Tattooine Ink

My cousin — who sometimes goes by the name Granny Skywalker — recently got a bitchin' tattoo of Yoda that blows my Hydra and Dune-themed tattoos out of the water. I'm thinking about a metaphorical nuclear response and getting a full-body Darth Maul tattoo, but that might make gainful employment a little difficult. Decisions, decisions.

In the meantime, enjoy photos of other Star Wars themed tattoos as I plan my retaliation. I take no responsibility for the links below, so click at your own peril.

The Unusual Suspects.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Lego makes everything better. Even Star Wars.

Suck it, Artoo!

Yeah, I don't think a healthy person's eyes are supposed to do that, Anakin.

I get the two sith baddies, but the pig guard? Really?

There's a thin line between clever and stupid.

And last but not least, the obligatory Boba Fett tattoo.

Busy week (more later)

Usually, it's just good manners to warn folks when you're going to be away for a few days. I'm hoping for partial credit by explaining my absence after the fact.

It's nothing dramatic: I just took some time off to hang out with friends, family and a few wild animals (at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, S.C.) Anything you hear about my behavior over the weekend is probably the product of a deranged imagination and should be ignored.

While trapped in the car for hours on end I decided to introduce my nieces to late '70s alt rock/nerd punk via Devo and The Dickies. Both of them now have Working in a Coal Mine and The Banana Splits tattooed forever on their brains.

In that spirit, let me share a link with you: the new Song Study from Devo, which lets fans select the final tracks from the band's forthcoming album. It's a lot of fun, and I have this feeling that Wes Anderson was somehow involved with the site. Enjoy!

Feudal Japanese Star Wars Art

From the Hypno Pimp:

Artist Steve Bialik represents legendary Star Wars characters as samurai from traditional Japanese art. Darth Vader and Jabba The Hutt are a lot less scary when they are illustrated as a bald dude in a mask and a giant bullfrog.

Batman body armor: coming to a store near you?

From the Hypno-Pimp:

For years I've justified Batman's lack of obvious body armor, saying that his costume is most likely a carbon weave, a sort of flexible kevlar.   

Alright, I'll admit it.  It's a bit Deus Ex Machina, but it's been my own little addition to the  "Why the Hell hasn't Batman been filled with holes by now?" argument.  

And hey, it works for me, so all you nit-picky bastards can blow me.

Funny thing is, it looks like I've been on the right track all along.

University of South Carolina professor of mechanical engineering (and home town fucking hero in my mind), Xiaodong Li recently co-authored of a paper on a new,  flexible fiber he helped develop, using not much more than plain, white t-shirts and boron.

The t-shirts were cut into thin strips and dipped into a boron solution. The strips were then removed from the solution and heated in an oven. The heat changes the cotton fibers into carbon fibers, which react with the boron solution and produce boron carbide.

What's boron carbide?  Not much, really.  It's just a little compound used to coat gears, tools, and oh yeah... bullet proof TANKS.

Usually, boron carbide is very brittle but these synthesized fibers are super-elastic and they maintain the same strength and stiffness of their predecessors. “They are not only lightweight but also flexible,” Li says. “We should be able to fabricate much tougher body armors using this new technique."

Also,  boron is cheap and plentiful.  Crystalline boron costs about $5 a gram, amorphous boron goes for $2.

Hmmm.   I've been hitting the gym like a man possesed lately,  I can apparently make flexible body armor on the cheap and I have an, um...intense Dark Knight obsession.

You see where I'm going with this?

Watching Tron

So, I watched Tron today for the first time in a long while.

Tron's one of those movies (along with The Road Warrior, Star Wars, Taxi Driver and Conan the Barbarian) that I've seen so many times I can recite the dialogue from memory. It was also in the first batch of movies I ever rented when my family got our first Betamax back in 1983/84 (along with Swamp Thing and Night of the Living Dead.) So me and Tron have what film noir calls "a history."

There's a quaintness to Tron that I've always chalked up to Disney's inherent lack of cool. Along with The Black Hole and Watcher in the Woods, Tron is a fun film that just lacked the edge and vision of its contemporaries. All three were attempts at making "modern" films by a studio mired in its own history.

Watching Tron today, though, I saw something else bubbling beneath the surface of the film. Tron's lack of narrative vision makes it timeless (in it's own way) because it is totally unhinged from the cinematic fashions of its day. It wasn't made in a vacuum, but it's artistic relatives are much older than they ought to be, given the subject matter. To me, this makes the proto-cyberpunk story of life existing within computers all the more interesting.

