'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
The Android Sisters
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater Podcast now up and running! All podcasts also on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Tom Lopez aka Meatball Fulton, has been running the non-profit ZBS Foundation for over 35 years. He writes and produces radio comedy/drama and gets his money from grants, licensing broadcast rights and sale of CDs. I worked with him during his Guest of Honor stint at Minicon 32. By then, he was something of a legend in the audio biz.
I first heard The Fourth Tower of Inverness in the 70s: Three minute (plue or minus) little radio playlets with an overall story arc. I never really followed the story and to this day don't know what the heck was going on, but that's not important. Back then, audio was on vinyl. Records were large, unwieldy, easy-to-scratch and required non-portable equipment to generate audio. Ah, the bad ol' days. Shockwave got the rights to play the first series of Ruby, The Galactic Gumshoe. Originally, Ruby was structured as three minute playlets, 65 cuts designed to be aired one a day for five days over 13 weeks. Back then Shockwave was an hour, and we aired fived episodes during the show. Again, I never did actually figure out the plot, or even if there was one, but it was all so weird and often absorbing. Some of the episodes were better then others, imrho, and the episodes were disjointed enough that I didn't think the order mattered very much. We had the rights for a time period, not a set number of play times, and we finished airing Ruby I with time to spare. I instituted The Random Ruby, where we would play semi-random episodes, trying to pick our favorites but never playing from the same week twice in a row even if we weren't sure. It was loads of fun and we did Random Rubies for Ruby 2 and beyond.
But I digress.
Ruby introduced The Android Sisters. Two breathlessly erotic metallic women who sound like Marilyn Monroe carefully overdubbing herself. "This is Angel." "This is Angel." "We are the Android Sisters. We are solid-state. This is the future." For me, the Android Sisters' few appearances were the highlight of Ruby, and I wanted more. Tom Lopez isn't in it for the money, but he is a terrific marketeer, and 1984 saw The Android Sisters record, Songs of Electronic Despair. They aren't really songs, they're the two sisters gushing out lyrics in a stoically orgasmics way (!) over an electronic music bed. They're referred to as speak-songs, in the tradition of talking blues or songs like Alice's Restaurant or A Boy Named Sue. I got the record (which I still have) and taped it so I could play it on the air frequently. But alas, no CD.
ZBS issued a CD of The Android Sisters Greatest Hits, containing many songs from the record and adding some of the Ruby appearances. But it didn't have my favorite song! The one I played on the air the most and the main cut I've put on mix tapes for kids is Dumb Is Fun. I tried writing Tom for a digital copy, but alas. My wait was long.
Finally, the Japanese came to my rescue, republishing all the tracks of the record plus five from Ruby in The Best of the Android Sisters. It's an odd CD in many ways. Not only is it the most expensive CD I've ever bought ($22), but it comes with a 48 page booklet in English and Japanese that's so thick that the CD crystal case has to be larger than usual and I can't file the CD in any standard slot. I'm sure it's a better deal if you read Japanese, though it's nice to have the lyrics in English. I wouldn't recommend the import if you only care about the one song, but I'm pickled tink to hear Dumb Is Fun on a CD and the other songs hold up. Down on the Electronic Farm is an Old MacDonald variant. Telephone Wires In The Tropics is an hilarious combination of titilation and sound effects. The extra cuts from Ruby are fun as well, including Elephants & Donkeys, a political commentary that presages the next CD. ZBS's audio productions are supremely well crafted and decades later sound out of the ordinary. All of them are iPod worthy. The Android Sisters are the top of that food chain, as far as I'm concerned. While I have reservations about recommending an expensive CD, I highly recommend this one and wouldn't mind if you went with the Greatest Hits CD with more cuts from Ruby but sans Dumb is Fun.
