Contra The Movie

I dreamed I was watching a live-action Contra movie that was extremely true to the video game. It was about the two guys following a path through the jungle and jumping and getting attacked by enemies and shooting them. There was a part where they drive a jeep through the jungle (I don't think there was a real jeep level in Contra) and they drove over a rickety bridge and fell into a bottomless pit, and that's when I woke up. I wish this movie was real.

How I Was Wrong About Herman's Hermits

A couple days ago I watched Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter, the Herman's Hermits movie, on TCM. I had heard of Herman's Hermits before but had never seen them or heard their music. I always assumed they were a jam band and looked like the guys in Herman's Head except with long hair and beards (and there would be four guys and no girl). Boy was I wrong. They are totally clean cut dudes, plus there are five of them.

The movie wasn't very good btw, I gave up on it after half an hour. I might not have liked it because I watched Head (The Monkees', not Herman's) right before though :(

Bill Fagerbakke's NES Protips

Joanna Gruesome

I wrote this Rude Review of Joanna Newsom's terrible album Ys. Check it out man:

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I pretty much knew this album sucked before I ever heard it. I had no idea who Joanna Newsom was and hadn’t heard a note of Ys (more like Ns) when it got rave reviews and made every music critic’s top 10 list of 2006, but I still figured it was bullshit. I mean, yeah, they keep saying it’s good, but there’s no way it actually is good. Then I heard the album. Turns out I was right.

Normally a ton of critical hype amounting to an awful album wouldn’t faze me in the least, but this album was so hyped and so awful that I couldn’t help ask myself a few questions: Is the indie community so creatively stagnant and aimless that they’ll tout whatever sounds different enough from what mom and dad listened to as “the next big thing?” Is the world of rock journalism so cynical that they think we’ll lap up just anything they make sound important? Is this chick deaf? I mean, I still wouldn’t be impressed, but it would explain why we’re all being nice to her, not to mention her voice.

Now I like 15 minute folk songs about faerie goblins and icicles as much as the next guy, but when it comes in the form of tuneless harp-prog I just can’t accept it as good. Newsom’s sound (I won’t call it music) is dreary, pedantic, aesthetically repulsive and horrifically pretentious, but all too misguided and dead-fucking-serious to be acceptably laughable (though I would love to laugh in Joanna’s face, it would probably melt her like water on the Wicked Witch). Newsom’s voice sounds like a buzzsaw to the ear’s genitals. If the lovechild of Billy Corgan and Fran Drescher chain-smoked through Roseanne’s vocal chords and then voiced a talking chicken in a Japanese cartoon on Nickelodeon, that chicken’s Bobcat Goldthwait impression would sound like Newsom’s singing voice. (Speaking of Japanimation, I bet it’s popular among Joanna’s fanbase, her lyrics have as much depth as a 14-year-old anime ninja philosophizing on “Do robots have feelings?” following a scene of a horny grandpa trying to look at a schoolgirl’s panties.) You might say Ys (more like Whys) is an acquired taste, to which I’d reply: only if I acquire it. Otherwise it’s just bad.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she’s technically proficient as sweet get out on the harp, and has likely had more years of classical training than I’ve had days of not living in my parents’ house. She may even have a degree in harp from a place worth a damn and a half if I’d bother to wikipedia her. And hey, I’d like to see me play the harp better! I also wouldn’t doubt for a second that her live shows are simply the bee’s knees. I can just picture it: Joanna dressed up like Juliet playing the harp with all the grace of someone fake from a black-and-white movie, while maybe some other guy stands to the side and plays an instrument from Asia, or something, I don’t know. It must make for quite a splendid evening out; the problem is watching Joanna play the harp is just as sad, irritating, and unintentionally hilarious to me as the trombone players in ska bands or the dude with the violin from Yellowcard. I can totally understand wanting to have something to show for doing such a good job at learning such a hard instrument but that’s no reason to force it on everyone else under the guise of something “interesting,” leave that shit in the elementary school band room and pick up a real rock instrument, asshole!

