adventures in amateur recording

And Now I’d Like To Pass The Mic

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Enclosed please find a small trip down memory lane, and a little freestyle blrapping.

blrapping – The art of rapping via a blog. Passing the figurative mic is encouraged. (not to be confused with blapping!)

Hey, I think I have coined a word that is more unpleasant to speak/hear than ‘blogging’! Kudos to me!

So, you may be happy to learn, I’m nearing the end of the musical novelties of Tim and myself. Shortly after we took the world by storm with our unique take on R.E.M., we turned our sights on the burgeoning world of rap. The song is definitely of its time — note the Tone Lōc-inspired “Lezzzzdoit” at the beginning.

We were actually trying to be funny at first, and then kind of liked how it was turning out, then tried to make the attempt a little more than half-assed (let’s say 3/4-assed).

Click on —> Bunkatania
Timeshare bider
Surrounded by spiders
And you always want to solve things
With your supercollider

Imminent danger
Everyone’s a stranger
And your only savior
Is away in a manger

Bunk is the word
So kick in the funk

Saturday drivers
Sunday survivors
And problems arise
From the reruns of MacGyver

Always been wishing
But your mind’s out fishing
And the guts of your goat
Have the hint of premonition

Bunk is the word
So kick in the funk-AY

Media hell shoot
They’re in cahoots
They make it easy
To be led by your manroot

Faceless ballet
Endless relay
You try to make sense
As you crawl down the hallway

You’ve got a word face
But it ain’t gonna last
Your future is present
And your present is past

Lewds
And Dudes
And Rudes
And Crudes
Take Their Broods
To Find Their Food
(Sears Roebuck Montgomery
Where they buy extra cutlery)

Bunk is the word
So kick in the funk
Bunk is the word
So kick in the funk-AY

Tim and I have a half-finished rap song we started recently. I think it’s actually turning out rather nice. We just have the backing tracks right now — haven’t done the rapping thang again, though we do have the beginnings of the lyrics written. I actually decided on a rap name for myself — King Lids. This was inspired by a visit to Burger King. But wait, stop! Allow me to introduce myself:

I’m King Lids
And I don’t wear a belt
I got more gold
Than Hanukkah gelt

Gold like onion rings
My rhymes are fatal
I grow rosemary, thyme
And hydroponic basil

And now I’d like to pass the mic, to my boy Tim, do anything you like!

comix

Doctor Strange And Frank

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So, one day I’m looking at what I can do with my blog, and see that it’s possible to associate a picture, an avatar, with my profile.

Without too much thought, I went and snagged a picture from one of my favorite comics, Frank, by Jim Woodring.

When I was a kid, a trade paperback collection of old 1960’s Dr. Strange comic books came into my possession. I was too young (well, technically unborn) to read these when they first came out, but this reprinted collection took a firm grip on my young imagination as soon as I laid my eyes on it.

There were two main Marvel superhero comic artists at the dawn of Marvel’s “Silver Age” in the early 60’s — Steve Ditko, who drew Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, and Jack Kirby, who drew pretty much everything else. Apart from the fact that Spider-Man was my favorite superhero as a child, I gravitated more to the quirkier style of Steve Ditko.

His drawings of the early Spider-Man were wonderfully executed, but looking at Dr. Strange, there was truly some freaky stuff going on. Through the course of its initial Lee-Ditko run, Dr. Strange spent many a day in other dimensions. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ditko was given quite a bit of artistic license to invent these wonderful worlds. Here are just a few samples of some of his otherworldly artwork.


I thought (and still think) this stuff is amazing.

My brother has been into comics much longer than me (he’s also a talented cartoonist in his own right), and has always been interested in, for a lack of a better word, “alternative” comics.

For Christmas or his birthday, I’d usually pick up an underground or non-mainstream comic for him — for example, something by local Chicago artist Chris Ware. I noticed a Frank book in a visit to a comic store, and snatched it up for my brother. Now, I have to admit that I did not immediately wrap this gift. I read it from cover to cover.