The Android Sisters are best when they're on the edge or just over. Their smoldering pre-coital double-entendres (or should that be soldering free-coil binary innuendo?) make a bold futuristic technical statement without needing much more than a good hook. Still, any artist must dispair of the political situation today, and Meatball Fulton is not one to drop the ball. 2003's Pull No Punches pulls no punches. "If you support the policies of the president and his administration, don't buy this. But if you are less than delighted with Pres & Co., then get this ... you're going to hoot and stomp your feet and slap the side of your head. It's pretty hot stuff." The description on the web site is hype, but basically correct. Frankly, I think a little bit more subtlety and cleverness would have served the cause greater, but if you're going to vent your spleen it's really great to have androids on your side. Not all the cuts work, but some hit home. Holy Moly is about "The Fourth Crusade" and the relious/economic aspect of the war in Iraq. Hey, Monster Maker is about the conservative news media making demons of the administration's enemies but giving a pass to the uncaring Republicans.
Pull No Punches isn't particularly stfnal or weird, but many of the tracks are iPw for those of us who like being reminded that we're not alone in an over-hyped micro-managed media world. Since most everyone reading this is less gullible than most everyone who still approves of No Balls Bush, I'll give the CD a recommendation.
Serenity takes place after the events of the tv show Firefly. The opening sequence explains much that the show didn't have time to fill in. Then the regular characters pick up a little after we last saw them. Fans of the show will like Serenity. A lot.
The opening sequence gives newcomers most of the backstory. The characters are introduced as much as they need be in the next sequence. If you've never seen the tv show, you'll like Serenity. A lot.
The tv show was a Western in space, chronicling the adventures of a rootin'-shootin' cowboy with a brittle edge but a heart of gold. The movie is a science fiction saga of individual rights and courage vs. a controlling and repressive government. On tv, the characters are simple but the plot complex; you can only reveal so much in an hour but over many episodes the characters flesh out and the story arc builds slowly. In a movie, the characters are complex but the plot is simple; you quickly introduce quirky people and place them in situations the audience can relate to before they have to run to the bathroom.
As a fan of the show, perhaps I was closer to the characters than someone who walks in cold. I was very affected by Serenity. It seemed damn near perfect. Now, several days later, after mulling it over a bit and reading other reviews, it's not so perfect. But it's damn close. The danger is thinking it's an episode of Firefly (they can't use the name because Fox has tied up the rights).
Serenity is a movie, not a tv show. For those of you who pay attention to such things, watch the first sequence on Firefly, under the opening credits and beyond. Most of it is one long take. Joss Whedon is the director as well as the writer of the movie, and he's probably just made his reputation in the former as high as the latter.
Notice how back story gets filled in: The opening and denouement both use flashbacks that repeat. Notice how the characters are comfortable in their own skin. Whedon is famous for his dialog, and while there's not so much offhand humor there is a lot of character development. The sound and dialog are as important as the visuals. Several lines of dialog are going to wind up in the pop lexicon, so you might as well see the context.
The downside is that Serenity has a great deal more back story and character development than can fit in two and a half hours. Whedon does a great job, but the movie is far more powerful if you're invested in the characters. And while Serenity answers a lot of questions raised in Firefly, it also raises a few more. Sequel(s) anyone? Generally, that's a plus and it's a plus here, but it does serve to remind us that the story arc is not finished. While I hope for more movies from Joss Whedon, I hope he has learned the lesson of The Matrix: Making bad sequels can tarnish the original.
Serenity works as both a continuation of the tv show and as a powerful standalone movie. Highly recommended. Coming out of the theater I had a more favorable impression but I'm still going to rate it very high. At the moment, on the Shockwave Radio Theater scale of 9 to 23, with 23 being top, I'd give Serenity about a 21, maybe next week it'll be down to about a 20 depending on how I cynical feel about the ending. So Serenity is either one of the best science fiction movies ever made, or merely one of the better ones. You should see it.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia with a radio show, a Live Journal demi-blog, 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
Mark Engler: Hook, Line and Suckers (inthesetimes.com)
In early 2003 the New York Times Magazine announced the arrival of a new echelon of the unemployed with a cover story that pictured an aging ex-dot-commer and noted, "This man used to make $300,000 a year. Now he's selling khakis."
