My commute...and welcome to it

This is what I hear in my head when I drive to BART every morning:

LOLRamona, part 2

That Sounds Familiar!

Today's entries into That Sounds Familiar are two songs that occupy a permanent spot in my brain's song rotation.

They don't really sound alike but for the same chord progression. So just to be weird, I like to sing the chorus of the older song during the chorus of the newer song.

And my wife already knows I'm a big, big freak, so I don't have to worry about looking weird when I do it.

First song: "Atlantis," by Donovan


My parents had this album, and they played it a lot when I was a kid. I liked the song fine enough, but the talking at the beginning bored me to tears. I already knew what happened to Atlantis. I read Aquaman, didn't I?

Donovan already got points with me for naming dropping Superman and Green Lantern in one of his other songs, so I sat through the talking.

Second song: Damn Good Times, by They Might Be Giants



I love They Might Be Giants. Love. Thanks to Here Come the ABCs, my son loves them, too. I can't wait for Here Come The 123s, which comes out next month.

I stumbled on to this when I was putzing around on the guitar trying to pick out the chords. Once I had the chord progression, I thought it sounded familiar. I started playing it slowly, and then I had it.

I should also mention that there is a really cool book by Tim English, called "Sounds Like Teen Spirit." Since this is a subject that I've been interested in for a long time, I was happy to get it for Christmas. If you like this kind of thing, I recommend you pick it up; it's a great read.

It also limits what I will cover with this feature, but that's OK; Tim is more thorough and informative.

Signs that I'm online way too much

When I spied the bag of Stacey's Pita Chips on the counter, I read the cholesterol listing on the bag as "Oh my God! Cholesterol" instead of zero milligrams.

And when I realized my error, I wanted to hit Ctrl-Z.

Hopeless, I tell you.

Counting down the hours...

I'm getting ready to check out Skidoo at long last. Being a Harry Nilsson fan, I've already listened to the soundtrack, and now I'll get to see how the songs fit in with the movie.

And special thanks to Mark Evanier for putting out the word about this being on Turner Classic Movies and making the swell banner above.

Tonight at 2 a.m. Set those Tivos, kids. If you see only one movie in which Jackie Gleason trips out on LSD, make it this one.

O is for 'Oh, hell no!'

Sometimes you can just smell quality when perusing movie titles, especially if you have synesthesia. Take the latest winner in the Bad Movies From A to Z sweepstakes: Over 18...and Ready. This review may not be suitable for all audiences. The movie is suitable for no one...

Also at this point, I'd like to mention the scarcity of movie titles that begin with "O."

The movie in a nutshell: Girl goes to Hollywood to be an actress and starts from the absolute bottom. I think that's what happens in the movie, too, for that matter.

The story: Honestly, it doesn't start off too bad. It's a travelogue of sorts, showing you what Hollywood looked like back in the day, which, judging from the marquees we see (Paper Lion, Camelot, Barbarella) I'm going to guess late 1968, early 1969. This was supposedly released in August 1969.

I should mention that despite that film date, the movie is in black and white, which to someone of my generation, still makes me think it should be a lot older.

At any rate, after 2 minutes of Hollywood, we get our title card, and a splendid one at that.


Barney Merritt, hip mogul at Nu-Art Continental Pictures, bemoans the lack of starlets for his newest project. And given that he refers to them as "broads," one gets the impression that he's not working on one of those Merchant Ivory pictures.

His secretary, Lyn Stevens, aside from having a bra so pointy that it's an occupational hazard, also has a desk setup that would send any workplace ergo evaluator into conniption fits. Her typewriter is in front of her, sure, but her phone is off to the left of that, so when she answers it, she reaches across with her right hand to speak into the receiver while reading from the script surreptitiously placed in front of her.

Clearly, her mind is on other things than ergonomic safety. In fact, she wants to be in Barney's next picture, even though, as he points out, he makes exploitation films.

