This entry was originally posted on November 10, 2009 at 10:21 pm. Some pictures and more action descriptions have been added.
This post was originally accompanied by screen captures from a spotty YouTube video. I’ve capped the extras from Goonies myself since then, so I’ve got much clearer versions now. Also at the bottom you may enjoy lovely bonus caps of the madness.
Back to the original.
The Goonies are good enough for Cyndi Lauper.
Today after I picked up kidlet from kindergarten, we jetted down to Ceres for some gloomy day movie cheer. Clue strangely put us to sleep but then Miss D, kidlet, and I watched us the crap out of some Goonies. We watched every single feature it had. Maybe even to our detriment.
Steven Spielberg has a cameo and Cyndi Lauper wrestles the octopus that vanished from the Goonies final cut — oops.
One of the features we watched, which I'd never seen before in its … I'm not sure what to call it? totality?, was a two-part music video put together by director Richard Donner and theme songstress/my fantasy fairy godmother Cyndi Lauper, with a cameo by producer Steven Spielberg, to promote the film. I don't even have words for the surreality of watching the video. It was really something. I will not soon forget it. These are my neutral words.
The video features
World Wrestling Federation pro-wrestlers André the Giant, Captain Lou Albano, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Wendy Richter, The Fabulous Moolah, The Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Freddie Blassie; Steven Spielberg; The Goonies cast (except for Kerri Green, Anne Ramsey, Joe Pantoliano, Robert Davi and John Matuszak*); and the relatively unknown Bangles as a group of female pirates. Roseanne Barr appears as the “sea hag”. Lauper’s mother appears as “Cyndi’s mother”, reprising her role from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”.
*The lead cast members from the film who do not appear in this video are those playing Andy, Ma Fratelli, and the Fratelli brothers.
The plot runs like this: Cyndi’s folks run a Mom and Pop gas station that has fallen on tough times. They are packing up and ready to come west to Californny or some such to start a new life and meet Peter Fonda, when they think they have customers! Is the station saved?? Wonderful!
Psych. Turns out it’s the creditors. The gas station is being bought out by villains from the WWF, each attired as a different weird stereotype. Unfortunately, they also have dialogue.
Cyndi and her brother? friend? and sister? his wife? are helping Mom and Pop (Cap’n Lou) pack up the ol’ place when the action begins.
The nouveau riche, stereotyped creditors chew up the scenery and generally set up quickie symbols of their wealth, such as a Benihana-type joint in the middle of the parking lot, which many consider the international sign of good taste and refinement, some to the point of exclusion. (Do not even try to talk dimsum on rollerskates to them; they will not listen.) The hibachi flows like wine and the wine is snorted like cocaine. In fact, there is no wine. It is just cocaine. Off-camera.
The skeleton and she scream at each other and her hair blows. It is a deep and fractured commentary on the intersection of orgasm, death, and bad ’80’s video special fx.
Cyndi discovers a secret cave behind a painting of their grand-ancestor, where she encounters the Goonies, who help her decode a map she lifted off a dead guy — real fuckin’ nice, Cyn.
The we get a nice long look at the same clips America had been seeing for several months in the Goonies trailer, and you think maybe it’s done? but no. Suddenly, some pirates show up (psst, it is the WWF guys IN DISGUISE — could it all be a dream, but a real adventure, too, a la The Wizard of Oz?), and Roseanne Barr. Oh my god, nightmare combination! The Bangles are there, too, but they do not try to sing.
In the chase that ensues, Cyndi stops real quick for some hibachi, creating a prevalent and provocative ongoing theme in the video.
Perhaps this is meant to make us reflect on the marketing of foreign cuisine in America, or on materialism and the ease with which an ordinary item common to one country can acquire peculiar clout in another country. Or perhaps it is merely included in order to set up a joke that is some straight racist garbage: ie, the following picture’s caption.
The pirates and the sea hag enslave the kids at murky tasks like, um, stirring big pots, and force Cyndi to dress like a Floridian prostitute while carrying buckets and singing (they do not allow her to stop singing even once).
Cyndi and her friends manage to overthrow the pirates and get away with some loot from the ship, but the “cheatin’ creditors” will not accept it as payment for Mom and Pop’s debt on the shop. Not even when she repeatedly bites it to prove its value! I know, right? If only she had offered them some fresh, dope funky fun hibachi.
As it is, Cyndi grows weary of attempting to convince the creditors to accept her jewels as payment, and whistles as one only does for a taxicab or deus ex machina. And what is it going to be?
Why, it’s Andre the Giant, and I am pretty sure he is literally still wiping coke from under his nose when he first appears! He beats up and chases away the creditors, which means the debt is legally and officially cleared forever, duh, and the video ends with this triumphant shot.
Oh, my god, I want that to happen to me every day after I die. I like to believe in an afterlife, unless I am in a particularly foul and doubtful and wobegone mood, and of course Andre the Giant is there waiting for me so we can finally hang out and stuff, and I hope so fervently that every single day when I greet him in Heaven he scoops me up and we cheer and do ’80s fistpumps in the air. It’s gonna be sick.
So here’s the video if after a report on all that insanity you need fuller confirmation of its existence.
Bonus caps:
Cyndi struggles with the octopus who never made it in to the theatrical release but was apparently still considered an important enough plot point at the time of this video’s production that Spielberg and Donner made sure to include him.
Stuck on a log, Cyndi asks Spielberg for help via the magic of television screens. He basically says he does not care, he is only here to remind people that hey-hey-hey, Stephen Spielberg is involved in this picture so you should run out and see it just as fast as your thickening Dorito-and-Pepsi-lovin’ legs can carry you. He signifies his essential non-interest in what’s happening by not removing his sunglasses despite being indoors and ostensibly watching television.
