Saturday, September 14, 2013

The Link Pancake 45 RPM Experiment

I know, I know, I said this would be up last night.  But when I got home we had company.  I drank quite a bit, was up until well after the sunrise, and finally fell asleep in a chair staring at my beautiful wife and beautiful son.  You can't hold that against me!  Alright, on with the article...

Link is almost two months old now; time to start exploiting him for my own creative pursuits!  He's heard music in the car and in the house, and he's heard me beatbox, but I've never sat down with him specifically for the purpose of seeing what kinds of jams are his jams.  Until now!!

A quick history lesson: Back before there was such a thing as an mp3, before the internet, before even CDs, when people still lived in caves, there was a more primitive way of distributing music.  Albums used to come out on big discs made of vinyl, and singles were released on smaller discs called 45s (because of the speed you play them at, 45 revolutions per minute).

I like collecting records for a few reasons.  One reason is that I like old, musty stuff.  I'm not sure why, but I do.  Another is that you can find a lot of stuff on vinyl that you just can't find anywhere, even on the world wide web.  Yet another reason is the cost.  Shopping at places like Good Will, I've found many lost treasures for reasonable prices.  I can get a single (and its b-side) for half of what I would pay downloading a song from the iTunes store or other online music merchants.  Yeah, I'm thrifty, I'm proud, and now I'm putting my collection to good use.  Time to see how Link reacted to five discs I selected from my collection!

(In case you're unfamiliar with any of the songs, or you just feel like hearing them, click on the song titles!  I highly recommend the first four!)

1. "Rock Around the Clock" - Bill Haley and his Comets

Most people know this song.  It's one of the early hits that put Rock & Roll on the map (they keep track of popular music with maps, right?).  What a lot of people don't know is that "Rock Around the Clock" was actually the b-side to a different track, "Thirteen Women".  Back in the 50s (and up until the 80s), DJs used to play the music that they liked or that listeners called in to request.  Now they play what the corporate music machine pays them to put on their automated playlists.  Good grief.  Anyway, the b-side became the hit because DJs preferred it and played it instead of the actual single.

I thought this was a good place to start the experiment.  Link was being somewhat fussy as I put the needle to the vinyl, but he became calm when the music started.  Music calms the savage baby, so they say.  He pumped his fist a little bit to the song, and then he accidentally hit himself in the face.  There was a lot of hand movement throughout the rest of the song.  He tends to move his arms around a lot regardless of what's going on, so I can't know for sure if he was reacting to the music.  But he did seem to be pretty happy while Bill and his boys were rockin' around the clock.

2. "Folsom Prison Blues" - Johnny Cash

Everybody loves Johnny Cash, right?  Well, Link isn't much of a fan.  After Johnny introduced himself, the crowd loudly cheered, and Link was a little frightened.  Then he spent the rest of the song being indifferent and entertaining himself by sticking his tongue out.  Does this mean that Link will never shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die?  Only time will tell.  I'd say there's a 50/50 chance of that happening.

3. "Mary, Mary" - Run-D.M.C.

Next up I switched gears with Run-D.M.C.'s sort-of-cover of The Monkees "Mary, Mary".  Really they just sampled the guitar riff and Micky singing the title, then rapped some original rhymes, though they still credited Mike Nesmith as the sole songwriter on the disc.  That's class.

Link was confused by the record scratching noise.  He looked up at me as if to say, "Is this really a thing?"  Yes it is, Link.  After the initial period of confusion ended, Link started pushing with his legs as if he wanted to stand up.  So I helped him stand up, and he kind of bobbed to the song a little bit.  Or maybe that was just his legs giving out; they're not strong enough to support his body weight yet, though he is really good at scooting across the floor.

Towards the end of song he hit me in the face.  Proof that Rap is the devil's music, and it makes children violent!  Video games, too!  People were never violent until Rap music and video games were invented!!!

4. "Right Place, Wrong Time" - Dr. John

This is one of my personal favorites.  When I put the song on Link's forehead crinkled up like he was trying to recognize it.  Then he leaned back like, "Ah, this takes me back!"  He was doing some finger dancing to this song.  He seemed to dig it quite a lot.  When I mentioned this later to my fellow truck-loader, Bernie, he said, "That means he's gonna be a cool cat."

