I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: TA-KU & WAFIA-Tiny Desk Concert #577 (November 6, 2016).

Ta-ku & Wafia are Australian, and I knew nothing else about them.  So:

The chemistry between Australian singer-producer Ta-ku and his fellow Aussie singer-songwriter Wafia becomes apparent the instant you hear their voices intertwined in song. On their first collaborative EP, (m)edian, they draw on their individual experiences to touch on subjects like compromise in relationships as they trade verses and harmonize over hollow melodies.  With production characterized by weary low-end rumbles and resonant keys, the two float above the music, playing off each other’s harmonies.

Although the blurb mentions a few bands that the duo sounds like I couldn’t help thinking they sound The xx (although a bit poppier).

“Treading Water” especially sounds like The xx.  Both of their voices sound really close to that band (although Wafia’s high notes and r&b inclinations do impact that somewhat).  It’s funny that they are just sitting there with their eyes closed, hands folded singing gently.

“Me in the Middle” is another pretty, simple keyboard song with depth in the lyrics and vocals.

Introducing, “Love Somebody,” she says its their favorite on their EP and he interjects Go but it now, which makes her giggle.  Her voice is really quite lovely.  I could see them hitting big both in pop circles and in some alternative circles if they market themselves well.

[READ: November 10, 2016] 25 MST3K Films that Changed My Life in No Way Whatsoever

As you might guess from the title, Frank Conniff was involved with MST3K.  He was TV’s Frank and, as we learn from this book, he was the guy who was forced to watch every movie first and decide whether it could be used for the show.  This “job” was created because they had watched a bit of Sidehackers and decided it would be fun to use.  So Comedy Central bought the rights (“They paid in the high two figures”) and then discovered that there was a brutal rape scene (“don’t know why I need to cal it a ‘brutal’ rape scene any kind of rape ,loud or quiet, violent or Cosby-style, is brutal”) that would sure be hard to joke about (they edited it out for the show which “had a minimal effect on the overall mediocrity of the project.”

The book opens with an FBI warning like the videotapes except for this book it stands for Federal Bureau of Incoherence because the document contains “many pop culture references that are obscure, out of date, annoying and of no practical use to anyone.”   So each chapter goes through and explains these obscure references for us all.

In the introduction he explains how he got the job at MST3K to begin with: “New Yorkers who messed up their lives through a  combination of self medication and stupidity were sent to Minnesota to think about what they did.  It was The Land of 10,000 Rehab Centers.”  He says that if you want to know more about this time of his life look up his book “Boring Tales of Addiction and Recovery that Everybody’s Already Heard a Million Fucking Times Already.”  (Oh yes, TV’s Frank has a real potty mouth.

He met up with the folks from MST3K and the rest is history.

They spoofed hundreds of famous movies over the years, but Frank wants to talk about these 25 movies, for various reasons.

