WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Patent Quiz

After the unfortunate passing of Michael, everything from His favorite pill combos, to His child custody problems, to His music publishing issues, to His preferred brand of toothpaste have been dismembered, torn, and tossed into the final press to eek out any remaining dregs of data for the (us?) media vultures.

During this whole circus, you may have discovered that the guy from Toto actually wrote "Human Nature" (thanks Doron). Or perhaps you came across Michael's patent for "Method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion" (thanks Listener Colin & Ron) - PDF here, diagram below.

My buddy Dennis also sent along a few other patent documents filed by notable folks: images are below the jump, see if you can put a name to the images.

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Horndogs Rejoice! - Sexlab Cometh

Have you ever wanted to ask a WFMU radio personality about cunnilingus technique, clitoral stimulation, anal doucheing or "the helicopter"? Yeah, maybe not. But this Friday you'll have your chance anyway, when Sexlab hits the Web waves.

Conceived in a hailstorm of double entendres by our illustrious Queen of Friday Nights, Pseu "Honey Pot" Braun, and gestated in a dong-shaped space station by Pseu and her colleagues / co-researchers Mark "ASS9000" Allen and myself, Wm. "Money Shot" Berger, Sexlab is designed to hold your, um, "hand" and glide you into this new century of suckin' and fuckin'.

While Dave Mandl fills in for Pseu at our FM frequencies and on the regular Web stream, Sexlab will be streaming (with volume AND distance!) at an alternate Web feed accessible at wfmu.org. As Mark says, "online only, because in the Internet the FCC can't hear you curse."

And me? I started rubbing it to Morticia Addams when I was eight years old, and I haven't looked back since. I've been told more than once that I have an "enthusiasm," a certain bonus zeal for the sex act, so hopefully my life of gradual transition from hyper-libidinous man-slut to happily monogged married man will be of service to someone. And my colleagues, well they're unrepentantly horny bastards, too. Either way, Pseu, Mark and I can pretty much guarantee it will be funny (and hopefully genuinely informative as well.)

Sexlab will be live on the Web, this Friday, May 22, from 8-11 p.m. ET. We'll be taking your calls at (201) 209–9368 (for those prone to jump the gun, store that load in your third eye and call us then, not before.) If you'd like to submit a question or suggest a discussion topic in advance (or during the broadcast), we've set up a special email address: asksexlab@wfmu.org

Sexlab Facebook Page (for throbbing members only)

Look Around You - Music (video)

More Info | More Videos

Ronnie and Donnie

How the hell do Ronnie and Donnie Galyon do it?  Permanently fused at the collarbone and ending at the groin.  Fifty-eight years of coming back around to having to look each other dead in the eye again for another twenty-four hours once they're done checking out girls and heckling the ref.  The Schappell sisters have it easy, as far as I'm concerned; sisters whisper secrets in each others' ears and don't stop when they reach "the age" where they're not supposed to do that anymore.  Given the choice I believe most sisters wouldn't mind sharing a brain.  Each one would be right there for the next secret that cannot be disclosed to anyone else, the next problem that needs immediate unlicensed psychoanalysis and treatment.

Brothers joined at the head?  They'd bleed to death from pelting each other with cans of half drunk beer.  They'd drive each other batshit and you and I know it.  A six-inch sub's distance is enough of a proximity, and even then.  My twin and I quit whispering secrets ear-to-ear by age nine.

   

Stain, Afterburn, and Echo / the Aftermyth of Throbbing Gristle

The immersion. A stinging. There is only color. No shape. No front or back, simply orbits rippling back from a central disturbance. Some lighter bodies become vapor rather than resolve into the growing hum that shoots through mass and time.

Gettin’ a Buzz On

A couple weeks ago I drove up to Rosendale, New York, near New Paltz, to take a beekeeping class given by Chris Harp of Honeybee Lives. It’s a beautiful area of New York, full of pretty little towns where things are actually happening. There are many admirable hippies living up there—not the stupid, pothead hippies who lie around in their own excrement because it’s “natural,” but hard-working hippies who know how to modify their diesel automobiles to run on vegetable oil and then start a bio-diesel co-op to provide their own fuel.

The class was held in the Sustainable Resource Living Center, a hexagonal (!) building with many sustainable features that I can’t remember now, but we had to take off our shoes before we could go in and walk on the floor and the coffee was really good. Chris Harp has been a beekeeper for almost 20 years, and has developed a natural, organic approach based on respect for the social structure and behavior of bees.

