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From 'TBH Politoons'
Great Site!
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Review
Dr. Demento
By Dave Romm
Okay, I admit it, I'm a sucker for this stuff, and I play it all the time on Shockwave. If anything, Dr. D doesn't go far enough. That's why I'm on the air...
Dr. Demento is the Mad Magazine of the radio, corrupting young and old since 1970. In the music biz, odd, funny, unusual songs are called "novelty" numbers; the concept goes waaaay back and slopped over into recorded music Over the years, Dr. Demento has collected some of his favorites (and the ones he could get the rights to) in CDs. While you can get some of them at other various online shops, probably quicker, the most complete collection is from the Dr. Demento web site catalog.
He's released 20th Anniversary and 25th Anniversary and 30th Anniversary 2-CD sets. While I appreciate the effort, there's a lot of redundancy between the 20th and 25th and I think the 20th Anniversary collection is better. It has, and the 25th doesn't: Dead Puppies, Cocktails for Two, Existential Blues, Star Trekkin' and Witch Doctor. The 25th repeats many of my least favorite cuts but does have Highly Illogical and Tip-Toe Through the Tulips With Me. The 30th has less redundancy, and does have Bulbous Bouffand, Dead Skunk, I'm The Urban Spaceman, and Lumberjack Song among others. Frankly, I think he should just give up and put out a 5-CD set of everything, and add on as necessary. In the meantime, get the 20th and 30th, and maybe one or two of the individual ones (below).
Dr. Demento's Country Corn is a good collection, and his Christmas collection has both A Christmas Carol by Tom Lehrer and Green Chri$tma$ by Stan Freeberg, as well as Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer and All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth instantly making it worthy if you don't have these songs individually. This is No. 6 in a series of CDs, no longer listed on his site. You can get cassettes of compilations of songs by decades, which can be fun but I tend not to catalog the songs that way. Being a member of the Demento Society is kind of amusing, but you don't get all that much; maybe it's gotten better since I joined (a looong time ago).
Also available off that catalog is a 3 CD set of Tom Lehrer, including his songs from The Electric Company. Ah, I should generate a Wish List... I have a bunch of Spike Jones, but the 2-CD collection listed here would be a marvelous place to start if you don't have any. The Ray Stevens collection has all my favorites, and Stan Freeberg may be an acquired taste, but if you're going to acquire it, start with The United States of America Vols 1 and 2.
I just picked up The Very Best of Dr. Demento (one of the premiums available during our Pledge Drive! Become a member of KFAI-FM Fresh Air Radio today, and tell 'em you're pledging to Shockwave, and we'll send you an interesting CD as well as a mug and... excuse me, I'm getting carried away...) issued for his 30th Anniversary in 2000 that is an interesting update of The Greatest Novelty CD of All Time from 1988 that doesn't seem to be available anymore. Well, there's a lot of redundancy including Dead Puppies, They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!, Poinoning Pigeons In the Park and so on, but I'm just as happy to have The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun and Monster Mash and Purple People Eater on the older one as I am to have Bulbous Bouffant and My Dead Dog Rover and Don't Eat the Yellow Snow andMarvin I Love You on the newer one. Both come with nice booklets with descriptions of the songs and artists. Since you can only the newer one, making a recommendation is easy, but see above about issuing a more massive project. Oh well, maybe there are problems with rights.
If you don't recognize most of these songs... what the heck are you waiting for? Especially if you have kids, circa 9-15, these are the songs that will linger long after Britney Spears is consigned to the used toy bin. If you just want to get your feet wet (novelty songs aren't for everyone), then the Very Best is a single CD start. If you get hooked, well, Dr. Demento has a weekly radio show, not heard in many places of the country (including here, darn it) but you can find out if you have a local station here and he has a few of the more recent shows here in Real Audio (I assume this changes from week to week) and if it's possible to listen to the show over the radio after the latest decision about music fees over the net, it'll be listed here.
Dave Romm is a conceptual artist with a radio show and a web site and a very weird CD collection. He reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E here.
