In Which the Slogger Goes Prime Time

Wow. Two posts in one week? I guess this makes it official.

I’m back.

After a long hiatus, contemplating that hideous soft-core amputee cheerleader mystery horse picture (and occasionally posting my random, mostly Iron Maiden-related thoughts over at Pomp Culture Thunder Matt’s Saloon), I’m giving all one of my remaining reader some more glimpses into my fevered psyche, and why I think it should be plastered on national television.

That’s right. National television.

I know what you’re thinking: “But Wolter (or “Slogger,” or “Jon,” or “Cuddles,” – I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking or what you call me in your spare time), you always struck me as too high-blown and arty for television. Isn’t that a vast wasteland?”

Yes, yes it is.

And I want a piece of the withered heath.

And speaking of withered, this plan (like most of mine) involves a Golden Girls spinoff. Also détournement. Because what would a Slog-based TV series be without Situationist Propaganda?

First and foremost, spinoffs often fail because just taking one or more of the original characters and putting them into a new setting isn’t a strong enough premise to carry a show. And, as Golden Palace taught us, putting 3 of the 4 GGs into a new setting is foolish – even if you replace Bea Arthur with the admittedly more feminine Cheech Marin.

And Bea, while powerful, is not even the strongest character one could carry over into a new series. No, as I have long maintained, and linked to on every occasion possible, the house itself is the true star for the discerning Golden Girls aficionado. My plan calls for the nightmarishly conceived set to be rebuilt¹ (preferably along a ley line) and utilized for what can only be the most brilliant television show in history.²

Here’s the pilot treatment for The Golden Ones:

Opening title: Visually identical to The Golden Girls' credit sequence. Except that every face on every original character is replaced with cut-out black&white photos of the The Golden Ones' 4 main cast members pasted over the corresponding retiree, and animated in a similar manner to Saddam Hussein on South Park. The saccharine title theme will be replaced by "Fish Fry" as performed by Big Black on their seminal album, Songs About Fucking. It's a sentimental choice on my part, but I think it's artistically valid.

Theme: I'm thinking sort of a cross between the Golden Girls, The Young Ones, and an issue of Weird Tales, circa 1934. This show will follow the hilarious and terrifying adventures of 4 aging hipsters who purchase a mysterious Miami house after its previous owner’s tragic death in a sex-swing related hip injury. Each episode, they laugh, love, and learn about nameless terror beyond their comprehension.

Characters: What's in a name? Eh, who the hell cares. Each of the four main characters will take their name from one of the original members of Public Image Limited. They all have distinct personalities sure to make them household names:

• Jim is the irritable argumentative one. He often argues with the other residents of the house, and is unpleasant to be around.
• Keith is the irritable argumentative one. He often argues with the other residents of the house, and is unpleasant to be around.
• Wobble is the irritable argumentative one. He often argues with the other residents of the house, and is unpleasant to be around.
• John is the irritable argumentative one. He often argues with the other residents of the house, and is unpleasant to be around.

The Pilot: Our four main characters, each having been kicked out of their apartments by their respective roommates, meet at a grocery store bulletin board advertising a house for sale, and all agree to chip in together and buy it, sight unseen because it's so cheap. Their excitement is muted upon arrival, when they see The House, long left decrepit and in disrepair. There are odd pieces of graffiti spray-painted on the walls, several broken windows, and a group of local gypsies³ all make the evil eye when they pull up.

But does that faze our quartet? Not even John, the irritable one, complains. These four ne'er-do-wells are content to wallow in the filth, cursing at each other and breaking dishes…until, at the end of the first act they discover the garage. From that note on, the show takes on a decidedly darker spin, as more and more oddities involving the non-recursive space kick in, with hilarious results:

• Wobble (the irritable one) wakes up in the middle of the night to use the rest room and ends up blinking confusedly in an open-air market in Cairo after a wrong turn into the linen closet. He turns around only to find himself falling out of the cabinet under the sink (where Dorothy encountered the lovable little mouse she couldn't hurt those many years ago).
• Lovably irritable Keith keeps hearing an otherworldly disembodied voice in his closet telling tales of small-town buffoonery, and is only able to sleep each night after eating at least seven pounds of lutefisk.
• John is irritated to discover that he keeps seeing odd tentacled creatures out of the corner of his eye every time he goes out for a job interview. But, by the end of the episode, he gets a job anyway, when he learns the ad agency he's applying for just got an account with a company that sells sashimi vending machines.
• Jim⁴ has a wacky time trying to date two women at once while each night dreaming he's an eldritch priest committing vile sacrifices, then awakening with mud, blood, and other less identifiable viscous fluids across his sheets each morn. Did I mention the women are twins? He's on an express train to wackiness!

