Greatest Album of All Time of the Week: DaDa!

The album cover being a modified detail from Dalí's Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire is a return tribute to Dalí, who was a major Coop fan and declared his act "musical surrealism". Dalí made a First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain, the story of which is the best thing you'll read all year.

Everyone knows Alice Cooper for his pioneering theatrical stage show and his slew of classic anthems from "Eighteen" to "Elected" to "Poison", but the thing that really stabs you in the neck as you delve into the Cooper catalogue is how eclectic it all is, like a Ween album strung out over half a dozen decades. The first two albums are as uncommercial as it gets, weird psychedelia with odd melodic gems jutting out randomly like teeth out of a Briton's gums. Then there's the era of unimpeachable classics from Love it to Death through Billion Dollar Babies or even Welcome to my Nightmare (depending on how charitably you view Muscle of Love), but even this hit-making hard rock era has its oddities like the dark jazzy atmospherics of "Blue Turk" or the James-Bond-meets-King-Crimson pastiche of "Halo of Flies". Then you've got disco parodies and showtunes on Goes to Hell, sci-fi new wave on Flush the Fashion, hair metal, industrial and more. For every wild left-turn that crashes in flames, there's one that pays off in spades, but by far the oddest and greatest Alice album is one he doesn't even remember writing or recording at all. Just as Bowie's cocaine album (Station to Station) was his best and bleakest, so too was the Coop's. Now I'm not saying you should dabble in white powder for the sake of a tune. I mean, fuck it, Minor Threat coined straight edge and their Complete Discography is one of the few punk discs that holds up after half a spin. But just as LSD seems to inevitably lead to inane surrealism and heroin to insomniac self-pity, cocaine seems to have a distinctly dark and empty energy you wouldn't guess from something that has adults bouncing off the walls like kids on Halloween candy.

Not that DaDa doesn't have laughs - "I Love America" is almost tryhard in its comic aspirations, though redeemed by the fact Cooper actually meant it - but there's a sort of desperation in the laughter, like a guy trying to distract himself from gnawing despair with a good time. The synthy opener is weirdly beautiful and almost goth, but Cooper sounds like a for-real mental patient on it, far from the theatrical madness of "The Ballad of Dwight Frye". "Enough's Enough" sounds like it was inspired by Midnight Cowboy, a tale of an abusive monster of a father taunting his boy now that his dear old mother is no longer there to protect him, set to a dissonently bouncy bit of new wave that reflects the awful glee in the bad dad's jibes. "Former Lee Warmer" is a tale of a mute, mentally retarded brother kept locked up in a family home that makes those Phantom of the Opera organ tones you'd hear in haunted house parodies actually creepy again. "No Man's Land" is actually hilarious but the casual mention of "my other personalities" brings chills back to a superficially comic scenario. "Scarlet and Sheba" is like some kind of twisted BDSM tango that evokes a dungeon with the scent of candles heavy in the air. "Fresh Blood" takes a startling detour into funk and seems to describe the unhappy lot of a Renfield stewarding a vampire from kill to kill amid the festivity of an uncaring city. "Pass the Gun Around" is a raw sketch of the end of the road against the grandest, most ostentatious arrangements on the album, with a Dick Wagner solo that sounds like David Gilmour having the worst nightmare of his life. Maybe Alice just doesn't want to remember.

Travel 3: MOAR

There's nothing inside this big pyramid (Memphis, TN).

I'm a bastard who likes to travel. I believe it broadens the mind and teaches you things about the world. This year I returned to one of my favourite cities, Barcelona. BCN is great because it is full of weird shit. Everyone who goes there will remark on the abundance of strange and wonderful things to be found on every corner and in every street.

Raval es mejor barrio.

I like the way that someone's shredded jeanshorts were nailed up here. As a warning? Centrepiece?

Here is an Ashley Madison themed parking garage. Note the addendum (topical at the time the pic was taken), which reads "fuck off, you cheaters".

This was a skull I liked.

Moreover, this is a very exciting and exuberant city because of its active populace and strange rituals. You will never be short of things to do and see.

This is something people do in Barcelona when they're bored. They spin these things with sparks shooting everywhere and you get in like an open air mosh and you try to not get burned (but if you do, even better).