Watching Tron, I was reminded of classic Hollywood films like March of the Wooden Soldiers, made when studios went balls to the wall when producing escapist fare. There's no trace of cynicism, detachment or condescension in March of the Wooden Soldiers, The Wizard of Oz, Universal's horror films or other fantasy films from those days. And I don't think it was innocence or naivety. Instead, it was a commitment to creating a world for the audience to enjoy for two hours, and cynicism would rightly be interpreted as hostility toward the audience. Camp can only be enjoyed from a place of privilege and is an utterly alien concept for many people. I doubt there are many people in Ethiopia who understand what "so bad it's good" means.

I think I came to respect this gee-whiz aspect of Tron today for the first time today. For example, I've always had a problem with the relationship between Alan Bradley and his avatar (if you'll pardon the expression) Tron. Bradley is not a very likable character and it's never clear why Lora dumped Flynn for this whiny, insecure dork.

But that's the cool thing about the movie: it doesn't underline its own story elements as though the audience is too dumb to keep up. Bradley is Clark Kent; Tron is Superman. They are two aspects of the same person and both barely have an inkling that the other exists. Their "secret identities" are only secret from each other.
Meanwhile, Flynn is a repressed adolescent who fights only for himself and seems to have no hidden depth. You might even say his representation of maturity - Clu - is an early victim of the story.

As a movie, Tron wants to be liked and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think its earnestness actually offsets some of the issues with the film. If something like the preposterous "grid bugs" scene popped up in one of The Mummy movies I'd have called bullshit. With Tron, though, it was just an honest attempt to squeeze one last idea into a film already bursting at the seams with ideas.

Below is a new trailer for Tron, edited with modern tastes and sensibilities in mind.

The Bootlegs of Dune

There aren't many absolutes in life, the most obvious being that death and taxes are unavoidable, and that you should never, ever ask Glenn Danzig to sign bootleg merchandise.

I used to be firmly in Danzig's camp when it came to bootleg recordings. Why should one person make money off another person's work? But a funny thing happened: the bootlegs kept being produced, and Danzig maintained his lack of interest in releasing competitive material. If you wanted a Misfits concert recording you pretty much had to go to the bootleggers (though there was one exception.)

Which is why I don't have much sympathy for folks who let boutique merchandise companies scoop them on product ideas. Capitalism isn't that difficult a concept to grasp, yet so many people (Exhibit A: 99.99 percent of the men and women employed in the music industry) just won't accept that people want products at a good price with the least fuss. And we want it now.

Which brings me to the theme of this post: Dune-inspired clothing available from sources, I'm guessing, that have no legal claim to the name, story, characters or situations from Dune. And I'm good with that. If someone wants to sell some "legitimate" Dune merch, I'll be happy to pay for it. Until then the fans have things firmly in hand.
Click on the links to visit the individual e-stores.

Arrakis Marathon

Landsraad

Choam

Child of Dune

Dune: 1984 Teaser Poster

Vintage Sandworm Design

Superman hits the road

From the Hypno-Pimp:

"He’s not faster than a speeding bullet, he’s not more powerful than a locomotive and he’s not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but “Superman” Allen Mullins is able to walk great distances in the name of the real heroes of today — the American soldiers. Although Mullins, 27, of Dalton, Ga., has never been a soldier himself, he has taken up the cause of ensuring veterans are taken care of when they return home from war by walking from state to state, capital to capital to ask anyone who will listen for help."

 Mullins was spotted today in Columbia, S.C.

Welcome Back Haiku UPDATED

What do you get when you add one mostly sleepless night, a Facebook account and a random observation totally devoid of meaning? A series of haiku poetry inspired by Welcome Back Kotter.

Last night I innocently pointed out that you don't see much haiku poetry inspired by Welcome Back Kotter. A couple of folks took this as a challenge. Below is (are?) haiku(s)  that started appearing on my Facebook page late last night.

            Behold Juan Epstein
            Quite possibly the only
            Puerto Rican Jew

            Oooh Barbarino
            70's hair seducing me
            georgious sweathog king

            Of all the Sweat Hogs
            How in the world did Horshack
            Hook Epstein's sister

            Boom Boom Washington
            Despite popular belief
            Never did play the bass 

Please excuse my Juan
UFO, taken was he
signed, Epstein's Mother

They lost Travolta,
Added a redneck sweat hog
This show jumped the shark

Poor Old Gabe Kaplan
No job since the Seventies
Plays poker for food

Haunted, sadistic doll for sale

Anyone want to own a haunted, sadistic and sexually deviant porcelain doll? Anyone besides me, that is? If so you're in luck. Here's what the seller has to say about this little item:

"This doll can actually interact with you physically, along with psychically, which can be brutally painful, but always ends with tremendous carnal pleasure. She has a specific trigger, which awakens her every time, and tells her you're ready. I'll tell you by email, just ask. She has several severe sexual fetishes, which include asphyxiation, water sports, and media fetishes to both latex and leather."

