A Frank Frazetta of Frank Zappa

2012-08-16, 10:30 pm
Categories: Movies, Music, Stream of Consciousness, TV

Image: Portrait of the Master
Image courtesy of manosinhd.com

Caught the Rifftrax of Manos: The Hands of Fate this evening. It was great fun; all new riffs, plus two fun new shorts.

Also, it closed with this:

Back to the subject of Zappa: Zappa, because he appreciated things that were awesome, was an MST3K fan. Purportedly he once described the experience of watching the show and suddenly hearing a reference to himself as "unsettling". (Unfortunately I can't seem to find the interview where I originally read that at the moment...)

Nothing is Too Wonderful to Be True

2012-08-16, 8:39 pm
Categories: Work

Someone shipped an old computer back today -- one of the models that I always cringe to see, because they are bound to be encrusted with dust, and because I then inevitably have to open them up and pop the hard drive so we can wipe it before disposal. They are hell on my asthma.

And then I opened it up and...wow. Immaculate. Either this thing has been sitting in a sealed plastic bag for years and never opened, or someone actually went to the trouble of opening it up and blowing it out before shipping it back to me.

So thank you, whichever user was kind enough to do that for me. You are awesome.

(And okay, it was two months late. But given the choice, I will take late, clean equipment every time.)

Go Ask Alice

2012-08-15, 10:04 pm
Categories: Music

Local boy Alice Cooper talking about how Zappa signed him for his first record. It's an incomplete cell phone clip, recorded in 2010, but it's good stuff.

He's a good storyteller; I catch Nights with Alice Cooper now and again.

Closer Closer

2012-08-15, 7:31 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, TV

So The Closer ended this past Monday, sort of.

Really it's kinda funny how the entire season built up an arc that could have explained Brenda leaving, and yet the finale felt forced, rushed, and last-minute. Hey, let's resolve the one remaining loose thread and usher her out the door!

The biggest problem with the episode, really, was that it required a villain previously depicted as a criminal mastermind to turn into a complete fucking moron at the last minute. One character even points out, in dialogue, that his actions in this episode don't match the MO established in his previous appearances. This is never resolved, nor explained even a little bit, but I guess it's nice the writers acknowledged the part where it didn't really make any fucking sense based on what had come before.

And then the goodbye felt awfully abrupt. It didn't feel much like an ending at all.

Because it wasn't, really, because it led straight into Major Crimes, which the writers and network have taken great pains to establish is the same show with a new title.

It's not a jumping-on point. It continues directly from the Closer finale, picks up threads from the previous season, and even has Fritz wandering around the office talking to Brenda on the phone and picking up her things for her.

Really, it's a smart move -- a jumping-on point is also a jumping-off point, and TNT made the right decision in trying to reassure its existing viewers that this was still the same show instead of trying to make it appealing to a new audience that may or may not actually exist to tune in on a Monday night in the middle of August.

And if they had given Brenda a big sendoff, well...how many people quit watching The Office after Michael left? I know I didn't watch the last season of Scrubs because My Finale was such a great damn note to end it on.

So Brenda's shown the door, roll credits, show the new titles in the same old font, and life goes on. A fairly savvy bit of television-making, really.

Comics!

2012-08-14, 8:18 pm
Categories: Comics, Stream of Consciousness

Here are some of the comics I picked up last week that I liked. (They may not all be last week's comics; I'm kind of on an every-two-weeks cycle right now.)

iZombie #28 -- a satisfying ending, on the whole; it's rushed and all gets a little Allred-y in the end, but it works.

I've liked how the book has gradually moved toward a world where Portland is just this kinda weird, offbeat place where all the monster-people are just one more minority group, and somewhere where they're just regular dudes and are accepted. It's like X-Men without the angst. I'd certainly be interested in seeing Roberson and Allred revisit this series some day -- wonder what it takes for the rights to revert.

Action Comics #12 -- So wait, did this issue just start out like that, or was there a lead-in last issue that I completely forgot?

This is Morrison in full-on sprint-to-the-finish mode, like his last arc on New X-Men. He's throwing out interesting ideas a mile a minute and then abandoning them just as quickly.

This issue resolves the "Clark Kent is dead and Superman has a new secret identity" arc, which was an interesting idea I think he could have spent a bit more time on. The resolution -- well, there is no resolution to a "Clark Kent is dead" plot that isn't some sort of copout; honestly I kinda like that Morrison just ran with it and went for the biggest copout he possibly could. (I have mixed feelings on the landlady -- I kinda wish she'd just stayed as some eccentric old lady.)

