Tuesday 31 March 2009

A Short Film

Music For the Masses



Discovering Imaginary Covers, musical variations, melodious alterations, euphonic permutations, and discordant deviations.

Sexual Helium

Marvin Gaye meets That-Stupid-Bloody-Frog-That-Everyone-Except-Me-Loved-A-Few-Years-Ago. Maybe it could even be a duet for the Post-Thought Age. A helium-voiced Sexual Healing for the new millennium. Also a step-by-step guide on how to ruin a perfectly good song with unnecessary post-production.

The AAA Took My Baby Away

The Ramones' classic punk rock tune is re-imagined, replacing the barbaric KKK of the original's title with the somewhat more threatening American Automobile Association. It could -in the future- be used on convertible and sports car magazine adverts and television infomercials. The future is dark, the future is black. Scary thoughts, the stuff of nightmares.

Californicaragua

The same old, boring, unimaginative Red Hot Chili Peppers songs with latin rhythms added to them. The Contras-themed rhythms of Nicaragua's capital city, Managua. Perhaps now the song will have a vague scent of revolution and change? "Dream of Ca-li-for-ni-ca-ra-gua... Dream of Ca-li-for-ni-ca-ra-gua... " Don't expect much, though. I bet Anthony Kiedis' substandard lyrics will still manage to ruin the song once again. A second-rate lyricist if I ever heard one.

Friday 27 March 2009

Hostile Makeover



Children's Literature + Hollywood = many an appallingly written, poorly directed, incompetently acted piss-poor excuse for a film.

The Ruffalo

The life-story of American actor Mark Ruffalo synchronized to the plot and story of Julia Donaldson/Axel Scheffler's unforgettable The Gruffalo. The monster becomes an incompetent actor and acts in a string of flops.

Where The Wilde Things Are

Part Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are, part bio-pic describing the troubled life and troubled times of literary mammoth Oscar Wilde. It would almost certainly include monsters, betrayal, sodomy and pederasty.

The Chronicles Of Arnie

The Chronicles Of Narnia meets Arnold Schwarzenegger. Need I say more? Maybe I need, I suppose. Why, I hear you ask? Why not? For the money, of course. Why else, right? C.S. Lewis, but with no moral message and -instead- a bunch cars blowing up, buildings burning, and dudes getting shot. Maybe we'll squeeze some robots, some time-travel, some sex, and lotsa, lotsa violence. Yeah!

Friday 20 March 2009

Market Forceps



Elasticity of the Man, Adversary Selection, Anti-Anti-Trust, Debt Mercilessness, Deadweight Cost/Less, MonopSONY, and whatnot, and on and on, and the rest, etcetera, yadda, yadda, yadda...


Heinz© might try to start marketing their own brand of humous, the name of which will be a portmanteau blending both the name of the brand and that of the commodity, thus, Heinous®.

Microsoft© are believed to be on the verge of creating their own in-house system of Orders, including their version of the Order of the Garter and the OBE, the latter named Microsoft© OBEs or -for short- MICROBEs®.

The Coca-Cola© Company could attempt to break into the market of calligraphy, by designing, copyrighting, and promoting their own Coca-Cola© style apostrophe under the trade name Catastrophe®.

Firestone© and TRESemmé© may one day merge and combine their mastery of rubber engineering, wheel design, and cosmetics to make more durable, better-looking tires. TRESemmé© + Firestone© = Tiresomé®.

Tiresome as this post has now become, I am sure. My apologies.

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Philately, Numismatics, Trainspotting, etc.



Relatively Boring Pastimes, rather dull hobbies, comparatively stale interests, and somewhat uninteresting amusements.

Metrophilia

Metrophilia must be the most boring member in all the -philia family. C'mon. Necrophilia is frowned upon, but sounds more fun -even if also more disturbing. Even Hemophilia seems like it'd be a blast by comparison. It makes Coprophilia look like a charming, solemn endeavour, let's face it. How can anyone call him/herself a "railfan" or "rail enthusiast" and not realize what an amazing social faux-pas that is? The only interesting things about trainspotting are: a) the novel (Irvine Welsh) and b) the novel's film adaptation (Danny Boyle), which -by the way- have absolutely nothing to do with the act of spotting trains, other than it is used in the novel as a metaphor for the tedium and cyclical nature of a junkie's existence. Or, rather, nonexistence.

Numismatics

Numismatics...? Yawn. Who was the first person that decided collecting coins would help him/her kill time? Isn't the whole point about money that it was created to be spent? Honestly, what a waste of time. I could see how having money might improve someone's quality of life, and even help someone move towards happiness -not money in itself, but rather not having to worry about money. But collecting the damn thing? Really? Rilly? Oh my...

