A: Hey kids, look! A series of unrelated videos, presented in no particular order for your immediate viewing pleasure free of charge! What a wonderful world!
1999 A.D. A clip from a prescient 1967 film foretelling a glorious future in which mail is sent electronically, shopping can be done from home, and parenting has been replaced by espionage. They got pretty much everything right, except in reality, the only people secretly filming your children are NSA agents.
The Iron Man trailer. Dan Hopper at BWE thinks it looks like a retread, but I'm totally excited anyway. And not because I give a shit about Iron Man (no one does, as far as I know), but rather for one simple reason, and I'll give you a clue, it rhymes with Shmobert Shmowney Shmr.
Cop Gone Wild, which finally addresses the Q: Who's crazier? A crazy cop, or a crazy guy who drives around with a camera installed in his car's ceiling hoping to be brutalized by a crazy cop? A: Crazy cop. After a few minutes it gets boring, but the screaming part is fun. Oh policemen, you so crazy!
Osama bin Chomsky. Everyone acts like it's all weird that bin Laden is talking like a liberal blogger now. But bin Laden has always channeled liberal bloggers, including in the interview he gave immediately following Sept. 11th. Of course, no one really read that interview, except for the 9/11 Truth crackpot brigade, because the mainstream media was too incompetent to tell you about it. Luckily, T.A.M.S.Y. will be happy to fill you in! Later.
A: If you are part of the somewhere between 4% and 60% of my demographic that is related to me, you are going to love this video.
If you're not related to me, you are going to love this video anyway, because my family is adorable, and appearing as robots, for some reason, in a dream Kraftwerk had about the Heineken draught keg. Also it's short!
If you do not find my family adorable, or are terrified of us in man-machine form, I encourage you instead to focus on the lyrics, which are pure poetry.
You too can make a humorously unsettling video!!! of your family, friends, or especially I recommend exes. All you need1 is a photo or four, and you'll have everyone born before 1976 believing you're a uniquely talented computer animator.
On a related note, remember never to buy Heineken. It's not very good.
A: Earlier this year, BET Animation and performer Bomani "D'Mite" Armah teamed up to produce this very entertaining mock PSA.
It's way popular (875,000+ views), but I hadn't seen it until Brian Romero posted it to his cartooning blog over the weekend.
The controversy surrounding its racial overtones made it all the way to CNN, according to a YouTube commenter. It's not racist, so much as it is just an effective satire of la vie de crunk — but I'd imagine CNN saw it differently.
(And you can tell I'm speaking to The Kids now, because of how I say "yr" where people my age would say "thine." And when I say "The Kids," I of course mean anyone at least 18 months younger than me.)
A: Dear The Kids,
On Monday, I posted a video possibly made by Wesleyan students, or possibly just blogged about by Wesleyan students, hard to know. The backing song to the video was very catchy, but I'd never heard it before. I did a bit of Internet detectiving, and I discovered it to be "Kids" by a Brooklyn band, MGMT, the pride of Cantora Records.
The clown shoe-lookin' muhfuckers of MGMT.
Apparently this song's pretty popular with you, the future of America, perhaps because it's about you; says a commenter on its (totally inaccurate but whatever) SongMeanings lyrics page, "Why wasn't this an enormous hit? This was one of everyone's favorite 3 AM dance party songs freshman year in college." Curious, since I've never heard of it or them, and I'm the coolest cat in all the land.
Anyway, here's the song. If I were dancing high on peyote at 3AM, this would totally do the trick.
Oddly enough, MGMT is touring with Of Montrealand Grand Buffet, two of the only bands I've blogged in recent months. So perhaps MGMT + T.A.M.S.Y. is a match made in heaven 4RL.
(P.S.: If you're a member of MGMT, please say hello. I like the cut of your jib. Also please tell me what your song means, so I can tell The Kids who were asking about it. Unless you're like David Lynch or the Young Michael Stipe and you're disgusted by the very question, which is fine also. Also please don't sue me. In return I promise never to call you synth-pop.)