I get raving about this album on your blogs/zines/blogzines, believe me I really do. Because if I thought I “discovered” this shit, oh Christ, I would not shut the fuck up about it ever. I would hoist it upon my shoulders and parade it through town like the cure for cancer, taking it upon myself to make sure I get everyone into it, or at least let them all know I liked it first. I’d probably even convince myself that Joanna is hot. But I didn’t discover it, so I have no reason to pretend it’s anything but unlistenable garbage. If you really want to hear something arty and intelligent-seeming, go listen to Bach or Mozart or one of those guys who had the decency to die like 200 years before we decided to give a shit… hell even jazz would be a step up. If you want to listen to something quirky and obscure, go to the dollar bin of the used CD store, pick whatever has the funniest cover or band name, and hype that to the high heavens, it can only be more worthwhile than Joanna’s record and it’ll save the rest of us 9 bucks. And if you, like so many Newsom fans claim, just want to hear something that doesn’t sound like Britney Spears or Ashlee Simpson or the typical top 40 pap, well neither do car horns and screeching tires, so go play in traffic, motherfucker. Ys (more like Zzzzzs) is, without hyperbole, the worst audio I have ever heard.

Freaks and Geeks

I dreamed I was watching an episode of Freaks and Geeks (which I am also doing in real life, see below) and it was about Seth Rogen as Ken Miller sleeping with (or at least dating) a teacher. She was a new substitute teacher and she had a huge rack. I was in this episode for some reason, I was hanging out with Seth Rogen at the beach and the teacher came by and started hitting on Seth and they ignored me. This episode was shot on old film stock and actually looked like something shot in 1980.

Joe Flaherty as Harold Weir heard about this student/teacher relationship and was steamed. He went down to the school to yell about it but he couldn't get past the secretary, who was played by Whoopi Goldberg who was the age she was in 1980 (Joe Flaherty was the age he is now though).

Summer DVDs

Here are the DVDs I'm currently rewatching:

The Monkees Season 1 & Season 2
Freaks and Geeks

DVDs I plan to rewatch this summer:

Monty Python's Flying Circus
Jonny Quest Season 1
Home Movies Seasons 1-4

DVDs I'm finally finishing up currently:

Groovie Goolies (got for Christmas)
The Best of the Electric Company Vol. 2 (got for Christmas)
Spider-Man: The '67 Collection (got in February 06)
Clutch Cargo Volume 2 (got in February 06)

DVDs I plan to finish up this summer:

SNL Season 1 (got for Christmas)
Animaniacs Volume 1 (got for Christmas)

DVDs I plan on buying this summer:

The Powerpuff Girls Season 1
Mission: Magic!, Hero High, and several Filmation DVDs
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, Space Ghost and Dino Boy, and several Hanna-Barbera DVDs
The Partridge Family Season 2
Captain N: The Game Master
The Bugaloos (maybe)

Two Similar Dudes

I dreamed I couldn't tell Christopher Meloni and H. Jon Benjamin apart.

This kind of happens in real life too :(

Punchline

I dreamed I was in a gymnasium listening to Petey from The Best Show on WFMU do stand-up. He told a joke about a retarded friend of his. The punchline was "it was the only mystery he ever solved, including his own." After this I woke up very abruptly.

Another drawing

That drawing of Homer from below, this is what it ended up becoming.

Fan art

Check out my fanart of "The Homer Simpson Show".

Seinfeld

I dreamed I was talking to Jerry Seinfeld about his career. He said that he missed doing a TV show and was trying to get another sitcom going on NBC. I asked why he didn't do something on cable where he could be more EDGY, like his buddy Larry David. I told him he was already rich why does he need another hit show? Just go on cable and do whatever you want. He didn't respond but it seemed like he was lazy and just wanted an easy cash train. He seemed, like, entitled for one.

I can't remember anything else about this dream but I do remember Jerry did not come off like a jerk, actually.

Valentine

Here's a valentine I made.

Cherry Blossom Clinic

I dreamed Terre T of WFMU made a CD of skits she made with Jon Wurster as a bonus for WFMU Marathon pledgers.