Bernie was partially correct.  Link already is a cool cat.  He was making tiger noises today to prove it.

5. "Party All the Time" - Eddie Murphy

Before he was known for starting a taxi service for transvestites, Eddie Murphy was a comedy superstar.  At the height of his popularity he could do pretty much whatever he felt like, and for some reason he felt like recording "Party All the Time".  And for some reason I own it.

When the song came on Link seemed intrigued.  The look of intrigue on his face was quickly replaced with his angry Godzilla brow.  He was not happy about this last selection.  He tried to stand once more, though presumably it was to make an attempt to walk out of the room this time.  Since he can't stand or walk, he settled for comforting himself by sucking on his hands until the song ended.

I can't say I blame him.  Eddie actually has a decent singing voice, and the song is catchy as hell, but that doesn't excuse the super-80s-corniness of the whole ordeal.  And nothing excuses Meet Dave.

I'm quite satisfied with how the experiment turned out.  I'm looking forward to doing a second one in the near future to see what other groovy sounds Link is hip to.  I hope you've enjoyed reading the results of the experiment, and I apologize if you've now got "Party All the Time" stuck in your head.

Friday, September 13, 2013

(Preview of) The Link Pancake 45 RPM Experiment

I'm not going to have time before work to write out the whole article, but here's a little preview of what will be up on the blog later tonight.  Today I played some of my 45s for Link.  What will his reactions be to...

1. "Rock Around the Clock" - Bill Haley and his Comets

2. "Folsom Prison Blues" - Johnny Cash

3. "Mary, Mary" - Run-D.M.C.

4. "Right Place, Wrong Time" - Dr. John

5. "Party All the Time" - Eddie Murphy

...?

Find out later tonight!

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Video Vednesday #24

Psychedelic!  That's what kind of trip S.M. goes on after he follows my advice and takes a pill.  Like most people on psychedelic drugs, S.M. farts, meets up with our Uncle Bernie, and gets stalked by a mysterious killer.  Who is the killer?  Will S.M. survive with mind and body intact?  Will I finish my Sudoku puzzle?  Find out when you watch today's episode!



Monday, September 9, 2013

Plan B: Hands of Steel

I mentioned last week that I wanted to do some more writing about b-movies, and over the weekend I came up with the idea to offer up some choices as alternatives to Hollywood blockbusters.  Thus, "Plan B" has been birthed out of my thought canal...

So, you didn't have an extra eight dollars to buy a movie ticket or an extra thirty to buy popcorn and a soda-bucket while Man of Steel was in theaters this summer; I didn't either.  So, you got Netflix to watch the new season of Arrested Development, but they don't have Man of Steel on there yet; I know where you're coming from!  So, you haven't watched the bootleg copy of Man of Steel that your friend from work let you borrow because you've been watching the new season of Arrested Development; are these getting too specific to my own life?  Alright, I'll skip any more examples of reasons you haven't seen Man of Steel yet.  Hell, I haven't seen it since I wrote that blog months ago talking about how I haven't seen it yet.  But I have seen Hands of Steel, and you can too!

First, let's do a little plot rundown...

Man of Steel:  From what I can tell based on trailers and the IMDb summary, essentially the newest Superman movie is about Clark Kent's journey to discover himself, which involves working on a fishing boat, which is how most of us discover ourselves (I discovered myself working in a riverboat casino, but I always try to put my own spin on things).  Well, if you're longing to see a human-looking metallic being on a journey of self-discovery, but Man of Steel is too mainstream for you, then your best option is...

Hands of Steel (aka Atomic Cyborg, aka Vendetta dal Futuro):  An evil business man (played by John Saxon, who is in like 1/3 of the hundreds of b-movies I own) has a cyborg programmed to assassinate a guy who is some kind of revolutionist/ecologist or something.  After pulling his death-punch to only almost kill the guy, the cyborg, Paco, goes on a journey of self-discovery, chops wood, arm wrestles some truckers, and falls in love with the owner of the hotel/bar/restaurant where he's staying.

I'll start with a slightly negative aspect of the movie.  I'm not sure if the film, which came out in 1986, is supposed to be taking place in a dystopian future or if it takes place in 1986.  It's hard to tell; they do drop some hints about dystopian stuff, but then again, everything looks like the 1980s.  Double-then-again, a lot of filmmakers in the 1980s seemed to think the future would look a lot like the 1980s.  Gag me with a spoon!