Reader Review
'Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones'
By David L
In the new Star Wars installment George Lucas acknowledges John Ford's classic "The Searchers" in one scene copied straight from the 1950's movie.
The scene shows Anikin Skywalker dropping off a cliff at dawn to sneak into the Tuscan Raider campsite. It is a recreation of the scene from "The Searchers" which has Jeffrey Hunter dropping from a cliff at dawn to sneak into the Commanche campsite. I loved it.
The movie is a big improvement over "The Phantom Menace". The dialogue is clunky but the imagery of the film is beautiful. The climactic ending has many images that reminded me of the cover artwork from sci-fi mags and paperbacks from the 50's to the 80's. They seem to be missing from magazine shelves these days. Lots of beautiful pastel colors, no doubt partly inspired from Ford's equally beautiful film.
There is also the imagery of the clones riding in their helicopter like craft eerily reminiscent of American GI's riding in Hueys in Vietnam. The seeds of "Star Wars" were germinated from the Vietnam War. Lucas said he originally wanted to show a humble tree hugging people (N. Vietnamese) overcoming a technically superior army (U.S.). Anyway a good movie, very much in the vein of the excellent "The Empire Strikes Back".
From Filmsite.Org:
< snip> ''
The Searchers (1956) is considered by many to be a true American masterpiece of filmmaking, and the best and perhaps most-admired film of director John Ford. With
dazzling on-location photography (including the stunning rock formations of Monument Valley) by Winton C. Hoch, the film handsomely captures the beauty and isolating
danger of the frontier. However, at its time, the sophisticated film was unrecognized by critics and did not receive a single Academy Award nomination. ''
P.S. Oh yeah! The Searchers (1956) is my favorite John Wayne movie, but John Wayne is not my favorite actor. There is
something about John Wayne that makes you want to punch the arrogant, sometimes whiny, bastard in the nose. I think
John Ford recognized this qaulity about Wayne and used it to good effect in "The Searchers". Go rent it. Great movie.
~~ David L
Conservatism never moves the country forward.
Liberalism moves the country forward.
Great work, David! Thanks!
Reader Concern
Woodstock Site Threatened
From Lorena
Original Woodstock site threatened by corporate interests
In Bethel, NY, the town where the original Woodstock festival took place in
1969, is now being threatened by corporate interests who want to bulldoze the
site and turn it into a tourist/commercialized area for those who wish to see
the site where the legendary event took place. We can put a stop to this if
enough people are aware of it. Pass the word around...
The Woodstock Preservation Alliance
~~ Lorena
Thanks, Lorena!
Reader Movie Reviews
Curdling Compilation
From Joe Bacon
I LOVED Spiderman.
I¹m recovering from Star Bores...
Note the curdling comments complied by
THE STINKERS!
With lines like this, who needs to write another bad review of a dreadful
dump of a film?????
Critics blast latest Star Wars sequel
New York Times: "A chance for gifted actors to be handsomely paid for
delivering the worst line-readings of their careers."
Los Angeles Times: "The plot is standard, and the dialogue is curiously
flat. It ranges from the pious to the predictive to the pathetic. ...
Creating emotion is beyond this film's powers. The script feels like
something George Lucas threw together in his spare time."
Foxnews.com: "Hideous dialogue, bad plotting and infomercial-grade acting."
Hollywood Reporter: "The movie is plagued by bad acting."
New York Times: "Don't believe the hype."
Newsweek: "A decidedly mixed bag."
CNN: "It's a mixed bag, but not as dreadfully mixed as the last one."
Entertainment Weekly: "And yet here we are again: not entertained, not
nearly enough. C+"
ChicagoTribune: "The new 'Star Wars' installment hasn't escaped the rut dug
by the last one."
Newsday: "Hayden Christensen gives the kind of whiny, irritating performance
that would get most actors thrown out of 'Dawson's Creek,' much less a
billion-dollar enterprise like 'Star Wars.' And yet, there he is, as pretty
as Portman and easily as useless."