This dream is dumb, I am only posting it to say that I woke up abruptly almost drowning on my own mucus (I am sick).

Meow.

Today I dressed up like a cat and slept in a box.

Mechanics

I dreamed I was back in high school, but everything looked the way high school looks in movies, but it was NOT a movie. There was this mechanic, played by John DiMaggio, and his mechanic sidekick, played by Jack Black, but it was NOT a movie, they were just acting in these roles in real life. In the dream my friends were pranksters and they pissed the mechanics off, and I didn't do any pranks, but the mechanics blamed me and were out to get me. There was a point where Jack Black called me on the phone and I was like "woah is this Jack Black" and he was all "no." My friends played a prank on this girl, saying they were gonna take her to the dance, but then putting a mushroom-shaped ciabatta hat (filled with cheese) on her head. I knew that they would get in big trouble for it so I fled the scene, but then the mechanics started chasing me and were pissed at me.

Toward the end of this dream I kind of half woke up and, while I was still dreaming, I was thinking "I should post this dream on unclephilsmovie." When I woke up and the dream turned out to be not that interesting and didn't make much sense I was disappointed.

Wes Anderson Movies, McDonalds, and High School

I dreamed that I went to a movie theater (a recurring theme in my dreams) and Wes Anderson was filming his latest movie. It was about a young boy who was a child actor and he went to a movie theater for some reason, and there were a bunch of wacky characters working there. It was a weird theater, there were two floors, and in between the first and second floor there was a giant conference room. It looked like a room out of Bruce Wayne's mansion. I saw one scene get filmed, there was a lady working there who was a stripper and the old man who ran the movie theater hated her stripping. She had a huge rack and she was threatening to pour water on herself, much to the old man's dismay. This was happening in front of the kid too. The old man got pissed and drove away to a gas station or something.

I went back to the movie theater later, apparently the movie theater also MADE movies. The characters in the movie were filming a movie about prehistoric times, and they had these fakey little backgrounds and papier mache pterodactyls on strings flying around. I was like "Is this how Wes Anderson thinks we think movies are made?" I was so disappointed in him.

Later I dreamed I was back in high school (another recurring theme in my dreams). I rode my bike to high school (which I never actually did) and when I got there I was early so I decided to go get food at the school McDonalds. One of my teachers was at the counter. I ordered an orange soda, some cookies, and a toy, but the right half of the McDonalds got struck by lightning right when I was ordering. None of the stuff that I ordered got struck though.

MST3K

I dreamed that Adult Swim started airing Mystery Science Theater 3000 every day in Futurama's timeslot. I forgot to watch it until its run was almost over. I figured I could catch it on the second run, but then I worried that maybe AS wouldn't rerun it, like they didn't rerun Pee-Wee.

Adult Swim was also airing another old show that I liked that I wanted to watch, I forget which though.

Little Black Sasquatch

I dreamed I went to a new store and Donald Faison was there promoting the new Little Black Sasquatch action figure. It was an action figure of a short black guy who looked like Donald Faison dressed in a suit, sunglasses and a dress hat. I was planning on buying the action figure, I even opened it, and I noticed it came with no accessories and cost 5.99, so I decided not to buy it. Fortunately the store was pretty good about letting people open stuff.

My friend planned on buying every video game in the store. We approximated there must have been 100 NES games, about 400 SNES games, and 74 N64 games.

Girl Band Documentary

I dreamed I was directing a documentary about a girl band. There were two girls, and I want to say they were sexy, I can't remember if they were a real band or just a singer and a backup singer. Either way I got to tour the country with them (it might have been just the west coast). The thing is, they fought all the time, like real vicious fights. And their public persona was all like sweet and friendly and no one had any idea they were fighting, I was getting a real scoop. The problem is, I was very incompetent as a documentarian and I did not get a lot of good footage. Even still I went around telling people I had this amazing documentary and I was a genius.

The documentary aired as a segment on Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job. They replaced all the fights with stop-motion footage of stuffed (as in taxidermied) animals fighting. I didn't mind this change.