And that doesn't even cover the zany neighbor, Cyrus Wycheley - a retired Professor Emeritus of Parapsychology at venerable Miskatonic University, played by a heavily made-up Henry Rollins (who I'm going to sadly have to ask to lose enough muscle mass that he resembles his Black Flag days - also, he's got to cover those tattoos). Professor Wycheley's patrician "Old Arkham" ways will grate the irritable Wobble to no end, but delight and irritate Keith. Or the running gag that John has no sense of smell and cannot detect the odd odor of must that comes from the corner of his room that doesn't meet at a Euclidean angle! Or the work we're doing to get Charlie Manson furloughed for the Season Finale, where he plays Wobble's kindly Uncle Chuck, whose unstinting kindness will cause one of the cast members to commit the vilest and most unspeakable of crimes (I don't want to spoil the surprise, but here's a hint: the one who does it is a mighty irritable customer). Or the running joke where veteran character actor Dick Miller plays a series of different elderly gardeners and/or caretakers (each related to the previous in some way) who keep being found dead, with their gazes twisted into expressions of unimaginable horror!

Frankly, a show like this writes itself, so don't be surprised if I'm a household name by the next Emmys.

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1. The original is currently under lock and key in a storage vault at an undisclosed New England university, being studied by masters of the occult).
2. Eat your heart out, Barney Miller.
3. These gypsies will be the broadest stereotype of the Roma possible, in order to spark some controversy that will increase viewership.
4. He's irritable.

How My Dog Has Already Ruined My Three Day Weekend

Howdy, folks looking for pictures of the lead singer of Dead or Alive. I've decided to interrupt my long, slow descent into madness to spend 5 minutes talking about my night:

I'm taking tomorrow off from work to spend a delightful day with the official Slog Girlfriend,¹ Alexandra J. Bear, Esq. Which makes this my Friday, sort of. But I've got less exciting plans than usual today, mostly consisting of getting laundry done, and cleaning the floor of our "apartment."² I'm doing this solo tonight, because Ali has a special dinner planned with her family, deferred all the way from last Valentines. Somewhere out there, she is dressed to the nines, beautiful, and having fun. I am so glad for her that she was not here.

The floor needs cleaning largely because there are seven mammals living here.³ Two (our rats, Dante and Wilson) are safely housed in an aquarium. Two (our Rabbit, Blue and Chinchilla, McGreevey) are in hutches that are roughly the size of my old Lincoln Square "apartment."⁴ These hutches have cage gates, enabling both Rabbit and Chinchilla to hurl bedding, hay, food pellets, and feces upwards of 4 feet away from their homes. ⁵ Two are humans; our feces is usually confined to the proper receptacle.

The final mammal is our Class Five Free Floating Vapor,⁶ Sparky. The Spark is...well, he's my dog. I love him. He is not 100% house-trained. But he tries. Lord how he tries.

Anywhoo, after a particularly frustrating day and a particularly frustrating commute, I finally get home. I'm delighted to see fresh urine and feces⁷ on the puppy pad.⁸ Good dog, Sparky! Here's a treat! I throw out the pad.

So, I sit down to catch my breath for a second. After about 4-5 minutes of checking email, I take a trip to the restroom. Just as I get out, my brother calls me to ask a question about which season of Arrested Development he watched when he visited me a while back. We chat for 2-3 minutes, while I try to remember the answer (I think it's one, but I'm not sure). I'm a pacer, so I've trotted all over the house. In mid-conversation, I start to smell something. Is that...no, can't be...he just went on the pad. I must smell the garbage. Better take the bag...

Oh holy crap. Gotta go, Jarrod.

The dog, all seven-point-two pounds of him, has crapped...

EVERYWHERE

I mean...seriously, in five distinct places.

This was not here before my bathroom trip. But it is now.

