Sdtrk: ‘Oh gosh’ by Sandie Shaw

zOMG WHERE IS ‘KITTEN WITH A WHIP!’??
If you currently tune in to ‘KWAW!‘, right now it’s kinda gone. What this means is that The Great Movening is finally nigh. Hoorej! This past Saturday, Steph and I started back on work on Shi-chan’s long-neglected site; specifically, regarding transfering ISPs. So right now it’s down, but cross fingers, it should be running once again round the week-end. And then the big changes will begin to occur shortly after that, for both ‘Kitten with a Whip!’ as well as ‘Shouting to hear the echoes’. Neat!

Here’s a spoiler: Things will happen

Sdtrk: ‘Rot in the core’ by Apatheia

(Late arrival? Why not start at the beginning?)

FRIDAY, 25 AUGUST
After extricating myself from the hotel bed with a crowbar — I swear to “Bob”, they must rivet those sheets in place — Anna, Clas and I convened at 8am in the hotel’s ‘breakfast room’, which was an unimpressive little canteen, for what was ostensibly breakfast. I say ‘ostensibly’, cos there was no bacon anywhere to be seen, and as everyone knows, Bacon Makes It Better™. So I ‘enjoyed’ a muffin, and a plain bagel. I’m noting what I had for tax write-off purposes, of course.

An hour later, we were en route to the legendary Abyss creations, and after a handful of wrong turns and some solicited directions from the locals, we’d arrived there at 10am. I’d have to say that whole experience was rather fab; I got to see Abyss’ new location, as they’ve moved since 2001, and the new locale is better suited to their needs — it’s two floors, with the factory being downstairs. Plus, it’s more sequestered, which, considering what they make, makes sense..
After the cursory meet-and-greet, and the ‘what do you hope to see here today?’ interview the Swedes did with me just outside the front doors of the building, I’d met with Matt — not Matt McMullen, Matt Krivicky (sp?), a pleasant six-foot-something bloke sporting a mohawk and a spiffy pair of New Rock boots. It seems that Matt McMullen was in Vancouver at the time of the filming, as one of his sons had taken ill, and he obviously had to see about them. Sofia had informed me of this a couple of days before I’d flown out there, and I was kinda disappointed, as I was looking forward to seeing Matt M. again, as well as having him autograph my copies of ‘Still lovers‘ and ‘Des poupées et des hommes‘. Alas! But meeting Matt K. was still pretty fab, I have to say. It turns out that he was one of the blokes that Matt M. used to work with at a special effects company, and Matt K. is now a full-time creative consultant / part-time sculptor for Abyss. He loves his work, as evidenced by his enthusiasm in speaking about anything Doll-related, and he’s diplomatic to a fault, as he’d mentioned on a couple of occasions how RealDolls, apart from being stunning works of art, can range from being simple high-end fetish toys, all the way up to life partners, depending on the consumer. (He knew of myself and Sidore, naturally, as well as a few other Doll husbands.) I’m trying to think of one of the things he’d said that struck me.. he said it was humbling doing what he does, as really, on its basest level, it’s a 9-to-5 job, but what he and the rest of the Abyss staffers produce has the ability to impact and change the lives of more than a few individuals. Apart from making a good sound byte, that statement is absolutely true. Without people like the Abyss staff, people like myself would be considerably more miserable, and corny as it sounds, they are in the business of manufacturing happiness. *thinks* Yeah, that does sound corny, but you know what I’m getting at.

The method how the whole segment was conducted was either Anna would ask us questions off camera, or she would have Matt K. ask me some questions related to my aspect of being an iDollator, or Clas would simply film the pair of us walking round the shop floor, whilst Matt explained this, that or the other. It was very informal, and I learned quite a bit about how RealDolls are made. We’d briefly met the other staffers — two of whom were named Dave, oddly enough — as well as the lady who did all of the Dolls’ makeup. Like I’d said, the whole affair was really ace and informative, as really any insight as to what goes into the creation of one of your favourite things would be. Unless your favourite thing happens to be sausages.
Unfortunately, the other disappointment we’d had whilst at the factory was that there were no finished Dolls present, as they’d all been shipped out the day before! Upon reflection, that may very well have been a Good Thing, as I would’ve been far too distracted with all the lovely silicone lasses about (and the subsequent fondling) to be coherent on camera.