On alternating occasions, Barcelonians parade giant birdcage fairy people around.

And here is a sassy giraffe. Not sure if rad or kind of degenerate.

You saw nothing.

Travelling the world is one of the best things you can do. Research that I can't be bothered to link to suggests experiences are a better investment than things, because they last longer. We should all enjoy the opportunity to travel while we can and see the sights before the clouds break and our civilisation is lost in a tsunami of horror forever.

Deadly Blessing!

Deadly Blessing stars Ernest Borgnine as an Amish-style cult leader and has a scene where a spider falls into Sharon Stone's mouth. This alone makes it better than everything you've watched all year, especially if you're the sort of person who looks forward to Jar Jar Abrams' Star Wars and Zack Snyder's Batman Meets Superman: Dawn of Just Ass.

Say ahh.

The movie opens with a bunch of quintessential Amish imagery and spends the rest of its running time trying to convince everybody that they're not Amish, but "Hittites". The Hittites apparently make the Amish look like pussies, which is a strange thing to say because the Amish are pussies; it's their way of life.

"U wot m8? I'll fuckin' have ya, ya Amish knob!" - Hittite Ernest Borgnine

Since this is a movie of the late, great Wes Craven, someone immediately starts hacking up the cast. Is it the normie family that live beside the Hittite community, and may be in danger of being edged out? Is it Michael Berryman? Naturally Michael Berryman is in this movie because it is awesome. Could it be the Final Girl, or the old lady, or Ernest Borgnine himself? Or is it an evil spirit called...the Incubus???

Michael Berryman is outside your window right now.

There are so many possible suspects and motives, which intertwine with the main slasher plot in all kinds of ways. There's even a forbidden love story between an Amish Hittite boy and a normalfag woman, a full four years before Harrison Ford movie Witness. Did Witness rip off Deadly Blessing? I think you know the answer.

For never was a story of more woe/Than this of English, and her Hittite, Joe.

Yet for all those myriad joys, the best part of the movie concerns Sharon Stone's battle with a barn door that keeps closing on her, finally locking her in the barn where she comically falls face-first into a succession of spider webs, and then a spider falls in her mouth.

"Derp" - Sharon Stone

Actually, I changed my mind, the best part is when Ernest Borgnine fucking beats this kid with a cane for going into "The Forbidden Barn!" Why do you have a forbidden barn, asshole? What a stupid thing to build.

"Spare the rod, spoil the child" - anonymous; good parenting

Wes Craven actually grew up in a sort of cult-like environment. One of the interesting things about him is that he wasn't allowed to watch movies as a kid. Good job, guys. You really put him off that. Maybe the movies were his forbidden barn. Maybe deep thoughts.

Definitely watch Deadly Blessing, it's great.

Seven big-eyed animals that are cuter than your kids!!!

Everyone knows big eyes are the universal symbol for cuteness. Not everyone knows that JFK was murdered by the world central bank.

This puppy's eyes are pretty big. Not big enough to save it from the gas though. Pic by Anderson Nascimento.

This loris is slow, awww! It rides the short bus!

Holy fuck, this one's eyes are bigger than my face!!! Pic by Anthony Citrano.

The colossal squid has the biggest eyes ever, at 11 inches across. Here is one of its razor-hooked tentacles.

CONCLUSION: the colossal squid is the cutest animal. I don't even need to finish this list. Those other three are going to the pound.

Razorback!!!

Have you ever wanted to watch a really stupidly well-made movie about a great big giant pig that eats everybody, like Lena Dunham? Well Razorback is just such a film!!!

lol guess who?

The movie stars no one of consequence, and concerns a man's quest to find what really happened to his girlfriend, who, of course, was eaten by a giant pig. Along the way he encounters an old man who lost his kid to the said pig-monster, and a pair of kangaroo hunters who drive a big beast that looks straight out of The Road Warrior. Maybe they don't realise that movie wasn't real, or maybe to Australians it was.

Get in, loser. We're going to get the guzzoline.

Anyway, this assortment of protagonists pursues Moby Pig with the dogged determination of Captain Ahab. It's Jaws with a pig. Jaws is Moby Dick with a shark. I read Moby Dick in high school and that's all I did.

He's dead Jim.