And that isn't even counting where I STEPPED IN IT AND TRACKED IT ALL OVER THE ROOM.

My lazy Thursday night was transformed to a Lovecraftian Scene of Canine Fecal Horror.⁹ And, of course, Sparky picks now to try to run around the house. AUUUUGH!

I chase him back to the bed, whereupon he yelps like I'm beating him, even though I'm standing 10 feet away. That little fucker is trying to make the neighbors think I'm abusing him. Jokes on him, though. I live next to transplanted trailer trash. Probably couldn't hear us over the sound of beating his trashy, boozed up wife.

So, I spend roughly 25 minutes on my hands and knees scrubbing Dog Waste out of out Increasingly Worthless Carpet. I was hoping to be done with laundry by now, but it's still in the dryer. The Spark? Asleep. We made up. He licked my face with his oyster breath and I swore that I would still feed him tomorrow.

Anyway, I should wrap up this blog. I just needed to vent. I have about 15 minutes left on the laundry, and that's probably just enough time to see if Dr. Scotch can stop by and do some lab work.

Excelsior!

'Nuff Said.

---

1. Okay, that sounds horrifying. But Slog Co-Habitator is worse, and Mrs. Slog is a little premature.
2. I am required by law to put quotes around this, as "broom closet" would be more accurate.
3. That I know of.
4. I am required by law to put quotes around this, as "Vietnamese POW Tiger Cage" would be more accurate.
5. Or, halfway across the "apartment."
6. A real nasty one, too.
7. Did I REALLY just say "delighted to see fresh urine and feces?" Let me check. Oh God. I did. Pray for me.
8. Puppy is a misnomer. The Spark is actually almost four. He is middle aged. And he still pisses on the floor. I'm 31, and it's probably been 2-3 years since I pissed on my carpet.
9. Technically, this is probably closer to Kafkaesque, but I have the label, and I'm gonna use it.
   

MySpace Archive: The Dark Underbelly of the 80s 1b

In an attempt to beef up this blog's appearance before I actually tell anyone about its existence, and also to relive some of my wacky antics over on MySpace, I am archiving all of my old posts over here at The Slog.

This is probably the most "me" of all my posts. It's convoluted, strange, discursive, and combines laziness and "trying too hard" in paradoxical ways. Plus, it has a paean to Dick Miller, and a slam on Christopher Hitchens.

It's also the debut of my exceptionally confusing philosophy, Sincere Irony^TM, which is the culmination of a lifetime of giving half-assed presentations of half-baked ideas (The Supremacy of Ghostbusters, The Nonexistence of Madagascar, The Godhood of David Bowie, etc.)

Strap yourself in for my rootin'-ist, tootin'est, footnotiest adventure to date.

[Originally posted on May 17th, 2007]

The Dark Underbelly of the 80s - Part One, Section B

SINCERE IRONY^TM AND THE NATURE OF GOOD AND EVIL

Anyone who sees the title above knows I could only be writing about one topic: Gremlins.

That's right, folks. My own personal Chinese Democracy, "The Dark Underbelly of the 80s - Part One, Section B, Movies That Begin With G (continued)" has arrived. And not a second too late, as our culture needs its soothing balm. Already, the Beatification of professional douchebag huckster/anti-Semitic elephant seal/decomposing corpse Jerry Falwell has begun. Any society whose news media can describe that bargain-bin racist carnival barker as, at worst, a "polarizing figure" is on a rocket sled to hell. And when the only pundit on CNN who speaks with half a brain about how much of a conniving toad that man was is pompous asshead Christopher Hitchins¹, then we are² in deep trouble (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Asshead.

But I digress.

Like all 80s movies, Gremlins posits a bleak and terrifying worldview. Unlike Ghostbusters, whose Lovecraftian scope is the vast and uncaring universe run by elder gods whose reign of unfocused terror (Fig. 2) is abetted by the vast and uncaring bureaucracy on earth, as embodied by a bearded man with no dick³, the enemy in Gremlins is the evil elements of our own culture. We are hell-bent on our own destruction here in the West. If September 11^th has taught us anything⁴, it's that jaded, hipster irony is insufficient to stem the forces of evil, doubt, and televangelism in our world. The only thing that can defend us from these elements is Sincere Irony^TM.