Captain Lou laments to his long-lost dead ancestor about the state of the gas station. But it’s going to be okay because …
Secret treasure inside the hidden cave! Happens all the time!
Goonies does not have any fart jokes, but the “Goonies R Good Enough” video does. As is evidenced by the sign in the below cap.
I say again, for all the casual vulgarity of youth as young as elementary school-aged and as old as seventeen that characterizes the scripts of both Goonies and E.T. (and their rather heartwarming insistence that these two age groups consistently interact and save the world), the movie Goonies does not have even one single fart joke. In a movie with as many other dick, breath, sex, and LCD body-function jokes as Goonies, that is pretty anomalous. I’m going to call it happenstance. I doubt it was on purpose.
WWF Pirates hunt for Cyndi Lauper. Recall that they have been dispatched by Roseanne Barr, assisted by the Bangles.
1. WWF.
2. Cyndi Lauper.
3. Roseanne Barr and the Bangles.
80’s Trifecta!!
Cyndi singing in aforementioned Floridian prostitute getup under the insistence of the Bangles, Roseanne, et al.
The octopus himself. Farewell, dude, we hardly knew ye. We’ve only seen ye in weird television cuts that were edited for time and had the master with the alternate ending. (Which Data still refers to in the released ending.)
Finally, my secret crush from this movie may be reported to be Data, because I squeal when he comes on screen, but really deep down it’s actually:
Martha Plimpton. Her and Jan Brady can come live with me and finally be appreciated the way they deserve. Oh, Martha Plimpton. Have my nearsighted, sarcastic blonde babies. Won’t you please? We’ll find a way.
My sister-in-law and I used to have a running telephone gag where because of its glorious syndicated ubiquity — you could watch blocked hours at a time of it during the afternoon if you switched channels at the right half-hour — we would talk as though Scrubs were a new show of which we’d scarcely just now heard. It would go about like this:
“Helloooo! What are you doing?”
“Helloooo! I’m watching this situation comedy set in a hospital.”
“Really? What is it called?”
“Hmm. Docs or Duds or something.”
“Is it Scrubs, maybe?”
“Yes! Scrubs.”
“I’ve heard of that! That seems interesting.”
“It is! It’s even funny. Two of the doctors I think like each other.”
“Do you think they will ever get together, and then break up, and then do it over and over and over?”
“I have no idea — it’s a total mystery!”
“Gosh! I think I would like that. When can I catch it?”
“I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem like it’s on very often.”
Miss you, Christer. Muah. ♥
The Scrubs screencaps in this post come from fyeahscrubs! on the tumblr. When all the “Fuck yeah” tumblrs started, I was skeptical, but I find them increasingly great and this particular one has such awesome caps that I can go on there when I’m down and come out practically crying from laughing so hard. “You seem unhappy. I like that.” Thanks!
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
In the ruins of St. Ebba’s Lunatic Asylum. Epsom, Surrey, England.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,
Photographed by Ellen von Unwerth for her book Revenge.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
Dazzle your friends with correct pronunciation! Say “China” so it rhymes with “Tina,” not the clinical term for bajango.
Photographed by Pompeo Posar.
During Spring Fever!, in the post on Gwen Wong, I mentioned Ms. Lee and promised to give her a post all her own in the future. Happy to say that the future is now.
Ms. Lee is a real trailblazer and true intellect. She was the first Asian-American Playmate of the Month. Not lovely Gwen Wong, and not PR (name removed at model’s request).
Extremely athletic, bright, witty, and outspoken, China (née Margaret) was totally busting up stereotypes well before it was chic to do so. Get it, girl!
Like past-spotlighted comic genius Laura Misch Owens, China Lee began as a Bunny in New Orleans before winding up at the original Chicago Playboy Club. Due to her winning combination of unique looks, well-above-average intelligence, and friendly, talkative nature, she quickly worked her way up to Training Bunny.
As the Playboy empire expanded and Hef opened Clubs in other cities across America, China got to travel and show new Bunnies — and club managers — the ropes all around the country.
Her teaching duties take her to a different location with every new Playboy Club opening — a job which suits her peripatetic nature to a T.
“If I had to describe myself in one word, it would be ‘active,'” China says. “I love to roam, and I love to keep busy!”
(“China Doll.” Payboy, August 1964.)
“Despite the fact that I’m always on the go, success has come to me without my seeking it. I didn’t even apply for my Bunny job — I was discovered in a New Orleans hairdresser’s shop.”
(Ibid.)
Ms. Lee was quite the jock at this time, enthusiastically describing the various sports she participated in:
High on her sports agenda is softball: Last season she pitched and won 12 games (“My windmill pitch is unhittable”), leading the New York Bunny softball team to the Broadway Show League championship.
(Ibid.)
Screeeee. What?! The NYC Club Bunnies had a softball team in a league?! And they were champions? Anyone with more info and especially pictures needs to be my hero and send it along, stat! That sounds wonderful and fun beyond anything the imagination can conjure.
Like icy-eyed Finnish novelist Kata Kärkkäinen, Miss December 1988, China Lee cheerfully reported in her interview that she traversed traditional gender/sports lines not only with that killer windmill pitch but also by handily mopping the floor with the competition at bowling.
“Miss August is also a pin-toppling bowler (she ran up a 217 at the age of 13), prize-winning equestrienne and jumper, expert swimmer and ping-pong player, as well as champion twister of all Bunnydom.
(Ibid.)
Twister like the party game or twister like “Shake it up, baby, now, etc,” with lots of cheerful shimmying around a dance floor? I’m guessing the latter. Seems more her speed!