 
Say what you want about my staggering collection of Star Wars toys, but none of them ever tried to rape me.

Nooooooooo!

A cake of unknown origin from the Hypno-Pimp. Should this frosting terrify me?

I'm Milkman

From the Hypno-Pimp:

Hattomonkey has some odd, odd designs now posted for your approval. Among them this Bruce Timm-inspired Batman milk container. There are a few other oddities are the site, but the langauge barrier makes navigation a little difficult. If you click on the link, all I can say is "Godspeed!"

Jaws 3-D Theater: Day 22

This card is intended as an apology for Day 16. We're deeply, deeply sorry for Day 16.

Rocky Horror Blog: Part 1

So, I'm going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show next month ...

As anyone within earshot of my voice during the last two can tell you, I think of Rocky Horror as "Geek Mecca." I feel spiritually obliged to attend an audience participation show at least once in my life, or risk being damned to watch re-runs of Charles in Charge for all eternity. The geek god is a vengeful god.

During the next few weeks I'll be posting occasional thoughts on the experience, including the name of the theater I'll be visiting (assuming any of you freaks want to meet up) and photos from the gig. It's my goal to get my partner in crime for this event to share some thoughts about the trip, as well.

First up: the costume. It wasn't difficult settling on a character. I've spent most of my adult life looking like Meat Loaf, so there wasn't much novelty in dressing as Eddie. He's also the universal "I'm Not Gay!" character to dress as, which is kind of sissy.

Is that a contradiction in terms? I don't think it is. Sometimes it takes a real man to wear fishnets and panties. Unfortunately, I'm not that man.

So I opted for my favorite character from the film: Riff Raff. Arriving in the mail sometime during the next week are the first parts of my costume: a tuxedo jacket and a "skullet" wig. Pictures of both items are embedded. Make-up will still be required, so my masculinity remains unchallenged (if that makes any sense.)

I also have a standing offer from someone willing to shave my head for me. And by "willing" I mean "insistent." At the end of the day, though, I suspect that Richard O'Brien would prefer a full head of hair over a clean scalp, so I doubt he'd be too offended if I kept my flowing locks intact.

Now all that's left is to apply some pressure to "Magenta" to get her to talk about her costuming process. I'll make sure all relevant comments find their way to her e-mail.

- The Creep

Random awesomeness

Jaws 2: Sticker Set

Here's a complete set of images from Topps series of Jaws 2 trading cards from 1978. One of eleven stickers was randomly inserted into each pack.

To fill out the odd numbered design I've included an image from the back of the stickers which explains how to use them. I'm assuming sticker technology was new in 1978, with the recent invention of glue and paper. That or Topps thought their customers were idiots.

Pop Art: What the hell?

Way back in those dark days of 2008 my band had a table at a horror and comics convention in North Carolina. Our first "real" album had just been released, and we'd rushed another free EP to the internet, as well, giving us a lot of material to plug.


Our little corner of the con was a strange place, indeed ... in addition our garage/horror/punk/metal/stoner rock band was a guy plugging his blaxpolitation comic called Rachel Rage, a cheesecake sketch artist, a cheesecake model and two stuntmen who played Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees. It was a fun weekend.

Decorating our morbid little table was a heavy plastic skull I called Moldering Skully (a play on Mulder and Scully, har har.) During the event we passed the skull around to the other artists and whatnot sitting near us and had them doodle on it. Among those to sign it were Vera Von Munster, John Aston, and Chrissie Zullo. The "before and after" shots are below.

HeroesCon 2007

So, any of you freaks going to the HeroesCon in Charlotte, N.C., this year? I've missed very few of them over the last 15 years, always attending on Saturday of the three-day event. Because of prior engagements this year, I'll probably be attending the con on the event's final day — Sunday — this year. Which is a first for me.

I've got a few photos from the previous events, but not nearly as many as I would have thought. Below are a few from 2007, when Rosario Dawson (sigh!) was the guest of honor.

The Hypno Pimp himself meets Steve Niles and artist Sarah Wilkerson. My current "life goal" involves splitting them up and making Sarah the next Mrs. The Creep.

 

This statue of Superman brought to you by the good folks at the Uncanny Valley.

Yeah, I'm a pervert so I'll just keep my mouth shut.

Harley Quinn: role model of co-dependent women everywhere.

You know what's weird about comic conventions? Seeing people physically fit enough to wear spandex superhero costumes. It's almost unsettling.

My friend Lee with Rosario Dawson, another future candidate for Mrs. The Creep.

About 1 second after this photo was taken, Egon got a little pissed and did his best Sean Penn impersonation. I was lucky that proton pack wasn't loaded, I guess.

Jaws 3-D Theatre: Day 21

Thanks, Japan, for making a once-innocent trading card look skeevy.