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The Rude Pundit imagines what Hogan's Heroes would be like in the current world of Bush-encouraged torture:
Every other time Hogan had invoked the Geneva Convention (for instance, "Colonel Klink, I must protest as a violation of the Geneva Convention the private interrogation of my men by a Gestapo officer"), Klink had crumbled like a house of cards. But when he tried this time, he was slammed face down on the Klink's desk as the Commandant exhaled a frustrated, "Hooogannnn. I'll show you what we think of the Geneva Convention." And then Hogan heard a thick sheaf of papers being rolled tightly. Well, this is poetic, Hogan thought, just before he felt the searing pain of the Geneva Conventions being shoved into his ass. Schultz protested briefly, but Klink asked the bumbling Sergeant what he would say to any investigators.
"I see noth-ink," he exclaimed. "I see noth-ink."
More wormy art drawn in my cubicle (today).
"Happy E-tune" (Dance Party Remix). [mp3 removed] In which four melodic parts that bring new meaning to the word jaunty get the full remix treatment, with a phased drum break. The overlapping synth voices are like a conversation where people keep interrupting each other.
Drawn at "work" in my cubicle Tuesday and today. I didn't feel like doing portraits, I felt like doing wormy, noodly things.
Quick take: Listened to Gary Wilson's Mary Had Brown Hair again last night, and am in awe of his music and art. I mean to do a proper review eventually, and posted some other people's thoughts here. I don't think he is "just a weirdo," I think his "loser mooning over old girlfriends" is a carefully thought out persona and his music as tight and smart as any I've heard. I would compare MHBH to the Mothers' We're Only In It for the Money, partly, obviously, because Wilson disguises his vocals by speeding them up the way Zappa did, but also for its intriguing combination of humor, poignancy, and Cagean noise aesthetics. Sped up or not, I love what the Dusted reviewer calls Wilson's "white soul bro" voice--the way he lapses from singing into just talking,or rambling, about those (fantasy?) femmes who won't stop circling around inside his brain.
Jack Masters: "Yes, with only MS paint, a lousy gif animator, and something to generate random numbers, you too can make this seething mass of pixelated fractally horror."
Rotating smile emoticon html-enlarged by cosmic_disciple (Travis Hallenbeck).
Donald Rumsfeld: Loser
From Reuters (this is already a month old but still relevant):
Asked during the briefing "are we winning" the war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not directly respond.Rumsfeld knows how to start a fight but not how to finish it.
"The United States and the coalition forces, in my personal view, will not be the thing that will defeat the insurgency," Rumsfeld said.
"So, therefore, winning or losing is not the issue for 'we,' in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word 'winning' and 'losing' in a war. The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis."
[...]
After Rumsfeld finished, [Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Richard] Myers interjected, "I'm going to say this: I think we are winning, OK? I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time."
Before The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou*, before Sealab 2021 (or even Sealab 2020), there was:
From the Onion's Films That Time Forgot: "Is it really better down where it's wetter, as animated crabs suggest? That's what Tony Randall intends to find out when he signs his family up to live in his experimental underwater house, in an attempt to convince his skeptical boss Jim Backus that the model is feasible. Randall's wife Janet Leigh is terrified of water (which, after Psycho, is understandable), but concedes anyway. So do the shaggy ruffians in Harold And The Hang-Ups, an anonymous, faintly hippie-ish pop-rock outfit that includes Randall and Leigh's fresh-faced progeny, plus a young Richard Dreyfuss. The gang soon learns that the life aquatic can also be la vida loca, thanks to sharks, technical malfunctions, professional competition, dancing sea creatures, cheap animated sequences, and a wacky comic-relief seal. Even worse, a hurricane threatens to end Randall's experiment prematurely. But everything works out in time for the band's big closing underwater performance on The Merv Griffin Show." More from the Onion review of this terrible Ivan Tors film from 1969:
Can easily be distinguished by:
It's virtually alone in the underwater-house rock 'n' roll family-comedy subgenre.
Timeless message:
Placing one's family in mortal danger is a great way to cultivate teamwork and togetherness.
Memorable quotes:
Griffin introduces Harold And The Hang-Ups by assuring the audience that the band's manager is "stoned on these shouters," finding them to be "mellow yellow, turned-on, and groovy!"
*Zissou: tied for best film of 2004 with I Heart Huckabees, Oscars notwithstanding. From imdb's memorable quotes: Steve Zissou: "Anne-Marie, do all the interns get Glocks?" Anne-Marie Sakowitz: "No, they have to share one."