Curiosity is good, but remember — there are a lot of things out there that, if you go research them, will stick in your brain. Forever. Like "bukkake." So be cautious. Once some shit like bukkake gets in there, it ain’t never coming out. You could be in the middle of a job interview or something, and your brain might start whispering, "Bukkake. Bukkake. Bukkake."
Ever since Fred did this, I've been remembering to note the videos I find fascinating. What follows is a smattering of those delightful discoveries. What we need, obviously, is a tv station and a license to broadcast whatever we feel like.
Speaking of Fred (and television): a long time ago, the good Doctor loaned me a copy of Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs. There's a screed in there entitled The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies or, The Day the Airwaves Exploded (because while Bangs was ostensibly writing about music, more often than not, he was actually writing about the way things should be. And, god love him, he was, more often than not, right) about the public retaking ownership of the airwaves.
FCC Commissioner Susskind said today that the recent outbreaks of violence and vandalism against TV stations in every state of the Union were the actions of a vast conspiratorial network "whose extensiveness staggers the imagination of any reasonable man." The Commissioner stated further that the network was populated mainly by heroin addicts, students driven psychopathic by hallucinogenic drugs, politicized shakedown artists, and prostitutes of both sexes-"junkies, sickies, trickies, and quickies," as the Commissioner quipped-led by an elusive cabal of disgruntled dropouts from the Weathermen on special orders from Red China.
Which, of course, could and will never happen, but goddam, ain't it fun to think about?
At last report, the station in Paw Paw was showing nothing but old "Popeye," "Bugs Bunny," and "Donald Duck" cartoons interspersed with 1952 episodes of "Dragnet" and "Inner Sanctum."
...
In Nome, the commandeered station was reportedly showing nothing but old commercials and newscasts run backwards, with a soundtrack comprised of Redd Foxx records and old rhythm and blues "party" (sex-oriented) songs superimposed on them.
Stations in other parts of the country are showing propaganda films from Communist countries and groups and broadcasting readings from Chairman Mao by hirsute under-thirties. Others screen nothing but Andy Warhol films, or "home movies" or "underground films" made by the guerrillas themselves. In San Francisco a rock group called the Grateful Dead has been playing an uninterrupted concert for ten days and, even more amazingly, a song entitled "Turn on Your Lovelamp" for the last four straight days, around the clock. One channel in Los Angeles is currently featuring a gentleman of indeterminate age named Kim Fowley, engaged in unprintable acts with a girl who doesn't look older than 14 and a boa constrictor, while "singing" in a warbling monotone.
When Bangs wrote this, he knew it would never happen. Mass media is media for the masses, not by the masses. What Bangs couldn't possibly have foreseen (at least not in its current incarnation; Bangs was a prophet, not a prognosicator) is Youtube's ascendancy to that ideal. What Lester Bangs was wishing for was what Youtube is slowly becoming: a mass media format for and by the people.
So let's commandeer a tv station; I've got the playlist figured out.
(Also: for those among you who know and/or care: Kat, that delightful minx of a person, and Nathan, the magisterial bear of the summer's night crowning, are engaged. That, plus the fact that they own a cafe in Anacortes officially makes them the most ridiculously cute couple ever.)
It's arty. It's ridiculous. It's in black and white. It's one of my favorite movies.
Richard Thompson doing Beeswing. This is a wonderful song; too bad his playing is for shit.
The only thing that would make this better is if they had done this on Springer. They could have brought in the horse!
One of the few people still living whom I would love to see live and probably never will: Jeff Mangum.
Because sometimes the best way to kill a man is to strangle him with your penis. Not everytime, mind you, just sometimes.
Roy Smeck is the master of the strings.
John Scarne explains some things.
Ferrofluid is some crazy manna. By drinking a dram of this highly magnetic fluid, you gain the power to shit magnets and die horribly, as your upper intestine attracts itself to the lower.
Finally out on DVD. Now I'm just waiting for the next season of the Muppets.
I don't know why this exists, but the fact that it does makes me...scared? Ecstatic? Lubricated? I'm so confused.
Comedy at its best.
Fucking Jacques Brel.
The fact that you can't buy this for American DVD players is one of the biggest travesties in the realm of media, right after DRM and the RIAA.
Someday I'll be this good. Or I'll be dead. One or the other.
Lenny Bruce.
Oh, Tracy Ullman.
Back when commercials ruled.
My favorite DJ.
Goddam, I miss MST3000. At one point in my life, I used to be able to spend Saturdays watching the Mike Nelson era. And while I'll always be partial to Joel, this show was the tits regardless of who was hosting (but once they headed into outer space with the monkey and the watcher, it truly jumped the shark).
Hell yes.
Qi. This, like most British television, would never fly here. Not because it's risky, sexy, or violent (you know, selling points), but because it bothers to be smart and funny, open and wide-ranging, and doesn't talk down to the audience.
Bill Hicks speaks openly and honestly about Hitler.
Hobo with a shotgun.
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