Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 14

The Simpsons and The Tube Bar Tapes

The day after Thanksgiving, FX channel puts on a 13-day marathon of “The Simpsons,” the animated satire that is set to become America’s longest-running television series, defeating “Gunsmoke”‘s 25 year run, unless it is cancelled. Confession, I haven’t watched it regularly in well over a decade; I watched the John Waters episode, and a few scattered here and there, but the last one I remember watching was the “soul mate” episode with Johnny Cash, where Homer eats the Guatemalan Insanity peppers and hallucinates. I’m not sure what changed, but I just lost interest, the show seemed less subversive. They had won. The show had broken a lot of barriers and was accused of making us more crass and vulgar when often, it was one of the more realistic portrayals of family life on the boob tube.

Bart got his start on the Tracey Ullman Show, and took over the nation with his battle cry of “Cowabunga,” “I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?” and of course, “Eat My Shorts.” It all seems so silly now, but it was a breakthrough at the time. One of Bart’s favorite pastimes was prank calling the bartender at his father’s gin mill, Moe’s, and tormenting its owner, Moe Szyslak. “I’d like to speak to Al.” “Al who?” “Al Coholic.”

Well, that gag had its origin in New Jersey. Matt Groening was a fan of “The Tube Bar Tapes,” a series of prank calls made to The Tube Bar in Jersey City, a dive in Journal Square run by a retired heavyweight boxer named Louis “Red” Deutsch. Red had a voice like Tom Waits in a cement mixer, and whether punchy or rummy, he fell for some of the oldest prank calls in the book. And when he realized he was being pranked, his colorful rejoinders, ranging from profanity to poetics such as “I’ll cut open yer belly and show ya the black stuff inside” made for entertainment in the early ’80s, when “the Red tapes” made the rounds among sports journalists and then the larger world. Once they hit the Internet in the early ’90s they became known as The Bum Bar Bastards, and went on to inspire The Jerky Boys, who were more of a performance comedy team. (The Jerky Boys Movie is more entertaining than it has any right to be, maybe due to cameos from Tom Jones singing Lenny Kravitz, and Alan Arkin playing a cranky mobster.)

Red Deutsch with Rocky Marciano. Photo credit Jon Rowe

We listened to the Red Tapes in high school, when parody songs only heard on Dr. Demento were passed around on mix tapes and treasured for those long cruising drives around at night when you had nothing to do. My friends and I wanted to visit The Tube Bar, but Old Red died in 1986, before we could legally enter. Here’s a picture of the Tube Bar:

If you want to listen to the infamous “Red Tapes,” they are now on YouTube. Be warned, Red and the pranksters are pretty foul-mouthed fellows.

Tagged: New Jersey, Simpsons, The Jerky Boys, The Red Tapes

They Live, Nada, and “Eight O’Clock in the Morning”

John Carpenter’s They Live has been a favorite since I first saw it, and remains a pulp science fiction classic. My friend Tony Peyser told me it was based on a short story by Ray Nelson called “Eight O’Clock in the Morning,” which was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1966, long out of print. He also invented the propeller beanie hat, if you remember those.

The story is very thin but of course, a very memorable premise of mind control and aliens among us. Carpenter filled it out a lot with Reagan-era class warfare from the yuppie class enslaving working people, and fed into the hatred of the soulless consumerists who inspired American Psycho. If you haven’t seen They Live, it’s a deserving classic for many reasons, and embraces its kitschy pulp roots, very much like the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The DVD is available on NetFlix.

You can read “Eight O’Clock in the Morning” here. In 1986 there was a comic adaptation by Bill Wray in Alien Encounters, which Carpenter saw and drew from. That’s where the infamous and silly final shot comes from. Instead of a girlfriend, Nada, played by Roddy Piper the pro wrestler, gets Keith David, one of my favorite actors, best known for playing Childs in Carpenter’s The Thing. When Nada wants him to “wear the glasses” that will awaken him from alien domination, they have a throwdown alley fight for at least five minutes, to play to Roddy’s wrestling strengths. It’s a lot of fun, and silly, and after so many mass shootings, Nada’s shotgun solution to the aliens in the infamous bank scene is a little creepy, but it’s as pure an action hero story as there ever was.