Best part of the issue, though: Superman reading every medical textbook in the library and then performing surgery. Always fun to see him use his powers in an unusual way.

Batman #12 -- I don't know if there's anything in this world I love more than a done-in-one man-on-the-street story. This just so happens to be a done-in-one woman-on-the-street story drawn by Becky Cloonan and Andy Clarke.

If I have a criticism, it's that there are two penciler credits at all -- Batman is currently a four-dollar, 28-page book; typically that's one 20-page story and an 8-page backup, but this issue it's one continuous story that just switches artists (and, apparently, writers, though that's less obvious) on page 22. Now, both artists are great! But the transition is jarring. It feels like someone failed to hit a deadline and they had to bring in a backup artist -- that's not what actually happened, but it's what it feels like.

So, points off for a kinda weird presentation decision, but aside from that, a damn fine book.

Rasl #15 -- Welp, it's an ending. I'm curious how the whole thing will read together as a complete work, but as it is it wound up being kinda like Planetary in that its publishing schedule was so far apart that I couldn't remember what was going on by the time a new issue rolled out. To that end, I guess the significant portion this issue spends on Rasl sitting in a car explaining the plot to Uma is helpful.

It looks damned good -- Smith remains possibly the best cartoonist of his generation --, and there are some satisfying developments and twists on the way to the end. But I still feel like this is a series that sorta went off the rails after the first few issues. Again, maybe reading it straight through will leave me feeling differently about it.

Not bad as an ending, though.

Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you who do wrong things

2012-08-13, 9:11 pm
Categories: Comics

So DC posted this preview pic today; it appears to be the cover of Batman #14, coming in November.

Joker in a uniform that says Joe's Garage

I seem to be the only person more interested in what his jumpsuit says than the fact that he is apparently holding his face on with a belt.

Man, between this and Lucille, it's like Joe's Garage has become the official album of comic book villains.

(And oh hey, I get a second opportunity to use the Batman and Frank Zappa tags on the same post!)

Via Bleeding Cool

Some Fucking Bullshit

2012-08-13, 7:55 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, Work

So last Thursday I mailed a package. New hire; needed to be there next-day. But it was in Phoenix, so I chose express shipping. Because, you know, it takes less than a day to drive a package 9 miles.

Today I find out it hasn't arrived yet, so I pull up tracking. And I see this goddamn fucking bullshit:

Package Not Due for Delivery

The package is sitting in a fucking warehouse for three days, because I did not pay extra for next-day delivery. This is a thing that FedEx does now.

They've got the package. They've got it all set to put it on a truck and take it to its destination. But if you don't pay for next-day delivery, they won't deliver it next-day, no matter how short a distance it's going.

I guess what I'm saying is, support your local post office.

And Finally...

2012-08-12, 9:45 pm
Categories: Music

The closing ceremonies are airing on NBC, and, to close out my theme of Zappa material tangentially related to the 2012 Olympics, I give you: Zappa music actually performed at the 2012 Olympics.

That's Bamboozled by Love and Whipping Post, performed by Sarah Knight and the Blue Stones on July 31 in Hyde Park.

It's a cell phone vid; the video quality's poor and the audio's worse. I don't usually post stuff in this quality, but hell, it's just too perfect.

Next I'll be resuming regular, non-London Olympics-themed Zappa posting. There's plenty more British Zappa to go 'round -- concerts, BBC docs, what-have-you -- but from here on in it'll just be mixed in with whatever other interesting Zappa stuff I dig up.

Goodnight everybody.

Hello Teenage America

2012-08-11, 11:02 pm
Categories: Music

Per the uploader:

ThisTownIsASealedTunaSandwich"1968 & & "Cosmik Debris"1974 BeeBeeSea tv UK 1993 Zappa at the Royal Festival Hall London UK 1968

I think that means the first section is This Town is a Sealed Tuna Sandwich at the Royal Festival Hall in '68, the second section is Cosmik Debris in '74 on BBC.

Now, I already posted that Cosmik Debris vid on 6/19, in a version that is higher-quality and does not inexplicably cut off in the middle. But I can't find a video that's just the Royal Festival Hall segment, so here you go. Watch through to 3:35 or so and then, if you really want to watch the Cosmik Debris vid, click on over to the better version. Or, better yet, buy the Dub Room Special DVD.