Every so often the universe conspires to bring together disparate awesome elements that combine into something so incredible that the brain’s pleasure centers hemorrhage with white, blinding joy. This video for Zombie Zombie’s “Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free” is a deep soul tickle from God’s favorite finger. It’s an homage to John Carpenter’s “The Thing” — both the movie AND the soundtrack — reenacted with G.I. Joe figures. The song is rocking, repetitive and minimalist earworm, and the video, well … have a look for yourselves.
In the Northernmost part of Greenpoint, just about as far up as you can go in Brooklyn without falling in Newtown Creek and drifting across the sludge-channel to Queens, there is an ever-changing graffiti mural on the corner of Clay and McGuinness, on the walls of the Power Brake Service shop. We’ve seen employees on site while artists are laying it down, and even saw an NYPD cruiser stop by for a short chat with a tagger before rolling along without so much as a finger-wagging, so we reckon the building owner either approves of the paint job, or at least isn’t bothered by it.
It’s a tough time for Captain America. Advances in military technology have made a jacked-up dude with discus skills all but obsolete on the battlefield, the current U.S. administration is one that ol’ Steve Rogers might not be too stoked to shill for, and his rumored cameo in the Louis Leterrier / Ed Norton Incredible Hulk film was cut. And he was also assassinated last year, which will put anyone out of sorts. So until the upcoming Avengers movie gives Cap something worthwhile to do, we’re just going to assume that he’s sitting around his apartment in his robe and Al Gore post-2004 election beard, swigging the fire water and staring longingly at a picture of the Red Skull in front of the TV.
I’ve posted here before about the Free Love Forum — they’re friends of mine, and the folks who made the widely popular MS Paint video. I saw them last night as a part of Sketchfest at the UCB Theatre, and they just killed.
They screened this video in between live sketches. It’s a pitch-perfect takeoff of alternative-energy commercials and American ignorance … a TV ad for coal energy.
All kinds of dorky hobbies are out of the closet now that the geeks have inherited the earth. Sci-fi’s a big enterprise now (har har) … now that “Lost” and computer programming is big business, all the nerds like me are out of the closet and partying in the light, blinking while our eyes adjust to the brightness of the pop-culture spotlight.
Loving comic books was once an express ticket to a lonely lifetime in Mom’s basement. Now they’re big, big blockbusting big business. I dated an actual human woman once who took me to see “300″ and “Spiderman 3.” It was her idea. Here in New York, a grown man can wear a Batman t-shirt out in public without shame. It’s a beautiful thing.
Now that all us nerds are out basking in uncloseted comfort, we owe something to the rest of the world. We shouldn’t forget what it was like to be punished for something as simple as liking things the rest of the world didn’t get. We got to be respectful, got to be patient with strangers’ weird obsessions. Even when it’s really, really tough to get.
Seeing a guy on a unicycle just breaks my heart. I imagine him in a completely empty apartment, empty save for a pile of burger wrappers and dust bunnies … and a unicycle lying in the middle of the floor. He says aloud, “Well, that’s it. Everything’s gone, all of it. The worst is over, but one thing’s for sure: I’l never get laid again. Might as well learn to love this unicycle …” Heartbreaking. But it’s not my place to judge.
A Segway — that’s the unicycle 2.0. It’s even more pathetic than a unicycle because it doesn’t even require any physical skills to operate. Cops that ride Segways around might as well be on My LIttle Pony big wheels for all the respect they inspire. But I digress.
On one level it’s pretty easy to keep an open mind. Live and let live and just work for the weekend, and it’s all gonna be cool.
However, ferret lovers exist on an entirely different level altogether. Ferrets are kinda cute, I’ll give them that. But so are subway rats. Ferrets are long rats, plain and simple. And there’s something about die-hard ferret lovers that really, really creeps me out:
I keep watching this thing, over and over, and I’m trying to stop judging, trying to get beyond to a higher place. But man, NOTHING’S gonna make that okay.
