Why don't they make stuff like this anymore?

I don't understand what makes people think that modern necessitates better. After all, wasn't the old stuff the modern stuff once? Case in point is the new videos that dominate the airwaves of EmpTV, bands filled with the best angst money can buy. Whether or not you are a Rundgren fan, the above video displays more intelligence and interestingness than any of the crap that is out there today. To be sure, that Rundgren video then was probably deemed too ultra-modern and too wacko and too plastic by the people that saw it then. But if we are in the post-modern age, why aren't people making videos like this, in a wry wink-wink to the past and how cool they are in the present? Just a thought...

Where has the time gone...was it all but a fever dream?

Many things have transpired since last we at the Variegated Brainstem puked forth our wisdom, wit, and frippery. Tom Waits came to Knoxville, playing the hits we all love so well. The Olympics occurred in China, with the US of A winning a number of different coloured medals. Obama and McCain became the front runners in the presidential race. Hardee's thick burger is more popular than ever.

Hopefully, as the days of future past come back again, the Veeb will be able to provide more insight into all that we are witnesses to in this glorious age. Until then, keep watching the stars!

Glitter and Doom is coming to Knoxville and I can't waits...

End of school shindig - learning who can do stripper dance moves at a company party....

The advising office end of the year party was last night. There was all sorts of food, all sorts of booze, and all sorts of people there. I was lucky enough to win an award as the "spam princess" for having promoted new weird holidays and the glory of processed foods. As is often the case, the booze made for some drama (none involving me, of course), mostly through weird dancing by unlikely people and bare emotions coming to the fore. But, a good time was had by most. Until next May...

I'm Bringing Sexy Back, old school style, just in time for summer!

"You Down With OPB (Ocean Pacific Brand)?" "Yeah, you know me!" There I was, pacing the aisles of Wal-Mart, looking for something to fill the void in my life, when I chanced upon the discovery of the re-release of a clothing line near and dear to the hearts of those of us who came of age in the early eighties. Yes, I'm talking about the venerable OP clothing line, sold exclusively now at the Mart.

Gone are the days when we would have given our front teeth just for the opportunity to own an OP shirt. True, perhaps we placed too much value on material things when we were in middle school. And, probably, our sexuality as well, as I remember worrying profusely that a friend of mine and I wore similar blue OP shirts to middle school one day, only to be called "fags" by a bunch of cooler people who now probably work at Wal-mart. So, confident now in both myself, my sexual orientation, and the world in which I live, I hurl down the gauntlet of fashion and proclaim this summer not only the Summer of Mike but the Summer of Eighties Inspired Beach Wear! Who's with me?

Of all the things to see when you are sick...

Those of you that know me know of my like for the Flaming Lips. I have seen them in concert, which were some of the most amazing musical experiences I've ever had. I have nearly all of their recorded output, which seems to have been getting better year after year. I have been praising them for quite some time, with good reason.

But, their latest album was not so great, mainly as it seemed to be a retread of many of the ideas from the album before. And, very peculiarly, I have been noticing the Lips' music accompanying different commercials. A lot of them. As I lay on my sofa, troubling deaf heaven with my bootless cries and cursing my intestinal fate, I saw a commercial for Kraft Salad Dressing that had Flaming Lips' music as its soundtrack. I thought it was a fever dream. But, I saw it again today and am saddened.

I realize that their music is their's to do with as they wish. If they want to shill for salad dressing, then they should should shill for salad dressing - I would rather hear them than yet another commercial with Katrina and the Waves "I'm Walking on Sunshine," after all. But, there is just something disconcerting about how music so quickly departs from being sublime to being subservient to the capitalist juggernaut. I'm still going to listen to the Flaming Lips, to be sure, but this whole episode has given me pause. What is next? The Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant" used for a Tampax commercial?

Why can't they make movies like this anymore?

Seriously, will someone tell me why they don't make movies like this anymore? I realize that the 1970s amped up the excess in rock music to the point that punk HAD to happen, but this movie celebrates the theme of excess to such an excessive level that it seems almost comfortingly, orgiastically cathartic. Maybe the GSHA band could perform inside a building that's being imploded!

By the way, I HAVE TO SEE THIS MOVIE! THE TRAILER ALONE MADE ME CRAZY! WHAT A NAME FOR A MOVIE! Enjoy!