Very little is made in the “China Doll” article of the fact that Ms. Lee was not exactly your garden variety gatefold WASP model. There is no deliberate, faux-innocent oversight of her heritage in some effort to prove super-open-mindedness, either, which I also consider a point in the magazine’s favor. A good balance is struck.
A native of New Orleans and the only member of her family of 11 not now in the Oriental restaurant line, China says: “Though I was born in America, my folks still follow Oriental ways: They speak the old language, read the old books, and follow the old customs. In this sort of environment, the men dominate and females are forced into the background. I rebelled, and I’m glad I did.”
(Ibid.)
Ms. Lee does not denigrate “Oriental”* tradition, merely comments on the aspect of that traditional environment that displeased her and from which she walked away. It’s done in a respectful and confident way. Very cool.
*When people use this word now it kind of makes my eyes itch for a second. I feel like it’s so high-handed and colonial. It’s like when people say “colored.” The original word meant no offense and is way better than a racial epithet, but we have even better ways of expressing that now, you know? It is a long-running joke with me, Paolo, and Miss D because we all lived in the Bay Area in the ’80’s when “Oriental” and “Hispanic” were leaving the vogue vocab in favor of more specific, group-elected terms. So when we see “Oriental” restaurant or “Hispanic” lawyer on a sign, we all eagerly point it out to each other the way hillbillies’ kids laugh at their grandparents for saying “Worsh.” (I can say that because I am one.)
After her Playboy appearance, Ms. Lee kept her ebullience and poise and continued to make friends and influence people. She is the dancer in the credits of Woody Allen’s first film, What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, a part which she supposedly lobbied very hard for with Allen, who was a friend of hers. The film itself is a farcical redubbing of the Japanese movie International Secret Police: Key of Keys; in Allen’s version, the intrigue surrounds the case of an egg salad recipe. China performs a striptease at the end credits for Allen, who plays himself, several dubbed voices, and the projectioner screening the film.
Here is a link to the clip of her dance on the youtube.
Ms. Lee also appeared on television series such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and alongside Tony Curtis and Sharon Tate in 1967’s beach movie Don’t Make Waves. The publicity campaign for Don’t Make Waves was of unprecedented size and ubiquity — though the film failed to live up to MGM’s box office expectations, the cultural impact was still very lasting.
As an example, the character Malibu, played by sunny and curvy Ms. Tate, is generally cited as the inspiration for Mattel’s world-famous “Malibu” Barbie, and several Coppertone tie-in ads for the film are still reproduced in text books for marketing classes. I will go deeper in to Don’t Make Waves in August, during Sharon Tate’s ACTUAL LIFE Awareness Month.
Ms. Lee dated Robert Plant for a while, but ultimately she settled with political comedian, activist, occasional Kennedy joke-penner, and all around cramazing dude, one of the Comedy Greats, Mort Sahl.
Sahl’s influence on aspects of comedy from modern stand-up to The Daily Show is basically immeasurable. You have probably seen Fred Armisen on SNL perform a political comedian character he created named Nicholas Fehn who is not a send-up of Sahl, himself, but rather a send-up of Sahl’s admirers who can never quite touch the master. It’s the guy with the pullover sweater and Armisen’s own glasses, an army surplus coat and a light brown longish wig, who shows up on the Weekend Update with a newspaper in his hand and tries to make jokes of the headlines but can never quite finish his sentences: this using the newspaper as a jumping-off point for humorous discourse was a trademark move of Sahl’s.
China and Mort Sahl married in 1967 and remained together until their divorce in 1991. They had a son, Mort Sahl, Jr., who passed away in 1996. R.I.P. to him and condolences to both of them. I’m glad I got to share about some really cool, interesting people in this post. I’m feeling more upbeat than I was. Thanks for coming along!
I suspect that cover is another Beth Hyatt/Pompeo Posar pairing. Note how the pose and her dress make the trademark, cocked-ear bunny silhouette, mirrored by the small logo sketched in the sand by her right hand. It’s similar, though not as racily sexy, to the rear shot one they did where her dress was open at the back and the straps snaking around her shoulders formed the ears. This time it’s her legs and kicked-off shoes. See it?
This entry was originally posted on November 3, 2009 at 3:57 pm. It’s been slightly altered, but not much.
Gilda Radner. Love. Patron saint. Heroine. Gar. I can’t talk about it.
Gilda as Roseanne Rosannadanna, the colorful news anchor with aggressive speech patterns.
If the name only faintly rings a bell for you, Gilda is the late great funny lady who was the queen of comedy in the early years of SNL. She was the first Not Quite Ready For Primetime player officially cast on the show. Noteworthy character creations that have had lasting cultural impact were Roseanne Rosannadanna and Emily Litella.
With Chevy Chase in her Emily “Nevermind” Litella character, who had comic malapropisms and bad hearing.
This Music Moment comes from her 1979 special “Gilda Live!,” a one-woman Broadway musical and comedy revue. Song starts around :35, because it was the opening number and she gets such a huge standing o that she can’t even calm people down enough to be heard until then.
A rooster says, “Good morning”
With a, “Cock-a-doodle-doo” – “Good morning!”
A horse’s neigh is just his way
Of saying, “How are you?”
A lion growls, “Hello!”
And owls ask “Why?” and “Where?” and “Who?”
May I suggest you get undressed
And show them your wazoo? – Ohhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals.
Fuck you, Mister Bunny.
Eat shit, Mister Bear.
If they don’t love it, they can shove it.
Frankly, I don’t care! – Ohhhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals.
Up yours, Mister Hippo!
Piss off, Mister Fox.
Go tell a chicken, “Suck my dick,” and
Give him chicken pox. – Ohhhhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals
From birds in the treetops
To snakes in the grass – But,
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my…” (No!)
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my…” (Yes!)
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my snatch!”
