Goodbye, analog TV: it was never pretty, but it always worked...

I remember a mere ten years ago, walking by some guy, presumably homeless, on a street corner in my neighborhood. He was sitting in a beach chair on the sidewalk, watching WWE Smackdown of a Thursday evening, with his teenytiny b&w TV set hooked into a lamppost base, where he had looped the sucker in and was getting a pretty damned clear signal….

But now the conversion of all U.S. television is completed. Analog TV is over, and so is the notion of free television broadcasting. With analog signals, anyone who had a TV of any kind and any decent antenna could watch something — it might have not looked very good, but you got a signal, the damned thing worked, and it was now up to the networks and local affiliates to actually give you something worth watching (they, of course, have pretty much given up the ghost — oops, an analog pun!). With digital, you’ve got a gorgeously beautiful, detailed, richly colored picture. But you’re gonna pay for it, sucker.

Most of us already are paying for cable or satellite service, of course, but I do reflect on my parents who, for whatever reason (financial, habit, technophobia) had continued to use rabbit ears on their TV sets. When I installed the wondrous digital converter box for my dad, I discovered that the piece of crap draws in the digital signal using the rabbit-ears antenna, and is actually more whimsical and subject to errant transmission than the antenna itself. With the antenna connected to the box — and oh, you have to get a SPECIFIC antenna that draws in the UHF channels (including PBS stations that were on the VHF lineup, but were broadcasting using UHF frequencies) — you could get two or three stations with the antenna this way and you go another two or three angled that way across the room. In other words, it’s a far worse set-up than rabbit-ears. Thus both of my parents decided that the basic level of cable was the only option to actually get the channels in … except for those occasions once every two-three months where the signal just goes and you’re left with a box receiving nothing from the coax cable (I had one of these last week).

Thus, it must be honestly said that the TV makers of the world and the cable companies are thrilled with this federally-mandated digital conversion, which Obama did thankfully delay — but, again, what is it exactly making better? (We aren't going to be converting over to the super-beautiful, more-lines-per-image European system.) It makes no one’s life easier or better (those who wanted a better picture and could afford it… already have it!), and just troubles low-income folks who can use their coupons to get a digital converter box that must be programmed, channel for channel. And there is nothing, believe me, nothing more fun than trying to explain to a senior who is used to the “ghosts” and snow of yesteryear why the television transmission just suddenly froze, and a still picture is on their set. “Well, you see… you’d now have to take this antenna and move it around the room until you find the signal again. Then leave the antenna in that place — use a chair or something to prop it… what about this TV table over here, you don’t use this…”

The conversion was a fraud and a sham, and it simply benefits those who make TVs and the cable and satellite megacorps. It also permanently erases the “snow” that indicated that “our programming day has now ended…” (cue National Anthem) I already discussed how I believe that while digital is the “prettiest” medium around, its innate “planned obsolescence” is the neatest money-burning trick to come along in quite a while. Now that the entirety of the U.S. has been forced by government mandate to make this conversion (hey, the vacated bandwidth will be used, we’re assured, “for public emergencies” — and how would we tune the damned things in, if we shed our analog equipment?). Some technological upgrades are awesome in their potential for bettering our modes of disseminating culture and ideas. Some are just holidays for the greedy.

This hoary old 1974 movie-theater warning clip takes on new meaning with the converter-box scam:


For more sobering footage, a Missouri resident captured the moment it happened for his town, right at midnight last night:


A Philly viewer caught an even more emblematic image: commercials (of course!!!) going to the station logo, and then… it’s over:



For some funereal music to play, I suggest the Cramp’s “TV Set” and, of course, the song mentioned a few weeks back as the finest paean to tube-addiction, the Normal’s “TVOD.”

Pop made simple: the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

My favorite kind of comedic material comes from smart folks who act very silly. Of course this has been the foundation of some of the finest British humor, from Lewis Carroll to the sacred Spike Milligan (yes, he was Irish!) to the Pythons and beyond. Well the same concept holds for so-called “novelty music.” The more talented the players, the stranger and cooler the music can be. For a prime example of this, witness the extremely talented folks in the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain giving their interpretation of perhaps the seminal Nineties tune:



The wonderful part here is that this “novelty” music is actually the creation of some very skilled folk, who wind up (lemme not sound too academic here — ah, what the hell) conveying the emotions behind the songs in their terrific stripped-down renditions (and demonstrating their own talent in the process). What the Ukulele Orchestra have comprehended, and convey quite handily, is the indelible nature of these melodies we’re so familiar with. No matter what the “idiom,” these tunes are awesomely catchy, and sometimes quite touching. The UOGB prove the utterly impermeable nature of popular music from classical to lounge to disco in this wonderful pastiche, “Fly Me Off the Handel”:



But of course the group's musical virtuosity can be forgotten sometimes, as when they take on a truly hook-driven ditty, like “The Theme from Shaft”:



or another movie theme, “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”:



At this juncture I should of course link to the group’s official site. They also are quite fine in collaboration: here with the Kaiser Chiefs on “Ruby”; here in beautiful harmony with the former Cat Stevens doing “Peace Train”; and an audio bite of their only Gainsbourg cover!

