I want to go to the circus...and I am not afraid of clowns!

This next month, the circus is coming to Knoxville! And I want to go! My girlfriend is less than enthused about this, as she is not really into all the animals being made to dance and work and balance on tight ropes - she believes that the circus is cruel to these helpless creatures. But the way I look at it, these animals surely knew what they were getting into when they ran away and joined the circus! And who could blame them, cuz it's so freaking cool!

Plus, the circus has all them freaks that solve crimes and stuff! So, I say, let's go to the circus, eat some corn dogs, and dance around with the painted goats and the bearded worm women from Bavaria! I can't wait - hope I get to do it! My only fear is that I might stowaway on the train with them as they leave town and help the clowns and acrobats and freaks as they travel throughout America, restoring faith in the world each night I am with them by selflessly setting myself on fire and jumping off 5-story platforms into a vat of rabid eel-monkeys dressed in pirate suits. I would do that for you, because I'm a giver...

Variegated Brainstem - Year Two, Day One, Hour Ten!

What a day it is today! The birds are singing, the squirrels are considering the current economic situation. Mothers pause to look lovingly into the faces of their babies, and former enemies throw down their machetes and axes to finally embrace in peace. We here at the Veeb are buoyed by the spirit of this day, and anxious about the dual goals of this Friday: celebrating our blog's anniversary and taking our Spam Vindaloo to the Arts and Sciences' Spam Cookoff. Although our initial excitement about our recipe was shared by all, last night's blind taste test revealed that among the things that the good Lord never intended was for Spam to be marinaded - Spam's density as a meat prevents its ready access to marinading forces. As a result, we are not so sure about our dish's success. Even served in one of television art teacher Dan Mihuta's clay bowl creations will probably not help...

But, in addition to the cookin', there is the rockin'!

Today is the first day of the rest of the fiscal blogging year that is the Variegated Brainstem!

Today is the day that one year ago the future of the world was set into motion!

Today is the day that one year ago a iron gauntlet was hurled into the face of humanity!

Today is the day that one year ago people began to realize again that MUSIC IS REVOLUTION!

Today is the day that one year ago a humble graduate student with nothing better to do took considerable time from his studies to bore the world with his acid casualty observations!

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is our extreme pleasure to welcome you to:

VARIEGATED BRAINSTEM, YEAR TWO: THE RECKONING
Enjoy!

Some ruminations about the GSHA's former watering hole...

Lately, Chuck and I have been engaged in the pursuit of our comprehensive exams and have not been to the Bean for a while. We decided, after his completion of his Group Two exam, to go there and hang out for a while. Much has changed. Smoking is no longer allowed in the building. All the televisions are high-def flat screens - there's even one facing the outside through the window so the people on the porch can watch sports. The bathroom is devoid of much graffiti, beyond some of the cogent observations that I have placed on the wall. The food is EXACTLY the same. They no longer have Pabst's Blue Ribbon on tap. Most of the servers and bartenders are new and have no idea that we have a long history there.

Perhaps it is wistfulness that makes me write this. It is hard to go somewhere after spending so many evenings there with friends to not be somewhat nostalgic over the whole affair. At the same time, our recent visit merely confirmed what I had felt all along when we went there: I don't like Cool Beans! I never did! I just thought the atmosphere was too sports bar and too frat and too Bacardi Girls and body shots and "Dude!" Not that I am above that, but I had always envisioned the Long Branch as a more suitable historian hangout. To be sure, the Branch didn't have food, pitchers, semi-clean bathrooms, or Bacardi Girls.

I know, as the good book says in 1 Corinthians, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." I realize that all of this is about as important as whether Kroger's runs out of Chex mix when compared to issues such as world hunger, peace, and war. This blog entry has no real denouement other than to say that, now that I am in the twilight of my grad school career, I miss having a large group of historian friends there to share it with.

More of what we should have been doing in the TA office!

F the filth! They'll be plenty of chicks for these tigers on the road to the Promised Land. This is it! It's really happening! Who needs qualifications? Who cares about Bush and unemployment?! We can do just exactly whatever we want to do! And you know why? Because we're the GSHA! Bachelor boys! Crazy, mad,wild-eyed, big-bottomed anarchists!!

The summer of Mike progresses!

I recently went on a shopping spree of unprecedented intensity! 2 pairs of Levi jeans, a brand I haven't been comfortable wearing for nearly 15 years! 2 short sleeve shirts of a moderate blue-green color! The insanity is almost too much to bear! I was so shocked by my actions that I became far oiler on my T-zone than I usually am, thus requiring an avocado-oatmeal mask and a green tea (see enclosed future blackmail photo).

Could our young hero be swayed towards the ever looming precepice that is metrosexuality? Remember, his barely adequate psychic defenses have little reserve power left! However, take heart, true believers - the peril of moisturizer and kelp skin products is far from being an actual realization for our hero. True, I cut my Samson-esque locks. But that was out of love for balding little girls (not that I have a thing for balding little girls...I just wanted to help them!). Hopefully, with the additional purchase of some engineer boots, I will look more like a fifties street tough than one of the fashionista sect that I fear and abhor with a large degree of my being (at least when I'm not leveled by my anomie). I also don't really like Nazis either...

AYBABTU pre-production notes #1

I think that the first issue of this particular idea that needs to be addressed is the type of aliens necessary for such an idea as the one proposed in the previous post. The original V used reptilian humaniods as the alien form. This does not seem to go with our GSHA ideas, does it? It has to be apes! And not just any apes, but aquatic apes, that look like the Planet of the Apes apes! But here is a twist I propose: they are actually, underneath, like the alien from The Thing! We don't know who is the ape and who is the warder (emphasizing the Prisoner aspects all the more). This could also, from a financial production point of view, be used to cut down on the amount of money needed to create an entire army of aquatic apes (make-up, rubber prosthetic pieces, the whole ape look). Instead, they could look like normal people, who are actually apes (aquatic) underneath, who are actually The Thing-type creatures underneath! The creative juices are flowing and there's no stopping them, ladies and gentlemen; I feel like I've got a diesel truck battery strapped to my nads!