Anna Wintour & 30 Rock

I dreamed I was reading a People or Us Weekly-type magazine article that said that Anna Wintour got in a car crash and had to have her head shaved due to complications, so the girls of 30 Rock also shaved their heads in support. The black girl from Clueless had just joined the cast, so she had to shave her head too. There was a pictorial of the girls with their heads shaved, here's how they looked:

Anna Wintour: Not so good
Tina Fey: Not so good
Jane Krakowski: Terrifying
Black girl from Clueless: Not so bad

The article didn't mention the men of 30 Rock at all, but I figured that Alec Baldwin probably wouldn't do it.

Wes Anderson Marathon

Out of all Wes Anderson's movies I only have The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic on DVD. These are two of my favorite movies! I realized not that long ago that I have never listened to either of these movies commentaries. I've listened to commentaries of much worse things, things I like MUCH less, so I thought about having a marathon of watching these two movies and then watching them with commentary.

But what I'm wondering is if I should just go ahead and buy Rushmore first, then I could have more of a marathon.

Nah, you know what, that is just procrastinating. I'm just gonna do this marathon today.

George Bush and Dave Foley

Here's a dream FROM THE VAULT (pre-unclephilsmovie).

I dreamed I was standing in line to meet the president. Dave Foley was in the line too, and I was more excited to meet him than the president. That made me feel un-American. Once I was at the front of the line and it was my turn to meet the president, I was let into this door. I went into a big, empty, dimly-lit room, and George Bush was sitting at a desk with a lamp and a computer in the corner. He looked like he had nothing to do. He seemed happy to see me, like he would have been happy to see anyone. I sat down with him. He asked me "Wanna play Battleship?" and I said ok. We played, I had a good time.

Beginnings of Movies on TV

Here are some stories about watching the beginnings of movies on TV and then changing the channel at the first commercial break and then regretting it.

I watched the beginning of Romeo + Juliet (the modernized one with Leo Dicaprio). It had a lot of stylized crap that I usually hate but I gotta say I was liking it. I was really getting into the story and to my surprise the script sounded natural. But, just to be a jerk, I went "THIS IS GAY" and stopped watching it at the commercial. Now I wish I watched it, man.

I watched the beginning of American Beauty and it was good stuff! But I had a place to be so I could only watch up to the commercial. Later that day I went to the library figuring they'd obviously have it. THEY DIDN'T! They did however have at least 3 copies each of every Austin Powers movie :rolleyes And it wasn't even a college library I mean a REAL LIBRARY.

UPDATE 1/28 4:35pm: I bought American Beauty for 7.50 @ Wal-Mart.

Painting

Here's a little bit of artwork I made because I had extra blue paint and a spare sheet of paper. IT IS NOW IN THE TRASH.

Brian Baumgarter

I dreamed I was watching The Office (US). I think it was an hour long or 2 hour long special. In the episode, Dwight and Kevin had to go to a construction site for a sales call. When they were going back to their car, Dwight forced Kevin to hold something heavy and run there. Kevin was getting really red in the face and sweaty, and it wasn't funny, just very uncomfortable. They got to the car and Kevin saw something from the car was stolen. Kevin got pissed and got a magnifying glass out and starting searching around for clues about the theif. Some of the construction workers around there were making fun of him for it, and Kevin started cussing at them, without bleeps.

It turned out, in the episode, Kevin, Dwight and Oscar were coming to my class. They did some kind of lecture, but I don't remember about what. I remember that we all had laptops with us, and we played some kind of interactive computer thing that involved the characters from Metalocalypse.

A Close Call

I had a very scary dream where I had to carry a baby up a big outdoor staircase and I even had an instruction book on how to carry a baby up that specific staircase and I still **ALMOST** dropped her. It was a real scare.

I had a lot of other frightening and weird dreams last night. I can barely remember them now, phew.

