Another installment of Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead with Billy Joel as the subject. Here’s his 1978 anthem to wicked women – Stiletto.
Tag Archives: opinion
SUBURBAN SASQUATCH (2004): TO REVIEW OR NOT REVIEW?
Recently I’ve gotten several requests to review Suburban Sasquatch, written and directed by Dave Wascavage. I’ve watched some of Wascavage’s flicks in response to those requests and I began to suspect that he is one of the faux-badfilm figures out there.
I like films which are bad UN-intentionally. Suburban Sasquatch further convinced me that Wascavage and his team set out to artificially harness the kind of Midnight Movie notoriety that The Room had organically earned the previous year. The documentary on The Making of Suburban Sasquatch sealed it for me.
In that documentary Wascavage spouts what sound to me like intentionally absurd profundities about the obviously awful movie, and I get a vibe from his behavior that he’s just furthering the illusion that he was trying to make a serious film. Fakeness oozes from the screen, especially when the female costume designer straight-facedly talks about her excitement in working on “a Dave Wascavage film.”
So I won’t be reviewing any of the man’s movies. I’m not trying to dissuade other people from watching his low-budget efforts, though. By all means check them out if you’re so inclined, but I get no enjoyment out of being played like this. I like straight-up parodies of bad movies or failed film efforts which are truly bad but I can’t even force myself to sit through quasi-Andy Kaufman style put-ons.
I’m not saying any of this in anger, it’s just my usual “Give me Troma or give me Ed Wood” philosophy.
Filed under Bad and weird movies, opinion
TRANSGRESS WITH ME: JANUARY 29th
Balladeer’s Blog presents another edition of Transgress With Me.
*** NEVER LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO TRY TO DISSUADE YOU FROM READING ALL THE MATERIAL YOU WANT. THEY’RE IMPLYING YOU AREN’T CAPABLE OF SIFTING THROUGH THE INFORMATION YOURSELF.
*** POLITICAL ZEALOTS REVISE THEIR MYTHS ABOUT HISTORY EVEN MORE FREQUENTLY THAN RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS REVISE THE MYTHS OF THEIR RELIGION.
*** PEOPLE WITH CLOSED MINDS MISTAKE SUCCESSFUL CENSORSHIP FOR “BEING IN THE RIGHT.”
*** THE ” AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY” (LMAO) HAS PROVEN TO BE NOTHING MORE THAN THE ENFORCEMENT ARM OF BLOATED RICH PIGS AND ONE PERCENTERS. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion
TRANSGRESS WITH ME: NOVEMBER 18th
Balladeer’s Blog presents another edition of Transgress With Me. Like I always say, following the path of MOST resistance is the preferable path. I don’t advocate insincere contrarianism, I mean that there’s not much point in publicly proclaiming safe viewpoints.
For instance, I was an early proponent of gay marriage. In fact I openly supported it YEARS before the weak, inept, crooked and hate-filled Barack Obama decided it was safe enough to change from opposing gay marriage – the punk even voted for the Defense of Marriage Act (LMAO) as a Senator – to supporting it.
I still support gay marriage because I think marriage is anything that a society decides that marriage is, but I no longer bother spouting off that I support it because it’s no longer daring to do so. Considering the fact that people actually get in trouble for OPPOSING gay marriage now means we’ve reached the point where it’s mere virtue signaling to drone on and on about supporting it.
Going around saying “LOOK AT ME! I SUPPORT THE SAFE POSITION!” is not being transgressive. Plus the political left now invokes absurd notions about “morality” to justify supporting gay marriage the same way the political right used to invoke absurd notions about “morality” to justify OPPOSING it.
For more examples:
*** I support Donald Trump, our de facto Third Party President. At the present time this is a transgressive position to hold because the conformist forces opposing President Trump are fascistic, close-minded hatemongers who try to inflict all manner of harm on anyone who supports him.
*** I have always despised George W Bush but that is NOT a transgressive position to hold. I could loudly proclaim my contempt for George W Bush all day long and there would be no risk involved. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES
NO DOUBT: SPIDERWEBS
Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead returns with this shoutout to No Doubt’s song Spiderwebs.
Filed under opinion
I’M ONLY HAPPY WHEN IT RAINS: MUSICAL SHOUTOUT
Balladeer’s Blog’s Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead returns with this nod to this song by Garbage.
Filed under opinion
BOB SEGER: ROCK ‘N’ ROLL NEVER FORGETS
Balladeer’s Blog’s segment Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead has proven incredibly popular so here’s another round. This shoutout is for what I consider to be the most overlooked hit song from Bob Seger: Rock ‘N’ Roll Never Forgets.
Filed under opinion
COOPER’S BACK TO NORMAL AND WE GOT TO SEE THE AUDREY DANCE (SPOILERS)
Say what you will about Mondays, I don’t know how anyone can feel anything but great today after last night’s developments in Twin Peaks: The Return.
Cooper’s okay, Audrey danced in whatever odd purgatory/ coma/ lodge/ mauve zone she’s in and two of the right characters got killed. On top of that you had the Dougie Tulpa, the Diane Tulpa, Richard’s wild death scene, it was terrific!
