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Category Archives: Humor
Saturday Matinee: Holiday Double Feature
Films and videos don’t always gain a cult following because they’re good. Case in point is the “Star Wars Holiday Special” (1978), the first official spin-off which was only broadcast once and never released on home video. George Lucas was rumored to have been personally involved in keeping it hidden since he considered it such an embarrassment. Because of its rarity and underground status, bootlegs of the original broadcast were long sought after by fans of Star Wars and obscure cinema.
As holiday specials go, it has a fairly standard flimsy narrative that strings together a variety of celebrity cameos, comedic skits and musical numbers. What sets it apart are appearances by all the main characters of the film and the strained attempt to fit them into a 70s holiday variety program. Comedians like Bea Arthur, Art Carny, and Harvey Korman or musicians like Diahann Carroll and Jefferson Starship don’t seem to belong in the same universe of Star Wars much less the same television program. Though much of the comedy and guest appearances fall flat and the production as a whole reeks of crass commercialism and cloying sentimentality, it does have moments of inspired weirdness that might make it worth seeing by hardcore Star Wars fans, paracinephiles, and/or stoners.
This is a 15 minute “fan edit” version of the Star Wars Holiday Special:
In contrast to the Star Wars special, the “Pee Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special” (1988) is an example of how similar holiday tropes can be used more creatively towards an equally bizarre but more satisfying end result. The campy, self-aware and subtly subversive tone of Pee Wee’s Playhouse is better suited for the “pop culture mash-up” aspect of holiday specials than the more self-contained world of Star Wars. It also helps that Pee Wee’s show is written with more humor and wit and features an eclectic mix of guests who all seem to be having fun.
The roster of celebrities include Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, Grace Jones, K.D. Lang, Little Richard, Cher, Magic Johnson, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Charo and Laurence Fishburne among others. Like Pee Wee, they’re iconic and have collective appeal that transcends age, race and gender. They’re also perfect guest stars for a throwback to televised holiday events of the past with a postmodern and absurdist sensibility.
TOM THE DANCING BUG: U.S. Income Inequality in Six Panels
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News Video Roundup
12/11 A short but informative primer on the TPP:
12/11 Abby Martin critiques a New York Magazine article distorting and dismissing CIA drug smuggling operations:
12/12 Retired Marine General Michael Lehnert on why Guantanamo is a mistake and should be shut down:
12/12 Activist pranksters hijack a Shell Oil greenwashing event in Berlin (click “CC” icon for subtitles):
12/13 Joy Camp selling RFID chips in the style of a pharmaceutical commercial:
12/13 James Corbett on how to nullify the NSA and other tyrannical government agencies:
12/14 We Are Change interviews the Florida cop arrested for refusing to remove a Guy Fawkes mask:
Gallery of Creepy NRO Satellite Logos
Last Thursday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence live-tweeted the launch of a US National Reconnaissance Office surveillance satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. What made the tweet quickly go viral was the attachment of the mission’s ominous and unsubtle logo: a giant malevolent octopus with it’s tentacles all over the planet. As reported by RT:
Along with the National Security Agency and more than a dozen others, the NRO is one of 16 federal offices under the directive of DNI James Clapper and is responsible for building and operating the spy satellites used to collect intelligence around the world. NRO-gathered intelligence was reportedly instrumental in the mission that brought US Navy SEAL’s to the home of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, and decades earlier the agency launched a school-bus sized satellite into orbit to spy on Soviets at the height of the Cold War.
This time around the ODNI says the satellite’s payload is mostly classified, but did admit over Twitter that around a dozen mini satellites funded by both the NRO and NASA will be brought along to orbit as well. Another thing they didn’t bother to acknowledge, of course, is how the lack-of-subtlety apparent in the Earth-strangling octopus emblem could quickly be used by critics of the US intelligence community as fodder to further condemn the government for admitting to their sheer and unmatched ability to control the world’s information.
…”You may want to downplay the massive dragnet spying thing right now,” Chris Soghoian, the chief technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, tweeted Thursday. “This logo isn’t helping.”
Andy Cush of AnimalNewYork uncovered a number of equally disturbing logos for past N.R.O. spy satellite missions including the following:
National Reconnaissance Office Launch 49, January 2011: To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the NRO launches six satellites into space in 2010 and 2011. One of them, NROL-49, gets a black hawk rising from flames in front of the American flag for a logo. Its motto: melior diabolus quem scies, or “Better the devil you know.”
National Reconnaissance Launch 66, February 2011: One month after NROL-49, launch 66 took the devilish into goofier territory, featuring a satanic-looking minotaur flying over the Earth holding a modified Route 66 sign.
National Reconnaissance Office Launch 19, September 2003: NROL-19′s patch features the world’s most patriotic dragon clutching the globe with a diamond wrapped in its tail.
National Reconnaissance Office Launch 11, August 2000: This patch, featuring the eyes of what looks like an owl hovering over a darkened planet, could have used some cleaner design. Still, “We Own The Night” is an appropriately terrifying sentiment. Animals in space is beginning to feel like a theme.
