I'm finally putting some View-Master reels on the market. First is a three-reel set of natural history dioramas, all from photos I personally shot in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London over the last two years. I spent many weeks photoshopping out reflections from windows, a bunch of money getting the digital images transferred to slide film, and hours of tedium carefully cutting and gluing the images into reels. I'm pricing them accordingly.
Not available on video, 1981's Carnival Magic has been popping up at independent cinemas lately, along with better-known modern cult mainstays like Birdemic, The Room and of course Troll 2. From the imdb.com description:
A magician in a carnival--who actually can read minds and levitate people and objects--works with a superintelligent chimp named Alex, who can also talk. The magician and the chimp soon become the stars of the carnival, drawing in big crowds. However, the wild-animal trainer, who has been displaced by the team as the carnival's top act, decides to kidnap Alex and sell him to a medical laboratory for experimentation, thereby getting rid of his competition.
In response to popular demand, I'm now selling a 4GB Human Thumb Drive in addition to the cheaper 2GB model. Buy it here.
In terms of sales, this is by far my most successful item I've made. But unlike some of my other casts, they're relatively painless and easy to make, so the labor-to-profit ratio is okay. Last week I promoted them live on the air (via phone) on 103.7 Lite FM, a Dallas-based station. But it hasn't led to any sales, so I think they contacted me just to score a complimentary promo thumb. No more freebies! Gas, Grass or Ass!
I never heard of this author before today, but his new book looks like a page-turner:
My D&D parody book is now available. It is perhaps the dumbest thing ever written (by me or anyone else). It is also the best.
The Kobold Wizard’s Dildo of Enlightenment +2 is an absurd comedy about a group of adventurers (elf, halfling, bard, dwarf, assassin, thief) going through an existential crisis after having discovered that they are really just pre-rolled characters living inside of a classic AD&D role playing game. While exploring the ruins of Tardis Keep, these 6 characters must deal with their inept Dungeon Master’s retarded imagination and resist their horny teenaged players’ commands to have sex with everything in sight. get it on amazon
Now you can finally own a mid-70's Conan Action Figure from the ham-fisted artisans of Mego. See if you can find him in this epic cavalcade of stars:
A boxed Conan runs in the hundreds of dollars, but there are lots of loose figures out there, and this one has no minimum opening. You have six days. Bid here.
In 1974 while The Exorcist was still playing in the theaters, my friends and I made a version of our own. Filmed in Pittsburgh, Pa and Atlanta, Ga, the film was made on super 8 sound and runs 60 minutes. This is an excerpt. Miraculously, the film was made without any parental censorship or supervision.
(warning: although made by kids, this video contains swears.)
I'm also going to tack something on here, since I already did an Exorcist post recently and this is as relevant as I can hope to get. But I just saw Beyond the Door, and it rocked my world:
Also made in the demonic possession zeitgeist of '74, Beyond the Door deserves a better reputation than just being an ersatz Exorcist. For one thing, it's not. There's no exorcism, and the movie borrows just as heavily from Rosemary's Baby as anything else. The jazz fusion soundtrack is really good, and there are some scenes that would have scarred me for life, had I seen them as a four-year-old when it was in theaters. And unlike The Exorcist and its heavy handed religious themes and desperation to shock, this movie is really funny.
Driller Killer was a low budget independent feature, with a cast of unknown actors, produced by Abel Ferrara's own Navaron Films company 1977-78. It was filmed on 16mm film and utilised Ferrara's Union Square apartment and adjacent streets as locations. It features many of the elements which became trademarks of Ferrara's later films. These include Catholic iconography, gritty urban locations filmed at night, an eclectic soundtrack combining punk rock and Bach, scenes of extreme violence and a religious theme of redemption, salvation and damnation. The punk rock band in the movie reflects contemporary New York punk bands such as the New York Dolls and Television.
I really really like this movie. It's more like an early Paul Morrisey film than a slasher. The apocalyptic 70's Punk Rock New York vibe is fantastic, and I get chills just thinking about the ending.
It's public domain, so you can get it anywhere on DVD for a dollar or two. Or you can click the above image to view or download the whole uncut feature.
