Culture kills... wait, I mean cutlery

Week 2: Pageant of the Transmundane

Hello from the sunny vales of Hawaii. Seeing as I don't really like the sun, well, this is all some sort of joke on me, as I am virtually reflective on the beach.

That being said, with so many excellent contenders this week, I was able to spend a lot of time in front of the computer figuring out which contender was best.

This week's winner comes from Puppies, Kittens & Cirrhosis, a blog full of oddities, which as you know, I love to see.

There were quite a few strange and wondrous entries for me to peruse, but in the end, it was a large Pez dispenser that resembled something a little more provocative that took the day. I thought it was quite funny, and well in keeping with the spirit of this award.

And because of the nature of the character depicted on that same Pez dispenser, I thought that this would be the best representation of the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award this week.

Come to think of it, I sort of want one of those now. Not the Pez dispenser, the Homer Simpson doll.

Congrats CTK on this momentous first win. Huzzah!

And don't worry Fab. I believe in you, and your ability to win this award again. After all, you practically built it.

The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Labels: transmundanity

If you let me play...

A friend of mine gave me an MP3 of this song a few years ago, and I've loved it every since I heard it, and when I saw that someone put the record on Youtube, well, I had to share it with all of you. The track is called If you Let Me Play by Hartman's Heartbreakers from 1936.

Just remember this song the next time you hear someone talk about the filth of pop music today.

Labels: music, videos

A Collision Course with Horror

I feel sort of like I am standing in the middle of a field, watching a derailing train slide across of the ground, while at the same time, realizing that a plane is about to crash down on the spot where I am standing.

Why?

Fran Drescher and Rosie O'Donnell want to do a sitcom together.

Shudder.

I am not prepared for that level of horror. If this goes through, I foresee a lot of hospital admissions for eye abrasions and ear damage as the entire viewing audience tries to scratch their own eyes out and rip their ears off.

The fact that conceivably a television executive could envision this and still give the series, tentatively titled The New Thirty, a green light chills me to the bone.

Personally, I would have called it When the Titanic met the Iceberg, because that at least gives you an idea of the pending disaster about to unfold.

Labels: television

MGM is Remaking two movies starting with R

MGM confirmed over the weekend that they are indeed making a remake of Robocop, and when you think about how recent remakes of formerly subversive and satirical films have turned out, well, you can see why almost an entire generation of geek boys and girls are silently dying inside. For shame, MGM, for shame.

And along with destroying a classic, MGM also said they are committed to redoing Red Dawn for modern times, which is a wonderful idea. I mean, how could remaking a somewhat crappy movie (sorry, Mr. Sobchak... err Milius, but it is the truth) from the 1980's about a simultaneous invasion of the United States by Soviet and communist forces from Latin America during the Reagan phase of the Cold War and modernizing it be a bad idea. I guess the Red will come in from either the increased bloodshed a la Rambo or, I don't know, the potential losses from its filming, instead of that whole Communist angle. The fact that both now and then a superpower is fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq is in the middle of a war with *ahem* purported Iranian ties should be taken as being completely coincidental. The lack of originality in Hollywood exceeds any capacity their executives have to come up with such a complex and subtle international relations connection. Scratch that. Subtlety and Hollywood don't go together period.

That being said, if this movie is, as theorized by some of my peers in the blogging village, about terrorists invading America, well, I saw that movie in the 1980's as well. It was called Invasion USA. I guess the producers are afraid of those Chuck Norris stories coming true on them.

Honestly, I cannot see a way a Red Dawn remake could ever be good. Even if the producers somehow manage to computer-generate faux Patrick Swayze snot bubbles on another young cast member(somehow I have the felling that Zac Efron is going to be cast).

So the onus is on the producers and cast to prove me wrong.

Labels: movies

Sunday Night Video: Larry Miller's 5 stages of Drinking

This is a classic, classic closer from Larry Miller's long and illustrious career. It is an underrated gem of 1989.

As someone who now has the perspective on the scope of the joke, it is even funnier.

Labels: videos

Year 3, Week 1: Pageant of the Transmundane

Hello from the Streets of San Francisco. I am being chased by a young Michael Douglas and an old dude with a huge snozz, so I am guessing this is 1973.

This week's winning entry comes from the sugary sweet environs of Layercake.net.

Heidi threw down a little slice of Onion goodness she entitled When Dinosaurs Ruled the video store aisles, which discusses a certain chain of video stores as a retail relic.

And since this week's winning entry is video-related, well, Homer's appearance and subsequent edited interview on Rock Bottom seemed appropriate. The fact that it is also related to a certain video that has been floating around the internet of a particular blowhard who I have a professed dislike for, doesn't hurt, especially since Rock Bottom is sort of a riff on shows like A Current Affair and Inside Edition.

Welcome to the club, Heidi.