Phoebe Connelly: Witnesses to War: Military families bring the cost of war to students (inthesetimes.com)
At 7:45 am on the second day of school, Karen Meredith, a founding member of Gold Star Families For Peace, sat in front of a senior sociology class at Thomas Kelly High School on Chicago's south side. "I am not anti-military, my son was a fourth generation army officer," she told the class. "But I believe that this administration is not using the military in a way many of us in this country think they should."
Molly Ivins: The DeLay Defense
The troubled speaker attacks the prosecutor, then signs up a defense dream team.
Robert Jensen: Empathy is the First Ingredient (The Progressive. Posted on alternet.org)
Acclaimed Texas folk singer Eliza Gilkyson is a unique combination of heart, soul and progressive political vision.
Deborah Jowitt: A Star Dances (villagevoice.com)
Obviously, crawling isn't the only means of locomotion in the hour-long solo. Anyone making a dance about a cripple inevitably has to focus on the character's inner, more mobile life. So [Claire] Danes, legs striking out, races around the room, now forward, now backward. ... Make no mistake: She's a dancer.
Another Rant
Avery Ant
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Eyes of Fern Holland
Just one of the thousands of consequences George W has wrought - with thousands more to follow!
Purple Gene Reviews
Eliza Gilkyson
Purple Gene's review of Singer/Songwriter Eliza Gilkyson:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and cooler.
Dear old Dad called this morning from Arizona. The Babe's daughter was in a motorcycle accident and is in a coma, so it's a mission of mercy, as opposed to a spur-of-the-moment vacation.
She was on the back of the bike, not wearing a helmet, when a wall jumped out. The driver has only minor injuries.
The Babe remains at the hospital, waiting, and dear old Dad is babysitting the daughter's 2 daughters back at the house.
Walking Short Distances
Roy Horn
Roy Horn says "the magic is back." But two years after he was nearly killed by a tiger on stage, the magic is about walking short distances, not making elephants disappear.
"I meditate a lot, but I am constantly in pain," Horn, of the famed duo "Siegfried & Roy," told the Las Vegas Sun. "I'm trying to live with this."
Horn can now walk unaided for short distances, and the grip of his right hand is noticeably firm. But signs of the attack remain: A thin white scar cuts across the right side of his neck, his left side is partially paralyzed and his walk is a slow shuffle.
Roy Horn
Singer Marries Ex-Ukraine PM's Daughter
Tymoshenko - Carr
A British heavy metal singer married the daughter of Ukraine's ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Sunday in a ceremony that attracted a swarm of journalists and at least 100 well-wishers eager for a glimpse of the famous mother-in-law.
Sean Carr, 36, lead singer of the Death Valley Screamers, and Evhenya Tymoshenko, 25, emerged from the walled Vydubitskiy Monastery to a salute of ringing bells and Scottish bagpipes - and the flash of dozens of cameras.
Carr smashed his glass down on the pavement, prompting applause from his new mother-in-law, Yulia Tymoshenko, who abandoned her traditional halo braid and wore her long blonde hair loose over her bare shoulders.
Tymoshenko - Carr
Life-Saving Photog
Mark Biello
Journalism may be the only profession where someone who helped save more than a dozen lives felt compelled to reassure his bosses that his time was well spent.
The night after Hurricane Katrina struck, veteran CNN photographer Mark Biello brought back vivid images of New Orleans residents rescued from floodwaters that chased them to roofs or attics. Some he pulled into a boat himself.
Biello, 44, has worked for CNN since 1983 and been to 81 countries, recording famine, disaster and the bombs that flew over Baghdad in the first Gulf War. But even he was shocked by what he saw from a New Orleans highway overpass.
Mark Biello
Works on Sitcom for ABC
Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge says she's working on a sitcom. The show, still in development with ABC, is about "what my life might have been like had I not left to find my fame and fortune, and stayed in Kansas and became a teacher and been gay and dealt with life there," Etheridge told Time magazine.
The two-time Grammy winner says she doesn't want to rely on touring to make a living, and a television show would allow her to "be home for dinner."
Melissa Etheridge
Firemen Used For Photo Op
$chwarzenegger
At a time when he has been at odds with firefighters and other public employee unions, Gov. Arnold $chwarzenegger (R-Philanderer) was greeted warmly by dozens of uniformed emergency workers Friday when he visited crews battling wildfires near Los Angeles.
