X-Ray Spex

You know who I feel sorry for? Sky Saxon, that's who

2009-06-26T08:38:00.002-05:00

With 1970s icon Farrah Fawcett and 1980s icon Michael Jackson dying in the same day, it's not like obscure 1960s garage rock icon Sky Saxon of The Seeds is going to get any attention in the media, so I'm going to give him some at X-Ray Spex.

Here's a link to the Associated Press obit...

And here's a bit of vintage Seeds footage with Saxon front and center, singing "Pushin' Too Hard"...

Rest in peace, Sky.

Here's a shocker...

2009-06-16T22:45:00.003-05:00

After both David Letterman and Sarah Palin put this whole overblown joke controversy behind them (after admittedly both getting a big pile of free publicity from it), the people who showed up Tuesday to protest Letterman and demand his dismissal were a bunch of loudmouth morons. Go figure.

Oh, and by the way, it seems like Gov. Palin is perfectly willing to ignore off-color jokes about her children if she really, really wants to appear on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE a month later. Again, go figure.

As if you needed it, here's one more reason why David Letterman is a personal hero of mine...

2009-06-11T09:05:00.003-05:00

See? Dave manages to make a serious point while being funny. Palin and company -- and please note the well-structured sentences and flawless grammar in her angry note -- are so far out of their intellectual depth it's not even funny.

No, wait. I take it back. It is funny. Very funny.

Video rewind: "The Wagon"

2009-06-09T11:27:00.001-05:00

Claymation and the sweet sounds of Dinosaur Jr. -- two great tastes that go great together! And hey, there's even a happy ending!

Finally

2009-06-05T20:39:00.004-05:00

It's always nice to see a major news magazine follow in your footsteps...

Here's a link to the article, which goes on at wonderful length about just how inane the advice peddled on Winfrey's talk show actually is. Here's the nut graph...

Instead, all too often Oprah winds up putting herself and her trusting audience in the hands of celebrity authors and pop-science artists pitching wonder cures and miracle treatments that are questionable or flat-out wrong, and sometimes dangerous.

And here is Her Majesty's response:

For 23 years, my show has presented thousands of topics that reflect the human experience, including doctors' medical advice and personal health stories that have prompted conversations between our audience members and their health care providers. I trust the viewers, and I know that they are smart and discerning enough to seek out medical opinions to determine what may be best for them.

Smart and discerning, eh? Guess that's why THE SECRET, as big a collection of bullshit as has ever been printed, has been riding high on the best-seller lists for years now.

Media pundits are wondering, now that Winfrey has been replaced on the "most powerful" list by Angelina Jolie, if this Newsweek article isn't the first step by the media to take down The Queen.

Boy, I sure hope so. Maybe I should read THE SECRET, so my not-so-secret wish can come true.

Five things I learned while wasting time watching the Memorial Day LAND OF THE LOST marathon on the Sci-Fi channel

2009-05-25T12:31:00.004-05:00

1. Series star Wesley Eure, who played Will Marshall, was billed only as "Wesley" in the opening credits. And, according to the imdb, his last acting credit was playing "assorted characters" on "unknown episodes" of the 1989 series, TOTALLY HIDDEN VIDEOS.

2. Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science fiction author Larry Niven wrote an episode in which our heroes met a Civil War soldier who fought off the Sleestaks with a vintage cannon. This, incidentally, was a couple of years after he won those coveted awards for RINGWORLD.

3. Science fiction author Ben Bova wrote an episode where Rick Marshall (the dad) hurt himself playing with mystic crystals and Holly (the daughter) had to save him from the T-Rex "Grumpy."

4. I learned this off the Internet and not technically while watching an episode, but basketball star Bill Laimbeer played a Sleestak during the first season. This is common geek trivia, but I couldn't not include it here, could it?

5. The most important thing I learned? That nostalgia is a blinding force and this show, which I watched avidly during my formative years, was awful in just about every way. The special effects were beyond bad, the acting was worse and the plots were both boring and incomprehensible. But when you were a kid in the early 1970s, before DVDs of JURASSIC PARK and WALKING WITH DINOSAURS were sitting next to every TV in America, you took your dinosaur-themed entertainment where you could get it.

I mean, really. Just look at this intro. Can you think of a way it could possibly be worse?