Blimpienilla, Filet-o-Fish

For a long time, Scientists and Experts have said that the Indo-European language family--the one that includes English--dates back about 9,000 years. Why 9,000? How did they get that number? I don't know, you'd have to ask them. But now some Super Linguists from England have determined that there are some words that are 20,000 years old! So if you went way, way back in time, and were talking to cavemen, and you said certain words that are in English today, the cavemen would understand you. Kind of. I imagine it would be sort of like that episode of Star Trek, where Captain Kirk said the Pledge of Allegiance to the Yangs and Coms. But somehow, the Super Linguists know about the words used by cavemen in the time before written language, and those words were I, thou, we, who, two, three, and five. And those are just the English ones, because the Super Linguists are English, I guess. I mean, maybe there are German Super Linguists who have found 20,000-year-old words in German: Handschu! Or Greek, or Indian.

But the Super Linguists also projected themselves into the future, and found the English words most likely to disappear in the next 1,000 years. Not even 20,000 years, but just 1,000--that soon! And of course you might think, like, telephone, or fax or minidisc. Newspaper. Pledge drive. There are a lot of possibilities, things you might think of--but the Super Linguists do not think, they KNOW. They know that the words most likely to disappear in the next 1,000 years are dirty, bad, stick, and wipe. And how am I gonna communicate with DJ Bryce without them?

Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and please pledge your support to WFMU.

It's Why We Say Gesundheit

I am minding my own business, sitting at Gate 62 in LAX ready to fly back to the east coast. In the morning, I will hit the ground running, as I'm going to be hosting Cheetah Chrome with very special guests The Blackhearts on my program the next day on very little sleep. My mind is jammed with my "to-do" list; my hopes of catching some shuteye on the plane, what records I need to pull and notes I need for my program, what the weather will be like when I get back --and other annoyances. THEN I become absolutely, and completely 100% present to what I see walking past me at Gate 62...

Bat Day

Baseball season is a distant memory - even more so for those of us in the NY area - it's rare that a local team isn't in contention- we've been uninterested for so long now, it seems like the schedule ended sometime in 2007.

I was at the humble abode of my brother and his family the other night. The kids were winding down and the McBoingboing residence was descending into the lull that marks the end of the weekend. A shriek, and then a stampede of people come running up the steps from the family room. There's yelping, howling and other modes of expression coming from what I knew to be humans; eyeballs nearly popping out of heads, hands clasped to mouths and a lot of  stuttering. A BAT IS DOWNSTAIRS. So the weekend hasn't yet ended, apparently.

I just had to...

Someone's done the math, wikipedia listing...
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Cat-Toast_Device

That Explains It

The other day Listner Jim told me about an interesting study by Scientists and Experts. It seems that you can take someone who is pretty set in their beliefs about something, and show them actual, factual evidence that their beliefs are wrong—and not only will it not matter that they’re wrong, but the factual evidence to the contrary will make their adherence to their incorrect beliefs even stronger. I don’t know exactly which study Listner Jim had in mind, but you can find lots of them if you Google “belief perseverance” or “confirmation bias.” Those Scientists and Experts are a busy bunch.

This helps explain the Troy Davis case, I guess. Troy Davis was arrested in 1989 and charged with shooting off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail during a scuffle in a Burger King parking lot. He was convicted in 1991, based solely on the testimony of witnesses. There was absolutely no physical evidence connecting MacPhail to the crime. (The gun was never found.) Seven of the nine witnesses who testified against Davis have recanted their testimony, and most say they were coerced by police into signing statements—some say they did not even read the statements they signed. (One was even illiterate.) They just wanted the police to let them go and leave them alone. One of the two “witnesses” who has not recanted his testimony is an alternate suspect against whom new evidence does exist. A couple of the original prosecution witnesses now say that this man is the one who killed Officer MacPhail. But in spite of all the facts that point to Troy Davis being innocent, the Supreme Court of Georgia has denied him a new trial, and the Georgia State Board of Pardon and Paroles has refused to commute Troy Davis’ death sentence, and unless the Supreme Court of the United States does something before 7:00 PM tonight (less than two hours from the time I am writing this), the state of Georgia will execute Troy Davis, who says he never killed anybody. The facts also say he probably didn’t, but the facts just seem to make the Georgia authorities more determined to put Troy Davis to death.