No problem, says she. She came to Hollywood to be an actress. You've gotta start somewhere, right?

Right?

Later, Barney complains to his wife, Billie, about the casting situation. His wife, you can tell, is married to an important Hollywood type because she wears an ascot and smokes with a cigarette holder. Tres cool. But before he gets too into the conversation (like after two sentences), he realizes that darnit, he left his briefcase at work. On a Friday evening, no less.

Oh noes!

Billie suggests that he call Lyn. At home. You know, rather than just get off his lazy ass and drive back to work and get it himself. That's why they have help, I suppose.

He calls, and wouldn't you just know it? She's in the tub when the phone rings. Ain't that always the way? Oh well. Lyn, as we find out, is a very thorough bather. I don't think they missed an angle from which to show her scrubbing something.

When Barney explains that he needs his briefcase before going back to work Monday (maybe it has the soul of Marsellus Wallace or something), Lyn's 5K brain hatches a plan.

On Saturday morning, Lyn goes to a photographer to get some nude shots taken of her. That way, she reasons, she can show that she has the parts for the part. I hope Barney likes what she looks like, because she can't do a natural line reading to save her life. Even in post-production looping.

Let's talk briefly about pacing, shall we? No, not like the kind you're apt to do while this is on your TV. In the crap movies I've seen, nudity is often used to keep the viewers' attention. Intro, boobs, story, story, scare, story, boobs, etc.

So why do we need to see her complete nude photo shoot only minutes after we saw her bathe? I realize it's the next day and all, but damn. Even better, the skeevy photographer decides to take an alternate form of payment for the rush developing job. Maybe it's just me, but photography aside, if this is how you accept payment, I wouldn't make a big point of how fast you can get done.

Bow-chicka-bow-bow.

On the plus side, he's fully clothed while he makes out with her, and there's an arty cut to an acoustic guitar (no G string joke here, folks) before anything too graphic.

Sunday morning rolls around, and Lyn dutifully brings Barney's briefcase. Lyn meets Barney's wife, Billie, who talks to her about the movie Barney is working on. Billie doesn't beat around the bush.

"You have a very nice body, my dear," she says.

Skeeeeeevy....

"Do you think you can act?" she asks.

"Oh, I know I can," Lyn replies. "And you don't have to be the best actress in these kinds of movies." True. A very meta moment for a late-60s movie, don't you think?

Billie helpfully mentions that she's going out of town for a few days. Even more, dinner's already done -- Billie says that since she's leaving, Lyn should stay. Right. Uh-huh. That could happen. In the bedroom, Billie asks Barney if he's going to use Lyn for the movie. She says he should see the pictures of Lyn in his briefcase.

"Au naturel," Billie says.

"You're kidding. In the nude?"

This brilliant deductive reasoning, no doubt, is why this cat is a studio head, even if it is a crap studio.


Billie demands that he use Lyn. In the movie as well, I presume, but I may be overthinking this. Barney acts all butthurt about his wife's demands. Yes, it's a stone-cold bitch when your wife demands that you use your giant-racked secretary in your next flesh feast and have her over for dinner as well and forces you to look at naked pictures of her.

It appears to be a case of Barney protesting too much, because once Billie's out of the picture, he decides to butter Lyn up to appear in his film.

OMG.

"How do you think all the other dames make it in this business? On their backs, of course." -- Barney, on why Lyn should bone him.

She has to think about it. See, darling Lyn has some standards. Sure, she got nudie pics taken of herself and then stuck them in her boss' briefcase, but still, she's not that easy. You know, I don't think they covered this kind of scenario in those videos you have to watch at work during sexual harassment training.

Ah, romance. With the precision skill of a surgeon (who is not only blind drunk on moonshine but also had both arms fall asleep), Barney undresses her, and I'd imagine that an inflatable doll would have a more lifelike countenance. I'd have to ask my brother to be sure (rimshot).

Seriously. It's like watching boobs on a plank of wood. But less realistic.

