From the realm of the unspeakably bad

I've been busy. Kind of. So postings have been slender around here. It's not like I get paid for this, but I can't leave it as is for days at a time. I just can't. It's like a drug with no high. Maybe the high is knowing I've enriched one person's life who was looking for that perfect link to Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot. Not that I've done that, but I have goals and I have dreams.

Next week, I'll work extra hard to realize my linking potential. I'll get up at 6:45 instead of 7:00 A.M. I'll skip lunch and I'll start in on that YA fantasy novel trilogy that I have yet to outline (or think about). I want to make it big with money and everything. I have to build a better toothbrush. I'm 45 and time no longer seems to stretch out indefinitely ahead, but is rather rapidly shrinking, like a pocket tape measure heading back into its holder. Which reminds me, I need to find my tape measure and put up those shelves in the family room.

These are the things that get stuck in my head when I'm stuck. They're not good things. They're my "what the fuck?" head things. I used to be a depressed sort with lots of negative internal dialogue going on. I've overcome that trait by making fun of the critical voice, or exaggerating it so much that it's like something out of a Grade Z monster movie (another way of making fun of it, plus it's entertaining). Now I get these little bits of junk media stuck in there instead and I can't mental floss them away until I accomplish those mysterious and obsessive goals that I set for myself (sometimes with no plan--intuitive OCD). I know I'm rambling so let's get to it. I hope you can overcome the stupid things and move on with your lives. I'm off to Grocery Outlet which is like a rummage sale of food. Very exciting.

This Lindsay Lohan Fornarina commercial is bad in a way that never leaves me entirely. It looks like she's reading cue cards, even though her lines consist of "click, pow, wink, bang..." It also looks like someone is off-screen telling her how to pose. She can't even lie down effectively. I hope the people who worked on this have recovered their sense of dignity by now.


More bad: Andy Warhol's Factory as portrayed in the movies. I always imagine working on these sets and watching the actors "get debauched," because these scenes always look like that: a bunch of people acting debauched. Like a rock show, it's impossible to film this scene in any kind of realistic way. It was probably really dull around the Factory most of the time. People working on art and lying around while someone yammered away without pause. If the yammerer was witty--fine. But how many speed freaks have you been stuck with who were witty? There's a few out there, but it's not a vast majority.

Oliver Stone used "wavy cam" in "The Doors" to give off the weirdo vibes. Nico is sort of like an escort-service girl. Jim Morrison can barely string sentences together. At least Stone got permission to use actual Velvet Underground songs, along with his take on the vampiric NYC bohos and a Native American medicine man, looking on disapprovingly. Crispin Glover is always appreciated for being genuinely odd.

"I Shot Andy Warhol" couldn't get the VU permissions, but attempts were made to get the Factory right until bad casting of Edie Sedgwick. This girl (at 4:20) is way too substantial to be Sedgwick, who was a wisp. This girl is from a Maybelline commercial.


"Basquiat"--David Bowie can't lose his British accent while playing Andy, who was from working-class Pittsburgh. Good wig though.


You'd think he would have studied up, having met the man.


"Factory Girl" immortalized the phrase, "You're the boss, applesauce," which isn't a very impressive legacy, for all the attempts at veracity, which end abruptly at the introduction of the unnamed Musician. I don't have to say anything more than Hayden Christensen is Bob Dylan.


Take a lesson from Ms. Cate Blanchett--perhaps the ultimate Dylan impersonator. I like her drug-addled nasty Dylan in "I'm Not There." (Not officially in my unspeakably bad pantheon, although some of this movie did grate).


Peter's voice in Time To Change. I don't care what Greg thinks--this ruined the song.


Here's that Johnny Sokko clip so I can cross it off my "to do" list.