Sdtrk: ‘Not that I am’ by Throbbing gristle

Yes, a Prelude. Due to post scheduling, which makes this ramshackle blog sound more sophisticated than it actually is, as well as ridiculous recent events, I’d written a massive article for this month’s ‘Synthetiks-related news’ post, and I wanted to break it up a bit as well. Consider this your apéritif!

+ Despite the fact that this is another example of Hollywood getting its grubby paws all over something and tarnishing it; in this case, making a feature film out of another comic series, ‘Surrogates‘ looks like it might be interesting regardless:

BRUCE WILLIS stars as DAVID ADDISON playing JOHN MCCLAIN fighting FUTURE CRIMINALS in THE STEEL CAGE MATCH OF TEH CENTURY
It’s due out in September, apparently. Will I actually see it in the theatres? Who can say?

+ ‘Regarding Jenny’ is a new fillum of the adult variety — it’s billed as an adult sitcom — directed by Marie Madison, and starring Jenny Densuke. As that sort of topic isn’t my forté, no points as to why I’ve included it; Jenny happens to be a lovely blonde RealDoll. *nods approvingly*

Now that’s an acceptable amount of silicone for an adult film star

You can view previews on the official film site here, as well as order the DVD. Not only that, that attractive little lady is also CoverDoll’s Doll of the Month for July. Onward and upward, Jenny!

+ You all know that act05 of ‘Time of Eve‘ came out on 01 July, right? Just making sure. Of course, if you don’t live in Japan or speak Japanese fluently, you can watch it on Crunchyroll, the streaming anime site. That… description sounds kinda gross; let’s not dwell upon that any further.

+ 4woods have done it again! Not only have they upgraded the A.I.Peach body — not that it needed upgrading — but they’re also debuting Akari, their latest head, which will fit the A.I.Peach and NEO-J bodies. Each Doll they create is slightly more gorgeous than the last. How do they do that??

She definitely has the almond-shaped Asian eyes thing going.
Which stands to reason

‘I swear to god, I am sick of losing my contact lenses’

+ Aaand this was brought to my attention by Samantha’s long-suffering husband Euchre: a charming little short film by Giordany Orellana entitled ‘Lovebot’.

From the way that it was spooling out, I was afraid the conclusion would be rubbish, but it turned out quite well! Let’s just say the director didn’t apply the same type of ending that ‘Cherry 2000’ or ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ had. GOOD.

Right; that’ll do you for now. The actual ‘Any Synthetiks-related news?’ post will be up on the 23rd, so stay tuned! Once you figure out how to tune a computer, that is. I suggest fiddling with the rabbit ears

Technorati tags: Surrogates, Bruce Willis, Regarding Jenny, Marie Madison, Jenny Densuke, Abyss Creations, RealDolls, Eve no Jikan, イヴの時間, Time of Eve, 4woods, Lovebot, Giordany Orellana

I’m not one for emotional posts; frankly, I think there’d be extended wincing on both the side of the reader, and the side of the writer. But y’know, sometimes these things are unavoidable.

Back in 2007, my mum went into hospital for a routine check-up. When all the tests came back in, they called her back, saying that they’d found what may be a cancerous growth. Turns out that yes, it was colorectal cancer. So they got Mum into surgery, had it out, and had her on chemo/radiation to make sure. Eventually, she was given a clean bill of health, and we all thought that was that.

Late last year, we discovered that wasn’t that, as the cancer had returned. So Mum started treatments again. It took place over the course of winter, which was doubly-hard on her, as the treatments made her more susceptible to cold environments. But she took it all in stride, as she was never one to complain about things. Well, at least, not at length.
Round the beginning of 2009, the hospital said they were going to try out a new and experimental treatment with her, as the previous one wasn’t getting the immediate results. Thing is, there were a limited number of slots for treatment, as it was on this ‘you’ll have to wait in the queue when your turn comes up’ system. As she was waiting for her date to start treatment, the hospital discovered she was having liver problems, which would’ve prevented effective and safe treatment, so they had to get that sussed first. A couple of outpatient surgeries later, they attended to her liver issue (it was blockage) as well as they could. However, as she had to get that done — and that required scheduling, which is never immediate — Mum missed her slot for the new treatment, and so had to wait for another open slot. Of course, that meant the cancer was still progressing in the meantime.