Fig. 2: Cthulhu.

To take the long way to my argument: recently, I have been a fringe participant in numerous online discussions on the nature of faith, religion, and how that relates to the Boston Red Sox and the drumming ability of Terry Chimes (do not question this – suffice to say that Deep Clash Theory^TM is a broad and all-encompassing area of debate). The general consensus reached is that faith is genuine, it must be held in concert with doubt. For certainly and the belief in finite answers is theologically untenable, and reveals the non-doubting believer⁵ to be an intellectual coward⁶. Sincere Irony^TM operates under similar lines as genuine faith.

Fig. 3: Way better than Apocalypse Now.

Simply put, Sincere Irony^TM is a genuine love of the otherwise indefensible. It's watching Spider-Baby because you think it is a genuinely good movie, while being aware that it's also exploitive trash. It's being a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fan while hating jocks. It's believing with all your heart that Ed Wood is a better director than Francis Ford Coppola (who honestly peaked with Dementia-13) (Fig. 3). It's listening to Wesley Willis and genuinely believing he saved Rock'n'Roll while being aware that in the long run the majority of his "fans" are patronizing jackasses, and that you were too the first time you heard him. It's arguing from the heart that the Spice Girls are more genuinely punk and less contrived than the Sex Pistols. It's B-movies, outsider culture, primitivism, and junk food. It's basically everything the Cramps have ever done. It's Orwellian Doublethink for a new generation not afraid to create a reality in opposition to what we're being force fed by Sinister Outside Forces⁷.

And its Messiah is Dick Miller. (Fig. 4)

Dick Miller is the lynchpin of Sincere Irony^TM. Like the Danube snaking its way through Europe, he snakes his way through All That Is Right About Pop Culture. He is Mr. Futterman. He is the cop at the end of Rock'n'Roll High School. He is the guy who realizes Audrey, Jr. is a big deal in The Little Shop of Horrors (not the musical, so stop checking imdb now). He is WALTER-FREAKING-PAISLEY⁸, for Chrissakes. He is the Alpha and the Omega of Movies Decent People Need To See To Be Complete Human Beings. And he isn't flashy about it. He's not some trust-fund crybaby. He's working class. He's blue collar. He's probably a great guy to have a beer with. Every time he gets a part in a film, an angel gets a Ferrari. Of course, that self-same angel probably rolls it, but Dick gets pretty steady work, so there's another Ferrari on the way, Gabriel.

Fig. 4: Our Lord and Savior.

Gremlins posits our Dick (and the worldview he represents) against the forces of evil. And to the observant, that isn't the Mogwai, even if they have eaten after midnight. The forces of evil in this movie are the bland and uncaring modern world, full of hateful machines, alcoholic cops, and Mrs. Deagle.

Mrs. Deagle is perhaps the finest example of what is wrong with America. Miserly, cruel, and humorless, she embodies all of the pettiness of crass consumer society⁹. She lives to wreak havoc and revenge on Billy Peltzer for the twin crimes of youth and dog-ownership. She is the modern (well '80s modern) incarnation of Raskolnikov's pawnbroker. As a villain, she reigns over such lesser film heavies (Fig. 5) as Ivan Drago, Cruella DeVil, and Adolf Hitler¹⁰. Actually, footnote 10 is more on point than I meant it to be, as Mrs. Deagle is very analogous to the Nazis in the first and third (or "good") Indiana Jones movies: you can kill them without arousing any pity.

Fig. 5: The Vienna Boys Choir.

The death of Mrs. Deagle¹¹ is one of the oddest of film anomalies. In an ostensible kids movie, a sad and pathetic old woman in a house full of cats is systematically taunted, then launched out of a window with cannon-like force by a motorized chair (thus indirectly saving the Peltzer homestead). This should be seen as a heartless act of depravity, but instead seems delightful and justified. If anything, the gremlins themselves are acting as agents of righteous vengeance (much like the mythical Furies, in their guise as the Eumenides, or Kindly Ones – but with more kickass mohawks). I don't know anyone who grieves over the sad demise of Mrs. Deagle. But if I ever meet someone who does, I will know that they are, at best, a pussy¹².

