Halloween

They should just call it Bela Lugosi Day. I'd be even happier.

Here he is from "Bride of the Monster" along with Martin Landau's dead on performance in "Ed Wood". I couldn't decide which moment was better so here are two.

Go be Halloweeny.

Building

Making one of these things today. Don't know exactly what they do but they take a couple of hours and you need a screwdriver. Can't talk much today but I'll be at the Limerick House at 9 tonight. I'll be saying a lot for about ten minutes and then getting off the stage.

The Mayhem and Madness Comedy Tour
Limerick House
23rd St & 6th Ave.
9:00

Writers Room This Sunday!

And it's a good one. It's got:

Leo Allen (Comedy Central Presents, former writer for SNL)

Dan Curry (Comedy Central’s Open Mic Fight)

Rachel Feinstein (Premium Blend)

Mike Drucker (The Watchlist, McSweeney’s)

Charlie Kasov (Drunken Focus Group)

Dartanion

Jon Clarke (Star Trek: The Sitcom)

With sketches by
Zehl Steen Think Pound Sketch Group

Hosted by Ed Murray (The Four Day Work Week, McSweeney’s)


Sunday, November 4th, 8:00 p.m.
Rififi / Cinema Classics
332 E 11th St
(Between 1st and 2nd Ave)
$5, No Drink Minimum

Ben Week 17

LOE V

Taping it again but I've been meaning to go to Pianos for awhile.

David Chase Explains the Sopranos Finale

Four months later, he says there's nothing to explain.

Ghetto Man

I found this accidentally Saturday morning on youtube and it's changed my life. I posted it on Drucker's myspace page and he gave up. A couple of hours later, I talked about it at an open mike and not only did it kill, people asked me for the url.

So here it is. The most offensive, racist thing DC Comics has been involved in since naming Green Lantern's sidekick "Pieface". First I was angry at the racism. Then I was angry at the incompetence. Now I'm angry how well Ghetto Man does. I haven't killed like this in 10 months. That is, until I started talking about Ghetto Man.

Ben Week 16

Cookie Monster and Martha Stewart

This was done about six years ago and I heard a lot about it but finally found it tonight. Cookie Monster made an appearance on Martha Stewart Living to help make cookies. It was supposed to be cute but the puppeteer just decided to fuck with Martha. Martha gets really mad on camera and Cookie just keeps pushing her buttons. YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO WATCH THIS. It is the single funniest thing the Muppets have done since Jim Henson was alive.

Part 1:


Part 2:

Hard Rock Hallelujah

Drucker showed me this and it's hilarious. I don't know the time difference between here and Finland but I think over there it's 1988.

DC Batman review

Here's my latest for figures.com. Six Batman figures but the Clayface is so awesome I forgot there were five others.

Read and become learned.

Robocop

The last time I did a toy run with Franzem, I came across the 20th Anniversary edition DVD of Robocop. Whenever a toy run goes long enough, I will buy anything remotely interesting. So I got the dvd and watched it that night.

Robocop

I was in high school when this was released and pretty mad I couldn't get in to see it. It was everything a fifteen year old could want: explosions, blood and robots. But it was rated 'R' and and a heavy 'R' at that. It's so amazingly violent it got no rating at first. That cut is included on the dvd.

It's a better movie now than when it was released in 1987. I hadn't realized that the whole movie is a satire of corporate America. On my first viewing, the 6000 SUX and "I'll buy that for a dollar!" seemed to stick out of the film like sore thumbs. Now I realize they're the point of the movie. Corporate america owns EVERYTHING in this movie and is as out of touch with humanity as possible. Characters like Ronny Cox and Miguel Ferrer aren't eeeevil, they're just 80's businessmen, doing whatever it takes to please their superiors. The fact that they can chop up a police officer for their experiments underlines the tone.

As overwhelmingly violent as this movie is, the humor is sly, deceptive and takes more than a single viewing to comprehend. I liked it so much I rented the sequels.



