A lot of people don’t realize that for many years before I began to write in chalk for pocket change on street corners, and then eventually worked my way up to this gold-plated keyboard, I was an astronaut.
I was paid ridiculously huge amounts of money to ride tin cans?commissioned by the government to be built by the lowest bidder?into space so that I could come back and tell everybody how cool it was out there in the depths of airless emptiness.
It was while I floated in the vast vacuum beyond all that we know, that I began thinking about how messed up everything was everywhere except where there wasn’t anything, and eventually came to the conclusion that humankind needed to move to outer space in order to reinvent itself and be thoroughly rid of earthbound issues like pollution, paranoia, and Maury Povich.
Of course, I’m sure most of you are familiar with my failed campaign for prime minister of North America, and the tremendously inappropriate slogan my staff and I chose for the project: ?You suck and so does the vacuum of space, so why not move there?? which was entirely based on some mildly delusional rantings I managed to scribble on NASA toilet paper while space traveling.
I understand now that it was necessary to make an example of me and my anti-social space fever by forcing me to give up space travel and politics in favour of media reviews, but that still doesn’t make me wrong. Trust me, It’s easier to breathe in an airless environment than in a place so overcrowded with redundancy that bands name themselves after movies.
To quote Art Buchwald, ?You can’t make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All You’re doing is recording it.?
Flatliners
I have to start with this one because the juxtaposition is just so enormous here; for one thing, Flatliners was an extremely trippy, dream sequence-centred movie from the early ?90s starring Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, and one of the Baldwins that was about med students who killed each other and then brought each other back to life to find out what was beyond life and death.
For one thing, not only is this the only Kevin Bacon movie without any penis in it (not counting Tremors, which was all about prehistoric, penis-shaped monsters), It’s also the only movie I can think of where you actually get the satisfaction of seeing Julia Roberts die.
On the other hand, The Flatliners are also a bunch of kids from urban North York who are?and this is unbelievable in this day and age?still playing ska. I mean, I thought we worked all this out in the ?70s and ?80s with The Police and UB40: ska is over, guys. Not just passé, like bell bottoms or techno, but actually dead and gone and not worth being a part of, like the Spanish Inquisition or Three’s Company.
Yet somehow, major radio stations keep giving these perpetual 13-year-olds airtime to wank their lame stoner solos and silly lyrics about being held down by the man in their mom’s basements. If You’re going to name yourself after a movie That’s all about the horrors of returning from the dead, at least sing about zombies or something, you checkerboard-wearing ever-teens.
Holy Mountain
Holy Mountain was an inspired, shocking, and visually astounding (the sets look like Michel Gondry making fun of Salvador Dali) film from Spanish genius Alejandro Jodorowsky that got his films banned from a lot of close-minded countries that didn’t want to let their citizens see the crucifixion of Christ re-enacted by toads. Pretty much the best movie you could ever watch if you were ever an interior designer or a secret hippie.
Alternatively, Holy Mountain is an album by formative doom band Sleep that delves as far as possible into your ability to tolerate drony, annoying noises and stories about flying into the sun. While there are some elements that definitely remind one of repetitive punk and early death metal, the album stays fairly fixed on its course for self-destruction via boredom and rarely veers off course. Pretty much the best album you could ever listen to if you were ever an interior designer or a secret hippie.
Them
Them is a standout classic of 1950’s sci-fi about oversized carnivorous ants that attack humans from underground, which sadly few people have seen but which ranks with Batman and The Thing as one of the most original, creative, and interesting ideas to be hatched on this continent in about a million years and then turned into a sci-fi/horror flick.
James Whitmore does a fantastic job of being terrified of ants in this film and if you haven’t seen James Whitmore run away from ants, then you haven’t lived.
However, Them is also the most essential album of King Diamond’s expansive career, about a haunted house where his family gets murdered by ghosts and his grandma drinks blood tea. Incest, spying through keyholes, and operatic arias and solos that border on manic make this an incomparably necessary item in the King catalogue.
Sting
The Sting is a classic film starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman hustling a rich guy on a horse race. It’s a bit too long but there?re plenty of gangsters reciting pithy witticisms with absurdly over-the-top accents.
Unfortunately, Sting is also the guy that thought that forming The Police was a good idea. Look, Q107, I don’t care what friggin? dress Roxanne wears, just stop playing the song already.
Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand is some archduke guy who got shot and probably liked rolling around in money.
Franz Ferdinand is some pop band with swoopy hair and tight clothes that probably like rolling around in money.