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: "'Attack of the Clones' is a technological
exercise that lacks juice and delight. The title is more appropriate than it
should be."
Los Angeles Daily News: "It remains something of a cosmic letdown to watch
this new film and realize that Lucas still doesn't know how to write
dialogue or direct flesh-and-blood actors and, even more significantly, has
largely forgotten how to evoke wonder and have a little fun. He has missed
an opportunity to right his sinking franchise."
Village Voice: "The screenplay would make Buster Crabbe call for a rewrite."
The Stinkers.com: "Anakin's 'masturbation' scene nearly brought the house
down at the screening we attended. It is easily one of the biggest
unintentional laughs in film history. While 'Clones' is a drastic
improvement on 'Phantom Menace' (thankfully, the reviled Jar Jar Binks has
been all but muted this time around), the film suffers from dreadful acting,
far too few action sequences to keep our attention for 2 hours and 20
minutes, and a squirm-in-your-seat love story with some of the most
self-conscious and inane dialogue ever uttered inside a modern cinema."
Joe Bacon
Thanks, Joe!
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The new hibiscus is so happy it's blooming! And the dirt hole that's becoming a garden is doing well,
too. Lettuce is up enough to be thinned. The tomatoes & peppers are happy. Even the watermelons are perking along.
For some reason, the birds like to dump on the oregano. Sunflowers are up 2". Jeez, enough of the freaking farm report.
Watched the so-called 'season finale' of the 'Simpsons'....turns out there's another fresh episode scheduled for
Wednesday night, as the prelude to 'Celebrity Boxing 2'.
Stuck around for the 'X-Files'. The series may be over, but the franchise is still available.
It's pretty much 'season finale' night. On CBS, 2 fresh episodes of 'King Of Queens', the 2nd one
being the season finale. Then, the last fresh episodes of 'Raymond' and 'Becker' for this season. Finally, it's
'48 Hours'.
Scheduled on a fresh Dave are Hilary Swank, Vecepia `Vee' Towery (winner from 'Survivor') & the Firecrackers.
Scheduled on a fresh Craiggers are Kiefer Sutherland, Alyson Hannigan and Cee-Lo.
NBC has a 90-minute season finale of 'Fear Factor' followed by 90 minutes of '20 Years Of Must See TV'.
Scheduled on a fresh Jay are Freddie Prinz, Jr., Bill O'Really, and Bryan Adams.
On the traditional Conan Monday night rerun, it's John McEnroe, Lauren Graham and Jaguares.
Scheduled on a fresh Carson Daly are Kiefer Sutherland and Cold.
ABC bails the night and has the movie 'Enemy Of The State'.
Scheduled on a fresh Bill Maher Adam Carolla ('The Man Show' Host), Chely Wright (Recording Artist), Sheryl Lee Ralph (Actress), and Michael Medved (Movie Critic).
The WB has the 'season finales', with the last fresh episodes of '7th Heaven' and 'Angel', for this season.
Faux has the season finale, last fresh, episode of 'Boston Public' for this year. It's followed by the last fresh episode of
'Ally McBeal', ever.
The UPN has 4 fresh season ending episodes of 'The Hughleys', 'One On One', 'The Parkers' and 'Girlfriends'.
On TCM is a favorite, and an important one, too - A Face In The Crowd (1957).
Directed by Elia Kazan, and written by
Budd Schulberg. Cast against type, Andy Griffith (as Larry ''Lonesome'' Rhodes), is amazing. The main themes
are mass manipulation, the media (TV in particular), and politics. This movie should not be missed!
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Speeds Toward Finale
'24'
Will CIA agent Jack Bauer save his daughter from the clutches of the Serbian terrorists?
Will presidential candidate David Palmer avoid disaster after two assassination attempts and the deceptions of his scheming wife?
Will Nina Myers, Jack's fellow agent and supposed defender, get what she deserves for covertly plotting against him?
Will Jack, after 24 hours of helter-skelter peril, get some shut-eye?