(P.P.S.: If you're the Josh or Sabrina who made that Dear New Girl or Whatever Your Name Isvideo, I'd love to know you are. I like the cut of your jib also.)
A: The second part of today's trilogy of mind-expandistic YouTubography takes us to Wesleyan University [UPDATE: or possibly elsewhere], for a short film named for and based loosely on a McSweeneys book, Dear New Girl or Whatever Your Name Is.
A: No, you don't. Seriously. You really don't want to see China's hairiest man. But thanks for asking.
(And just in case you're curious, it's not that he's nude, or involved in anything sordid, aside from being visible; it's entirely safe for work, at least in the sense that it can be considered safe for anywhere, which it can't, which is why you don't want to click here, trust me.) [via Scott]
Anyway, China has like a billion starving people to worry about. Do they really have time to be going around figuring out who the hairiest person is? I mean, not that there was any competition. Because Jesus.
A: I really wanted to post an mp3 of "Tiny Bubbles" in tribute to Don Ho, but it turns out that I don't own any Don Ho albums. I did, however, find this inexplicable cover of Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey":
When Pigs Fly is an extremely bizarre and yet strangely listenable covers album. It opens with Ani DeFranco and Jackie Chan covering Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable."
I always thought he was saying "shock the monkey tonight!" It turns out it's "shock the monkey to life!" As in, "WE'RE GOING TO NEED TO DEFIBRILLATE THIS MONKEY STAT!!!"
Like the video, this'd make more sense if either of us were high.
P.S.: I checked elbo.ws, and it turns out Idolator has "Tiny Bubbles." They also beat me to the punch on "Shock the Monkey." Damn you, Denton.
Steven Spielberg had previously claimedJoe Johnston (of Gremlins and Jurassic Park III) was his "go-to Jurassic guy," but with Johnston's reps denying the director's involvement, looks like the job is still open.
"I don't know if he is in talks with them or not, [but] maybe David Lynch [should direct] it just to kind of shake things up a little bit. That would make it kind of interesting and unique," the 40-year-old actress said of her longtime collaborator. "I don't know [who] — I just hope it's as irreverent as Steven has always wanted them to be." [link via Mara]
David Lynch!?!? Under normal circumstances of an actress making such an absurd claim, I'd assume she were either talking out of her crazy ass, or just joking. Except for two things: (1) As MTV News notes, Dern and Lynch have worked together several times before, including on Blue Velvet and the new Inland Empire, and (2) the comment "I don't know if he is in talks with them..." Why would she disavow knowledge of something that no one would ever have believed, unless it were actually true!?
Needless to say, I hope Dern gets her wish — and I encourage Spielberg to SPARE NO EXPENSE in making it happen. I mean, David Lynch directing Jurassic Park IV would be awesome on so many levels, my head might explode.
And maybe it's not such an unnatural pairing! The only people who understand David Lynch films are also the the target audience for Jurassic Park sequels. Namely, incredibly high people.
A: Get real! Sheesh! NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO WWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!! Or anyway, that's how this guy feels about it.
Why not? You've already got a beard.
Money quote:
I can't explain it here, but Garfield has been a very important part of my life for a very long time.
Oh newsgroup members. What won't you say?
I found Jym Dyer's life-ruining story via the always-content-rich comments pages over on the always-awesome Comics Curmudgeon (whom The Week has shrewdly named its Blogger of the Year). The same post also contained "Protectors of the Earth," a solid nugget of stoner-comedy gold:
But hey, I'm kind of a sucker for jokes about Mark Trail. And cougar sound effects.
Honest to Bo Derek. The Ten is really, really good. Like, one-of-the-funniest-comedies-I've-ever-seen good. Not to set your expectations too high or anything — but oh God, so very funny.
