Dead 2 Rights

The Greatest Pretender: Korla Pandit, music's most magnificent fraud

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Blevins) — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:46:11 PDT

A few of Korla's two dozen albums. You might notice a recurring visual motif on the LP covers.

"For wisdom is better than rubies, and all things to be desired are not to be compared unto it. We bring you musical gems from near and far, blended into a pattern of glorious harmony, a program based on the universal language of music. It is our pleasure to present to you..."

Korla Pandit spoke not a word when he was on camera. He just wore a bejeweled turban, played the organ... and stared. That was the extent of his act. It was all he needed -- the shimmery tones of his music, the vague evocation of the Far East, and that indelible Mona Lisa countenance with its piercing dark eyes and intriguing half-smile. It was a potent combination which carried him along for nearly half a century. And yet, Korla Pandit never really existed at all. It depends, I suppose, on your definition of "existed." Either way, his story is one of the most implausible and oddly inspiring in the history of popular music.

I first encountered Korla Pandit without any clue to his identity or knowledge of his past. Portraying himself, Korla made a memorable cameo in Tim Burton's 1994 film, Ed Wood. In the scene, notorious director Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Johnny Depp) is holding a wrap party for his 1955 sci-fi/horor anti-epic, Bride of the Monster. The wild celebration, attended by Bela Lugosi and the other oddballs and grotesques who orbited Wood, is held in the meat-packing plant of the film's major backer, wealthy rancher Donald McCoy (Rance Howard). While the carcasses of slaughtered animals hang from hooks all around them, the revelers are treated to a suggestive dance routine performed by Wood himself, costumed as a harem girl. Korla Pandit, immaculately attired in a Nehru jacket and the ever-present turban, accompanies him on the organ with a composition called "Nautch Dance," referring to a seductive style of dance popularized in early-1900s India. As near as I can tell from reading about Ed Wood's life, no such party ever occurred, though Ed did like to surprise and shock people by dressing in drag and dancing wildly in public places and at parties. Still, it's a fun with a memorable capper as Ed removes his veil. Here's a clip.

For many years, that was my only encounter with Korla Pandit. "Nautch Dance" did appear on the Ed Wood soundtrack, though it was credited -- along with all the other tracks -- to Howard Shore, who composed the film's score. Many years later, though, I started noticing a particular LP cover which kept turning up on Internet lists of the best, worst, craziest, and "most WTF" album covers of all time. It was this one for a '50s-era Korla Pandit Christmas album:

The infamous Korla Pandit Christmas LP cover.

Something about the image stopped me in my tracks every time I saw it. Who was this odd, androgynous man sitting stiffly behind a keyboard and wearing the kind of suit a businessman would be buried in? Why did he seem to be wearing eye shadow and lipstick? And, most of all, why did he look so familiar? A quick Google search answered a few of my questions. He was, indeed, the mysterious organist from Ed Wood. Burton's film was made a mere four years before the musician died of a myocardial infarction at 77. His main claim to fame was starring in a Los Angeles-based 15-minute television show, Korla Pandit's Adventures in Music, in the late '40s and early '50s at the very dawn of the television age. He then made a series of short films which were nationally syndicated and thus made him famous across America. After that followed a series of albums and another local Los Angeles show. He remained a television fixture throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Then, after his career slowed down in the 1970s, he shifted to making public appearances and giving private lessons. He continued working steadily as a performer until the end of his life. To give you an idea of what Korla was like in his 1950s glory days, here's a clip from one of his TV shows. Supposedly, he made roughly 900 episodes like it. If something like this were to air on TV today, it would seem almost avant garde, like some weird experimental parody from Adult Swim.

Korla's story ended in 1998 in Petaluma, CA, but it began in St. Louis, Missouri in 1921, where one John Roland Redd was born, one of seven children of an African-American couple. Growing up black in Missouri in the 1920s and 1930s was exactly as uncomfortable as you might guess it would be. Instead of letting racial politics define his life, however, Redd chose to sidestep the issue altogether by completely remaking his image. In his late teens (after a brief apprenticeship at an Idaho radio station), he made his way to Los Angeles, the city which has perhaps eclipsed even New York as the reinvention capital of the world, and it was there he first donned a turban (an affectation he'd seen in a movie called Midnight Shadow) and began performing under the assumed name, Juan Rolando. As you can see, that first alias was a mere variation on his own real name. However, once he married Disney artist Beryl June DeBeeson in 1944, the complete repackaging of John Roland Redd really began. He and his wife devised the persona of "Korla Pandit," complete with a totally fictitious back story which declared that he was born in New Dehli to a Brahmin priest and a French opera singer. None of it was true, of course, but since when did "truth" and "show business" ever have anything to do with one another? Pandit kept up the ethnic charade for the next half century. The actual facts of his life were not revealed until a 2001 article in Los Angeles magazine.

The story of John Roland Redd a.k.a. Korla Pandit is unlike any I've encountered in popular culture. He presented an abstracted yet alluring version of India without even a semblance of authenticity. Korla represented the Far East as viewed through the eyes of the West. That speech comparing rubies to wisdom, for instance, comes not from anything in the Hindu religion but is a paraphrase of Proverbs 8:11 from the Old Testament. Even more obviously, the electric organ is not remotely Indian in nature. From what I can determine, the instrument was largely developed and popularized in the United States. However, the eerie and unearthly tones Pandit/Redd was able to conjure from it seemed to transport listeners to an exotic world of mystery, some indefinable place far away. That was the real magic behind what he did.

