Not sure how you bastards feel about podcasts or which ones you fancy, but I’ve gotten into this one pretty hard in the last few days.
Movie Crush is an interview show where Chuck Bryant from Stuff You Should Know sits down with your favorite people to talk about their favorite movie. Simple enough, but what we get is much more than that. It’s a look at what makes a favorite thing, and why someone’s favorite movie says so much about who they are. More conversation than interview, Movie Crush, at its heart, is about the love affair we all have with the silver screen.
About the Host
Chuck is the co-host of the long-running Stuff You Should Know podcast. Born and raised in Atlanta, he spent time in New York and LA working in the film industry before returning home and eventually starting his career as a podcaster. Since then, SYSK has grown into one of the biggest podcasts in the world and Chuck has found himself as an “accidental” veteran of a new medium. In his spare time, Chuck likes to hang out with his wife and daughter and play in his “old man band” El Cheapo.
Recently, Chuck’s co-worker Casey joined him for a three part series on the genius of Stanley Kubrick. He and Chuck dive deep on Casey’s pick for part one, The Shining. Hit play and settle in …
Andy Kaufman began wrestling women as part of his stand-up act and then decided he wanted to get involved in professional wrestling. By the way, I remember seeing the above video clip on our local Saturday morning wrasslin’ program after spending the night at a friend’s house. Hilarious now, but as kids, we didn’t think the taunts were so funny.
Y’all probably know all this already, but here’s wiki-wiki-Wikipedia to tell the whole story about Kaufman’s feud with Jerry Lawler …
Kaufman initially approached the head of the World Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon Sr., about bringing his act to the New York wrestling territory. McMahon dismissed Kaufman’s idea as the elder McMahon was not about to bring “show business” into his Pro Wrestling society. Kaufman had by then developed a friendship with wrestling reporter/photographer Bill Apter. After many discussions about Kaufman’s desire to be in the pro wrestling business, Apter called Memphis wrestling icon Jerry “The King” Lawler and introduced him to Kaufman by telephone.
Kaufman finally stepped into the ring (in the Memphis wrestling circuit) with a man—Lawler himself. Kaufman taunted the residents of Memphis by playing “videos showing residents how to use soap” and proclaiming the city to be “the nation’s redneck capital”. The ongoing Lawler-Kaufman feud, which often featured Jimmy Hart and other heels in Kaufman’s corner, included a number of staged “works”, such as a broken neck for Kaufman as a result of Lawler’s piledriver and a famous on-air fight on a 1982 episode of Late Night with David Letterman.
For some time after that first match, Kaufman appeared wearing a neck brace, insisting that his injuries were much worse than they really were. Kaufman would continue to defend the Inter-Gender Championship in the Mid-South Coliseum and offered an extra prize, other than the $1,000: that if he were pinned, the woman who pinned him would get to marry him and that Kaufman would also shave his head.
Eventually it was revealed that the feud and wrestling matches were staged works, and that Kaufman and Lawler were friends. This was not disclosed until more than 10 years after Kaufman’s death, when the Emmy-nominated documentary A Comedy Salute to Andy Kaufman aired on NBC in 1995. Jim Carrey, who revealed the secret, later went on to play Kaufman in the 1999 film Man on the Moon. In a 1997 interview with the Memphis Flyer, Lawler said he had improvised during their first match and the Letterman incident.
Although officials at St. Francis Hospital stated that Kaufman’s neck injuries were real, in his 2002 biography It’s Good to Be the King … Sometimes, Lawler detailed how they came up with the angle and kept it quiet. Even though Kaufman’s injury was legitimate, the pair exaggerated it. He also said that Kaufman’s furious tirade and performance on Letterman was Kaufman’s own idea, including when Lawler slapped Kaufman out of his chair. Promoter Jerry Jarrett later recalled that for two years, he would mail Kaufman payments comparable to what other main-event wrestlers were getting at the time, but Kaufman never deposited the checks.
