Teaser

Teaser for Folkert de Jong's "The Shooting... At Watou" from Helder Mira on Vimeo.

PHH: ... BUT WAIT... THERE'S MORE!!!

Billy Mays in The Office
by Frazer_James

PHHers! HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?!?
HAVE YOU GOTTEN UP IN THE MORNING, THINKING "OH, ANOTHER HUMDRUM DAY AT WORK?" SO YOU GO TO GET UP AND REALIZE, "WAIT, I'M DEAD!! WTF?!?! WHO CAN I TWEET TO GET ME OUT OF THIS MESS? AND MICHAEL IS DEAD TOO? WELL, THAT'S GREAT! HIS DEATH WILL OVERSHADOW EVERYONE ELSE!! MARK SANFORD CAN APPRECIATE THAT, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US THAT ONLY WANTED AN EXTRA DAY OFF, NOT AN ETERNITY! WHAT ABOUT THE REAL ISSUES IN THE WORLD, LIKE IRAN, HONDURAS, UNSAFE FRENCH AIRLINES? IF ONLY THERE WAS SOMETHING I COULD HAVE BOUGHT THAT WOULD HAVE SAVED ME!!!"

BILLY MAYS' HERE FROM THE DEAD ZONE. IT'S A REAL PISSER. YOU WAKE UP AND YOU SEE THESE DAMN INFOMERCIALS ON THE TV WITH SOME YOUNG ANNOYING JACKASS SLAPCHOPPING PEOPLE AROUND AND WIPING IT UP WITH SOME SHAMWOW AND YOU'RE LIKE, DROP DEAD YOU PUNK! INSTEAD, IT HAPPENS TO YOU. I WAS THE FREAKING PITCH KING, BABY! ORANGE GLO! C'MON, IT WAS ORANGE AND IT CLEANED THINGS UP! THEN YOU HAVE THAT MOMENT OF CLARITY IN THOSE FINAL STEPS TOWARDS THE LIGHT:

Wait, this is it? This is what we're living for: hours upon hours of recycled electronic images & voices blaring at us the 'BREAKING NEWS' that broke 3 days before, updating with every unnecessary piece of plastic minutaie being thrown at you hardball by pitchmen who don't even believe in this crap but hey they need to make a living too. In the end, all that crap will remain on the earth, these rebroadcasts bouncing around the airwaves, polluting it for millenia while we disentegrate and despair from the minds of all eventually our loved ones forgetting us and moving on, waiting for the return of King Zombie Jackson to raise the dead with him to rule the world. And what about love...?

huh? what, St. Peter? FARRAH FAWCETT IS UP HERE TOO? BUT HAVE YOU SEEN HER LATELY? HUH? GOD DECIDED TO GIVE HER FORMER YOUTH AND BEAUTY BACK?!?! SWEET BABY JESUS! WHERE SHE AT? huh? JESUS HAS GIVEN UP HIS SEAT FOR MICHAEL? GET OUT! JIMI HENDRIX IS THROWING A PARTY IN HIS HONOR AND IS PLAYING HARP! HEY, THIS MIGHT NOT BE SO BAD AFTER ALL! AN AFTERLIFETIME SUPPLY OF BEARD TRIMMING! Niiiiice! THIS IS AN OFFER EVEN I CAN'T PASS UP!

BUT HERE'S MY FINAL PITCH TO YOU:
PROGRESSIVE HAPPY HOUR IS ON TONIGHT TO HONOR THE LIVING AND THE DEAD! RAISE A PITCHER OR TWO OF RED ROCK ALE OR HOOKER ALE OR YOUR DRINK OF CHOICE.

BUT WAIT, THAT'S NOT ALL:
FILL UP THE TABLE AND WE GET NOT ONE, BUT TWO FREE PLATES OF CURLY CAJUN FRIES, FRIES SO NICE WE NAMED 'EM TWICE.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE:
GET THERE IN THE NEXT 5 MINUTES AND YOU'LL BE TOO EARLY, BUT GET THERE IN THE 5 MINUTES AFTER RICH GETS THERE AND HE'LL BUY YOU 2 PITCHERS OF BEER ON YOUR CREDIT CARD. SO DON'T DILLY DALLY! GET DOWN TO THE RED ROCK!

