TUBI TIME - I Can Explain! It's for the blog! Edition

No cover art images today, because I'm not sure how comfortable I am executing google searches for this material on my work computer. So, here is a puppy instead.

EVIL TOONS (1992)

Your enjoyment of this film rests heavily on how funny you think it is when the cartoon wolf looks at a pretty girl and his eyes pop out and he says "AH-HOOGA!" There's a certain lame-uncle charm to the proceedings, and a couple of the jokes are genuinely amusing. You only get one cartoon monster for about 4 minutes of screen time. The rest of this is just adult actresses cracking bad jokes. It's all in good, stupid B-movie fun, but this is nothing worth going out of your way for unless you're really into nighties and fluffy hair. David Carradine makes a lot of silly faces and wears a floppy hat. Finally, kudos to "Madison" for leaning into the extended physical comedy routine with the wine bottle. It didn't quite work, but the effort was there and she committed to the bit. I'm not sure how much slapstick experience she got out of her previous roles in ANAL REVOLUTION and EDWARD PENISHANDS 2, but she really made the most of it.

FEMALIEN: COSMIC CRUSH (2020)

Okay, so I was actually into this for the first 20 minutes. Like, the production values are pretty good for a film of its type. The storyline moved along and made sense for awhile. The idea of alien beings composed of pure energy who are fascinated with sex for some reason was genuinely funny to me. I could overlook the quality of the performances, which ranged from "shockingly plausible" to "objectively horrible," because once again there was a certain "we're all just having fun here" charm to this movie. I like that all these female space adventurers were sporting modern e-girl style tattoos, and some of the comedy bits did land for me. It goes off the rails once you realize that you're literally watching a 90 minute porn movie with all the porn cut out. It drags, and everything gets pretty dull after awhile. Boredom shouldn't be an issue in a movie with lines like "It's my turn with the pleasure beast!" and "I've got 8 penises, we're going to be here for awhile." Sad!

WITCHCRAFT 10: MISTRESS OF THE CRAFT (2000)

I've been toying with the idea of watching this entire series for a long time. When you haunt the trashy horror sections of the world, you see the covers of a lot of Witchcraft movies. You've seen them too: Big gothic font with a pentagram and some combination of sexy girls in goth attire making faces. You see that there's 15 of these fucking movies, and you think to yourself, "I wonder why there are so many of these things. There must be something good about them to have lasted this long." But then you move along and put something like BLOODSUCKING FREAKS on the counter because you have dignity and self-respect. Some of the WITCHCRAFT films popped up on good old Tubi, and I figured "Why not?"

I'll tell you why not.

This is bad. It is not "fun" bad or "charming" bad. It's just bad. I don't often shut movies down without finishing them, but I didn't make it longer than about 30 minutes into WITCHCRAFT 10. Part of it is the fact that nothing is lit or mixed properly and you end up watching vaguely humanoid dim blobs mumbling. Part of it is the fact that it appears that every performer was simply reading lines from a cue card just off camera. Part of it is that literally nothing interesting ever happens. My first impression is that the WITCHCRAFT universe is set in a world where everyone is a 1st year theatre student at community college. (And I say that from a position of authority as a former community college theatre student) I guess that could be a fun idea to explore, but it's pretty rough to actually sit through. If the whole series is like this, then I am left with no choice but to conclude that the WITCHCRAFT series is a long running money laundering scheme for some kind of cartel. And even then, money laundering schemes could be fun! I mean, it seemed like Christopher Moltisanti was really into his money laundering movie on THE SOPRANOS. He may have been a murderous coke fiend with major mafia connections, but he expressed passion for the process and wanted to contribute ideas. One could say that Chris had something resembling a vision. WITCHCRAFT 10 lacks even that amount of vision. The only spark that I found here was the one I created myself when I tried to chainsmoke away my disappointment.

A WORMHOLE - Baby Huey, Deacon Jones, and the quiet dignity of session dudes

I am excitable and easily distracted; sort of like a rabbit or another small mammal. The internets are a dangerous place for me sometimes, as I will consistently fall into these obsessive explorations of some random thing or another. One time it was serial killers, which then lead to a lot of reading about the Thuggee cults of India, which then lead to me looking at artistic depictions of Kali for hours. Another time it was the animatronic hobbyist scene and all the drama involved with the various inventors and key figures behind Showbiz Pizza. My most recent wormhole involves a highly influential funk/soul/bluesman named Baby Huey and a bunch of words about session musicians.

I've been listening to a lot of heavy soul music of the 1970s lately. I have developed an interest in this sort of music for two reasons: I think that "shirtless with an open vest and a massive afro" is a fuckin' tough look. Part of that is afro solidarity. (I can grow a mighty, virile afro at any time, and you never know when that sort of thing could come in handy. It never will. But it could. But it won't.) The second reason is Baby Huey.

Baby Huey (aka James Ramey) was a singer/songwriter from Indiana who moved to Chicago in the 70s and got into a band called Baby Huey And The Babysitters, which is an objectively amusing name. They were a popular and well-respected live act to the point that they were invited to Paris(!) to perform a private concert for the Rothschild family (!!). I have no idea why that particular tale of a 400lbs heroin addict and his Chicago bar band traveling to Paris to do a show for aristocratic conspiracy fodder has not been made into a movie, but I guess it boils down to the fact that life isn't fair. Anyway, Baby Huey was a big fella and he had a lot of bad habits, as many musicians inevitably develop. He died at the age of 26 due to heart issues complicated by heroin abuse. Baby Huey and the Babysitters didn't release an actual album despite recording some tracks for Curtis Mayfield. "The Living Legend" was ironically released after Huey's death and is pretty much universally prasied as an all-time classic. Their song "Hard Times" alone has been sampled dozens of times in the hip hop world by everyone from A Tribe Called Quest and Ice Cube to Biz Markie and Ghostface Killa. It's a great, great, GREAT fuckin' song. I am far from an expert, but there are few funk/soul songs of that era that I've found with the level of grit found in Hard Times. I mean, you hear a lot of songs about sexy girls, outer space, and Jesus. You don't get a lot of songs about eating Oreos and Spam while fighting depression. Huey can definitely sing, but it's his groovy yet weary lyrics that get me every time. The whole album is like this. Give it a listen. It's undeniable.