1. Sidehackers obviously, for giving him his job.
2. Catalina Caper which he describes as being a Little Richard vehicle without enough Little Richard in it.
3. Rocket Attack USA.  This was made in the late 50s when the only thing people worried about more than nuclear destruction was premarital sex.
4. Pod People is from the 1990s, an innocent happy time “when I never even thought about someone named Trump and instead I figured that the ruination of my world would come from a space furry name Trumpy.”  The most famous (for MST3K) moment from this movie is a kid giving the okay sign and then saying, “It stinks.”
5. Time of the Apes, Frank wants everyone to know that this movie came out after Planet of The Apes and several sequels had already come out.  The most amazing thing in this chapter is Frank’s assertion that if Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp has lasted more seasons Ronald Reagan may not have been our president–he might have used his Bedtime for Bonzo leverage to get a job as a voice over worker on Lancelot Link.
6. Daddy-O was  stupid trendy phrase but Frank rightly points out that if you are currently saying “That’s My Jam” you may as well say “Daddy-O.”  Since we make fun of things that are out of date which eventually come back into style, you have to be careful what you mock.
7. Amazing Colossal Man.  Frank objects to the sexism in movie titles.  In other large people movies the big guys are amazing and colossal but the 50 Foot woman is just a 50 foot woman.   He references Chris Christie and while nobody likes a fat joke, I thought: the only same sex union he ever supported is the one between Ben & Jerry” is pretty great.  As is, “When he sits around the house, he really…passes bill that hurt working people.”  I also liked his assertion that Chris Christie “is a not nearly obscure enough politician.”
8. It Conquered the World was made in the 1950s.  Frank worries about seeming old (because Dwight D. Eisenhower was president when he was born).  He like st o think that he was zapped forward in a time machine–one that allowed him to age one day for every day that passed.  He also says he’s not a violent person and often feels like the It in this movie.  The whole movie was built around a silly looking monster taking over the world.
9. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  Frank saw this film in the theater in 1964, although he didn’t remember anything about it. He was only 8.  But he remembers other movies from that time like A Hard Day’s Night and Dr. Strangelove.
10. Teenagers from Outer Space.  There are a lot of typos in this book like the word “apatite” (appetite) but whatever.  This chapter talks about Tom Graeff who decided that he was the second coming of Jesus Christ.  He attempted to legally change his name to Jesus Christ II.
11. The Beatniks.  Before hipsters and hippies there were beatniks. But there are no beatniks in the film, The Beatniks.  Because beatniks sit at home and contemplate the deeper meaning of life.  This movie has hoodlums who go and rob liquor stores.  There are more beatniks in the Fred Astaire/Audrey Hepburn movie Funny Face than in The Beatniks.
12. Attack of the the Eye Creatures begins,  “Oh for fuck’s sake.  What a crappy movie.”  Attack of the the Eye Creatures is the only movie ever made that has a typo in the title.  Not on a poster but in the freaking movie!
13. Monster a Go-Go.  Oh crap this one sucks too.  I don’t even remember seeing it.  Frank spends much time trying even to remember what it was about.  The only thing he knows for sure is that any kind of a-Go-Go is better than Monster a Go-Go.
14. The Day the Earth Froze is known for its Sampo. To be precise, a Sampo is “some sort of thing.”  And Frank says he kind of loves this movie.  There’s a lot of weird surrealistic stuff that might have appealed to him if he’d come across it in the middle of the night while stoned out of his mind.  The Sampo “is essential to experience the joy of life.”
15. Bride of the Monster.  Frank uses this to defend Ed Wood.  Yes his films are batshit, but Frank respects Wood for having the desire and gumption to make the movies he wanted to.  And the fact that he made a film like Glen or Glenda in a time of repressive sexuality was just astonishing.  Frank ends this section: “Ed Wood may not have had the talent of an artist, he may not have had the skills of an artist, but he had the soul of an artist.”
16. Manos: The Hands of Fate.  Frank says that he has to answer for this movie–it is his fault that anybody knows of it at all.
17. Warrior of the Lost World is a kind of Mad Max rip-off.  Frank admits that he would have no place in a post-apocalyptic world.
18. Secret Agent Super Dragon.  Frank says that he is a failure because he is not a secret agent.  He is okay with it now, but his twenty-year-old self would be so disappointed in him.
19. Eegah! This chapter is Frank’s opportunity to praise Richard Kiel, the monster of Eegah. He says that he met him once and Kiel was kind and warm and his teeth were in good shape.  Kiel was in two Bond films and was the only villain (besides Odd Job) to be a break-out character in his own right.  He even became a good guy.  He also mentions that there is a movie about Arch Hall, the creator of Eegah! called The Last Time Is Saw Archie starring Robert Mitchum and Jack Webb!
20. I Accuse My Parents.  Frank says he remembers this movie as well as he remembers his own parents then he regrets putting his parents on the same level as a crappy movie.  He says that his dad was on TV a lot in the 1950s and 1960s.  He was a journalist and guest on news and quiz shows.  But none of those shows were ever taped and there is no record of them.  It pains him to know that “so much culturally significant programming from the early days of television is gone forever, whereas shots of layered Buffalo chicken nachos with creamy Gorgonzola sauce arriving at happy hour tables will be around for all time.”  I Accuse My Parents was ahead of its time “young douchebags with a sense of entitlement who blamed everything on their parents were a rare commodity in movies back then.
21. The Girl in Lover’s Lane. This is Frank’s opportunity to talk about the real reason B-movies were made–for teenagers to go to a dark room and feel each other up.  If the movies were good, people would watch them instead of boring dull movies that gave teens a chance to grope and make out.
22. The Painted Hills  is a revenge story about a dog who avenges his murdered owner–pure fantasy.  Dogs only live about 15 years so pet owners have to die untimely deaths in order for their dogs to unleash savage retribution on the murderers that have it coming.  And the you won’t be able to pet your beloved dog’s head and say Good Dog.
23. Mitchell!  Like with Richard Kiel, Frank praised Joe Don Baker’s acting and says it a is testament to his skills that he conveys Mitchell smelling lie skunk turd.  In the movie, he was allowed to be a sloppy drunk who arrests his girlfriend whenever he finds a roach in her ashtray.  This was all part of the filmmaker’s scheme to build sympathy for the hero by making him not just a belching, blubbering tub of vomiting beer breath, but also a tremendous asshole.  Frank says that if it were not for him millions of people would never have seen the film and he hopes that Joe Don Baker will go easy on him when beats the crap out of him.
24. The Brain that Wouldn’t Die.  The iconic Jan in the Pan is in this movie.  Although mostly he spends his time bemoaning that they never watched The Thing with Two Heads.  He then goes on to talk about male dickitude.  Her head getting cut off and her husband preserving it in a pan is not a terribly nice thing to do.  And at the very least is an act of passive aggression. I like that he ends this with “the problem of cranial decapitation did not become a feminist issue because “when it comes to competing in the workplace, most men prefer to cut women off at the knees.”
25. Red Zone Cuba  He says he wrote three drafts of this book without including any Coleman Francis films–an act of self-preservation.  He says the good thing about Coleman Francis films is that they end, often sooner than you’d think, sometimes only 75 minutes.  Red Zone Cuba is my least favorite of all other MST3K films.   It’s one that I have a hard time watching, even with their jokes.

At the end of each chapter is a little note from the FBI.  Federal Bureau of Incoherence.  Some things the book explains are The Dumont Network, Wacky Races, Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop.  Although he does make one exception: “If you’re not familiar with Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs, you are the problem. They are all artists of enormous significance, although none are quite as famous as Carrot Top.”

There’s also this amusing comment:

It goes without saying that an apology is in order. It tells you something about the nature of this text that the most current reference in this chapter was a joke about the Swift Boat Veterans for The Truth, who were in the news in 2004.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit.  It’s a bit light in content, but it is pretty heavy in humor.  Obviously it’s funnier if you know these shows already, but it could offer an interesting introduction to the phenomenon.