I learned how to make animated GIFs.





Please give me a cookie.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 8:55 PM ] |

This article at X-Entertainment made me all misty-eyed for my hometown of Atlantic City.

"Every part of Atlantic City not literally attached to a casino is a slum filled with murderers and space aliens who moonlight as murderers"

This is a good line, and it's true. If you've never been to Atlantic City, please keep it that way. There is nothing to be gained from a visit to that place.

Also of note: A mention of this pinball machine:



When I lived in Boston, I used to stop at this divey bar on my way home from work, have a couple of beers and play Star Trek: TNG pinball. It was good times. I like beer, and that's an awesome table, with interesting missions, a "trigger-style" plunger and state-of-the-art-for-the-early-90s technology. I got very good at it, preferring the Ferrengi mission over all others.

One horrible day, I entered my bar, and they'd switched out Star Trek for World Cup Soccer. That was a bad day, and I blame the World Cup Dog mascot for my nightmare descent into a drug-fueled netherworld of cheap kicks and easy women.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 11:46 AM ] |

I've been seeing this billboard all over L.A.:



That's a zombie recommending you eat a cheeseburger.

I like the shambling dead as much as the next guy, but, in the light of recent lawsuits and snarky documentary films pointing out how McDonalds' food is sort of poisonous, maybe the best choice to shill Big Macs isn't a corpse...

Or, as Robyn put it: "Satisfied Zombie Graphic+Big Mac Graphic=Burger is Made Out of Brains".

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 7:42 PM ] |

Why I Hate Los Angeles

Nordic, gladiator heavy metal god Thor, The Rock Warrior is recording a new album with the help of my pal Frank Meyer.

Thor's thunderous, monumental operatic metal sound demands lots of shouting, chanting, handclaps and general mayhem, so this weekend, Robyn and I were scheduled to join the recording session, chant "THOR!!!" at the top of lungs and have a few beers with the Rock Warrior himself.

Fucking traffic. We were delayed outside the Hollywood Bowl just long enough that when we drove by the apartment/recording studio, we heard the mighty rhythmic chants of the Rock Warrior's minions: "THOR!! THOR!!!" The parking was scarce, and though we hurried to the house to take our place in heavy metal history, we missed the recording session by 5 minutes.

Damn you, LA traffic.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 10:17 AM ] |

ZUG: Comedy Articles: The Powerbook Prank

Look! It's a funny story of scamming a scammer.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 2:58 PM ] |

"You've unleashed the fury!"

Bad rockstar Yngwie Malmsteen captured on tape yelling at a woman on a Tokyo airplane.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 4:28 PM ] |

Gene Simmons: Ancient Jewish Rockstar

This one time, I was covering this convention for "glamour models" (they get mad if you call them nude models or porn stars, but whatever.)

I was interviewing a well-known Playmate, and I noticed KISS Frontman Gene Simmons hanging out, sort of sniffing around the models.

"Hey, Gene," I said. "I'm with ??? Magazine. What's your take on all these models?"

Gene goes: "No interviews. No interviews, please." and walks away.

I said to the Playmate, "Wow! Did you see that? I just got dissed by Gene Simmons!"

She goes, "Man, I hate that creepy old asshole."

In honor of that long ago slight, here's some links to Gene Simmons crap.

Gene Simmons gives advice to the kids

Kissworld

New Gene Simmons Video (note the intense lameness.)

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 10:53 AM ] |

The homeless woman in the parking lot at La Brea and Sunset meticulously removed her clothing while keeping her modesty intact--like a magic act. It was that well-choreographed. She beat her jeans against a nearby dumpster to "clean" them, mumbling and sort of moaning to herself. She peeled off her gray socks and slammed them against the dumpster. Then her ratty t-shirts, etc. The only thing she didn't remove was the filthy turban wrapped around her head.

I was staring at her, which is rude, but this was the only entertainment the parking lot had to offer, and she was crazy, so whatever. A weasley blonde guy walked up to me and introduced himself, "I'm Rob," he said smiling.

Here comes the begging. I thought.

I was only half right. Rob needed a buck to "buy sugar for an AA meeting." He was 2 hours early, he said, but he was broke, so he was just going to stay in this parking lot, holding the box of Domino he bought with my money, and wait.

We both leaned against a railing and watched the homeless woman do her laundry. When she had cleaned her clothing enough, she took a couple handfuls of napkins from her pocket, shoved them in her bra and shambled away.

The recovering alcoholic turned to me and said gravely, "I don't think bigger tits are gonna help her get a date."

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 9:38 AM ] |

I used to think politicians talking about God and their religious convictions were pandering to the rubes. Cynical, sure, but who else believes that stuff? But this group in office now seem pretty committed to their faith. They have the depthless arrogance of the converted. They believe their whims are of divine origin, and that their lives are special in the eyes of the creator. Privilege plus religious conversion equals Bush. He even seems to make his own Dad uncomfortable.

When choosing leaders for the most powerful nation in history, maybe we shouldn't elect people who believe the resurrection of their God is a serious possibility.

Here's a video of John Ashcroft singing a weirdo battle-hymn about "the soaring eagle". Creepy, right?

The Attorney General sits around making up little songs about how much he digs God and the United States. And he's afraid of cats because they might be the devil. And he can't deal with naked tits on a statue of justice. Look!

Which all would be fine if the guy was in charge of an Okie church bake sale... but he's the Attorney General of the United States.

Whatever, I guess. I was just struck by Ashcroft's immense arrogance before Congress the other day.

I think I'll vote for the other guy. Cthulhu.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 11:16 AM ] |

Japanese schoolchildren's lunches. Too cute for food. Japanese win.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 4:46 PM ] |

I'm casting my vote for Bush and Zombie Reagan.