THE BABY HUEY STORY - The Living Legend

One of the founders of Baby Huey and the Babysitters was a Chicago blues journeyman named Melvyn "Deacon" Jones. If you're a reader of liner notes or a browser of wikis, you see the name "Deacon Jones" pop up a lot. He provided horns and keys for a whole lot of people in that scene after Baby Huey's death. His list of collaborators includes some pretty major players like John Lee Hooker and Gregg Allman. Everything I've found on Deacon indicates that he's been a well respected sort of gun-for-hire in and around the soul and blues scene. I find these sort of session musician types fascinating. I'm a guy who really, for better or worse, gets into the theatrical rock-star metaverse. Give me stores about bat-eating and weird religious practices and bizarre stage customs, and I'm a happy listener. I eat that shit up. I think most people probably do. But with Deacon Jones, and a ton of other actual musicians, that's not what you get. You get regular ass dudes doing a job. Check out this clip of Deacon Jones.

MELVYN JONES live

He's just an old fella doing a show in some dive bar somewhere. A guy who played with an all-star lineup of legitimate stars in his day, and here he is just having fun fronting what sounds like any one of a thousand regular-ass bar bands. That's part of the magic for me: you never know who that old guy on stage is. That's quite a dichotomy compared to his old buddy Baby Huey. Better to burn out or to fade away, as they say? I don't know, man. I'd rather fade away. Melvyn looks like he's having a good time up there. There's a very specific kind of dignity in living a rock and roll life and living long enough to be a grandfather. It doesn't always have dignified results, but hell. I'd rather be an embarassing grandpa than a dead rock god, but maybe that's just me.

Speaking of Gregg Allman, I've got a longform thing about Southern Rock in me somewhere, but that's a fucking daunting task at the moment. So I'll just share this clip of Gregg playing Midnight Rider with Zach Brown and Vince Gill real quick. GREGG ALLMAN live at Fox Theatre

As an aside, I met Vince Gill once and he was really nice. Like, he took the time to go back up onstage after the show and thank all the techs one at a time. We got handshakes and everything. I'm not a Vince Gill guy, but I'm totally a common courtesy guy. A simple gesture like that can really make your day after 16 hours on the clock. I'll defend Vince Gill to the bitter end. He's really good at guitar too.

Anyway, your feelings about the Allman Brothers aside for a moment, did you notice the drummer? I am like 99% sure that guy is Kenny Aronoff, former touring drummer for Smashing Pumpkins and a billion, billion other bands. I recognized his whole "bald guy with big arms and goggles" gimmick and started googling. He's really noticable in a number of the Adore-Machina era performance videos. I always thought he was the drummer for Filter, but NO. I was wrong, and I learned something today. See? Here he is!

SMASHING PUMPKINS - Perfect live

Kenny Aronoff has had quite an interesting ride as a session guy as well. He's played drums for everyone from the Pumpkins to the Allmans to Bonnie Raitt. That's a wild career right there. That's something to be proud of. It has to be an interesting experience to be one of these session dudes. You spend your whole life honing your craft and practicing your guts out. You make sacrifices. You network like a madman, and at the end of all that you get a paycheck and your name in the liner notes. I don't know Deacon Jones or Kenny Aronoff, and they could be allmighty assholes for all I know, but there's just something compelling about these figures. These players who lived right at the edge of stardom and made a career out of being "the guy with the goggles." Of course, when you compare Kenny's image (goggles guy) and Deacon's image (bar band grandpa) to that of Billy Corgan (all-time king of the assholes and living punchline) and Baby Huey (fuckin' dead)...I mean, I don't know. Maybe there's something to the idea that there's a limit to how close to the spotlight you can really get before it fucks you up. Genius seems to have a price, but maybe you can just be a person who works really hard and gets good at their trade while still getting a whiff of that rockstar fantasy life. After all, Vince Gill is a super nice guy and I don't think he's had a hit song since like 1991. Of course, he's also won something like 30 grammies, so what the fuck do I know? Nothing. I'm just a goon with some kind of ADD and an internet connection.

TUBI TIME (among other, lesser streaming services) - Weekend Chores Edition

It has become my custom to watch Tubi on my phone while the kids watch their programs and play their video games on the TV. Sometimes I'll start two or three movies at a time and switch them around as I'm doing laundry or cooking dinner through the week. Does this make it hard to follow the plots? Am I missing critical subtext? Disrupting the flow of the narrative? These aren't those kinds of movies, baby. I usually start 4-5 movies on a Monday afternoon and wrap all them sumbitches up by Sunday night. And it's Sunday night. And I ain't going to church. Where we're going, we don't need plots.

ROME, ARMED TO THE TEETH aka THE TOUGH ONES (1976)

If you ever wanted to watch Will Ferrell beat the shit out of The Strokes, then boy do I have good news for you! The opening credits established this early on as very much my kinda thing. That funky score! The fonts! The car chases! What we have here is your usual psychopathic cop driven by the urge to do violence to crooks. So he does. Then the crooks kidnap his liberal girlfriend and threaten to toss her into a car compactor. Things escalate from there in typical Italian grindhouse fashion. All of the crooks seem to be physically handicapped in some way, and our hero is a monstrous asshole. The streets run red with marinara. It's fun!

