The Tory Party

Worst Years in Music: 1991

I was gonna be mad that this guy hotlinked my Chris Isaak image, because I still treat server space like it’s 1998. But then it turned out to be a pretty funny post:

70. Cry For Help, Rick Astley

In the year or two since I started writing these accursed things, Rick Astley has taken on a shiny new cultural significance. In my “1988: WYIM” post, I contrasted his diminutive, geeky British frame with his deep, soul-infused pipes, and mentioned how totally 1988 the song was, especially – apparently – in the UK. And, being me, I had to go and drag Doctor Who into it.

Then someone – someone very weird – invented “Rickrolling,” the process wherein an unsuspecting internet user is duped into clicking a link that will cause a video of Rick singing “Never Gonna Give You Up” to appear on their screen. For instance, someone sends you a link that promises undeniable proof that a certain celebrity has been caught in an illegal and unsanitary position, and you click it, because who are you to pass up a tasty morsel of Perez Hilton-age nonsense, and lo and behold, Rick is telling you that he’s never going to give you up.

Rickrolling: the whoopee cushion of the new millennium.

69. Love Takes Time, Mariah Carey

So does listening to the lesser hits of Mariah Carey. Therefore: no.

68. Show Me The Way, Styx

Saying “Styx was still around in 1991,” is a little bit like saying “You can stand an egg on its end if you’re standing on the equator during the spring equinox.” It sounds patently ridiculous, and yet there’s some evidence it may be true. I know we sang this song in chorus my senior year (1997!) and that our choir director introduced the song at our spring concert as “a song the kids are listening to these days with a positive message.” As most of us hadn’t heard the thing before Mr. B plunked out the Soprano II part on the old Bosendorfer, this seemed real strange.

But, dude, we sang a Styx song in high school chorus. Thanks, Mr. B.

I had not only the album where Rick Astley had long hair, but also Michael Bolton’s “Time, Love and Tenderness.”. And I thoroughly enjoyed both, dammit. Enjoying Michael Bolton is akin to mixing popcorn and peanut M&Ms at the movies — a guilty pleasure to be sure, but I hear Michelle Pfeiffer does it.

Go on. It’s okay.

Yeah, it’s all early 90s because of the modulation and abuse of chorus-repeating and Um Jammer Lammy gospel choir. But dude. If you changed the drum production, gave M.B. anime hair and added a cameo by Timbaland, this song would totally fly on the radio today.

Anyway. The whole post, not as Bolton-fascinated:

Link

More DFAs

Hmm. There seems to be a trending direction here. Compared to the last batch, I would describe these as increasingly… crotchular. I sort of respect it — like, let’s get right to the point, shall we?

For the record, out of 23 ads, these two are the only other representations of women.

*Loud sigh*

(On the men’s side, on my female-skewed Facebook ads, there is only one representation of a man, and that’s Barack Obama.)

Oh, Facebook. I am putting you on probation.

Fertility Comedies

This shirt exists to remind you not to bring your skinny jeans to the hospital

Having a baby makes ready cinema. You got a built-in ticking clock (and a handy indicator of the passage of time) and act breaks (conception/realization of pregnancy = end of act I; going into labor = beginning of act III). And for third act drama, can you beat a sweating, screaming woman? The entire catalog of Sam Raimi says, no, you cannot.

It’s like how the court case makes ready drama. Again, a built-in ticking clock (the limited run of the case, although realistically that can be two years) and act breaks (disillusioned/greedy lawyer takes the case = end of act I; closing arguments = beginning of act III). And for third act drama, can you beat two lawyers making impassioned speeches to the jury? The entire catalog of Raymond Burr says, no, you cannot.