I'll leave you with one more clip of Korla Pandit. Here, he plays "Miserlou," a traditional Greek tune which you'll probably recognize as the theme from Pulp Fiction (where it was played by surf rock guitarist Dick Dale):

Andy

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Blevins) — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:08:43 PDT

A surrealist portrait of Andy Kaufman by Joe Blevins

"The Shining": Portrait of an Unholy Family

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:47:57 PDT

The Torrance Family Portrait by smalltownhero (source)

The highly enjoyable new documentary Room 237 has brought renewed attention and scrutiny to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). The film, a loose adaptation of Stephen King's bestselling 1977 novel, has inspired an inordinate amount of speculation among viewers and critics, and the documentary seeks to provide several possible readings or interpretations of the film. Among the theories floated by interviewees: it's about the Holocaust, it's about the genocide of Native Americans, it's about the faking of the Apollo 11 moon landing, etc. Like most of Kubrick's works, The Shining is chock-full of odd and arcane details which may or may not be clues to the film's true meaning or intent. Room 237 helpfully points out many of these, and the interview subjects use these tidbits to support their respective cases, almost like lawyers submitting pieces of evidence in a trial. This makes the viewer the judge and jury, I suppose.

One theme which emerges again and again in Room 237 is that new details are liable to pop out at you every time you watch The Shining. Freeze the frame at any given moment, say the interviewees, and study the image. There's bound to be something out of the ordinary there. And, sure enough, I found this to be true when I revisited my favorite scene in the film: the one in which a terrified Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) defends herself with a baseball bat as her husband, Jack (Jack Nicholson), now completely psychotic, follows her up a flight of stairs at the far end of the hotel's vast, airy Colorado Lounge:

Dorothy Comingore in Kane

There are a lot of great things about this scene, not the least of which is that it manages to work simultaneously as horror, as family drama, and as pitch-black dark comedy. (Few lines in cinema make me laugh as hard as Jack's reading of "Wendy... darling... light of my life!") Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall are both mesmerizing here, employing radically different acting techniques. Famous in Hollywood lore are the stories of how unequally Kubrick behaved toward these two actors during the making of The Shining, treating Nicholson like an old pal while sternly berating Duvall in front of the crew and scoffing at her complaints. Stanley did this supposedly to coax the desired performances from his actors. This is eerily reminiscent of the making of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1940), in which director/star Welles apparently treated his co-star, Dorothy Comingore, quite cruelly because she was playing a woman who was dominated by her husband and who wound up as a broken-down drunk after leaving him. Unfortunately, Comingore's own tragic life mirrored that of her character too closely, and she died of alcoholism at 58.

Some of Kubrick's on-set behavior is captured in the well-known BBC documentary, The Making of "The Shining," directed by Kubrick's own daughter, Vivian. Indeed, Jack prowls around the set like he owns the place, while poor Shelley looks like a kid whose parents never picked her up from summer camp. Regardless of whether you approve of Kubrick's professional ethics, his techniques seem to have paid off here. Shelley's character, Wendy Torrance, is very childlike and innocent throughout the film, and over the course of The Shining, her husband Jack erodes what's left her of self-confidence and tries to bully her into submission, first through condescension ("Wendy, let me explain something to you..."), then through profane outbursts, and finally through physical violence. What we are witnessing here is the steady and terrifying dissolution of an already-shaky marriage. Wendy at first seems ill-equipped to handle this. She is the most gentle and naive of the Torrance family, much more of a child than her own son, the intense and withdrawn Danny. With her wide eyes and beanpole physique, Wendy is almost asexual. Even her outfits look like adult-sized versions of things a kid would wear; shapeless pinafores and turtlenecks which keep her covered from her neck to her ankles. (Little wonder, then, that her husband all but salivates at the sight of a naked woman in the infamous "room 237" scene.)

Wendy Torrance, eternal optimist.

From the moment we meet her, when she is unsuccessfully trying to convince her son how great the Overlook Hotel is going to be, Wendy Torrance is a woman in deep denial. She tries to maintain an optimistic outlook at all times despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In virtually every scene she's in, Wendy tries to minimize her problems by understating them. The staircase scene is the moment when that strategy stops working for her, forcing her to resort to violence with the bat. But even here, she makes an attempt at downplaying the situation, even taking some of the blame herself: "I'm very confused. I just need a chance to think things over." But here, too, is where Jack's increasing menace -- which has been building for some time now -- has finally gotten too out-of-control to ignore. Once your husband has said, "I'm gonna bash your brains in," it's a safe bet that your marriage is beyond repair. Wendy's utter vulnerability makes her husband's brutishness all the more shocking, but "vulnerable" does not mean "defenseless." In this scene, she manages to knock her husband down the stairs. Later, she has the presence of mind to lock her unconscious husband in the Overlook's vault-like storage room and, when even that fails, slashes his hand with a kitchen knife as he uses an ax to enter the bathroom where she has barricaded herself.

So while I was watching this infamous scene and thinking about all of these things, I started noticing a strange yet undeniable visual motif. While Wendy is on the staircase, Kubrick films her from angles in which there is bright light behind her, making it almost appear as if she is glowing. First, the light comes from the giant windows of the Colorado Lounge, which are reminiscent of the large stained-glass windows in churches and cathedrals. Then, when Wendy is further up the stairs, a lighting fixture on the ceiling behind her suffuses the scene with a warm glow. Meanwhile, Jack advances on her threateningly, but smiles all the while and even taunts her like a schoolyard bully, repeating her name in silly voices: "Weeenddeeeeee... Weeeenndddeeee..."

Devil or angel? Sinner or saint? Jack makes the "devil sign" and Wendy Torrance has a halo in The Shining

I could not help but notice that when Jack Nicholson delivers the famous "darling" line, he very briefly makes the sign of the horns, an offensive hand gesture sometimes associated with Satanism and the occult. Nicholson, let's not forget, played the earthly embodiment of Satan a mere seven years later in The Witches of Eastwick and famously referred to himself therein as a "horny little devil." At the time, having Jack Nicholson play the Devil struck many critics as type-casting. Meanwhile, look at that light fixture behind Shelley Duvall. Kubrick consistently composes the frame so that the chandelier is directly over her head, making it look like a halo. That's when I realized that the Torrances could be seen as a kind of grotesque parody of the Holy Family: Jack as Joseph, Wendy as the Virgin Mary, and Danny as Jesus.