MUNCHIES (1987)

What was the deal with 80s B-movie culture shitting on 50s kitsch? You see that a lot. It isn't enough to make fools of their boomer parents, but these 80s guys had to keep turning them into these weird over-the-top parodies with massive beehive haircuts and pink Cadillacs. Anyway, this is Gremlins ripoff #147. It's kinda funny in parts, but not in any of the ways the filmakers intended. The main protagonist is an insufferable wannabe stand up comedian with a fluffy mullet and jokes ripped off from every Star Search 2nd runner up you ever saw. The gremliny munchie monsters act like a gaggle of 8th boys on coke. They can talk, and they use stupid accents and have an endless supply of terrible one-liners while they menace people playing mini golf. This is probably what it was like to hang out with Dave Coulier in 1989. I make it sound more terrible then it really is, but MUNCHIES is pretty tepid. It is, however, colorful, amusingly dated, and energetic. You might have a good time with it playing in the background while you're stoned and doing something else at the same time.

THE DEEP HOUSE (2020)

Imagine a haunted house, but underwater! That's the gimmick. And it's good! This movie seems to follow the Stephen King school of creativity, where you start off with a cool "what-if" idea (what if a St. Bernard got rabies? What if you got snowed in at a haunted hotel? Etc.) and build a plot around it. This movie does exactly what you want it to do based on the premise. It's exciting, it doesn't overstay its welcome, and the lore-discovery phase is entertaining enough to get us into the jump-scare phase without showing ass. It's a lean, mean machine and a good way to blow 90-ish minutes. I suffer from a touch of Thalassophobia and I am a lifelong sucker for spooky underwater shit, so I caught a buzz off this movie. Good stuff!

TUBI TIME - Niche Interests Laid Low Edition

COCKFIGHTER (1974)

I watched COCKFIGHTER today.

It was not what I expected.

Warren Oates (THE WILD BUNCH, STRIPES) plays Frank. Frank is a man who superficially resembles a young Tom Waits and has a serious interest in the "sport" of cockfighting. As in, he travels around the country in his RV and "trains" roosters to fight other roosters in underground death matches for money. Frank is obsessed with winning cockfighting matches to the point that he's willing to bet his RV, sell the family home, and sacrifice all of his personal relationships in order to win the dubious "Cockfighter of the Year Award." He was a contender to the throne once, years ago, and he's inability to stop boasting lost him his chance. Thus, he has taken an Oath of Silence like he's a Shaolin Monk or something. He won't speak again until he gets that coveted cockfighting medal, and this is his last shot at glory. COCKFIGHTER also stars Ed Begley Jr (A MIGHTY WIND) and Harry Dean Motherfuckin' Stanton (ALIEN, REPO MAN).

OK. For starters, let's get this out of the way first: All available information indicates that real roosters were put into real cockfights and really died during the shooting of this film. It's a grim thing. I am desensitized to violence in general and animal related violence doesn't cause me much alarm, but I was wincing through the final match in particular. It's gross. There's a reason why this movie was banned all over the place in its day. I've known some folks who hinted/implied/outright bragged that they knew a thing or two about the world of underground cockfighting, and I've known for a long time that such a thing exists and people make lots of money from it. It is particularly common in rural areas of the south and midwest where folks have easy access to animals and hard-to-find locales. A bunch of folks get together in a remote place, fasten these crazy looking metal claws/spurs to a rooster's legs, make the birds fight, and make bets on the winners. The losing roosters usually die. That happens fairly regularly throughout this movie.

The cockfighting minutia loaded into COCKFIGHTER is actually pretty interesting if you're into esoteric criminal Americana. You get some bits of history, and you get the idea that people of all walks of life are into this kind of thing when a Senator is actually the sponsor of the final "derby." You also get some surreal shit, such as when we get a whole scene about a rookie cockfighter who puts his finger up his fighting rooster's ass because it gives him some sort of advantage. From what I could tell, you're allowed to do this but not if your fingernail is past a certain length? Debate among the cockfighters ensues and a fight breaks out.

(It was at this point in the movie that I did actually pause and have a good long think about myself and the choices I have made in life)

So, yeah. Cockfighting. It goes there. And it's kinda fucked up. It took me a long time to figure out what the fuck I was even watching, because this movie defied all my expectations. At first, it seemed like we were absolutely in for an OVER THE TOP experience, especially when Frank's ponderous narration kicks in and it's clear that he sees himself as some sort of romantic outlaw figure when in reality he is kind of a pathetic bastard. This movie never really goes into the territory of unintential comedy, although there are definitely moments. Then for a long time I figured that we were in for a good old fashioned CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST style transgression-fest. The poster and the subject material certainly scream exploitation movie. But that never really happens either. I mean, there are certainly some extremely exploitive elements, but the vibe never clicks. So right up until the last 20 minutes or so, I figured we were watching a particularly weird version of one of those 70s macho outlaw action-dramas.