Towards the end, Matt K. had made mention of Matt M.’s new artistic endeavour, which would be his band called Nick Black, as well as the whole concept behind that. It’s a multimedia project, but really it boils down to Matt M. wanting to rock out, as it were. Nothing wrong with rocking out! I don’t do enough of that myself! But what Matt K. told me about it, it sounds really interesting, so there’s that to look forward to.
Also, Anna, Clas & I were privy to a brand-new special edition Doll that Matt K. was working on sculpting. There weren’t any NDAs that I had to sign, but she’s not yet complete, and obviously they want to keep everything under their hat. I managed to get some pics, however, that I’d be willing to Email to any interested parties for $7000 a pop. Any takers?
We wrapped up the shooting round 3pm, so we could battle traffic all the way from San Marcos to LAX once again, hoo-rah. Matt K. loaded me up with some swag (a free RealDoll t-shirt, both of the posters, a catalogue, and the Nick Black Cd), and we had to say our goodbyes at that point. I don’t know if I can say which visit was better; this one, or my trip back in 2001, but getting round there will always be an ace experience. To say that making a yearly pilgrimage to Abyss would be something I’d love to engage in is a given, really..

After performing the automotive equivalent of swimming upstream, we managed to make it to the Hertz rental lot in time, checked in the car, loaded our luggage on the shuttle, travelled to the airport proper, checked in aforementioned luggage, waited in the security queue once again, got re-dressed (apparently, Anna & Clas took less time to be patted down and whatnot than I did), and reconvened in the lobby just before the terminal. I then made a direct beeline to the airport Burger King, as remember, I was being powered strictly by a 20oz bottle of A&W, and my muffin and bagel breakfast.
Definition of highway robbery: Normally when I’m at Burger king, I’ll buy a hamburger (no pickles), and a large order of fries, which usually averages $2.65. At LAX, the same exact meal ran me $4.75. Is it cos it’s the airport? Is it because it’s El Lay? Is it because God is dead?? I couldn’t honestly tell you.
So the Swedes had gone to an adjacent restaurant, and suggested I meet them there when I’d received my food, but when I’d caught up with them, they had grabbed one of those tiny tables in the back, and there was only enough room and chairs for two people. At this point, I was overly warm, rather knackered, and a little exasperated at their lack of foresight that I simply told them that I had to make a call, and that I’d see them on the plane. I’d loped off to the terminal proper, and, as it was already crowded and I didn’t feel like wedging myself in between two individuals just to get at one of the few empty seats, I remained standing, made a brief call to Tsukihime, and wolfed down my burger and fries before the plane arrived.

On the plane, it turns out that not only had I been once again denied a window seat, but I was sat between two blabby lasses! One was more talkative than the other, but as I was in the middle, when the one on the right wasn’t attempting to engage me in idle conversation, she was talking over me to the one on my left. Eventually, the inevitable question came up, ‘So what were you in California for?’
‘Ahh, not much. Some friends flew me out to San Marcos so I could be part of a presentation dealing with Synthetik humans.’
‘What are.. Synthetic humans??’
‘Well, you know, Androids — which are male humanoid robots, Gynoids — which are female humanoid robots, things of that nature. They wanted me to be a part of it cos I’ve had personal experience with that sort of thing for about six and a half years.’
Honestly, the shit I get away with sometimes..

