When cable TV was first introduced, it was something of a free-for-all of programming. An America accustomed to having three and only three national channels for decades was suddenly confronted with dozens to hundreds of cable stations that had to fill 24 hours a day with anything, so there was a lot of throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick. Much of it was worthless of course, because it was TV, but some seemed like nothing less than the trailblazing cultural produce of visionary mavericks. While New Yorkers had the infamously bizarre Channel J and L.A. had pretty much anything you could dream up and some shit you never could, even we flyover rubes could at least enjoy the unpredictable weekly freakouts of the USA Network’s Night Flight and other overnight oddities.


And then there was public access.

I have no idea what’s up on public access cable nowadays, but I suspect it’s primarily churchy stuff. The emergence of phone cameras and YouTube made public access instantly quaint, but in its day, the situation was that in order to be granted a contractual monopoly to serve an area with cable TV, a provider was required by the FCC to set aside at least one commercial-free channel for any members of the public who walked through the doors to do their own shows. Free training in videography was part of the deal as well, so the only barrier to entry the cable companies could erect was to schedule public training for difficult hours of the day, which some did, and which only served to ensure that the most motivated (which often meant the most bonkers) people showed up. It could be a bastion of admirable idiosyncrasy or a fucking garbage can, but for much of the 1980s, some of the weirdest and most fearlessly inventive TV in the world could be found in those little regional treasure troves.

And in the cable access of late ‘80s Cleveland, OH, The Doctor was the king.

In 1987, the East suburbs’ Cablevision company began airing a strange program called The Asylum For Shut-Ins: Video Psychotherapy. It made no pretense to being edifying, it showed no local bands’ cheapshit music videos, it wouldn’t tell you when the PTA rummage sale was being held. It was there to disturb, and goddamn, at its best, it was magnificent.. The aforesaid Doctor was the titular psychotherapist and host - a cheap, sunglasses-sporting ventriloquist dummy whose persona was half Peter Ivers manic cool, half Reverend Jim Jones mass-homicidal, and he’d deliver insanely malevolent monologues/scoldings in between rapid-fire clips of B-movie violence. From the show’s FB page:

The Doctor is a sadistic, power-mad ventriloquist dummy who administers doses of mind bending video ultra-violence and savage social commentary. He delivers his demented therapy with machinegun-like collages of horror movie clips… audio and video samples fused together in a musical tapestry of terror, madness, and destruction… coming attractions for the end of sanity.

 
But check out the rhythms of all those jump cuts - they have an undeniable musicality to them. This obviously wasn’t some busted-ass Cleveland Heights freakshow who just wandered in one day, the man behind this curtain had skill. We’ve gotten used to a world where a feature film can be quickly cut on a laptop computer, but in Asylum’s day, uzi-edits were tedious and cumbersome work involving multiple tape decks, mixers, and extraordinary timing and patience. This was the work of an experienced hand, and that hand was Ted Zbozien’s. Then and still a video editor in Cleveland, he took some time out of his work day to tell DM about Asylum’s beginnings. What follows was heavily edited down for brevity and clarity from a lengthy and animated telephone conversation with Zbozien.

I started doing a lot of manipulation with found footage in the early ‘80s, cutting TV commercials, doing a lot of sampling and looping. I made one video with Ernest Angley, the crazy TV preacher, and that in particular was a big hit at the Athens (OH) Video Festival like in ’85 or so. That was sort of the beginning.

Coincidentally, my buddy Jeff Adam, who became The Doctor, he was a really wacky, funny guy. We made some videos, short films, and he was always the main character because he was such a flamboyant and funny improviser with a great camera presence. He picked up a Danny O’Day ventriloquist dummy that he started pulling out at parties, and it was an excuse to vent. You could say the craziest things, insult people, expose harsh truths - as long as you were saying it through the dummy. Those things kind of came together when we decided to do videos with the dummy. I was collecting a lot of horror clips, and I was a fan of the old Ghoulardi show, and I thought it would be fun to do that sort of wraparound style show with the dummy as the host.


The glasses came from shooting the dummy and realizing the eyes were dead, just painted on, they were nothing, just dead eyes that don’t move. But if you put the sunglasses on, you could imagine his eyes darting around behind there. I cut them out of a piece of mat board and used electrical tape for lenses, and it just KILLED us, and Jeff went crazy with it.

So the first two shows were in the straight wraparound style while I started to develop the “Video Psychotherapy” method of splintering up shots and making montages. For the second show, we used the 1940s British movie Dead of Night, it was an anthology movie, with five stories that were linked together. The one we really liked starred Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist, and his dummy became the model for The Doctor’s personality. Then we decided that the diced-up material was more entertaining than the movies, so we chucked the movies and added more of The Doctor. And then we just poured it on. We created about 10 shows, about 6 or so of which were the really hardcore ones.