You know what those are: some scraggly man does horrible things and people hero worship them for it. It's like a Bukowski thing or even a Sam Shepherd thing. Only the most masculine and worthy men are willing to become outlaws/unlikable bastards to thumb their noses at society. The alcoholic, the gambler, the assassin, the drug dealer, the vigilante. I'm talking about something like DEATH WISH, WALKING TALL, or one of Clint Eastwood's movies. Those can be pretty bad, or they can be really fun. But they're all fundamentally the same: The unwritten laws of masculine behavior dictate that I must act like an absolute prick in order to forge my own path in life because nothing is less desirable than living under the oppressive laws of a society that won't let me do things like shoot criminals myself or force animals to fight to the death. Those craggy-faced, gruff heroes are always clever and strong and tough and just do what they think needs to be done regardless of the consequences, and people get hurt and the rest of the world has to deal with that because the individual tough guy macho man reigns supreme. That's what I thought COCKFIGHTER was, because it was checking all those boxes. But that description didn't really satisfy me and I don't think it applies 100% to what this movie is.

COCKFIGHTER is a subversion of the 70's macho man action/drama. Early on, it seems like Frank is being portrayed as a heroic, romantic figure. He's tough, seedy outlaw cutting his own path against all odds. As the film goes on and the losses mount, it becomes clear that Frank is a loser. He's obsessed with gaining the respect of a niche subculture to the point that it's destroying him. He can't stop. He's sad. He's lonely. There are no bright lights or giant stakes or glorious victories to be had in the world of cockfighting. It's all penny-ante bullshit with the same 6-8 guys showing up all over the place to abuse animals and watch them die in dirty barns and cheap motels. Frank and his boys can win a lot of money, but they can lose it all just as fast. Members of their clique who show empathy (such as referring to their rooster as a pet) are ridiculed for being losers. They're all losers. None of them trust each other. It's just an endless parade of pathetic activities that get more and more destructive right up to the end. Frank doesn't get a Karate Kid comeback. Even when he wins, he loses. It's like if Karate Kid ended with Daniel-san winning the tournament but then failing high school and becoming homeless because he spent all his time waxing Mr. Miyagi's car and seeking a violence-based solution to his problems instead of doing his homework and learning conflict avoidance skills. It's fucking WILD that they did this.

COCKFIGHTER was kinda brilliant, y'all. I'm sincere about that. I didn't pick up what it was doing until well past the halfway point. It sets up a world where a man is trapped in "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" style thinking and it destroys him without shattering his delusions and leaves him to continue suffering with no lessons learned. I'm still thinking about it. It's a thinking movie. But a lot of chickens probably died to make it.

So, yeah. Not what I expected. I'm not sure I can reccomend watching it. I'm not sure about anything anymore. I give COCKFIGHTER 10/10 unexpected bouts of existential pathos.

SHUFFLIN ALONG 07 - To ease the loss of youth / and how many years I've missed you

I am having fun doing these, so I'm just going to keep doing them. Plus, it's easy to bang out these kinds of entries at my desk at work. Just let the music play and typedy-typedy when I'm supposed to be doing something else. It's been that kind of week/month/year.

OUTLAW HEART by TIGER ARMY

My relationship with Tiger Army goes way back. I think they're more compelling when they're doing this sort of "outlaw ballad" gimmick as opposed to their standard super-fast "Tiger Army Never Die!" psychobilly hot rod stuff. They also dip their toes into Maracahi-style music from time to time, and that's probably what I dig the most from them. I think that Nick 13 has a nice voice and he was quite the punk-rock heart throb with his cheekbones and pretty-yet-bad-boy style. Nick 13 was a butterfly's wing flap away from mainstream super stardom. I could see an alternate universe where Tiger Army got super popular on the back of Nick 13's run on some shit like The Voice or his performance as the lead in a remake of CRY BABY. There is a world where Nick 13 became what Orville Peck is now, but with a rockabilly haircut instead of a sweet mask. You put a guy like that on a big stage in front of some tatted up straight suburban moms or gay suburban dads and let him play slide guitar while singing about his broken heart, then you just kick back and let nature take its course while you cash the checks. That was a big time missed opportunity for some bloodsucking producer in my opinion.

GRAVE FILLED WITH BOOKS by GILES COREY

Giles Corey makes some really beautiful and strange music. The primary word that comes to mind is "haunting." Like, Giles Corey may perhaps be a ghost who is also somehow still alive and making interesting music. I love the ecvocative connotations that come with a title like "Grave Filled With Books." I like this song a whole lot, and every single time I come across any of their work I always think about how interesting and mysterious a figure Giles Corey must be. Of course, in reality, he is probably just a very talented fella with a history degree who just lives a regular ass life. That instinct to transform artists into "stars" is a bitch sometimes. I am a big fan of when musicians have the courage to give their songs a lot of space, and this song is really big on space.

HANDWRITTEN by THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM

These guys are great if you're into very earnest blue-collar emo punk songs. I find them charming. This isn't my favorite song of theirs (that would be Here Comes My Man) but it's good. I have a pal who is a professional audio tech, and he's in love with this band. He told me once that The Gaslight Anthem is our generation's version of Springsteen. I can see why somebody would think that, but I'm not sure I'd go that far. If you're interested in the idea of a very midwestern version of Social Disortion with a little touch of The Mountain Goats; well this is your band. I will not deny that on the right day I will absolutely catch some feelings from their songs. There's like, zero cynicism or experimentation to these guys. They just want to sing catchy, well-written punk-ish songs about young love, heartbreak, ice cream shops, and how cool our grandparents probably were. Sometimes you need a little wholesomeness in your life. I mean, y'all have seen the other kinds of shit I have popping up in the algorithm. I need some dang ice cream shop songs to break up all the drug abuse and despair and overt Satanism. Yes. They are cheesy songs. But they make me smile and my kids like to dance in the kitchen to them, and that will make me very lactose tolerant.