Familiar rhythms are absent from "24." There is never a break. No sleep, no awakening. No fade-ins or fade-outs. Just the fearsome rush of time, often flashing
on the screen like a digital compulsion.
As a wild ride, "24" has been a resounding success, even if the things that make it right seemed wrong to some viewers after Sept. 11. It surely isn't comfort-food TV.
Now the end (11 p.m. to midnight) is in sight.
"The day will be over, the story will come to an end — it's not a cliffhanger," pledges Sutherland. "It's a hard ending, but I think it will be satisfying on a lot of different levels."
Not that even he knew how it comes out until two weeks ago.
"Various endings were being considered, and when we started shooting, I said, 'Look, which one are we committing to?' And they said, 'We think this one.' But I
looped (did voiceovers for) three different endings."
After the end? "24" still won't be over. Despite its 89th-place ranking this season, it was renewed last week by Fox.
'24'
Big Dog Watch
Bill Clinton
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, left, hugs East Timor President-elect Xanana Gusmao on the tarmac of Dili airport as he arrives for the evening celebrations
Sunday, May 19, 2002. On May 20, East Timor will celebrate it's official independence from Indonesia after 24 years of occupation.
Photo by Wally Santana
Visits Thailand Refugee Camp
Angelina Jolie
Oscar winner Angelina Jolie flew by helicopter into Western Thailand Sunday to witness living conditions at a refugee camp and make donations for thousands
of refugees from neighboring Myanmar.
Jolie, who has been in northern Thailand filming a romantic adventure about relief workers, traveled to the camp in her role as Goodwill Ambassador for
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Wearing a blue U.N. cap and sandals, Jolie toured Tham Hin's classrooms and job training facilities. Later she put on a traditional ethnic dress given to her at the camp.
The camp was established in 1997 and houses about 9,000 predominantly ethnic Karen refugees.
In addition to financial support, Jolie offered soccer balls, volleyball nets, an audio system for training programs and 4,000 sarongs for female refugees.
Angelina Jolie
'Survivor' Winner
Vecepia `Vee' Towery
Vecepia "Vee" Towery has joined the small but growing "Survivor" millionaires' club.
Towery, a 36-year-old office manager from Portland, Ore., beat Neleh Dennis, a 21-year-old psychology student from Layton, Utah., after the parchment ballots were
tallied live at the conclusion of CBS' "Survivor 4" Sunday night.
For winning the competition, which was taped during 39 days in the South Pacific's Marquesas Islands, Towery takes home the $1 million prize.
It's the first "Survivor" with women as the two finalists. Both were outspoken in their Christian faith during the series, and were condemned by some rivals as "Bible-thumpers."
Though hardly the ratings or cultural blockbuster of the original "Survivor," which aired during the summer of 2000, "Survivor: Marquesas" was the
eighth-rated series during the 2001-02 season.
A fifth "Survivor" series, expected to be set in Thailand, is scheduled to premiere this fall.
Vecepia "Vee" Towery
Someone's Not Being Accurate
Stamos - Stern
John Stamos has stopped tuning into Howard Stern's radio show because the shock jock told listeners he'd gotten a topless dance from the actor's wife, Rebecca
Romjin-Stamos, during a wild get-together at his apartment. "We didn't get naked and do all those crazy things Howard talked about on air," Stamos, the star of
"Cabaret," says in Steppin' Out magazine. "In fact, since he said those things, I can't even listen to the show anymore." Stern claims Stamos hit on his girlfriend,
Beth Ostrosky, but Stamos declares, "That never happened . . . That just never happened."
Stamos - Stern
Fun Link
Groupie Central
Groupie Central
More Big Dog Watch
Bill Clinton
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton (L) is greeted by East Timorese president-elect Xanana Gusmao and his wife Kirsty arrival in Dili's Comoro airport May 19, 2002.
Clinton is one of the many VIP's arriving in the territory to witness tonight's independence day celebrations.
Photo by Lirio da Fonseca
Wants to Preserve Wetland
Beau Bridges
Actor Beau Bridges wants to preserve the sandy fringe of a wetland in southern California.
