. Your herd is only two, you, a unicorn, and Bluey, a pegasus. Well, kind of two. Perhaps it would be better to say two halves. One body. Though you’re the smarty, you’re also the end that poops.

Bluey’s first words were “Wuv daddeh!”

Your first words were “Wan’ BLURRRRGGGGGH die.”

Your second words were “wife nu pretty”.

Hooman munstas have no desire to actually kill you. The abusers end up scaring Bluey so bad he makes sorry poopies. They watch and figure that your existence alone is crueler than anything they could ever do to you. The ones who typically take care of and love fluffies can’t bring themselves to kill a healthy fluffy. You are, technically healthy. Bluey’s thriving, and thus you are too. But they can’t bear to see your misery, so they don’t take you in either, so you became a feral herd – the two of you. Luckily, Bluey’s happy to let you be the smarty. He doesn’t seem to realize that all of your smarty ideas involve attempting suicide.

You’ve been out on your own for a while now. You’ve actually outlived almost every feral herd you’ve come across. None of them let you join; you’re too weird looking. This also has protected you from being eaten by the various non-human munstas. For whatever reason, even if you’re near a herd, every other fluffy pony will get attacked but you. Bird munstas, stripey munstas, cat munstas, dog munstas, they all pass you by. They know you don’t look right, and things that don’t look right might be not-nummies.

You’ve tried chasing after them. You’re the only fluffy who can actually scare them off. Usually this happens after the nearby herd is dead. Otherwise, they might realize it would pay to have you around. Not that you particularly care about companionship. You just want one thing: The sweet huggies of longest sleeps.

This morning you wander out of the park to look around and work on a new plan. Bluey just likes seeing things. Bluey likes everything, really.

“Aw we gonna meet nuu fwiends today, Smawty?!”

The mention of new friends gives you an idea.

“Yeh, yeh we aw.”

You remember hearing stories of scattered herds when their smarty tried to pick a fight with a hooman munsta over their land. It didn’t end well. Well, for them.

For you, it’d be perfect.

Start looking around for a good hooman safe place. Find a big one with lush, green grassie-nummies and pretty flower-nummies and a big wooden sign out front. That sign probably says something like “FLUFFIES GET LONGEST SLEEPS IF COME HERE TO HOOMAN SAFE PLACE”. Silly hoomans don’t realize fluffies can’t read.

But you don’t care, you’re here for one thing only, and it’s the thing that’s on the sign probably.

You barge up to the door.

“DUMMY HOOMAN COME OUT NAO! DIS FWUFFY LAND!”

Bluey grazes while you wait.

Maybe the huuman munsta didn’t hear you?

Louder this time, “DUMMY HOOMAN WEAVE OR GET BIGGEST OWIES FROM FWUFFY SMAWTY!!”

You puff out your cheeks for good measure. Bluey continues to graze. No response.

“HEWWWO DUMMY HOOMAN!!!! HEWWOOOOO!!! COME OUT NOW FOR BIGGEST OWIES!!!!!!”

By this time, Bluey’s stopped grazing.

“Oooh! Wuv Smawty! Tummy sooo fuww! Wuv gweenest gwassies! Wuv yoo Smawty! Best Smawty!”

That’s all you hear. Certainly no hooman munstas. You’re about to yell even louder when you get pushed over from the side and fall down.

“Dummy fweak fwuffy! Dis our wands nao! Weave!”

“…fiwne. Nock yusewfs out.”

You wander away as the bigger herd starts eating and snuffling around.

“Oooh, fancy bwoo nummies!”

Bluey’s ears perk up, but since he’s full he doesn’t feel any desire to go over and check it out himself. Not like the herd would let you anyway. You hear a lot of frantic eating, and then… silence. The fluffy mummas of the herd are finally almost to the blue-nummy place with their attendants.

“NUUUUUUUU!! FWUFFYS!! WHY FWOAMY AND SWEEPY! WAKE UP!! PWAY!! PWAY!!!! PWAAAAAY!!!”

Wait… that means…. there was bad-for-fluffy nummies out? And if they’re all dead, they can’t try to hoard them all for themselves!

“BWUEY! COME WIF ME! TWY….PWAY…WIF HERD!”

“Okay, Smawty! Bwooey wuv pway!”

You get over there and see the scene. Fluffies all over taking longest sleeps with white spitty foamy stuff in their mouths. Little bit of boo-boo juice around too. Bluey starts to get nervous but you move in closer. You see lots of little nummies-places… but they’re all empty. The herd was greedy and ate all the bad-for-fluffy nummies!

POOPIES.

And by this time Bluey starts noticing the boo-boo juice.

“BWOOEY WAN’ WEAVE! DIS BAD PWACE FOR FWUFFIES.”

The crying mummas start getting louder. You think you see some of them going into scaredy-fits even.