Wait? There's a Grant Morrison doc in the works?

2009-05-24T09:25:00.008-05:00

Apparently, yes -- and it's due out next year...

Spotted on The Comics Reporter

In the right hands, one second on the clock can be plenty of time

2009-05-23T00:01:00.002-05:00

Specifically, the hands of one Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball organization...

I can't believe I'm posting a clip from THE VIEW here...

2009-05-21T07:25:00.000-05:00

... but I can't resist sharing this footage of Jesse "The Body" Ventura schooling that moron Elisabeth Hasselbeck on waterboarding, torture and other various and sundry topics.

Out you two Pixies go, through the door or out the window!

2009-05-20T07:54:00.005-05:00

For no better reason than I saw the movie loudQUIETloud: A FILM ABOUT THE PIXES not too long ago, and I've been in a bit of a Pixies state of mind, here are a few videos from the band and its various offshoots. First, a live performance of the Pixies classic, "Wave of Mutilation"...

Next, a cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain song "Head On," from the Pixies final (and vastly underrated) studio album, "Trompe Le Monde." (I saw the band on this tour, and it was one of best shows I've ever seen.)

And now, moving on to the post-Pixies period, here's the no-kidding hit single (No. 2 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts) from the Deal sisters' band, the Breeders, "Cannonball" -- which was a pretty damn good song. And the video, I believe, was directed by Spike Jonze and Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon.

And finally, a cut from one of my favorite albums of all time, Frank Black's (aka Black Francis) second CD, "Teenager of the Year." They're all good songs, but here's one of the few videos from the album, "Whatever Happened to Pong?" -- recorded apparently (and oddly) from one of those Weird Al TV segments MTV used to air. Weird indeed!

Not that you asked, but here's why Oprah is a dangerous woman

2009-05-14T21:51:00.004-05:00

Like I've said before, I can't stand Oprah, mostly for a lot of vague reasons I can't quite articulate. But here's a specific reason I can articulate: She gives no-nothing celebrities a platform to preach their unscientific medical quackery, then cheers them on. Need examples?

Here's a Salon.com article by Rahul K. Parikh M.D. (those initials indicate an actual doctor, Oprah) that discusses Suzanne Somer's wacko hormone treatments, then moves onto other matters. As Dr. (that's doctor) Parikh says...

It's not the first time Winfrey's advice on health issues has raised concern. In the past, the media mogul has been criticized for promoting cosmetic therapies that were untested and later deemed dangerous. Her recent development deal with Jenny McCarthy, who now blogs on Oprah.com and has a television show in the works, drew criticism from children's advocates, as McCarthy and her autism advocacy group, Generation Rescue, have been leading an ideological, unscientific crusade against childhood vaccines. Add in Winfrey's endorsement of the snake-oil self-help book, THE SECRET and Dr. Phil, and you might be tempted to sue her for malpractice.

And here's a Slate.com article by Arthur Allen (admittedly, not an M.D.) about Oprah's support of former Playboy model Jennie McCarthy's crusade against vaccines. If you'd like to read more of Ms. McCarthy's medical wisdom, perhaps this information about how she discovered her son was a "Crystal" and she was an "Indigo" will interest you...

The day I found out I was an adult Indigo will stay with me forever. I was walking hand in hand with my son down a Los Angeles street when this women approached me and said, “You’re an Indigo and your son is a Crystal.” I immediately replied, “Yes!” and the woman smiled at me and walked away. I stood there for a moment, because I had no idea what the heck an Indigo and Crystal was, but I seemed so sure of it when I had blurted out “Yes!” After doing some of my own research on the word Indigo, I realized not only was I an early Indigo but my son was in fact a Crystal child.

Yes, Oprah, tell your entire cult of followers to heed this woman's advice. Tell them to prevent their kids from getting vaccines, and if their kids have problems, tell them that they're "crystals," so there's no need to do anything but bask in the rainbow glory of it all. I can't see anything that could possibly go wrong.

The essence of Anderson

2009-05-13T12:12:00.004-05:00

Speaking of Wes Anderson (as I sort of was during yesterday's post), here's a trailer for the (unfortunately) fictional Wes Anderson Film Festival* that film students Alex Cornell and Phil Mills cooked up for a class. Frankly, it's pretty damned brilliant. I mean, I've seen this thing done before (Anderson's quirks are pretty easy to catalogue), but I've never seen it done this well.