SO REMEMBER, GET DOWN TO PROGRESSIVE HAPPY HOUR
TUESDAY, JUNE 30, AT 9:30PM, AT RED ROCK TAVERN (FORMERLY KNOWN AS KENNeY's, as seen on tv on Judging Amy), at 395 CAPITOL AVE., IN HARTFORD. THIS OFFER IS ONLY GOOD EVERY TUESDAY. BUT YOU MUST SHOW UP WITHIN THE FIRST 5 MINUTES OF HELDER'S ARRIVAL FOR A FREE PITCHER OF BEER. WHEN WILL HE GET THERE, WHO KNOWS?!!? THAT'S THE MAGIC.

ACT NOW! LIMITED TIME OFFER. VALID IN THE FAIR CITY OF HARTFORD, CT ONLY.


--
Helder Gomes Mira
www.mirahartford.net
www.rabbitearsmedia.com
Rabbit Ears Media, LLC
From 'Action!' to 'Cut!', Full Digital Video Service from Hartford to the World

"If I can't dance - I don't want to be part of your revolution" -Emma Goldman

PHH:You're Next, Andy Richter

Gah! There's so much going on! Iranians are taking to the streets in
the biggest and longest PHH in years! Terrerists who want to come to
YOUR house and eat YOUR family are being released to eat gourmet iced
cream and get full body massages at Club Med! Newscasters are being
very careful when they pronounce "Uighurs!" Every important woman in
our government is breaking bones due to "falls," and "walking into
doors." And tyrannical ninja president Obama killed a fly, live on
television, without chopsticks!

But all these juicy topics will have to take a backseat today as news
arrived overnight that the country...no, the world...has lost our
Ultimate Sidekick, Sir Edward McMahon. Sadly, the famous alcoholic
celebrity, known best for sitting on a couch and belly-laughing and
agreeing with people, has passed away at the ripe-old age of 86,
leaving a gaping hole in our culture. Who will Search for Stars now?
Who will clear the publisher's house and find gigantic $10 million
checks to disperse amongst the populace? And who will assist Dick
Clark in scouring the earth for the finest in bloopers and practical
jokes? It is a sad day indeed. Now we have nothing left but to count
how many political cartoonists pay poignant tributes by drawing Ed
with angel wings introducing Johnny or God or someone in heaven.
Either way, the word "H-e-e-e-e-e-ere's" will appear often during the
next few days.

Ed McMahon burst onto the scene when fellow dead celebrity Phil
Hartman lampooned his most famous catch-phrases like "YES!" on the
Saturday Night Live Variety Show back in 1958. "Yes" indeed, old
friend. That mean old Johnny Carson would make fun of your drinking
or your string of divorces (even though Carson had more! True fact!)
or your wild incontinence whenever Dom Deluise would show up. But you
kept a smile on through it all, because that was your job goddammit,
sitting over on that couch just barely out of frame, and you did it
well.

Sidekicks today morn the loss of their prototype. From Burt Ward to
Ron Weasley. From Garfunkel to Sideshow Mel and even Xena's
"companion" Gabrielle. Everyone agrees that Ed McMahon WAS the mold
for sidekicks everywhere, including the one from T-Mobile, and though
they tried, nobody since has been able to completely fill it.

So long, Ed McMahon. You lived the true American Dream by getting
famous without really doing anything exceptional at all.

PHH will salute sidekicks everywhere tonight by raising many steins of
Ed's favorite beverage giving a "HeyyyyOoooohhhhhhhh!" shout in
tribute. We will be eating the hell out of delicious curly fries
while laughing heartily to anyone who happens by with a joke. The
merriment commences around 9:30 pm at the Red Rock Tavern (formerly
Kenny's) in Hartford. YOU are correct, sir.

--Number 2

PHH: Serenity Now, Insanity Later.