Hey ladies in the place, I’m callin’ out to ya
There never was a city kid truer and bluer
There’s more to me than you’ll ever know
And I’ve got more hits than Sadaharu Oh
Tom Thumb, Tom Cushman or Tom Foolery
I date women on T.V. with the help of Chuck Woolery
Words are flowing out just like the Grand Canyon
And I’m always out looking for a female companion
I threw the lasso around the tallest one and dragged her to the crib
I took off her moccasins and put on my bib
Wheelin’ and dealin’ I make a little bit of a stealing
I’ll bring her back to the place and your dress I’m peeling
Your body’s on time and your mind is appealing
Staring at the cracks up there up on the ceiling
Such and such’ll be the bass that I’m throwing
I’m talking to the girl telling her I’m all-knowing
She’s talking to the kid (who?) to the kid, to the kid
I’m telling her every lie that you know that I never did
Hey ladies, get funky
All the ladies in the house
The ladies, the ladies
Well, me in the corner with a good looking daughter
I dropped my drawers, said welcome back Kotter
We was cutting up the rug, she started cutting up the carpet
In my apartment, I begged her, please stop it
The gift of gab is the gift that I have
And that girl ain’t nothing but a crab
Educated no, stupid yep
And when I say stupid, I mean stupid fresh
I’m not James at fifteen or Chachi in charge
I’m Adam and I’m adamant about living large
With the white Sassoons and the looks that kill
Makin’ love in the back of my Coupe De Ville
I met a little cutie she was all hopped up on zootie
I liked the little cutie but I kicked her in the bootie
‘Cause I don’t kinda go for that messin’ around
You be listening to my records’ A number one sound
Just step to the rhythm, step, step to the ride
I’ve got an open mind so why don’t you all get inside?
Tune in, turn on to my tune that’s live
Ladies flock like bees to a hive
Hey ladies, get funky
(Girls, girls)
Ain’t it funky now?
(Ain’t it funky now?) well, you know that
She got a gold tooth you know she’s hardcore
She’ll show you a good time then she’ll show you the door
Break up with your girl it ended in tears
Vincent Van Gogh go and mail that ear
Call her in the middle of the night when I’m drinking
The phone booth on the corner is damp and it’s stinking
Said come on over it was me that she missed
I threw that trash can through her window ’cause you know I got dissed
Your old lady left you and you went insane
You blew yourself up in the back of the six train
Take my advice at any price a gorilla like your mother is mighty weak
Sucking down pints until I didn’t know
Woke up in the morning with a one-ton ho
‘Cause I announce I like girls that bounce
With the weight that pays about a pound per ounce
Girls with curls and big long locks
And beatnik chicks just wearing their smocks
Walking high and mighty like she’s number one
(She thinks she’s the passionate one)
Hey ladies, get funky
Good god
(I like that polyester look)
Dance
Good god
Baby, baby, baby, baby
(Hey you know, I ‘d really love to do your hair sometime)
Ain’t it funky brother?
Hey, hey, hey, hey ladies
Hey ladies
Is it me, or were these toys incredibly homoerotic?
Exhibit A, the copy for this commercial …
The incredible Dr. Steel!
You’ve got Big Jim and Big Jeff hacking ‘cross the land
Stopped cold by a gleaming hand
Of the incredible Dr. Steel
With rugged face and strange tattoo
You make him break a bar in two
Make Big Jim and Big Jeff strike a blow
Is he friend or is he foe?
Get him drunk and make a pass
Take him in the alley and pound that ass
Of the incredible Dr. Steel!
L-R: Robocaller, the Dark Lord of Power Pop, Shaq Fu
Handsome Bastards Guild, the (alleged) deep state behind Netflix/Apple/Google/Facebook/Amazon/Crossfit, was briefly seen at a Tennessee mead house recently. Per sources, it was resolved that:
more beer please
a pilot study will be commissioned to create a bastard logo, with possible tattoo ramifications
offshore accounts all moved to Iceland
next meeting will be at the beer garden with hand-cranked sausage
From Our RoboCop Remake, a project undertaken by a group of filmmakers pissed off about the 2014 RoboCop remake …
Our RoboCop Remake is a crowd-sourced feature based on the 1987 Paul Verhoeven movie. Pooling our resources through various filmmaking channels (including Channel 101) we are 50 filmmakers (amateur and professional) from Los Angeles and New York who have split the original RoboCop into individual chunks, remaking the movie ourselves. Not necessarily a shot-for-shot remake, but a scene-for-scene recreation. We’re big fans of the original RoboCop, and as filmmakers and film fans kinda rolling our eyes at the Hollywood remake machine, we’ve elected to do this remake thing our own way.