Mary, Jesus, and Joseph

Jesus and Mary, of course, get all the affection and attention from our world's roughly 2 billion Christians. They have statues, paintings, songs, and numerous Holy Days of Obligation in their honor. Poor old Joseph -- my namesake, incidentally -- seems to have gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop in this arrangement. His young virginal wife was impregnated by the Holy Spirit and would forever after be known for her sexual purity. Despite popular belief, the term "immaculate conception" does not refer to the virgin birth of Christ; instead, it is Catholic dogma that Mary, from the moment of her own conception, was untouched by original sin. She alone among mortals got a lifetime free pass from God, and in return, she remained sexually untouched. Growing up Catholic, I could not help but wonder what effect this must have had on Joseph, a mortal man who must have had the same sexual desires as any man but who was forever doomed to a life of chastity. Others have wondered about this, too. In his massively controversial 1985 film Hail Mary, director Jean Luc Godard updated the story of Christ's virgin birth to modern times and gave us a sexually frustrated Joseph who eventually comes to accept his fate. "I never touch you. I stay," he tells his wife. Much more fun than Godard's film, though, is "A Bad Kid," a triumphantly tasteless short story from 1999 by UK satirist Michael Kelly. Kelley's story takes the form of a monologue by Joseph and is written in the voice of a crude, working-class Britisher who loathes and resents his literally holier-than-thou son and wife and who doesn't hesitate to express these feelings through physical violence. Throughout the story, Joseph's tone is remarkably reminiscent of Jack Torrance. Jack, too, has abused his son physically on at least one occasion. Here's a representative excerpt from Kelly's story in which Joseph describes his relationship with Jesus:

In all the times I had cause to thrash my stepson during his childhood, adolescence and young manhood, he almost never stood up to me, the jessy. I suppose in fairness if he had done I would have put him in hospital, but the way he just stood there passively, as he did now, looking so bloody meek and mild and saying, "I forgive you," the superior little sod, used to enrage me even more.

"I'll teach you to forgive me, you little bastard!" I yelled, and leathered him some more.

Later, Joseph speaks ruefully about his wife:

God, she gets on my wick at times. Sitting on her arse all day smiling and being tranquil and radiant and full of grace, and glowing a bit. I've never liked to talk about this much, but she definitely glows. Does your wife glow? No, I didn't think so. Mine does. No, you can't notice it so much in daylight, but at night you can read a book by it. Come to think of it, he never needs a candle when he gets up for a piss either. What a fucking family.

In this story, as in many paintings and mosaics, Jesus and Mary give off a kind of visible glow... a shining, if you will. As I pointed out earlier, Wendy herself seems to "glow" or "shine" during the staircase sequence. That's one detail Shining-ologists never seem to give much attention: the title. Is it possible that the extrasensory perception in King's story is called "shining" because of some religious significance? The gift of "shining" is reminiscent of the so-called "telekinesis" in King's first full-length novel, Carrie, which is likewise fraught with religious symbolism and a specifically Christian horror of sex.

Room 237: The result of Jack's sexual frustration?

Now let us consider Jack and Wendy Torrance as Colorado's answer to Joseph and Mary. Like the famed Biblical couple, Jack and Wendy travel a great distance to an inn, The Overlook, where the inkeeper (Mr. Ullman, played by Barry Nelson) gives them modest accommodations. Since the Overlook is closed between Halloween and May Day, why is there no room at this inn? Because the other rooms are occupied by the ghosts of the hotel's past. Like Mary and Joseph, Wendy and Jack have a sexless relationship. The occasional chaste kiss -- and never on the lips -- is as much physical affection as we'll ever see from them. If the Torrances never have sex, how was Danny ever conceived? The aforementioned "room 237" scene may well be brought about by Jack's sexual frustration. Of course, like Joseph, Jack is not allowed to experience sexual pleasure even in a fantasy. The gorgeous woman he encounters in that room turns into a decomposing hag in short order, and Jack flees in terror. Interestingly, in one of the film's ugliest lines, Jack complains about Wendy to the spectral and possibly imaginary bartender, Lloyd (Joe Turkel): "Just a little problem with the old sperm bank upstairs." Equating Wendy to a sperm bank tells us that Jack sees her as little more than a receptacle for the male seed, which is pretty much how God used Mary. Some observers think of Joseph as being cuckolded by God in this respect. The sign of the horns we saw Jack using earlier is, by some accounts, Italian in origin and meant to signify the proverbial cuckold's horns. A man whose wife is unfaithful wears horns that everyone but he can see. The Torrances' son may have been conceived through methods other than normal human reproduction. This brings us to young Danny Torrance, the story's stand-in for Christ. Though his physical body is eminently human, Danny is possessed of a great supernatural power which even he cannot comprehend. His mysterious summoning of the Overlook's handyman, Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers), is akin to Christ being visited by the Three Kings, who were led to Bethlehem by a star. Elsewhere in the film, Jack encounters the ghostly Delbert Grady (Philip Stone) who is keenly aware of Danny's power and tries to convince Jack to kill him. This is analogous to the story of King Herod the Great, who in the Book of Matthew (Matthew 2:1-4, 7, 16) orders his soldiers to kill all male children two and under in Bethlehem and the surrounding neighborhoods because he has heard from his astrologers that the King of the Jews had been born there.

I cannot say whether Stephen King or Stanley Kubrick ever meant The Shining to mirror the story of the Nativity or depict the Holy Family in any way. However, this famous narrative is so deeply hard-wired into our minds through decades of repetition and cultural indoctrination that it may seep into our fiction whether we want it to or not. One of the great gifts of Room 237 is a belief expressed by one of the interviewees to the effect that alternate meanings may be found in works "regardless of author intent."