Keeping in the spirit of the film — which is split into ten stories, each loosely (very loosely) based around one of the ten commandments — here are TEN THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE TEN:
1. In case you missed it the first time, here's the teaser trailer:
2. Going in, I had high expectations — being a big fan of The State, Stella and David Wain's comic sensibilities in general — but I also sort of expected The Ten not to meet those expectations. If that makes any sense.
I have a history of underrating comedies the first time I see them. I think it's because, as a whiny former drama major, I tend to get distracted when a film's plot is just an excuse to string together jokes (as regular T.A.M.S.Y. readers know, I also get distracted when a film's plot is an excuse to string together anything, e.g., Spartan war victories), even if the jokes are very funny.
The most relevant example of this is Wet Hot American Summer, David Wain's first film, which I saw alone in a nearly empty theater in Times Square, very shortly after its release, and which I found intermittently funny but also to be, uh, kind of just a dumb sketch about '80s summer-camp movies stretched over 97 minutes. I never, ever would've expected Wet Hot to attain the cult status it has, especially among people too young to have watched The State during its original run on MTV.
Upon subsequent viewings, I like Wet Hot much more (I'd give it an 8 out of 11), but still not quite as much as other people do. It's got very funny jokes, yes. But it is also unapologetically dumb, and unapologetically a sketch stretched over 97 minutes.
3.The Ten is better and funnier than Wet Hot. Yeah, I went there.
4. Part of what makes The Ten better than Wet Hot is that, instead of being one bizarre sketch stretched into a full-length film, it's ten bizarre sketches stretched into a full-length film. The ten stories intertwine with one another in direct and indirect ways (sometimes as continuations of previous stories, sometimes just to allow for running jokes, a Wain/State specialty), but each is its own full story. So even if one sketch falls flat for you, it won't overstay its welcome.
But the other thing that makes The Ten so great is that, as far as I'm concerned, none of the sketches fall flat. Each story is based in a absurd, convoluted, State-worthy premise (the film is cowritten by Wain and Ken Marino), but nothing bombs.
5. So much of the hilarity is based in those absurd, convoluted premises that I'm hesitant to explain anything in detail. Suffice to say, it's a David Wain movie, so there are the obligatory references to erections, vaginas, titty fucking, prison rape and lite rock of the 1970s. And naturally, lots of good one-liners and running jokes. The Wet Hot fan base won't be disappointed.
If you want minor spoilers beyond that, you can read this positive review at the blog Not Coming to a Theater Near You, or the IFC Blog's thumbs down.
I do want to say this much: One of the sketches that the IFC Blog specifically says "doesn't work," and calls "odd-for-odd's sake" is one of the bits I found most hilarious: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods," which features Liev Schrieber and Joe Lo Truglio as neighbors whose efforts to one up one another result in a battle to see who can order the most CAT scan machines.
6. Not only is it a successful comedy, but The Ten is surprisingly viable as an art film (or at least a parody of an art film), too. The stories incorporate a surprising thematic range at times, including a Bertolucci-esque tale of Gretchen Mol's sexual awakening in Mexico, and an animated story about a deceitful rhinoceros' fall from grace (featuring the work of Aaron Augenblick, best known for Wonder Showzen, and the voice talent of Jon Benjamin).
7. The glue that holds The Ten together is Paul Rudd, as Master of Ceremonies "Jeff," who attempts to introduce each story (his crumbling marriage to Famke Janssen keeps getting in the way).
I found these tiny vignettes to be the least funny bits in the film, and the only thing about The Ten that could be called even remotely predictable. But even they didn't suck.
8. When I was the aforementioned whiny drama major, one of my professors taught me a good rule of thumb (she was talking about theater, but I think it applies to film, too): If the actors are generally good, the director was good. If the actors are generally bad, the director was bad.