The best part of the film is when the hero gets lost in the desert and has to sleep up a creaky windmill or something to escape from pigs. He yells at the pigs "Ha ha you stupid pigs! You are pigs and cannot reach me!" He was so happy. But then the thing collapsed. Then he wandered around in the desert and goes fucking bonkers and starts seeing visions and it's really super cool because it comes out of left-field so you share him going crezzy.

holy crap look at this fucking shit

Like all 80s movies, it ends with a fight in a smoke-filled industrial space (The Terminator, Empire Strikes Back, Cobra), and the hero whacks the pig and makes so much bacon that all Australia could eat for a month.

ain't no Razorback girl

What's confusing about the movie is that it's a simple, basically inconsequential story about a few people chasing a pig, but it's one of the best visual movies ever seen. Every single shot in this movie could be framed and hung on your wall, even the ones of the giant pig. Definitely see this movie, it's way better than whatever stupid crap you like.

Has this ever happened to you?

Where you're asleep, and you're dreaming about something funny, and you laugh yourself awake, and it's early morning so you've got a boner, and you're just lying there at 6 in the morning, cracking up with a hardon?

Is that normal?

Finally, I found my new home.

Yes.

Movie Independence Day Presents: ***!!South of Heaven!!***

South of Heaven is the best movie ever.

Make Your Own Monument Valley: $4.99 at Bastardmart.

Like Streets of Fire, South of Heaven smushes genres together to create something fresh and different. It’s a little bit like Tarantino (but better), the Coen Brothers, early Lynch (Eraserhead to Elephant Man), Raimi, Peckinpah, and Happy Tree Friends.

It's not a party until everybody dies.

There are two brothers who are meant to be collaborating on a novel, but one of them’s run off with a psycho, played by Shea Wigham in the best performance ever: “Mad Dog”. So the other brother gets visited by these two vaudeville goons who think he’s the other brother so they kick the shit out of him. This lady from a film noir keeps hanging around. Shit gets real. “Mad Dog” sings a Depeche Mode song. Then they all meet up in a little house and there’s a showdown, but not quite the one you might expect.

This is the expression of a serious individual.

Anyway, the plot isn't really that important. What’s important is the movie’s style: all the exteriors are like sets with backdrops, the characters are designed after Tex Avery cartoons, George “The Animal” Steel makes a cameo where he just sits there, and “Mad Dog” has a speech about a chicken which is better than everything. Most indie-type filmmakers try to hedge their bets by making their movies all ironical, so if they suck they can say they did it on purpose. South of Heaven is a little bit different than that: the content is funny, but the characters are serious, so you might find you actually give a shit about what happens to them. It’s a dark-comic tone of a different flavour than your typical dark-comedy.

The shirt that heralds the end times.

The other reason to see it is because the DVD by Synapse Pictures is really sweet. I don’t normally care that much about DVD packages, but this one is textbook so you should all buy it twice and give a copy to your grandma (if she likes really violent film noir cartoon westerns). It’s got three feature commentaries and three short films that are actually really long (but really inventive as well). The short films are definitely up themselves, but still really good anyway. I want to marry this DVD and have human-DVD-hybrid babies with it. I think they’d look like this guy:

Anyway, see South of Heaven.

Mad Max Ripoffs: The New Barbarians!!!

Mad Max and The Road Warrior were among the most important movies of the late 70s and early 80s, a golden age in which the trashy and the classy briefly merged, resulting in a slew of genre pictures that were way better than ever before, like Halloween, the Star Wars trilogy, and The Shining. What was trashy? What was classy? People were literally confused. But never fear, anxious reader!!! For based Italy stepped in to restore genre movies to their wonderfully crappy B-roots with a bunch of post-apocalyptic ripoffs. Possibly the most infamous was...The New Barbarians!!!

"Books. That's what started the whole apocalypse!" - actual dialogue

You can tell a lot about a movie by its first image, and this one opens with a bunch of dead bodies in hazmat suits. The first one has boob domes; it has domes for boobs.

For the exhibitionist hazmat enthusiast.