I see the same phenomenon every time I mention how John McCain “wet started” the fire on the USS Forrestal, or whenever I say “Keating 5” or “Savings and Loan bail-out” or “disfigured first wife.” My little Republican friends’ eyes glaze over, and they just get more determined to vote for this guy. Or maybe it's Sarah Palin they're voting for. I got about a dozen forwarded emails this morning concerning some PBS poll where people are being asked whether Palin is qualified to be Vice President. The YES vote was winning, and these folks were all agitated and wanted everyone to go vote NO. But I think they’re missing the point: It’s a poll, and most people are voting YES, and that means that most people—or most of the people responding to the poll, anyway—think she is qualified. You fancy liberals better come up with something better than clicking your mouse NO and thinking you’ve accomplished something. Because any facts you can produce to show that Sarah Palin is way out of her league are only going to make those YES folks more convinced that she’s great VP material. And what are you gonna do about that?

Bird Lives!

Happy 63rd anniversary to Mike the Headless Chicken, who on this date in 1945 lost his noggin, but found oh so much more.

Just an unassuming yardbird gamboling about the homestead of Fruita, Colorado, farmer Lloyd Olsen, Mike was, on that fateful day, a 5½-month old Wyandotte rooster slated for the Olsen's evening repast. Fortunately for Mike, Lloyd's axe-wielding skills were lousy and the farmer's attempted execution went awry. Sure, Mike's clucker was lopped clear off, but certain key anatomical features (brain stem, esophageal passage, an ear, don't ask) remained intact, and, bizarrely, our feathered friend survived the encounter. In fact, the lucky duck went to bed that night with his own head tucked under a wing!

Well, in true can-do American spirit, Mike kept on strutting his stuff for the next 18 months, becoming a nationwide celebrity pulling in an absurd $4,500 a month while touring the country and posing for spreads in Life and Time. He even had a personal manager. Sure, the highlife caught up with Mike and he came to a sad end choking to death in an Arizona motel room, but even in death, our headless hero continues to capture the imagination of a nation, what, with a Guinness world record, a website, a MySpace page and even a song (MP3 by Frank Meyer).

And of course there's an inspirational video:

Thank You, Drive Thru!

Today, the second of two recent "drive through" incidents occurred for me, so I must vent, or at least confess, and I'll start with going back to memory a bit. Years and years and years ago, I had friends who worked in a Burger King located on a secondary highway in NJ, that had a drive thru. I remember that the driveway of it was sort of convoluted, as you had to travel around the entire building to get to the window because of a funny curb/lane thing that had been put in to "guide" drivers. Seeing people hop the curb happened often, but even more chuckle inducing would be when a driver intent on getting their Whooper with extra pickles would drive right into these poles that stood about 3 feet high, about 9 inches wide, metal shelled, filled with cement, and surrounded the place for, ah safety - ouch!...chuckle chuckle. While we stood in the back eating from a GIANT barrel of pickles, we would watch corner panel after corner panel fold like accordions against those bright yellow poles.

The Rock-afire Explosion

A few months ago, I picked up Gabby Wood's excellent non-fiction book Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life, a look at the obsessions of turn-of-the-19th-century inventors to create a truly life-like animatronic creation. Delving into this world of clockwork men (and not-so-clockwork scam artists) reminded me a bit of my childhood.

You see, when I was growing up in the 80s I made weekly trips to the nearby ShowBiz Pizza Place, mostly just to flirt with Jr. High School girls and play lots of Dragon's Lair. But for some reason whenever the Rock-afire Band started in on one of their sets, I was suddenly mesmerized by the spellbinding creepiness of the animatronic figures "playing" "music" for "entertainment".

So, I've been thinking all about these about animatronics, and the strange world they inhabit, and then the internet explodes with the word on the documentary film I've been waiting my whole life for... 

For more on the Rock-afire gang, don't miss the website of the original programmer (and voice of Billy Bob the bear) Aaron Fechter, who takes bids to program new songs for the Rock-afire Explosion (currently in progress, "Neighborhood #1" by the Arcade Fire). He also invented Whac-A-Mole, so clearly the man is a genius. Here's a look at the early days of his company, Creative Engineering, and their process for creating the original Rock-afire shows.

But Showbiz Pizza is just the tip of the animatronic iceberg, so I couldn't just leave it at that. Follow the jump for more videos of robot presidents, animals, comedians, and, yes, Marlon Perkins!

Delicate Traces or Erases?

     "First, before we go in, does anyone have any gum in their mouth?"
    "No", we muttered half heartedly.
    "Because if you do, you need to spit it out of your mouth right now and throw it in this trashbin!"
     That is how my visit started on America's oldest residential street.  And this, I tell you sisters and brothers, in the city of brotherly love.  I spent only 36 hours in Philadelphia and I am already sick of that motto.  Imagine how the poor devils feel who have to live with it day in and out, in addition to seeing the fetching mug of Ben Franklin on every local product and print ad!  It's enough to make an over zealous, under talented, former drama student tour guide want to reach her hand into a visiting mouth and rip the gum right out.
     But unlike the Big Apple, I imagine the city of cheese steaks has had nothing lately so embarassing as the dorm-style artist bohemian housing article recently brought to light in the paper of record.  I am not sure what is more awful, that people are so crazy to sink to living in such grim reproductions of 'art community', or that it is outed to the world in a paper as far removed from that scene as the Times.  Ouch.  I wonder how long it will take before reality show scouts come calling at the doors of the dueling McKibbin lofts buildings.
     Which prompts the next question:  how deep does one have to live to not be vacuous?  Not below sea-level deep, but more like, how much does a person have to be of a scholarly nature to not live in the trendy now?  I ask this because I feel that many of the local peeps I encountered in the city of brother and sisterly love had less of an interest in trend for a keeping-up sake, like us Big Apple eaters, and more time to read stories about explorers who risked life and frost bitten limb in the mid 1800's Arctic Ocean.  My analysis is far from scientific and regrettably un-scholarly, but my quick turn of Philadelphia events left me thinking that living away from the too fast motion grid of NYC isn't such a bad thing.
     For instance, my first experimental proof:  I didn't see any couples simultaneously talking on their cell phones.  When two humans in direct proximity to feel-up contact, are instead conversing with intangible, unseen others, that is a sure sign that the world is spinning out of control.  I did not see any examples of that in my highly controlled, scientific assessment (total disclosure: my assessment included many hours of observation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so perhaps my research data is skewed, because everyone knows talking on cell phones is frowned upon in museums).
     Second experimental proof: we ate at a fabulous Burmese restaurant that had not bothered to change their cuisine category to Myanmar.  Refusing to keep up with rapidly changing military dictatorship governments is a sure sign of inner strength.
     Information that I should NOT include in my survey (if I were soley trying to prove my hypothesis instead of being utterly open with you, the lovely free-form radio listening public): most people I spoke with knew Santogold personally or her life story (born and raised in Philly).  Granted one of them was in a great record store, but this info proves that our brotherly and sisterly lovers know a cool, contempo moment when it has direct and positive effect on them (instead of just knowing the status of R Kelly's child pornography trial).
     And for my last piece of evidence, I offer the  American Philosophical Society Museum.  Housed in a plain building, without so much as a proper sign, this museum offered the largest proof that humans without subscriptions to People magazine can get a lot accomplished in the course of a day.  Granted, much of this accomplishment was made before the invention of even the standard telephone, but I am still in awe of the gorgeous watercolors that Titian Peale brought back from his voyages to Antartica.  I know the horrors of trying to do artwork while traveling, not to mention when the temperature is so low it makes water color highly viscous.  And when was the last time the artifacts you brought back from your travels were the origins of the Smithsonian?
     Am I being too hard on us global warming makers?  Perhaps this New England Patriots spying debacle has stretched me too thin?  I think DJ Icepack being invited to a 7-year-old birthday party with the promise of Ely Manning in attendance did it.  Or maybe the impending steam railroad, and subsequent ramifications of Britain's Industrial Revolution in Masterpiece Theatre's Cranford has me vexed.  I am confident that it has nothing to do with Lily Allen's blonde do, or her mystery man.
     I've got it!  Seven plus years of George W. has left me feeling like a hung over frat boy cramming Cliff notes!  When we dump that obsolescent train wreck I will feel a lot smarter.

Early Musical Robots

One blog reader asked what the the story behind the picture with the walking, talking, and yodeling "radio man" for last week's post was. The article is from a 1939 issue of Popular Mechanics, and "Radio Man" was designed by Swiss engineer August Huber in the 1930's. Like all early robots, he looks way cooler than the modern ones. That's all I know. And instead of wasting my time researching more about Radio Man, here are a few more early robots, all stolen from the "Robot" section of the excellent Modern Mechanix blog. (Click on the images to get a larger version.)

 

Two more robots after the jump.

I Believe That (Stoned) Children Are Our Future

While Dr. Seuss may have quietly but most assuredly extolled the virtues of LSD, some kids' authors are being a little less subtle when it comes to the Sweet Leaf. Follow the pictoral excerpts from the new publication It's Just A Plant and get involved in your kids' choices. Bryce thinks maybe this kid has already made her choice. However, I think what really should be outlawed is taking your kid bike riding wearing Sgt. Pepper garb, but who am I to judge. (Thanks for link, Tom Lax.)

My Night at the Sleep Lab

So I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping.  Fortunately, I have this forum wherein I can compel our global readership to share their related experiences and advice.  The basic problem is this:  I don't usually have difficulty falling asleep, both due to work-related mental exhaustion as well as the fact that I take a prescription medication for anxiety also often prescribed for insomnia.  However, after anywhere from three to five hours, I wake up, and that seems to be that.  My pulse is elevated, though my mind is not particularly troubled or racing; I'm just awake, and can't get back to sleep—no way, no how.

I decided after six weeks or so of this mounting hell to avail myself of a local sleep lab, one affiliated with and on the premises of a reputable local hospital.  I'd read about these places before, and went in aware that they are basically designed to diagnose and treat a condition called sleep apnea, which I didn't really think fit my particular symptoms—but who knows, right?  I needed help and thought that it might even be an interesting experience.

I checked in to the sleep lab at 9 p.m. per their instructions.  The first thing that aroused my skepticism was that no one bothered to take my blood pressure or ask for a list of the prescription medications I take (I take a low-dose antihypertensive that I've been taking for years, plus the aforementioned anxiety pill—possibly relevant?!?!)  The room itself was less like a single hospital room, more like a single room at a really cheap motor hotel, I guess in an attempt to simulate the conditions under which most of us sleep.  (The techs kept saying, "you can watch TV now," as if this was some great gift.)

I was then hooked up to a variety of wired contacts, all connected to my body with surgical tape:  one behind each ear, two or three on various points on my skull, one below my left eye, one above my right eye, two on my chin, two on my chest and one on my back.  Then adjustable elastic strips were applied around my neck, chest and waist.  Now it's time to go to sleep!  Any time I needed to pee, Mohammed (not the Prophet, the sleep lab tech) had to unhook 2 main wires, so that I could carry the central receiver box (about the size of a VHS tape) to the bathroom with me, do my business, then come back and get re-hooked.  I was out for the first 1.5 hours, up for another hour and then basically asleep for another four hours until 6 a.m. when the techs woke me up.  Mohammed said, "Mr. Berger, your sleep was excellent."  If I'd been thinking, I might have asked him to qualify that statement.

Science Geeks are the coolest!

Photobasement posted a slew of Science Fair photos last week, and it got me slipping down the k-hole of my past, thinking about those days as a budding science nerd. And so, after much googling and image searching, I pulled together even more photos. Some are funny, and some are just darn cute!

And so, a slew of Science Fair photos (including some of my faves from the Photobasement post) after the jump!

Carromato de Max Museum of Miniatures

Carromato de Max, i.e. Max's Covered Wagon, is in Mijas, one of the white towns in Spain's Costa del Sol. It's up the kind of switchback road that made me carsick as a kid. The day I went, there were Wizard of Oz-level winds, which made climbing the stairs to the converted train car precarious, and arriving into the museum's spare stillness surprising.

Maybe I was influenced by the winds, but the late Dr. Max appears to have been a traveling mountebank who sold snake oil and collected curiosities. The Max museum was recently renovated, and the random assortment of items is now encapsulated in plastic bubbles as if they came out of giant gumball machines. The display aesthetic is space-age mod, which makes a lovely contrast with the contents, including stuffed and dressed fleas, sculptures made of chewed gum, and just about anything that can be painted on the head of a pin, like Abraham Lincoln (left).

I took some photos on my crapass camera. I also took copious notes, but I can't find them, and it's hard to tell what those damn little things are now. Fleas? Dust? I think it's fine to make up your own captions. Feel free to do so here.

Below: Space Oddities; Seven Wonders of the World on a Toothpick; Pinhead Lincoln; Stuffed and Dressed Fleas.