Other victims of the gremlins' rampages include the cold, analytical science teacher who takes secret delight in tormenting his test subjects, the alcoholic cops who pervert their promise to serve and protect the community, and Corey Feldman (for obvious reasons). In fact, Corey (Fig. 6) is largely to blame for the nightmare occurring to Kingston Falls, and should be fired out of a cannon-chair himself. Just because…

Fig. 6: War Criminal

Back on topic:

We are all slaves to our modern devices. Gremlins practically screams this at us. All it takes is a hideous army of reptilian saboteurs to render our orderly society a chaotic nightmare. During Christmas no less! This supposed time of brotherly love and familial celebration has been cruelly mocked by its own crassness and commercialization¹³. And yet, the seeds of our destruction are the seeds of our redemption. For every malfunctioning traffic light, roller-coaster chair, and wacky shaving kit, there is a juicer, a microwave, or a nifty remote control car that represents our salvation. These contradictions are inherent for any follower of Sincere Irony^TM, and only bolster our belief in its value.

FLAWS IN THE DIALECTIC

Okay, having said that, Gremlins is not a perfect movie. There's no reason to compare it to works of sheer cinematic majesty like, say, Ghostbusters. There are two major flaws in the movie:

1. Corey Feldman
2. The Rules of the Mogwai

Feldman goes without saying¹⁴, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out a few problems with the other point. I will be brief, as I will be venturing into bad stand-up territory¹⁵.

1. Do not expose them to sunlight – what the hell kind of crazy evolutionary dead end are Mogwai? I could understand skin sensitivity and light sensitivity, but melting like Velveeta¹⁶ at the slightest exposure to the sun seems to be a bit of a hurdle to overcome for the whole survival thing
2. Still, I suppose if the main goal of evolution is to survive until reproduction, the rule of Do not expose them to water cancels that out. However, given that water covers 70% of the earth's surface, falls from the sky on a very regular basis, and makes up something like 90% of all living creatures, the world should be alternately covered with either Mogwai or the goo left over after a sunrise. And what about condensation? Wouldn't morning dew guarantee an army of gremlins? Or the snow that covered Kingston Falls? What is the minimum viscosity of a fluid that would create more Mogwai? Gremlins look a little shiny; could their own slime self-pollinate them?
3. Don't feed them after midnight – holy Hell, this requires a subset of points:
   1. Midnight where? As the earth is a sphere, doesn't that mean a roving line of demarcation where Mogwai mustn't eat?
   2. Or is it based on time zones? Like, if a Mogwai in Chicago eats at 11:59 central, at the same time as one in southwestern Indiana. Would one remain cute and furry while the other grew a cocoon?
   3. And is daylight savings taken into effect?
   4. When is it safe to feed a Mogwai again? Shouldn't Key Luke have narrowed the criteria? Because Gizmo would have starved to death in my house.

POST SCRIPT

Assorted other observations that did not fit elsewhere:

1. I would be remiss if I didn't mention part of the reason I realized Gremlins was fighting the good fight in the culture war is a cameo by one of the single greatest humans in history. The Mr. Jones who compliments Billy's cartooning skills is none other than the legendary Chuck Jones, the single greatest director in history. Oh, sure, bring up Citizen Kane again…look, you film school jagoff, Chuck Jones was working with techniques, camera angles, and characterization that live action directors would take years to integrate. So take your fat, pompous, fishstick-and-wine-shilling hack Orson Welles and cram it. Chuck Jones is on the side of good. And I would rather watch "What's Opera, Doc" 18 times in a row than see tham damn snoozefest about the sled.
2. As a child, I thought Phoebe Cates was hot. I kinda still do.
3. I am one of about 6 people who enjoyed Gremlins 2: The New Batch. I'm not bragging or apologizing. Just stating a fact¹⁷.