With The Doctor, we wanted to satirize Morton Downey Jr, Ernest Angley, Ronald Reagan, anybody who wielded power and had a big mouth and liked to rule over others. When we had him say things like “KILL THE CHILDREN, TAKE THE MONEY,” that’s not funny, but it IS funny, and it’s the truth. It seems reckless and insane. That’s fine.

The show became the talk of the town’s weirdo art and music scenes around the turn of the ‘90s. Punk singers started mimicking the Doctor’s misanthropic rants as between-songs patter. A sculptor designed and exhibited a viewing booth made expressly for watching the show. Around 1988-1991, Asylum really was, more than any band one could name, THE Cleveland underground phenomenon that kept things interesting in the downtime between the waning of the ‘80s music scene and the grunge dam-burst. It’s not hard to see why, so please, enjoy some more clips.
 

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Ted Zbozien recently crowdfunded a feature length all-montage film called Worst Movie Ever.

 
The Hasbro toy My Little Pony and its associated TV series go back to the 1980s, but it took until 2010 and the premiere of the Hub Network series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for the brony phenomenon to kick into a whole new gear—and, indeed, enter the vocabulary of non-MLP:FIM fans.

Brony is a portmanteau word combining bro and pony, and while the coinage was originally intended to cover adult males who are fans of the show, the word has since expanded to cover all adult fans of whatever gender. Many who are not so inclined find the concept of bronies well-nigh disturbing—as awesome as the show may be, the obsession has some people worried, including, apparently, whatever company recently fired an MLP:FIM devotee for displaying his fandom just a little bit too openly (i.e. not very much) at the workplace.

Of course bronyism in and of itself is harmless—in the age of the Internet, any excellently produced show will generate the desire to congregate and discuss and worship it, and that includes fare for children.

Last October the Norwegian talk show Sent med Simen Sund (“Late with Simen Sund”) dedicated a segment to the subject, inviting two of the founders of the group Bronies of Norway (932 likes on Facebook as of this writing), Ruben Stølan and Edvin Ellingsen, in to discuss their joint obsession. Sund can hardly prevent a slightly incredulous tone from creeping in—but it’s targeted at six-year-old girls!—but otherwise keeps everything appreciative and respectful. They even connive to get explorer Erling Kagge to try on Edvin’s Rainbow Dash hat.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘My Little Pony’ characters sing Reggie Watts’ ‘F*ck Sh*t Stack’
My Little Pony crafted as a Queen Alien

 
Who are the mysterious Zek Nab And The Gnomes Of Looperville who play their deranged “new age hippie music” against color-saturated background animations that will have your trembling hands reaching for the Dramamine? From what dark dank forest did these freakish folksters pop up like fiddling fluting fungus? I’ve had no luck tracking down their hour long DVD “Midget In The Garden II” (never mind volume 1).  Re-arranging the letters in their name yields no clues. I came up with Bank Ze (Banksy) but this seems even beyond his wild imaginings.

This is too good to be anything other than what it is. And I don’t know what that is. For once, words fail me. All I know is that as I listen to their music I feel as though a Hobbit has wedged himself inside the creases of my frontal lobe and is poking at it with a small blunt object made of hardened dragon snot.

So just watch it. It’s like The Incredible String Band got inseminated by the Manson Family and this is their demented offspring.

Zek Nab, contact me via Dangerous Minds and share your world with us. We will be gentle. We like garden gnomes… even really tall, sinister, overweight garden gnomes.
 

 
Oh there’s more… after the jump

 
Last year The Residents announced their “Ultimate Box Set,” an actual refrigerator filled with 154 Residents multimedia products including first pressings of practically every album, single, video, DVD, and CD-ROM they’ve produced in their long career. And more! The box set’s pièce de résistance, though, and the thing that justifies most of the price, is a genuine Residents eyeball mask.

“The Residents’ Ultimate Box Set” would only set the buyer back a cool $100,000…

But (apparently) they’ve sold one, as was announced back in September by the Cryptic Corporation’s Homer Flynn, to someone called “Tripmonster,” who lives in Bloomington, Indiana. Now it’s been delivered and the delivery was shot for an upcoming Residents documentary with the working title Theory of Obscurity.

Via NBC Bay Area News:

“For The Residents, the delivery of their “Ultimate Box Set” was both a profound and satisfying experience,” Flynn said. “The expression of joy on the face of Tripmonster, as he held Mr. Green, the eyeball mask from his UBS, was worth every minute of their 40-year existence.”