“I’m not so funny. Gilda was funny. I’m funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while. But she was funny.” — Gene Wilder
Official site of Gilda’s Club, a “community meeting place for people living with cancer, their families and friends. There are 22 open clubhouses and nine in development in North America. Gilda’s Club was founded by Joanna Bull, Gilda Radner’s cancer psychotherapist during the time she had cancer; Radner’s husband, Gene Wilder; and broadcaster Joel Siegel. … The organization takes its name from Radner’s comment that cancer gave her ‘membership to an elite club I’d rather not belong to’ ” (the wiki).
You can make financial donations into an earmarked fund so people have a place to stay while their loved ones are getting treated, or you could send blankets and books and toys for kids to play with in the waiting room. Maybe old ipods and stuff, even, actually. Or think about donating time and creativity. Draw a comic book, cross-stitch “I’m sorry your wife is going to be bald for a while” on a tea towel with a sad face; you know, do something Gilda would approve of. Think outside the box!
“It is so hard for us little human beings to accept this deal that we get. It’s really crazy, isn’t it? We get to live, then we have to die. What we put into every moment is all we have.” — Gilda.
I’m fading fast from Round 2 of cold medicine, so I’m following the thread of the last post. Here is some Death Cab For Cutie, the video for the track “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” which has been widely covered, I’ve bookmarked good ones here and there and I promise to try to throw some of those up at some point. Anyway, this is continuity and so forth because Zooey Deschanel is married to Ben Gibbard of Death Cab, who is also the lead singer of The Postal Service and who was born in the same town I was. Aww. Twinsies! Well, not the famous musician part.
Really beautiful lyrics. Seeing them together kind of makes me think of my daughter’s father. Maybe it’s the Nyquil talking but sometimes he was okay. On reflection … almost definitely the Nyquil.
Love of mine some day you will die
But I’ll be close behind
I’ll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs
If there’s no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I’ll follow you into the dark
In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
“Son fear is the heart of love”
So I never went back
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs
If there’s no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I’ll follow you into the dark
You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It’s nothing to cry about
’cause we’ll hold each other soon
In the blackest of rooms
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the No’s on their vacancy signs
If there’s no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I’ll follow you into the dark
Then I’ll follow you into the dark
That last post got me hecka down for all kinds of reasons on which I am afraid to get totally clear, but all I know is, super-down. Leslie Hall, aka Mother Gem, always makes me feel better! Seems like the trend pendulum — oh my god, trendulum?! yes? feeling it?? let me know. — has swung in recent years from pirates to zombies and vampires, and might have recently begun edging back to the zed-word with the success of Zombieland. Here’s hoping it goes firmly back and stays.
Pirates are over-entitled stealing rapists and vampires are not as hot as you think they are. Especially teenaged ones. Bleah. Like, you could not put two things together in which I could possibly have less interest than a lameass damned vampire and a frigging teenager in love. Maybe … maybe if it was a movie or book about economists who wear socks. Those are two other things that alternately bore and annoy me (economists are in it for the money and socks are for CHUMPS). Anyway, here’s Leslie and the girls, doin’ their thing Romero-style!
i’m surprised to find
the dead are walking around
hell is full
they’re back in action
hungry for brains and
they seek some satisfaction
we must not fear
what we do not guess
acid rain or laser jets
but good advice
seek guns and/or hammers
lots of wood
and silky pajamas
shoot them in the brains
if you want to live
shoot them in the brains
even the little kids
if you want to survive them eating your flesh
i suggest you shoot them in the brains
not as basic, like buffy,
there can only be one
you must gather your strength
shooting them can be quite fun
take note, they don’t run well
and they’d rather be back
in their homeland of hell
the bloody ones shoot at first
the smell alone ain’t worth the hurt
nop drama here
just straight up survival
the damned are back
so you can beat box your bible
shoot them in the brains
if you want to live
shoot them in the brains
even the little kids
if you want to survive them eating your flesh
i suggest you shoot them in the brains
you zombie killer
you zombie killer
stuck together strangers
forever united by the killers in the streets
bloody and vicious
our minds delicious
never enough to eat
bullets by the hundreds
we aim for the heart
but dot your shot right to the smart
lets watch zombie heads explode
shot pop lock and load
shoot us in the brains
even the little kids
shoot us in the brains
if you want to survive them eating your flesh
i suggest you shoot them in the brains
you zombie killer
zombie killer
Yes, I acknowledge that it’s probably a problem that, brought down emotionally by an indie quasi-quirky-romantic flick which delved into Feelings, I turned instantly to a genre of shoot-’em-up horror movie known for its brainless hordes. I’m working on it. How many times must I say this?
Today after I picked up kidlet from kindergarten, we jetted down to Ceres for some gloomy day movie cheer. Clue strangely put us to sleep but then Miss D, kidlet, and I watched us the crap out of some Goonies. We watched every single feature it had. Maybe even to our detriment.
One of the features we watched, which I'd never seen before in its … I'm not sure what to call it? totality?, was a two-part music video put together by director Richard Donner, theme songstress and my fantasy fairy godmother Cyndi Lauper, with a cameo by producer Steven Spielberg, to promote the film. I don't even have words for the surreality of watching the video. It was really something. I will not soon forget it. These are my neutral words.
[The video features] World Wrestling Federation pro-wrestlers André the Giant, Captain Lou Albano, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Wendy Richter, The Fabulous Moolah, The Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Freddie Blassie; Steven Spielberg; The Goonies cast (except for Kerri Green, Anne Ramsey, Joe Pantoliano, Robert Davi and John Matuszak*); and the relatively unknown Bangles as a group of female pirates. Roseanne Barr appears as the “sea hag”. Lauper’s mother appears as “Cyndi’s mother”, reprising her role from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. — (the wiki)
*The lead cast members from the film who do not appear in this video are those playing Andy, Ma Fratelli, and the Fratelli brothers.