* Though considering that all his movies (and even short films) are collected on the various Anderson DVDs, you could really host your own film fest with very little effort. I'd start with the Max Fischer version of OUT OF SIGHT, slip over to BOTTLE ROCKET (followed by the original short film) and head through the ouevre chronologically).

Time to man up, Esquire, and fix your damn list

2009-05-12T20:28:00.007-05:00

Esquire Magazine, as always worried about what makes a man in modern America, has released a list of 75 Movies Every Man Should See. Click here to see the slideshow (with handy links to Netflix -- wonder what they paid to get such choice product placement?).

I lost count a couple of times, thanks to the annoying video commercials that show up every ten or so movies, but I think I've seen about 58 of the films on this list. Like all successful lists, it serves its real purpose -- namely, to give people like me an excuse to complain about the bad choices on it. (FATAL ATTRACTION? JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY?)

Oh, and here, by the way, are 10 movies the geniuses at Esquire forgot. I even managed to stick closer to their whole "movies for men" theme than they did. Sorry, though -- not Netflix links.

1. THE GAME -- Fincher's forgotten movie, with Michael Douglas learning to be a good person -- the hard way. (FIGHT CLUB is great, but it's a bit too obvious.)

2. CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND -- Man living the dream (rich TV producer by day, CIA killer by night) loses control of his admittedly complicated life. So good not even Julia Roberts' presence can spoil it.

2. THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU -- Esquire had BOTTLE ROCKET, which is the hipster pick for Wes Anderson movies. It's very good, but he's improved since then-- and this Anderson movie specifically focuses on the plight of an aging guy who wants to act like a boy.

4. THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE -- The forgotten Coen Brothers film. Billy Bob Thornton as a man who defines "tactiturn" stumbles into murder, various cover-ups and existential dilemmas. Beautifully filmed in B and W.

5. THE APARTMENT -- Billy Wilder's 1960 Oscar winner about a corporate lackey (Jack Lemmon) who learns to be a mensch. Frankly, I'm stunned Esquire left this one off the list.

6. THE BAD NEWS BEARS -- Because men start as boys. (The original, with Walter Matthau, of course).

7. THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 -- Speaking of Matthau. Watch this one so you can burn it into your brain, because that new Tony Scott-Denzel Washington-John Travolta one is going to suuuuuuck.

8. THE CROWD -- Great silent film from King Vidor following the life of one ordinary man. Esquire must've left it off because it's not available on Netflix.

9. OUT OF THE PAST -- Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer in one of the great films noir. And they share one of the great exchanges in movie history: Her: "Oh, Jeff, I don't want to die." Him: "Neither do I, baby, but if I have to, I'm going to be the one who dies last."

10. FIVE STAR FINAL -- What's a movie list without a little pre-Code, and this nasty little classic is one of the best. Edward G. Robinson plays a tabloid editor who slooooooowly gets back his soul. Again, not on Netflix.

PS: By the way, Esquire, you geniuses used an image of the TV show for your MASH pick. Nice going.

An interview? With moi?

2009-05-01T23:10:00.004-05:00

Over at the Pulse, intrepid comics reporter Jen Contino has an interview with yours truly about LATE NIGHTS AT KINKOS, my self-published collection of self-published comics from the 1980s and 1990s.

Here's how she describes it:

"Late Nights at Kinkos includes comic strips, spoofs, color commentary and a few more surprises. Pfeifer told us what it was like getting the chance to reexamine his work. So click the link, gentle PULSE reader to find out how a six foot frog and Violent Man affected the psyche of this writer. "

Click indeed. In fact, click right here.

And, as always, if you want to buy the book (it's a bargain!), click here or on the ubiquitous book cover to the right.

Yikes! It's timely again

2009-04-27T20:36:00.002-05:00

I'm old enough to remember when we went through this whole Swine Flu scare the first time around. Maybe this vintage PSA will help...

Talking about pop music

2009-04-13T20:13:00.003-05:00

To commemorate Phil Spector's long awaited, long expected murder conviction, here's his production of the Crystals singing possibly the most disturbing pop song ever recorded.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)"...