The four-hour flight was unsettlingly turbulent, but I did manage to finish my copy of Nicholson Baker’s ‘The Fermata’, which was jaw-droppingly funny. We arrived and disembarked without incident at 12.45am EST. Remember how in the previous instalment I’d mentioned wanting to take the tram back, so as to save wear and tear on my legs? Well, that was closed. In fact, all of the stores were closed as well. That’s another thing that shags me off about airports: if you have people arriving from various planes at all hours of the day and night, why then would you close your stores and restaurants?? Apparently, the concept called ‘third shift’ is generally unknown to them. Infuckingcredible.
So in following Anna & Clas to the luggage claim zone, I’d asked them how we were going to tackle things on Saturday; when I’d spoken with Sofia, I’d mentioned that as the weather would be more warm that I usually prefer it, we could do some shooting at my house, then film a segment with them interviewing Monti and myself over at Noble fish, a sushi bar in Clawson, and then film Shi-chan, Monti and I at Nippon kai once again. Also, if things got too warm, we would move the proceedings to the Swedes’ hotel room at whatever place they were staying. To my chagrin, they told me they had no idea when we’d start, nor what order we would be filming, or even where any of the locations were. I think they said they knew where their hotel was, but they didn’t have their notes on them at the time. They seemed a bit lost, quite frankly. A more charitable person would chalk it up to jetlag, but I’d attribute it to not really having a plan as to what the fuck we would be doing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to have everything planned out on paper extensively, as to where we’d be, how we’d get there, how long we’d be there, and what we’d do there? Even if it wasn’t charted out minute-to-minute on paper, standing round the luggage carousels before heading our separate ways for the eve wasn’t the time to be vaguely solidifying what our game plan was. I’d expect that kind of laissez-faire attitude from a crew with a lower budget, mucking about but not expecting any serious results, but certainly not from people employed by a television company from a far-off land. It sounds a little pretentious to say so, but I’ve dealt with four other television / film crews before, and the Swedes struck me as rather unprofessional. That was my impression.
So in the midst of Anna & Clas floundering as to when we’d even meet up the next day, Tsukihime rung me, as she was just pulling up to my terminal. ‘My ride’s here and I have to get going,’ I’d told the Swedes. ‘Why don’t you call me at 10am tomorrow, and we’ll go from there?’ I gave a cursory wave, and wheeled my luggage out of there. I stayed round at Tsukihime’s for a bit, venting mostly, and drowsily made my way home round 2.30am.

Quite a day! And I still had the whole of Saturday to look forward to! Ah heh heh

NEXT UP: The stunning conclusion!

Technorati tags: Davecat, Sidore, RealDoll, iDollator, Abyss Creations, Titan Television

Sdtrk: ‘I found the F’ by Broadcast

As previously mentioned, Sidore-chan and I had been requisitioned for yet another television interview; this time airing on a show called ‘Outsiders’ on Titan Television, for the good people of Sweden. It was Three Days of Driving, Flying and Sweating!

THURSDAY, 24 AUGUST
By the time I reached Northwest terminal A8 at Detroit’s Metropolitan airport, I was already sweating like a New York waiter. It was partially due to all that bloody walking from one end of the fecking airport to the other, but it seemed to set a ridiculously moist and annoying precedent for the whole week-end.
But perhaps I should start at the beginning!

As my flight was due to take off at 7.26pm, I had gotten round to my friend Tsukihime’s at 5pm; she lives about 15min away from Metro airport, and was gracious enough to let me leave my car there, and drive me to Metro. Lovely lass; wouldn’t hear a word against her.
Now, since Jan, they’d been revamping the airport (probably before then, actually), and as I love airports, I was perfectly happy with waiting round for a couple of hours. However, the airport I had known through my youth was long gone. It was bigger, and completely stripped of the wood panelling I enjoyed so much. I’m led to believe that with the fact that Detroit was host to the XXXIII Superblow at the head of this year, they wanted to undoubtedly bring the appearance of Metro kicking and screaming out of 1971. So as a consequence, the airport, or at least McNamara Terminal, is now vast and enormous. It has a tram system and moving walkways, but it looks like a bloody mall. There’s a Japanese cuisine on the concourse, along with a Quizno’s, but it’s not as intimate and close as the Metro that I’d always known. My best friend Sean and I would periodically meet with a friend of ours named Tammy, who lived behind Metro airport, and we would waste hours of our Saturdays there. One time, when we’d brought Monti along, the four of us managed to persuade a luggage porter to ride us around a couple of terminals on one of those motorised yellow carts, which was beyond ace. Plus, we managed to get the whole adventure on videotape! Good times, good times.
But yeah! Metro’s too bloody big now. But at least they have a tram. Which I definitely would’ve used had I known it existed, as I had to walk from the security area, all the way to the end of one of the wings. Try doing that in steel-toed boots, matey. Not a good idea.