Amen to that.

Yes, folks, I still exist!

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Blevins) — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:33:19 PDT

Enjoy this picture of Joaquin Phoenix, the nicest man in Hollywood.

Where the hell have I been lately?

Sorry that I haven't posted anything lately. This is the time of year when we're busiest at work, and since the weather has been so nice lately I've spent most of my free time enjoying the outdoors. Shamefully, I have about four articles in "draft" stage that I can't seem to complete. They sit there in my Blogger page, mocking me. In the meantime, please enjoy this really cool, obscure single by the Modern Folk Quartet from 1966. It's called "This Could Be the Night," and it was written by two of music's all-time greats, Harry Nilsson and Phil Spector. Of course, Harry died of alcoholism in the 1980s, and Phil's in prison for murder, so neither is a great role model. But what a song! Just listen. It's a great example of Spector's patented Wall of Sound. Spector greatly influenced the Beach Boys, and here you can tell that the Beach Boys have started to influence Spector right back. This could practically be an outtake from Pet Sounds. I love the hell out of this.

Time #2

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:21:05 PDT

In case you missed Time #1, it's here. The first one was based on a series of vacation photos taken by a group of friends. The second one, I think you can guess. I don't know why, but I've always been interested in how faces change over time. That used to be something I drew over and over again as a kid. I'd draw a character, then show him ten years, twenty years, fifty years later, etc. I suppose these little collages are my way of returning to that.

R.I.P. Wayne Kotke (Sept. 2008 - April 2013)

noreply@blogger.com (Joe Blevins) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:22:24 PDT

The obsolete yet still gorgeous original logo for this blog designed by Scott Cole.

Perhaps you've noticed some changes on this blog lately. You'll soon notice more. Dead 2 Rights was originally set up as the official blog of Wayne Kotke, a fictional character I created and portrayed for almost five years on the Mail Order Zombie podcast. In the beginning, I made an attempt to write the blog "in character" as Wayne and include as much zombie-related content as I could. Over the years, though, I strayed further and further away from the original premise and just started writing about whatever interested me. The zombie references became less frequent and more perfunctory with each passing year. And now... well, they've come to a stop altogether. Wayne Kotke was a character created especially for Mail Order Zombie, and I have decided that he should expire along with that show. MOZ airs its final episode on Thursday, April 25, and that's the last you'll be hearing from Wayne. From here on out, Dead 2 Rights is my personal blog and will be written under my own name. All the old content is still here, so if you want to look for Zomby cartoons, you'll still be able to find them. Who knows? I may even create more cartoons with that character in the future. But for the most part, D2R will be about my own life, opinions, and interests. I hope you will join me as the blog enters the next stage of its evolution.

Goofus and Gallant marry, ending decades of speculation about their relationship

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:02:21 PDT

Goofus and Gallant outside the small Maine chapel where they made their relationship official.

Opposites really do attract after all, as it turns out.

Goofus and Gallant, the famous cartoon pair who have demonstrated the "dos and don'ts" of etiquette and safety in the pages of Highlights for Children magazine for over 60 years, have married in a small ceremony in Maine. The wedding, which they announced to the media through their publicist, ends decades of rumors and innuendo about the renowned twosome.

"What can I say? He completes me," says Gallant, while sipping a latte in the small condo shared by the duo. "I guess I've always been attracted to the 'bad boy' aspect of his personality. I think it's the side of myself that I've never been able to express. I sometimes wish I could be as free and uninhibited as he is. He's introduced me to so many new things. I'd say Goofus has definitely widened my horizons."

"Yeah, among other things," says Goofus, snickering like a naughty schoolboy.

"Oh, you," replies Gallant, blushing a little.

Goofus and Gallant in their earlier days.

This give-and-take is typical of the pair. It is precisely this kind of chemistry which has kept their relationship working for so many decades. The spark between them was apparent from their earliest days working together.

"I had a lousy upbringing," Goofus says in one of his more reflective moments. "My parents ignored me, so I acted out to get their attention. There was very little structure or discipline in our household. So when I met [Gallant], I thought, 'Finally, here's a guy who has his life together.' I don't know. Maybe at first he was like a surrogate father to me, since my real dad was a drunk who was gone half the time. I mean, of course, we had to play up our differences in the cartoons. But after work, I'd find myself thinking up excuses to spend more time with him. And, well, things kind of developed from there."

When asked whether the announcement of their same-sex marriage would ignite any sort of controversy or possibly harm their careers, Gallant is idealistic. "The reason we decided to go public with this is that we felt it would be wrong to keep it a secret. We didn't want to live a lie, because that would send the wrong message to the very audience we're trying to reach. Whatever the fallout from this may be, we'll know that we've done the right thing. This is our little statement about the importance of marriage equality."

Goofus, typically, is more blunt. "The Highlights people have known about us for decades. I mean, how could they not? It's not like we've tried to hide it around the office. If they fired us now over this, they'd be revealing themselves as complete freakin' hypocrites. And you can quote me on that! Let the chips fall where they may. Besides, print is a dying medium. If they don't want us after this, who needs 'em?"

The Goofy Gophers, meanwhile, are also considering a same-sex union but are apparently stalemated over who should carry whom over the threshold. At press time, neither Mac nor Tosh appeared willing to budge on this issue.

Annette Funicello (1942-2013): A look back at an unlikely sex symbol

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:08:03 PDT

Annette: The all-American girl who ushered many boys into manhood.

"Annette Funny Jello" they called her in MAD magazine.

Puberty was kind to Annette Funicello.