I’d seen her in April, checking up on her and whatnot, and asked if she’d started proceedings. She replied no, as she was still having some liver-related issues. In between waiting on slots and waiting on surgeries, she’d actually developed jaundice, which again, postponed cancer treatment. She was annoyed, but still optimistic. She wasn’t a pessimist, but she tended to have a realistic outlook on things. In the case of something like this, however, optimism is what everyone aims for.
During another check-up call on Mum in mid-June, I spoke with her for only a couple of minutes, as she was in some amount of pain. The drugs she were taking were exhausting her, and making her tired and irritable. She told me that she wanted me to come round, as ‘we need to talk’, which is a phrase that, considering the context, I didn’t want to hear.

As she, my dad, and I sat in the basement watching coverage of the Iran election cavalcade, they laid it out for me: essentially, the doctors had told her that between the tag team of cancer and jaundice, things had gotten to a point that they were discontinuing treatment, as there was nothing more they could do. They estimated that she had about six months to live. Insert line about ‘you never think it’ll happen to you’ here.
Six months was a hugely optimistic estimate. Between her liver, the cancerous tumours on her liver, and her original colorectal cancer, she was in a very rapid decline. I promised to stop round on Mondays and Saturdays to see her, and over the course of two weeks, her health had degenerated in no time flat.

I stopped round after work yesterday, as we’d gotten off early, and Mum had been in bed all day, and was so weak that she couldn’t even really speak. Sitting with her was Gran, who’d flown in from Alabama on Wednesday. We chatted for a bit, and she went downstairs with Dad so I could be with Mum alone. I held her hand and talked to her — I told her how I was dragged to that hideous Transformers movie, and she managed a smile — but otherwise, she was barely lucid. I probably took off from there about two hours later, telling everyone that I’d be back Saturday morn.
As is our wont, on Friday eves, my good friend Marika stops round, and we watched the last two episodes of Ashes to ashes (hell of a show, it goes without saying), and she decided to crash here for the night, as her car was having problems. Whilst she was reading on the loveseat, I was scheduling about three posts to automatically post to ‘Shouting etc etc’, when Dad rang at a quarter to 5am. As you suspect, Mari and I spent a couple of hours crying after I hung up.

Although I’m an atheist, I can say without bias that she was an example of a perfect christian — never wished ill will upon others, always was there for practically anyone when they needed help, never smoked, drank… hell, she even quit swearing sometime in the mid-Eighties. She was someone who legitimately made a difference in society by being a good human being.
All of my friends knew that Mum had cancer, but I only got a chance to tell some of them. Part of me wanted to wait for the ‘right’ moment, and part of me was still in denial about everything. So now the world knows, and clichéd as it sounds, the world is dimmer for Mum no longer being in it.

I love you, Mum. Always have, always will.

Sdtrk: ‘Buggy whip flings’ by The Hafler trio

When you see the above photo, what do you believe you’re looking at? A flag, right? But if you consider for a moment, you’re not seeing a flag, you’re looking at a flag of a flag — a flag with an image of the flag of the United States on it. Furthermore, you’re actually staring at a picture of a flag of a flag, not the flag of a flag itself. And to add a final layer, the above image isn’t even the original one I took with my phone; it’s a screenshot that I made when I was cropping and resizing it. So in essence, this is a picture of a picture of a flag of a flag.

Literal interpretation meets limited recursion. Whoever came up with the series of ‘YO DAWG I HERD U LIKE‘ Xzibit jokes has this to thank

Sdtrk: ‘A lot of drugs’ by Venetian snares

As is our wont, on Friday eves, my good friend Marika stops round, and we watch several hours’ worth of Quality Entrétainment — we’re currently tearing our way through the second series of Ashes to ashes and the second half of Kamen rider Hibiki, for example. Last Friday, however, when I was confirming our plans via text, Mari indicated that she wanted to go see the new Transformers movie, Revenge of the Fallen. I nearly threw up all over my phone, which would’ve been an entirely appropriate response.