KIM & JESSIE by M83

Saturdays = Youth is a fucking cool album, man. I always thought that album was trying to capture how it might feel to live inside the last 10 minutes of The Breakfast Club, and they nailed it. It's soooo nostaglic that it's kind of painful sometimes. These songs will always remind me of going to debate tournaments in high school. Like, you show up at another high school way early in the morning, and you're all full of fear and excitement and hormones. Maybe you've got a sweetheart from another school who you might get to see, and you're hoping she likes the tie your mom bought for you on sale at JC Penny. You get to eat fast food with your buddies, and you get to be in a different place around different people for a little while. I think that most people have youthful experience like that, and you get older and live with the knowledge that you may never feel that way ever again. This album and these songs feel a bit like an attempt to hold on to that. Which is funny because I was done with high school debate tournaments years before M83 did this. Is this the root of the Synthwave thing? I mean, in addition to Hotline Miami and Drive. I feel like it probably played a part. Anyway: one of my faves and it deserves the hype it got.

SPACE AGE LOVE SONG by BRIEF CANDLES

I am impressed and grateful that we got to play shows with this band. They are really very good and nice and generous folk. This is a really great cover with some neat ideas, and I have never once not lost my shit when they played it live. In general, I think that Brief Candles really nailed the wistful and sweet elements of shoegaze while retaining the ability to just absolutely pummel you into dust with noise. That's actually a tough road to walk, and there aren't a whole lot of bands I've ever seen who can consistently do it they way these lovelies can. They really figured out how to claim a corner of the scene for themselves, and they made a lot of really good music that I enjoy very much. I think they easily make the Mt. Rushmore of midwestern shoegaze bands, which is a funny idea that I'd like to think about more often.

SHUFFLIN ALONG 06 - We were run out on a rail / Fell from the wagon to the night train

BE-BOP-A-LULA by GENE VINCENT

It's really fun to listen to this song while you're out for a walk, because you can pretend to be a Nicholas Cage character on their way to do something cool.

KISS THE BOTTLE by JAWBREAKER

Funny sometimes how a song can simultaneously be the best and worst thing to hear while you're drinking. There are a lot of songs out there about substance abuse and/or alcoholism, and for my money this is one of the better ones. It's got a certain sincerity, and the emotional accuracy is striking to anyone who ever woke up on an unfamiliar floor or had to suffer through a "we all love you very much" type family talk. When you have one of those talks, you always end up with a stress headache behind your right eye without fail. This is a stress headache of a song. I like the bleary, exhausted sort of delivery. It feels real, and that's a good quality in art about real shit.

MANSION WORLD by DEADSY

I am often defensive about my Deadsy worship, and I think about Deadsy way more often than a sane person probably should. I think a big part of the appeal for me is the idea of a prep school goth "mansion world" where young intellectuals of privilage think deep thoughts and do philosophy; not just that it exists, but that I could be part of it. They made heavily Gary Numan influenced proggy nu-metal for sad Lit majors with gothic aspirations in 2002, and I check off every single one of those boxes. I dated this theatre girl who got into me after watching me perform the lead in one of those weird black box one-acts, and she supported my Deadsy fandom and bought me Deadsy swag before she left for a whole summer to sell textbooks as part of college program that probably got her into grad school. I spent that entire summer working in the dairy section of a small town Wal-Mart, chain smoking, and living in my parents' old vermin-infested house known to many as The Shack. I mainlined Deadsy that whole summer, and I fancied myself to be something similar to Morrisey in the Suedehead video when really I was living more like Ricky from Trailer Park Boys. I wanted to be a "I read James Joyce in a hayloft" kind of fella when I was really more about microwave burritos, ditch weed, and spite. In the end, Deadsy sold us a fantasy. But it's a still a cozy fantasy to me. Someday I'm gonna write that pesky novel.

BYE BYE BLACKBIRD by JULIE LONDON

Julie has an infamously pleasant, husky kind of voice. This is my aural comfort food. Her songs have this quality of situational perfection. There's really no bad time to put on some Julie London. Eating dinner? Julie. Going for an evening stroll? Julie. Sitting in a bar? Driving? Making out on the couch? Julie Julie Julie. There's a reason why her records can be tough to find and/or a bit pricey. All of her albums that I have heard are pretty faultless. I've never had a bad time listening to some Julie London.

SWEET 69 by BABES IN TOYLAND

I really like riot grrl music. That's probably a little weird, but there's this grit to it that I find irresistable. At its best, it feels kinda dangerous the way that punk rock, gangsta rap, and the delta blues probably did in their time. Good stuff always finds a way to bubble up out of the underground and find its level. The guitar on this track is so heavy and crunchy. It's like chewing on gravel which, I suppose, is the point. It also occurs to me when I listen to this band (also BIKINI KILL and HOLE, to be honest) is how little credit the riotgrrl scene seemed to get for influencing Nirvana/Kurt Cobain. It seems obvious to me in distant hindsight that Nirvana had way more in common with those bands than they did with something like Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and other "classic" grunge bands. When I think about Nirvana, I think about Melvins, Flipper, and riotgrrl stuff. Maybe it was the other way around? I don't know the scene politics of 30-ish years ago and I am just spitballing here. Maybe this is something that people already talked about in some grunge documentary that I missed. Anyway, this band kicks ass and I like their songs and I wish that this particular scene was even bigger than it was.

SHUFFLIN ALONG 05 - Let's go baby / Let's go batty / I am the mad, bad daddy.