A remembrance of things past

For some reason, I was thinking about traveling recently, especially those travels back in my youth. My sister, who shares my whacked sense of humor for things a bit askew, used to listen with me to tapes on our Realistic tape recorder on many family trips throughout this great land of ours. We would be in the back of the station wagon with the seat down, un-seatbelted of course, drawing on old computer print-out paper from my dad's office and reading comic books and playing Simon and Merlin and card games, all the while listening to Bible stories narrated by Burl Ives and various other tapes my parents had to make us tolerable during the trip. I don't know if she remembers, but we used to giggle and giggle in evil glee at some of the songs on a compilation tape of oldies that my parents had. There was "Que Sera Sera" sung by Doris Day. Mitch Miller did "The Yellow Rose of Texas." But, the one that really got us cackling was "Hey, There (You with the stars in your eyes)," sung by Rosemary Clooney, George's aunt. The way it was recorded, she would sing the chorus (Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes...) in one channel and then speak a reply in the other channel (Are you talking to me?). This was too funny for the both of us, and we would laugh and laugh and laugh and hyperventilate and laugh and laugh and eat some Trix cereal and laugh and laugh and rewind the tape and listen to this again and again and laugh and laugh and laugh until we were at the beach or West Virginia or wherever we were going. This video I have posted is probably from a Karaoke machine, so it has no pictures. However, I think that you will agree, as my sister and I believed and still believe, that this remains either very funny or very disturbing. Maybe even both! My sister has since gone on to be an amazing mother of four (I am her oldest) and I hope that she will one day pass this song on to her other kids as some sort of legacy that will either slightly scar their psyches or make them continue to enjoy drawing pictures of purple dogs and orange trees.

Enjoy!

Victory!

ABD, repeat after me, sing "Nah Nah Nah Nah!"

Group 2 Exam today

I go before the tribunal today!

The first Variegated Brainstem Music collection

Hello, loyal viewers! The Veeb has issued its first soundtrack CD, entitled Make the Madness Stop. It contains a variety of psyche-skewing songs for your musical aggrandizement. Tracks on this first of several collection include:

1. Stereo Phase Test - Man Or Astroman (01:04)
2. Magic People - The Paupers (02:45)
3. At The Mountains Of Madness - HP Lovecraft (04:58)
4. I Put Spell On You - Arthur Brown (03:45)
5. The year of the sun - The Gordian Knot (03:02)
6. my mind - The Misunderstood (02:35)
7. Spiral Galaxy 28948 - Hawkwind (03:47)
8. Through My Eyes - The Creation (03:07)
9. Lysergic Bliss - Of Montreal (04:04)
10. I'm A Nut - (01:02)
11. Bottle Of Wine - Fireballs (02:11)
12. Cup Of Jesus - Joel R. Cooper (02:26)
13. Sardinia - Alabama Sacred Harp Singers (02:14)
14. I live for the sun - The Sunrays (02:28)
15. Laughing Stock - Love (02:32)
16. A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off - The Magnetic Fields (02:42)
17. The Third Eye - The Dovers (02:17)
18. Happy - The Sunshine Company (01:58)
19. Trouble - Lindsey Buckingham (03:49)
20. Me - The Brain Train (02:25)
21. Groovy Summertime - The Love Generation (02:24)
22. White Cat Heat - The Godz (02:12)
23. Something In 4/4 Time - Daryl Hall (04:27)
24. You Keep Hanging up on My Mind - Wendy & Bonnie (02:59)
25. Watch out for Me Ronnie - Yo La Tengo (03:02)
26. Some People Never Know - We All Together (04:21)
plus a secret or too!

Not to toot our horns here at the VCC (Veeb Central Control), but we are pleased at how this CD flows, making everything from dish-washing to the daily commute to encounters with the rhino-hive mind something to look forward to! Drop us a line if you would like a copy. Enjoy!

A crooner for the ages - who will be our pick?

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, as many of you know, is one of our favorites here at the Veeb. The Captain has a 5 octave vocal range and a penchant for screaming, grunting, and growling his way through electrified blues and into your heart, head, and mind. We provide for you (above) a selection from his first LP, Safe As Milk, entitled "Electricity!"