The name was, of course, a pun on the singer/actress's real surname -- Funicello -- but there was a leering double entendre in the moniker, too, one which commented on the young lady's newly curvy physique. In the few short years between her debut on TV's The Mickey Mouse Club in 1955 and the release of her first hit pop single, "Tall Paul," in 1960, Annette Funicello had developed from a plucky, innocent 13-year-old kid sister into a pneumatic, enticing 18-year-old sex symbol. As tenaciously as her handlers protected her wholesome, virtuous image, those eye-catching parabolas beneath her sweater could not be denied, and a generation of boys (and, quite possibly, dirty old men) fell in instant lust. By 1963, she would be starring in the Beach Party films, clad in swimsuits which became less and less modest with each entry in the series. First, her midriff was exposed, and her formidable decolletage was soon to follow. But always, always, always Annette Funicello remained the "good girl," moral and above temptation. Annette's dual nature -- a virgin's mind in a harlot's body -- fueled male fantasies for years. I would go so far as to say that, when one is recounting the sexual history of the Twentieth Century, Annette Funicello surpasses even Marilyn Monroe in significance. I cannot imagine how many young men first climaxed while thinking of Annette.

In 1960, the same year as "Tall Paul," satirist Stan Freberg wrote and recorded a satirical comedy sketch called "The Old Payola Roll Blues (Parts 1 and 2)" about a sleazy record producer (played by Jesse White) who tries to turn a tone-deaf, frog-voiced teenage imbecile named Clyde Ankle (played by Freberg) into a teen idol by bribing disc jockeys to play Clyde's moronic song, "High School Ooh-Ooh." Freberg's character seems dubious of the whole arrangement but still wants to get as much as he can out of this producer. They start negotiating specifics:

FREBERG: Well, maybe now I can have my adenoids taken out.
WHITE: What, and ruin your amateur standing?!
FREBERG: Well, could you at least get me a date with that Mouseketeer that grew up?
WHITE: All right, we'll see.
FREBERG: (excited) Oh boy!

Listeners of the time would have had no trouble identifying that particular Mouseketeer. Of course, by the time I was born, Annette's career was pretty much over. The hit songs and movies had dried up years earlier, and she settled into the life of perfect domestic tranquility as a wife and mother. Her most prominent public role after that was as the celebrity spokeswoman for Skippy peanut butter. Her career ended, then, as it began: with Annette as a paragon of chastity and modesty, utterly sexless and harmless. But this does not diminish her importance in the sexual awakening of a generation. Incidentally, that song I mentioned earlier, "Tall Paul," played a small yet significant part in my own childhood. I have written before about how my introduction to popular music came through a stack of hand-me-down 45 rpm records I received from my mother and which I repeatedly and obsessively played on my trusty Fisher-Price record player. Naturally, Annette's hit platter was an important part of the mix. It's an odd-sounding record even today, as fast and choppy as a punk song with very prominent percussion. Give it a listen, won't you?

The Eyes of Ed Wood/The Eyes of Stanley Kubrick

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:34:28 PDT

(from top to bottom) Ed Wood; Stanley Kubrick

Gaze, please, at the eyes of two of the most idiosyncratic, controversial and puzzled-about directors in film history, one considered to be among the best in his field, the other among the worst. Obviously, any director's greatest tools are his eyes. After all, every filmmaker is trying to get us to see the world through his eyes. What do we see in Ed Wood's eyes? What do we see in Stanley's? What do these men's eyes tell us about their films? I think insufficient attention has been paid to directors' eyes. Maybe it could be a whole new branch of film study. Ed Wood's eyes are those of man who is handsome in an elegant, old-fashioned way. There is a delicacy to them and a hint of romance, perhaps a bit of femininity. See how the right eyebrow is cocked in a suave, seductive way. Eddie certainly had his share of women in his younger days, and several of them compared his appearance to that of Errol Flynn, a screen icon of the 1930s and '40s known for his swashbuckling roles and playboy lifestyle. Now look at Stanley's eyes -- dark, intense, serious. These are the eyes of an obsessed man. The thick black eyebrows above jut sharply downward toward his nose, forming a shadowy brow which looms over the bulging orbs. Notice, too, the dark rings which circle them and give him a menacing appearance. Many of Kubrick's lead actors would have similarly intense, formidable gazes -- Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Malcolm McDowell and Patrick Magee in A Clockwork Orange, Vincent D'Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket, and Sterling Hayden in The Killing and Dr. Strangelove -- and Kubrick liked to film these men either from below or from angles in which they stared intently under furrowed brows. Perhaps all of these were self-portraits.

Getting back to my comedy roots: Gumby evolution!

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 19:36:47 PDT

How Gumby Has Evolved: A comic by the author when he was much younger.

Here's a one-page comic I wrote -- in pencil on notebook paper -- almost 24 years ago. One of my classmates actually saved it and posted it to Facebook, and now I present it to you.

The last Homeland Security Advisory System parody you'll ever need

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:10:31 PDT

How worried should you be at any given time about Lindsay Lohan? Use this handy chart to keep track.

P.S. - Did you know that I had a YouTube channel and a Podomatic page? Well, I do.

Something I'd never noticed in an old "Simpsons" episode

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 13:05:57 PDT

The Simpsons and The Shining side by side.

On the left are screenshots from "Bart to the Future," an episode of The Simpsons which aired March 19, 2000. On the right are screenshots from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. It took me 13 years to notice this.