Tune in whenever I feel like making Section C. I'll give you a hint: it'll be about "OUR TIME!"¹⁸

NOTES

1. The fact that everything Hitchins has said on this topic is fantastic does not make him any less of an asshead.
2. For some reason, MS Word has told me that this should be "is." As in, "we is in deep trouble because MS Word is a shitty program that can't speaks good grammar. Also, the joking "speaks" in my precious sentence was not flagged as bad grammar. AUUUGH!
3. It seems that the beard is the pinnacle of evil in 80s culture – Walter Peck, James Brolin (he stole Pee Wee's god-given role, dammit), ZZ Top – the list is seemingly endless).
4. It hasn't.
5. I resisted the urge to write "believer^TM"
6. Suck it, Falwell.
7. Patent pending.
8. I'm not going to automatically dismiss you for not knowing who Walter Paisley is, but if you don't watch the classic Bucket of Blood as soon as you can, you are less than human to me.
9. For anyone who thought my Falwell intro wasn't germane to the topic: Wolter-1, All Y'all Haters-0
10. I am of course, speaking of the Hitler from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, whose major crimes seem to be burning books and autographing diaries. The real Hitler was probably at least somewhat nastier than Mrs. Deagle. But I bet he at least liked dogs.
11. Ok, I'm making an assumption here. Maybe she didn't die…somehow Mr. Futterman survived into Gremlins 2: The New Batch despite being apparently run over by a bulldozer. Nah. She's dead. Futterman had to survive because Joe Dante will never make a movie without Dick Miller. Joe Dante is on the side of good.
12. And at worst a Neo-Fascist Class Traitor.
13. If I were a more profound thinker, and less anxious to finish this ever-expanding monograph, I would point out that this whole crisis can be seen as a parable against commercialization, as it all began with the need to come up with a better, flashier Christmas gift, in lieu of spending more time with one's family. Shame on you, Hoyt. Shame on you.
14. Indeed, after a landmark ruling made in Geneva in 1992, his inclusion in the cast of any movie is considered a War Crime.
15. Why don't they make the whole plane out of the black box? Am I right? Who are these people?
16. Actually, per the commercial, I guess they actually melt like cheddar: lumpy, oily, and dribbling onto your doily or other placemat material.
17. I also liked Drop Dead Fred. With Phoebe Cates….
18. However, to date, it hasn't been your time to read it. 9 months and counting since I made this promise. Maybe I'll have the next installment done before the world ends in 2012.
    

MySpace Archive: The Dark Underbelly of the 80s, 1a

In an attempt to beef up this blog's appearance before I actually tell anyone about its existence, and also to relive some of my wacky antics over on MySpace, I am archiving all of my old posts over here at The Slog.

This is part one of my so far two-part exposé into the
movies that shaped my life. Part two followed some time after, and part three will probably come out some time around The Second Coming (or the First, if you are Ali).

I suspect I will have minimal commentary on this one, as though this is flawed, I have a soft spot in my heart for these entries, especially given that is the beginning of my one-man war against The So-Called Greatest Movie Ever. This war has not really touched any of my other entries to date, but is a major part of any given day.

Any footnotes not in italics are from the original post.

[Originally posted on April 12, 2007]

The Dark Underbelly of the 80s - Part One, Section A

Movies that begin with G.

NOTE: I have abandoned my initial practice of starting all blogs with "Well." It seems to be making me unable to come up with new blogs, is a little too precious, and has outlived it's usefulness (I really only set it up that way so I could whip out a "Well, I have cancer" blog, but silly me, I had to be healthy).

Anywhoo.

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

I am a child of the 80s. Scratch that. I hate that term. I didn't spring fully formed from the thigh of the 80s. That's lazy, cliché-riddled writing to say that. But I did spend the ages of 3.43 to 13.57 years of age living in that Reagany, Syth-laden, and Acid-washed time. Somehow, despite spending the entirety of the decade in South Carolina, I never had a mullet, barely wore Jams, and...well I fucking loved Guns'n'Roses. Fine. I admit it. I still love Appetite For Destruction. But that's neither here not there. The point is, I missed out on some of the finer and more embarrassing points of the 80s.

But I did watch a lot of movies.

And a lot of them began with G.

Well, three of them began with G (not counting sequels). Those three were very important in the process of forming my worldview. It's tempting to say that without them, I would be a happier, more trusting human being. Of course, that would be a lie, as what I'm about to write is pure BS-driven hyperbole. However, the fact that such darkness exists in what are ostensibly comedies is proof that we are in the grip of unnamable dread.

The first of the movies in my Trinity of the Damned¹ is the aptly named Ghostbusters.