Philately

Philately? I'd rather watch telly. I suppose sometimes people simply do not have any friends to writes letters to, so they simply buy postal stamps and put them in boxes. I bet they also buy postcards, and end up not sending them. There they go, off to boxes too. Classified, categorized, rated, grouped, grade, systematized and catalogued. The many, many, many taxonomies of boredom. And they don't even keep them in boxes, that was simply my own poetic license, they -in fact- buy albums to provide accommodation for them. How exciting, I hear you say. You moron. Philately makes Philanthropy sound exciting. At least then you are simply getting rid of you money, not both your money, your self-respect, AND your life.

Dang!

Monday 16 March 2009

Confusing Acronyms




Letters for the illiterate, confused initials, alphabetisms, abbreviations, nomenclatures, and orthographic stylings...


WWID: Is this meant to be an egocentric variation on WWJD (What Would Jesus Do)? Something along the lines of What Would I Do? Or simply an ominous forward-thinking anticipation of World War 499 (roman numerals, of course)?

INRI: History and Theology both tell us that this acronym, inscribed at the top of the cross, stood for IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews). But, could it be possible that it did not mean this at all, but rather that Jesus was in fact called Henry, and those bloody Romans could not spell foreign names? Thus, Inri? I'm just saying...

SOA: I think this is meant to be decoded as Service-Oriented Architecture. Although, I do not know anyone (or even of anyone) -dead or alive- who has a clue what this means. Feel free to have a look what Wikipedia has to say on the matter. It's quite unintelligible. Something along the lines of "a nano e-pod de-duping and virtualization, constituting versioning cloud-computing and green washing, yet not excluding a reasonable amount of petaflop and words clouds. Nano, nano, buzzword, water-cooler, cubicle arsehole, Web 2.0, nano, nano, 3G amorphous solution, flash cookie i-business, plasma megapixel fuck LCD HD VCR PVR DVR SLR DVD TV ISP ESP JPEG MP3 CEO VoIP HTTP GUI USB? IBM? GFY! Yeah?"

Plump Fiction



Pulped Fiction, bits and pieces from the Hollywood Archives. An assortment of film script leftovers.


Honey Bunny [About to rob a diner]: I love you, Pumpkin.
Pumpkin: I love you, Honey Bunny. [Standing up with a gun in his hand] All right, everybody be Rob, this is a coolery!
Honey Bunny: Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of... [Turning to Pumpkin] What did you just say?
Pumpkin [Clearly embarrassed]: Not now, Honey Bunny... Not now...


[from a private conversation between Quentin Tarantino and Ving Rhames]

Ving Rhames: But why Marsellus Wallace, Q-man? You are making my character sound like a pimp, and you know how I feel about stereograms...
Quentin Tarantino [henceforth referred to as Q-man and/or the Q-man]: ...types. Stereotypes.
Ving Rhames: What?
The Q-Man: Stereotypes. Stereotypes are widely held, fixed, oversimplified images of someone or something. Like saying "Canada is like the U.S., but filled with nice people," or "blondes have more fun, but less brain." Stereograms are optical illusions of depth created from flat, two-dimensional pictures. You know, those images you stare at for a while before you get them...
Ving Rhame: Oh, yeah... I dig 'em.
The Q-Man: Your point being...?
Ving Rhame: Why can't my character be nice. A nice, friendly black man. Without a name like "Marsellus Wallace," Q-Man. It sounds threatening, you know? Why can't the character be called something like "Wally Marseille" or "Marcel Wallaby," instead?


[from the Original, Unrevised, Unedited Screenplay for the film]

Jules: What does Marcellus Wallace look like?
Brett: What?
Jules: What country you from?
Brett: What?
Jules: What ain't no country I ever heard of! They speak English in What?
Brett: What?
Jules: English, motherfucker! Do. You. Speak. It?
Brett: What?
Jules: Sphincter says what?
Brett: What?
Jules: Ha, you're the sphincter, dude. Now, seriously, English, motherfucker! Do. You. Speak. It?
Brett: Yes!
Jules: Then you know what I'm saying!
Brett: Yes!
Jules: Describe what Marcellus Wallace looks like!
Brett: What, I-?
Jules: [Pointing his gun at him] Say what again. Say. That. Again! I dare you, I double dare you, motherfucker. Say what one more goddamn time.
Brett: He is b-b-b-black...
Jules: Go on.
Brett: He's b-b-b-bald...
Jules: Does he look like a bitch?
Brett [Breaking into song in a husky Louis-Armstrong-type voice]: What a won - der - ful world... And I think to myself...
Jules: Does he look like a bitch?
Brett [Again, breaking into song and attempting a choreography]: What if God was one of us...?
Jules: Man... Not Joan Osbourne, I hate that bitch! Joan Osbourne and Melissa Etheridge are out of bounds. It's in my contract, man. [Jules shoots Brett in shoulder] Entirely unacceptable. [Looking at Vincent] D'you know where the Q-man is? I need to sort some shit out.