Bad MS Paint Art: Celebrities from memory

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 22:38:40 PDT

One of my abstract works made possible by MS Paint

Of all the advances of the so-called Computer Age, certainly one of the greatest is Microsoft Paint, that most auspicious of digital time-wasters. While the programmers who created Power Point, Word, and Excel will certainly spend several lifetimes in Hell atoning for their technological sins, the creator of Microsoft Paint has an express ticket to Heaven. At least that's how I see it. I have spent countless, contented hours scribbling away on MS Paint. It's remarkably therapeutic and relaxing. Unfortunately, this delightful application did get me into a bit of trouble once. A little over a decade ago, you see, I was a customer service representative for a major American automobile manufacturer. Let's say the name rhymes with Schmeneral Schmotors. Anyway, before we were allowed to take calls from irate customers, we had to attend a month-long training course which was held in a small classroom on the property. We each had computers at our desks, and our instructor stood up front and lectured. I confess that I frequently got bored during the lessons and started using my computer to draw crude likenesses of Fred Flintstone and Bart Simpson. Well, apparently one of my fellow students ratted me out to the teacher, and I was briefly and gently chastised by her. Oh, remind me to tell you about this woman sometime. She was something else! My guess was that she was some sort of cyborg or replicant, but I have no proof of this. Her name was Nina, but she pronounced it "Nine-a." Can you beat that?

But let's get back on track. All these years later, I still love MS Paint. I've used it to create every last Zomby cartoon, for instance, and I still while away the hours doing little abstract designs whenever I am bored, which is frequently. Lately, I've had the idea of trying to draw various celebrities from memory. I thought I could turn it into some kind of parlor game -- kind of a variation on Pictionary or Win, Lose, or Draw. Anyway, here are a few examples:

Michael Jackson

Prince

Hulk Hogan

Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean

Benjamin Franklin

As you have probably guessed, I normally pick celebrities who already have a cartooonish, outsized image and who can be reduced to a few outstanding physical characteristics. So then I added a little twist to the game: I would draw less obvious celebrities from memory, then redraw those same celebrities after doing some photo referencing and compare the results. Here's how those turned out:

Anne Hathaway

Alfred Hitchcock

Michael Douglas

You might be wondering what the point of this article is. Frankly, there isn't one. But it's been a while since I posted anything to this blog, and I had all these pictures saved to my hard drive and decided to get some mileage out of them. Hope you enjoyed.

How ZOMBY spends his days off

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:57:22 PST

So now you know.

ZOMBY has some... uh, interesting hobbies

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:24:02 PST

It feels nice to do a new ZOMBY! cartoon. I hadn't done one in a few months, so I thought it was time to bring him back. Hope you enjoy.

My therapist stood me up. That's not a joke.

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:37:02 PST


A scrambled portrait of your humble blogger. No,wait, I hate that word. Your humble bloggist.

It sounds like the setup for a joke in Woody Allen movie, but it actually happened to me this week. My therapist did not show up for our weekly appointment. Actually, the office she shares with another doctor was totally locked and empty when I got there. I stood out in the cold, knocking on the door for a few minutes, but to no avail. I have no idea what happened. Maybe she's ducking me. Who knows? I could have been the patient who finally drove her out of the therapist biz. But I kid my therapist. She's actually very nice -- a thin, spiky-haired woman of about 50 with a heavy Polish accent and the wardrobe of a bohemian art teacher. At our last session, she had dyed her hair blue to match her outfit. No kidding. Anyway, since I live alone and have very little social life, my therapy sessions are pretty much my only opportunity each week to interact with another human being in person and speak as myself. Naturally, when speaking to coworkers or relatives, I have to be on my best behavior. It's very nice, then, to have an hour a week to say whatever I want and speak freely.

Well, guess what? Since I didn't get to have a therapy session this week, I'm going to treat this blog as if it were my therapist's office and you, dear reader, are going to be my therapist for the week. I'm going to say whatever comes into my head, and you're going to nod and say things like "Mm-hmm" and "Very interesting. Please go on." Do you think you can handle that? Good! Let's get started. We only have an hour here, so you're going to want to keep at least one eye on the clock at all times, the way a real therapist does.

I usually start out each session by saying how my week has gone. Well, citizens, it was sort of a rough one for me even though nothing much of note actually happened. Work has slowed down to a crawl lately, which puts a damper on my bank account. And naturally, now is the time when seemingly everything I own has to be repaired or replaced. So more money is going out than coming in currently. I think/hope/imagine/pray that the situation will be better in a few months, but it does sort of get depressing to look at my recent bank statements. I really ought to have a better-paying, more stable job. Even my immediate supervisor has said so. I've basically taken a temp job and managed to make it last ten years. I should probably aim a little higher. But here's the thing about that: I hate business. I hate businesspeople. And worst of all, I hate businesspeople talking about business stuff. I can't even be around those people for long. I can barely survive an elevator ride with corporate-minded folks spouting all that business gibberish. The great thing about my job is that, for the most part, it involves very little interaction with these people... or any people. I can just put on my headphones and listen to podcasts all day while doing my work, which is great. The pay is lousy, though, and it's sort of humiliating to be in such a menial, low-level job for a decade. Why don't I try for something better? Well, for one, I'm not the least bit ambitious, at least not in that way. I've seen the people who get promoted at my company. Many have come through my department. But they're driven by a kind of hunger I just don't have. They hear about an opening for "regional associate managing project director" or some such thing, and they go after it like a dog devouring a T-bone steak. Meanwhile, I can't schmooze. I can't network. I can't self-promote. I just can't bring myself to do any of that stuff. I shudder just thinking about it.

So if the corporate thing isn't for me, why don't I quit my job and pursue my dreams? After all, it's not like I have a family to support or anything. But here's the sad truth: I don't have a dream. There's never been anything I've wanted to do as a career. Not one, even when I was a kid and too dumb to be disillusioned. I'm just a dabbler. I dabble. I've tried all sorts of creative pursuits, including this blog, and they're sort of fun and fulfilling. But I've never stumbled across anything I would describe as a passion. I have interests but no passions. Wow. That sounds just awful, but it's the truth. Ultimately, that's what makes it really difficult to keep going. I have no goals. There's nothing I really want. And that's the essence of life, isn't it? Wanting stuff? The same goes for relationships. I've had maybe five dates in my entire life and never anything close to a girlfriend. But it's not like I've put a whole lot of effort into that arena. I have no dating skills, and I know from my few disastrous dates that I'm not boyfriend material. I don't think I'd really want a girlfriend, and the idea of being married or having kids scares the life out of me. So what do I do then? Work a crummy, low-paying job and live alone for a few more decades until I finally die? Yikes. That doesn't sound too appealing. That's the upshot of all this: I'm kind of out of options. I've seen and done as much as I want to do, and there's still so much time left. How am I going to fill it?