“Otay, Bwooey, wet’s go back to da pawk. Safe pwace dere.”

You start to walk back. You hear a pop. Bluey didn’t like that at all.

DOUBLE POOPIES.

You’ve just dodged death again.

You are the unluckiest fluffy in the world.

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Review: Stryper: Live in Indonesia at the Java Rockin’ Land

Deej Sylvis — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 03:07:23 +0000

DJ’s room from when he was in high school

Ah, Stryper. If you’ve heard of them at all, chances are you’re of my generation and barely recall ‘that Christian metal band’ that had a couple of videos on MTV and showed up on the Billboard charts every so often. They were a brief, occasional flash across the screen, or the radio, in a time that was absolutely dominated by big-haired ballad-crooning metal groups. I’m not surprised if even their logo fails to jog your memory.

In my adolescent life, they played a much bigger part – as you can see from the attached photo of my high school bedroom. Across the corner from my Starlog pull-out of Captain Kirk, there they were, keeping watch over my stereo system and mildly concerning my parents. I had almost every release, knew every lyric (to be fair, there weren’t that many, and they repeated a lot, but again, 80s metal), and clipped CCM articles to keep inside the album covers. Stryper loomed large in my music collection practically until I left for university. The reason? I … was a teenage Christian.

And not just any major-holidays Christian; my family was hardcore Baptist. We went to church twice on Sundays, I was sent to Awana (sort of the Christian version of scouting) on Mondays, church again Wednesday night, then often various religious sporting or social events on Friday night or Saturday. And I went to the church’s school, so I spent every day being bombarded by scripture memorization, inaccurate science, and the goddamn Pilgrim’s Progress at least once every year. It was that particularly restrictive form of religious upbringing that is convinced that the ultimate evil – the original sin – is not murder, or lying, or thievery – it is the fault of being too secular. Anything important to life should come out of the Bible; otherwise, no matter how positive or useful it may seem, it is ultimately suspect.

There’s a whole bright, shiny, iniquitous world out there trying to catch the eye of those Christian sons and daughters. Thus, a subculture of Christian entertainment took root to try to guide their attentions back to the flock. There are Christian teen romance novels, Christian sci-fi movies, Christian superheroes (I’m sure some of you have heard of Bibleman, aka Willie Aames) … it only took me the shortest of Amazon searches to find a list of Christian vampire fiction competing with Twilight and True Blood.

And, there is Christian music, running the gamut from pop (you must know Amy Grant) to rock both hard and soft, to rap and comedy and finally heavy metal. Practically any genre you’re interested in has a Christian equivalent on the fringes, desperately trying to keep the God-loving kids down on the farm after they’ve seen Sodom and Gomorrah. For me, in the 1980s, that was Stryper, and every word went right from their mouths to my ears.

They weren’t really significantly better or worse than their mainstream competitors – Cinderella, Def Leppard, etc. I’d be equally embarrassed if anyone heard any of them coming from my mp3 player today. But they were just far enough within the boundaries (I could buy their albums at Christian bookstores), without being so far that I couldn’t convince myself I was a bit of a rebel. After all, one of their most famous tracks was called, “To Hell With the Devil,” and they were soundly condemned by Jimmy Swaggart (though lauded by Jim Bakker). And there were definitely quite a few people at my church who felt that any form of rock music, no matter what the intentions, was simply paving the road to damnation.

But what was serviceable teenage rebellion in 1988 is difficult to listen to today (and that, I suppose, is universal across subcultures). It’s no surprise that when Stryper resurfaced in the 21^st century, their appeal had faded even among those limiting themselves to Christian culture, and they found their largest concert audiences in countries hungry for US entertainment. Thus, the Live in Indonesia dvd, where only a fraction of the audience seems to know even their greatest hits, and many of the reaction shots amusingly find concertgoers checking their phones instead of watching what’s up on the stage.

It’s a decent enough disc – as I’ve noted with other MVD releases, it’s not much for fancy menus or extras (or even any of the usual introductory footage, interviewing fans in line or something), but the video is nice and sharp, and the audio is clear. And it’s cheap enough – you can find it easily online for ten bucks or so. They go through a selection of the big hits and more recent stuff with a little bit of chatter that seems more dated sometimes than the music. (Seriously, do people still think that commenting about ‘when MTV used to play music videos’ is worthwhile?)

I just can’t think of a good reason to own this. If you have your own nostalgia going on, or are simply curious, they’re easy enough to find on Youtube. But there are much better uses for your money, even within the strict confines of contemporary Christian music, than a Stryper concert dvd in the here and now. I’m sure I could sell a copy to my teenage self – but then, he wouldn’t have had any way to play the damn thing.

The post Review: Stryper: Live in Indonesia at the Java Rockin’ Land by Deej Sylvis appeared first on Kittysneezes.

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