So the plot involves the Templars, a group that drives around killing people to "purify" the earth, and their enemy, Scorpion, who spends his time driving around in circles and engaging in periodic shootouts with a small child who acts as his mechanic. The boy uses a catapult, Dennis the Menace-style, and Scorpion uses his handgun, which is very responsible. At first I assumed he didn't know it was a child who was attacking him, but the dialogue confirms they know each other and do this all the time, so I guess post-apocalyptic Italy just has less of a taboo about shooting at kids.

The Templars want to kill Scorpion, but they're not that fussed about it, as several scenes of conflict end with them pulling up next to each other, exchanging a few words, and then driving off like nothing happened.

"lol don't worry about this bad guy. We'll get him next week"

Along the way, Scorpion rescues a big-haired woman and is in turn rescued repeatedly (but very slowly) by a guy named Nadir, who dresses like a cross between a samurai and pimp, and is obsessed with being "the best", presumably to spite the parents who gave him a name that means "the worst".

The kid, the Templars and Nadir all know Scorpion, and it sort of seems like everyone just follows him around for want of anything better to do. No one really likes him, especially Nadir, who, on finding Scorpion being dragged behind a procession of Templars, very slowly shoots each one of them in turn, saving the one doing the dragging for last. Thanks, Nadir!

Nadir poses with Scorpion's car. Note the glowing green dome screaming "here I am" in a hostile wilderness.

There's also a completely inexplicable scene where the main Templar, Juan, apparently rapes Scorpion, except the way it's edited it kind of looks like he never removed his crotch piece, meaning he just awkwardly dry-humped Scorpion in front of all his minions.

You should definitely see The New Barbarians, because it's stupid and awesome. The movie also has a great moral that I can totally get behind:

"The more of a bastard you are, the surer you are to win" - the wisdom of a child

Post-apocalypse checklist:

MOHAWKS: one, purple.

SHOULDER PADS: all the Templars and Nadir have them.

CUSTOM CARS: Scorpion's has a detachable driver-side door, extendable drill, dome that lights up green at night, and rocket launcher in the boot. The Templars' have extendable whirring blades, drills and flamethrowers.

MUTANTS: some scavengers look like they might be.

GOGGLES: Big Hair has a fuckhueg red-tinted pair, for great justice.

TOTAL: 5/5 - totally post-apocalyptic.

Can anyone help me with this Penguin joke?

The joke is:

Q. What do you call an angry Penguin?

A. A Pengrrruin

At first I thought this was a typo, but Penguin jokes would never let that slip past quality control. I tried to understand the punchline. Was it a pun? Is there something in the world that sounds like "penguin", but with an "r" in it? Or, was the intent to combine the words "penguin" and "ruin"? If that were the case, why the extra "r"s? Was it intended to sound like a primordial growl, like that of some strange beast from time immemorial? Whatever its nature, that word haunts me.

Please help...it's been days now...I don't get it.

Everything I write will be unintelligible in five years (if it isn't already).

I was reflecting on the transience of existence (procrastination), when I realised it's no longer a lifelong concern, but a day-to-day thing. Soon writing about current events will mean nothing to anyone, because the current events will be in the past, and no one knows nothing about the past no moar. It occurred to me that everyone of my generation knows what the 1950s-1990s were like, but we might be the last ones. A whole generation is coming for whom "The 50s" will mean the future. Everything fades into the mist. "The 20s" is only five years away. Now, when people think of "The 20s", they'll think of the retro dubstep revival or the One Direction reunion tour, and not Harold Lloyd or Clara Bow. What's worst of all is that in five years' time, noone living will even know what that sentence means.

I most likely won't be able to play VHS tapes to my abducted grandkids, and that makes me sad. Kind of like how in Victorian times they used to burn mummies from Egypt for firewood. When the mummies ran out, a lulzy tradition disappeared from the face of the Earth. Nowadays we have to make do with grandpas and grandmas. Once something is gone it's never coming back.

The bank of knowledge I have about the recent past seems sort of definitive of recent history. When that's gone, events such as the 2015 election or World War 3 will take the place of Vietnam or McBusted as cultural touchpoints for the upcoming generation, and soon people like you and I will be as irrelevant and forgotten as the Georgians, and our maymays and fashions as incomprehensible and pointless as theirs.

