How about a free, one-hour Christmas mix to listen to during this most festive of shopping weeks? I whipped this baby up in my magic toy shop…please, re-gift this link as many times as you’d like.
I was checking out a friend’s Facebook page this morning, and I realized I’d never seen his video blog. Or “Vlog,” if you prefer. Or “Internet Video Program.”
Shown: The Casual Raping of a Dead Man’s Corpse. Level Up, America!
To wit:
Entire continents will be created that will celebrate Michael’s unique genius in a way that underscores his place as the greatest artist of all time. Michael’s longtime fans will feel at home as they find themselves in places that seem familiar and yet unknown at the same time, and new generations will discover and experience Michael’s life in a way never before imagined. At its core, Planet Michael is a massive social gaming experience that will allow everyone, from the hardcore fan to the novice, to connect and engage in collaborative in-game activities with people worldwide.
You may be asking yourself, “Chris, what the fuck could this possibly mean? How could Michael Jackson’s legacy sprout entire continents? I don’t know. I just don’t. I can’t even process it. SO back to the thing I want to show you. Richard Fairgray’s Vlog. After I got done crying from laughing at these, I thought these would be a great counter-balance to yesterday’s blog, in which my friend Missy described me as looking like “a rapist who doesn’t know any better,” and my friend Hoffmaster 3000 described as “Holy Mountain Part 2.”
Not to mention my whole screed about Lady Gaga, which I felt bad about after I saw her ranting against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…the fate of which will be decided today. And, if someone in the Senate changes their mind, I’ll have Gaga, in part, to thank. I mean, Bad Romance is still a crap candle, burning bright (IMAO). But at least she’s using that fame to do something worthwhile, instead of just wearing USDA Select Choice Cuts to made-up awards shows. But if anything is going to help wash the reality of a Michael Jackson MMORPG out of my mind forever, it’s these videos. I’m making my own reality now. I can’t deal with the real thing anymore.
*On a totally separate, semantics-based note. Do you remember when you first heard the word “Blog”? Wasn’t it fucking annoying? Didn’t it feel like an infection you wanted to fight off with medication? Or the word “Twitter”? Or Tweets? Or Vlog? And while they’re still grating to an extent, I don’t really think about it much anymore. I use them casually, and without thinking. I don’t even say “InterWebs” ironically, like all these fucking hipsters. I wonder what crazy, annoying language we’ll be using every single day of our lives in 5 to 10 years? Will an upstart called Text Rooster.com make Google the MySpace of search engines? Will we be Flooglecasting? We’ll probably be Flooglecasting.
Hey, why not listen to a really amazing 80s flavoredHalloween Mix by my friend DJ Daymage while you read this post? You can even Download it RIGHT HERE.This jam is perfect for Halloween parties, or as you’re putting on your slutty, slutty costume (you tramp!).
I’ve been listening to “Hall09een” every day since I got it, and haven’t been in a bad mood since.
DJ Daymage’s mix is cold Halloween rain on a rubberband-and-staple mask. It’s not believing in the razor-blade apple legend, but secretly believing it. It’s Elvira and Spuds Mackenzie, like holiday clockwork, on your television. It’s a hard plastic pumpkin bucket. It’s my childhood in headphones.
The punk/hair metal/goth industrial blend (naturally) just oozes with a kind of gritty, Vestron Video/Cannon Films/Golan-Globus Productions quality that takes me back to marathon VHS viewings of anything directed by Fred Dekker or starring Donald Pleasence. I can’t get enough of it. It makes me feel like I have a little candle in my belly, and I’m sitting on your front porch.
Every Halloween since high school, I have a tradition where I blare The Misfits Collection II as it gets dark out. This year, I think I officially have a new tradition.
The thing I like most about it, is it doesn’t go for the easy Halloween inclusions (there’s only a cursory nod to Thriller, along with that hilarious Michael Jackson voice outtake from the Special Edition). That said, I enjoy the cheap chainsaw and scream effects here and there, because those terrible haunted houses are so closely tied to low-budget horror movies in my mind. The audio segues are both hilarious and organic (sorry, I hate using that word…but I’m too tired to come up with something else and it fits), especially the Dead Alive clip about “a splitting headache, and the stupid hip hop is not helping.”
This is pure 80s, low-budget, grimy slasher stuff. I instantly feel 10 again when I hear this…from the scratchy excerpts from kid’s read-along records, to Freddy Krueger in not one, but TWO endearing and cheesy raps by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince and the Fat Boys. Say what you want, “Are You Ready For Freddy”‘s chorus is catchy, like trying to put a razor-bladed glove through the arm of your sweater.