I was one of the people who was actually okay last week with Philip Jeffries being reincarnated as a teapot-kinda-thingie because hey – David Bowie’s dead in real life. With that voice actor imitating Bowie pretty well maybe they’ll give us a brief scene of old Bowie footage with this guy dubbing in new dialogue for a Jeffries Tulpa.
Anyway, as all parties converge on the town of Twin Peaks the final two episodes will air back to back next week! Let’s hope there’s not another premature drop in the U.K. Insert your own coffee joke here and drink a toast to the only 2017 television series with a cast whose median age is about 68. (I’m kidding.)
Filed under Forgotten Television
MOCK HEADLINES: ANOTHER SAMPLING
The fascist scumbags and rapists from Antifa are proving the old, old saying that “The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists.” How true! Antifa filth are proving that their name is short for “Anti-Fairness” even though they like to pretend it stands for something else. Anyway, those Nazis are part of this latest go-round of Mock News Headlines:
ANTIFA PROMISES TO BEAT UP ALL ELDERLY PEOPLE IN MAGA HATS … JOHN MCCAIN APPLAUDS THEM
TRUMP-HATERS OUTRAGED THAT NOBODY BUT THEM IS MAD THAT PRESIDENT TRUMP POINTED OUT THEIR LIES YET AGAIN
DEMOCRATS DEMAND THAT MINDLESS AGREEMENT WITH EVERY INSANE THING THAT DEMOCRATS SAY SHOULD BE A CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT … ANYWHERE, IN ANY JOB
CNN CLAIMS PRESIDENT TRUMP IS TO BLAME FOR THEIR NEVER-ENDING OVEREXPOSURE OF HIM
CORPORATE MEDIA STILL TRYING TO PRETEND THERE IS ANYTHING PRESIDENT TRUMP COULD SAY THAT THEY WOULD NOT DISTORT OR WOULD FIND ACCEPTABLE!
CNN POLL SHOWS PRESIDENT TRUMP IS AT HIS LOWEST APPROVAL RATING WITH PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T LIKE HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE!
CNN REPORTS THAT PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP CAUSED THE END OF THE WORLD TWICE YESTERDAY AND ONCE TODAY ALREADY
REPUBLICAN JOHN MCCAIN CALLS ON ANTIFA TO ASSAULT HIS OWN CONSTITUENTS IN THE NAME OF LOVE
CNN SAYS PRESIDENT TRUMP IS THE MOST HITLERISH HITLER WHO HAS EVER HITLERED IN HITLER-LIKE WAYS SINCE HITLER! AND BY THE WAY – HITLER!
DEMOCRATS CALL FOR ROVING MOBS OF ANTIFA RAPISTS TO REPLACE CONVENTIONAL POLICE
CNN ANNOUNCES THEY ARE WORKING ON TECHNOLOGY THAT MAKES VIEWERS SEE PRESIDENT TRUMP IN THEIR SLEEP
ANTIFA THREATENS TO KILL PEOPLE WHO POINT OUT THAT THEY ARE THE BIGGEST FASCISTS IN THE COUNTRY
WOLF BLITZER BLAMES HIS ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION ON PRESIDENT TRUMP Continue reading
Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: HEROIN
This latest installment of “Give them a shoutout before they’re dead” needs to have its title adjusted to “Give them a shoutout before they’re ALL dead.” The Velvet Underground – during its years when Lou Reed, “the poet of destruction” himself, was its creative heart and soul – was magnificent.
Pictured here are (in rear) Lou “Ostrich Guitar” Reed, Sterling Morrison and John Yule sporting his Dark Lord Satan ‘stache. In the front are the legendary blonde goddess Nico and drummer Maureen Tucker, as always looking like someone photo-shopped a slightly startled 12 year old boy into the group’s picture. (I love Maureen, it’s just a joke.)
Lou Reed is dead but before all the members are gone I decided to do a shoutout to the group that DEFINED being ahead of their time. The Velvet Underground’s influence on music ran so deep it was like the proverbial “Citizen Kane Effect” – its innovations became so universally employed by others that it’s easy to forget there was a time when they WEREN’T being used.
We all know Brian Eno’s legendary line about how – though only 30,000 copies of the Velvet Underground’s 1967 debut album were sold – “everyone who bought a copy started a band of their own.” There are times when it seems like that wasn’t just hype. Hell, I often argue that the Prince song All The Critics Love U In New York seems inspired by the Velvet Undergound piece The Black Angel’s Death Song.
Here’s the song Heroin, one of the group’s most haunting. The way Lou Reed conveys the hopelessness and obsessiveness of heroin addiction makes this the furthest thing from what it was often accused of being – a song glorifying drug use.
Hardly. Reed hammers home every unappealing aspect of enslavement to the drug while taking the listener up and down on the highs and the inevitable crashes. Even sex becomes a mere secondary (maybe even tertiary) consideration as heroin takes over.
Anybody who would listen to this song and say “I gotta try some of that!” was doomed from the minute they crawled out of the womb anyway.
Filed under opinion
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