Getting this out of the way: I’m not what you might call a Transformers ‘fan’. I watched the show fervently when I was younger, as most Children Of The Eighties did. I didn’t see the feature film in theatres, but I did rent it — wept when Optimus Prime died, thought Arcee was clang clang sexy — but that’s the lot, really. Although I can quote numerous lines from the film without a second thought. On the other hand, Liann, goshou’s wife, is a walking Transformers encyclopaedia. She’s still got the Laserdisc boxsets for the never-aired-in-the-States Transformers 2010 series, among other paraphernalia. When the first live-action Transformers (hereby shortened to TF) movie debuted, I refused to see it cos I think Michael Bay should be dancing the Tyburn Jig for his crimes against film, and Liann refused as she’s a hardcore TF purist. Everyone in our Algonquin End Table was curious as to what went on in the film, cos they sure as fuck weren’t going to pay to see it. (In the interest of full disclosure, neither did I; as I was broke, Mari paid for my ticket.)

So: TF:ROTF! Two and a half hours of Nothing, at an elevated volume. It was literally an endurance test for me. Where does one start with this… steaming pile of shit, to put it charitably? Well, for one, I absolutely hate the mecha designs; they look like walking scrapyards. I understand that Bay reasoned that as they didn’t come from Earth, they’d have forms that were unfamiliar and otherworldly, which actually makes complete sense. However, it is possible to design mecha that don’t resemble Duchamp’s ‘Nude descending a staircase’. And the thing is, when in robot mode, they all look the same. Maybe it’s just me, but during battle, I couldn’t tell who was duking it out with whom. Coupled with the awful redesigns of familiar characters and the ADHD editing style, the fight scenes were genuinely tiresome — as a rule, epic battle scenes shouldn’t make the viewer yawn or check their watch, which is what I did, several times.

And how ’bout that mecha, huh? How ’bout Mudflap and Skids, the Autobot ‘twins’ who were the worst CG stereotypes since Jar-Jar Binks? I mean, honestly, when you have one character sporting a gold buck tooth, and the other’s crapping on about ‘bustin’ caps’, you have to wonder why they didn’t just name them Amos and Andy, and be done with it? Why halfass it?
Besides the whole racist bullshit, they were literally exhausting to look at. Later during the sixth or seventh hour of the movie, Devastator inhales one of the twins — the red one, whatever the fuck his name was — into his gaping maw, which naturally had me cheering. So then, you can imagine my immense disappointment when that twin ripped his way out of Devastator through his face, while yelling ‘I’M IN YO FACE!!’ It actually hurt to watch.

The plot, if you can call it that, has been detailed elsewhere, so I’ll not rehash it here. Heh, like there’s anything to rehash. io9’s got a fab review that’s negligibly more charitable than this one, so give that a look when you’re done here. But the plot — o, the plot! It had holes you could easily drive an Autobot through, har har.
One of the subplots has our ‘hero’, Sam Witwicky, played by Shia LeDouche (accurately described by Mark Kermode as a ‘charisma vacuum’) is at college, having left both his girlfriend Mikaela, portrayed by Megan Fox (who’s someone’s idea of sex on legs, but not mine — sorry, PB Shelley. Also, clubbed thumb) and Bumblebee, played by a shitty Camaro (who apparently damaged his vocal cords in the previous movie and hasn’t had them repaired, due to a plot contrivance), back home. Despite Sam and Mikaela being miles apart, they’ve promised to be faithful to each other. Whilst on campus, Sam is constantly being pursued by some blonde with a spray-on tan, who’s aggressively wet in the knickers for him. Eventually she corners him in his dormroom and pins him to the bed, which is exactly when Mikaela shows up for a surprise visit. O SO WACKY
Mikaela leaves in a huff, but the blonde lass reveals her true nature — she’s actually a Decepticon Gynoid! She chases Sam, his roommate, and Mikaela for a while until some Autobot comes out of nowhere and crushes her or shoots her or whatever; it’s inconsequential. And whoops! Was that a spoiler I just gave away, there? It sure was! And you should thank me; that’s one less reason for you to waste your time and money on TF:ROTF.
Now, you lot are undoubtedly thinking, ‘but Davecat, you love Gynoids! Surely that was one redeeming thing in the movie?’ Nope! For one, she looked like a Generic Blonde Maxim Reject when she was disguised as an Organik, and in Synthetik mode, she looked like a mashup of a Ray Harryhausen Medusa and… a Ray Harryhausen skeleton warrior. Needless to say, to me, she lacked sex appeal on not one, but two fronts, which is pretty impressive, if you think about it. Now consider; if the Decepticons can effectively disguise themselves as humans, don’t you think that’d be a more effective method of infiltration than transforming into planes and helicopters and the like? Bay didn’t even bother with an ill-conceived excuse as to why they didn’t — he just let it drop, hoping the audience wouldn’t bring it up again. Good job with that storytelling.