Pictured: Someone pitched this at a meeting. They voted “yes.”
And even that Fresh Prince song, silly as hell, still makes me feel a little freaked out. This guy Jess Matthews and I had it on a little brown tape recorder when we were kids, and used to walk through this tiny alley by my dad’s office (where we swore there was blood on the wall), made up our own Freddy mythology, listened to the song, sang and acted out the parts (I was usually The Fresh Prince. Too scared to watch the actual movie to get Freddy’s moves down).
Similarly, a girl I work with made me turn the mix off when the Silver Shamrock song from Halloween III plays. When there’s no more logic in hell, irrational fears will walk the earth.
Also, to this day, the bass line from “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” can still reanimate a thousand zombies.
So you’ve got the J. Geils Band Fright Night theme, “Halloween” by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Pet Semetary by the Ramones (as seen in my friend TJ’s amazing Weirdest Horror Movie Songs write-up at Topless Robot), and Evil Nine’s “They Live,” an amazing song I’d never heard (it’s a lot like Daft Punk’s Technologic meets a 7-minute John Carpenter fist fight). And a whole bunch more.
My only complaint is I wanted it to go on a little longer. But, if it’s anything like it’s subject matter, I expect a cheap and easy sequel. With more blood.
Thank my pal Jesse over at Maxim—he of related Michael Jackson video stories—for this EPIC commercial, which is rife with social commentary despite seeming like an x-treme ad for a clown-bike fad. The blatant theft inclusion of the backbeat from Nine Inch Nail’s Head Like A Hole seems to say “we’d rather die, than give you control…of how we get around without a driver’s license.” I also picked up on:
-A cop in blackface symbolizing the days before blacks were allowed to own Max Skate Bikes
-A cop diving face first through a plate glass window, signifying the end of the Pepsi Generation and the beginning of the Big Wheel in Back, Little Wheel in Front Biker-Nation.
Shown: Cop through plate glass window in ’89, Same cop today on lecture tour about dangers of giving chase on a skateboard when faced with Max Skate Bike revolution
-Michael Jackson escaping paparazzi on a Max Skate Bike in “Bad” attire, symbolizing his shift to the album “Dangerous,” because Dayglo Unicycles are goddamned dangerous and it’s a good chance they were taken off the market because I sure as hell have never heard of them before this commercial. And this is coming from a guy who was X-Treme as shit back in the day. I wore my neon green bike hat front to back, motherfalcons.
I don’t know where Ben and Katie found this Bachelorette Party tape. I don’t know where my friend DJ Daymage found the awesome spark of genius to mix MJ’s “Rock With You” with Daft Punk’s “Something About Us.” But I felt I had to put it all together in one gloriously hairy, banana-hammock swinging, motorcycle-helmet wearing orgy for you to enjoy. Turn the lights low, baby. And just groove on this.
DC Comics recently rolled out their “Wednesday Comics”—full color, newspaper strip style comics in USA Today—and I get that new Comic Book Day is traditionally Wednesday at shops across America, but Sunday has always been the true comic day to me.
I liked getting that fat Sunday edition, and throwing out everything but the Family Circus-anchored, full color comics (Oh Billy!), the Parade Magazine (Ooo! What’s Jodie Foster up too??) and the Best Buy flyer (Essential Chris Brown price slash!).
That’s why I’m going to try and bring a little bit of that Sunday Comics magic back with strips written by my friends and I. Plus, I hate that all the blogs I visit take a break on the weekend, don’t you? Then you’re forced to spend time with those you love, which is some totally bogus shit.
The above strip is a long overdue post written and shamelessly drawn by my Joystick Division buddy Gary Hodges, inspired by a hilarious post by my friend Jarrod Sheets. Enjoy at your own peril!
I haven’t yet seen the Staples’ Center Tribute to Mariah Carey Michael Jackson today, because I’ve been locked in a basement uploading videos all day for the new site. I DID see it long enough to see Queen Latifah reading a eulogy, which means I’ve probably seen enough and feel like Pizza Hut suddenly.
But, I’ll be damned, what should I come across moments later but a tape labeled “Japanese TV” from my best bud Joe? And, what do you know, within the first 10 seconds of watching it, I come across this incredible tribute…which is exactly what will happen to you anytime you put a tape in the VCR labeled “Japanese TV.” This is all it is. Shit like this. A fitting first post to set the tone for my attic full of awfulness waiting to be shared with you. Welcome to Hell.