In honor of the GSHA!!!! (for B and H, especially)

Who can forget this, perhaps our favorite phrase of all time?

No more horrid visions of things to come...why is that?

Seriously, why is it that they don't make good (or even bad) post-apocalyptic motion pictures anymore? Is it because we ain't still fighting the Russkies? Where are the Omega Man, Planet of the Apes (not Tim Burton's), or Soylent Green of our generation? Or Logan's Run or Clockwork Orange? Or even a good radiation-filled, happening film that examines man's inhumanity to man through the interplay of scantily clad nuclear holocaust amazons riding big motorbikes with razor sharp horns while they hunt down the scientist males who possess the unclean technology? That actually sounds like a promising film...

I suppose that the Mad Max films serve as a living bridge to the Heston armageddon series, albeit with a more nihilistic overtone than the 1970s films. But, even after having watched a few minutes of the first movie the other night on the late show, I believe that the original Mad Max was a kick-ass movie, kinda like Bullit in the outback after the breakdown of societal restraint and the rejection by law enforcement to actually obey the laws they enforce. And, yes, there were several approximations of this genre by other auteurs, all with screaming cars, buxom mohawked women, and angry anti-heros. But why not now?

Of course, the eighties and early nineties saw a raft of Blade Runner rip-offs which, even with bad movies like Johnny Mnemonic, had a certain appeal that frightened and delighted me at the same time. To be sure, Blade Runner as an action film is pretty boring. But, it is visually stunning, with its imagery of decay and modernity coupled together in such a way that is hard to soon forget, especially if you like seeing Rutger Hauer all slick and menacing (makes me want to wear my hair all spiked up).

Although, speaking of hair and my fear that I may now look like a reject from an eighties film, I think one of the most underrated post-apocalyptic movies from the eighties has to be Footloose. I mean, think about it - (1) stranger comes to repressive town that is isolated from the rest of the world (due to Reagan's foreign and domestic economic policies), (2) stranger has new paradigm for doing things in this repressive society (dance, dance, dance is the revolution solution), (3) stranger uses extra-ordinary physical prowess to enable him to function in a world ripped apart by divisive notions of the future and past ("You better run, city boy, cuz we're gonna mess you up!"), (4) stranger triumphs in such a way that the pyrrhic victory he has accomplished is meaningless and of little consequence ("Now we get to dance and shake our asses any time we damn well please!"). As you can see, Footloose is essentially Road Warrior in middle America. Except without cars. Or crossbow-toting maniacs. But, other than that, Footloose is a shot for shot homage!

So, what the GSHA needs to do is make a new post-apocalyptic film for the new millenium. Maybe even a series, like the Mad Max films, with opportunities for residual profits from toy and commemorative drink glass campaigns at the fast food franchises. The wheels in my head are spinning with ideas - all we need is a title. How about Gender and Power in Rural China: The Aftermath (happens to be the book I am reading right now, but I added the aftermath part)?

The deed is done...

Click on this to see 22 inches of history!

AQUATIC APES RULE!

CRY HAVOC!

THE IRONING BOARD LIVES!

(thanks to the heroic efforts of Rob Williams)

Shape of Things to Come...part 2

In solidarity to the lost IRONING BOARD, I shall give up something of my own that I have held near and dear for over seventeen years:

More on this development later...

GSHA sub rosa advertising

Being interested in all things weirdo, wacky and wild, I read about the Toynbee Tiles years ago. Who knows who did these things (but God)? But, I think that that doesn't matter. More importantly, these tiles provide an example of a way to get out the GSHA message of "Ape shall not kill ape" in such a way that will be outside the confines of the police state in which we currently live. Incidentally, these tiles are all over Philadelphia - this particular one (pictured here) was on the street corner of 15th and Chestnut. Our Phillie contingent should go check'em out! I will post a design for one of these and perhaps attempt an installation on Gay Street over summer...

band styles...for our band!

A Mr. H recently hipped me to a British avant garde band called the Tiger Lillies who possess an interesting visual style reminiscent of cabaret acts from Weimar Republic-era Germany. He suggested that the GSHA band (still nameless, at this point) could adopt (adapt) their look and feel, with makeup and old types of clothing and dress (bowlers and suspenders). On that, I suppose, I agree, although I would amend that look to include some women's clothing items, as well as buckets of goat blood that we could cover ourselves with during moments of intensified on-stage catharsis requiring the ultimate in violent dénouement.

However, as for their musical style, while I enjoy Brechtian operatic noodling, I fear that our collective musical abilities fall far short of those necessary to produce such cabaret / Decemberists-esque music. I think we are far more confrontational (at least in our heads) and we would, accordingly, need a more Iggy and the Stooges chugging style that just grabbed onto one heavy distorted, amphetamine-fueled riff that beat the audience over the head repeatedly...until it was time to cover ourselves in the goat's blood and make the crowd fall down screaming in an ecstatic orgy of introspection and horrorific apocalyptic visions! The genius of this...

And yet, if I had my druthers, I think I'd go for something like this Uncle Wiggly video. Just enough psyche-heavy riffs with wacked out imagery for me!

In honor of the GSHA, part 2

WOLVERINES!!! We must stem the red tide of Cuban aggression! Soviet domination of the Midwest will not stand! This aggression will not stand! Ape shall not kill ape!