“This past weekend we captured a phenomenal event for our film Theory of Obscurity,” documentary director Don Hardy said. “The Residents’ “Ultimate Box Set” is a living testament to the amazing creative output that these one-of-a-kind artists have had over the past 40 years. Seeing all of their creations in one place was fantastic and so was meeting the proud owners of what has to be the coolest refrigerator ever made.”

 

 
Below, the trailer for Theory of Obscurity. With all of the amazing material they’ve produced over the years to draw from, as this brief clip ably demonstrates, this should be a really fun film:
 

 
In this sweet video, the last Ramone standing, Tommy Erdelyi, performs “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” last year at NYC’s Cutting Room. Tommy performs the song as a kind of mournful, folksy country tune. Technically, it’s not a cover. He wrote it. But he’s doing it in the style of his folk/buegrass duo, Uncle Monk. He’s covering himself.

Ironically, this is the kind of music Hilly Kristal was initially looking to book at CBGB (“country, bluegrass and blues” is what the initials stand for) and instead he got four punk rockers from Queens with Tommy on drums.
 

Hattie McDaniel and Fay Bainter
 
Ah, award shows! Those infamously schlocky and monumentally affected parades of self-congratulation! Often we’re left wondering how such talented actors can come across so plastic on stage, but Hattie McDaniel’s acceptance speech for her 1939 role of “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind is truly moving.

Gossip columnist Louella Parsons wrote:

“Hattie McDaniel earned that gold Oscar by her fine performance of ‘Mammy’ in Gone with the Wind. If you had seen her face when she walked up to the platform and took the gold trophy, you would have had the choke in your voice that all of us had when Hattie, hair trimmed with gardenias, face alight, and dress up to the queen’s taste, accepted the honor in one of the finest speeches ever given on the Academy floor.

McDaniel, of course, won for playing a maid—one of the only roles a black woman could get at the time. And while her most famous scene may be cinching up Scarlett O’Hara’s bodice, the night promised a moment of recognition for her amazing performance. The heartfelt words of a groundbreaking actress are only half the story, though.

When Gone with the Wind premiered in Atlanta in 1939, all of the black actors were barred from attending. Producer David O. Selznick asked that an exception be made for Hattie McDaniel, but MGM advised him not to because of Georgia’s segregation laws. Clark Gable threatened to boycott the Atlanta premiere unless McDaniel was permitted to attend, but McDaniel herself convinced him to go.
 

 
There is a cut between Fay Bainter’s presentation of the award and McDaniel’s acceptance; this was the part where she had to walk up to the podium from her segregated table in the back: Even in Los Angeles, McDaniel and her date were required to sit at a segregated table for two, apart from her Gone with the Wind colleagues. Regardless, she delivers one of the most poignant speeches in Oscar history. In 2006, she was depicted on a United States postage stamp, wearing the dress and gardenias from that historic night.
 

 
At first I thought I was going to be bored by this Steve Albini interview by a guy named Tucker Woodley on his Let’s Chat show. As soon as Woodley opened his mouth I almost turned it off, but decided to stay with it.

I’m glad I did. It’s an awkward interview, the type you see on Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (like when Richard Dunn met Dave Navarro) or Between Two Ferns, but with… Steve Albini!

It’s highly uncomfortable and very funny. Just watch. I’m assuming that Albini was in on this, but maybe not, it’s pretty hard to tell. NSFW-ish.
 

 
With thanks to Nate DuFort!

Shepard Fairey’s New Statesman cover

[TL;DR takeaway? Watch the video. Just watch it. Watch it all the way to the end because it builds towards an amazing climax in the final minute.]

Admittedly, upon my first exposure to British comedian Russell Brand, he did not win me over. He was a panelist on Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive sitcom, a Larry Sanders-esque pisstake of UK panel shows like Mock the Week or Nevermind the Buzzcocks. I asked a Scottish friend of mine who the arrogant prick with the long hair and the large vocabulary was and he told me that Brand was a “human punchline” who had something to do with Big Brother. Tabloid tales of his drug and sex exploits were a bore to me. And a comic who looks like a member of The Libertines? Not for sir.

But over the intervening seven years, I’ve grown from a grudging respect for Brand to something resembling outright admiration for the articulate way he expresses his disdain—even hatred—for the world’s ruling elites. He’s a bit of a sleazy dude, sure—that’s part of his smarmy charm—but he’s got a first rate mind and he’s fucking fearless, as only a man who has emerged from the very depths of drug addiction (and fucking one—if not actually several—of the world’s most desirable women) could be. I don’t think he’s a guy who ever thought he’d be living in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, let’s just say.

