As if this wasn’t THE most predictable response of all fucking recorded history, the batshit crazy “journalists” over at “news agency” World Net Daily (aka “birther central”) had this to say about Obama’s “birth certificate”:
If the document proves valid, it could answer the questions raised by those who have alleged he was not actually born in Hawaii. But it also could prove his ineligibility because of its references to his father. Some of the cases challenging Obama have explained that he was a dual citizen through his father at his birth, and they contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born citizens.
Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, the only news agency that has waged a relentless investigative campaign on questions swirling around the Obama’s eligibility for nearly three years, was elated at the turn of events.
“We’re gratified that our work has begun to pay off,” he said. “The certificate of live birth is an absolutely vital foundation for determining constitutional eligibility of any president. We look forward to reviewing it like so many other Americans do at this late date. But it is important to remember there are still dozens of other questions concerning this question of eligibility that need to be resolved to assure what has become a very skeptical public concerning Barack Obama’s parentage, his adoption, his citizenship status throughout his life and why he continues to cultivate a culture of secrecy around his life.”
Now that this “matter” has been definitively put to rest—for SANE people with IQs higher than carrots—it’s probably time for the reality-challenged idiots at WND to move on to Donald Trump’s new buffoonish conspiracy theory about how it was affirmative action that allowed a “poor student” like future president Barack Obama to attend first Columbia, then Harvard (a view that got talked up on Hardball the other night by an increasingly senile-seeming Pat Buchanan).
I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT THIS IS TRUE BECAUSE I GOT AN ALL-CAPS EMAIL FROM MY GRANDMOTHER ABOUT THIS THAT SHE GOT FROM HER NEIGHBOR, MRS. JEROMIE WHO GOT IT FROM A LADY AT HER CHURCH. SO WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT, SMARTYPANTS LIBTARDS!!!!
There must be something in the water, as a friend and I were discussing this very thing the other night over a chilled beer in The Giddy Arms. It made us feel positively geriatric when we realized Goodfellas was released twenty-one years ago, Trainspotting fifteen, and The Sixth Sense came out before the millennium. Now those clever bods at xkcd have devised a chart, which by using movie release dates will make us all feel terribly old.
I’m officially ancient, how young are you?
Via xkcd
It’s been an open secret among film fans, horror geeks and Hollywood executives for a long time. Rumors and innuendo have spread like wild fire but have always been rigorously denied. Until now. Finally, enough time has passed that the truth can be revealed. Without fear of reprisals, a back lash or any kind of black listing. The world has moved on and we’re now ready to accept the truth. So say it loud and say it proud people: A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge is GAY! Waaaay gay.
Yes, Nightmare… 2 has always been singled out among the franchise for its homosexual undertones (or overtones to be more precise) but now, over 25 years later, the cast and crew involved in the making of the film are coming clean with their intentions. Indeed, a fair number of the staff were gay (which is not so unusual for a film production) but writer David Caskin now openly admits that his script did indeed deal with homosexuality, and the lead character Jesse’s confusion over his own orientation. However, what he thought were subtexts in his writing and in the eventual movie were unintentionally ramped up over the course of the filming to become almost screamingly obvious. I guess it didn’t help that lead actor Mark Patton was openly gay (though not at the time of filming). The below clip is from the 2010 documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, and features enlightening and funny interviews with all the major players (including Robert Englund) on this most touchy of topics:
Still, for all the interesting subtextual analysis it offers, Nightmare… 2 is by far the weakest film in the series. It lacks tension and fear and contains no truly memorable death scenes (apart from maybe coach getting spanked to death in the locker room). And I should know about these things—you see, as a child I was obsessed with the Elm Street films. Yes, as a child. By the time I was eleven years old I had watched all the Nightmare films I could (which at that point was four, the latest being Nightmare… 4: The Dream Master which featured the recurring character Alice and an amazing “roach motel” death sequence). On my time off at school I would often find myself drawing Freddy Kreuger comics that involved nubile teens meeting an array of grisly deaths. I mean, all that stuff is completely natural for a ten year old. Right? And look at me now. I’m perfectly fine.
Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy is available to buy here.
Many thanks to Peaches Christ!
After the jump, the trailers for Never Sleep Again and Nightmare on Elm Street part 2: Freddy’s Revenge...
Royal wedding fever has taken hold of everyone on both sides of the pond - but perhaps none moreso than a plumber from England named Barmy Baz Franks. Barmy recently spent £1,000 and six hours in a dentist’s chair getting Prince William and Kate Middleton’s faces tattooed on his teeth!