But there is something terribly missing from fertility comedies. To be fair, I’ve only seen Juno and Knocked Up, not yet Baby Mama. I will give Tina Fey double plus awesome points if she includes any of the following hilariawesomeawful moments:

(And I haven’t even had a baby or even finished that one book my gymmin’ friend lent me, so I know nothing. NOTHING! But I know this…)

• If it’s your first bebe and you go to the hospital at the first sign of labor, they will send your punk ass home! They will say, go home, watch a DVD, try to take a nap, and we’ll see you in twelve hours when things get really interesting. I love watching them rush a first-time movie mother to a hospital. Dude. You got time. So much time. Bring a Sudoku.
• The enema! AH HA HA HA. THE ENEMA. I can’t believe Mr. Apatow skipped this part. Even informing Ms. Heigl’s character that, yes, we’re going to give you one, and yeah, Seth, you might want to step out for a bit. THAT IS COMEDY GOLD. For when bebe mashes down on all your innards, and oh how he will mash, he will mash out everything that’s not tethered down. So if you don’t empty your pipes by friendly, hygienic means, your bebe will empty them for you at the moment you really want to be trying for happy thoughts. Am I asking for either an enema scene or a colossal delivery room crappapalooza? Yes. Yes, I am. I am a classy lassie.
• Come on. No one refuses an epidural. Stop making characters give birth without it for contrived reasons — it’s just mean. You will get plenty of sweating and screaming regardless. Instead, profit from the comic potential of squinching the heroine’s knees up to her eyebrows and stabbing a needle into her back again and again while she’s having contractions. Now THAT is mean funny.
• When you’re done, you’re not done. There’s like naming and paperwork and circumcising, if you’re into that, and I don’t know how a woman reacts to pushing a human being into the planet that was not formerly there, and then receiving a brief SAT prep course, but I would like to be something like DEAR GOD GET AWAY FROM ME AND THE NEXT PERSON WHO SHOWS THEIR FACE IN MY ROOM BETTER BE HOLDING A MEATBALL SUB.

Daniel Floyd presents Video Games and Sex

Genius treatment of a genius topick:

I especially approve of his pointing out that video games just wear the scarlet letter that heavy metal, D&D and comic books used to. (Anybody know what the scapegoat was before comic books? I have a scapegoat gap.) I mean, you go back last century you get autosex, too-frequent bathing and witchcraft. I’m sure the Paleoliths caught their kids carving spearheads backwards.

Random Thoughts - Spring Fever Edition

• For horror, I prefer practical effects to digital — even if they’re corny, BECAUSE they creep you out through the corn. Weird Science? Big Trouble in Little China? Goofy but nightmare fodder — and not just because of the aggressive 80s racism. The gooey animatronics CREEP YO’ ASS OUT. That’s part of why series like “Amazing Stories,” “Tales from the Crypt” and “Friday the 13th: The Series” gave me the willies much more than any of this new digitally-driven horror does. Uncanny valley — digital just isn’t there yet.

  Two azzamples:

  What’s scarier? The heart-grab and melting face from Raiders? Or the scary alien that SQUINTS at Cate Blanchett in Crystal Skull? OH BUT IT’S A SCARY SQUINT. I liked Crystal Skull, but the squinting alien was hella anticlimactic. It’s like an article I was reading about Anaconda — if you try to make something scary look “mean,” you just make it funny.

  What’s scarier in The Ring? Digital horsey? Or Joan of Arcadia in the closet? Hell, Naomi Watts hacking up the suction cup was way scarier than anything digital.

  The case. I close it.

• Voice actors. You got Bill Fagerbakke (Dauber from “Coach” and M-O-O-N spells Tom Cullen from “The Stand” — perhaps making the most shekels as SpongeBob’s Patrick the Starfish) and Patrick Warburton (Brock, Kronk, Puddy, this could take an hour) pretty much cornering the big dumb guy market. When is Thomas Haden Church gonna get a piece of this pie? Over the Hedge, “Teen Titans” and Charlotte’s Web? Come on, Mr. Church, get in there! And not just because of the delightful topless brawl that might ensue!

• You know what I like? Bebe carrots.

And there ya go