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Forrest J Ackerman, Dead at 92

no@spam.com (Christian Hokenson) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

I'm not able to chime in and blog nearly as much as I'd like to nowadays (job demands, family demands simply keep me away) and it seems like when I do post it's usually with news such as this (last post was on Carlin passing I believe).

In any case... sad news. Forrest "Forry" J. Ackerman is reported as having passed on to the Famous Monsters of Filmland in the Sky (-fi).

Forry was a one-of-a-kind Angeleno and film-lover, partial to all things science fiction, horror and fantasy. He was instrumental in helping Ray Bradbury start his literary career and was himself very much a man of letters, having edited anthologies of science fiction and fantasy and at times being a literary agent. His famous "Ackermansion" in Los Angeles was a museum and shrine to all things fantastic in film. Those who knew him would say he was a friendly man who simply loved the world of speculative fiction and a good scare, even to the extent of acting (if only in a cameo at times) in a few films. He was often generous with fans who came to him looking for Dracula's original cape and Spock's latex ears and opened the doors of his home museum to all on certain Saturdays as long as his health persisted. Now those days are gone.

He will be missed...

Xian

Xian's Super Fun Blog of Doom: George Carlin Gets The Last Laugh

no@spam.com (Christian Hokenson) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

George Carlin, comedian, wordsmith and all around provocateur, died this evening at 71 in Santa Monica. That heart of his, frequently abused and often prone to coronary attacks (three of them before his last), finally gave out. The world's a poorer place for his passing, but man... he gave so much to the folks on this chunk of rock that he won't be forgotten.

Comedy, sure... the man was a comic, but more importantly he stood for something more than simple laughs (his routine, from the late 60's onward, became more akin to Lenny Bruce's sociological satire than Shecky Green style groaners)... He was a counter-culture hero to some simply for his general appearance and grooming in the 1970's... the long-haired hippy look he once used for comic fodder on radio shows became a badge of sorts, a flip o' the bird to straight society... and this guy was on TV, saying weird shit and coming into a living room where many felt Milton Berle still belonged. For decades thereafter, he became a symbol of all that is righteous about the freedom to voice one's opinion in stark terms designed to make you laugh and question the very foundations of Western society: its culture and overriding philosophy of materialism, greed and hypocrisy.

Carlin, much like his early contemporary Lenny Bruce, was a virtual poster boy for the first amendment of the Bill of Rights. Due to seven dirty words played over public airwaves in the late 70's, Carlin indirectly bequeathed to us what's known as the "safe harbor" provision for broadcasters using the airwaves... So, from 10pm to 6am, things can get a little blue... earmuffs for the kiddies, puh-leeze.

F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, was a landmark case brought about by a Carlin routine on words and how we tend to segregate them... just words, man. Not bullets, just thoughts and words. Words with enough power to create a little havoc for the court system to handle. Suddenly, Carlin was perceived as dangerous and a loose cannon... and his career, up until his first heart attack, thrived.

Carlin was more than a stand-up comedian, more than just a performer... He was a true wit with a love for language, in particular his own lingua franca. It was English, his mother tongue, and its myriad ways of saying what you don't really mean, but just might be thinking, that drove his writing and performance. He was as fond of the euphemism as he was the way words could be categorized and compartmentalized, so as to make them "safe" somehow... he was fascinated, mostly, by the way we fool ourselves, lie to ourselves and savage ourselves with nothing more than linguistic twists and trips of the tongue. It is this style of humor that, more than any mere joke for the sake of a cheap guffaw, comes across strongly on his albums and his later cable TV performances (but never really in films... his sardonic touch translated well, but his overall style and the righteous anger that oftentimes fueled his stand-up act, never came across as strongly).