Alright there is clearly a lot going on in the world that truly deserves our attention:

• US car bankruptcies
• Iran elections and revolutions
• US Health system
• Dear Leader turning over control to a kid clone Mini Il
• global economic crisis (do a shot of local spirit)
• political corruption scandals
• trigger happy scat munchers
  
• peace talks & mounting tensions
  

But really, let's get down to the real issue, the elephant in the room, the major cause of these things no one wants to talk about:
The muthaflippin Mayans and their got-damned 2012 calendar system and that assclown Nostradumbass. Look, we know we get it: The Mayans got lazy, and figured, after setting a calendar that lasted 3000 years, 'Meh, let the young un's deal with the next 3000 years after 2012!' Hey, we've all been there: start working on an ambitious project late and a couple cavaleiros show up to see what's what they help yoou out with some of it while you all have a few drinks, cause like, it ain't harvesting season yet nor season of the witch, so just take your time, hombre. Muchacho please, take a siesta. have some peyote, oh you will, then so will i then check out that wall painting and ritual dance down by temple and you look at your sun dial, and it's like 3 am and your calendar project is due before 5pm and that mickeyfickey elder ain't going to let you slide this time! so you and your friends bust a move to finish the calendar and you get up to the year 2010 and it's like 4:30 and it's like woah baby, we aint' got time, lets at least turn it in on time for credit and hope nobody cares what happens in the year 2012. That's like totally what happened, but some scholars started looking into and realized: We're FUBAR in 2012.

Frankly, I think it's all the fault of the Chicken.

And so we must start working on the next calendar to continue the next human cycle.
Work begins tonight after the screening of Serenity at Kino Kafe down at La Paloma Sabenera (at 8pm)
Eager workers can show up at 9:30pm at the secret society of the Red Rock at 395 Capitol.
Bring all your compasses, alamanacs, maps, astrological charts. Beer and curly fries with fuel us through this 3000 year journey.

I bid thee good day,
El'dor Able, keeper of the heavenly body gazing telescopes & pictures

And don't get me started on Nostradouchebag and his predictions which he coded in poetry and art and then conveniently hid until 1982 to be found after everything he predicted happen so we couldn't stop it in time! selfish prick.

Let's go Whalers!

Whalers Pinup by Robert Ullman

For all of us who remember and loved The Whalers, illustrator and hockey fan Robert Ullman of Atomic Bomb Bikini, added our Whale to his collection of hockey girl pinups he's been posting. His book will be out soon.

Blast from the past

Asshole by Denis Leary

Recent Twitter conversation with some tweeps got me thinking about this song, so had to find it on YouTube. Never saw this video which is just as fun as the song. This still holds up after over a decade.

PHH: Kill Your Television

If you're like me, you've no doubt noticed that something has happened in the past month that has you worried, confused, tired, and gassy.  The teevee is out of entertaining things!  Seriously...where the hell have our stories gone?  No more "Cops and Judges" or "Slutty Doctors."  No "Detectives with Gravitas" or "Real-Time Torture Hour."  Not even any new "Dysfunctional Animated Family" or "Uncomfortable Mockumentary."  C'mon!  I'm in need of seeing some David Caruso sunglasses over-acting just before The Who kick the door down with a theme song!  I wish my day began with Roger Daltrey screaming at me!

No, instead, the overlords of our mush-braining box have decided to phone it in and spoon-feed us any ol' reality concept that the first failed writer can chuck their way, because obviously our realities are so lame, we need other realities to make our pitiful lives worthwhile.  Without fail, these shows can be boiled down into one of three categories: 1) Celebrities Acting Stupid, 2) Look How Shallow People Can Be, or 3) Talent Show For People Without Enough Talent To Succeed Without A Talent Show.  Every so often, we'll be subjected to a show that combines all three: the elusive and can't-miss Shallow Celebrities Talent Show.  Or, you can drum up an audience for a really boring "slice-of-life" show that nobody was watching by having the main people wind up being sleazy and adulterous, like when Jon & Kate cheated on 8.  Or something.  Anyway...scandal!

If the network execs have a goal of getting us to poke our eyes out with hot sticks, they're getting pretty close.  What, am I going to have to go outside in the evening warm weather and do things to entertain myself?   What is this, Communist China?  GIVE US SOMETHING TO WATCH, PLEEZ!  Maybe "I'm a Guantanamo Terrorist Survior Idol, Get Me To Kansas, Starring Paris Hilton"??    Ah, screw it.  What's the address for Hulu?