And, just to cleanse your mind with something a bit more pleasant, here's a great clip from BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT, of all things. I can't embed it, for some reason, but click on it -- it's worth it, I promise you. And stay with it through the opening mockery...

It was three years ago today...

2009-04-02T08:43:00.004-05:00

... that Amy and I were sitting in an office building somewhere in southeast China when a woman came in and handed us our daughter. She was not quite nine months old, and, as you can see, she was a bit unsure about these brand-new people she was meeting...

But that was then, and this is now. Here's a photo of her from this morning at breakfast. She's grown up a bit -- and seems much happier!

Happy anniversary, Allie! I can't believe it's been three years already, but I also can't believe we once had a life without you.

It's tough when one of your heroes lets you down...

2009-03-27T20:42:00.004-05:00

... but Vince, the motormouth pitchman of the Shamwow commercials, was arrested last month in Miami. What did he do? According to the report over at The Smoking Gun, he repeatedly punched a hooker in the face.

Sad. Like part of my childhood -- or really, part of my pre-middle-age-hood -- has died. I'll never look at a Shamwow ad the same way again.

The young lady of the evening wasn't exactly innocent herself, either (and I mean aside from the fact that she earned her living charging men to have sex with her). According to the report, she bit his tongue and wouldn't let go. Too bad Vince didn't pitch some sort of product that pried a hooker's teeth off your tongue. Now that would've come in handy!

Finally, after all these years, it's fun being a Cavs fan...

2009-03-26T20:08:00.000-05:00

'Nemesis wanted for showdown Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Nothing big.'

2009-03-26T08:56:00.003-05:00

This one's been all over the Interwebs, but I couldn't resist posting it here. It sums up the oddball glory of superheroes in a mere eight minutes and forty seconds.

Look! Down in the gutter!

2009-03-21T07:55:00.016-05:00

If there's one thing I love more than a comic book, it's a dark peek into pop culture of the past. And there's plenty of both in Craig Yoe's fascinating new book, SECRET IDENTITY: THE FETISH ART OF SUPERMAN'S CO-CREATOR JOE SHUSTER.

Admittedly, that's an odd subtitle, but it fits the book's odd story. In the introduction, Yoe tells the familiar tale of how, after Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster lost the rights to their groundbreaking creation, they fell on hard times, with Joe (whose eyesight was fading) forced to work as a delivery boy (well, man) to make ends meet. What Yoe adds to the story is what happened after that -- and believe me, this is where the things get interesting.

Like many an artist past his peak years, Joe wound up in the shadowy world of drawing dirty pictures to make a buck. But these weren't any run-of-the-mill nudie shots. In an oddly fitting twist for someone who helped launch the comic book industry, Joe found himself drawing strange little pictures for a strange little magazine called NIGHTS OF HORROR. It wasn't a comic book -- the pictures and typewritten text were separate, for one thing -- but with its over-the-top plots, boo-worthy villains and damsels in dramatic distress, it sure resembled someone's twisted version of one. It's like those EC magazines Gaines tried after the comics line folded, but with a much lower budget -- and a much higher level of kink.

NIGHTS OF HORROR was clearly aimed at the same demographic buying all those photos of a tied-up Bettie Page. Sold in various seedy bookstores in the Times Square area (and wouldn't I kill to spend a vintage hour or two in one of those), it was cheaply printed, poorly written and, let's be honest, desperately drawn. Joe Shuster had a bold, clean style that screams "Golden Age," but his art hadn't changed much in the decade or so since he worked on Superman. (Maybe that's due to his eye troubles.) His art in NIGHTS OF HORROR looks almost exactly like his Superman art -- and that's why this book is so fascinating.

As Yoe points out, the characters in these twisted drawings, tied up, spanked and worse, look almost exactly like Lois, Superman, Jimmy Olsen and Luthor. They're not, of course (something else Yoe points out -- probably for legal reasons), but NIGHTS OF HORROR gives an unnerving (and fascinating) glimpse at what comic books might look like if the Code insisted on out-of-bounds behavior instead of forbidding it.