He will be missed... for there's really not to many like him. Sure, there's plenty of comics and satirists out there that can turn a phrase like Carlin... but after Lenny, it was Carlin (along with Redd Foxx and, later, Richard Pryor) who set the stage for guys like Chris Rock, Bill Maher, Carlos Mencia, and Bill Hicks (and more than a few women comics too... but thankfully not Carrot Top or Gallagher). Carlin's style wasn't a license for a comic to be as raunchy as they'd like to be... no, his style simply allowed the performer to have the latitude to speak their mind without some local-yokel cop busting their ass off the stage and into the local clink for the night. That is essentially how George Carlin should be viewed... Sure, there were plenty of laughs to be had (on stage, screen, radio, etc.), the guy was a comic genius with terrific timing, some great character bits and a ton of off-color and less vulgar material that will withstand the test of time... but Carlin's knack for turning a phrase, contrasting and comparing aspects of the language to show up its underlying meanings, will forever be his true claim to fame, just as it seemed to be his true calling.

And so, I remember George Carlin... My first brush with his comedy was a cassette a buddy one locker over lent to me during my time in high school. He tossed me a copy Carlin's A Place For My Stuff. I never gave it back... probably still have it somewhere... Think I'll try to find it and give it a listen.

Carlin was sui generis... and there won't be another quite like him... I'll leave these musings with a quote from the man himself on the nature of time, for time is all we really have.

"There is no present. There's only the immediate future or the recent past." -- George Carlin, 1937-2008

Xian's Super Fun Blog of Doom: A Special Effects Giant Passes - Stan Winston

no@spam.com (Christian Hokenson) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

As Chud and many other sites have already reported, Stan Winston, a true giant of the special effects industry and film making in general, passed away last night at age 62 (like Tim Russert last week, this was much, much too soon). As the L.A. Times has begun to report (via their blogger Sheigh Crabtree) Winston lost his years long battle with multiple myeloma.

As these things tend to come in threes (celebrity deaths, famous deaths, etc.), we can only guess who's next... but frankly, I'm not willing to play the dead pool on it... From my point of view, Death can either take a holiday and lay off, or find some people much more deserving of shuffling off this mortal coil than folks like Winston and Russert. Cinema still needs Winston, a guy who was a true innovator and by all accounts a heckuva nice guy... while the political world still needs Russert, someone with the verve, style and common sense to guide us through this next general election.

This is truly the showbiz industry equivalent of someone like Ray Harryhausen passing (please, don't Ray... stay around a while longer). It's a shock for cinemaphiles and those who love special effects, and his loss will be felt for years to come, though those he's trained, inspired and motivated will saunter onward... some utilizing his techniques, but never quite his style.

REST IN PEACE STAN... WE WILL MISS YOU!

Xian's Super Fun Blog of Doom: Moving and Stressing

no@spam.com (Christian Hokenson) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Okay, so... I started off well and then disappeared... I know, it's not very cool in the blogosphere to leave off for several days without a post, but lately my life's been all about moving and stressing... In particular moving my girlfriend into my small apartment in Burbank.

Moving is hardly a fun experience and we're both stressing about it: Will this work? Will it change our relationship in good ways or bad? Will we split chores, bills, etc. ad absurdum. Even thinking about it logistically and rationally has made us both simpering messes at the mercy of moving boxes, U-Haul and the rising cost of living. But we saunter on, and I'm happy to say that the move is nearly done and I'm about to post a number of blogs that will be more oriented toward the cinema... I'm hoping to include the following in the next couple of weeks with a number of postings on:

A Defense of Terry Gilliam's Tideland
A Neglected Film Musing on Steven De Jarnatt's Miracle Mile
A Neglected Film Musing on William Girdler's The Manitou
A Defense of George A. Romero's recent Diary of the Dead
and many, many more to come.

Hopefully life won't keep getting in the way of my scribblin's and I can sit down and just write for a change... Sure beats moving and unpacking.

Xian's Super Fun Blog of Doom: Weeding Is Fundamental

no@spam.com (Christian Hokenson) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

This is my blog. There are many like it but this one is mine. My blog is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life. My blog, without me is useless. Without my blog, I am useless. I must publish my blog true. Before Chud I swear this creed.

And on that note, may I introduce my blog and my self... Xian's Super Fun Blog of Doom (I changed it from Super Fun Blog of Death to avoid alienating the kiddies), and welcome you to my thoughts cause... well, everyone else is doin' it, so why not. Opinion has been set free (thank you Internets!). So, enough of the introductory salutations and onward to the show...