By that rule alone, The Ten establishes Wain as an excellent comic director. There are a lot of famous people in the cast (and not only people known for comedy, as in Wet Hot), and the fact that all of them are able to mesh in so smoothly with the State veterans, in a series of quintessentially Stately bits, says a lot about Wain's talents. Because the movie does get extremely bizarre, and never do the actors seem anything less than comfortable and wholly committed.
Particularly funny, I thought, were Schreiber, Oliver Platt (as a second-rate stand-up comedian impersonating Arnold Schwazenegger) and Gretchen Mol. Speaking of which,
8 1/2: Gretchen Mol is just insanely hot. I know that, over the past decade, it's been said a million times that such-and-such film was going to make Gretchen Mol extremely famous, and it's proven false every time, but The Ten is going to make Gretchen Mol extremely famous!
Winona Ryder is also pretty funny/hot. But she plays a girl who sleeps around a lot, so it wasn't exactly a stretch or anything. (Wait, I just realized that casting Ryder as a girl who sleeps around a lot — and in the story "Thou shalt not steal," no less — is actually a very funny joke in itself. I'm sort of dense.)
9. I saw The Ten at the Cleveland International Film Festival's midnight screening Saturday night/Sunday morning. I arrived just as the lights were going down, and as I entered the packed theater, someone in the crowd loudly mock-whispered "The whole front row is open!" in a tone oddly reminiscent of David Wain himself. Except I didn't think Wain was actually there.
Turned out, he was. After the credits finished rolling (and stick around for the credits, by the way — the theme songs are hilarious), a CIFF spokesdude introduced Wain, who gamely answered a series of inane questions ("What was it like to work with all those actors?", "Is there going to be a second season of Stella?", etc.).
Nothing substantive came of the Q&A session. I just wanted to note that David Wain instructed me on where to sit for a screening of a David Wain movie, which is like my proudest achievement ever.
One other thing about the screening: The film appears to have been really lushly shot (by a little-known cinematographer, Yaron Orbach), especially for a comedy, which is another reason I think it's legitimately successful as an art film. But it was hard to appreciate the look of the film fully — because, for reasons unknown to me (and, apparently, Wain), the CIFF didn't show an actual print of it. They had a videotape. And if you want to know what a videotape looks like on a big movie screen when you're sitting way up front, the answer is: Really, really shitty.
10. My brother just told me about this video, and it is adorably hilarious. In which a nine-year-old David Wain provides a tour of his hometown, Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Wow, this post is really long. Sorry.
10 1/2: I forced my parents to go see the screening yesterday afternoon, and they also really, really liked it. This makes me even more convinced that The Ten is going to be as wildly successful as it deserves to be.
A: I can't believe I watched the whole thing — but you have to admit, this is mighty impressive.
Posted on the Daily Dish as Sunday's YouTube of the Day, this dancing Danish horse (for the record, it's Andreas Helgstrand's blue hors matine WEG2006 Freestyle Dressage Final performance, not that I have any fricking clue what that means) is possibly the most fantastically Andrew Sullivanesque clip of all time. I can barely count all the Sullivanisms!
Bizarre sporting event that only Europeans could consider entertaining? Check.
Cheesy 80s power ballads? Check.
Dry British humor? It's got British commentators and a sashaying horse, so I'm going with Check.
Infinitely better if you're stoned out of your gourd? Double check.
Gayness?It's got British commentators and a sashaying horse, so I'm going with Quintiple check.
[insert horse cock joke]? Check.
If you were playing the Daily Dish drinking game, you'd be dead by now.
I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, un-available to us without such drugs.
A: They won't. They will have smoked the memory into oblivion. They will, however, remember Feb. 16th, 2007, as the day they found out that the new Modest Mouse leaked yesterday.
A: No. You are pouring those bees into my face for nothing.1
1 In case this requires further explanation: While discussing how badly that Ghost Rider movie is going to suck, a Digg commenter cited this compilation of scenes from Nicolas Cage's The Wicker Man. I hadn't seen the film, nor these clips, and I found them deeply enlightening.