Well, well! Speaking of time, it looks like ours is just about up. This has been a great session, doc. I really got to express some stuff that's been on my mind lately. Thanks for listening. Same time next week? Super.

ADDENDUM: I feel I should add a little tag to this article for anyone who reads it and thinks it is too dark or depressing. What you have to understand is that I use my therapy sessions to vent all the negativity that builds up in me over the course of the typical week. Once I've said all this terrible stuff, I usually feel much better. As odd as this might sound, I would liken it to an exorcism. The therapist is the Max Von Sydow to my Linda Blair. This week, I'm asking you to be my Max Von Sydow. Thanks.

Homer

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:34:46 PST

picasion

Let me explain this one a little bit.

Apparently, an Icelandic magazine ran a comic in 1949 with a character who looked incredibly like Homer Simpson.

Here's the Buzzfeed article which alerted me to the existence of this comic.

What I have done is take the panels from this particular comic and turn them into an animated GIF, thus creating the oldest animated Simpsons episode in existence. I want you to imagine that the show was originally just about Homer and his misadventures in wood chopping.

Nixon

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:38:10 PST

This is just a little bit of Big Lebowski fan art I created, based on the famous picture of Richard Nixon bowling.

Time

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:06:51 PDT

Nolte

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:07:56 PDT

I'm a produced playwright! Who knew?

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:45:33 PST

"Is this the end of Zombie Shakespeare?" - A classic scene from The Simpsons

So here's what happened.

A couple of nights ago, I started seeing that there were a lot of TV commercials for the upcoming DVD/BluRay release of Disney's Peter Pan. I thought this was as good a time as any to write an article about that film and about the Peter Pan myth in general -- something I may still do in the future. Anyway, I was pretty sure I'd already written a mini-review of that movie on a message board somewhere, and I went to Google to find it. I never did, but I accidentally found something even more interesting in the process.

Apparently, back in 2011, a script I'd written back in the 1990s called The Rocky & Bullwinkle Horror Picture Show was actually performed on a real stage by real human beings as part of something called the KC Fringe Festival in Kansas City . As you might guess from the title, the script is a crossover parody in which that lovable cartoon moose and squirrel, along with other characters from their series (including Boris Badenov and Dudley Do-Right), act out The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The script was something of a viral hit back in the era before Google, Facebook, or YouTube even existed. And I guess, it's had a life of its own since then.

Here is the article which alerted me to the existence of this show.

And here are some photographs of the actual production, along with my guesses as to what's happening in them based on my own memory of the script.

Boris Badenov doing his version of "Sweet Transvestite."

The whole cast doing the opening number "Animated Cartoon Features."

Various cast members as Nell Fenwick, Boris Badenov, and Natasha Fatale.

Possibly the narrator conversing with Snidely Whiplash.

The whole cast performing a scene called "The Floor Wax Show."

This is all really trippy -- seeing people actually do stuff based on a script I wrote as a joke years ago. It's one thing to sit down at a computer and write that the show begins with a kazoo fanfare. It's quite another to learn that people really did play a kazoo fanfare at the beginning of the play.

What can I say? I'm baffled yet flattered. It's a funny old world sometimes.

The whole gallery of photos is here, if you're interested.

And did someone ask for a clip? No? Well, here's one anyway.

Why that "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" song gave me nightmares

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:17:47 PST

Brian Hyland and the song which I completely misinterpreted as a kid.

You know which song scared the hell out of me as a kid? "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini." This will sound ridiculous, I realize. How could anyone be frightened by this totally innocuous, slightly risque 1960 novelty number about a young woman who comes to regret her choice in swimwear? Answer: because I was a kid at the time and kids' minds work in weird ways. I'm not sure how exactly I heard this song at first, but I'm guessing it was because my mother had a 45 of it in her collection. While the rest of the world heard a fun little bubblegum pop tune about fun times at the beach, I heard a song about a girl freezing to death in the ocean. The fact that the song was so light and upbeat only made it more horrifying: not only was the singer totally unconcerned about the girl, but he was actually making fun of her with this record. Here are the lyrics which bothered me so much back then. (To recap the "plot" of song to this point, a young woman has come to the beach wearing the rather immodest garment of the title. Concealing her shame with a blanket, the damsel at first timidly progressed from the locker room to the shore. Now, having shed the blanket, she has secluded herself in the water and seems to be suffering from hypothermia.)

HYLAND:
Now she's afraid to come out of the water
And I wonder what she's gonna do.
Now she's afraid to come out of the water
And the poor little girl's turning blue.

FEMALE VOCALIST:
Two, three, four, tell the people what she wore!

HYLAND & CHORUS:
It was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini
That she wore for the first time today
An itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini
So in the water she wanted to stay

FEMALE BACKING VOCALISTS:
From the locker to the blanket!
From the blanket to the shore!
From the shore to the water!

HYLAND:
Guess there isn't any more!

The two lines which really bothered me were "The poor little girl's turning blue" and "Guess there isn't any more!" I cannot tell you the impact these lyrics had on my then-developing mind. Just so you know, this song no longer bothers me. I have it on my iPod, and it comes up in shuffle mode occasionally without causing me any stress. I can even now appreciate the cleverness of the lightly Latin arrangement, with the interplay between Brian Hyland and the sexy-sounding, flirtatious female vocalists -- not to mention the record's supreme use of cowbell. But when I was 4 or 5 years old, this song was a total nightmare to me. Kids, huh? Try to figure 'em out.