Lyn gets, um, more employment questions, and sure enough, there are openings to be filled. She gets the position.

But oh, snap! She hauls ass out of there while Barney's asleep. This bird has flown, Norwegian Wood.

On Monday morning, Gary the skeevy photographer asks Lyn on a date to celebrate her impending stardom, to which she agrees.

And next, without the benefit of transitions or segues, Barney goes over the ins and outs (so to speak) of exploitation film shooting.

Meanwhile, poolside at Chez Merritt, Billie and Martha the Maid swim in the nude and soak up some rays. I don't know what they're paying Martha, but it can't possibly be enough to be rubbing suntan lotion on Billie.

But wait, wasn't Billie supposed to be gone for a few days? Yep. But she came back early, which really frosts Barney's cheese wheel.

"You just can't wait to get your hands on her," Barney says upon her early return.

Cut to Lyn and Gary out on their date. They're parked out on some kind of lovers' lane. She says they can't go further in their relationship. It's too complicated.

"Uh-huh," Gary says, and the camera pans away as they play some tonsil hockey.

Some time later (see, the scenes are just shown in order without any great effort at establishing date and time. There's no tomorrow or yesterday, it's just next. Next. Next.), Lyn visits the Merritts. Billie looks a bit eager and tells Martha the Maid to take care of their guest. In most of the other movies I've reviewed, that would mean that Lyn is about to meet an untimely end. But in this flick, well, you do the math.

Lyn takes a second as soon as she's in her guest room to break a date with Gary, and as you can imagine, he's not happy.

The next day, Billie and Lyn are on the beach. Billie, who looks as though she's seen the sun a lot, helpfully slathers Lyn with sunblock, paying special attention to her chesticles. Don't want those babies getting burned, do we? Then all of a sudden, it's a girl-on-girl From Here to Eternity homage.

Back on the ranch, Martha the Maid brings Barney breakfast in bed. Main course: Martha.

Again, she can't possibly be paid enough. For reasons unknown, she bolts out of bed and dives into the pool. By the time I looked up from my notebook again, they were back in bed performing the rejected video for "Ebony and Ivory."

Finally, the first day of shooting arrives. Huzzah. Lyn's character is tied to a pole, stripped, and whipped. Maybe it's a movie about Joan of Arc or something. The shots seems to follow a formula: show up, get naked, repeat.

Now that I think about it, Billie reminds me a little of Mrs. Roper from Three's Company. So if you ever fantasized about the Ropers getting it on, this movie was made for you. Forty-seven minutes in and I finally realize that Barney and Billie are both supposed to be horny and middle-aged. Barney just looks like he had a mishap with some white shoe polish and guyliner.

Next (see what I mean?), Gary reveals his love for Lyn. And then, because he's Mr. Effing Smooth, he says, essentially, all the other chicks Barney employs end up in the sack with him -- how about you?

And while we're reeling from that lost scene from Love Story, Barney says shortly after to Lyn that he only stays with Billie because of her money. Once his movies have made the fortune they obviously will, he can kick her to the curb. Ah, young love.

Jilted Gary tries calling Lyn at home to no avail because she's once again staying with the Merritts. She also has to take another bath. And in case we forgot what that experience is like, we get to see it again. In the same order. She is obviously a creature of routine.

Oddly, the Merritts seem to have the exact same tub as Lyn's. Or they just reused the bath footage, thinking that the viewer would be so distracted by nakedosity that he wouldn't notice.

No number of baths are going to make me feel less dirty for sitting through this crapfest. Not even with a full box of Mr. Bubble.

And because Lyn hadn't been naked onscreen with Martha the Maid yet, Martha rubs moisturizer on Lyn after her bath. Who says you can't get good help these days?

At this point, I notice that the film is nearing the end of its supposed running time, and it's nowhere near a logical chain of events for an ending. I think the filmmakers noticed this too, as things start to move quicker. Or to be more precise, even more disjointedly.