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AVERAGE DEATH by THE ARMED

This is a very cool band making a very cool song that sort of straddles the (very thick) line between pop music and freaky harsh noise. There are a lot of elements at play here. It almost sounds like what you might get if you asked an AI to listen to all of my liked songs and blend them together. I guess if I had to classify it, I might call it art punk. It definitely has some Protomartyr vibes, and it kind of reminds me of what you might get if several bands on Graveface got fucked up on Ketamine and listened to a lot of metal before jamming together. It's got a nice melody in the chorus, but that melody is sort of buried behind a wall of noisy static and aggressive drumming. It's rewarding to listen to, and it reminds me that I need to listen to more THE ARMED. I guess they also showed up on the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack, so that's a bonus. Cool shit IMHO.

NAZARENE by THE WAKE

When I was but a lad, I worked in a big chain bookstore and one of my jobs was to clean out the magazine racks and recycle the out of date issues. This was back in the days when niche music magazines would include sampler compilation CDs. I acquired many, many sampler compilation CDs this way. I'd sneak them out in my lunch box. If I had a bunch for some reason, I'd set them outside by the dumpter in a little box, then I'd swing back by and snatch them after closing. Anyway, this is how I listened to a lot of goth/punk music in those days, and this is how I discovered The Wake. They kind of do a Sisters of Mercy thing, and that's cool. Most goth bands that choose the path of rock and roll vs. the path of dance music seem to lean more toward the horny Type O Negative way of doing things. There's nothing wrong with that, but I like a good little catchy goth-rock number that makes you go "hey, you know what? maybe Jesus Christ was a vampire." I like The Wake. They showed up on a shit ton of those compiliation CDs and I'll always nurse a soft spot for them.

STILLEST HOUR by THE .357 STRING BAND

I also have a soft spot for bluegrass. It was a bit of a revalation to me as a young lad when I figured out that I could enjoy the musical stylings of my forebearers while still living life as a shitty little drunk rebel. I always thought that country and bluegrass music were strictly for church and the lord. I honestly did not know for the longest time that you could be into crime and the banjo at the same time. I will still get down with a good, seedy country/bluegrass tune. I don't think .357 String Band has existed as a unit since, like, 2010. But they had some fun ideas, and you could tell that they really wanted to be the Flogging Molly of hillbilly bluegrass. Having said all that, this is more of a sweet love song than a barroom banger. The fella singing this song is tired of the bullshit and just wants some peace in his life, and that's a relatable thing for everyone I think.

THUNDER MAN by XAVIER WULF

This is a rap song that samples the Silent Hill 2 OST, so of course I am into it. It actually fits really, really well and it's a big head-nodder for me. I don't know shit about Xavier Wulf, but I've "liked" at least four of his songs and I dig his vibe. I also dig the idea of laying down a serious chest-thumping ultra-masculine "I will steal your girl and you can't stop me" type track over the soundtrack to a game where a guy kills his cancer-ridden wife to end her misery and then struggles to live with the guilt. Who knows if Xavier saw the irony in that, but I like to think that he did. It's fun either way.

MEAN MACHINE by THE CRAMPS

I fucking love The Cramps. That shouldn't surprise anyone. I discovered them at exactly the right time in my life, and it was a major revalation that there were other people in the world like me. I felt like I always had a Cramps song stuck in my head, even before I heard about The Cramps. That sounds silly, but that's exactly how I feel. Maybe there are melodies and vibes stuck inside all of us and you could go your whole life without ever finding a way to actually hear it in your physical ears unless you are very lucky. I feel like I was lucky to find The Cramps. There's something to be said for finding your people. Anyway, this is a silly song about a racecar. RIP Lux. You gave all the degenerates a voice, for better or for worse.

THE MAD DADDY by THE CRAMPS

I fucking love The Cramps. There's a concert video out there somewhere from the very end of Lux's last tour, and they open with this song. This motherfucker is out there in a high-collar body stocking looking like the world's sleaziest grandpa just belting this objectively dumb song and having the time of his damn life. He looks like he could fall down dead at any moment, but he also looks like he could live forever. King shit.

MUZZLE by THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

I was a theatre kid during the absolute pinnacle of Melon Collie mania, so of course I lived and died for The Smashing Pumpkins for many years. I used to listen to the alt-rock radio station out of Springfield with a blank tape at the ready to record every Pumpkins song that happened to come on during the all-request hour at 9:00pm. Fuck Billy Corgan for ruining it with his absolute insanity. If you asked me then how the Smashing Pumpkin's legacy would end, "Billy goes insane, buys a professional wrestling company, becomes a conspiracy theorist, and descends into mad self parody" would not have come to mind. I am eternally grateful that I never got that "SP" tattoo that I desperately wanted when I was 17. Goddamnit, Billy. You broke my heart. Anyway, sing it like Cartman. It is never not funny.

TUBI TIME - Niche Interests Writ Large Edition

I am a big fan of B-movies that glorify a hobby well beyond the point of absurdity. My all-time pinnacle of this sort of thing is OVER THE TOP. These movies are always good for a laugh. I think it's partially because it's nice to spend time with a person who wants to passionately advocate for their weird interest, and also partially because it's really fun to laugh at guys (always guys) who think that things like rollerblading or rock climbing are the most useful things on the planet Earth. So for this double feature I chose a semi-infamous cult classic made by people who were really into paint ball.

THE ZERO BOYS (1986)

Starring the always welcome Kelli Maroney (NIGHT OF THE COMET, CHOPPING MALL) and the occasionally tolerated Joe Estevez (SOULTAKER, RETURN OF THE ROLLER BLADE SEVEN), THE ZERO BOYS does for paint ball what HOOK did for treehouses and sets up some pretty unrealistic expectations for real life activities. The opening paintball match features Rambo-cosplay, a boa constrictor, inplausible acrobatics, and a villain in full Nazi uniform. Nothing could possibly live up to the first ten minutes of this movie. I found myself wishing bitterly for a full saga about the high-level competitive paintball scene; the trials and tribulations, the potentially themed teams in matching costumes, and the inevitable Karate Kid comeback. Perhaps the Zero Boys could meet up with a grizzled paintball sensei and learn how to be "one with the balls" before delivering sweet justice to their enemies. That movie could be really fun. That is not that movie.

