'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
The Great Luke Ski
By Baron Dave Romm
Being funny takes time to develop. Feedback is mainly from fans, and you have to have a big ego to get up in front of people in the first place. Critics are few, in the beginning, and you're more likely to be ignored than poorly reviewed. And hecklers really are idiots.
Tom Lehrer was sure of his songwriting ability but unsure of his ability to be funny on his own. He released his first recording in 1953, not long before his 35th birthday, and rerecorded and rereleased most of his first album several times over.
Now, thanks to radio and venues like Dr. Demento (and to a lesser extent Shockwave) and science fiction/filk conventions, musical comedians are not merely encouraged to start much earlier, they have places to be heard.
That is, they have a place to be bad until they're good.
The great Luke Ski is a brilliant parodist and proudly demented performer. His first three CDs are available once again, and you can follow his progress.
Psycho Potpourri comprises cuts from Fanboys 'n da Hood (1996) and Shadows of the Bunghole (1997). The songs are mostly filk; parody lyrics to established songs. Luke likes rap and hip-hop, perhaps my least favorite pop genres, and there were several tunes I didn't recognize. Maybe you'll get into the parodies more. He does a nice a cappella rap about the Flintstones, My Name Is Fred and cleverly recaps Independence Day using a Will Smith song in Aliens Just Don't Understand. My favorite cut remains Murder Was The Play, Hamlet done in rap. He shows that he can handle Beach Boys with Cruis'n USA about video games; and Elvis in Viva Las Nagus about the Ferengi in Deep Space 9.
Psycho Potpourri comes in a slim case with little annotation. The great Luke Ski's early work is presented as is, and it's not even listed as available on his web site except as home produced. Write Luke and see if he has any left (or if he'll burn you one).
By 1999, the great Luke Ski was coming into his own. Carpe Dementia has a bunch of fun songs. Luke is better with his own material than when he relies on samples and impersonators. My favorites include Back One Week To The Future, the time travel movies set to a Barenaked Ladies hit; Mystery Science Theater Picture Show, a really clever and well done exegesis on MST3K done to Science Fiction Double Feature from The Rocky Horror Picture Show; and his Jeff Foxworthy You Might Be A Trekkie stand up comedy routine. The Star Wars Trilogy Homesick Blues is a nice Bob Dylan parody but works much better live and a video is included on Tony Goldmark's Rage Against The Mundane DVD.
Carpe Dementia is clearly the work of someone who has paid their dues. The work that went into the parody is beginning to outway the fun of merely doing it at all. The songs are well produced and well thought out. The music selection adds to the humor in the lyrics.
Luke's touring and appearances on the Dr. Demento Show have, by the turn of the millennium, sharpened his wit, musical craft and stage presence. His next two CDs, which I've reviewed here before are brilliant: Uber Geek (2002) and Worst Album Ever (2003). Both are staples of my collection and feature some of the most requested songs on Shockwave. if you're a fan of the great Luke Ski (as I am) and want all of his CDs including his Shockwave performance (and you do), get these two the CDs first. Once your appetite has whetted, get the others.
The great Luke Ski and I were fellow Guests of Honor at Marscon 2004. While I was off writing plays, interviewing Dr. Demento about his extensive blues collection and trying to get people to become citizens of Ladonia, Luke was having having a ball. Well, a concert, anyway.
Forgotten Fishheads: Double Feature is, like Psycho Potpourri and several other FF CDs, a homemade product. It's a poorly engineered recording of the Dementia Smackdown Concert at Marscon 2004. Everybody seems to be having fun, but I guess you had to be there... hey, I was there for part of it! I can't, in good conscience, actually recommend the CD for anyone who wasn't there or isn't a completist, but it does have energy that isn't in produced recordings. Luke, Tony Goldmark, Shoebox of Worm Quartet and the Nick Atoms (among others) mix it up onstage. I can pretty much guarantee that many of the people featured on this disc will be a lot more well known in years to come, so you might as well jump on the bandwagon now. Also on the disk is the Tony Goldmark-written Behind the Looney: The Brak Story. A half hour of Space Ghost pseudo-history. I confess I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but what the heck.
Both the great Luke Ski and Baron Dave are now on Live Journal, and Luke announces his concerts and events in greater detail than his newsletter. (I just write the occasional entry and announce when convention pictures are up.)
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia with a radio show, a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E , and you can hear the last two Shockwave broadcasts in Real Audio (scroll down to Shockwave). Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
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Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Vigilante man: Mike Davis on the return of the vigilante (Working for Change)
A few years back, I attended a conference on the Vietnam War and, at one session, found myself listening to the college-age child of Cambodian refugees.
American Institute for Cancer Research
AICR is the cancer charity that fosters research on diet and cancer prevention and educates the public about the results.
AICR Fits Dietary Guidelines onto the Plate
Better a Plate than a Pyramid, Experts Say
Animal Sounds
A Thailand Beach
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, breezy day.
Lost almost a third of the tomato plants to snails.
VCR/DVR ALERT
On most NBC stations there is a late-night rerun of 'Jay Leno', usually after 'Carson Daly'. They are reruns of last weeks shows.
Last Monday night was when 'Bright Eyes' performed When The President Talks To God, so unless NBC is censoring, tonight's late-night rerun of 'Jay Leno' (the one after 'Carson Daly'), rates saving.
Man Killed For A Nickel
Aquarium of the Pacific
A Long Beach marine patrol officer shot and killed a homeless man near the fountain in front of the crowded Aquarium of the Pacific Saturday afternoon after the transient threatened him by swinging a bike chain, authorities said.