Billie, Barney, Martha the Maid and Lyn hang out on the back porch, either watching footage from Barney's movie or having flashbacks.

Afterward, they share a joint before Billie and the nude-except-for-her-apron (sure, why not?) Martha the Maid head back down to the beach. While they're out, Barney decides that he wants to do the bow-chicka-bow-bow with Lyn, who, showing at least a few synapses firing, says no.

Gary arrives at Chez Merritt and sneaks into the house. He stumbles upon the pot remnants and hears Lyn telling Barney to leave her alone. Gary busts in, punches Barney, flees, and drives away in his car, leaving Lyn to chase after her Prince Charming.

While she drives after him, she thinks about all the things that have happened to her in the period of time the movie covered, which is a dandy excuse for reusing yet more footage. The cuts get more and more rapid, presumably as her state of mind gets more and more erratic.

Finally, it's all too much for her, and she plows into a tree and dies. But at least she has the presence of mind to die with one boob hanging out. Rest in peace, classy lady...

Afterthoughts: Well, that sucked.

I'm not going back to check -- one viewing was more than enough -- but I believe this is the first movie wherein pube continuity was a problem. In her first bath scene, she's like Kojak, has a fro on the beach with Mrs. Roper, and then is clean-shaven again a day or so later when she bathes again. Either they did indeed reuse the bath footage from the beginning of the movie, or Lyn has the world's fastest growing hair.

Oh. Um, I hope you weren't eating when you started reading this.

This movie has it all: plotless plot that makes The Bikini Carwash Company seem plausible, inane dialogue, feeble acting, and boobies, boobies, boobies.

All with a running time of 66 minutes, part of which is repeated footage. You can watch this film thanks to the wonderful folks at Something Weird Video, without whom these kinds of films, as bad as they are, would be lost forever. Over 18 and Ready is the back-end of a double bill DVD with Alley Tramp, which sadly, I did not have the intestinal fortitude to attempt to watch following this travesty.

As always, the Something Weird disc offers a host of extras, making it well worth your time if you have a lot of it to kill.

Dumb Things I've Done (10 in an occasional series)

In junior high school, I was doing dishes (under duress, as usual), and since the batteries to my Walkman had run out again, I was humming to pass the time while my fingers got progressively prunier. After zoning out, I found myself humming a tune that, upon reflection, I couldn't quite place. Where the hell had I heard it? Finally, it came to me. It was from this commercial:



Why that stuck in my head, I can't tell you.

Yes, it's so last year...

Get in on the ground floor with what I'm sure will be the coolest thing going in 2008: The LOLRamona:

So long, 2007...

What a year.

Got a new job, got an addition to the family, served on a jury for the first time, and I got a lot closer to figuring out why I am the way I am.

Yep, 2007 wasn't dull. Here's to a pleasantly eventful 2008.

Cheers!

The season of giving...

Because it's stuck in my head, allow me to share it with you. Cheers!



This brings up a few interesting questions:

Is a hobo-humpin' slobo babe considered "hobosexual"?

OMG, did she lick that guy's armpit?

What the hell is slobo?

Did the video need at least 166 separate cuts?

Why don't more videos have cute girls and trampolines?

Is trampoline a synonym for a short girl who looks kinda slutty?

Why are you still reading this?

Turkey Television actually existed

My friend Karyne and I talk about You Can't Do That on Television on a fairly regular basis.

Yes, to the point that our conversations begin with:

"Hey, Alanis..."

"Yes, Alasdair?"

But I managed to find a neat clip while poking around on YouTube as I often do. It's from the less-remembered Turkey Television, which often followed YCDTOTV.



And because now you're thinking of it, here's a clip from YCDTOTV:

Gift ideas

You know, now that the holidays are almost here, you might be looking for the perfect gift to give. Now say you can't quite afford Amazon's new e-book reader, the Kindle:



Not to fear. You can, instead, buy some sweet Siftin' merch from my store. And even if you don't have a need for an undergarment with my face on it, there are also neat-o T-shirts to have, too.