National Reconnaissance Launch 38, June 2012: This three headed, world-destroying dragon is made only slightly less threatening by its latin motto, non morieris bello, which means something like “you will not die at war.” An alternate patch depicts the Egyptian god Anubis with a giant spear.
National Reconnaissance Office Launch 32, November 2010: The most illuminati-esque of the bunch, this terrible gradient-laden design puts an all-seeing eagle’s eye on top of a golden pyramid.
National Reconnaissance Launch 16, April 2005: The patch for NROL-16 may have marked the first time the U.S. government used a gorilla as a patriotic symbol.
National Reconnaissance Office Launch 10, December 2000: Last but not least, the “Great Bear” patch for NROL-10 is perhaps creepiest of all. What’s this jolly, star-covered guy doing as the symbol of a spy mission? We may never know.
Saturday Matinee: What to Do in Case of Fire?
“What to Do in Case of Fire?” (2001) opens with a montage of young anarchist squatters fighting police, making propaganda films, and constructing a homemade bomb in Berlin circa 1987. They plan to blow up a vacant mansion but the bomb is a dud, until thirteen years later when it injures a real estate broker and potential buyer in a fluke accident.
Only two of the original members of the anarchist collective, Tim and Hotte, are still squatting in the same communal housing since the 80s and are unable to prevent police from confiscating filmed evidence in a raid triggered by the bomb incident. Because all members of the collective are potentially linked to the bombing, Tim and Hotte scramble to track down former comrades and formulate an action plan before the evidence is examined. The reunion of old friends, including those who’ve settled into traditional family life or sold out for corporate jobs, stirs up a host of interpersonal conflicts which they must resolve in order to work together to remain free.
Though the film does at times seem to fall back on lazy stereotypes of anarchists, it at least puts them in a human light. Even less radical viewers could relate to certain struggles the protagonists are faced with, such as trying to balance freedom and security, being “successful” versus upholding one’s ideals, and coming to terms with friendships that change over time. It would have been interesting had the film delved deeper into Berlin’s anarchist and squatters movements, in my opinion, but it’s nevertheless a charming and fun mix of comedy, drama and heist genres.
Note: to activate English subtitles on the video, click on the Closed Captions (CC) icon on the bottom right corner while video is playing, click on the box that says “Portuguese (Brazil)”, click “Translate Captions”, click on “Afrikaans”, then you should be able to scroll down until you can click on “English”. The subtitle feature might not be available on some portable devices.
Buy Nothing Day
Via Adbusters:
Freedom is having time to live!
November 29 is Buy Nothing Day!
Today, humanity faces a stark choice: save the planet and ditch capitalism, or save capitalism and ditch the planet.
– Fawzi Ibrahim
Freedom is having time to live.
– Uruguay’s president, Jose Mujica
Here it comes again. Another Black Friday of shoppers being trampled to death at the entrance of Target, Bed Bath & Beyond and Walmart. And then, hallelujah! … the Christmas shopping season begins.
This year, let’s rise above it! It’s time to start challenging the entrenched values of capitalism, which have hijacked our lives and our cultural rituals for far too long. ’Tis the season to make a pact with ourselves … to start changing our own lives so that we can collectively face the gigantic psycho-financial-eco crises of our time.The journey toward a sane sustainable future begins on a deeply personal and individual level with a single, voluntary step: make a vow to yourself to go cold turkey on consumption this Friday (in North America – Saturday for the rest of the world). Do not buy anything for 24 hours … and watch what happens … you just might have an unexpected, emancipatory epiphany!
Buy Nothing Day is legendary for instigating this type of personal transformation. As you suddenly remember what real living is all about, you may sense an upsurge of radical empowerment and feel a strange magic creeping back into your life.
Join millions of us in over 80 countries on November 29/30 and find out for yourself what it feels like.
And why not play some jazz while you are at it!? Put up Buy Nothing Day posters in your office, neighborhood, on campus … organize a credit card cut up, pull off a Whirl-mart at a box store, or put on an anonymous mask and walk zombie-like through your local mall.
Then, if you feel inspired, take the next step … for generations, the holidays have been hijacked by commercial forces … this year, why not take the season back? Have a heart to heart with your family and decide to celebrate Christmas, Chanukkah and Kwanzaa in a whole new way. Go for it!
This year, let’s throw a well-honed, fun-filled monkey wrench into the doomsday machine!
European Television’s Double Standards
Lately I’ve been enjoying the program “Double Standards” on the Press TV YouTube channel. It’s a London-based news and satire show hosted by Afshin Rattansi. While it may not be as consistently funny and polished as “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”, it is on occasion more fearless in its choice of targets and strength of its critiques, as shown in this clip from a recent program on bankers and government lackeys:
Their interviews are also usually more politically substantial, such as this clip from last year featuring Patrick Henningsen of 21st Century Wire discussing the European Commission and UK’s Ofcom regulator’s decision to ban Press TV from European satellite and cable broadcasting:
After the Crash 