The drawings are pretty tame stuff by today's standards (especially considering you're reading this on the Internet, where a couple of choice clicks will take you to some real nights of horror), but titilation isn't the point -- at least not anymore. It's the thrill of peeling back the four-color wallpaper of comic book history and spying something that you never even suspected existed. Major credit goes to Yoe for not only finding these old magazines (by accident, according to his intro), but putting them in historical context and presenting them in a beautifully designed book. It's a sure bet the original copies of NIGHTS OF HORROR never treated Shuster's artwork with this much loving care.

Last year, the comic history scholarship award was easily won by THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE, David Hadju's comprehensive look at comic book censorship in the 1940s and 1950s. It was a long, detailed look at a big part of the comic book past. This year is still young, but it'll take a pretty impressive book to top SECRET IDENTITY. It's scope isn't nearly as wide as THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE, but what it does so well is take a tiny slice of related comic book history and explore it in amazing detail, then (and this is most of the book) reprint those crazy Shuster illos. It's not just fun, it's educational!

And hell, I haven't even mentioned the kill-crazy Jewish kids with Hitler moustaches and their connection to NIGHTS OF HORROR. You'll have to read the book to find out their story.

You can get a sneak peek at SECRET IDENTITY at the blog Yoe has dedicated to the book here. Those wacky drawings can say more than my stunned scrawlings here ever could.

It really is tough all over

2009-03-19T22:27:00.003-05:00

Here's a short, fascinating -- but grim -- report about so-called "cyber drifters" -- out of work people in Tokyo living in the only place they can afford: tiny windowless cubicles in a cyber cafe. It's $500 a month, and there's barely even room to lie down, but at least there's Internet access.

Fast food from the swingin' seventies

2009-03-13T09:54:00.003-05:00

Inspired by this post over at Lileks.com -- and by the fact that everything is available somewhere in the vast reaches of You Tube -- I thought I'd post a couple of commercials from a long-defunct restaurant that was a big deal back when I was a kid, Red Barn...

The two Muppet-like characters seen here are Hamburger Hungry and Chicken Hungry, and I'm sure there was a Fish Hungry character, too. Here's another ad, this time showcasing what was a pretty amazing innovation of the early 1970s, the salad bar...

Other signs of the times: the prominently displayed Tab dispenser on the pop machine, the haircut on the dad who makes the "halibut" joke and the glasses on the woman who makes the "fowl weather" joke.

We also had (in my home town of Niles, Ohio), a Burger Chef, which was another fast food chain that died sometime in the mid 1980s. The mascots were Burger Chef and his young sidekick, Jeff, and the reason we liked them as kids was they had a "Fun Meal," which was sort of an earlier version of a Happy Meal that came in a cheap cardboard tray instead of a cheap cardboard box. I think there was a prize involved, too. I do remember owning the posters featured in this Burger Chef ad...

I can't remember specifically, but I'm sure I saw that ad back in the day, and I'm equally sure it blew my fragile little mind.

Naturally, this being the age of Wikipedia, there's more information about both Red Barn and Burger Chef than I could ever want -- or, frankly, than I could have ever compiled back when the chains were actually in business. (There are, of course, even fan sites for both.) So I only have one question: Do any of you remember these restaurants?

Well, he can't be any worse than Bernard Madoff

2009-03-11T16:00:00.002-05:00

You know who's pretty funny? Jon Hamm. You know what makes him even funnier? A bad baldy cap and references to SUPERMAN IV...

"Lex Luthor Bailout" with Jon Hamm - watch more funny videos

Buy my comics, make me rich: CATWOMAN: THE LONG ROAD HOME

2009-03-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've had one of these posts, and I'm not sure when I'll have another one (though hopefully it won't be too long), but I've got a book on the shelves this week, the final collection of my run on Catwoman.

CATWOMAN: THE LONG ROAD HOME collects issues 78 to 82, which includes her return from the badguy planet of SALVATION RUN, her final beat-down of The Thief and, last but not least, a heart-to-heart talk with the man in the Bat suit.

Art is by the stellar team of David Lopez (pencils) and Alvaro Lopez (inks), colors are courtesy of Jeromy Cox, letters are by Jared K. Fletcher and the original covers (included here, natch) are by the master himself, Adam Hughes. Nachie Castro was the editor who guided this book from concept to comic, and if you want to see a glimpse of him and me, we're the two couch potatoes on page 112.

Pick it up -- it's good stuff, if I do say so myself.