You know you want one.

That sounds familiar...

A new feature here at Siftin' is That Sounds Familiar, in which I pair up two songs that sound a little similar, whether it's the whole song, or just pieces.

First up, two songs that you probably have on a mix CD: "Top of the World" by the Carpenters, and "Pass the Dutchie" by Musical Youth.

In this case, it's the beginning of the verse of both songs. There's not much similar in the rest of the song, but I hear this in my head:

"Such a feeling coming over me (How does it feel when you got no food?)"






And that's how this works. Some will be shockingly similar, and some, I suspect, will only sound the same to me.

Rhythm is gonna get you whether you like it or not

I was watching "We Are the 80s" on VH1 Classic this morning while my son dutifully played with his Thomas the Tank Engine trains (unleaded, thank you).

A video by Miami Sound Machine came on:



Brody stopped what he was doing, walked over to me, and asked in all seriousness, "Dad, what is that horrible noise?"

So yeah, I guess I don't have to worry about getting him Gloria Estefan's greatest hits for Christmas.

And that's a gift for both of us.

But since this is a season of giving, here's the video for Miami Sound Machine's "Bad Boy," featuring the understudies for the cast of "Cats," and introduced by Ted Danson and Howie Mandel. Yeah, don't blame me if you get nightmares.

They've got what I'm looking for

Old Bay Area TV stations came up in conversation yesterday, and it got me thinking of the promos TV 20 used to do that featured various pets from people in the area.

As luck would have it, I found the best one on YouTube:

From the "Who gives a crap" department...

At least now I have proof that I wasn't hallucinating it. Back in the early to mid-80s, it seemed like everyone wanted to capitalize on NBC's TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes, so there were specials every now and then, and of course, the shameless imitation.

On ABC, I think it was (I could look to be sure, but I'm lazy), to compete with Dick Clark and Ed McMahon, they paired Steve Lawrence (8-year-old me: Who?) with Don Rickles (8-year-old me: Oh, that CPO Sharkey guy who calls everyone a hockey puck). And if that team-up wasn't magical enough, there was the name: Foul-Ups, Bleeps and Blunders.

Note the way it flows off the tongue.

If memory serves, the two shows even competed in the same time slot for a while. I'd check out the ersatz Dick and Ed during the terminally long practical joke bits, which were rarely if ever funny.

I don't know if the show even lasted a whole season, but it is for some reason locked indelibly in my memory.

And now (at least temporarily), I can inflict it upon you, loyal reader. The clip is a little bit of Star Trek blooperness, brought by the Shat himself.



And while on the subject of inflicting, here's a clip I found from the Steve Allen-hosted Life's Most Embarrassing Moments, which I think was a special, also on ABC. And wouldn't you know it, it's the one clip that I will never be able to get rid of.

Nanowrimo progress

Well, it seems unlikely that I'll make the goal by the end of the month, but for the first time, I'm writing regularly on the story--every day on BART. Even better, I'm not tired of the story yet. That's probably because I don't know how it ends.

But I'm not going to worry about how many words I need to write a day; I'm just focusing on the fact that I'm actually writing.

The story, in case you want to know if you should start saving money to buy it, is about two brothers, neither of whom are particularly happy. One brother is stuck in the past; everything reminds him of something from back in the day. The other brother is stuck in the present; a present he thought would be different, and worse, a future looming that he doesn't want any part of.

They end up going on a road trip to various points around (and just outside) the state.

Here's a brief sample from one of the many flashbacks our narrator has:

When we were in junior high school, we went camping with our parents a few times every summer. They belonged to one of those membership campground things, so it was pretty easy to find somewhere to go, even in the summer when everyone wanted to go camping.