Remember when we told you all about teeth tatoos earlier? Well these are a little bit different. Crafted by Dr Neil Gerrard, of the Clifton Dental Studio in Bristol, the images were painted on by hand using ultra-fine brushes and stencils. The ‘gnasher tats’ (oh you wacky Brits) will last about three months depending on how thoroughly Barmy brushes.
”I love the Royal Family and this was my way of lending my support to their Big Day.” says Franks. How sweet.
This dude is never getting laid again.
(via Dental Assistant School)
In the opening titles of his 1968 animated short Glass Harmonica, Russian director Andrei Khrzhanovsky claims to present a cautionary against “boundless greed, police terror, [and] the isolation and brutalization of humans in modern bourgeois society.” Of course, it was more complex than that.
At the time Khrzhanovsky made the film, Russian animation had experienced a creative renaissance that spanned most of the ‘60s, fuelled by the Soviet Union’s post-Stalinist liberalization policy best known as the Krushchev Thaw. Although that period yielded cutesy and colorful satires like Fyodor Khitruk’s 1962 short Story of a Crime, Glass Harmonica—which posits music to symbolize beauty repressed by avarice—stands apart.
Amid desolate modern landscapes, Khyrzhanovsky and his dozen animators tell the tale with some industrial age and Renaissance visual elements, along with some zany zoomorphic caricatures of paranoia and envy. Buoyed sonically by Alfred Schnittke’s Quasi una sonata and drawing from Breugel, Dali and George Dunning (the director of Yellow Submarine), Glass Harmonica reaches even proto-Python-esque heights towards the end.
Despite its semi-socialist utopian resolution, Glass Harmonica comes off as surprisingly quaint and archaic, even as an indirect product of Kruschev’s less ideologically rigid era.
After the jump: check out part 2 of Glass Harmonica…
Phone Sex Grandma is a short film by Jack Truman about an older female telephone sex worker that follows her routine for a day as she goes about her business. While it could be argued that this film has a lot to say about the socio-economic place of gender and the role of the elderly in declining late-capitalist society, you should probably just forget all that and admit that it’s really funny.
Old people having sex (or in this case talking sexy) is one of the oldest tropes in the comedy handbook - but you’ve gotta hand it to this woman, when it comes to sexy talk she is a pro. And I mean a professional. Check out 3:10 where she is taking a piss AND talking sexy AND pretending to be East Asian! Or 5:20 when she is taking a bath, reading Darwin, talking sexy AND pretending to be black! That is some epic multitasking right there. Phone Sex Grandma is my new (NSFW) hero:
EDIT: from the Phone Sex Grandma IMDB page (which states that the film is a “mockumentary”):
Director Jack Truman and star Opal Dockery are a real-life Mother/Son filmmaking team
WTF?!?
Thanks to Tickle for the link.
Helado Negro is the nom du song of versatile and uncompromising producer Roberto Lange. I’ve blogged previously about his ingenious collaborations with visual artist David Ellis. He’s also a frequent contributor to Guillermo Scott Herren’s brilliant Prefuse 73 and Savath and Savalas projects. This new LP is a solid pleasure; dubbed out, noisy and stream of consciousness following but timelessly tuneful and dare I say, rather pleasant indeed.
Have a listen to Regresa from Canta Lechuza out May 10 on Asthmatic Kitty
And here’s how it goes down live…
Though the impersonation is rather dreadful, it doesn’t really detract from this delightful gem of Scotland’s Greatest Export singing “S With an H” from Sean Connery: The Musical by Jon Kaplan and Al Kaplan, the talents behind Predator - The Musical, Conan the Barbarian: The Musical and Silence: The Musical.
In Scotland, impersonating Shir Shean Connery is a national tic, one need only watch Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show to see what I mean. Indeed, when the “best wee country in the world” ™ eventually becomes independent, The Ancient Art of Shir Shean Connery Impersonating will no doubt be incorporated into the traditional Highland Games.
As for Sean Connery: The Musical, well it isn’t such a bad idea, afterall Mr Connery did have a successful though brief singing career starring in the London stage production of South Pacific and then as Michael McBride in Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
Previously on DM
Bonus clip of Sean Connery singing in ‘Darby O’Gill’, after the jump…
With thanks to Tara McGinley
Oh this is lovely. X Ray Spex do a rousing version of “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” at London’s Roundhouse on September 6, 2008.
X Ray Spex redux: Paul Dean on bass, Sid Truelove (Rubella Ballet and Flux of Pink Indians) on drums, guitarist Gt. Saxby and sax player David Wright (Rip Rig & Panic, Jah Wobble, Don Cherry and The Slits).
Joining Poly Styrene on vocals are her daughter Celeste Bell-Dos Santos and Zillah Minx from Rubella Ballet.