Bridges, who is president of an environmental group called Ventura Coast Keeper, urged the state Coastal Conservancy to buy 265 acres of land near
Oxnard that is being sought by a petroleum company.
His plea came less than a week before the Coastal Conservancy is to decide whether to acquire the land that also is being sought by the Occidental
Petroleum Corp. for the West Coast's first liquefied natural gas receiving terminal.
Occidental's plant would provide some of the natural gas that runs the machinery producing the state's electricity.
Beau Bridges
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Returns To Berlin
Zeppelin
The zeppelin airship, once a symbol of German power and grace in the skies, is back above Berlin.
It's been a long time.
The last, pre-war zeppelin flights over Berlin came amid a blaze of national pride and celebration, cruising the skies during the 1936 Olympics
which the Nazis used to showcase the Third Reich.
In recent years, the descendent of the Zeppelin company has developed a new, smaller air ship, this time using helium rather than the flammable hydrogen of
pre-war zeppelins. The Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei GmbH started taking tourists for hour-long rides last summer over Lake Constance at 335 euros a go.
The limited run of Berlin flights start at Tempelhof Airport, itself a masterwork of Third Reich architecture dating back to the old zeppelin's heyday. Only
12 passengers fit in the new zeppelin, a fraction of the number that could ride the original with its sleeping compartments and elegant dining room.
The new zeppelin's 45-minute tourist flights will continue until May 27, when the airship returns to its base on Lake Constance where 4,500 passengers have
flown since the inaugural flights last year.
In the future, the company hopes to bring tourist zeppelins to other European cities such Paris, London and Venice.
For more, Zeppelin
Directing Off-Broadway
Stanley Donen
Veteran film director Stanley Donen is making a rare foray into theater by helming the world premiere of Elaine May's "Adult Entertainment," an Off Broadway comedy about the porn industry.
The six-character play begins rehearsals in August or September ahead of a fall bow. Casting and theater have not been announced. The last New York credit for 78-year-old Donen was the
short-lived stage version of "The Red Shoes" in 1993.
Stanley Donen
BartCop TV!
Guanajuato, Mexico
Mummies
Two mummies are displayed at the Mummy Museum in Guanajuato, Mexico, on Saturday, May 18, 2002. The museum displays mummies more than one hundred years
old that were naturally preserved by the mineral rich soil of this former silver and gold mining region.
Photo by Marco Ugarte
All Bets Are Off
John Wayne Bobbitt
John Wayne Bobbitt's latest round of female trouble doesn't surprise his former employer, Dennis Hof, owner of Nevada's Moonlight Bunny Ranch. In fact, the brothel's
boss was taking bets from his customers that it would happen.
Three lucky winners picked May 13, the day Bobbitt was arrested after his third wife, Joanna Ferrell, alleged that he had assaulted her and pushed her to the ground
during a skirmish. While Bobbitt awaits his May 28 hearing at Las Vegas' Clark County Detention Center, Hof says he's in touch with Ferrell.
"We're [inviting] the wife to come out to the Bunny Ranch," he tells us. "She doesn't have money to pay the rent."
Bobbitt's relationship with his ex-boss went downhill after Hof found out his driver was dating Bunny Ranch girls. Then, in 1999, Bobbitt skipped town, although Hof had
posted a $10,000 bond after the former adult-film star was arrested for a clothing-store con. (He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years probation.)
Hof says that's when his sympathies ran out. "He had a tough run, but he makes his own trouble. "
John Wayne Bobbitt
'Dr' Laura Sound Bites
Thanks, BartCop
Left Click Here to Download 'Memory 1'
Left Click Here to Download 'Memory 2'
Left Click Here to Download 'Memory 3'
Left Click Here to Download 'Buttplugs'
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Still Seeking Volunteers
'The Osbournes'
Page 2 !
Put up a page devoted to 'The Osbournes'
C'mon....send your thoughts, your impressions, your views, your favorite quotes...
Scroll down for lots of addys to pick from (or 'from which to pick', for the truly anal retentive).