After inspecting thousands of scorched acres by helicopter, the Republican governor shook hands and posed for pictures with a crowd of firefighters, police and other emergency workers at a command center.
The cordial visit stood in contrast with large protests in recent months, in which firefighters and other union members have harshly criticized $chwarzenegger's proposals on pensions and other issues.
$chwarzenegger
Composer Cracks Musical Code
Rosslyn Chapel
A musical code hidden in mystical symbols carved into the stone ceiling of Rosslyn Chapel has been unravelled for the first time in more than 500 years.
Scottish composer Stuart Mitchell took 20 years to crack a complex series of codes, which have mystified historians for generations. His feat was hailed by experts as a stroke of genius.
The codes were hidden in 213 cubes in the ceiling of the chapel, where parts of the film of Dan Brown's best-seller The Da Vinci Code were shot this week.
Each cube contained different patterns to form an unusual 6½-minute piece of music for 13 medieval players. The unusual sound is thought to have been of great spiritual significance to those who built the chapel.
Rosslyn Chapel
Man Breaks Display Case
Pennsylvania Evening Post
A man smashed a display case at the Wisconsin Historical Society to steal a Revolutionary War-era book worth $5,000, authorities say.
Matthew Brooke, 26, was charged Friday with felony theft of library materials and criminal damage to property. He went to the Historical Society on Thursday, according to a criminal complaint, and smashed the window on a second-floor antique display case with his elbow. He allegedly swiped the "Pennsylvania Evening Post" from inside the case.
Brooke told detectives he took the book because he wanted to read a story on page 106 about a historical figure named William Hill.
Pennsylvania Evening Post
Found With Deer
Missing Patient
A man who was reported missing from a hospital in Florida has been found in North Carolina.
The patient was dressed like a doctor and driving a stolen ambulance with a dead deer in the back.
Local police said said the deer was hooked up to an intravenous feed, with a recently used defibrillator lying by its chest. The patient is now under psychiatric care.
Missing Patient
In Memory
August Wilson
Playwright August Wilson, whose epic 10-play cycle chronicling the black experience in 20th-century America included such landmark dramas as "Fences" and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," died Sunday of liver cancer, a family spokeswoman said. He was 60.
Wilson's plays were big, often sprawling and poetic, dealing primarily with the effects of slavery on succeeding generations of black Americans: from turn-of-century characters who could remember the Civil War to a prosperous middle class at the end of the century who had forgotten the past.
The playwright's astonishing creation, which took more than 20 years to complete, was remarkable not only for his commitment to a certain structure - one play for each decade - but for the quality of the writing. It was a unique achievement in American drama. Not even Eugene O'Neill, who authored the masterpiece "Long Day's Journey Into Night," accomplished such a monumental effort.
Pittsburgh, Wilson's birthplace, is the setting for nine of the 10 plays in the cycle ("Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" is set in a Chicago recording studio). Although he lived in Seattle, the playwright had a great deal of affection for his hometown, especially "the Hill," a dilapidated area of the city where he spent much of his youth.
Wilson, a bulky, affable man who always had a story to tell, usually returned to Pittsburgh once a year to visit his mother's grave, but he said he couldn't live there: "Too many ghosts. But I love it. That's what gave birth to me."
Born Frederick August Kittel on April 27, 1945, he was one of six children of Frederick Kittel, a baker who had emigrated from Germany at the age of 10, and Daisy Wilson. A high school dropout, Wilson enlisted in the Army but left after a year, finding employment as a porter, short-order cook and dishwasher, among other jobs. When his father died in 1965, he changed his name to August Wilson.
Wilson was largely self-educated. The public library was his university and the recordings of such iconic singers and musicians as Bessie Smith and Jelly Roll Morton, and the paintings of such artists as Romare Bearden his inspiration.
Wilson, who was married three times, is survived by his wife, costume designer Constanza Romero; their daughter Azula Carmen, and another daughter, Sakina Ansari, from his first marriage.
August Wilson
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