The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Labels: transmundanity

The Second Annual SUPER TRANSMUNDANE Awards

It's that time of year again, when the selection panel for the weekly version of the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award looks back at the previous 52 weeks of winning entries and decides which ones are truly deserving of additional accolades and praise.

Of course, since the selection panel for all the Transmundanity Awards consists of me and... well, me really, I guess choosing the best shouldn't result in any backroom deals, coercion or threats of violence, for which I am eternally grateful.

So it comes down to 51 stunning entries (as week 6's contest resulted in no winner), and 7 awards. Who will win this year's brass ring? You'll just have to read further to find out.

Best Original Video: Burbanked Week 45. My definition of original video is a video that a entrant has made on their own. So, despite the fact that the majority of the footage this winning entry contains is gleaned from movie trailers to make a definite statement about the upcoming summer movie season, it is still the work of a blog editor, so I feel comfortable giving Alan this award. (Burbanked won the Best Movie Parody/Mashup video last year)

Best discovered video: fjetsam, week 47 Muppet Rickroll was legendary. It really was. The editing, the concept, and the fact that I got hit by an infuriating trend, and yet I didn't care... the presentation was solid gold. And with over 10 thousand hits after its win, it seems that many others agreed.

Best Movie Parody/Mashup video: Popped Culture, Week 36. The Frogfather, which was a segment from The Muppet Show, was a well-conceived parody of The Godfather, back when entertainment for kids on television could be enjoyed by adults as well. If history is any judge, the Muppets will continue to do well in the Weekly Transmundanity Awards.

Weirdest Product: Fandumb, week 31. It's Milk, it's Cheese made out of resin and getting ready to have a street fight. Indeed, it is everything that I look for in a winning entry, and more. It is weird, funky and slightly disconcerting, which clearly are qualities which I reward.

Best in Text transmundanity: Jay Barnes, week 42 Jay wrote a ribald little anecdote entitled Maybe the Dog just isn't into you, which described a friend's work in animal husbandry. It was an instant classic. And I think I would be a little reticent about shaking the hand of someone who did that for a living now.

Best First Half entry: C3Fun Week 4, which featured Don Hertzfeld Rejected. I think the factor I used for this determination was the fact that I have returned to that entry on more than a few occasions in the 48 weeks since it first won the weekly Transmundanity Award, which indicates to me at least that it has some staying power.

Best Second Half Entry: fjetsam, week 47. Is it any surprise that not only did this winning entry pick up the best discovered video, but the Best Second Half Entry award as well. I love the Muppets, and while I am not wild about getting Rickrolled, well, the presentation really did mitigate that. It is indeed a great piece of work. Huzzah!

Congratulations to this year's big winners. Tune in tomorrow night for the start of this year's set of awards. Who will win the first prize of this year? I guess you'll just have to wait and see.

Labels: transmundanity

The 100 Most Manly Books?

I was tooling around Stumbleupon last night, and I came across a great list from the site The Art of Manliness, and I was so moved by this particular one, I thought it was worth sharing.

Entitled 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man's Library, the editors/writers for the site, to quote their own words, "have narrowed down the top 100 books that have shaped the lives of individual men while also helping define broader cultural ideas of what it means to be a man.". Is it a perfect list? No, but those involved seemed to realize that there would be some contention about their choices, and it sort of makes me respect their selections a little bit more.

Indeed, I do like a lot of the selections which come from not only fiction, but biography, history, epic poetry, religious texts and collections. And the Teddy Roosevelt and John Steinbeck content is high too, as there are 4 books about the former president on the list and I believe 3 works by the Nobel Prize winning novelist.

There's Homer, Hemingway, Orwell, Machiavelli, Kerouac, Kafka, Vonnegut, Shakespeare... basically all the big guns you would expect from a list of recommended books. There's Tarzan, King Solomon's Mines, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and a lot of other pulpy goodness, along with works like Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Plato's The Republic, and even Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It is a very eclectic list to say the least.

And while I don't agree with every selection (as both Catcher in the Rye and a Separate Peace are on the list), I do think most of the choices are pretty solid. And the fact that James Joyce's Ulysses made the list, well, I certainly can't complain about that. But what makes this interesting for me is the spirited discussion that has developed in the comment section, which for the most part, has been very civil despite the disagreements, not only with some of the choices (and there have been some excellent alternate selections), but there are also some minor religious and political differences being expressed, which is usually the sparks that start off a conflagration in forum/blogland. Personally, I think having so many people talk about books passionately online in one place actually bodes well for reading in general. After all, having a heated exchange about the merits of individual books denotes an intellectual and emotional attachment to such literature, and for those pundits that talk about the death of reading, such devotion to a favorite book or author does go a long way to dispelling the rumors that adult functional literacy is about to rapidly disappear in the next few years.

Labels: literature