Anyway, despite the time-period-confusion, the movie gets off to a quick start.  Paco, the man of steel with hands of steel, realizes that his human side is still at least partially in control when he defies his programming and critically injures the scientist-or-whatever instead of killing him.  He hit him hard enough to leave a fist-shaped mark on his chest, but I suppose he could have hit him hard enough to put his fist right through the man.  Even cyborgs have hearts.  Our cyborg hero now finds himself on the run from both the police and some goons that work for his employer.  He flees to Arizona, where he is taken in by the film's leading lady, who happens to own a hotel and happens to need a helper, which is good for Paco, since he has no money.  He agrees to work for his room and board, chopping and stacking an incredible amount of firewood in like 10 minutes.  (This film was actually not the inspiration for the wood chopping man who wishes he was a robot scene from the new series of The Super Pancake Bros. Super Show, as I didn't see this film until after we had filmed that.  It's just a coincidence, albeit one that makes me very happy.)

Paco is just starting to enjoy his new lifestyle of doing chores (that don't include punching people to death) when trouble shows up.  'Trouble' starts with T, and also has an R, a U, and an E, and so does 'truckers'.  That's right, some rough-neck truckers show up to raise a ruckus, make unwelcomed advances toward Linda (the hotel owner), and arm wrestle.  It seems arm wrestling is a big deal in this particular part of Arizona.  One of the sleezo truckers gets into a verbal altercation with Paco, which escalates into an arm wrestling altercation.  The truckers put some money down on their boy, who is no match for Paco's cyborg strength.  Paco wins the purse, shares it with Linda, and sends the truckers away with their tails between their legs.

The truckers later return with the arm wrestling champion, and despite the fact that they trick Paco into getting tied to a tow truck (long story) and drag him around the desert before leaving him for dead, Paco returns and beats him in the most dangerous of arm wrestling matches: one where there's a glass case under the contestants arms, and not just any glass case, but one with a venomous snake inside!  Paco shows his heart once again, sparing his opponent from being bitten by the snake.

So, things seem as if they've worked out for the best, but Paco's past has caught up with him.  His former boss and his goons catch up with him, attempt to have him killed by a female cyborg, shoot at him with a missile launcher but miss over and over again, and finally settle on kidnapping Linda, who is now aware that Paco is a cyborg because she walked in on him tuning up his cut-open arm.

By the by, you may be wondering about the police who were also trying to catch the attempted assassin.  The police work is about as lousy as the acting done by the people playing the police.  It takes an "expert" about half the movie to figure out that the fist-shaped mark on the victim's chest was made by a fist.  Once they discover that the guy was nearly punched the death, they come to the obvious conclusion that only a cyborg could have punched so freakin' hard, and they've got a lead!

From here we launch into the film's climax, with Paco, the evil businessman and his men, the police, and some truckers all jumping into the mix.  I won't spoil the ending, but I will say the filmmakers did go for a bit of a cliche ending, which disappoints me when I watch a b-movie.  Not that it was bad, because the evil businessman has a big laser.  Big laser!!

Alright, so maybe you'd still like to see Man of Steel after reading this; I'm going to watch Superman's latest flick when I get the chance, so I can't blame you for that.  But if I haven't enticed you to check out Hands of Steel with the mention of cyborgs, arm wrestling truckers, and a big laser, then I don't even know what you're doing reading this, man.  You can check it out here if you can't find a copy of it on a cheapo DVD set like I did.

Maybe Man of Steel has better special effects, a better story, and better actors, but when any of my friends have talked about the movie I haven't heard any mention of a scene where a cyborg and a human arm wrestle over a glass case with a deadly snake in it.  No, sir or ma'am, you'll need to watch Hands of Steel for that.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Past, Present, Future

Guys!  Just like at the end of the most recent Super Pancake Bros. Super Show episode, I blew it!  All week I've been behind a day because of having Monday off.  Every time I woke up today I thought it was Thursday.  Not that it would have mattered; I was (and still kind of am) exhausted from a hectic week of depriving myself of sleep to get the new episode done, having bad timing with Link where he would wake up right when I was ready to take a nap, and a hellish night at work on Wednesday where all the dealerships decided to make up for not getting deliveries on Monday.  I swear I fit more stuff in one truck than can fit in a truck.  I still don't know how I did that.