The plot runs like this: Cyndi’s folks run a Mom and Pop gas station that is being bought out by villains from the WWF, each attired as a different weird stereotype. Unfortunately, they also have dialogue. Cyndi and her brother? friend? and sister? his wife? are helping Mom and Pop (Cap’n Lou) pack up the ol’ place while the nouveau riche chew up the scenery and generally set up quickie symbols of their wealth such as a Benihana-type joint in the middle of the parking lot, which many consider the international sign of good taste and refinement, some to the point of exclusion. (Do not even try to talk dimsum on rollerskates to them; they will not listen.)
Cyndi discovers a secret cave behind a painting of their grand-ancestor, where she encounters the Goonies, who help her decode a map she lifted off a dead guy — real fuckin’ nice, Cyn — but then some pirates show up, and Roseanne Barr. Oh my god, nightmare combination! The Bangles are there, too, but they do not try to sing. In the chase that ensues, Cyndi stops real quick for some hibachi, creating a prevalent and provocative ongoing theme in the video.
Perhaps this is meant to make us reflect on the marketing of foreign cuisine in America, or on materialism and the ease with which an ordinary item common to one country can acquire peculiar clout in another country. Or perhaps it is merely included in order to set up a joke that is some straight racist garbage: ie, the following picture’s caption.
Julia Nunes – God Only Knows (self-recorded ukulele cover)
I really, really love covers, and I’ve been sitting on that fantastic one up there, which I hope you’re listening to right now because it’s really cool and different, and I’d been wanting to stream it on here, so I decided to start featuring some of my favorite covers as Music Moments in themselves. This type will henceforth be known as The Song Remains the Same. The clever name is not my own, I took it from the title of a song, album, and movie by Led Zeppelin.
I’ve featured a few covers already, which I’m now going to go back and retcon by tagging them “The Song Remains the Same.” The term “retcon” is an abbreviation of “retroactive continuity.” It’s commonly used in comics when new conclusions or pieces of information are retroactively applied to established canonical events. An example would be the aftermath of DC’s Crises on Infinite Earths, when established characters such as Alexander Luthor, Jr., were “retconned” out of existence by the events. A retcon does not always undo previously established characters or events; retcons can also fill in missing details in a story’s background. The Wolverine line of the New X-Men comics are a good example — Logan was Weapon X, but Weapon I turned out to have been Captain America. I thought that kicked some fucking ass, myself.
By reading this far, you may have now accidentally learned two things. The Zeppelin thing and the comics bit. No need to thank me. I don’t just care about boobs and Batman. I am also a sensitive soul with a passion for education. God bless me.
Please enjoy this radical uke cover of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows!” Nunes has a really cool, clear voice, and I am pretty sure she accompanies and harmonizes with herself using simple recording tricks, which is fun. If you are young but a fan of Love Actually, you may know the song from that. If you’re not a child, you may know the song from all over the place your whole life.
Sorry, I just find it wild when people don’t know songs I consider super-famous. At Paolo and Miss D’s wedding, I asked the very young and competent deejay to play “Tainted Love” and first he had me SPELL IT, then he was like, “Don’t have it, I can look for it, though, who sings that?” “Soft Cell,” I replied, totally still reeling in shock that a young person whose entire profession is playing music had never heard of “Tainted Love,” and he was like, “Is that a new group?” It was insane. I didn’t feel old, I just felt shocked, like he might be a space creature who was hiding inside the real deejay’s skin and trying to pass as an American. (Happens all the time.)
Look for more Julia someday when I have lots and lots of time, because in case you don’t read the alt text by hovering your mouse over the pictures, I am going to surprise-marry her. I have super-stiff competition, though.
On Good Morning America (June 30, 2008) Molly Ringwald said that she took up the ukulele after seeing Julia Nunes on YouTube. “I’ve always wanted to play the ukulele, and she completely inspired me,” she said (the wiki).
Holy crap, I love Molly Ringwald. I can’t fight her. She was Frannie in The Stand! Man, this sucks! Julia, you creative minxy little twinkie, you are ripping my imaginary relationships apart. I’m off to strategize, I guess!
This randomly terrible photo of the lovely and talented Roberta Vasquez, Playboy‘s Miss November 1984, makes “1984” scary in new and grotesque ways.
To answer the question we’re all asking: 40D. (the wiki.)
She was a cop in real life and also played one in Clint Eastwood’s The Rookie. I think that centerfold picture is terrifyingly ugly, I’m not sure why it got the nod, unless the editor was one of those guys who fantasizes about women hurting him — not emotionally, I mean, like crushing him to death during sex or something — but she looks better in some of these other shots.
I think this is the nicest one of the lot, but I guess it’s a little too late to vote, huh?
Almost all the pictures from that shoot don’t really look like her, she looks kind of crabby and a little scary. Maybe the photographer was a jerk for the interior stuff. But whoever did the outside work brought out her smile. See how much nicer?
As a final thought, Roberta Vasquez cares deeply about your health. Please watch her workout video and enjoy some retro aerobics. I admit to not watching the whole thing, but I’m sure it’s chock full of good solid nutritional advice and up-and-up shit like that.
So sweet of her to take the time, right?? I tell you. Beneath those mammoth mammaries beats a heart of gold. This girl is a giver, you guys. God bless her.
Super-cute! I love this chick. She promotes video games and has a great sense of humor and is genuinely a geek, not like these phony faux-nerds they sometimes get on G4 and such. She’s rad! She is also, according to the wiki, the first Korean-American playmate, which is pretty cool, too.