Ghostbusters, in and of itself, is a fantastic movie. Probably the greatest ever made. You know that's true. Don't even fucking try to lie to me or pull that "Citizen Kane" junk with me. You know you've watched Citizen Kane maybe one time, and you probably dozed off for part of it. But you've seen Ghostbusters so many times that you know what to say if someone asks if you're a god, you know better than to step on a Church in Venkman's town, and you know good and damn well not to think of anything when asked to choose the form of your destroyer (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Your delicious, fluffy doom awaits you.

But, of course, underneath the cheery and wise-assed exterior beats the thousand-tentacled eldritch heart of Lovecraftian terror. And that's a good thing. Ghostbusters taught me that, no matter how successful your life is, there's always a chance that a 3,000 year old Sumerian god will eff your world up for no damn good reason. Also, the Babylonians certainly knew a hell of a lot more about theology than Rome does (Fig. 2), no matter what Lenny's Archbishop buddy says.

Fig. 2:The Church isn't gonna save you from Gozer.

So, if god ain't gonna save you, who can you turn to? The state? Hardly. The government (Fig. 3) is, if anything, a total douchebag. Any tinpot bureaucrat with a hard-hat and a government I.D. can set off a nuclear chain reaction that unleashes the full fury of the Elder Gods on an unwitting soundstage that looks sort of like New York. Is it any wonder that I gravitated to Left-leaning Libertarian Socialism² as I grew older? No. It's a wonder more people didn't. If Walter Peck weren't already dickless, Bakunin would have ripped his junk off in a nanosecond.⁴

Fig. 3:The U.S. Government.

Ghostbusters II also taught me a lesson: no matter how anxiously you await a sequel, there's a good chance it will suck on toast. Also, that no matter how good a person you've been in your life, there's always a chance you will have to see Peewee from the Porky's movies paw all over Sigourney Weaver.

Okay, I think I've run out of steam about Ghostbusters. I promise I'll have more meaningless crap to say in Section B: Gremlins.⁶

Surprisingly, I think Section B actually DID come next. But don't hold me to that.

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1. Wouldn't that be a great horror movie title? Or maybe the name of a Goth power trio? Is there such a thing as a Goth power trio? I bet they would really suck.

2. Secret euphemism for Anarchism. Used to describe people without huge beards and round cartoon bombs with fuses that find all control systems to be anathema. See, you learn something every day. ³

3. I must have been rereading No Gods, No Masters when I wrote this. Jeez, Wolter, way to bring politics into a blog about Ghostbusters...

4. This is the truest sentence I have ever typed. No foolin.'⁵

5. I bet people who read all the way through without checking footnotes thought I screwed up the numbering.

6. The fifteenth greatest movie of all time, for those counting.

MySpace Archive: My Brush With Death

In an attempt to beef up this blog's appearance before I actually tell anyone about its existence, and also to relive some of my wacky antics over on MySpace, I am archiving all of my old posts over here at The Slog.

Welcome to part one of my exciting two part series "My Brush With Death." It would have been a lot longer, had I actually said anything about This Particular Brush while it was actually looming in my brain.

Of course, at this point, I had no idea that I was About To Possibly Die At Some Point In the Near Future If Certain Things Turned Out To Be The Case. The fact that they did not turn out to be the case in no way lessened the Personal Horror.

In any case, at this point my mind was more focused on the Nameless Fear of the Unknown that is usually brought about by contemplating the flagship series in the Lifetime Network syndication lineup. The fact that, despite being on Lifetime, the show did not contain a Judith Light appearance should in no way lessen the Personal Horror.

I will be presenting this particular Archive with limited editorial interruption, as it is one of my personal favorites.

[Originally posted on November 7, 2006]

Well, I'm going to a free clinic (plus Golden Girls house)

I have finally crossed the line from everyday pain to ridiculous pain in my shoulder (did I mention my shoulder has been feeling like it's full of cold fire for the past month and a half? I probably should have), and need to see a doctor. But (and this is a huge but - I should up the font, but I'm just not that Pomo) [But I am NOW.], I am not insured. And I won't be for at least 2 months.

So I get to trek my sorry hiney [Did I really write "hiney" here? I guess I did. Shameful] to the free clinic today, whereupon I can mention this pain, the weight loss, maybe get some baselines done, and while I'm at it, what better opportunity to get a cotton swab up my urethra and maybe a prostate exam. Just to keep the dignity at an all-time high.