Oh, and this: For the great Rebecca, who wanted a source on the Mormon underwear.

More secret underwear information

The more I learn about Mormonish life, the better I like it. The garment is sort of like the jumpsuits that science fiction films of the past promised we'd all be wearin. I want my jumpsuit. I want a robot. But I want to pronounce it "robut".

I converted to Mormonism for the secret handshake, but I'm staying for the bigamy.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 11:17 AM ] |

Weekend Grotesquery

Back in the '50s, motel entrepreneur John Ehn built a collection of old-timey, Western figures to promote his Old Trappers Lodge motel near the Burbank Airport. The airport expanded. The motel was razed. But the cement statues survived. Under somewhat mysterious circumstances (mysterious to someone who is too lazy for actual research anyway), Ehn's eldritch installation was declared a California historical monument and relocated to a secluded corner of Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley.

It sits there to this day, waiting for you to come and have a picnic--tableaus of blood-thirsty injuns ravaging white women, heroic pioneers butchering red-people, "Lonesome George," drunk and alone on a bench. Prostitutes. Pioneer families, and a collection of wooden tombstones with "funny" rhyming couplets about death painted on them.

Note the bright pink nipples...weird.

Hardly anyone ever visits, but someone--no one is clear exactly who--comes to the college and repaints the statues every year, so the vibrant hues of their insane goggle-eyes still give off that "I'm going crazy!" feeling.

There's no advertising or anything, and if you didn't know where to look, you'd miss 'em... But they will freak you out. They're right near the agricultural building of Pierce college... You know you wanna.



I suggest you go with the great Marty Barrett. He'll make funny jokes on the drive there and then call you gay on his fruity-ass website for jerks.


Freakiest detail: Two of the statues have real dentures in their mouths.

----

Freaky in a different way

Robyn, Simone and I visited the Passive Arts Studios for dinner this weekend. In spite of the museum-y name, Passive Arts is a fully functioning fetish dungeon across from the airport in Inglewood.

It's a weird place. Planes roared over the warehouse space while traffic on the 405 sped by just feet away from the back door. Inside, the cavernous space was dark and somber--the dining room was painted black and decorated with racks, cages, and special chairs of peculiar design, built for god-knows-what esoteric rite. The DJ spun the kind of records you'd hear at a school dance circa 1987 (creepy!), and the crowd was mainly older people, in their 40s and 50s. The only younger women there were professional dominatrixes with that hard-edged, sex-worker look.

The food was terrific, but our meal was frequently interrupted by Mistress Victoria Talon dragging a white-haired slave in for floggings. It's disconcerting to have the salad course interrupted by the expression of a stranger's philia, lemme tell you.

After dinner, we took a little tour of the dungeon's many rooms. Each had a different theme, so if you wanted your $160-an-hour "session" in a faux schoolroom or interogation chamber, they could accomdate you. Everywhere we went, the mousy fellows who frequented the joint would immediately introduce themselves. They all talked and acted exactly like Peter Lorre, so it was off-putting...Until we figured out that, because she was wearing one of the corsets Simone designs, customers thought Robyn worked at the dungeon. They wanted to give her five bucks so she'd yell at them or something. Little did they know: All you need to do for Robyn to yell at you is call our house and not leave a message on the voicemail. I can't handle scenes like this without getting loaded, so I drank many more Jack and sodas than is healthy. I love you, alcohol.

As a goof, Robyn got into one of the human-size bird cages. That was fun, but then some craven dude says to her (insert Peter Lorre voice): "I should lock you in there...heh heh heh"

I jumped, since I was liquored up and pissed off. "Listen, pal," I slurred. "She'll decide who gets locked into what." He was suffiently menaced, and he immediately retreated proving, once and for all I'm the king of the dungeon, baby.




(That's the Peter Lorre guy on the left. Creepy!)





Check out whip guy. He was the floor show, and his whipping prowess was beyond reproach.





Robyn and Simone await the return of Jim Backus.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 6:10 PM ] |

I'm fascinated with the underwear of different religions. Below is the secret underwear of the Mormons.

They must never take it off. It's sexy...and magical.





This weekend I am going to look at some freaky concrete statues hidden at Pierce College. I am going to play videogames with my friends. I am going to attend a dinner party for the "Fetish Community" (in a professional capacity, of course.)

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 12:33 PM ] |

I am teh win!!!1

As Robyn pointed out, I spend my life watching re-runs of Degrassi: The Next Generation and 70s horror movies on the new TV that serves as centerpiece for the multimedia entertainment megolith that dominates our living room and our very lives.

I won the new TV in a Halo contest held this weekend, sponsored by eccentric billionaire Drew Daywalt. (I searched the Internet Machine for more information on Drew, and discovered that, along with his "mainstream" movies, he was the Production Designer for Exotic House of Wax: Legacy of Lust, "The action heats up when history's most memorable icons come to life for an amorous meltdown in this interactive 'please touch' museum." Cool!)

So Drew had a TV to give out, and all the fellas gathered to play violent videogames and watch babies while the wives/girlfriends were at a bridal shower or off menstruating or something.

I had an advantage in Halo from the start, as I didn't have a infant to tend to. (I left mine in the car). Of course I took full advantage when Greg left his controller in the middle of the match to see why his baby was crying. You're going to lose if you don't commit to Halo, and there was a 27" television on the line, so no quarter was given. Rumors that I was secretly pinching the infants to increase my odds of winning are highly ridiculous and I'll kill the next man who repeats them.

   [ POSTED BY Steve Johnson @ 8:13 AM ] |