The officer, whose name was withheld, approached the homeless man at about 3:51 p.m. in an effort to dissuade him from rifling for recyclables in a trash can near the refreshment stand at the aquarium's entrance, said LBPD Officer Israel Ramirez.
"The marine officer told him to stop, but the subject ignored the officer's order," Ramirez said.
The man went to his bicycle to fetch a linked chain with a padlock attached to it. He began to swing it above his head while charging toward the officer, Ramirez said.
The officer fired several shots, but it is unknown how many bullets struck the transient, Ramirez said.
Visitors reportedly ducked and scattered when they heard gunfire, but no one else was injured.
Aquarium of the Pacific
Sure am glad priorities are in order here in Long Beach.
Killing a guy because he wouldn't stop looking for aluminium to recycle. Poking around for a can that would bring him a whole freaking nickel.
Opening fire at a crowded tourist attraction on a Saturday afternoon.
Had never considered a visit to the Aquarium could result in becoming collateral damage.
Outsourcing 'Star Wars'
George Lucas
George Lucas is bringing the force back to Sydney. The writer-director of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith confirmed he will bring production of a live-action television series to Sydney.
"I am looking forward to coming back and working there some more," Lucas told The Daily Telegraph.
"We're going to do a live action show based on minor characters in the Star Wars series.
Producer Rick McCallum said the move to Australia was mainly due to the Government recently extending its 12.5 per cent refundable tax offset for foreign films to large budget television series.
George Lucas
Thailand Pageant
Miss Tiffany Universe
At the Miss Tiffany Universe pageant - which boasts dozens of gorgeous, lithe, smooth-skinned contestants - one thing is undeniable: Thailand turns out some of the most beautiful transvestites and transsexuals in the world.
As contestants glided across the stage in glittering ball gowns Saturday night, one might never have guessed they were all born boys. Only when they open their mouths do their vocal cords reveal the truth.
Miss Tiffany's, one of the most famous all-male cabaret theaters, has held the annual beauty pageant since 1998 in a gaudy Roman-pillared white building in Pattaya.
Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist country, is widely tolerant of homosexuals, transvestites and transsexuals - one reason, perhaps, that men who opt for the transformation here are so stunning and convincing.
Miss Tiffany Universe
Shedding Light
Sex Researchers
From bondage to "breath play" and zoophilia, it's not easy keeping up with society's fast-developing sexual trends.
That's why some of North America's top sexologists are hunkered down with academics and therapists at a Fisherman's Wharf hotel this weekend: to swap findings about everything from teens with underwear fetishes to transgender couples.
"These couples have problems that I didn't know how to deal with," said Olga Perez Stable Cox, president of the Western U.S. region of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. "You have to understand the culture, otherwise you're an outsider, and you don't get it."
The theme for the society's four-day conference is "Unstudied, Understudied And Underserved Sexual Communities." Presentations range from discussions from autoerotic asphyxiation, or "breath play," to zoophiles, or animal lovers, to more mainstream topics like sex motives of dating partners.
Sex Researchers
Getting Biblical
Anne Rice
Vampires are usually her passion, but Anne Rice is getting biblical in her next book, due out in November from publisher Random House. "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" will tell the story of Jesus' early years in his own words.
Excerpts of a lengthy letter that will accompany advance review copies of the book this summer are published in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine.
"For over 10 years I've wanted to do this book - Jesus in his own words," Rice writes. "For five years, I've been obsessed with how to do it, and for the last three years I've been consumed with nothing else."
"I'm not a priest," Rice also writes in the letter. "I can't be one. I'll never be able to go to the altar of the Lord and say the words of consecration at Mass, `This is my body. This is my blood.' No, I can't work that magnificent Eucharistic miracle. But in humility, I have attempted something transformative which we writers dare to call a miracle in the imperfect human idiom we possess. It's to bring Him here in the form a story, and that story is Christ The Lord."
Anne Rice
New Hampshire Education
Isabel Gottlieb
A decision to take Advanced Placement biology instead of gym will cost a Bow High School senior her diploma, but it won't keep her from going to college in the fall.
Though Isabel Gottlieb is a good student, a trumpet player in the school band and holds varsity letters in three sports, she discovered last fall she was one gym class shy of having enough credits to graduate next month.
She asked for a waiver, but the school wouldn't budge, telling her instead she had to drop a class to take gym.
The missing credit wasn't caught by the school last spring when Gottlieb's schedule was set. The class in question is called BEST, or Building Essential Skills for Tomorrow, and is required for all Bow students to graduate.
Gottlieb added the class last year after the school told her she had to take it, but then dropped it when she found out it was too much on top of classes she was already taking, including two Advanced Placement classes and calculus.
Isabel Gottlieb
In Memory
Herb Sargent
Herb Sargent, a former writer and producer for "Saturday Night Live" and president of the Writers Guild of America East, has died of a heart attack. He was 81.
Sargent worked for 20 years at the NBC comedy, where he was a creator of "Weekend Update." The newscast spoof takes an irreverent look at current events and was first hosted by Chevy Chase. Sargent's death Friday was announced Saturday on SNL.
Before working at SNL, Sargent worked at the "Tonight" show with Steve Allen and with Johnny Carson. He also worked on television specials for Bing Crosby, Milton Berle, Perry Como, Sammy Davis Jr., Alan King, Paul McCartney, Lily Tomlin and Burt Bacharach. He won six Emmy Awards and six Writers Guild Awards.
Sargent was raised in Upper Darby, Pa. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, graduated from UCLA and worked in production at the Circle Theater. He moved to New York, where he began as a writer for radio.
Herb Sargent