Harbor and I had grown up sharing a tent, and we constantly pestered our parents to kick in for an extra tent so we could sleep separately. This was because Harbor, in addition to being a sleep-farter, was such a heavy breather when he slept that we often woke up first thing in the morning to a miniature rainstorm inside the tent. The condensation built up all night, and in the morning, it just started falling. Not as steady as rain, but intermittent enough to keep you from falling back asleep.

Plus, I don’t know what he did, but his shoes smelled like rotten ass. His feet alone were no bed of roses, either, but his shoes were so foul that we couldn't leave them anywhere near our tents, lest our noses be assaulted by his foot funk.

On the upside, it kept animals away.

Not so with the mosquitoes. That was the other weird thing; despite sharing a tent, Harbor woke up practically poxy with mosquito bites. I would have maybe two or three. My parents joked that I must have been too bitter for the mosquitoes to like. Harbor thought this was hysterically funny despite the fact that he spent the better part of his day--when not forging new trails through the wilderness or finding the perfect rock to skip across the water--scratching like a flea-ridden dog.

So if you end up seeing my book someday, now you can say your read part of it before it was a best-seller and adapted for the big screen. (Ha.)

Updates, updates, updates...

Okay, so Halloween went off without a hitch. Brody dressed up as Bob the Builder and pillaged the neighborhood, securing regulation-size candy (in this case, a bag of peanut M&Ms) for two years in a row.

Even better, Brody still doesn't like candy, so more for me, Jen, and my co-workers. He did pretty good about not going in people's houses, and he got to go trick-or-treating with his cousin, so he was happy about that.

And speaking of candy, I may as well update the whole "Jeff is too lazy to buy new clothes, so he's trying to lose weight" thing. Well, as of this morning, I've lost 15 pounds without the aid of amputation, laxatives or cholera.

The irony is that I'm going to have to buy clothes anyway because my pants are too big in the waist, even with my belt. Oh well. It's been pretty easy to stick with my modified diet because it's all just a matter of math. If I eat something "bad," I make up for it later without just skipping the meal entirely.

I'm sure I could still be more selective in what provides the calories I consume, but I have to take it a little at a time.

The next entrant into the great Bad Movies from A to Z sweepstakes should be arriving courtesy of Netflix any day now. I won't say anything about it except that there's a really good chance you haven't seen it. Or if you have, you'd probably deny it.

And one more thing consuming what little spare time I've got is Guitar Hero III, which was a birthday present from my awesome wife (it's not till tomorrow, but she wanted me to have a chance to play it over the weekend). I LOVE this game. And I also love that I will have a chance to kick my friend Karyne's ass at it next time we have a video game night.

Instead of disappearing behind sunglasses, earphones and a thick book on the morning BART commute, I am embarking on that little exercise in futility I like to call NaNoWriMo. During National Novel Writing Month, I am endeavoring to complete a 50,000-word novel.

I know, you're probably thinking, "Lots of luck, skinhead; didn't you fail at this for the last two years running?"

True. And there's a good chance I won't make it again this year, especially now that I've got a baby (and Guitar Hero III) around. But as long as I get a seat on the train, I've got a good 30 to 45 minutes of writing each way. I'm up to about 3,800 words so far, and I kinda like the story, so even if I don't finish it by the end of the month, I would like to see how it all turns out.

God knows blog updates aren't consuming much of my time these days...

It's almost time...

Getting ready to take out the younguns for trick-or-treating. I'm curious to see how Brody does this year. Last year, he got a regulation-size candy bar, and I'm wondering if he'll make it two years in a row. We'll see...

Mark your calendars, kids

The always-cool Mark Evanier has brought it to my attention that not only does the new year bring another round of resolutions to break, but it also brings a chance to see the sadly not-on-DVD "Skidoo," an Otto Preminger movie with Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Mickey Rooney, Groucho Marx and a host of others.

A genuinely odd movie from the 1960s, you really have to see it to believe it. My favorite part (and honestly, the only part I don't fast-forward through) is where Harry Nilsson sings the end credits, down to key grip, costumer, and the whole bit.

Do give it a shot, won't you?