Unlike the Captain and his friends, Scott Walker started as a crooning pop singer with a group called the Walker Brothers, a popular band during the 1960s British Invasion. After going solo, Scott Walker began to sing increasingly darker and disturbing songs about prostitutes, homosexuals, communist dictators, and torture interagators, ultimately producing albums of high-pitched falsetto singing about urban decay and despair over top the sounds of orchestras, industrial noises, and metallic destruction. This video gives an example of the first type of music Scott Walker was involved with:

On a side note, I had a weird dream last night that I thought was interesting: a panther was running around my backyard, scaring black cats that were running away and jumping up in the air - which made me laugh out loud. An Eskimo ran in with a pine tree branch and wounded the panther in the side. I screamed "No, no, Nanook!" As he lay dying, the panther looked up at me and simply asked," Why?" What does this mean?

A Sunday morning of reflection...

Comps are coming in two days. My beloved office coffee cup with Christmas geese on it has been kidnapped and probably brainwashed into joining some revolutionary quasi-religious suicide cult a la Patty Hearst and the SLA. I have recruited Gordon, my desk gnome, to protect my other goose cup, but it may be a bit too much for him, as the cup is bigger than he is. Oh, that Gordon!As for the rest of it, I have wanted to post this video for some time. It is by a Spanish band from the sixties called Los Bravos, best known for their hit song "Black is Black." This video, of a song entitled "Going Nowhere," seems appropriate to what is going on in my life right now, with tests and kidnapped cups. Note the lead singers strained facial expressions while he is in the depths of mod-a-go-go dance moves - looks like he's trying to keep from deucing one up, even as he winks at the camera! Everyone else acts like they are having hip convulsions - which of them are using a walker now, one might wonder if one wondered those sorts of things.


Enjoy!

Some of my new favorite mu-suck-ial groups - part one

Every one should follow their muse and do the things that make them happy (within reason - zoosadism and pedophilia don't count). I have yet to find my overriding passion, but these folks seem to have found their's, although perhaps in ways that make the rest of us scratch our heads and go "Huh?" or "Do what?"

This first is Leslie and the Lys, the brainchild of Leslie Hall, a gold lame beehive-hairdoed lady from Iowa who envisions herself as a rap / hip-hop genius (who's to say she isn't?). Here she presents what is probably the only (that I'm aware of) musical pop tribute to the Ron Howard movie Willow:

Watching this makes me repeatedly wonder: why didn't we do stuff like this in the TA office?

Dily Lama - an arresting update

After further investigation, I have discovered, and I am sad to report, that Dillard Clark has passed on to his final reward. I was unaware of this, having not visited with him for years. I was reminded that he used to tell me to keep my aftershave in the fridge to keep it potent. And, as my sister pointed out, he was a member of our church and contributed an original recipe to the church cookbook for cantaloupe pie. We have decided to make it, despite our hatred of cantaloupe, in honor of the man. I've included a video of the Beatles, Dillard's favorite band, here for all of us to remember him by as we get ready to make his unique pie. So, here's to you, Dillard, and hope you have found peace as much as you gave to others!


I also include "Legend of a Mind" by the Moody Blues - you'll understand why if you don't already.

Enjoy!

This was going on in my brain when I was on drugs back when I used to do drugs...

Now you know, and knowing's half the battle. Enjoy!

Some observations about vampires after an evening of gin and tonics

We went to the World Grotto on Market Square last night and were sitting there enjoying our drinks and the rain storm on the square as the staff were decorating the establishment for Halloween. They were putting up several black and white prints of several scantily-clad and buxom lasses with fangs. Most of the women were affiliated with the World Grotto in some capacity or another, but were most probably concubines of the soooooo egoistic tatooed and goateed bartender, who was in several of the photos with the women. Don't get me wrong - I like buxom and scantily clad women. And, we like that particular bartender because the women all want to jump his bones, he wants to jump their bones, and we want alcohol, which makes him impatient to keep us occupied with REALLY strong drinks so that he isn't interrupted in his true quest by annoying customers wanting more alcohol.

However, all the vampire stuff was soooooo overwrought that it got me to thinking: what the freak is up with everybody loving vampires? They seem so 1980s / 1990s to me. I mean, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was okay, I guess, but everyone makes such a big damn deal about it - I just don't see it! Anne Rice novels - boring! It has all been so overdone to me and it also seems like people that like vampires REALLY like vampires (not that that is a bad thing - it's just not my thing). I suppose, I'm just trapped in my own uncreative and limited Weltanshaung of non-vampirism. But, Mike, you don't understand the hunger...always the hunger! Gimme a freaking break and fix me another gin and tonic, Lestat...