Try to imagine this as the montage that would be shown during the Oscars in a hellish dystopia where The Wicker Man had been nominated for Best Picture.
I'm almost curious to see the film now, just to know what series of events could have possibly led to (1) Nicolas Cage fist-fighting Leelee Sobieski and (2 through 100) whatever the fuck the rest of that was. But then I remembered I'm all out of weed. Also turpentine.
POST-SCRIPT: Wow -- "The Wicker Man" turns out to have directed by the (sometimes-)briliant playwright/filmmaker Neil LaBute, who was apparently not out of turpentine. He did a stellar job of covering up his involvement with this film, which appears to be the only stellar job he did involving this film.
LaBute's first two films were both very strong: In the Company of Men and especially Your Friends & Neighbors. And then he drove his career off a cliff. Several times. He's still a solid playwright, though, last time I checked. -- 10:16PM
CORRECTION: IMDb is wrong: LaBute did rewrite Anthony Schaffer's original screenplay. He's even Razzie-nominated for it (Wicker is up for five Razzies, including Worst Picture — although to LaBute's credit, he was bumped from the Worst Director category by Ron Howard). And maybe it isn't fair to say LaBute covered up his involvement with the film, since he'd publicly defended it a month before its release (and he's still willing to discuss it with crappy British e-rags).
Also, someone in Spokane, WA recently found this post by blog-googling for references to the director. Spokane is LaBute's hometown, so: Neil, if you're reading this, I still love you. -- 02/10, 1:39PM
A: Not corn and not wheat. In fact, according to the findings in a newly released study, one popular lil' plant is more lucrative than corn and wheat combined.
Can you guess what it is? The answer may surprise you... unless you're as stoned as the majority of my readership.
$uper Skunk: From xPat's designer seed collection.
Yep, that's right: It's weed, with a gross annual value topping $35 billion, according to a newly released report.
SACRAMENTO — For years, activists in the marijuana legalization movement have claimed that cannabis is America's biggest cash crop. Now they're citing government statistics to prove it.
A report released today by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion — far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay, which are the top three legal cash crops.
I'm way more surprised that hay is top-three material than I am by marijuana's dominance, but I digress1.
Some might assume that Jon Gettman, the report's author, skewed the numbers to exaggerate the dope biz's success, given that Gettman is head of the pro-medical marijuana Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis, and has a vested interest in hyping the War on Drugs' failures. A quick review of the math, though, suggests that -- although Gettman's numbers do involve a lot of guesswork -- his conclusions may actually be on the conservative side.
Domestic marijuana production is 10,000 metric tons (or 22 million lbs.) annually, according to a 2005 State Department report.
Gettman estimates average value of a pound of pot at $1,600 to producers (not to be confused with street value, commonly cited by law enforcement agencies to be between $2,000 and $4,000 per pound, according to the LA Times' piece).
First off, that valuation of marijuana's street value strikes me as preposterously low. Consider: $4,000/lb. = $250/ounce = $31.25 per eighth.
In my experience, you'll have a hard impossible time finding pot even close to that cheap (let alone half that). As far as I've ever known, the going rate is $50 -- and while you might find it as low as $40, you'll be more likely to pay $60.
In New York, you'll pay much more than that: $30 per delivered gram is not uncommon, which equates to more then $105 per eighth (note to self: no wonder we could barely afford to eat). The only place I've ever seen weed for under $40 is dirt-poor Athens, Ohio.
Gettman himself calls the estimate of $1,600/lb. (in production value) conservative. I have no clue how we might devise a more realistic number here, but even $2,400/lb. equates to just $18.75/eighth wholesale -- and that would push the total domestic crop value to over $52 billion.
The bigger problem, though, is probably that first number, the State Department's estimate of total domestic marijuana production. For one thing, 10,000 metric tons looks like a grossly rounded number, even for an estimate. For another thing, government offices have a history of making shit up, partly because they have no idea and partly because inflating the numbers works as a great scare tactic in the effort to drum up public funding.