The titular Zero Boys are a trio of chuds who take their paintball games so seriously that they have a personalized "Zero Boys" license plate on their dumb jeep. (In my personal head-canon, "Zero Boys" either refers to the amount of child support paid without a court order or the number of times they read a book for pleasure) After winning the girlfriend of their problematic rival for a weekend (seriously), they abscond to the woods for a really shitty time. They and their unfortunate lady companions are then menaced by serial killers. They must now put their paintball skills and unbreakable paintball-based brotherhood to the ultimate test of survival!

They really committed to the idea that playing cosplay paintball with nazi larpers on the weekends gave these guys an edge in this situation. It's like fantasy wish fulfillment for 80s frat boys who also had subscriptions to Soldier of Fortune magazine. You get a lot of sequences of these dudes running around from place to place like middle schoolers playing HEAT. I was also deeply amused by everyone's tendency to shoot or stab inanimate objects for no reason. As far as cult B-movie stuff goes, it never hits the heights of something like SAMURAI COP, but the cast treats the whole thing with such wooden gravitas that it's impossible not to enjoy it a little. It is tailor-made for riffing and mockery. It's quotable and silly and provides good dumb fun all around. Honestly, joking aside, Joe Estevez is a treasure.

I give THE ZERO BOYS 0/0 jeep driving montages set to cheerful dance music.

Coming soon, I'll be watching an infamously reviled and bizarre movie that has only recently become availble because Tubi loves me. I'll be watching COCKFIGHTER. Oh yeah.

CALL GIRL OF CTHULHU (2014)

Happy Fuckin' Valentine's Day.

It is really funny to me that this movie exists. Up until now I wasn't aware that "Lovecraftian Sex Comedy" was a viable sub-genre. I'm not going to lie. I feel seen.

At its best, CALL GIRL OF CTHULHU plays out like a really strange low-rent version of TRUE ROMANCE. A sort-of pathetic nerdy artist guy falls in love with a cool sex-worker from the wrong side of the tracks and invites the wrath of powerful forces beyond his understanding when he pursues a relationship. In TRUE ROMANCE, those forces were pimps and criminals. In this movie, it's otherwordly abominations and cultists in paper-mache tentacle masks. I think you could get some mileage from that idea. There's a lot of precedent out there for good stories about seedy, modern crimina/hipster types falling afoul of the unknown in the Lovecraft-verse. I think that, in the right hands, a concept like this has some real potential. There's also an attempt at some budgetless riffing on TOKYO GORE POLICE, and that sort of thing is always going to charm me.

At its worst, CALL GIRL OF CTHULHU is a terribly unfunny Troma-esque parade of sophomoric-at-best jokes about tentacle dicks and acid pee. It drags itself along excreable minute after excreable minute while bashing you repeatedly in the forebrain with the lamest, shittiest jokes you've ever heard this side of a 7th grade cafeteria. If you subtracted 100% of the shitty jokes from this movie, it would probably be about 20 minutes long and whole lot more fun to watch.

The creators obviously know at least the trappings of the lore well enough. There are a lot of neat references. I got a kick out of the various real-life band shout outs from the fliers all over the walls. I really get the idea that this team and I would be friends. We are, at the very least, allies. (A harsh-noise synth project composed by an alt-girl named "Erica Zahn" plays a major role in the plot, and it was around the time that her music caused a squid-man raver assassin's head to explode that I found myself wondering "Is...Is this my scene?")

Anyway, I am sympathetic to this creative team and I wish them well. Sometimes it's hard not to make dumb jokes in your zombie/cannibal/tentacle stripper movie. You can do better than this, CGOC team. I am pulling for you! (Not like that)

I give CALL GIRL OF CTHULHU 3/7 conveniently placed sinister birthmarks.

SHUFFLIN ALONG 04 - I'm not saying that what I did was alright / Tryna break out of the ghetto is a day to day fight

CHEERLEADER EFFECT by CARPENTER BRUT

Look, I am a sucker for Synthwave. I know that lots of Synthwave is objectively shitty and/or lazy, but I cannot help myself. Sometimes you just want fast food. Carpenter Brut is less actually far less shitty and/or lazy than other synthwave projects in the sense that they often take the time to write pop songs with vocals, hooks, and an identifiable structure rather than rote dance floor bangers. Plus, most of their songs are about monsters and killers. How am I supposed to resist this? I am but a man. This song feels very Depeche Mode-y to me, and that's a good feel. I really like Carpenter Brut. I really like this whole album, actually.

EVERYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE IS REAL by VIOLET COLD

I'm also into Blackgaze, which is the dark alley where shoegaze and black metal come together to hang out, vape, and stare at the wall. You'd only like this sort of thing if you feel like shoegaze could be improved a bit with the addition of blast beats and the substituion of demonic screams for quiet murmuring. That substitution works for me, because screaming never turned me off of a song, and you're generally going to have to read the liner notes to get the lyrics on a shoegaze album anyway. I understand if you, dear friend, do not feel the same. This stuff doesn't always land, but when it does I really like the depressed-but-optimistic vibes. A lot of these songs take you on a journey, and I like that. This song is instrumental, and it feels kind of epic, and I dig the part where the drums do a thing at about 4m in.