Bastard role models: Dr Octagon

Dr Octagon is a pink-afro'd, green-skinned, skull-faced gynaecologist invented by stark staring batshit loon and genius Kool Keith. The good doctor dresses up as a woman so he can fuck his patients, and spends the rest of his day cross-breeding animals and conducting experimental surgery on everyone. He is so absent-minded that he lets a horse wander into the hospital while he's not looking ("General Hospital"). He cheerfully admits "I have no tools, my hammer's done, my drill is broke", but don't worry, as you probably won't even make it to examination, since anyone who's been waiting since the morning while he's banging female patients gets summarily dismissed ("Waiting List").

His 208-year-old uncle is half-shark-alligator, half-man ("Halfsharkalligatorhalfman"). He also has a song about himself, "Dr Octagon". Not only is it named after himself, but it doesn't make any sense and is full of William Burroughs-esque phrases like "gamma ray toilet" and "Government chemical voodoo man miracle/Super disease". All this might sound like cause for concern, but don't worry, as he assures a "Dr. Ludicrous" (possibly himself) that he "[turns] into a octopus", which presumably puts an end to his medical career. On the other hand, he was later seen in a sequel trying to save the universe from a gorilla. It is not known at this stage whether he was still an octopus at the time.

Because he is fucking bonkers, Kool Keith periodically kills off Dr Octagon in a fit of rage, generally at the hands of his other persona, Dr Doooooooom (all his personae are not to be confused with the incredibly similar-sounding Marvel Comics characters). Dr Octagon is my role model for several reasons: he's a time traveller, he loves his work, and, like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, he can just come back to life for no reason. These are all things I aspire to, and you should too. I wish we could time travel back to the 90s, when Dr Octagon was there. He'd tell me what to do.

Have you heard the good news about Braco?

Braco, known as the Gazer, is a Croatian man who stares at people. He is way more popular than most of the artists in your music library, he has a following all around the world, and he never speaks in public.

Braco's gaze is said to have the power to heal, but it is not known by whom, as Braco states he makes no claim of any healing power resulting from his gaze. This means that thousands of people all around the world pay large fees to see a man stare at them who claims to have no special powers at all. On the other hand, his website warns that:

• Pregnant women are not allowed to attend after their third month of pregnancy due to the intensity of the energy.

• People with illnesses are advised to follow the recommendation of their doctor before and after attending a gazing session.

So, according to his own website, Braco claims to have no power, but may cause complications in pregnancy, or disease. This individual is richer than everyone you or I know put together.

He is an inspiration to us all.

Spam callers keep arguing with me :(

A spam caller just called to ask if I was my dad. I told him no, and THE FUCKER ARGUED WITH ME. He said "you SOUND like Mr. Bastard". When did Poirot get a job at a call centre?

This isn't the first time this has happened either. Another caller went through a checklist of family members before asking, triumphantly, "are you a robber in the house?" Busted.

Are spam callers bullying anyone else? Are they going to take my lunch money over the phone? Are these people deranged? I don't know. Are we witnessing an escalation of rage in society? Did I deserve it? What's going on? Leave a comment (on the Samaritans' voicemail).

Update: it is happening again.

Movie Sunday Presents: DEAD END!!!

Dead End is a 2003 movie starring Ray Wise (everything) and Lin Shaye (everything else). It's about a family who go to see their relatives for Christmas, but fortunately get stuck on an endless road to nowhere instead.

The movie is very cool and funny and it piles on the creepiness very nicely, with the family so distracted by typical family bickering at first that it only slowly creeps up on them: the realisation that they're the only car driving on this long road through the woods, and there's no one around to save them.

Part of the movie's genius is to situate a normal family car journey at the heart of its weird, purgatorial premise. The family are afraid to get out as they're surrounded by dark woods and nothing else, but they don't want to stay in the claustrophobic space of the car where they all have to put up with one another.

Dead End is very creepy and cool, well paced and has a mysterious vibe to it. It also uses creepy vocal sound effects well, which is getting pretty rare among the horror movies of today. Compare this year's own Deliver Us From Evil, which employs dark lighting to make it dark, but then has the possessed lady talk like your aunty trying to scare a small child.

Dead End is the best. Watch it alone at night and then go for a drive on a deserted backroad. Very cool movie.

Imagine...

Being a fan of horror movies, perhaps as a consequence of an active imagination as a child, you always check the backseat of your car before you drive at night. There's never anyone there, and it's reassuring. You won't feel the sudden urge to look behind you in the mirror as you're cruising down the yellow-brown-lit motorway.