I'd like to explore that issue further, but I'm going to save that for a follow-up post tomorrow, because (a) I'm running long and (b) if I have to spend one more minute today trying to make sense of the gobbledygook that humanity calls "statistics"2, I'm going to stab my eyes out.
ALSO: Speaking of things that make me want to stab my eyes out, take a gander at the response to this study from Tom Riley, White House spokesman. Maybe he was high when he said it, but what the hell is his point here?
1 Subsequent Googling indicates I had good reason to be surprised; the Times is wrong. According to the EPA's data from 2000, hay ranks third in acreage but fifth in cash receipts. Just another reminder that you can't trust journalists.
Oh, wait, maybe they're just looking at old data from 1997, maybe because they did their research using Wikipedia. Or maybe they have newer data that I just can't find. In summary, I have no fucking clue. Just another reminder that you can't trust the government, Wikipedia, statistics the farming industry or my blog.
2 For more on this, see the footnotes. Oh, wait, you already did.
A: She's still alive, right? Because I have the comeback role of a late-lifetime with her name on it. Think Golden Girls meets Weeds in the Arizona desert: An adorable grandmother turns to dealing dope, hundreds of pounds of dope, to feed her crippling bingo habit. Based, obvs, on a true story:
This thing has all the universal themes covered: crime; money; drugs; bingo; sweaty senior citizens; did I already say bingo? And it's the role Angela Lansbury was born to play -- an desperate, impoverished Mexican American.
Jessica Fletcher: She just don't give a fuck.
I smell Emmy gold, people. Feel the pathos:
"People who play bingo almost every night of the week end up losing in the long run," Prosecutor Doyle Johnstun told jurors. "The underlying issue is that she's got a bingo problem, which explains why an otherwise nice person might get sucked into something like this."
Oh, maybe also because she was trying to survive on a $275/month welfare check. On the other hand -- 210 pounds!? Christ, that must have been some high-stakes bingo.
Anyway, kudos to the American legal system for sending a 61-year-old woman to three to 12 years in prison for the unthinkable crime of getting a bunch of people stoned. Man, do I feel safer.
A: Me too. And what's stranger than Northeast Ohio's homegrown freakshow, Brian Warner, on a soundtrack for kids?
Okay, a soundtrack for kids and stoned adults.
Marilyn Manson - This is Halloween The Nightmare Before Christmas {OST | Special Edition}, 2006
Speaking of stoned adults, what are the chances that within a month of me quitting smoking weed, they would release The Nightmare Before Christmasin 3-freaking-D! God, what a travesty. I think it's time for a relapse.
Anyway, the Manson track is really pretty damn good. I apologize, Mr. Warner, for selling you short. The rest of the soundtrack is interesting, too, both in terms of how awesome Danny Elfman's songs still are and also for the remarkable terribleness of Fall Out Boy (who murders "What's This?") and She Wants Revenge ("Kidnap the Sandy Claws"). Honest to God, what the fuck is wrong with you, America's youth?
Fiona Apple - Sally's Song The Nightmare Before Christmas {OST | Special Edition}, 2006
DID YOU KNOW? The character Sally was originally voiced by comedy genius Catherine "Not just the mom from Home Alone" O'Hara! Her impressive vocal talent, you may recall, was also featured in A Mighty Wind, in her swell duets with the surprisingly tuneful Eugene "Not just the dad from American Pie" Levy.
In Nightmare, O'Hara also voices one of the trio of nasties who kidnap the Sandy Claws, along with Paul "Mostly just Pee Wee Herman" Reubens and the talented Mr. Elfman. God, I love this movie!! Does anyone please have any weed???
, 
, btw.
is an extremely bizarre and yet strangely listenable covers album. It opens with 
| 
, which is supposedly 