P.S. - This song was Hyland's first and biggest hit, and he was only 16 at the time. He'd go on to have other Top 40 smashes in the 1960s and 70s, including more serious tunes like "Sealed With a Kiss" and "Gypsy Woman," but none were bigger than "Bikini." So massive was the song's success that Hyland shamelessly copied himself with a sound-alike follow-up record which totally bombed. Here's that one. It's kinda fun, I guess.

Two unhappy actors

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:36:55 PST

Hey, I'm not charging for this material! What do you expect?

Et tu, Stretch? Another Armstrong admits doping.

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 00:00:53 PST

Armstrong in his '70s heyday, when he served as a disturbingly pliable role model to a generation of children.

In retrospect, we should have all seen it coming. The freakishly elongated limbs capable of extending to many times their normal lengths, the ability to contort himself into elaborate, pretzel-like configurations, the mysteriously smooth and hairless skin, the apparent lack of a skeleton -- these were not traits which Stretch Armstrong acquired naturally through genetics or learned through years of practice.

And now, finally, the truth has come out. In a highly-publicized TV interview with Color Purple star Whoopi Goldberg, Mr. Armstrong has admitted to his use of a whole battery of performance-enhancing drugs, including Rubbernol, Stretchabunch, Twistophan, and an extremely dangerous bone-softening hormone known only as "Twang." During the course of the hour-long chat with Goldberg, Armstrong also owned up to dozens of cosmetic surgeries in order to maintain his youthful appearance. Despite Stretch's repeated denials in the past, fans had long suspected the muscleman of going under the knife, especially when he re-emerged in the 1990s with an alarming new look. A simple side-by-side comparison makes it obvious:

Armstrong in 1976 and 1993 respectively. Years of plastic surgery had clearly taken a toll.

"What can I say?" Armstrong told Goldberg when asked for his motives. By means of explanation, Stretch spoke of his humble upbringing as the son of a Wisconsin mill worker:

A gateway drug.

I was insecure. My parents named me Stretch, thinking I was going to be tall like my dad, who was All State in basketball when he was in high school. But I was this runty little kid, you know? I was never good at sports or anything. I mean, for one thing, I had these freakish, blobby hands and feet without fingers or toes. I couldn't even hold a football, let alone throw one. Then, one day, my parents took me to the circus, and there was this contortionist on the bill. I think he was from India or Pakistan, one of those countries. Anyway, I was transfixed. I knew then and there what I wanted to do with my life. Every day after school, I'd practice my contorting. I actually did get pretty good at it -- enough to be hired for birthday parties and car dealership openings, stuff like that. But then one day, a man from the Kenner Corporation caught my act and told me that if I was ever going to make it big, I'd need some extra help. That's what got me started on the whole doping thing. I mean, I'm not blaming Kenner. I was the one who first injected Elmer's Rubber Cement into my calves and forearms. No one put a Nerf gun to my head.

The news has saddened Armstrong's fans around the world, particularly those in France, a country where he is known as "Monsieur Extensible" and has been widely hailed as an artistic genius. The Légion d'honneur is one of many honors of which Mr. Armstrong has been stripped in recent days, along with his 1976 Toy of the Year Award, his Nobel Prize for Achievement in Contortion, and a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award he nabbed during his 1990s comeback. Because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has no integrity whatsoever, though, Stretch will be allowed to keep the Golden Globe he won for appearing opposite Pia Zadora in 1982's Butterfly. He may need to sell it in order to pay the rent on the one-bedroom apartment he currently occupies in Pomona, California -- a far cry from the palatial Malibu estate he once shared with now-ex-wife Tawny Kitaen.

Indeed, the flexible image of Stretch Armstrong will likely never return to its original shape after these shocking admissions. But he is hardly alone in his use of performance-enhancing substances. Let us not forget, for instance, Underdog and his infamous "super energy pills."

Then, of course, there is Popeye and his so called "spinach."

And Captain America? Trust me, you don't even want to know what that guy has taken. It would be easier to list which performance-enhancing substances he hasn't used.

That guy's testicles? Like raisins.

My Martha Plimpton dream

noreply@blogger.com (Wayne Kotke) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 19:27:11 PST

Martha Plimpton: girl of my dreams?

I had a dream about Martha Plimpton once.

I don't know why exactly. It's not like I'm a huge Martha Plimpton fan or anything. I mean, sure, she's a delightful character actress whose quirky, offbeat presence has brightened many a film and television program. But I haven't actively followed her career. I don't even watch Raising Hope, although I've heard the show is pretty good. But, nevertheless, I had a dream about Martha Plimpton.

In the dream, I was at a restaurant, and you'll never guess who I met there. Martha freaking Plimpton! No shit. She was just sitting at the bar, waiting for a table like everyone else. I recognized her immediately. She has a pretty distinct look, after all. I debated whether or not to approach her, but only for a second or two. I figured, "What the heck? When am I going to meet Martha Plimpton again?" So I went up to her and said something clever like, "Are you Martha Plimpton?" And she said, "Yes, I am." "I love your movies," I replied. (This dream was a few years ago, before Raising Hope.) Of course, I started off by mentioning Parenthood and The Goonies, but the movie I really wanted to ask her about was Pecker, a John Waters film from 1998. She was really happy to be asked about that movie. I think she gets a lot of Goonies questions because people grew up with that movie and have such fond memories of it, but she's really hilarious in Pecker as the title character's remarkably gay-friendly older sister. I don't know what the real Martha Plimpton is like, but the dream Martha Plimpton was very down-to-earth and friendly. Anyway, when I woke up the next morning, I was very disappointed to realize that I had not really met Martha Plimpton.

So that was my Martha Plimpton dream. What did you think of it?