And being a child of the Seventies, I highly recommend the Uke-Orch’s covers of ’70s glam gems. Here they do “Satellite of Love” (I do love Lou Reed’s finer moments, but perhaps it might be more interesting at this stage of the game to hear female voices singing the hits…)



One of Bowie’s most touching little ditties, "Life on Mars.” This really is beautiful stuff and does great justice to the original (while adding other strands of pop melodrama). Both Herr Bowie and his one-time partner in crime Brian Eno have given the thumbs-up to the fine musicological stews cooked up by the UOGB:



And finally, since I’m a diehard Kate Bush fan, I’d have to close out with the Uke Orch’s wonderfully jazzy version of her seminal “Wuthering Heights”:



I would love to see these ladies and gents play these shores (at a place I could afford, which ain’t many these days). They are sublimely talented and, yes, delightfully silly.

When the finest Sixties protest singer met the ultimate Sixties rock idol: Phil Ochs and John Lennon jam

Last week I gave you two of the greatest comedians ever in a photo, this week I bring you two of the finest rebellious Lefty singer-songwriters meeting up in audio form. I had heard that John Lennon had met Phil Ochs (no surprise, as the two traveled in the same circles when “Jock and Yono” moved to Manhattan), but now there is audio proof the two hung out together — and John played dobro in accompaniment to Phil doing his terrific “Chords of Fame.” The Internet is rife with discoveries like these, but each one of them is sublime:

WPIX-TV to NYC: Drop Dead!

So I still haven’t forgiven Game Show Network for killing off their classic b&w shows, in favor of an all-color, all-underwhelming schedule. Down in the standard line-up of channels, it’s nearly impossible to find b&w programming or films of any kind (unless PBS dusts off its evergreen, or public domain, titles). WPIX-TV, Ch. 11, is the only local commercial channel here in NYC that airs anything made before 1980. The shows, up until recently, numbered four: the weekly hour of Honeymooners (in which case the PIX programmer is dead asleep and chooses the same two or three dozen episodes — out of a syndicated pool of over a hundred — again and again and again); The Jeffersons (which was unfunny back in the Seventies when I was a kid, and it’s still unfunny); the once and future classic 79-ep Star Trek, and a New York City favorite, The Odd Couple with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman.

The Odd Couple is a show that should be perennially running in NYC, just as Naked City and several other Manhattan-set shows should be on the air (I know, I know, Seinfeld was set here, but MAN were those street sets phony as hell!). I rediscovered The Odd Couple last year when I had a period where I had no access to cable in the late evening hours. The show’s first season was dreadful, as it was shot with a single camera on the play’s set without a studio audience. Once Randall and Klugman flexed some muscle and the show was done with an audience on the set that is familiar to most viewers, it became one of the Seventies’ best sitcoms, with a starring duo who were born to play the roles (and, in both cases, seemed to live their parts off-screen). The show’s odd continuity changes (where the guys lived, how they met, how their friends came together, when they married) were totally excusable (Garry Marshall did far worse on his later Happy Days by just deleting a central character completely!), since the series was well-written and splendidly cast, from the guest stars to the boys’ love interests to the walk-on character actors (which included much of Sgt. Bilko’s platoon, as well as the sacred Victor Buono and the unforgettable Leonard Barr; Funhouse fave Wally Cox also appeared, but has been scissored out of the syndicated versions of the shows).

Anyway, much as GSN decided to utterly drop any hint of b&w and replace the best quality programs they had on with Family Feuds and the daytime color Password — never as good as the nighttime weekly version — WPIX recently dumped its airing of The Odd Couple for… an infomercial! This isn’t surprising at all, but what was interesting is that after the one half-hour infomercial that took the place of the “original OC,” they return to the schedule as it formerly was: the grievously unfunny Jeffersons, and the newer reruns (edited Comedy Central titles), and then… more informercials! And yet WPIX has left in place the most inane present-day stuff available: edited Sex and the City, Three and a Half Men, The George Lopez Show (I’m so glad other ethnicities can have bad sitcoms now too), and, worst by far, According to Jim (there is a special area in Hell carved out for the works of James Belushi). So, we lose a N.Y. tradition, but we get another infomercial stuck right in the middle of the late-night program schedule, and those who do want to see decent older television have to resort to DVDs or nothing at all. Perhaps the best part was that, in the last few go-rounds of the “OC” cycle, WPIX kept leaving out the same shows over and over again (including a personal fave — in which Felix and Oscar are trapped in a stalled subway car). Now the show is gone completely in NYC. Thank ya, PIX. Keep the legacy alive!

Plus, I really need a nightly dose of this guy:


UPDATE: The show was put back on after I wrote this and was then eventually pulled, as was the weekly airing of The Honeymooners.

There were comedy giants then...

Although I do enjoy a handful of current comedians and comic actors, let’s be brutally honest and say that the most popular movie comedians these days are just absolutely dreadful. It’s hard for me to muster the slightest interest in the dull deadpan of Will Ferrell or the empty boisterousness of Jack Black when these guys used to be creating anarchy on screen. I don’t think I need to identify ’em for ya, but the gent on the left was born William Claude Dukenfield, and the man on the right, who was more familiar with a greasepaint mustache and eyebrows, was born Julius Henry Marx. This pic finds them meeting at a friend’s party in 1938. I can’t imagine a nicer encounter of comedy immortals.

A mind-warping duo: Barnes & Barnes

So I’m never sure exactly who’s going to be posting videos on YouTube, but am interested to find celebrities whose work I’ve enjoyed deciding to join the legions of cam-whores… oops, I mean performers with webcams, and provide us with little updates on their creative processes. In the case of one musical performer, I was surprised to see him post on YT because he and his musical partner decimated my gray matter for a time in the early ’80s and thereafter, and I’ve often wondered where he went. The gent in question is Robert Haimer, better known as half of Barnes and Barnes, the musical duo that also included the very active TV/music renaissance dude Billy Mumy (the original Seth Green!). In his musical guise as “Artie Barnes” (Mumy was “Art Barnes” — hey this was the era of “Bob I” and “Bob II” from Devo), Haimer has put up some very, totally, extremely silly, goofy-ass videos, and then some other items that are far more serious in tone.