Speaking of the security area, due to the recent bollocks over in England, now liquids and gels are verboten on flights. Bloody ridiculous. The security attendant made me abandon my aerosol deodorant as well as my toothpaste! I have to agree with (justifiably) cranky Harry Hutton — the real terrorists are the people who thought to ban things like nail clippers, toothpaste, and juice boxes. I thought they were gonna give me stick about my wrist belts, which I usually have to hide whenever I cross the border into Canada, not to mention my beloved steel-toed German tank boots, but they passed through without incident. Huh?
It’s a rather lengthy and idiotic process. Anything questionable or metallic on your person, including shoes of all sorts, you had to strip off, place in a deep tray, and slide it through the X-ray machine. They don’t do the wanding thing anymore, as that would probably slow down the process even further. They then pick through your luggage if need be — which is what happened to me, so I had some security lass rustling through my underwear — and then, after you’re not established as being a threat, they hand you back your stuff, and it takes you five minutes to get dressed again. Really; what price security?

My plane — a Northwest Airlines mid-sized jet — would have taken off on schedule, but due to runway delays, we didn’t actually leave until about 8pm. Upon reflection, I should’ve checked my seating (one of the people over at Titan television had booked it), as I would’ve preferred a window seat, but was instead sat in the middle; some suedehead was in the window seat, reading a book in French. Really, though, the being in the air part of the flight itself went without a hitch, which only reminded me of how ace air travel in general really is. Apart from the tag team of loud infants, of course. I had thought — no, hoped — that a new development of air travel would be to stow all children under the age of, say, eight, in a soundproofed lower berth of the aircraft. Or, at the very least, ship them like luggage, where they’d be waiting on the carousel at your destination. I consider myself a forward thinker.
I have to note, that at one point, the little beast that was a couple of seats behind me was screaming ‘TAKE IT AWAY! TAKE IT AWAAAYY!!’ for some godforsaken reason. It was as if I were listening to Nine inch nails..

Having arrived safely at Los Angeles Airport after a four hour and fifty-eight minute flight, I wandered round Terminal 2 for a male and female couple who looked as if they were descended from Vikings. Now, one of the things I was looking forward to is that Sofia (the person at Titan television orchestrating this whole venture) had told me that the film crew of Anna and Clas would be waiting for me at the terminal, holding a sign with ‘Davecat’ written on it, which I was ecstatic about, as I’ve never had anyone do that for me in my entire life. If only! Instead, they were an hour late, due to navigating LA’s labyrinthine roads. It can’t be held entirely against them, as LA’s motorways have reduced lesser men to shuddering, sobbing heaps.
So my interrogators from Sverige consisted of interviewer Anna Jillhed, a blonde (duh, Sweden) lass with a habit of indulging in smokeless tobacco, and cameraman Clas Elofsson, a former IKEA driver (duh, Sweden) who looked facially a wee bit like fellow iDollator Everhard, but with a rounder head. We exchanged pleasantries, piled into their rental car, and took off for our Comfort Inn in Escondido.
Interesting to note: According to Google Maps, the distance between these two locations is one hour, forty seven minutes. For some bizarre fantastical reason, it took us just under three hours to get there. Oddly enough, I believe we passed two additional airports on the way to the hotel. ‘Why didn’t they fly into San Diego Airport, just south of San Marcos?’, you axe? Well, apparently Anna & Clas were shooting a previous article in El Lay a couple of days before I’d arrived; also, as San Diego isn’t as big as LAX, there would’ve been layovers. But why was the drive longer than it should’ve been? Fuck if I know.

