THOUGHTS ON THAT ENDLESSLY OVER-BROADCAST SERIES OF COMMERCIALS FOR "THE NEW TNN":

1) All right, who the fuck slipped Stan Lee the Viagra? Let me make this perfectly clear - the only place I wanna see a stiff old man is in the drawer at the morgue. (Uh, let me rephrase that...)

2) Speaking of Stripperella, I can't quite get over the following passage about the Pamela Anderson-Lee-Rock-Rooney-Onassis-voiced animated series from Entertainment Weekly a couple weeks ago:

With lie-detecting breasts and glass-cutting nipples, Stripperella puts the squeeze on supervillains like Queen Clitoris, a cyberterrorist who's ''not to be rubbed the wrong way.'' (Admits Anderson, ''There couldn't be any more innuendos in a half hour.'')

Now, dictionary.com defines "innuendo" as "(a)n indirect or subtle... implication in expression; an insinuation." Which means that she considers the above quip clever. In fact, maybe she doesn't even get it (Pammie's own clitoris having been replaced by a specially-treated hunk of gluten several years ago). I'd volunteer to explain it to her but I'm too busy highlighting my copy of The Gilded Speedo: A "Son of the Beach" Concordance. Still and all, I'm mildly curious about the show, but I ain't watching it for two reasons: it can't be interesting for very long (lie-detecting breasts? F. Lee Bailey has those already) and she who provides the voice for the, ahem, titular heroine is such a plastic-encased disease farm that I'm afraid that merely standing at the mic has infected this cartoon with sickle-cel anemia.

3) Memo to Kelsey Grammer, aka Gary the Rat: we've forgiven you the cocaine abuse, the alcoholism, the car wrecks, the adultery and the allegations of pedophilia, but man, you gotta know that there are some things that just can't be excused.

4) Ren & Stimpy's back? And only ten years after its sell-by date? Awesome! And I'm sure they're just warming up, too - Fish Police: The Next Generation, anyone?

5) This has been the week of uttering phrases I never thought I'd say, and to "I saw the greatest Adam Sandler movie the other night" I'd like to add another: You know, Spike Lee might have had a point there. In fact, if I were Tom Kenny, Grant McLennan, The Singing Nun or anyone else with the letters "T," "N" and "N" in their name, I'd consider getting on the horn with my attorneys post-haste. Whether they have lie-detecting breasts or not.

(All Pamela Anderson jokes in the preceding post have been made possible by a generous grant from the National Overendowment of the Tarts.)

Has it really been over a week since I last dribbled any mental sputum on this e-blotter? With no end to the various unfinished threads I've strung out there in sight? I've been one messed-up fuckface for a long, long time, that's all I can say. (I hate all you accomplishing bastards, I do.) And worse, the only thing I've found the slightest bit interesting or enough to raise me even the slightest bit out of my torporous stupor is that Finding Nemo toy my boy got with his Happy Meal (I feel a new McD's lawsuit coming on - I ate three of 'em and they didn't work). I just never thought I'd see the day when you'd press the button on top of a fast food restaurant kid's toy and hear Albert Brooks' voice coming out. (For the purposes of this post, I'm ignoring the Modern Romance Overreaction Figures ["Quaaludes and Rolodex not included"] briefly marketed by the short-lived Burger Czar chain in '81.)

That's all I've got. Must get in my two hours of shambling and muttering in before work. Excuse me...

Answers to MATCH THE PAY-PER-VIEW PORN MOVIE WITH THE ON-SCREEN SYNOPSIS!:

Um, I forget.

MATCH THE PAY-PER-VIEW PORN MOVIE WITH THE ON-SCREEN SYNOPSIS!

A) Passport to Prague 2
B) Spring Fever
C) In Bed With Amy Lynn Baxter
D) Chica Boom 15
E) Nick Grande: The Aztec Dagger
F) My Baby Got Back 26
G) 69 Degrees of Penetration
H) Blue Jean Blondes 2
I) The Devinn Lane Show 7: Attack of the Divas
J) Afro-Centric in the Amazon 8


1) Shapely women test their sexual limits.
2) A sexy woman tries to find a good man.
3) Tempting women offer their services.
4) Sexpots use their charm to entertain men.
5) Young beauties enjoy passionate lovemaking.
6) Young starlets give in to sexual temptations.
7) A woman finds numerous lovers to please.
8) Vixens take off their clothes in order to please.
9) Lovely women fulfill their cravings.
10) Sizzling women find passion with men.

Answers tomorrow.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE "WIND":