For those who don’t know who Barnes and Barnes were, they were considered novelty artists because of the enormous popularity of one absurdist anthem they recorded, which is below. I first heard it on the great Dr. Demento show, and first saw this mind-roastingly weird video on Saturday Night Live, way, wayyyy back when it was actually funny and adventurous, five lifetimes ago. Of course I speak of “Fish Heads,” costarring Big Love’s Bill Paxton and Dr. Demento himself:



The thing about Barnes and Barnes, though, was that their music was perfectly synched up with the “new wave” period in Seventies/Eighties music — they had an “electronic” sound (albeit an elemental, cheap-sounding one), sang lyrics that were alternately absurdist and creepy, and generally played around with the listener’s head, rather than just making him/her laugh. To illustrate the creepier aspects of their music, here’s their lovely ditty “Cemetery Girls,” which has sound clips from Mumy’s unforgettable turn as “Anthony” on The Twilight Zone (“you’re a bad man!”). This stuff messed with my head when I was an adolescent.



Bill Paxton stars in the duo’s ode to true romance, “Love Tap”



In addition to the ridiculous and catchy “Soak It Up” and “Party in my Pants” (which I first heard when B&B performed it on an SNL replacement special that had — no kidding — Rosemary Clooney singing in said trousers!), there is of course the Miguel Ferrer-starrer “Pizza Face” (also ridiculous and catchy):



And one last vintage Barnes and Barnes vid, the wonderfully strange and sexy, yet oddly off-putting, “A-ha”:



Now “Artie” is on YouTube right here, and has uploaded some very silly (did I say goofy) vids, as well some pure webcam biz, dispensing his philosophy of life. From the evidence in Mr. Haimer’s vids, I’d have to say that Mumy brought the musical hooks and the lyrical ability to the act, while Haimer brought the wild exuberance and memorably surrealist onslaught into B&B LPs.

Here we see the two gents, now a little older, but none the less weird, singing a ditty at the piano and making gay references (something they were wont to do on their albums — I cannot easily forget “Homophobic Dream #22” from Sicks):



Haimer’s most interesting upload is this clip, with him reflecting on what life in the normal world is like for a guy with a weird sense of humor:



The Barnes boys offered some Xmas greetings on the Artie Barnes account, and a new tune that reflects on Haimer’s own experiences, “Momma’s still here”:



That song is an affectionate view of a relative dying that combines the Barnes’ catchy musical ability with a lyric that is pleasant-sounding yet oddly haunting. Along those lines, Haimer has been putting up on YT video images of a lady in a hospital bed who I assume is his mother. The clips are jarring, since the lady doesn’t seem to want to be photographed. The captioning is affectionate and while it doesn’t seem like he is mocking the lady, these shards of a “passage” that doesn’t appear to be all that pleasant is as in-your-face as some of the most unforgettable B&B tunes. However... (as Professor Corey would say), the boys actually wrote their best paean to the Big Sleep a number of years ago, and closed out their first album with it. It’s a very strange, and yet oddly calm and sweet view of kicking off, entitled “When You Die:



Yeah.

It is not Rosa von Praunheim who is perverse, but the situations in which he films

This post is in conjunction with this week’s episode, which explores the films that will be part of next weekend’s “Films of Rosa von Praunheim” festival at Anthology Film Archives. The festival runs from June 4-7, contains 10 features and 2 shorts, and will boast a live performance by von Praunheim, entitled "I am not a Tomato." (I have no explanation). I offer up a little survey of von Praunheim clips that can be found on the obvious site, YouTube.

First, a few notes in case the name doesn’t ring a bell (and it’s quite a name!): Rosa von Praunheim is a now-legendary German filmmaker with a great sense of humor, a cool nom du cinema, and a keen ability to craft cinematic acts of provocation like It Is Not the Homosexual Who is Perverse, but the Situation in Which He Lives (1970). He made several sharp documentaries about the AIDS crisis in the Eighties, and has since produced a number of memorable docus about gay issues, strong women, and aspects of his own life.

The YT von Praunheim stash is mostly made up of Rosa’s comic creations, which is no surprise. Here is an unsubtitled (but pretty stylishly campy) scene from his very successful (and sadly unavailable over here) Die Bettwurst (1971). The song layered under the clip by the poster is, of course, by the le grand Gainsbarre:


Another bit of stylish camp here, unfortunately also unsubbed, from Rote Liebe (1982)


A musical interlude from the always imposing Diamanda Galas, from the 1990 AIDS docu Positive:


The opening minutes to the colorfully titled “Erotic Tale” that Praunheim made in 1999 for an anthology series. The short, “Can I Be Your Bratwurst, Please?” stars American gay porn star Jeff Stryker as a gent that both men and women want to consume — literally:


And the final film in the Anthology series is actually up in its entirety on YT. The film cannot be currently seen in the U.S. It’s a documentary about, well… the subject is in the title, Men, Heroes & Gay Nazis (2005):


And, finally, the opening minutes of a recent-vintage short shot here in NYC, starring nightclub chanteuse Phoebe Legere. Germans Taste Best (2007):

Tiny Tim sings an anthem for the new century: the psychedelic, deranged global warming premonition "The Other Side"

When he is remembered at all, Tiny Tim is labeled a one-hit wonder, a media oddity whose stint on Laugh-In made him hot for a minute (during which he had a massively viewed wedding on The Tonight Show), and then he was consigned to the scrapheap of pop culture. In truth, Tiny was indeed an unusual man on a personal level (and very especially a lovesick, often heartbroken one), but he was a gentleman who loved the hoary old tunes that he sang. Tiny was the kind of a versatile, unusual singer who could do justice to "There’ll Always Be an England” and The Beatles’ “Girl” (which he seems to relate to on a heavy level, and if you knew the stories of his fascinations with les femmes, you’d know he did).