After making a detour to find a 7-11, so I could purchase some toothpaste and deodorant *shaking head*, we pulled into the Comfort Inn, were given our room keys, and sloped off to our rooms, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2am PST. Of course, as far as my body was concerned, it was 5am EST. Egad.

During the few minutes I had before tumbling headlong into sleep, I was trying to suss just what was up with the Swedes, as they were kinda rubbing me the wrong way. With every film/tv crew that I’ve previously dealt with, they had made an effort to do their homework on me and the concept of Synthetiks; or, at the very least, ask a passel of questions about those subjects during any time we had between filming; like, say, a 2+ hour drive, for instance. Did they have any questions? Not a one. Furthermore, whenever I brought up the topic of Dolls, they seemed largely uninterested. With Elisabeth, Elena and Allison’s crews, I’d really lucked out, as they genuinely found the subject fascinating, and as such, were fun to talk to, and a pleasure to work with. The vibe I got from Anna & Clas was ‘ehh, it’s a job; let’s do this and get it overwith’. For fuck’s sake, people, if you don’t actually give a toss, fake it. At the very least, it would make me feel better.
On top of that, they spent a good chunk of the drive, and indeed, their whole visit, speaking to each other in Swedish. Yes yes, I know that’s their native tongue, but it’s a little.. non-inclusive. That’s the sort of behaviour you engage in when I’m not around, not when you’re trying to buddy up to the subject of your filming. Given their apparent disinterest, how was I to know they weren’t talking about me?
And when they weren’t doing that, they were busy flirting with each other. Heh. But more on that later.

Needless to say, I didn’t exactly hit the sack in the highest of spirits. Well, there was being at Abyss tomorrow to look forward to, at least..

NEXT UP: Friday!

Technorati tags: Davecat, Sidore, RealDoll, iDollator, Abyss Creations, Titan Television

Sdtrk: ‘The light’ by Merzbow

The inspectors have come round, and declared our place to be Swede-free, so Sidore-chan and I are back to our regular status of being Internet personalities, as opposed to television personalities. She’s asleep at the moment, so meanwhile I’m busy composing the posts that will detail the past week-end’s events. The series will be called ‘My Morbid Onion Hell: How I Galloped To The Edge of Sanity In A Burning Hansom Cab’, and it’ll span 23 parts. It should be up before the week-end, cross fingers, so keep an eye out!

In the meantime, enjoy a picture I’d taken on Friday!

To my chagrin, these were not free samples

Sdtrk: ‘Do or die’ by the Human League

There are pretty much two styles of Sixties architecture that make me come over all frothy: there’s the utopian, futuristic style of a vintage Space age vision (Montreal’s Expo ’67, Villa Spies), and then there’s the grim dystopian style of what we were given instead (Trellick tower). I have to say that I love them both equally. If I were to compare them to films that I dig, on the one hand you have ‘Barbarella’, and on the other, you’ve got ‘Alphaville’. In fact, ‘Alphaville’ has a lot of rather ace buildings in it, but I’m certain finding particular names and backgrounds in English for any of them would be like looking for a needle placed gently somewhere on the dark side of the moon. However, it’s always a joy being able to present information about the buildings that I like — it’s a small victory, especially after sifting through all that Interweb. And you know I get easily distracted. So tonight, you get a fine example of dystopia, in the shape of the housing developments of Alexandra road, designed by Neave Brown in 1969.

A community center that includes a school, reception center, maintenance facilities and the heating plant mark the entrance to the site from London Road to the west and open to the park areas. The lower buildings contain maisonettes with shared access, terraces, and gardens. Maisonettes also occupy the top two levels of the large slab with entrance from a continuous gallery at the 7th floor.