Look, two complete sets of the 1957 paleo-futurist game 'Space Race', starting at $5.00 with no bids. These are the 1969 re-release, so they should go cheap.
A flickr set of these gorgeous cards can be viewed here.
Pin-Bot has gotten a massive makeover: new chrome legs, a second ball, new rubbers, replacement lamps and a cleaned and polished playfield. With the exception of a dead lighting circuit of a few bulbs (possibly just a cut wire), everything plays perfectly.
All plastics were removed and buffed with acrylic polish. The decayed rubbers were removed from the flippers, kickers and bumpers and replaced. I went with all-black, rather than the red+white of the standard pinbot. It'll show dirt much less, and it looks awesome. At this point I also change all the lamps inside the playfield, and buff the entire table with polish. The paint job on the table itself is pristine for being 25 years old; it's protected under a layer of mylar.
The backglass alone needed about 30 lamps to be replaced. Now it animates, with chasers lighting up text, and flashers for pin-bot's eyes and hands. Also seen here is the alphanumeric display, which doesn't work at all. Behind this panel....
...is the CPU on the left inside the cabinet, while the reverse of the swinging panel holds the board for the alphanumeric display. The problem with that is the separate board on the upper right: that's supposed to deliver 200 heart-stopping volts of alternating current to power the display (gas, not LED). It's dead, so I found a replacement on ebay for $70 (currently I'm up to $600: $400 for the machine and $200 for all the new parts).
The cosmetic touch-ups have been fun and successful. The visor was severely warped and crooked, so I softened the whole thing with a heat gun in situ, then held it flat until it cooled stiff.
The vortex ramp skill-shot had a missing chip of plastic up top. I drilled a couple of holes into the floor of the ramp and expoxied in two aluminum studs. Then I packed epoxy putty over them to make a solid wall. After curing overnight, I added bondo and sanded it down.
adding the red plastic color,
then painting in the missing sticker area and sealing it with acrylic clear-coat.
Next I'll fix the black paint on the cabinet and change that blue button:
and figure out a way to fix the topper:
...while I wait for some electronics to arrive in the mail. Then I'll start doing some work underneath the playfield and behind the backglass.
Owning this machine has renewed my appreciation for its near-perfect design, done by "Python Anghelo". He also did High Speed, Big Guns, Bride of Pin-Bot and possibly my all-time favorite table, Grand Lizard. This era of machines, The Williams System 11, is well-documented online. An essential repair guide can be found here (referred by my brother, a High Speed owner). It's far more useful than the 1986 owner's manual, that's certain.
Remember this show? I barely do. I saw it maybe only once, and I was, like, six. It was a syndicated PBS program from that era of the mid-70's when everything had Soul Power. The opening credits animation has stuck with me:
And "Outerscope II" looked familiar:
And check out "Ranger Rescue". In just three minutes, it not only teaches self-reliance over consumerism, but also has something to say about what it means to be a parent:
Last night Lou Reed, his spouse Laurie Anderson and John Zorn played a one-off improvisational set for the Montreal Jazz Fest:
After the second song ended, many members of the audience heckled and booed the act. In response, John Zorn suggested that anyone who wasn't enjoying the show can "get the fuck out".
Here are some comments pulled from the youtube page for the above video, as well as a couple of articles and reviews of the performance: How dare they! Three random people from the audience playing would have made no difference.
These people were so in love with themselves that it was embarrassing to watch.
I have never been witness to such a load of self-indulgent narcissistic crap in my life.
I was the one Zorn was responding to with his arrogant, foul-mouthed comment. What did I say? "Play some music!".
Zorn, Reed and Anderson should be ashamed of the contempt they showed for their audience by playing their hideous noise…
What were they expecting? Squonk-Meister John Zorn should have been a red flag: Whenever he's in the house, you'd better be prepared for some abrasive (if not abusive) material. And Laurie Anderson's new album is the most experimental work she's done in her career. And Lou Reed has been staging "Metal Machine Music" live for the last several months. And besides, is an artist obligated to give the public what it wants, all the time?