Several top-notch Tiny Tim discoveries can be made on YouTube, including his appearance on “The Coca Crystal Show” with Izzy Fertel. The finest discovery, however, are clips from a TV special Tiny did in Australia in the late Sixties, which are all posted on this blog.

The most familiar tune is the wonderful "Living in the Sunlight” (I dare you to be downhearted while listening to Tiny warble this one). The song was recently revived on Spongebob Squarepants. But the most eye-opening, jaw-dropping performance is “The Other Side,” my personal fave from Tiny’s debut LP, God Bless Tiny Tim. On the record it’s a thoroughly psychedelic turn (that sounds amazing in headphones), but here, as sung to and with a group of cute little girls, it’s nothing less than a bizarrely prescient ditty about global warming — the icecaps are indeed melting. I have long maintained that my all-time favorite use of a children’s chorus is on The Cramps’ “People Ain’t No Good,” but I will now supplement that by saying that the best use of a cute-kid chorus on TV has to be Tiny’s of the tots here to chant the line “All the world is drowning…”

An inconvenient truth? Tiny predicted it YEARS ago!

Strange duets for charity: "Pavarotti and Friends"

There’s nothing like a ridiculous duet, and that’s what we got in the clip I’ve embedded below. It features an unlikely duo: Lou Reed, looking less cadaverous than he normally does, and Luciano Pavarotti, in severe-dye mode. This song has proven to be Lou’s second biggest tune over the years, trailing behind “Walk on the Wild Side” — “Perfect Day” was covered by a group of celebs including Lou for a charity video, and was even used on an NFL commercial! This is very strange when you consider the menacing, mocking last line, “You’re gonna reap just what you sow…”

Pavarotti in fact duetted with a LOT of unlikely folk in a series of “Pavarotti and Friends” concerts that were only broadcast on Italian TV, and are now available in YouTube-friendly nuggets. The concerts were performed to raise funds for U.N. refugee children’s charities. Other performers Luciano rocked out with include Joe Cocker, Tom Jones (although the Leningrad Cowboys had already proved that “Delilah” IS indeed operatic!), Stevie Wonder, JAMES BROWN, Gloria Estefan, the freakin’ Spice Girls, Grace Jones, and yes, Deep Purple!



Oh, okay, one more, since I’m a child of the Seventies: Luciano singing with Barry goddamnsmooth White, “My First, My Last, My Everything”!



What does this all prove? That Luciano was not just an opera giant, but was game to involve himself in all kinds of silliness when it came to charity work.

Pipe, Wig, Spitting, Policeman, Paraplegic Fetishes Flourish on the 'Tube

One of the finest purposes the Internet serves is that it makes ya feel normal. When you investigate the odder fetishes out there, you can’t help but feel that your own attachments, obsessions, and fixations are pretty freaking vanilla and mundane. Over a decade ago I featured some sterling images from the worlds of the gunge/slapstick-fetish fans, plushies, and, oh yes, the furry underground on the Funhouse. Along those lines, I refer you to another blogspot blog, one run by writer Dennis Cooper, where Funhouse correspondent “stevee” supplies a short laundry list of some of the wondrous and extremely strange fetishes that can be found on YouTube, the site that is truly, uniquely American, in that it is terrified and threatened by the notion of human genitalia and bared breasts.

Check out the list of bizarro fetish vids here.

Hear me talk about smut (the softcore kind)

I haven’t been exploring the worlds of exploitation and grindhouse-genre moviemaking as much in recent months on the Funhouse, but I still maintain a fascination for the sort of “low trash” that makes everyone happy (except those with very tight sphincters). Thus I appreciate the work carried on by the folks at Alternative Cinema, which is a company comprised of various and sundry DVD labels that put out current-day exploitation pics and, most notably, wonderful Sixties and Seventies softcore and hardcore features. I guested a few weeks back on the company’s audio podcast, which is available on the always update-happy (but will never tell ya how many people are subscribing to your podcast) iTunes and also here on the AC site.

And why did we love public access again?

Classic Manhattan public access is sorely underrepresented on YouTube, but occasionally some clips show up that remind us of the reasons that access was such an addictive pleasure back in the day (“the day” being the 1970s through the 1990s). You can find such pleasures in the great postings of Coca Crystal, but also here in this edited-down rendition of an episode of Richard H. Roffman and Friends.

The Roffman show seemed like a motlier version of Joe Franklin. The reason for this was that Roffman charged the guests on his local radio and cable-access shows (so much for the “friends” idea). The result was that you got a whole-hearted plug, but also had a short (very short) segment on the air, and then that was it. Here you have everyone from a local fashion designer (Roffman urging her “let’s go, c’mon!”) to vanity-press authors to a jello wrestler and the president of a Bing Crosby fan club. The uniquely talented Jim Grasso steals the show, however (hear the stifled laughter).