Another plot hole, you ask? Okay! Sam’s in his room above his parents, fiddling round with his hooded sweatshirt from the previous movie, when a shard of the cube from that movie falls out of the pocket. He picks it up, it gives him a shock, and he drops it. It then burns its way through the floor, and lands on the kitchen table, whereupon it sends out sparks that change all the small appliances in the room into Decepticons. Subsequently, they make their way upstairs, and proceed to arbitrarily attack Sleepy LaBeef, firing their guns, launching missiles, wielding saws, etc.
Right; so these are appliances made on Earth, correct? That being the case, I severely doubt Braun, or Oster, or KitchenAid, would manufacture toasters and microwaves and Cuisinarts that were fully-stocked with ammo. Otherwise, where did their weapons come from? O, Michael Bay’s arse? Okay, that… that actually makes sense.

When TF:ROTF wasn’t making me sigh with exasperation, it was boring me rigid, or offending me, or just plain enraging me. Too much crap onscreen at once, too much slo-mo, Linkin fucking park being part of the soundtrack, Generic Black Dude spouting Bay dialogue (‘That guy is an ASS HOLE’), Steven Spielberg, another director I hate, as executive producer, and a bad ratio of human characters to TF characters — cos if I’m seeing a film called Transformers, I’m really not there to see humans… all of these factors made for a truly appalling movie. I honestly can’t remember the last film I saw that I hated this much! Kudos, Michael Bay! ‘Kudos’, of course, being Greek for ‘I will grind your skull into pulp with my bare and twitching hands’.

After the movie let out, we got back round to mine, where I made Mari watch excerpts from the only Transformers film that matters:

What are they shooting at? Unicron’s behind them, and they’re firing ahead

Some might accuse me of constantly wearing Nostalgia Goggles; those people don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Every day, I pop in my pair of Nostalgia Contact Lenses. Honestly, I don’t get out of bed without them

Sdtrk: ‘Pencil skirt’ by Pulp

You know how it goes with these things — celery debts come in trees. Wait, that’s not right.

Ed McMahon (06 Mar 1923 – 23 Jun 2009): Back in highschool, I could usually be relied upon for a decent Ed McMahon impersonation. Let’s see if I can still pull it off… *clears throat*

‘Heyy-o!! That’s a good one Johnny, and topical, too!’

Yep, still got it

Farrah Fawcett (02 Feb 1947 – 25 June 2009): As my mind is firmly stuck several decades in the past ninety per cent of the time, I nearly typed ‘Farrah Fawcett-Majors’, there.
Singlehandedly responsible for the sexual awakening of many a young lad during the Seventies thanks to ‘Charlie’s Angels’ — with the exception of myself, as I always preferred Kate Jackson — Farrah never did any harm to anyone. And good on her

Michael Jackson (29 Aug 1958 – 25 June 2009): Hurrr. As the adage goes, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Mmm hm.
Let’s just say this: growing up during the years back when the mighty MTV walked the earth, I liked MJ. I can recall back in eighth grade, my homeroom class was herded into the school’s library, where we all watched the full-length version of the ‘Thriller’ video. For a while, I even had a cassette copy of that album. But as time passed and I got older, I began refining my musical tastes more. Sure, I used to like MJ, but then, I also used to like Wham! and Prince. I used to like eating flapjacks with catsup slathered all over them, but I grew out of all of those things. Also, for sure he was a bizarre individual, but eccentricity should be praised, not damned. But I would say that.
So I suppose ultimately I didn’t dislike him because his music didn’t appeal to me, or because of his strange behaviour, but really it comes down to the whole child-touching thing. You know.