It's a Jazz Fest, and this gig was promoted in advance as improvisational. With Free Jazz, neither the audience nor the artists know quite what's going to happen. It's an exciting prospect, even though the results aren't always rewarding. Yet, reading all the comments and reviews makes it seem like roughly half of the attendees enjoyed the show.
Maybe some of the audience members who thought it was okay to offend both the performers and the admirers will have, at least, learned to spend their consumer dollars on more patronizing forms of entertainment. For example, at the very same jazz festival this year, they could have instead gone to see The Stray Cats, a 50's retread that makes "Happy Days" seem authentic by comparison:
When Michael Jackson died last year, his will made provisions for his kids, his mom and pet charities, but what about his pet chimp, Bubbles?
It has never been revealed whether Jackson left Bubbles any money, but it doesn't look good because the animal sanctuary where he has spent the past five years is asking people to adopt the 26-year-old chimp for $150. Bubbles lives at the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Fla., where he is second in command of a group of seven chimps, according to sanctuary founder Patti Ragan. "He's very well adjusted," Ragan said. "The group spends their time climbing, playing, tickling each other as well as grooming each other and sharing food."
It costs $15,000 a year to maintain Bubbles. "Chimps need food, veterinary care, heat in the winter, as well as enrichment materials, such as structures, toys and puzzles," Ragan says.
For $150 a year, Bubbles' buddies can adopt him and, in return, will get an 8-by-10 photo of the famous ape, and a chance to see him up close and personal one day a year at the sanctuary's annual open house.
Ragan, who founded the sanctuary in 2004, says chimps only work in animal entertainment until the age of 6. After that, they get too big and strong. Chimps live to be 60 years of age, so that's a long time to be taken care of," Ragan said. "Zoos can't take animals like Bubbles because they were raised by humans and don't know chimpanzee rules."
Sources say Bubbles was born in the early 1980s at a Texas research facility that bred primates for animal testing. Jackson reportedly bought Bubbles with the help of Bob Dunn, who supplies animals and trainers for Hollywood films.
In the 1980s, Bubbles experienced things that few humans and chimps experience: He went to parties at Elizabeth Taylor's house; he had tea with the mayor of Osaka, Japan; and Kenny Rogers took a portrait of him and Jackson. After Bubbles got too big to keep as a pet, he went back to Dunn's ranch, where Jackson and his kids would visit him.
Although Jackson's death focused some attention on Bubbles and the center, Ragan says there was no attempt to inform the chimp of his former master's death.
Meanwhile, Bubbles has at least one fan who hopes to raise money for him: fashion designer Keith Holman, who worked with designer Bill Whitten and Jackson himself on the King of Pop's iconic costumes and glove in the mid-'80s.
Through the years, Holman collected many leftover scraps from MJ's costumes and now uses that fabric to design an outfit for Bubbles, who currently weighs 180 pounds. Holman plans to make a Jackson-inspired military jacket, baseball cap and beaded glove for Bubbles and present the duds to him in about two months.
"[Ragan] is going to send me Bubbles' handprint," Holman said. "This glove is going to be similar to the one Michael Jackson wore that recently sold for $400,000. I'm very excited. I'm using antique rhinestones."
Holman hopes to give the outfit to Bubbles personally and figures the chimp will recognize the old fabric from MJ's original costumes -- mostly leather, metal and gabardine -- since he was there during their original creation.
"We do give the chimps old clothes to play with, and they usually just rip them up," Ragan said.
Just got home with my first (and most likely my only) pinball machine. It's a 1986 Pin-Bot with no legs, and, like Hitler, a missing ball. It also has a broken alphanumeric display, which costs $200 to replace on its own. So even though I got it cheap, all those repairs will probably add up to as much as if I'd bought a fully reconditioned one from a pro. But at least it's a project. And it's a great sound / light sculpture as it is. The motors, most of the lamps and all of the sound chips seem to work, at least.
I've downloaded the original 80-page owner's manual, and I'm excited to go dig around in this thing. I finally got my own Frankenstein here.
If you're having trouble getting songs to play, click the post's title to open it in a new window. Also, downloading has been disabled; the music on this site is for preview listening only.
bookmark