If you want to read the comic that inspired Carpenter, you can read it here. This is a snip:

Tagged: John Carpenter, Ray Nelson, Science Fiction, They Live

Happy Thanksgiving, Swiss Krissly Yours from Louis Armstrong…

Louis Armstrong was a devout missionary of Swiss Kriss herbal laxatives, and even sent some to the British royals. He loved a good meal, red beans and rice especially, and would sign letters “Red Beans and Ricely Yours” or “Swiss Krissly Yours.”

The above is a photo of his family at Thanksgiving dinner, thanks to the Louis Armstrong Museum twitter feed, and below is a package of Swiss Kriss and the postcard he would send to adoring fans, extoling the benefits of the product, complete with a photo of him using the toilet after its effects took hold.

For the record, just eat plenty of fiber, and your butt trumpet will remain clean…

I’m gonna listen to the Hot 5’s and 7’s collection before I head out to dinner with the fam.

For a full article on the musical genius and his love of Swiss Kriss, here’s the NPR article that introduced me to the story.

 

Tagged: Butts, Louis Armstrong, Swiss Kiss, Thanksgiving

San Junipero and the Vanishing Hopeful Future

My Do Some Damage post this week discusses Black Mirror, the easy acceptance of dystopia and the challenge of imagining hopeful future:


Read it over at Do Some Damage. Black Mirror is the best show on television today, and the best anthology series since the Twilight Zone.

Tagged: Black Mirror, Do Some Damage

The Peepland Tour with Christa Faust

A while back the unsinkable Christa Faust was in New York for Comicon, and we went on a tour of Times Square, looking for unDisneyfied corners and found quite a few. The peep shop she worked in is an empty storefront but we visited the last remaining one in the area and even sneaked into the long-gone area where the peep girls once worked. It’s all video now.

So drop by Criminal Element for a tour of old sleazy New York and make sure you pick up Peepland, a great gritty and sentimental visit to ’80s Times Square, by Christa and Gary Phillips, for Hard Case Crime’s new comic imprint. It’s great so far. Issue #1 is out, and #2 streets Nov.30th

and a peek at the villain to come… look familiar?

Tagged: Christa Faust, Criminal Element, Gary Phillps, Hard Case Crime, Peepland

So You Want to Wear a Safety Pin

What a Witch

Great. This is a necessary behavior in the face of the election of the most overtly racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti- gender and sexual minority candidate in the history of the modern United States. You know the rhetoric of his campaign was wrong. It was the very worst thing about America and you want to do what you can to combat the result. Good. Do that.

But don’t do it without a plan. Because the very last thing a tense situation needs is someone full of good intentions but with no knowledge of de-escalation tactics or self-defense. Your intentions are not a tangible shield. If you don’t make a plan, you will get yourself or the person you are trying to defend very killed.

Let’s avoid that.

So make a plan.

Some of you can stop reading now. You have, or know how to make a plan and you don’t need…

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Veteran’s Day, and some recommended reading

First, it is Veteran’s Day. That’s for the living veterans of all wars. I made a donation to Homes for Our Troops, who build accessible homes for wounded veterans (at no cost to the veteran).

Secondly, some recommended reading for the future. It’s depressing how accurate Sinclair Lewis got it with It Can’t Happen Here, about American fascism. The “Corpos” were the brownshirts, supporting Buzz Windrip (what a name!) a Huey Long-like blowhard businessman who might remind you of somebody else. They were an unofficial militia who hassled and beat up dissenters and the rule of law just didn’t seem to apply to them. Be wary, I can’t imagine the bully-in-chief creating a “Patriot Defense Fund” with other people’s money to keep goons out of jail for attacking his enemies.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is rightfully a classic. It presents an extreme, and I expect the future to be uglier in some ways and more underhanded in others. The DOJ will likely stop investigating how universities deal with sexual assault. Contraceptive choices for non-affluent women will be limited, as insurance will be no longer required to pay. In the workplace, family planning may be decided by policy. Like Apple offering to pay to freeze your eggs–it’s for your benefit, we’ll pay for the 4-year contraceptive shot, but you have to get one if you want to be hired…