Look at how real and adorable that smile is. I think she is almost always honestly laughing in pictures, not any of that coy b.s. that passes for an alleged giggle in some of these shoots.
She just always seems to be having fun, every time I see her in print or on television, and I think that reflects a terrific life outlook and suggests humility and the sense to recognize and appreciate good fortune. Those are great traits for anyone to have, but when you combine them with someone willing to take it all off? Winner winner, chicken dinner!! I don’t mean to gush. Grace Kim is just an all-around great girl in my book.
Dig that giant watch. Love it!!
Finally, funnyordie.com did a spoof of the presidential town hall debates which digitally altered real footage to show Grace and some other playmates asking the candidates questions. Grace’s segment is the best because some of those other bunnies are pretty dumb. (In one of their defense, I admit that “fiduciary” is a hard word to say. You know what else is hard? Math, like, omg!)
Go ahead and watch it but Grace’s part is brief and the whole thing is not that funny, although I’m not suggesting anyone die instead.
Okay, fine, when you put it like that, I guess you can play the drums. Just this once!
Okay, so I gotta go whip up my ambrosia (one of the things I’m taking to today’s chili cookoff!) and flat-iron this mad rad hair of mine. Hopefully I will have time for a Music Moment before I bounce down to Paolo and Miss D’s!
Ladies and gentlemen, Playboy is happy to present the lovely and talented model, small screen actress, and Gene Simmons’ longtime ladyfriend in the Service of Satan, Shannon Tweed – Miss November, 1981.
UPDATE 6/28/11: Want more on Shannon?, swing by her new post on this blog for more photos and nice quotes, Playmate Revisited: Shannon Tweed.
The former Miss Ottawa Valley won Playmate of the Year in ’82 and even lived with Hef for awhile before hooking up with Gene Simmons, KISS lead vocalist and noted tonguing enthusiast. Unlike most Playmate-rock star hookups, the two seem to have found lasting love, which I think pretty much should never be criticized. Tweed has said of their twenty-seven year monogamous relationship, “He opted never to marry. I opted not to bitch about it.” Seems fair enough to me. That lil blonde Canuck cookie is smarter than she looks, eh?
I just think it is really, really cute that there was a time in North America when we hadn’t all seen Shannon Tweed naked yet.
Almost as cute as how the butt-crack is tastefully blurred in these screencaps. Awww. Thanks for preserving the modesty and integrity of the original photoshoot. That was the one thing that would’ve made these pictures absolute smut, you know? Tea and crumpets! Thank goodness for the censor’s loving hand.
I mean, being into high-brow cinema, I’ve naturally seen a few (merely a scant several, at most) of Shannon Tweed’s intellectual and plot-driven films, but I watch them for the snappy dialogue and well-crafted intrigue. Naturally, I look away in shock during the rare, rare, rare scenes of dishevelment.
“Oh, yeah, I do movies; I forgot. They see them on TV. I forget that anybody knows me. ” — Shannon Tweed
Fun fact: my parents and I went to Ms. Tweed’s early silver screen smash hit Hot Dog the Movie! in the theater. (Tagline: “Taste the sauce … in Hot Dog!“) My dad frog-marched me and my mom out of there after less than half an hour. It was the first time I’d ever walked out of a movie, and I found the power of the experience heady. Like, “Hey, put-upon middle manager at the box office, you expected us to stay in that movie, but we totally did not! And we want to see something else, ’cause that thing was crap!”
I looked forward to someday doing something like that myself, but did not find cause to repeat the event on my own until I saw the live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I felt like the absolute king of the universe when I indignantly stalked out of that piece of grotesque, shrill, memory-raping garbage. And as I stood in the lobby deciding what to watch instead, I remembered the feeling of trespass-mixed-with-righteousness that I had when my father hauled us out of Hot Dog. Thanks, Daddy. You are a huge role model.
Before and After “the incident.”*
*There was no incident. Just cheap ’80s plastic surgery. Sick, sad burn.
Because she hella cares about the earth, Shannon Tweed is now made from 85% post-consumer recyclable parts. Did You Know?
Gilda. Love. Patron saint. Heroine. Gar. I can’t talk about it. If the name only faintly rings a bell for you, she is the late great funny lady who was the queen of comedy in the early years of SNL. She was the first Not Quite Ready For Primetime player officially cast on the show. Noteworthy character creations that have had lasting cultural impact were Roseanne Rosannadanna and Emily Litella.
Roseanne Rosannadanna
Emily “Nevermind” Litella
This Music Moment comes from her 1979 special “Gilda Live!”. a one-woman Broadway musical and comedy revue. Song starts around :35, because it was the opening number and she gets such a huge standing o that she can’t even calm people down enough to be heard until then.
A rooster says, “Good morning”
With a, “Cock-a-doodle-doo” – “Good morning!”
A horse’s neigh is just his way
Of saying, “How are you?”
A lion growls, “Hello!”
And owls ask “Why?” and “Where?” and “Who?”
May I suggest you get undressed
And show them your wazoo? – Ohhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals.
Fuck you, Mister Bunny.
Eat shit, Mister Bear.
If they don’t love it, they can shove it.
Frankly, I don’t care! – Ohhhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals.
Up yours, Mister Hippo!
Piss off, Mister Fox.
Go tell a chicken, “Suck my dick,” and
Give him chicken pox. – Ohhhhhh,
The animals, the animals,
Let’s talk dirty to the animals
From birds in the treetops
To snakes in the grass – But,
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my…” (No!)
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my…” (Yes!)
Never tell an alligator, “Bite my snatch!”