A Mighty Wind, to my surprise, turned up at the local podunk googolplex this past week, drifting alone among the six theatres showing Matrix Reloaded, the four showing X2, the three superimposing Matrix Reloaded and X2 over each other, and the converted supply closet just off the concession stand still showing The Master of Disguise. ("It's still finding its audience," the manager insisted with a tremor in his voice, before throwing his hand over his mouth and fleeing to a dark corner.) For those not in the know or not entirely certain where the know is, in fact, located, this is the third "mockumentary" helmed by Christopher Guest (an actor/comedian with an impressive 30+ year resume but probably best known as the sweetly idiotic lead guitarist of the fictional heavy metal band whose amps go to eleven) and improvised by a large-ish ensemble from an outline devised by Guest and Eugene Levy (an actor/comedian with a similarly impressive 30+ year resume but probably best known as the father so understanding that he wasn't particularly disturbed to walk in on his teenage son fornicating with pastry). And like their previous pair, Wind focuses its satirical sights on an odd but recognizable portion of the American subculture - Waiting for Guffman (1997) dealt with Midwestern civic pride and community theater, Best in Show (2000) with the competitive world of canine enthusiasts, and this one comes almost full circle to the music-biz lampoonery of the most celebrated of all mockumentaries, This Is Spinal Tap (1984) [co-starring and co-created by Guest; directed by Rob Reiner] with its look at a gaggle of quaintly irrelevant sixties music veterans - only this time, instead of the slackened spandex of aging heavy metallurgists, it's the moth-eaten crewnecks of the once-mighty folk scene that provides the fabric for Guest and Levy's comic tapestry. Now, I don't get out to the movies much these days; financial, time and familial constraints have mostly conspired to make it so, though I'd be lying if I were to claim that the thin gruel ladled out by the dream factory (the stuff that makes it to the area cinemas in particular) was terribly appetizing to me in the first place. (This opens me up to accusations of snobbery, I know, in much the same way that my taste in music inspires snorts of derision on the part of certain parties of my acquaintance - rather than digress myself into a defensive cul-de-sac, I'll say only that I've been pleasantly surprised by some aspects of some of the mainstream pics I've seen recently [the darker, black-comic aspects of Spielberg's Minority Report, Ralph Fiennes rendering his serial killer the most sympathetic character in Red Dragon, etc.], even if the films in question wind up retreating into predictability and false emotionalism by the end, and that most independent films are just as bereft of imagination and innovation as their higher-priced brethren.) That said, it's fair to say that the arrival of this picture qualified as something akin to An Event.

(More later. Really. I mean it. I think.)

Don't bother with this, either.

Had a rough couple of weeks (details NOT forthcoming - what kind of a blog do you think I am?), which accounts for the lack of content here in that time. There's stuff to talk about - a now-ever-so-slightly-out-of-date take on A Mighty Wind being one subject - but I'm gonna need some time to get my act (however unnatural) together. But I owe you something ... Howzabout a transcript of the "best" rock "star" "interview" I ever "did," a truly frightening mid-afternoon phoner with Royal Trux' Jennifer Herrema, around the time they released the album Sweet Sixteen, an album about as appetizing and entertaining as its cover? The weirdest thing about this non-fab confab, though maybe it's not all that weird, considering, is that I spent a couple of months after its publication fearing some bizarre kind of junkie retribution for printing it, only to have it turn up, lovingly reprinted in its entirety, on their official web site. Anyway, here 'tis:

Jennifer, how's it going?
Uhhh... (pause) okay.

(Bravely) Uh, great. So, you consider Sweet Sixteen (Virgin) your most positive record to date. How so?
(pause, cough) More beats per second. (long pause)

Ah. Nothing in the lyrical attitude or anything?
Uhhh... yeah, it's just about...uhhh...the information. We've just got a better line on the information, where it's...uh...given out.

Sure, sure. Having heard your previous records, you seem to have grown out a little closer to the conventional rock thing. Is that fair to say?
Umm... you know, things change. (pause)

What in particular?
(pause) You know, I don't live in a shelter anymore, I live in my own house. I, ah... I get sick maybe once or twice a year now... I used to get the flu a lot and uh... (pause) we had to leave a lot of friends behind. (long pause)

(Starting to get worried now) So, what do you find are common misconceptions about Royal Trux?
Well, first, nobody seems to know the difference between my voice and Neil's. (long pause) And other than that, it's, uhhh... I'd say that the line between... consciously making decisions, affecting our surroundings, bound with allowing things to happen and being okay with that. I think that in the past, um... we've been commonly perceived as victims. (low, ominous) It's not true.

Have your compositional methods changed at all?
Um... not really that much, actually. (pause) You know... willful progressions. Willfully making ourselves (inaudible) future... crucial. But at the same time not letting ourselves, uh... you know. It's not strictly chemical, or... (pause)

Have you gotten much feedback on the album yet?
Uh, yeah... we've gotten feedback. Our record company really, really very much disliked this record. And our lawyer very much liked it, so... bit of a scandal. The, uhhh... I guess, you know, everybody I've spoken to... uh... has had... positive things to say. The things I read were, uh, sulky and like... it was inevitable that we'd leave some people behind. We've gotta shake 'em off.

What were the objections?
Um, too many notes, you know, and all sorts of political objections as well. We didn't exactly... um, feed... the machine by producing it ourselves and building our own studio. We met with a lot of hostility on that. There are people there... uh... that dig it, you know. And there are those that would not let it, uh... (pause) infiltrate.

Do you find life on the road at all debilitating?
Uh...(sigh)... yeah, I mean, it's, uh... I'd prefer to be left alone. I like to play, but in the end I'd prefer to be alone.

You have one more record to do for Virgin - what next?
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot... Neil's got a novel coming out, we've got a double album of outtakes and... out-of-print stuff coming out on Drag City this September, and, uh... (pause)

Neil wrote a novel, huh?
Yeah. (coughs) It's called Victory Chimp.

What's it about?
Uhhh...(pause) I don't know. (long, LONG pause)