This condensation of the episode makes yer head spin, in several ways. There are few shows like this on TV anymore (and the remaining ones are all on access). Dig the vintage opening disclaimer from a wary Manhattan Cable:

We welcome Socialisme: a new missive from Uncle Jean

At this point when the cinema seems bankrupt of ideas and, more importantly, of reflection, it is a true joy to announce that one of the greatest film poets ever is still hangin’ around amongst us, and his powers haven’t diminished. The trailer for Godard’s latest feature, Socialisme, plays like his beautiful video essays and “later” features (some reaching back as far as the early Eighties) in which he developed a style that is the closest thing to pure cinema outside of the underground. He is an Old Master by virtue of his age, but retains a fresh approach to the medium. His rhythms are his own, and when I watch his work, I feel like most of the other folks wielding film and video cameras are just fuckin’ around....

The image above has a caption that reads, "What's changed these days is that the bastards are sincere."

Anthem for burnout couch potatoes: the timeless “TVOD”

Television has been an integral part of our lives for around six decades, and yet there are so few songs that truly convey the feeling of completely surrendering to the power of the Holy Box. Some might say that ”TV Party” sums it up well, while others might opt for the Tubes’ bouncy “TV is King," which I like so much I made it one of two opening theme songs for the Funhouse during the show’s early years.

However… there is one tune from the gent who gave us “Warm Leatherette” that accurately conveys the true sense of abandon that comes with accepting the fact that you can never, and should never, attempt to break away from the hold the original addictive medium holds over you. I didn’t know there was a video for it, but yes, you can now experience “TVOD” by the Normal on this new addictive medium:

The Jolly Fat Man: Deceased Artiste Dom DeLuise

Like any good comic character actor, Dom DeLuise seemed perfectly fine with mocking himself in performance, and as a result, he was always working, appearing in some supporting role somewhere (in recent years he was more than likely doing a quick cartoon voice or showing up in a mediocre straight-to-vid like the notorious Italian-financed Silence of the Hams). Dom broke through in the Sixties, and is well-remembered for his appearances on The Dean Martin Show (see below), where he remained for several years as the house “barber” in goofy segments wherein scripted material gave way to silly improv.

He of course is best known for his work with Mel Brooks and Burt Reynolds (most of the obits forgot he did three movies with Gene Wilder, spinning off of the Brooks orbit). But he was truly all over the place from the Sixties through the Nineties on both TV and in the movies. He was in two glorious early Seventies cult movies, Herb Gardner’s terrific Who is Harry Kellerman…? (1971) and the TV movie Evil Roy Slade (in 1972, preceding his bit in Blazing Saddles by a full year). The nicest thing I can say about Mr. DeLuise is that he seemed like a member of the family (and in fact, I have relatives who he reminded me of).

I have my own favorite Dom moment, which at some point I’ll post on YouTube (since it ain’t up there currently), but for the time being here are some choice bits featuring the big man.

Here is “Dominick the Great” on Dean Martin:


“The French Mistake” in Blazing Saddles:


Reprising his “barber” bit with Tony Orlando:


The only film he directed, an adaptation of Donald Westlake (!), is up on Youtube, the 1979 film Hot Stuff:


Here is a seminal moment from the above, Dom tokin’ a doob, and making like Stan Laurel with his laughter:


The kind of crap he appeared in quite a lot (hey, an actor’s gotta pay-a dem bills, boss). Appearing with a kid, Jimmie Walker, and small-person stuntman “Deep Roy” as a very weird fuckin' monkey in Going Bananas:


One of those godawful numbers they do at the beginning of the Oscars. And yes, this crappy one that Dom does with Telly Savalas and Pat Morita is no better or worse than those terrible things that Billy Crystal did — which sucked in entirely new ways, so the demented remember them fondly — and the recent one Hugh Jackman did:


The dippy Cannonball Run closing-credits blooper reels, all in one place:


A weird comedy outtake from a cooking instructional CD-Rom that Dom made. I’m wondering what the hell they bleeped out (abuse of another celebrity, obscenity, a stray racist remark, an in-joke only the crew got, something completely tame?). Who knows?


And something that can be found on DVD, the failed but funny 1973 sitcom Lotsa Luck. Here’s the opening theme (the first line is “I used to buy a pickle” — don’t ask me why I’ve carried that with me for the past 36 years….)

Ah... YouTube: Jacques Brel with English subtitles!

In the bottomless pit of amazingly wonderful music video on YouTube are chestnuts of sublimely melodramatic pop music. Now, the foremost example of this sort of music is of course the gorgeous morsels of death-rock that populated American rock ’n’ roll in the early Sixties (“Teen Angel,” “Tell Laura I Love Her,” etc.), but in the same vein of awesome, moving, and morose pop I must include the Belgian master, the late Monsieur Brel. Americans discovered his music through the translations of Mort Shuman and Eric Blau in the long-running cabaret show Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (god, I do love those long Sixties/Seventies show/movie titles…).

The British, however, were introduced to Brel’s wonderfully emotionally overwrought works through through covers of the Shuman-Blau translations by Scott Walker (plum examples here and here. Also David Bowie (main example here).

Well, in the world of YouTube, we are now treated to the terrific sight of Brel himself, a simply incredible, incredible stage performer, singing his own tunes, for the first time ever with English subtitles translating his wrenching lyrics (I do believe Serge Gainsbourg was a more complex and innovative poet-lyricist, but there’s no arguing with the raw power of Brel’s work).