The City of Weed sounds like something akin to Homer Simpson's Land of Chocolate, but honestly it's just a city in California named after a guy named Abner Weed who founded the town in the late 19th century by picking up land cheap when he dropped a few hundred bucks for a lumber mill near Mt. Shasta. Of course, everything is relative and a few hundred bucks was a considerable sum back then, but I digress... the City of Weed is really known for very few things, one of which is its name. The city founders don't go out of their way to trade in on that name, but plenty of collegiate adventurers have traveled far and wide to have their picture taken next to just about any sign or banner that has Weed, CA. displayed on it. The town's essentially one big in-joke for the 420 crowd and is frequently showcased for a few guffaws on late-night TV monologues, but among its various claims to fame is the current tussle the town is having with the Feds over its... beer.

The Mt. Shasta Brewing Co. is a small microbrewery with big ideas on how to cash in on their location in the town of Weed (they're located on College Ave. which must say something about higher education... haw haw haw, but that's how it goes in good ol' Weed... bad puns, accidental or not, seem to be the coin of the realm in this quiet little mountain town). They frequently have fun with the town's image via their Shastafarian Ale and distinctive labeling on the bottles. What got them in trouble with the Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, as the AP and Los Angeles Times recently reported, is their bottle caps which declare "Try Legal Weed" and a play on that old stoner motto "A Friend in [with] Weed is a Friend Indeed." As you can see here, the caps are obviously having a laugh at the perception of the town's image. Weed is, as the LA Times put it is " no counterculture haven," but still the overall perception persists, so why not have fun with it, right? Well, the Feds, in their drug-war-addled reasoning, see things in shades of black and white rather than gray, and insist that the brewery and the brewery's owner, Vaune Dillmann, are purposefully crossing the line and selling something illegal, or at least putting forth the idea that something illegal might reside in that bottle along with the frothy suds of Mt. Shasta Brewery's Lemurian Lager. As you can see, the law is clearly being broken here:

I dunno about you, but I really fail to see the federal offense. Living in L.A., land of quasi-legal weed (the medicinal sort, of course, of course), we're subjected to advertisements for the Showtime hit Weeds and the oh-so-hot Mary Louise Parker doing pin-up poses with a very recognizable leaf in the background. Perhaps this image wouldn't play well at Bureau headquarters or the fictional suburb of Agrestic:

Showtime Networks (part of The Eye, formerly Viacom) knows how to market the hell outta this show by pushing the envelope for what the average American considers "good taste." Personally, I find Mary Louise Parker in pinup pose to be simply awesome and the leaf itself completely inoffensive. But let's take a closer look here and note the text: "A New Season Of Fresh Buds" (not to mention the tagline for Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Making what, exactly? Hmmmm). Somebody, please, hurry up and tell the FCC to read Showtime the riot act, pronto! Our sensibilities are so easily offended in this, the 21st. century, y'know.

It seems patently absurd for the Feds to selectively decide where and when to run roughshod over rights of free speech (and crass marketing), but then much about today's bureaucracy seems ridiculous to the point of absurdity, when not being downright scary and dangerous. Go figure, but for some reason the Feds simply don't have CBS Corp. on their radar, while a small businessman in a quiet little mountain town is about to get screwed blue over a similarly silly marketing stunt. I've seen this Showtime ad on buses in L.A. as well as on billboards and at bus stops... folks simply don't seem to mind; they're rather blasé about it... maybe it's an L.A. thing. The folks at the Bureau for Booze and Cigs Tax n' Trade seem to think they can put a smokescreen up regarding their mission to save the consumer from false advertising, implying in a recent statement that the main reason for harassing a small town brewer is purely from a public interest standpoint. Yet somehow, I doubt it's within the scope of their duties to play ombudsman for Joe Sixpack who, let's face it, ought to have at least a smidgen of smarts to figure out the labeling on a bottle of beer (as you can see here, beer can turn you into Jerkus, the Demon from Hell... as misleading as this sounds, it's true!). As annoying as tsetse flies, the Bureau seems hellbent on making their case, but it seems to me the Feds should get seriously, yet legally*, drunk and reconsider their sanctimonious and hypocritical pogrom on Mr. Dillmann and his sudsy lager.

* inebriation in this case is protected and regulated by an amendment to the Constitution and various state and local laws.