See? I managed to not say anything that can’t be considered not nice about Wacko Jacko! O, wait

Epilogue (this happened today before my work shift began):
WOMAN AT WORK: I know you a Michael Jackson fan, right?
ME: No.
WOMAN AT WORK: Awww! Well, I’m devastated.
ME: Huh.

Sdtrk: ‘Romantic rights (The phone lovers remix)’ by Death from above 1979

Before we commence, you’ve read Part I, right? Of course you have!

The second day of the Nat.Geo shoot for ‘Taboo’, their documentary series, had Sidore and I tumbling out of bed at 8am Monday morning. In the interest of full disclosure, I think I was awake the previous eve until 2am, maybe? I can’t even remember what I was up to, now that I think about it… Shi-chan got to bed early, though. Who has more common sense?
At any rate, we got dressed and ready in the same gear as yesterday, as it was ‘the same day’, as far as the segment was concerned, in time for Geoff and Jen to arrive at Deafening silence Plus at 10 that morning, only this time, they were joined by segment director J.Siberry. He was a tall bloke, with more than a passing resemblance to South Park’s Trey Parker. Like the rest of the crew, he was Australian, but was born and raised in Toronto up until a few years ago. ‘Canaliens’, as Geoff accurately observed yesterday, when we were up at The Playhouse. To which Joe had replied, ‘That’s okay; all of us here are honorary Canaliens.’

Since most of the ‘action’ shots were already sorted, today would be comprised of the interview proper. So I plopped myself on the loveseat next to Shi-chan, and answered a volley of questions. Some were standard issue — what’s your name, when did you get Sidore, what’s a typical day for the pair of you — whereas others were ones that I’d never been asked before on camera — why do you prefer living with a Doll over an Organik woman, what’s her backstory, how do you reconcile her fictional backstory with her genuine one — which was a nice change. Much to our chagrin, however, we were getting porlocked a couple of times, for just as I was really on a roll with an answer, we had to stop proceedings, as the apartment’s landscaping crew were busy outside loudly mowing and noisily weed-whacking. Despite the fact that I was wearing a lavalier, Jen was also using a boom mike, and as you’d expect, they’re extremely sensitive. But it was like a Buster Keaton film there for a bit: they’d start, we’d stop, they’d stop, we’d start, they’d start, we’d stop. Bloody nightmare. Since it was rolling toward 12.30, we decided to break for lunch, to prevent Jen and I dashing outside and throttling the landscapers. Whilst they drove up to a local Greek restaurant that they hit yesterday, I elected to stay in — no surprise there — as it was actually getting kinda warm out. Not only that, I was desperately trying to recall what my answer would’ve been, before we were interrupted!

INVISIBLE FILM CREW

Jeff, Geoff, and Jen returned an hour later, and we got back to it. Proof that Murphy’s Law occurs every day: the landscapers finished up about ten minutes after the film crew had left. No surprise there, either. *shakes fist*

Another aspect that set this particular interview apart from the rest is that it also wanted to explore the possible correlation between being an iDollator and being autistic. Shortly after Meghan Laslocky wrote her excellent article back in 2005, we kept in contact off and on, and she told me that she had been speaking with a psychologist about the whole iDollator phenomenon. She said that he’d said that there appear to be certain traits that the two groups share. Now naturally, no-one’s saying that all iDollators are autistic, cos not all iDollators are the same, and there are varying degrees of autism. But the psychologist noted that, for one, the majority of Doll owners are not put off by a Doll’s lack of facial expressions, and one of the traits of autism is an inability to read, or an indifference towards, human facial expressions. (Insert ridiculous pseudoscientific Uncanny valley ‘theory’ here.) Again, one doesn’t necessarily equal the other, but J.Siberry was keen to hear what I thought of the notion.