Here are three examples from YT, each of ’em a gem:
The song we know better (through a Rod McKuen translation, and later a perfectly depressing one hit wonder version by Terry Jacks) as “Seasons in the Sun.” I give you “Le Moribond” in English. It’s actually a pretty “up” song with the singer urging us to celebrate his death:


Here is Brel’s most wrenching song, “Ne Me Quitte Pas” (Don’t Leave Me) with English subs. There is a more amazingly raw performance of this by Brel with English subs up on YT, but the poster doesn’t allow for embeds on that one, so dig this subtitled version instead:


Here’s a little upbeat number, just so’s you don’t think ol’ Jacques was a downer. This one also appeared in “Live and Well…” It’s called “Brussels.”


And here, we have a good example of Brel’s stagecraft. Tell me one other singer (okay, Alice Cooper — but besides Alice, whom I also love) who has performed a song while wearing a noose onstage:

Ah... YouTube: part the first

As our friend Stephen has quite accurately remarked (and I and several friends have conveniently appropriated), YouTube is quite possibly the deepest single “rabbit hole” site on the Net, where one clicks on one clip, thinks of another, gets a sidesearch suggesting a third, and on and on, until you’ve lost a good two or three hours watching insanely rare material that violates copyright, but let’s be honest, who really gives a shit when it comes to the propagation of material that is never going to show up in another format (no cable network, DVD release, or iTunes downloads for these suckers, folks).

In that spirit I offer a Seventies one-hit wonder clip that was a pleasant surprise: the 2008 Deceased Artiste “Hurricane” Smith performing his big hit “Oh Babe, What Would You Say?” on The Tonight Show. I was extremely happy to see this up on YT, as a bunch of One Hit Wonder fans had been querying the posters of other OHW artists, asking for Hurricane doing his big number. Here we have not a lip-synch or a fully accurate version of the song, but a retooled rendition using the Tonight band. For those who don’t know who Hurricane was, he was Norman Smith, a sound engineer and record producer who engineered the Beatles work from ’63-’65, and produced the first two Pink Floyd albums as well as the landmark S.F. Sorrow album by the Pretty Things. Not a bad resume to add to full-fledged status as a One Hit Wonder.

Angel of Vengeance, Casualty of Obsession: Zoe Tamerlis

The strangest celebrities sometimes show up at genre fan cons. Such was the case when Zoe Tamerlis, aka Zoe Tamerlaine, aka Zoe Lund, showed up at the Chiller Theatre convention back in 1997. Tamerlis will forever be best known as the star of Abel Ferrara’s kinetic and disturbing action-vengeance pic Ms. 45 (1980), which is a fusion of Death Wish and Taxi Driver. She was also a very sad drug casualty, as she died at 37, after what is referred to on several websites as “extended cocaine use, which replaced her prolonged heroin use.” She was an uncommonly beautiful model-actress who made only six features, and scripted one of Abel Ferrara’s finest works, Bad Lieutenant (1992).

When I spoke to her, she was 35 and extremely nervous. Some of this no doubt came from having to sit at a very busy convention trying to hawk rather bleary photographs of herself (she agreed to do the interview in exchange for me buying one — which I planned on doing anyway). She brought up the subject of drugs herself in the context of speaking about Keitel’s “nod” scene in Bad Lieutenant, and I must admit I was too shy to actually probe the issue, as her hands were rather shaky and had bruises on them, she was feverishly chain-smoking, and was wearing a dark mesh top that was see-through, which I didn’t realize until the interview had already begun.

She leaves behind indelible film images in the films of Ferrara (who himself has seemingly left narrative linearity behind in recent years), as well as Larry Cohen’s Special Effects. She did speak about her heroin use in a documentary about the supermodel Gia, which can be seen here. More about her life can be found here and at a very thorough site created by her husband Robert Lund at www.zoelund.com

On the script of Ms. 45:


On her co-scripting credit with Ferrara for Bad Lieutenant


On the heroin-nod and threesome sequences in Bad Lieutenant:

Digital media: pretty as a picture... but it sucks!

I’m a collector by instinct and an archivist by nature, so when I record something, I’m definitely thinking of keeping it for posterity. Thus I’ve got a collection of a few thousand VHS tapes that contain rare material, from interviews I’ve done for the Funhouse cable program, to movies I taped off broadcast TV or cable that have fallen into the “abyss” that consumes all titles that don’t get a prestige DVD release, to talk show appearances, musical performances and music vids, and special moments from the cornucopia of strangeness that was NYC public acess.

The reason I bring this is up is that pretty much all of my VHS tapes are still playable. Yes, the picture fades as the years go by, IF the recording was done at EP/SLP speed (the stuff done at SP looks damned fine, even two decades on) or IF the VCR it was recorded on was a dud. Tapes from the Nineties still play, tapes from the Eighties still play, and even items from the dim, dark Seventies will play, although they are startin’ to wear. On the other hand, mini-DV, the standard on which I've been recording the show for the past four years or so, a medium that has gorgeous visual quality that far surpasses VHS, has a very definite shelf life. I found this out last year when I reran shows made exactly one year before, in 2007. Some of the tapes (all the same brand, all bought brand new from a reputable retailer) dropped sound, while one or two had already started to have that boxy digitization that makes digital matter unwatchable. I also have a show done in 2002 on mini-DV that simply doesn’t play. I’ve been informed by a tech-knowledgeable friend that this could be due to a humidity situation, and that colder storage could restore the tape to playability. Perhaps that is indeed the case, but I’m wary of attempting to freeze the tapes and possibly getting moisture into a tiny bit ’o plastic with tape inside it — plus, damn, did VHS tapes ever need such ridiculously ginger handling and climate-conscious storage? (If you’ve ever lived in a big-city apartment, you know it can get humid inside, but not truly tropical-humid!).