What you don't do is check the boot, of course. You're five miles into the stretch and it's dark, and you're almost starting to drift a bit in your lane, as your eyelids flutter just a little. You shouldn't have left so late, but what choice did you have? It's not like you have time to do everything. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

So when you hear a bump coming unmistakably from the boot, you're easily startled. Did you leave something in there that's got loose? You try to remember and your eyes drift just a second from the road, and you quickly lurch to correct your idle drift. It's probably nothing the first time. Then it happens again, a deliberate bang, like a fist hitting, like someone trying to get out. Is there something in there? Or someone?

You check to the side. There's no hard shoulder for another mile, and no one on the road. You wonder what would happen if you stopped. And then did what? Opened the boot? You don't know what could happen. Who would see you? Who would stop for you? You'd be alone with whoever - whatever was in there.

You keep on driving, trying to ignore it. The banging increases. Your breath's catching in your upper chest now, and you try to correct it as you notice it. You'll get to where you're going. You'll get where it's safe, where there are people all around you. Then you'll call someone. You'll call the police. This sort of thing just doesn't happen. There's no way you're opening that boot by yourself, in the middle of nowhere. You've barely seen another car since you've been gone. You can imagine it being hours before anybody stops to check out the pulled-over car with the empty boot and the empty seats...empty of you. No clue as to what happened. You imagine everyone reacting to you as a missing person, all your friends concerned, your close ones crying. Anything but what might happen to you. Focus on their grief, that's easier. You're dealing with a known quantity there.

As you've been drifting deeper into this morbid anxiety you've failed to notice that the banging's stopped. It takes you a second to realise, like all the creatures in the forest suddenly went silent. What happened? Was someone in there? Did they stop? Are they OK? You can imagine rushing to their aid to find a killer, a grinning stranger reach out grabbing for your throat. No. Don't risk it. If there's someone there, they'll wait until you get to help. That's if there's someone there - it could have been some object, something you forgot to throw out. You're tired. It's late. Maybe there was nothing. There are no warnings on your dash. The car was locked when you got to it. There's no reason to suspect something's amiss. How would someone have got into the boot in any case? Who else has a key?

You shake your head to clear it of the thoughts. This isn't going anywhere. You're tired. You're stressed. It's probably nothing. And then that barrier of silence is broken by a voice coming from back there. "Pull over". "Pull over".

Your heart beats madly in your chest. You didn't recognise that voice. It's thirty miles to where you're going. You look for a sign to somewhere there are people. You fear that you'll be missing in tomorrow's paper.

Travel broadens the mind (Warrington kills it).

Ever since the womb, I've hated flying. Flying is when you wait twelve hours to get shoved into less space than a bus, between a great big fat person and the one window seat that doesn't have a window, only after getting molested by jackbooted throwbacks who used to beat you up in school. I'd rather travel by Cuban refugee boat: seventeen twigs held together with rubber bands and prayer and a crew of wild-eyed desperadoes paddling with their dicks. The good news is, flying can take you to places in other countries, specifically that aren't Warrington.

Vans around the world: New York and Barcelona. Note that in Spain, Garfield bears the eight-pointed Star of Chaos.

Everywhere I've been around the world has had something interesting to show, except Warrington. Some have thought-provoking art and history, others beautiful scenery, or unique culture, or wildlife, or even inexplicable craziness like this:

Berlin statues, left to right: Boy staring melancholically at armadillo; holy shit!

Dicks on sale in Barcelona.

Even cool things can be found in unexpected places: Green River, Utah, which is basically a truck stop, five houses and two joggers (source) has a sweet cool museum about John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Confederate Civil War veteran who mapped the Colorado River, losing nearly all his crew in the process. This is exactly the kind of thing you could drive past and never know.

Pictured: Green River + entire population.

The great mad bastard himself.

Warrington is the worst place on Planet Earth. In a survey of over 100 squirrels, not one person recommended Warrington as a tourist destination. The only recognisable picture of Warrington you'll ever see is of these big gates:

Looks impressive...until you go there, and there's nothing to either side of them. Spread the word: Warrington crops.

Warrington's top attraction.