That...Will Be Quite Enough of That

Remember the "suitcase college" days, when Thursday nights were the best nights of the week to unleash the booze floods? Who says the fun can't continue as one pushes 30? At the moment I'm sitting in my living room, listening to Genesis (Collins, not Sega) and sipping a cocktail I just invented called the Dishwater (scotch, orange juice, and cherries). I will have to order one for Monica during our upcoming Veggie Prom/Pride extravaganza.

Besides the aforementioned feeble cocktail recipe, I have two new movie reviews for you:

1. Stuart Gordon's 1986 horror film From Beyond has a lot of prosthetic makeup, puppetry, and Jeffrey Combs (in ascending order of fabulousness). A burly gentleman in a banana hammock grapples with a genitalia-shaped water monster in a sequence that should only take a week or two of therapy to purge from your nightmares. Combs' head is ripped off before he bursts from a monster's body in a rebirth scene that ends with an inevitable house explosion.
There is also some brain-eating:



This movie is a lot better than The Notebook.

2. Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I is one of the best black comedies ever. Two struggling actors (one ambitious and paranoid, one hedonistic and bitter) take a doomed vacation in the country, argue, and get mind-bogglingly drunk:




Two trench coats way up.

For those who care to share their fashion expertise, feel free to suggest what ensemble I should rock for Vegan Prom. Keep in mind that red food coloring and Karo syrup make a fine vegan substitute for pig's blood.

Unicorn Wishes and Tangerine Dreams

I once had a dream that I was a unicorn named Michael that shot laser beams from my eyes. My best friend, Snowflake, was a dolphin and we solved crimes together. I'm starting to feel like I'm not the only person who had this dream.

• Do you remember a few months back when Neko Case did a pilot for adult swim called Cheyenne Cinnamon and the Fantabulous Unicorn of Sugar Town Candy Fudge? If not, you should watch it now before it disappears forever.
• Vegan's rest easy. We now have a place to buy magical unicorn soap. Lather, rinse, smell the magic.
• Are you having trouble telling that certain someone that you heart them more than rainbows and unicorns? Maybe this card is exactly what you need.
• Lastly, in my random list of unicorn related items, have you ever done a search for the word 'unicorn' while on engadget.com? What could unicorns and computers possibly have in common? I think I'm on to something here.

Since I wrongfully lured you into this post with the promise of something about Tangerine Dream, here's The history of the synthesizer courtesy of the University of Saskatchewan student newspaper, The Sheaf, and the intro to Street Hawk:



[photo: from rainbowzombieatemyunicorn via The Daily What]

Sparklethoughts March Edition

St. Patrick's day is fast approaching. Potatoes are rolling down the hills, cabbage leaves are swooping through the air like magic carpets, alcohol is flooding the streets. On that note, before you turn down a frostilicioius beer in favor of a vodka and Coke, consider these recent findings about beer-sipping and soda-pounding.

We'll need some music to energize us as we celebrate Spring's impending debut (I, for one, plan to twirl happily for up to two weeks before the bugs, heat, and thunderstorms make me dream of November). HAPPY MUSIC NEWS!

- Rasputina's seventh full-length album, Sister Kinderhook, comes out in June. A North American tour is planned - here's hoping their Manhattan fun doesn't fall at the same time as Blog 'scuse me's trip to Canada...

-Just found out about this 1995 Cake Like import, featuring Bum Leg, which I can't stop playing. For those who didn't know, guitar/vocals are by Kerri Kenney of The State and Viva Variety. I sort of wish they'd released a track called "Baby Tastes Like Soup" before they split in 1999, but one can't have everything.




-Peter Gabriel released a new covers album this month, Scratch my Back. I saw that he included a cover of one of my favorite "stare at the wall in a melancholy daze before jumping through a window" songs, Randy Newman's I Think It's Going to Rain Today. He pretty much butchered it. And that's depressing in the non-fun way. I'll keep the fun going by sticking to the original, and to this other "why get up in the morning" favorite:




I'm off to check tourfilter for more warm weather prospects. Andy Go Bragh.

Cocoon: I Return

After months of reclusion, I have been driven back to Blog 'scuse me by Monica's vindictive, threatening acts. Her very first offense, the use of Ryan Howard, was so indecent that Henry Lee Lucas materialized in my cubicle and applauded. Now is the time for action. We will recover, we will rebuild.

The timing works out well, because this week I saw Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case and want to take a few minutes to review. The only other film of Henenlotter's I had seen prior to this was Brain Damage, which was a little more polished but equally scuzzy, and had similar elements: hapless kid struggling through a love-hate relationship with a homicidal puppet; elderly woman who enjoys looking after a homicidal puppet; and things like this:




Twin apathetic nurses!

Kevin Van Hentenryck plays Duane Bradley, who as a child was separated from his deformed twin, Belial, against his will. In the present day (i.e. 1981, when drug dealers openly used the hard sell approach, all hookers were glamorous, and America was but one year away from the latest in gaming technology) Duane and Belial hole up in New York and exact revenge on the doctors who sliced them apart. The carnage comes easy to Belial, who for unexplained reasons has superstrength, the power of telepathy, glowing red eyes, and the ability to scale walls like an insect. At certain points in the film Belial is stop-motion-animated, which due to the $3.60 budget is even funnier than it sounds. Regarding the acting, Van Hentenryck makes Lorenzo Lamas look like Peter O'Toole; Terri Susan Smith, who plays Duane's love interest and Belial's eventual victim, employs a completely unnecessary intensity when doing benign things like asking Duane if he's toured the city yet. The climactic scenes involve a devastating crotch-grab and strangulation witnessed by a prostitute posse.

Three and a half stars.

2010: The Year of The Tablet?

While wired.com is predicting that 2010 will be the year of the tablet, I disagree.

I'm predicting this year will be the year of the tableau.



Living art has been featured in such shows as Arrested Development, Stella, and Gilmore Girls over recent years. And I believe this fascination with the tableau will not only continue, but will spark a revolution of artistic expression over the coming months.

So save yourself from a gadget that will be obsolete before the second season of the Jersey Shore starts filming and create a real piece of living art.

Things Tara (probably) Hates, Day 2

It has been 97 days since Tara's last post.

In an attempt to smoke her out of hiding, I will be posting things I think she will mostly find disagreeable. Hopefully, in the process, losing anyone who found this blog moderately interesting.

Here's a wonderfully revised version Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA:

Miley Cyrus Today Show Fail - watch more funny videos

You can watch the one without audio trickery here, but the altered one just has more panache.

Things Tara (probably) Hates

October 29, 2009 - The date of Tara's last post and 96 days ago!!!*

In an attempt to get Tara to start posting again, I have decided to start posting things I think she'll mostly likely hate on the blog. Enjoy.

To start things off, here's a link to the photo blog of Tara's "favorite" intern, Ryan Howard of The Office:

Thousand and One Words


*I do realize it has been almost a month since my last post, but let's ignore that for a moment.