So let’s just throw out some statistics: We were told VHS tapes would have a 15-year lifespan, and they’re still playin’ some two to three decades on. Mini-DV palm-sized little slabs of plastic start to weird out within one year, and seem to go completely wonky after five years. I have no idea how long the material on DVD-rs will last — the timespan quoted to me was 20-30 years (quite a step down from vinyl records which, barring excessive heat or a nasty needle, last forever). Of course, if you take into account how feebly the things are manufactured, and that using a Sharpie to mark them can cut down their playback ability appreciably, I think you get the picture: analog was accused of being temporal, but was made to last. Digital looks abso-fuckin’-lutely gorgeous, and yet our collections of films, TV shows, and clips could be useless in anywhere from a year to five years to two decades. Planned obsolescence at its most insidious. A vigilant archivist would have to re-dub his or her collection each and every five years just to be safe in this ridiculous, pretty-lookin’ digital era. How’s that for improving things?

The one and only, Mr. Sammy Petrillo

Sammy Petrillo is best known as the most startlingly accurate Jerry Lewis impersonator ever, the man who starred as half of the Martin & Lewis knockoff team that was the focus of Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952). In fact, Petrillo wasn’t a Jerry impersonator intentionally — it was something he fell into, by dint of the fact that he looked identical to, and could sound incredibly like, the Martin & Lewis-era Jerry. Sammy’s career has been spotty, but there were a few more fascinating moments in the peripheral limelight after Brooklyn Gorilla. In an interview I conducted with Sammy back in 1997, he spoke about these cult items.

First, the prank phone call LP he released in the early 1960s:


And also his starring/scripting turn in Doris Wishman’s mind-blowingly weird sex movie Keyholes are for Peeping(1972):

Michelle Bauer on working on homo-erotic softcore

“Scream queen” is a rather flexible term, used to describe everyone from the classic actresses in old horror pictures (Beverly Garland, Barbara Steele) to girls who have made micro-budgeted shot-on-video necro-fetish pics. Michelle Bauer is one of the ladies who truly earned that label by appearing in countless horror movies, as well as many sex comedies and exploitation pictures (and earlier on, some famous hardcore features, like Café Flesh). I had a very nice time talking to Ms. Bauer more than a decade ago at the Chiller Theatre convention. Here is a clip where she discusses her work with David DeCouteau, the low-budget genre director who also made softcore homo-erotic pics under the name “Ellen Cabot.”