Beauty Parlor

I dreamed that my mom and sister went to the beauty parlor and I went along. We got there at like 9am as soon as the place opened. Surprisingly the place was packed, with both girls AND guys there to do beauty things. I really had to go to the bathroom but there was a line so I just didn't go. There was an area of the beauty parlor where people who weren't getting makeovers or w/e could wait, so I sat there and watched 24. I thought about walking to McDonalds and bringing it back to the beauty parlor so I could eat while I waited. I fell asleep and when I woke up my mom and sister were gone and the beauty parlor was mostly empty and there was a women tanning bottomless. Not in a tanning machine, just tanning through the window. I didn't have my phone with me so I didn't know how to get home so I took the bus. It was a big yellow school bus. I fell asleep on the bus and when I woke up the bus was at its last stop and was done for the day.

Later that night I dreamed I was watching the Power Rangers movie and I spotted Tim and Eric as extras. It was the scene when the parents were at the quarry busting up rocks for Ivan Ooze, Tim and Eric were there hiding in a box and making silly faces.

Frank Zappa's House

I dreamed that I went to Frank Zappa's house (Frank Zappa is alive in this dream). It was my second time going to Frank Zappa's house, the first time was when I was a kid. In this dream, Frank Zappa's house is kind of a shopping mall-ish place, so anyone could just go there, but also Frank Zappa lived there and you could hang out with him. Anyway, in the dream world, the first time I went to Frank Zappa's house, he got high and scared and ran to Ben Folds' house and smashed one of his chairs. That event had become kind of legendary. There was a point where Frank Zappa was hanging out with everyone in what I guess was his living room, and the Ben Folds incident came up, and I was all "I was there."

Frank Zappa's house had this one all-comic book room. I went there thinking it was just a room where he kept his comics, but it turned out to be a comic book store. There was a guy dressed as Space Ghost there. I thought he was just part of the comic book room, but it turns out he was the only guy working there. From the comic book store I found all kinds of stores that Frank Zappa had in his house.

I went back to hang out with Frank Zappa and asked him if he remembered me from the Ben Folds incident, and he said he did, but he was high so he might have been lying.

I went to the supermarket part of Frank's house and at this point I knew I was dreaming, so I just got some oranges and ate them.

I think I dreamed this because I watched the Elliot Gould episode of SNL season 1 before going to sleep.

Roseanne Reunion

I dreamed I was watching a daytime talk show (possibly Roseanne's?) and they were doing a Roseanne reunion. All of the actors were there (except John Goodman ;_; ) and they all went by their real life actor names, but they acted like their characters. Darlene got pregnant (I'm gonna refer to them by their character names if you don't mind) and so they reunited to roast Darlene. The whole time they were acting like their characters. Grandma Bev even said to Darlene "you were always so mean to me" and she referenced events from the show when Darlene was mean to her character. Then it was Roseanne's turn to roast and she was being rude, and Darlene was making that sad face and being all "oh this doesn't bother me." Then David got up and was like "stop it guys you're hurting her feelings!" Then, obviously, Darlene gets all angry "stop it I don't need your help DAVID."

Then I woke up.

Secret Kindergarten

I've been having a lot of weird dreams lately I think I'll start a blog to post about them.

I dreamed that it was the far post-apocalyptic future, and I lived in a huge mansion on top of an enormous mountain of garbage. I found out that someone in the mansion was evil and was up to no good (I don't remember the details here), so I ran out of the mansion and hid in a fort of couch cushions that was part of the garbage mountain. While I was hiding, I started digging in the couch cushions and underneath the garbage mountain I found an old abandoned kindergarten. I decided to live there and teach kids kindergarten if they ever found the place.

The dream cuts to a year later, and the kindergarten was full of kids who I taught kindergarten to during the day. Also I listened to a lot of gangsta rap and had to keep reminding myself not to in front of the kids. Then, the guy who was evil from the beginning of the dream came to the kindergarten with a birthday cake, saying it was his birthday and he turned good. Then me, him and the kids all had a party.

Also, during the whole dream, I was Adam Sandler, but not the real Adam Sandler, I was Adam Sandler playing a movie role.