LIKE RATS by GODFLESH

I have tried for so long to get into industrial music/industrial metal, and so much of it just sucks. I have been on this journey since about 2003, and I think I've tried just about every industrial-flavored band that ever existed and I usually just get so angry and disappointed. For every one good song, you get ten more that include some combination of shitty rapping, shitty samples, shitty politics, shitty lyrics, shitty pseudo nu-metal chugga chugga guitars, shitty Tool impersonations, or shitty harsh noise breakdowns that nobody actually likes. Maybe you need more than dreadlocks and a personality disorder to do good work within this genre? I guess it's tough to nail, and it just goes to show you how good Nine Inch Nails and Skinny Puppy really are. Well, there's also Godflesh. Godflesh is awesome. This is the other band of Justin Broadrick, who is also the dude who did Jesu. He seems like a very smart and talented fella, and I really like this band a lot. This is the only industrial metal band that never makes me upset, and it just hits all the right spots. This song just feels so relentless and crushingly heavy. It's one of my standby "I don't want to be alive today but I can use my disgust and hatred to empower myself temporarily and I will prevail" songs, and it rarely lets me down. Godflesh rules.

MURDER THEME by HEROIN AND YOUR VEINS

There's a surprising number of dark jazz combos out there who have realized that some people would be into listening to variations on the Twin Peaks soundtrack over and over again. They're right! This is a good song to put on when you are thinking about solving and/or committing a crime. This is nice and dark and it scratches an itch for noir core with lots of weird sax noises. I love weird sax noises. The big drawback on this song for me is that the last :30 or so of the track is just goofy sax honking. I do not love goofy sax honking.

ACROSS 110th STREET - by BOBBY WOMACK

This song fucking rules man. Yes, it's the song from Jackie Brown. We all have to start exploring new things somewhere, right? The song is smooth, the hook is undeniable, and the vibes are right. I have always enjoyed songs about crimes, and I do not know why it took me so long to get into things like this. Bobby Womack is awesome in general, btw. I love the position he takes in many of his songs where he assumes the role of the streetwise elder dispensing real-ass advice to the youths.

TUBI TIME - Kitchen Counter Grindhouse Edition

Nobody involved with any of these films likely considered the possibility that someday random dudes would be able to watch their wok for free on a screen the size of a tarot card while cooking breakfast for their kids. We live in an age of wonders. I'm not a very good cook, but I can whip up a pretty mean breakfast if you don't mind greasy food devoured to the sounds of cinematic gunplay.

CUT AND RUN (1984)

This is a gift from Ruggero Deodato of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST fame. CUT AND RUN is far less transgressive and really more of a sleazy jungle adventure than a journey into the depths of hell. You have an intrepid journalist and her MANLY~! camera man investigating the mysterious deaths of cocaine cartel members from around the world. It turns out that a guy who rolled with Jim Jones is now in the coke business and he has Micheal Berryman (THE HILLS HAVE EYES) and a squad of killer jungle dudes in loincloths running around chopping people up with machetes for...reasons. Of course they get lost in the jungle. Of course Micheal Berryman lurks in treetops and river beds in order to leap out and holler and wave his machete around. There are a lot of very Deodato touches. Everyone is very sweaty and desperate and rather shitty to each other. There are some neat JUNGLE TRAPS. Helicopters buzz around and people fire machine guns randomly into the air. The whole thing feels a bit like hanging out with the drugged-up dirt bike enthusiast stepbrother of APOCOLPYPSE NOW. You still get existentialist monologues, but this movie is way more about blowguns and funky disco than man's inhumanity toward man. (Although, B-movie sleaze aside; it's pretty clear to me that Deodato has himself a philosophy behind all this sex n' violence. Another time, perhaps)

I have a lot of love for Deodato's jungle loincloth dudes. I recognized a lot of faces from other cannibal/jungle movies, and I bet this was a really sweet gig for them. You get paid (I assume, who knows with Deodato?) to run around mostly naked and make scary faces. That's a nice gig if you can get it. This also features a bit of an all-star B-movie cast. In addition to Berryman, we get Eriq La Salle (ER), John Steiner (Caligula, among many others), Karen Black (House of 1000 Corpses, among many others), and Willie fuckin' Aames (Charles in Charge!) doing blow and shooting guns in a Mickey Mouse shirt. This is an easy reccomendation if you like grimy cocaine-fueled jungle shit, and really who among us can say that they do not? Check it out.

TENEMENT aka SLAUGHTER IN THE SOUTH BRONX aka GAME OF SURVIVAL (1985)

Oh hell yeah. You look at that cover art and you tell me that you don't want to see this movie. TENEMENT is a rather Troma-rific slice of urban despair that comes out of the same mold as DEADBEAT AT DAWN. That means you're going to get some uncanny-valley acting and a whole lot of seedy, gribbly stuff about the horrors of urban poverty. The plot is pretty simple, which is a plus for movies like this. A shitty street gang goes to war with the quirky old tennants of a shitty apartment building and whole lot of people die. It comes down to a sort of ultraviolent version of HOME ALONE mixed with ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13; instead of an 8-year-old using Micro Machines to trip up the wet bandits, you have villains from The Warriors getting electrocuted by octogenarians. And it works! This is a grim, nasty piece of work with the right balance of grit and low-budget charm. There's also a measure of true desperate urban pathos through the whole thing, as people lament being stuck in their tragic circumstances before doing bumps off their switchblades and throwing fridges at each other. Plus, it has its own early hip-hop theme song! TENEMENT has lived in legend among niche genre film afficiandos for years, but the line was that it was tough to find. That is no longer the case. Thank you, based Tubi. Go watch it right now if you've ever loved the things that I also love.