Anyway, I'm going to work early today, and I didn't really leave myself enough time to write a full-on blog entry.  So, I'm thinking maybe I'll just spend a few minutes to think about what I've done on the blog and what I'd like to do moving forward...

I've written about such a wide variety of topics.  The most popular have been my blogs about Batman, James Bond, facebook, and my wife's incredible ability to say insane shit that makes me laugh.  I wish some of my more importantish rants were more popular, but hey, I'm writing for myself just as much as I'm writing for everybody else.  So what will I be writing about in the near future?

Some of it will be more of what I've been doing.  More stuff about video games, more "Too Much Technology" entries, more Ginger Files, more Buttnerd Files.  More rants too, including an upcoming rant about how way too many dots connect from Monsanto to our government.

Vhat about Video Vednesdays?  Don't vorry!  That vill still be happening, too!  I'll be showing the new series of Super Pancake Bros. Super Show episodes until all ten of those are out, then I'll be reverting back to posting different videos from various projects I've been involved in.

Oh!  I've also got something in the works called The Link Pancake 45 RPM Experiment.  It's probably not hard to imagine what that's going to be about, especially considering my previous writing about my record collection, but I'm proud of that title so I wanted to put it on here.  Yeah!

I'm also planning on writing some more about b-movies.  I've been watching a lot of them lately while feeding Link.  How can I not write about films with such titles as Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon or The Undertaker and His Pals?  (Not WWE's The Undertaker.)  The world needs to know about such gems.  And by "the world" I mean "the handful of people that read my blog regularly".

As far as what else I may choose to write about goes, I'm open to suggestions.  And I hope I get some from my faithful readers!  What do YOU want to see on this blog?

Alright, this was sort of one of those 'cop-out' blogs where I didn't actually write about anything, but if you didn't notice, I sprinkled links to lots of other stuff throughout the whole thing.  Muldoon from Jurassic Park once described me as a "clever girl!"  (I had long hair at the time, so I can forgive his mistake.)  So, if you feel ripped off or like you got cheated out of a real blog entry, check out some of those links; I'll bet you missed at least one of those, and now is your chance to make things right between us and catch up!

I'll see you in the future!

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Video Vednesday #23

S.M. is a corporate genie, but he just got canned.  With only 12 hours of genie power left, S.M. grants me three last wishes in "The Final Three".

This marks a first in Super Pancake Bros. Super Show history:  I had to cut the opening credits own to just the opening "bookend" (Hey, Paisanos!) and the title of the show.  The original cut of the episode was 9 minutes long.  Each episode is 6 minutes (the idea being that if you watch a whole series it takes an hour), so I had a lot of cutting to do.  After hacking and chopping as much as I could, using some Frankensteinesque editing techniques, I was still about 30 seconds over time.  The only thing I could figure to do was cut the opening.  Is this interesting to anybody besides myself?  I do like to ramble about editing...

Anyway, if that last paragraph didn't bore you to death, here's the 3rd episode of Series 2 (the 13th overall)...



Monday, September 2, 2013

Labor Day

Happy Labor Day!  Put them white clothes away.  Unless you're a douche that always has to wear the white shirt/white hat combo.  Then, by all means, keep alerting the rest of us that you're a douche so that we don't have to waste time talking to you.

Anyway, I'm dealing with a triple-whammy right now.

First Whammy:  I'm trying to edit a nine minute rough cut of the next Super Pancake Bros. Super Show episode down into its six minute run-time.  That's hard!  I'm about to put a pot of coffee on...

Second Whammy:  I thought it was Sunday for most of the day, so I put no thought into a blog.

Third Whammy:  Ginger found the first season of CSI: Miami in a box of free stuff.  So, we've been watching that for a good chunk of the day.  I'm not joking.  And David Caruso takes a lot of meme-jabs on the internet for the constant sunglasses on/sunglasses off thing he does in the show, but fuck the internet, he's a good actor.

Alright... So I'm copping out on writing a blog.  Well, this is like a third or at least a quarter of the length of what I sometimes write.  But anyway, it's Labor Day, so I don't have to write.  I don't even get paid for this shit!  Deal!

Happy Labor Day!