It was reminiscent of the Dr. Strange comics of my youth in that it showed an incredible, imaginative world, but to me it seemed so much richer. The artwork was amazing. The stories were different — the recurring characters were enigmatic, ever shifting. There was no dialogue. The stories seemed to bypass one’s matter-of-factness part of the brain, plugging directly into the unconsciousness. Sometimes the stories were whimsical, sometimes funny, sometimes quite jarringly disturbing, and sometimes they were all these combined.

The stories in Frank had (and still have) a profound effect on me. Have you ever been exposed to some form of art, music, where after you have experienced it, you find it hard to believe you went your whole life unaware of it? That’s pretty much what these stories are to me.

Note: the image below represents a page within the context of a larger story.

Here’s a large sampling of Jim Woodring’s work, much of it of the beloved enigmatic cat Frank (just follow the art show links, why don’tcha?).

Woodring also has a blog which he sporadically posts the odd piece or notion.

I actually managed to contact Mr. Woodring, inquiring whether I could continue to use the image I [ahem] appropriated for my avatar. He was very gracious and said it was okay.

I’d highly recommend you give his stuff a look-see. It’s the bee’s knees, dears.

blogging about blogging

Arugula Is My "I Am Deeply Offended" Safe Word

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Okay, I haven’t been blogging for really all that long.

Still, in this short amount of time, through various things I have written, I believe I have appeared to have taken offense to a couple things various people have said.

In these cases, I was completely *not* offended.

So, despite how much you may infer that I am offended by something you wrote, if I have not included the word “arugula” in my response, comments, etc., hey, I’m not really offended.

I realize that using arugula as my safe word makes discussing salads a little more difficult, but I am okay with this.

movies, two buck schmuck

The Amazing Spider-Schmuck!

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Just as Jack Kerouac feasted on Benzedrine as he produced the large paper roll that became On The Road, so too does Two Buck Schmuck sit, a large RC and bagful of plain M&M’s in his gut, mulling over his latest opus to the cinematic arts… oh, I’m sorry, didn’t see you there. I was just self-mythologizing a bit.

Here’s the movies I had to choose from at the LaGrange (or as I like to call it, The The Grange):

Georgia Rule
Disturbia
Delta Farce
Spider-Man 3

Georgia Rule? Nah, I still don’t need the stink of Garry Marshall upon me.

Disturbia? Nah, that’s okay. I have Rear Window on DVD.

Delta Farce. Delta Farce. Oh, I think I just pulled a brain muscle. I see that as of this writing, on the IMDB page for this movie, the user rating for this film is 2.0 out of 10, with a total vote count of 2,148 thus far. When you’re feeling down, be comforted in the knowledge that the moviegoing public can recognize a cinematic dookie. Well, I guess you can still be depressed that over 2,000 people actually saw this movie. I noticed the poster for Delta Farce, which parodied the poster for Full Metal Jacket, had a slogan that said, “War Isn’t Funny…but this movie is.” Perhaps they should have put quotes around the word “is”, as in “that depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”

So, I saw Spider-Man 3. This was kind of an unusual situation for me. I have already seen Spider-Man 3, paying full price. I was a little disappointed the first time around, but felt like seeing it again. I’m a former superhero comic book collector, and Spider-Man is still near and dear to my heart. I’ll be giving away a plot point or two for this movie, so’s you have been warned.

First, the good things about Spidey 3.

1) The Dark Spidey-Suit
I loved what they did with the dark Spidey suit. It was different from the comics (which I liked as well), but it just fit really well — I can’t imagine it any other way, which is a compliment to James Acheson, the costume designer.


2) Pretty much every scene with Harry Osborn
The first action piece is a really personal fight between Harry Osborn as the new Green Goblin, and Peter Parker (in his civvie clothes). A lot of neat things happen — Parker gets thrown through the corner of a glass skyscraper, Harry gets clotheslined, etc. The later fight scene between Harry and Peter is also nice, and more than a bit vicious. The tender scenes between Harry and Mary Jane are great. I don’t even mind the kind of cheesy Marvel Team-Up Harry and Spidey do at the end to fight the combined forces of Venom and the Sandman.