Alexandra road is a pretty good example of the Brutalist style that was prevalent during the late Fifties and Sixties — you’ve got fab structures such as Brunswick centre, the Tricorn shopcentre, and Alton west estate, among several others. As stated, Alexandra road Housing is Brutalism’s take on the old Victorian era style of terraced housing; vast rows of homes that are built shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing adjacent walls. The apparent lack of space makes it look a wee bit grim on first glance, but there’s a certain romanticism about them — ever see ‘Coronation street’? Well, these apartments would be Coronation street 2099.

Still in use to this day, the clean and well-defined lines of this distinctive housing project only falls short in one respect — it failed to inspire more architects to repeat the style elsewhere. I suppose that makes Alexandra road Housing that much more special

Sdtrk: ‘Secondo coro delle Lavandaie’ by Roberto de Simone

During a recent whirl on the Internuts, I typed ‘My living Doll DVD’ into Google as a bit of folly. Yeah, I know I’ve been trying to keep abreast of any and all news on that, but sometimes things slip under my radar. Like this new Giant Robo feature, for instance. But that’s another story altogether.
So one of the links leads me to a telly-series-on-DVD forum, where I found this thread — ‘My living Doll & My Favorite Martian‘ — which dates from the 16th of last month. The original poster, who claims to work with Jack Chertok Television, Inc. (Jack Chertok being the producer of both shows), starts out with

To all those fans of both shows here is some word on both,

My Living Doll, Starring Julie Newmar.. Most of the key film elements have now been located, the show is about to be restored and put on a non bootleg DVD for the first time.

and I’m thinking, ‘but I’d read the prints were destroyed in a fit of pique!’, which is pretty much what someone had posted, and the OP responds with

The truth is stranger than the fiction you have read all these years, fact one producer Jack Chertok NEVER threw out My Living Doll elements, they were miss placed, also due to the strange way many of the shows were registered back in the sixties many people thought it was PD, not so the rights are intact.
The show is a present being put back together element by element. to make perfect hi def masters.

Hmm. As long as this poster’s real name isn’t Lucifer, the Prince of Lies, this is fantastic news. I’ll believe it when those hallowed DVDs are in my sweaty hands, however..

Speaking of Synthetiks, you might want to give my YouTube page a look-in if you’re so inclined, as I’ve posted not one, but two new videos there. Happy 23rd!

Technorati tags: My living Doll, Julie Newmar, Gynoid, sitcom, DVD

Sdtrk: ‘Going south’ by Indian jewelry

So I’d done a post last year about Daisuke ‘Dice-K’ Enomoto, who would’ve been the first otaku in space. What d’ye mean, you don’t recall? (Actually, I was suprised myself that that was written almost a whole year ago..)
Well, turns out he can’t go. His mum wouldn’t sign his permission slip, the poor bastard.

I suppose he can blame this on the misfortune of his birth

Health test defeats space tourist
BBC News | Monday, 21 August 2006, 16:18 GMT 17:18 UK

A Japanese businessman hoping to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) has failed his medical test, according to Russian space agency officials.

Daisuke “Dice-K” Enomoto, 34, was hoping to become the fourth space tourist after being chosen to fly on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

He was due to accompany the 14th space station crew on a flight next month.

Previous private space explorers are Americans Dennis Tito and Greg Olsen and South African Mark Shuttleworth.

Russian Federal Space Agency spokesman Igor Panarin said that Enomoto was “deemed not ready to fly for exclusively medical reasons”.

He was due to begin the journey on 14 September with US commander Miguel Lopez-Alegria and Russian flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin.
the rest of the article is here

Medical reasons are the exact sort of thing that’ll probably end up keeping a lot of us trapped on earth, instead of being spacebound. I want to be a Newtype too, damnit!

As an aside, I love the illo that someone drew of him that he’s got on his website, as reprinted above. Of course, it’s a lot funnier if you’re a Gundam fan, but nevertheless

EDIT (23 Aug): Changed the news article links to the BBC News page. Why? Cos if you look at the photo they have of Dice-K, you’ll see a Zeon patch on the right shoulder of his flightsuit. Very savvy