This morning everyone is talking about the absolutely smoking hot interview Brand gave to veteran BBC broadcaster Jeremy Paxman promoting the issue he guest-edited of The New Statesman, Britain’s long-running socialist journal. Paxman, a formidable man who has been the public undoing of many a politician, is nearly helpless at the barrage of words that Russell Brand sprays him with. It’s a riveting piece of television and everyone seems to be freaking out about it on Facebook this morning. It’s well worth your time, trust me.

And so is the Brand-edited issue of The New Statesman, which features contributions from Oliver Stone, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Judd Apatow, Graham Hancock, Noel Gallagher, Alec Baldwin, Rupert Everett, David Lynch and many others (you can buy a pdf of the issue at The New Statesman website)

Here’s an excerpt from Brand’s long, but beautifully composed letter from the editor:

I have never voted. Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites. Billy Connolly said: “Don’t vote, it encourages them,” and, “The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one.”

I don’t vote because to me it seems like a tacit act of compliance; I know, I know my grandparents fought in two world wars (and one World Cup) so that I’d have the right to vote. Well, they were conned. As far as I’m concerned there is nothing to vote for. I feel it is a far more potent political act to completely renounce the current paradigm than to participate in even the most trivial and tokenistic manner, by obediently X-ing a little box.

Total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system is what interests me, but that’s not on the ballot. Is utopian revolution possible? The freethinking social architect Buckminster Fuller said humanity now faces a choice: oblivion or utopia. We’re inertly ambling towards oblivion, is utopia really an option?

The letter is a rambling thing of gorgeous beauty and power. Read the entire thing at The News Statesman.

Below, the full Paxman-Brand dust-up… it’s riveting television
 

“CCTV Tower with Bountiful Harvest”
 
In their exhibition “The Beautiful Future” at Beijing Design Week a few weeks ago, westerners Nick Bonner (Koryo Tours) and Dominic Johnson-Hill (Plastered8) pulled something of a Komar and Melamid when they commissioned paintings of contemporary China from North Korean artists.

The remarkable canvases that resulted challenge one’s notions of irony or protest—they seem incredibly pointed but may have been meant sincerely. One suspects that the fantastic juxtapositions—Maoist uniforms and karaoke, or socialist flags and office cubicles—were at a bare minimum prompted as compelling subjects by Bonner and Johnson-Hill. It’s a little unclear.

Several of the paintings feature notable architectural gems of the recent past, including the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, the Beijing National Aquatics Center by PTW Architects, and the CCTV Headquarters by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

As a deadpan provocation, it’s pretty fabulous.
 

“Office Culture for Prosperity”
 

“City Migration”
 

“Bird’s Nest, Home of the People”
 

“Water Cube for Clean Air and Healthy Life”
 

“KTV Gives Us a Voice”
 

“Disco Night to Enhance the Day”
 

“Glorious CCTV Tower”
 
via designboom

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Behind the Great Wall: Life in China
Nifty futuristic images from Mao’s China

Image of Hans Langseth aka King Whiskers.
 
The leader of Poland’s Catholic Church has come under a wave of condemnation by appearing to suggest that children are partly to blame for being sexually abused by priests - AP

Guided By Voices cut ties with drummer selling $55,000 drum kit - Pitchfork

Bahrain just bought more tear gas canisters than it has citizens - VICE

Teens now more likely to get genital herpes because they didn’t get cold sores as kids - PopSci

Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg & Margaret Mead explain the meaning of “Beat” in rare 1950s audio clips - Open Culture

First venomous crustacean discovered living in underwater caves - Phys.org

Slayer: ‘We need to sit down and talk about the future – if we HAVE a future’ - Classic Rock Mag

New footage showing Catalan police allegedly beating a man to death in Barcelona’s gay quarter has made the case a major talking point in Spain - The Local

Babies know when you’re faking - Parent Herald

The Vatican has suspended a senior German Church leader dubbed the “bishop of bling” by the media over his alleged lavish spending - BBC News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will complete its phase-out of all inhaler medical products containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by Dec. 31, 2013. - FDA

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Wil Wheaton, and Oliver Stone star in anti-NSA ad - Gawker

American Horror Story finally perfects its twisted brand of feminism in Coven - FlavorWire

Watch Banksy’s “Sphinx” get dismantled and driven away - ANIMAL

Dr Feelgood guitarist Gypie Mayo dies aged 62 - NME

Blood Sucking Freaks: Herzog’s Nosferatu Revisited - The Quietus

Bro freaks out on ‘shrooms, punches nurse in hospital - Death and Taxes

The Spy Who Copied Me: James Bond-themed rip-off books - Voices of East Anglia

Mars air turned to stone to cool planet - New Scientist

Gallup poll: 58% of Americans support legal weed - Boing Boing

Below, dad makes 22-month-old baby a LED light suit for Halloween:

Video via reddit