3) Some small character moments
Just some nice flourishes with actors that had small parts in the previous Spider-Man movies. For some reason, it makes me happy seeing actors in small roles pop up again in later films of a series. I think the various cast disappearances of the Back To The Future series (Crispin Glover, whoever Elisabeth Shue replaced) left a bad taste in my mouth. When I see an actor again, I breathe a sigh of relief, thinking “Well that’s nice that everything worked out with that actor and the film production.”

Bruce Campbell *again* has a cameo that’s great, but it also works seamlessly within the context of the film. The manager of Peter’s building, as well his daughter, show up again. The manager actually gets a nice quiet moment with Pete, which I appreciated. Even Flash Thompson shows up in a very brief, non-speaking cameo at Harry Osborn’s funeral. It was a small little detail, but appreciated.

4) Venom
Venom first came onto the comics scene a few years after I stopped collecting, but I have read a few of the comics, and thought they were kind of cheesy. I liked him much more in the film.

And, the bad things…

1) Why did you people bring in your three toddlers to see this movie?
Seriously, it’s 10:00pm now. What were you thinking? I remember going to the Davis as a childless young man. A large family with screaming kids would be sitting in front of me. I would be pissed, but back in my mind, I would think, “Well, it’s gotta be rough having a family. I know they must want to get out and see a movie once in a while, and maybe they can’t get a babysitter.”

Well, I have three kids now. I can safely say, without a doubt, these people are nimrods. They were sitting in the back of the theater, apparently under the assumption that sound does not travel through air-filled space. It does, however. The screaming of children died down in the last hour or so of the movie. I looked and they were mysteriously gone. I guess someone complained. Oh no, it wasn’t me. Sure, I turned around in my seat and gave them the stinkeye a couple times, but I was about twenty rows in front of them and silhouetted by the screen.

2) Jesus, when is this goddamn movie going to end?
There was just too much damn movie to get through here. I loved Sandman in the comics, but I think he didn’t really belong in this movie. And Venom didn’t even come onto the scene until the very end of the movie. If it would have been possible, I would have cut Sandman and moved up Venom earlier into the film.

3) Cheesy, cheesy character moments
  a) Oh, crap. Stan Lee makes a cameo.
A SPEAKING CAMEO. His lines, as he (as a complete stranger) walks up to Peter Parker and says, in reference to Spider-Man — “I guess one man *can* make a difference. [beat] ‘Nuff said.” OH CRAP. I wanted to rip my eyes out of their sockets. “‘Nuff said” is a well-known Stan Lee catchphrase, but here are a couple other phrases I would have preferred to have him say:

“Say, could you squeeze my balls?”
“Do you think I need a boob job?”
“Hail Satan!”
“I’m Stan Lee. Did you recognize me? Here’s a little fact. A Marvel Comics movie’s crappiness is in direct proportion to the size of the role given to me, Stan Lee.”

  b) J. Jonah Jameson
I love J.K. Simmons, and I love him as J. Jonah Jameson in the first two Spider-Man movies. But here? It’s like they didn’t know what to do with him. They had a running gag where his secretary buzzes him, and the buzzing is so jarring it startles him, makes him spill a bottle of pills, etc. Why is the buzzer so loud? I have no clue. It’s just a gag, but a completely ludicrous gag. It would be like Ted Raimi’s character Hoffman popping in randomly into Jameson’s office, mentioning an old bluesman’s name, then leaving. Sure, it’s funny, but what the eff?


Jameson also has a completely lame scene where he buys a camera off a little girl, who is snapping pictures of the climactic fight. After he gets the camera, he realizes the camera is missing film. One, would the girl be using a camera that uses film? Two, would the girl, if she had film on her person, be shooting pictures knowing that her camera was not loaded with film?

  c) Sam Raimi’s kids
Speaking of that little girl, hmm, she looks a lot like two other boys in the crowd watching the climactic fight. Oh, I see. They are all Raimis. And, how shall I put this? They are not actors.

Two Buck Schmuck would like to thank his daughter for the loaning of the Spider-Man mask in the above grimacing picture.

jung vf fcybgpul?