“I’m not so funny. Gilda was funny. I’m funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while. But she was funny.” — Gene Wilder
Official site of Gilda’s Club, a “community meeting place for people living with cancer, their families and friends. There are 22 open clubhouses and nine in development in North America. Gilda’s Club was founded by Joanna Bull, Gilda Radner’s cancer psychotherapist during the time she had cancer; Radner’s husband, Gene Wilder; and broadcaster Joel Siegel. … The organization takes its name from Radner’s comment that cancer gave her ‘membership to an elite club I’d rather not belong to’ ” (the wiki).
You can make financial donations into an earmarked fund so people have a place to stay while their loved ones are getting treated, or you could send blankets and books and toys for kids to play with in the waiting room. Maybe old ipods and stuff, even, actually. Or think about donating time and creativity. Draw a comic book, cross-stitch “I’m sorry your wife is going to be bald for a while” on a tea towel with a sad face; you know, do something Gilda would approve of. Think outside the box!
“It is so hard for us little human beings to accept this deal that we get. It’s really crazy, isn’t it? We get to live, then we have to die. What we put into every moment is all we have.” — Gilda.
Michael Bublé – “Feeling Good” Official Music Video. Directed by Noble Jones. (Hot ladytimes begin at :36, for the impatient.)
Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don’t you
know
Butterflies all havin’ fun you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me
Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel
It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life
For me
And I’m feeling good
Normally I am not the world’s biggest Michael Bublé guy, but this is a great cover of a song originally composed for the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd and memorably recorded by special fave Nina Simone. That recording is especially great for me because they used it in 1993’s Point of No Return, remember, the action-thriller where Bridget Fonda played a cop-killing drug addict who is given the choice between the death penalty and being an assassin (happens all the time)? I most certainly do because it was the first thing I’d ever seen her in, and when I found out that on top of being a strawberry blonde with a rabbity grill and country grin à la Jodie Foster, she was also a freaking Fonda to boot, I kind of flipped out.
But I’m much better now. You know, playing it cool.
The movie is directed by Luc Besson, director of Nikita, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, and The 5th Element all CRAMAZING films, and former husband of model citizen Milla Jovovich, and also features the lovely and talented Gabriel Byrne (I still ❤ Irish boys). It's a can't-miss. I'm not even kidding.
Anyway, so love this song, which was the original purpose of this post. Add that fact to the video’s Bond-spy-mod-squad vibe, and I’m actually all kinds of into this!
Today’s Model Citizen dossier is on the lovely and talented Vanessa Paradis, model, actress, singer, partner of eleven years to Johnny Depp, and mother of their two children. She’s a busy bee.
If she does not asplode your brain with her sexy, winsome flower child French cuteness, you have no soul.
Vanessa Paradis began her career as a singer, then acted, then modeled. She kind of did it backward, right?
At 15, she had rare cross-Channel success when her song “Joe la taxie” charted in both the UK and France. The single came from her debut album M&J (Marilyn et John), which got mixed reviews. She received a lot of backlash in the press and from peers about her explosive popularity and her kind of pouty, sultry look, like she could possibly control either of those things. “Sorry I’m crazy-beautiful and an overnight success, I take it all back and I’ll burn my face with acid,” is that what they want to hear?
Anyway, she was nearly booed offstage at an awards festival at Cannes, but she soldiered through and performed anyway; when she came back to do another number later in the show, she got huge applause just for coming out. So I guess people aren’t total dicks. At another awards show, she sang a cover of a Serge Gainsbourg song, which got his attention. I’ll leave it up to you to interpret whether that was a good move. (I try not to go off on the topic of Serge G, but it is sometimes very difficult.)
[Serge] Gainsbourg, present in the audience that night, was greatly impressed by the young singer’s talent. The legendary singer/songwriter soon contacted Vanessa Paradis, offering to write a series of songs for her. … Vanessa Paradis and Serge Gainsbourg hit it off immediately, Gainsbourg nicknaming the young singer “Lolycéenne” (“Lolita schoolgirl”). — RFI Musique
Why does it seem that French women are amazing and French men are so consistently creepy? I hate the way that makes me feel. Anyway, she moved to America in the early ’90s, dated Lenny Kravitz for a bit — another creep who somehow scores amazing women (Nicole Kidman?! really? that blew my frigging mind) — and released an English-language album in 1992. She has this whole French ye-ye girl-remastered-by-Phil-Specter sound that kind of eludes a place in the highly structured American recording industry, so she slipped through the cracks, but right about then her acting career was picking up, so it was no big deal, I guess. Here is a video for the very catchy “Be My Baby,” from the 1992 self-titled LP. You can see what I mean about her sound on there. Very 60’s. I like it.
Enough talky-talk. God, I get going on music and I don’t shut the hell up. I’m so sorry. Long story short, she is with Johnny Depp now and they have two rocking-adorable kids and her life is awesome and she is a really cool, graceful, giving lady who is also super-cute. The end. PICTURES.
Oh…and she has quite the smile.
I find it totally forgiveable and actually endearing — it’s gappy, sure, but because of that it is adorable. It’s kind of funky and charming. Bardot style, y’all. I love busted grills. I can’t even begin to overemphasize that enough. Love them.
Just in case you thought I had lost my touch, here’s a NSFW shot to finish us off.
Today I am all about dark, quirky, folksy Nova Scotia indie rockers The Tom Fun Orchestra. Don’t they look cute? And like real people.
The Tom Fun Orchestra – Tar Pond Tango
If you are in a mood for monotonous, predictable music that you can have on in the background while you do something mindless like drive in a large group of chatting people, or if you do not care with what music you fill your mind whatsoever, and despise creativity and creepiness and roots-style swampy fun, then this band is not for you at all. Skip this post, scroll down the page to BDSM Catwoman pics and keep listening to some godawful derivative unimaginative all-alike tripe like Coldplay. They’re your ears. But if you are a One for quirk and high times, read on!