"WTF!" he remarked before jumping off the cliff into the ravine...

Do you like early sixties fashion? Do you like soul music? Do you like scantily-clad women having epileptic seizures out of synch to said music? Then, do I have the video for you! Believe you me, one viewing is not enough! But be forewarned - this film takes a piece of your soul with each viewing!

Enjoy!

Look at me! Look at me! I am being noticed...I think! Variegated Brainstem gains some new viewers...

I recently received this comment on my blog:

Dear Variegated Brainstem:

Love your site...
Later!
Julian
www.ijulian.blogspot.com

(his blog address)

Needless to say, I was fairly excited, while being puzzled at the same time. Not that I don't appreciate my target audience, but here was bona fide proof that someone not affiliated directly or indirectly with the GSHA crowd was actually taking an interest in my personal views on culture, music, life, and beer-fueled mayhem. For 13 minutes, I was elated.

But then the psychic wall of doubt and despair kicked in, especially because I've been burned once too often, especially by those fawning Portuguese-speaking Brazilian spammers! How was my blog found? What did it mean to have this newcomer enter my world and, by extension, my brain (stem)? Should I let it go to my head (brainstem), more so because they seem much more hip and with it than myself, a man who thinks pictures, like the one I offer here, might be amusing? How will I function knowing that West Coast intellectuals may be examining the ranting raves and the raving rants of some yokel living in the heartland of Tennessee? Even though the picture confirms my ownership of shoes, I'm not wearing them! So, they might say, "A-Ha! See, we knew that hillbillies still existed and aren't a Madison Avenue marketing ploy!"

So, I have this to say to Mr. Julian Ayrs, if that is your real name: I will accept your review of 3:10 to Yuma and go see that movie this weekend on the strength of your opinions, but for the love of all that is pure, decent, and holy don't go breaking my heart because I absolutely adore westerns and I've only got so much of myself to give to my public without being teased and then asked to buy sports memorabilia from Rio!

About Carnies, Carnivals, and the Hot Dog Nation in which we live...

Let it be known that I have always (and probably always will) loved carnivals. I love the smells of greasy food, sweat, ride grease, and quiet despair and fear. I love the cheesy rides and the crappy games that allow you to win a cartoon animal toy stuffed with sawdust and broken dreams. I love the actual food - yes, even the food. I even once designed a carnival of my own (will upload the pictures at a later date). My father remarked that it was highly probable my family possessed significant amounts of carny blood. To be sure, he did not elaborate on why he felt assured of this particular fact. Yet, he seemed very sure of it, all the same. With this in mind, I recently went to the Tennessee Valley Fair, eager to be amongst my people. I had not been there since, probably, 1986. However, this most recent visit was not for fun. Instead, I volunteered to aid Boy Scout Troop 58 in their fund-raising job of cleaning the fairgrounds after the park closed.

I watched this video, hoping to show something of the fair's true nature. And, to be sure, the reporter's views were not unfounded. But, despite her rosy assessment of the Fair's participants, I witnessed a myriad of strange and disturbing sights, starting at around midnight as the people began to leave.

I could go into graphic details about the trash we picked up under the bleachers at the tractor pull area. I could rail about the dirty diapers I picked up in the parking lots. I could shock you with tales concerning the carny village we walked through at 1:30 in the morning. But the most disturbing thing for me was the amount of wasted junk food littered throughout Chilhowie Park. The United States IS the Hot Dog Nation, as we picked up (conversatively) close to 1000 half-eaten corndogs (funnel cakes...now that's another story entirely). It is little wonder that the rest of the world hates us, what with our wastes and our waists (I know I'm not Charles Atlas, but I can touch my toes and see my crotch without looking in a mirror). The amount of food lying in the dirt under the bleachers there was appalling. Lord help the bacon-clad men from my last post here - the tractor pull / rodeo crowd would probably eat them alive, literally.

Maybe we should reconsider cannibalism a la Soylent Green. We wouldn't waste food, it would minimize our food production costs, and we would only have to sweep up crumbs at the fair (instead of picking up half-chewed up corn dogs). Something to think about...