Robocop 2

Frank Miller wrote the sequel and it's terrible. Now, Miller is not the benchmark of consistency but The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, Daredevil and 300 are all fanatstic pieces of work. But there's also The Dark Knight Strikes Again. And this.

In this movie, Robocop is out to stop a new drug (oh yeah, we're in the late 80's) which apparantly is controlled by one snotty 12 year old kid. We also have a bunch of subplots that go nowhere, like Robocop reprogrammed to be 'nice'. The jokes all fall flat in this one because, let's face it, Frank Miller isn't funny. He's cool and violent and dark, but why does he think he's funny as well? And nothing looks like it's in the future. Compared to the ED 209, which is supposed to be outdated, the Robocop Mark 2 looks like crap. When a sequel with more money can't at least look cooler and sound louder than the original, you're in trouble.

Robocop 3

This one is staggeringly bad. My jaw was literally hanging open in the first ten minutes. Peter Weller didn't return (hell, Leeza Gibbons didn't return) but it's got Stephen Root, CCH Pounder, Bradley Whitford, Jill Hennessy, Rip Torn, Jeff Garlin and a half dozen other character actors who left this off their resumes. It's got the budget of an episode of T.J. Hooker and yet director Fred Dekker does nothing with it. The story is a complete mess, with Robocop helping a neighborhood from being evicted and fighting a ninja. And there's a cute kid in it. Oh, and a jetpack. It's the kind of movie where characters say "what are you doing?" and stand perfectly still until they do it. Frank Miller write this one too.

There's a tv series but even I'm not that big a masochist.

UPDATE: I forgot I signed up for a program and promised today's post would be about the environment. Damn. Oh, well. Robocop is very bad for the environment. He blows things up. He runs on fossil fuels and baby food. He doesn't recycle. And he works in Detroit. I mean, come on!

MEGO

Here's a great 1976 commercial for the MEGO action figures. It's one of the only times Marvel and DC were grouped together and contains the greatest accepted racial slur of the day "The Falcon, that great black superhero!"

Boy Talks Serial Killer Out Of It

Amazing story but what did he say? Cause it should be in the Boy Scout Handbook.

Drucker's in McSweeney's!

Yet again. And it's great. Yet again.

Read.

Ben Week 15

This weekend was the Clarke family reunion in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Everyone got the chance to meet Ben and Johnny's 16 day old son Jack. Of these two are anything like their dads, they will waste their twenties in Greenwich Village bars together, failing to pick up girls.

Things I Hate About KFC

1. Mostly the vomiting
2. The fact that they are open late so the vomiting won't begin until 3 a.m.
3. Popcorn chicken which is a vomiting laxative
4. The stains on the walls
5. The fact that they keep partnering with every other fast food restaurant. Cowards.
6. The 11 herbs and spices that 4 Twix bars can't get out of your mouth
7. The four Twix bars you can see as you vomit.
8. The Colonel.
9. The Tums that come right back up. Pathetic.
10. Mike Drucker for suggesting we go.

Don't Forget...

I'm gone for the weekend but I'll be back for this. You should be too.


Writers' Room with:

Colin Jost (writer for SNL)
Peter Grosz (writer for the Colbert Report)
Rachel Feinstein
Alan Cross (writer for Pop-Up Video)
Ed Murray (writer for McSweeneys)
Tim Warner
Mike Drucker (writer for McSweeney's)
The Impending Moustache sketch group

hosted by Jon Clarke (Ragingface.com)

Rififi's
Sunday October 7 8:00

Ben Week 14

Here's Renee and Ben in Chicago. I wasn't there for any of these but it looks like everyone had a nice time.

LEGO Mosiacs

Renee has been buying more LEGOs lately, partly to save for Ben, partly because she loves puzzles. Between Star Wars, Batman and Indiana Jones LEGOs I'm happy to add more to the collection. I've been amazed with what can be done with these bricks. Now Monica shows me what can really be done.

How Willy Wonka Should Have Ended

Alex found this browsing youtube at my house. Billy got it again and sent it to me. And now I'm giving it to you.