Our RoboCop Remake premiered in Los Angeles on January 26th 2014 and New York on February 5th. On February 6th, it was released online.
Because if anyone is going to ruin RoboCop, it’s us.
Great interview with Monte Melnick on the Please Kill Me blargh. If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, here’s the best part.
PKM: There’s a great story in your book that takes place in a Texas gas station.
Monte A. Melnick: My favorite story. This was early on. We were driving through rural Texas, driving five or six hours, and we pulled into a gas station to get some gas, and there was a little store there too, so they all pile out of the van, looking like zombies. They were staggering around because they were seven hours in the van. So they’re in the store looking at stuff, and I come in to pay for the gas and the lady says “It’s sure nice of you to take care of these retarded boys.”
New & exclusive 2018 Raw Studio Mix video with never-before-seen footage.
The IMAGINE Raw Studio Mixes place you in the centre of Ascot Sound Studios with John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band all around you. No reverb or echo, no effects, no strings, just live, unvarnished and raw. Available in stereo and exclusively in 5.1 Surround Sound in The Ultimate Collection Box Set.
Imagine you are at the Lennon’s home, Tittenhurst Park in Ascot, England. It’s night. It’s the last week in May in 1971 and you are their special guest, sat in a chair in the very center of the their recording studio, Ascot Sound Studios. John Lennon is sat in front of you, teaching the musicians one of his latest compositions. He is talking and singing and playing the same wood-finish Epiphone Casino electric guitar he played on ‘Revolution’. A bearded George Harrison is in front of you, to the right, playing electric slide on John’s pale blue Fender Strat. Just behind you and to your right, Rod Lynton with Ted Turner from Wishbone Ash are strumming chords on twelve string acoustic guitars, and directly behind you to the right, John and George’s old friend Klaus Voormann is playing his deep hand-painted Fender Precision bass. Behind you to the left, Alan White (who would later join Yes) is playing his Ludwig silver sparkle drumkit, and in front of you to the left, John Tout from Renaissance is playing chords on the Steinway upright piano, and to his right, Nicky Hopkins is improvising on the red-top Wurlitzer Electric Piano, literally days before he leaves for Nellcôte to play on Exile on Main Street with The Rolling Stones. You are listening to the band playing ‘How Do You Sleep’ and all the hairs are standing up on your arms.
For the Raw Studio Mix of ‘How Do You Sleep?’ (Takes 5 & 6) In the Imagine Ultimate Collection Box Set on Blu-Ray Audio Disc 2, the 5.1 Surround Sound positions are:
Front Centre – John Lennon: electric guitar, vocal
Front Left – Nicky Hopkins: electric piano
Front Right – George Harrison: electric slide guitar
Surround Left – Alan White: drums
Surround Right – Klaus Voormann: bass
About ‘How Do You Sleep?’ by John & Yoko
excerpted from the 120 page book in the Imagine Ultimate Collection Box Set
John: Somebody said the other day ‘It’s about me’. You know, there’s two things I regret. One is that there was so much talk about Paul on it, they missed the song. It was a good track. And I should’ve kept me mouth shut – not on the song, it could’ve been about anybody, you know? And when you look at them back, Dylan said it about his stuff, you know, most of it’s about him. The only thing that matters is how he and I feel about those things and not what the writer or the commentator thinks about it, you know? Him and me are OK. So I don’t care what they say about that, you know? I’ve always been a little, you know, loose. And I hope it’ll change because I’m fed up of waking up in the papers. But if it doesn’t, my friends are my friends whatever way.