Basically, I’d said that although I’m not autistic, I can see where there’d be some similarities between the two groups. Other traits of autism would be a keen eye for details and order, and a preference to things over people. Personally I’ve always abhorred clutter and disarray, true, and I’ve mentioned publically on many occasions that I’m not a ‘people person’, but those qualities don’t necessarily make me autistic. As far as a Doll’s blank stare and lack of facial expression, something like that has never bothered me in the slightest; usually, it’s quite the opposite, to be honest. *coughtechnosexualcough* And now that I’m thinking about it, I’m kicking myself for not mentioning the rubbish that is the Uncanny valley theory on camera. Grrr.
Furthermore, there’ve been erroneous lines drawn between people who are thought to be autistic, when they’re merely introverted, the latter characteristic I’ll readily cop to. But in the end equation, what difference does it make? I’ve noticed quite a few individuals who have been speculated as being autistic, many of them people that I look up to, such as Andy Warhol, Stanley Kubrick, Gary Numan, Lewis Carroll, Charles Darwin, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein… the list goes on. They may possibly have been autistic, but look at what they’ve contributed to the world. That’s the important bit, really.

Having finished up the interview, we got a second well-deserved break in. J.Siberry, upon seeing my controller for the XBOX game Steel battalion, had a notion that we could get some footage of me playing it with the Missus, but setting that assemblage up would’ve taken a bit of time. Upon reflection, we should’ve gone for it, though. How often do you see a Goth RealDoll playing Steel battalion? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Geoff grabbed some pickup shots of Deafening silence Plus, whilst J.Siberry and I talked about Toronto, and I spoke with Jen about Frank Lloyd Wright, as she’s keen on his architecture. The last bit of filming indoors involved me massaging Shi-chan’s shoulders and feet (heh, again), and taking an autism spectrum quotient test online, and assessing the results on camera. If you like, you can take the test yourself here. My score, you ask? Well, you’ll just have to watch the documentary when it comes out, won’t you?

Finally, they wanted to get some shots of me out-of-doors. I don’t know if I visibly blanched, but I tried my best. ‘Is there maybe a part of town you hang out at, or someplace you go?’ they asked. ‘Err… well, there is the cemetery,’ I’d replied, truthfully. Heh, just like in the very first interview we did for French public telly, and the still-in-development-hell documentary by Allison De Fren! So the crew broke everything down and loaded it into the SUV, and we made our way to Woodlawn Cemetery, over on Woodward. They filmed me walking up and down one of the dirt roads, contemplating the beautiful silence of being outside, as a quote from Morrissey sprang to mind: ‘I can stand in a graveyard for hours and hours, just inhaling the individuals.’
We returned to my flat about 5pm, where I signed the requisite release forms, and they told me that the episode of ‘Taboo’ was slated to be aired in the next couple of months, for their new fall season. As per usual, when I know, you lot will know, etc etc.

photo by J.Siberry

Handshakes and hugs were exchanged, and the crew piled into their vehicle to head off to their hotel. All in all, that was a really enjoyable experience! Between Emily’s inquisitive research, and J.Siberry, Geoff, and Jen putting everyone involved at ease, I think the final results will go pretty well. I’m definitely glad they’d asked me to be a part of it!
And then Sidore and I took a nap. The end!

Sdtrk: ‘A benção bahia’ by Toquinho

My enlightening report on our recent film crew interactions goes up Monday. In the meantime, Happy Summer Solstice!

Germany 1970. The German moderator discuss in the beginning how boring and lame the official looks are and that the fashion and color designers came up with the following outfits to make the game more interesting and colorful. They explain very detailed the colors since at the point many did not have color tv!
Clearly they made my day with the ideas. I just keep cracking up! I have no clue why they dance so madly. latin music dancing models with soccer fashion without shoes. but even Guenther thinks that the trikot needs an update as a service and entertainment for the fans who watch soccer games

Category: Comedy