Also, if they've expanded their areas of coverage to psychiatric disorders, I should really talk to a therapist about my increasing inability to comprehend the geography of the Golden Girls' house. This is a problem I've had for years (I'm a Bea Arthur fan, like all good-hearted people - and no, it's not prurient, you sickos).

I hesitate to explain my problems with the House That Blanche Built, for fear of spreading my own neuroses about the Non-Euclidean, almost Lovecraftian dimensions of that abode of the 60-something damned to those who have been innocent of this nightmare. However, I will make a few observations (and I would love to be able to provide visual aids, but I cannot draw dimensions beyond what the human mind and the set department at Buena Vista can envision).

I assume the reader has a basic knowledge of the set of this popular show, a mainstay of the NBC evenings of the late 80s/early 90s and the Lifetime Network mornings, afternoons, and late nights ever since. I also assume a basic knowledge of stage directions (a primer for my rare non-theatre acquaintances: all directions are from the standpoint of a performer facing the audience - stage right is to the audience's left - and downstage is closer to the audience, upstage is away).

There are three major set pieces in the house: the Living Room, with its front door on stage right, open Lanai windows upstage, unused breakfast nook (a mainstay of all shows featuring an all-woman cast - I refer to my monograph on the cast flux in Designing Women, first published in 1999) and hallway upstage left, and stage left kitchen exit; the Kitchen, with its stage right door to the living room and upstage right door to the garage; and the aforementioned Lanai (which is apparently some sort of patio, but I have never heard anyone use the term outside of Golden Girls studies - in much the same way that I've never heard the words Oleo or Erne used outside of crossword puzzles). There are also assorted smaller sets, including bedrooms, a garage, and a front patio area.

Here are my issues (not all of them, I have limited time and space and will have to wait until I have time to compose a full-length academic study to go in full depth). I apologize if some of these statements overlap, but this is part and parcel of the nature of the beast:

1. The Front Door: From the exterior shots, the front door in no way resembles the front door/patio (not Lanai) area. Also, what is the Cabbalistic significance of the exclamation point-shaped gouge on the inside of the door? Is it the set design equivalant of a fnord? If you don't know what a fnord is, please do not ask. You are safer not knowing.

2: The Bedrooms (Part one): The hall leads straight back to the four bedrooms. They are evidently set two to a side. However, that would mean that the two stage right bedrooms exist in the same temporal space as the Lanai. This is impossible in three-dimensional space.

3: The Bedrooms (Part two): The first stage left bedroom (Rose) seems harmless enough, but I refer you to point 5 where the illogical non-recursion begins to haunt my nights.

4: The Bedrooms (Part three): What the Samuel Langhorne Hell is the deal with the paint job in Blanche's room? Even if not technically impossible, it's hard to wrap one's mind around the mentality of one who would find that acceptable.

5: The Kitchen/Garage/Rose's Room Conundrum: This is almost too hard for me to bear. If I break down and start ranting about Elder Gods and Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, bear with me. The entrance to the kitchen from what I presume is the garage is upstage right. However, the window behind the sink clearly shows this garage (where, you might remember, the GG's tried their hand at Mink Farming, with hilarious results) must be off further to right. But that's exactly where Rose's room is. But even beyond this fact, that also means, given the spatial relationship of the front door (no matter how it's interpreted) to the rest of the house, that the driveway comes in from the back and center of the home (a patent impossibility). Especially considering it is supposedly coming from the stage left side of the exterior. Auugh.

In closing: if this house were designed by Dr. Calagari, it's dimensions couldn't be less sane. M.C. Escher on a peyote-fueled Spirit Journey into the Navidson residence from House of Leaves couldn't conceive of a less likely arrangement of living quarters. I fear for the basic sanity of those poor aging, yet still active, women, struggling to keep up in a young person's world while being subjected to physical laws so different than our own.

To the 2 people who will likely be still reading to this point, thank you for hearing me out, and thank you for being a friend.

I wish I could have found a bigger picture of Bea Arthur as The Starchild, but that picture has apparently disappeared from the interwebs. It used to pop up on the first page if you searched for pictures of Bea Arthur. And yes, I have done a lot of searches for pictures of Bea Arthur.

Technically, My Brush With Death occurred in between this post and the next. So, once again I have built things up for no damn good reason.