'Japan Nite' remembered: songs from the rockin'-est bands

I mentioned in my Lux Interior Deceased Artiste tribute how much I love good punk rock (a rare bird, but one that can be caught on occasion), garage rock, and all things pure pop. I also mentioned how I’ve been disappointed that the recent formulation of “garage” as a full-out genre by Little Steven has neglected some of the intrinsic elements championed by Lux and Ivy of the Cramps, from psyched-out rockabilly to novelty records (two fringe types of music that did land squarely in the “garage” quite loudly and quite often). Also having escaped the radar of the “Underground Garage” classifiers, sadly, is any rock ’n’ roll that is not in English — my semi-regular listens to the UG satellite channel over a period of months a while back yielded only one song in another language, a French bit of psych joy played by substitute DJ Peter Zaremba. Over the past year, I’ve been lucky enough to attend a series of “Japan Nite” shows held in Manhattan that have offered confirmation that terrific rock and roll is indeed alive and well in the ol’ Land of the Rising Sun. The “Japan Nite” shows offer a number of acts for a low price (much appreciated), and the bands range in musical genres from punk to reggae, psych, and bouncy pop (with a few sideways diversions into “jam-band” territory, not my fave field of inquiry). At each show I’ve discovered at the very least two groups that have just blown me away, thanks to their purebred devotion to good old-fashioned rock/punk/garage and their crafting of new tunes that sound like — the highest compliment I can give to pop tunesmithing — they’ve already been written before (ah, the rock song that sounds familiar but ain’t… ’cause it’s catchy as hell). These bands are ALL present on MySpace, and all have their own sites, but I thought I’d offer my own tiny sampler of one song each from seven of the bands I’ve seen at these shows. Each tune offers a little glimpse at what the band does best, and hopefully might spur ya on to checking out their websites, videos on YouTube, and maybe even to springing for one of their CDs (you remember those little silver discs people used to buy, dontcha?). If anyone representing the bands would like me to remove their song from the download below, please contact me via the Media Funhouse website (link is on the right). Starting off, we have the headliners for the first show I saw, GitoGito Hustler. No, I don’t know what the fuck their band name means, but this all-girl combo seem to worship at the altar of the Ramones, and that’s enough for me to love them to death. “Love and Roll” is the title song from one of their albums, and it is catchy bubblegum punk that sticks to the brainpan. The lead singer announced from the stage that you needed to buy their T-shirts and CDs so they could have airfare back to Japan and “beer money.” She also described their first visit to NYC, upon which they were whisked away to a White Castle, which is possibly the best way for someone from another culture to experience the sleaze that is America. Noodles make straight-ahead pure pop for now people, and “Ingrid Said” is one of those songs you’re sure you’ve heard before, but it’s an original composition. Besides having one of the simplest names at any of the Japan Nite shows, the band won me over by doing some gorgeously simple and cool pop. Plus they covered the Buzzcocks. Petty Booka are a fascinating act composed of two young Japanese women who play ukuleles and sing pretty much exclusively in English (in their American gigs at least). They are backed by two gentlemen, one Japanese and one American, and their repertoire is a wonderful group of covers of songs I love deeply, ranging from the Kinks’ “Come Dancing” to Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime” and the Clash’s “Lost in the Supermarket.” They seem like a gimmicky joke act when you first see them — they perform in cowgirl outfits — but the ladies have a real love for the music they’re singing, and I think that comes out in their cover of the Dead’s “Friend of the Devil.” I’m not a major Dead fan, but I actually had forgotten how much I loved that song until I heard Petty Booka cover it in countrified fashion. They look like a “novelty act” but sound like true believers and betray a talent that’s surprising. Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re is a three-piece girl band that does what Japanese ladies in music do like no others: they transform during their set from adorable pop musicians (they recorded a song for “The Powerpuff Girls” in Japan!) to hard-rocking post-punk noise rockers. The transformation is amazing to watch, and the songs are just as good. I’ve included their ode to a guy named “Ebihara Shinji.” Asakusa Jinta is a five-piece combo that plays music that combines rock, klezmer, ska, and big band music. It’s infectious as hell, as you can hear in “Ride and Bend” (don’t ask, ’cause I don’t know — we ain’t talking about lyrics here!). The band is a delight to watch, as is any group that includes horns and a damn big bass in the lead singer’s hands. Again, they may seem like a novelty act on first viewing, but they’re talented musicians with a little touch of the deranged. I couldn’t ask for more. Samurai Attack is a male punk band (see, I don’t just advocate bands with chicks in ’em!) that rock out onstage in full Clash mode. The band started as a high school group back in ’84, and their brand of rock does nod back to those better years of fast, loud frenzy. I’ve included here “Delight,” an AWESOMELY catchy Japanese variation on “A Lover’s Concerto,” the hit by the Toys and the Supremes that was adapted by Brill Building songwriters from a Bach minuet. You ain’t gonna believe it, but the night I saw these boys, they were the second act to present a variation on a piece by Bach in pop mode. (Walter/Wendy Carlos, you did your work well…). And since “Louie, Louie” is arguably the ultimate raunchy rock song, why not close out with a cover of it by one of the best Japanese kick-ass rock acts, Detroit 7? Named after the MC5, the group is a three-piece sonic machine that is headed by Tomomi Nabana, who commands the stage like few American female rockers I’ve seen in recent years. Barefoot, playing guitar with a vengeance, and possessing a gritty voice that indicates a number of years of smoking, she is mesmerizing on stage. Like all the Japan Nite performers, she was in the lounge area of the club (the Bowery Ballroom) after the show. She is small in person, and a double take was required to realize she was the young woman who had just slayed us on stage. These Japanese bands are known only to dedicated fans here in America — and those of us who are introduced to the music by dedicated fans. The Japan Nite shows tour around American cities and are well worth your money, even in this unnamed Depression (five bands for 15 dollars is nothing to sneer at, particularly when at least two or three are gonna light up your world). I thank my friend Art Black for introducing me to this “scene” and several other bands I didn’t have room to cover here. This music is entertaining as hell, and stays with ya well after the show is over. Who cares if you can’t tell what they’re singing? You mean someone actually could decipher “Louie Louie” (or the Sex Pistols) back in the day? It’s only rock and roll, man… Click here for a sample song from each of the bands described above.

Religious metaphors don't come any blunter: The Donut Hole

Each year at Easter I celebrate the Paschal season by presenting Christian kitsch on the Funhouse. I’ve found that Christian entertainment (now known as “inspirational” entertainment, in order to not scare away new converts) ranges from the purely ridiculous to the insidiously offensive to tender-hearted treacle. The most memorable kind, though, involves music — and not church music or gospel music, but that oddly all-inclusive label (which defines the artist rather than their music) “Christian contemporary” and (you want hooks? You got ’em) Christian kiddie entertainment.

Thus, in the spirit of the season, I offer six clips from one of the most memorable Christian kiddie creations, The Donut Hole. The Donut Hole series is the brainchild of a gentleman named Rob Evans, who plays the lead role, the “Donut Man” who leads “the Donut Repair Club.” In this group of children and one adult man (think of the original Mousketeers, if Roy or Jimmy really ran the whole show), the assembled group “repairs” donuts by filling their holes with Dunkin’ Munchkins (never named as such, so copyright is leaned on but not violated). Evans reasoning for this odd little bit of really blatant metaphor and almost obscene symbolism? That your heart, without Jesus, has a hole in it. When Christ shows up, our hole is filled. I am not making this up, and the footage below bears me out.

In the process, Evans and his fellow “Donut” producers use bouncy, jumpy, hooky tunes to drive home their point that Christ is, um, er… a hole-filler. The songs cannot be forgotten and haunt me long after I eject the tapes (yes, I’ve only seen these suckers on VHS). Like many things I’ve been proud to present on the Funhouse, The Donut Hole must be seen to be believed. The first clip below sells the concept, the rest were uploaded to show how mind-warpingly catchy the tunes are (and how the Donut Repair kids strut their stuff before and after this odd donut ceremony).

My thanks go out to comic book creator and kitsch connoisseur Bob Fingerman for his recommending Evans’ original mind-warp to me more than a decade ago.

The introduction to the hole-filling concept:



The little black girl in the group leads a rap:



A country-themed “prodigal son” song that goes for a long, long time (at two minutes):



From a later tape: the gang sing and skip and dance and shout “Hallelujah!”:



The Donut Man in drag doing a very “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”-sounding song. I cut this one down, so you’re missing his Monty Python “pepperpot” impression (believe me, it takes a long while to get to…):



And yet another, pithier explanation of the fill-your-holes-for-Christ concept: