WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Dysfunction, amplified

At first, I figured this BBC 4 show had earned its title due to the fact you were often looking through the various characters' eyes and hearing their thoughts, but quickly realized that in fact the monicker is well earned because more often than not you are covering your eyes in sheer uncomfortability. Peep Show at times makes the Office look positively cozy: it's the depiction of two London flatmates Mark (portrayed by David Mitchell, a human being with seemingly no irises and the most massive pupils) and Jeremy (Robert Webb) living in pure dysfunction. The former is a Type-A office drone, the latter a would-be Chemical Brother slacking off and spending too much time with his brainless collaborator "Super Hans". They're clearly the Bizarro World "Friends" revelling in passive-aggressive antics towards each other (show 1 opens with you-through-Jeremy's eyes pissing all over the toilet seat) and despite the sleazy, loathing (and self-loathing)  nature of their out-loud thought balloons, they're strangely dependent on each other. Whereas the Office often remained mired in the sheer depth of horror its characters achieve (with faint rays of light) Peep Show harvests the characters' boneheaded tendencies with more occassions to cheer them on for one reason or another. Though, yeah, it's usually the depth of horror thing. Mark's continued pursuit of his co-worker Sophie brings out his more bizarre behavior; leaving his daily office cartoon post-it for her he decides to get "kooky" and "out there" by inexplicably drawing a swastika inside the valentine heart. It's dark, twisted stuff, and needless to say the episode Mark grapples with his feelings for a male business partner who has taken him on as an apprentice while Jeremy struggles to find out what awful thing happened to him before a drug binge blackout is simply one of the most insane things ever on a so-called "edgy" TV series. Up there in my book with Chris Morris' Paedophilia special on Brasseye. CSTB put it the best: "Cringe City has a new mayor."

Shake it, don't break it

Apparently, we’ve come a long way since Elvis made his first TV appearance... Hip shaking is officially ok! In another blow to the illustrious PTC, the FCC has ruled that an episode of the TV show “Angel” depicting the lead character’s hips moving back and forth, was not indecent. In related news, vampire neck-biting combined with heavy breathing is also allowed.

Read the article on CNN

Read the FCC ruling (PDF)

"House Party 4" Is Go!

Counting Crows' Adam Duritz thanks his boy Kid for "endless inspiration and integrity" as he accepts Oscar for Best Adapted Kulti-Kinkz.

Sleeping On The Job

Let's travel back in time as I reminisce about my highest paying job ever...

I don’t know whether I should try to sleep for two hours or not. I don’t think I can. I won’t be able to get up, despite my alarm clock.  I started training last night: overnight shift in the radio division of CBS on West 57th, engineering the Mutual Radio news. It’s a temporary gig, maybe nine months, probably six - no promise of anything beyond that. I got a call from a guy who got my name from a friend. Before I could butter my toast I’m told to come in and train. And I have to join the IBEW. It’s a union shop. Because it’s a union shop it’s also the highest paying job I’ve ever held: on the over-night shift I’ll earn roughly $65 an hour.

I went in from 1:15 AM to 8:15 AM. It’s my job to run the board, mixing the announcer’s voice with the acts and nat. sound. Acts are actualities, short reports from the scene or soundbytes of politicians and celebrities and authority figures. Nat. sound is natural sound, sounds from the scene, people screaming, brakes squealing, guns firing, etc. All this stuff is culled by cute girls and boys fresh out of journalism school and recorded onto carts. Carts are cartridges, the same size and shape as 8-tracks but made to cue up to inaudible tones. Then they can be fired precisely and - if you’re reading the script - in the right order. It’s not as easy as it sounds. When you fuck up, you fuck up across four or five hundred radio stations and on the Armed Forces Network. Then you have to write a trouble report in triplicate.

Bubba King

You know how you'll basically read ANY GODDAMN THING when you suddenly find yourself stuck in the bathroom a little longer than you had originally anticipated?  Well, I sometimes find myself in that postition outside of the restroom, like when I'm alone, having a very quick but sad meal at the home of the whopper.   

Here's what my rediculously humungoid plastic cup filled with coca-cola had printed on it:
Science hasn't proven it yet, but we're pretty sure your cup tries to communicate with you. Like by using that sound created while sucking through a straw at the bottom of an empty drink. It's called Cup Chatter. And it's your cups' way of telling you to get a refill. So the next time you hear it, listen up and top that puppy off. Because it's good to have it filled to the edge. It shows you're really having it  your way.

Ay Carumba.

Separated at Birth?

K.D. Lang and Best Supporting Actor nominee Clive Owen make like Mary Magdalene and pray for bigger, better goody bags at tonight's Oscars.

A Sign of Radio's True Desperation

In an indication of just how worried the radio industry is about competition from satellite radio (not to mention podcasting, MP3s, cable radio, video games and everything else), this pro-broadcast-radio ad has been circulating the commercial radio industry. (MP3) Nothing like yet another commercial to bring people back to a dying industry.

Put on your own broadcasts at home...

Yasir Arafat Spams From The Grave

An new take on an old scam, via Dan Mackta:

Dear Friend,

I am Mrs. Suha Arafat, the wife of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader who died recently in Paris. Since his death and even prior to the announcement, I have been thrown into a state of antagonism, confusion, humiliation, frustration and hopelessness by the present leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the new Prime Minister. I have even been subjected to physical and psychological torture.

Cussing More Expensive Than Radioactive Waste

Rolling Stone magazine has confirmed what I had long suspected - that the FCC's language fines far exceed other governmental fines. The largest fine levied by the Nuclear (pronounced Nucular) Regulatory Agency last year was $60,000. The largest FCC fine? 1.2 million dollars, for Fox's "Married By America" bachelor party episode, in which all the bad words were edited out, and all the boobies were pixillated. A few years back, this 45-second-long ditty by Monty Python (MP3 download) garnered a $25,000 fine from the FCC, despite the fact that that the worst language in it is the phrase "Sit On My Face." And this was in the old days, before millions of American children were traumatized by being exposed to Janet Jackson's pasty for 11/32nds of one second.

A few weeks ago, I did my own brief survey of federal fines and came up with this list of non-FCC fines imposed by the Federal Government, so you can get some perspective on the current proposed laws to increase the fines for naughty phrases to half a million bucks each:

$10,000 for killing a Whooping Crane.

$54,500 for releasing anydrous ammonia into the environment.

$55,000 for illegally travelling to Cuba.

$70,000 for mishandling and mislabeling hazardous chemicals.

$116,000 for improper disposal of flammable materials and other violations.

$133,000 for exposing employees to infectious diseases.

$1.2 million for broadcasting pixillated boobs (FCC).

Kaz: Big In South Korea

The man who first introduced me to WFMU, Kaz, was recently notified that characters from his cartoon Underworld are appearing on bathroom doors in the city of Daejeon, South Korea.

Museum of Microphones

Geek out with this virtual tour of vintage microphones complete with sound examples, celebrity photos, transmitter history, and much, much more!

Includes this bonus photo of Rex Doane look-a-like on the bandstand with Jack Benny.
MP3 mic sequence

Let the Evil Spore

"Have you heard the song?  It really sucks."

On February 25, 2002, untold bags of Cheetos® in high altitude groceries burst from the sudden decrease in global air pressure brought about by the zillion simultaneous gasps of people realizing the Attorney General of the United States was demonstrably, incontrovertibly batshit fucking bananas.

The Sounds of Scientology

In an attempt to raise the bar of blog posting, I humbly present to you… more celebrity smut! Yesterday at the fun factory, Brian Turner flashed a copy of the new Beck album carrying the theme of game-boy music, and made a comment about how his beard-rock phase must have been a failure (see failed beard to the right). Brian thinks that Dave Navarro must’ve told Beck that game-boy music is the next big thing while they were each on the receiving end of a lapdance. Click to hear the next big thing (Real Audio) deconstructed in an archive of Kenny G’s show from 2003.

The Beck-talk got me thinking about Scientology, cult of choice for the uber-fabulous. In all honesty and laziness, I don’t give a damn about the principles guiding this religion/school of thought, so I’ll skip it for the sake of us both. But if you're truly curious, this L. Ron Hubbard song lends a rather lucid explanation (click to hear "Terl, The Security Director" in Real Audio). On with the smut! Here are some names of interest that are or were involved in the enigma that is Scientology (thanks, internet!):

Lisa Marie Presley
Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson)
Isaac Hayes
William S. Burroughs (eventually left)
Chick Corea
Beck
Courtney Love
Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big)
Edgar Winter
Leonard Cohen
Leif Garrett
Nicky Hopkins (Savages, Cyril Davies All Stars, Jeff Beck Group)
Doug E. Fresh
Edgar Winter (Edgar Winter Group)
Darby Crash (went to an experimental high school run on principles of Scientology)
Chaka Khan
Gloria Gaynor (ex member)
Ricky Martin (ex member)
Charles Manson (eventually left)
Incredible String Band

Back In The Day

Here is a stunning collection of Old School Party Fliers from the likes of Buddy Esquire and Phase 2.

Blackcrack (MP3) to browse by

Gaahl heads to jail

From Blabbermouth.net:
GORGOROTH frontman Gaahl was sentenced to 14 months in prison for beating a 41-year-old man and threatening to drink his blood.

How to Procrastinate: Tip No. 6—Jersey City Goes to 11

Did you know Jersey City is a "Sexy City"?

Apparently no one else did, either. A recent poll done by some annoying deodorant company found that Jersey City is the 11th Sexiest City in the nation. This is such powerful branding information that WFMU is going to change its tag line to “Freeform Station of the Nation, in the 11th Sexiest City in the Nation.”

What constitutes “Sexy”? Apparently these deodorant  scientists used some special metrics to figure it out, but over here in the Department of Procrastination Studies we need to see for ourselves.

A note on scientific methods: Station Manager Ken sent me this article (you have to do a minor log-in to read it, but I read it so you don't have to) two weeks ago, and I want to be clear that it’s not that I put off writing about it until now. I was doing research. OK, last Friday night I did some research.  I could have just made some crap up while I was watching the umpteenth rebroadcast of “160-Lb. Tumor” on the Discovery Health Channel, but I did not. I chose to do participant observation, an ethnographic method in which I have extensive training. As this site says, "Think Jane Goodall studying chimps."

Since I had only been out in Jersey City one night in my entire life, I needed expert advice. I don’t know why—this is science, so I’m reluctant to offer a hypothesis without some evidence to manipulate to support it—but the wfmu dj’s were useless informants. They don’t know from Sexy. I have a cousin who lives a few blocks from the station, and she is  super-Sexy (imagine an unplaticized Irish Cher), so I asked her to be my guide/driver. It was cold and I didn't want to walk.

Evidence collected 2/18/05:

The evening started out with the needle on the Sexy Meter bouncing into the red. I was at wfmu to stuff envelopes* for the marathon. When I walked in, volunteers Taso, Ryan, Bill and Charlie were sitting around the table under the supervision of Volunteer Coordinator Scott, looking like the Fab 5, but not so gay. But so Sexy!

Sexy Swagster Megan was also there and interrupted her game of computer Scrabble (the computer spelled “boner,” which I took to be a good sign) to help me plan my itinerary. Turns out Megan does know from Sexy. Scott began frothing like a mad dog when he started talking about bars where the “cute fake people hang out,” so I stopped listening to him, and excluded his data from the experiment.

Cousin Cher and I went to the Hyatt first.
Not Sexy, unless Empty is the new Sexy. But it was early.

Next stop was LITM, which stands for “love is the message” (down, Scott, down!). The meter went into the red as soon as we walked in and saw two extremely cute girls making out at the front of the bar. I think lesbian love is a better message. The bartender might have flirted with me, but I was too busy getting the gossip on my extended family to pay attention.

Having worked up an appetite from doing all this science, we went to the Hard Grove Cafe for steak sandwiches. I was ready to call the research over, but then we hit Sexy pay-dirt. Cousin Cher was waiting for the Ladies Room, and it was a long wait. Finally the door opened, and it was not a Lady but one of the Hombres who worked in the kitchen. Then the door shut. After a few minutes a Lady did come out and oh-so casually returned to her table. Cousin Cher and I analyzed the evidence and concluded that there was something Mucho Sexy going on in there. Something that might have even been Sex.

Since I had to get back to Brooklyn to get a few hours sleep before returning to board op for Greasy Kid Stuff Saturday morning, we decided our rigorously scientific experiment had run its course.

Scientific conclusion: Next to the envelope-stuffing table at wfmu, the Ladies Room at the Hard Grove is the Sexiest Place in the 11th Most Sexy City in the Nation.

*Brownie points for me!

Next time: porn? Maybe not, my mom's in town.

 

Wubba Band Names

Next time your really bored, consider your options.

One idea is to pick a room in your home or apartment that you rarely hang out in, lay on the floor on your side, and play with a rubber band.

Another sure fire cure is to come up with imaginary band names.  If you're especially bored, go that extra step and create the album cover to go with it.  Try it, it's neato!

Here's a partial list of some of the names that popped out of my little head aways back:

Lutefisk Hangover, The Nothings, As If, Troth, Powder Room, Riotous Meadow, Seeing Other People, Trophy Wife, Just Another Model, Darling I Do, Harmless Injection, Coy Maiden, Sky Lobby, Jet Core, The Squats, Causation, Knee Deep, The Splatter Set, The Short Hills, The Have Nots, The Asss, and my personal fav., Pretty Amputee.

Feel free to appropriate any of the names when forming your next band.  I always do.

The Unluckier You Are, The Luckier You Get

Like the time I almost put out my left eye because a waterski tow rope snapped right into it - everybody told me how lucky I was, despite the fact that the chances of the thing hitting me in the eye were one in a million! How 'bout if you were skydiving, and despite two instructors holding onto you (or perhaps because of them), your parachute ripped clean off your back - lucky or unlucky? And then, let's say your instructor still somehow managed to pull your back-up chute just before you hit the ground, but then you landed on top of a power line, almost electrocuting yourself - lucky, or unlucky? Download the video and decide for yourself. (Windows video file, via fazed.net)

More Addictive Than Video Games

Here's a site that will keep you busy for hours...

Choose any two bands on the site & find out how many "family tree" steps between them there are! The site says the longest link is 32 steps; I have yet to hit on anything over 20 - Assuck to Crosby Stills Nash & Young garnered that one. My buds Watch Them Die will be psyched that they are only 10 steps away from Black Sabbath...