I’ve heard my fellow white men blowing off people’s fears. Of course, we have the least to lose. Friends who survived cancer and suffer with lupus, their health care is in danger, and they don’t even use the ACA (aka Obamacare). They have pre-existing conditions. The “outsider” has already dubbed the CEO of Chase to assist in deregulating banks, hired lifetime politicians like Meese, Gingrich, Guiliani, Christie, for his cabinet, suckers. Real outsiders. On the other hand, the Democrats failed big. It was the economy, stupid, to use their own words. Sure, the GOP Congress blocked every jobs bill, but would’ve been nice to see a plan to retrain workers to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure — to be hired by private companies doing it–and see them vote against that. Maybe we’ll see it yet. McConnell already poo-pooed Trump’s term limit and infrastructure initiatives, so don’t expect much good to come of this. The ACA will be gone soon. If they don’t replace it, and expect another 2009 crash soon, this time caused by medical bankruptcy and subprime auto loans.

Whew. Well, so we don’t all die of despair, here’s a great book I read recently, which lifted my spirits. Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, by Joyce Carol Oates. Set in the ’50s, it follows a rebel girl gang as they avenge attacks from sleazeballs and their descent into destruction. Yeah, I said it cheered me up. Reading Joyce Carol Oates is like getting lifted by a windstorm of words that takes you someplace entirely new. And Foxfire is one of her best.

I sign all my books this way, and I mean it.

Keep Fighting.

But take a breather between rounds.. The fight never ends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tagged: It Can't Happen Here, Margaret Atwood, Rants, Sinclair Lewis, Veteran's Day

Life During Wartime at The Flash Fiction Offensive

This was my brutal bullying story for the Noir at the Bar: Trump edition on 11/6/2016. It’s pretty brutal but nothing different than what I experienced as a student. With Pence in power, it may become a reality. He is pro “gay conversion therapy,” where sometimes half the kids forced into them commit suicide. He wants to roll back protections for LGBTQ citizens. And kids have reported being taunted about “getting deported” whether they are legal or not, once Trump is in power, so this is no fantasy.

Read it at The Flash Fiction Offensive. Thanks to editor Tom Pitts for the quick publication.

 

Tagged: Bullying, Gay, The Flash Fiction Offensive

11/9

Beer’s not gonna help but it can’t hurt.

My story from Noir at the Bar: Trump edition will be published at The Flash Fiction Offensive this week. It’s called “Life During Wartime” and is based on actual events reported in schools, amplified somewhat, now that the bully’s power is cemented. His VP believes in gay conversion therapy and put a woman in prison for a miscarriage, immigrants are already experiencing violence, citizens are attacked and vilified for being the “wrong” color or religion. The worst of our nature. I don’t think everyone who voted for Trump is a bigot who hates women, but that’s who will be running the country in 70 days.

 

Happy Halloween from Pyewacket!

Kim Novak and Pyewacket, her familiar from Bell, Book, and Candle

One of my favorite Halloween movies is Bell, Book, and Candle. Tonight I’ll be watching The Witch, though. I highly recommend it, if you like disturbing stories. It tells a tale straight from the Salem Witch trials, as if the stories told were truth, and it succeeds with chilling efficacy.

But if you don’t like being scared, here’s a very funny pastiche of Lovecraft and Schultz, by John Aegard, over at Strange Horizons:

The Great Old Pumpkin.

I loved it. And here’s my costume, the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. My favorite line isn’t why a raven is like a writing desk, but rather when Alice says, “I don’t think…”

and he quips. Then you shouldn’t talk!

Nasty fellow, that Hatter… lay off the mercury.

 

Tagged: Cats, Halloween, Kim Novak