Here is the UK MVA Best Animation-nominated video for the track “Bottom of the River,” directed by Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney. Other nominees were Coldplay, Prodigy, Hauscha and Röyksopp. (For the unhappy record, Shynola won for Coldplay’s “Strawberry Swing,” which basically swept all categories. This is the explanation for my earlier left-field tall glass of Coldplay-haterade, although I admit I do most of the time generally dislike them.)
The video is entirely animated, very creative, spooky, and fun and well-suited for just-before-Halloween.
The Tom Fun Orchestra – Watchmaker
At first you think it’s a creepy stalker song, which I am not opposed to, but then it ends up being kind of a metaphor for God. I think, anyway. I mean, it’s a pretty obvious and heavyhanded symbolism right out of the gate just from choosing the loaded term “watchmaker,” in the opening lyrics so for once I can honestly say that I doubt I’m misinterpreting it.
The Tom Fun Orchestra – Last of the Curious Thieves
I’m going to try to let the wiki handle this one because I’m still not feeling totally my tippy toppy bestest. The Tom Fun Orchestra“combines elements of folk, roots, blues, rock and punk to create a sound that is at once familiar yet entirely unique” (wiki). I don’t know about the punk part but I am in no kind of mood to get in to that debate today.
To me, sounds like: the Pogues, Creedence, Tom Waits, Billy Childish, Dan Melchior, the Holmes Bros, Firewater, the Pierces, Blackbird Raum, Gogol Bordello, Squirrel Nut Zippers, the JOU, Flat Duo Jets, Nick Cave, Dropkick Murphys, Charlie Daniels Band. But not at all Arcade Fire or Broken Social Scene. I honestly don’t see where the wiki got that. Explain if it is something you hear and understand, I’m lost.
Joan Baez live in Stockholm, 1966, singing “With God On Our Side,” written by Bob Dylan.
In a many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
I don’t take the oversimplified path of belief that wars, conflicts, battles, whatever you want to call them are somehow problems with easy solutions (make peace or get ‘er done), from either side. But I wonder if God, able to take the long view and seeing the starvation, the disease, the murders and genocide which war involves, would agree? Then again, God’s relationship with humanity vis a vis the suffering of innocents has always been problematic at best. I am troubled. Weltzschmerz: sadness over the state of the world. I have it today.
Laura Marling – New Romantic
This song was my introduction to Miss Laura Marling, a charming little singer-songwriter from the UK who, like a brownie, uses her adorable pixie looks to fool you in to thinking the sprightly tune you’re listening to doesn’t have some of the darkest, wittiest lyrics you’ll ever hear from someone so young.
I know I said I loved you
but I’m thinking I was wrong,
I’m the first to admit that I’m still pretty young,
and I never meant to hurt you
when I wrote you ten love songs
About a guy that I could never get
’cause his girlfriend was pretty fit
and everyone who knew her loved her so.
And I made you leave her for me
and now I’m feeling pretty mean,
but my mind has fucked me over more times
than any man could ever know.
The track came out a bit ago, but I still predict that song will get more famous pretty soon here, rather than less so. Even though it is the likelier in my opinion for regular radio airplay, it seems the label has put more time in to marketing the next tune here, “My Manic and I.”
Laura Marling – My Manic and I
“My Manic and I” has the sultry minor key bluesiness of Dusty Springfield, a very “If You Go Away” mood with this kind of waltzy-pirate dirge beneath, but then the purity of the vocals and the subject matter make you switch gears and draw comparisons to Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.” (Miss Marling, I am totally picking up what you are putting down and I do believe there are also clouds in my coffee now and again.)
I get the feeling that whoever this song is about, it’s the same jerk who inspired “The Man Sings” and some of the lines in “New Romantic.”
Oh, the gods that he believes never fail to amaze me.
He believes in the love of his god of all things, but I find him wrapped up in all manner of sins;
the drugs that deceive him and the girls that believe him.
I can’t control you, I don’t know you well, but these are the reasons I think that you’re ill.
I can’t control you, I don’t know you well, but these are the reasons I think that you’re ill.
Today has been kind of a big poo sandwich as it ends up. But Joel Grey and the gorgeous opening to the film version of Cabaret (love that 70’s composition aesthetic) can always make it better. My VCR is not working and I did not even bring this, one of my oldest and dearest and firstest of film purchases, with me to California on my sojourn from Oregon, but thank god for the youtube, jes?
So. Life is disappointing? Forget it. In here? Life is beautiful. The girls are beautiful. Even the orchestra … is beautiful!
Oh, man. So much better. (“Each and every one: a wirgin. Wh.. what? You don’t believe me? Well, do not take my word for it. Go ahead — ask Helga!”)
I think Cabaret and Fraulein Sally Bowles et al may just have to become a Thing around here. “Divine decadence!” Totally turns one’s frown upside down.
“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth thrown in.” — C.S. Lewis
Yesterday a reader asked for some Eartha Kitt as Catwoman. I am so vehemently pro my Jul-Newms that it was tough for me to transition straight in to that so here is my sidewise segue, friendoh, and thanks for reading!
Debra Wilson on MadTV as neighbor from hell Catwoman.: “One million dollars.” “What?!” “One million dollars to get your rrrrrake back.” “I could just buy another one for fifteen bucks.” “Nevertheless!”
When I first saw this like 15 years ago, I almost died laughing. It’s less bearable as an adult. I am so sorry for slighting MadTV’s writers, who I’m sure are gifted folks, but … um… this show was just never good enough. Just never even at all good enough.
With which mean and unnecessary judgment I will now slink off to run some afternoonish errands. The end!
*The lead cast members from the film who do not appear in this video are those playing Andy, Ma Fratelli, and the Fratelli brothers.
The Thought Experiment 