Well, I just got word of a Reality Show I can get behind!  It's called "Progressive Happy Hour" and there are open auditions happening in Hartford!  Tonight! Beginning at 9:30 at Kenny's Real World House (C/O Red Rock Studio & Soundstage).  There will be several events:  The Great Curly Fry Staredown, The Amazing Pitcher Race.  America's Got Ketchup Art!  Over-the-top personas required.

--Seacrest Out

Dr. Strangelove at Wadsworth Atheneum

Original Trailer for Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

One of the sharpest satires of all time is playing this week in Hartford, at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Presented Thursday, June 4th, at 8 pm as part of "First Thursday: Phoenix Art After Hours" is Stanley Kubrick's razor sharp satire of the dangers of Cold War politics, Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This 1964 film is still as relevant today as it was when it first came out, as it was during the Reagan Cold War era, and as it became more so during the Bush II Administration. If you've never seen it, you owe it to yourself. Come down to see Folkert de Jong's Shooting... at Watou in the gallery, then watch the movie in the Aetna Theater.

Having seen this film several times over the past few decades, it never ceases to both entertain and frighten me; the black humor accentuates the hubris of governments so eager to destroy one another that even in the face of total annihilation, US & USSR bicker like boys in a sandbox.

Philibusted Happy Hour: Oh, it's on! Here come the Judge Reinhold!

Progressive Happy Hour - Your happy hour with the power of the people!
Brought to you at Red Rock Tavern, A Hartford Hangout for the people!
Confirmation Hearings or Philibust set for: Tuesday, June 2nd @ 9:30 pm
Be there!

Oh, it's on now! The Judge is coming to whoop some tuchas! Them GOPeeps just opened a whole can of whoopass on them Demobrats! This is cage match material! Can you hear the rumble? Can you smell what Barack is cookin'?! It ain't your gran'momma's Borked Burgers or your Aunt Harriet's Miers Curly Fries. It's some MAJOR... You could almost say it's So Too Major! Ok, it looks like Mayor but it's pronounced 'Ma-yor' and it sort of can mean 'Major' but don't tell the GOPeeps how to pronounce a name in the good ol' U. S. of A! They will filibuster Judge So-knee-yah So-toe-May-her' and no she may not!! Whoopin' and a hollerin'!

Seriously! Don't they know there is only one Supreme Judge, and that's Judge Reinhold! Now that was a lifetime appointment. The GOPeepers are gone take that li'l phillie and bust'er, y'betcha, and place Judge Reinhold in his birthright seat. They're gonna get all Bork on the Demobrats. And then the country can return to sanity.

This is Supreme Court Cage Match. Rumble in the Capitol. In one corner, the best example of pulling ones' self up from a hard life, a true American success story of hard knocks turned into gold, immigrants raising a child in the US, a kid with a funny name who went ahead and taught Eddie Murphy everything he knows, switched places with Fred Savage to learn a valuable lesson about being a dad, who has lampooned himself to great success on Arrested Development, JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDGE ReeIIIIIIIIINNHOOOOOOOLLLLDDDDD!

His opponent, in the other corner, is someone only a few lawyer nerds have heard about. Grew up Bronx, yadda yadda yadda, Yale something or other, Reverse Racist against the oppressed white conservative man like our Judge Reinhold, etc., etc., insists you pronounce her name correctly in Spanglish, is *empathic*... Judge So-nee-a Sotoughmama SoooooootttooooooMaaaaayoorrrrrrrrr!

Now, Let's Get Ready to Rummmmmmbbbbbblllllleeeeeee!

Main event will be tonight at the Red Rock Arena!
Progressive Happy Hour - Your happy hour with the power of the people!
Brought to you at Red Rock Tavern, A Hartford Hangout for the people!
Confirmation Hearings or Philibust set for: Tuesday, June 2nd @ 9:30 pm
Be there! As the Brunette from the Bronx takes on the GOPeeps Filiblustering shenanigans!

Followed by the midget wrestling league three-way championship bout:
Smiling Slow Joe Lieberman from Oa defending his Assclown Title Belt from challengers Ron RunWildMan Paul and Wild Bill the Pistol Kristol. Losers will be eaten alive by Rush the Crusher Limpbaugh. Children welcomed so they can be scared straight into knowing truth of world of politricks.

For those that need a reminder, glossary of words you might hear on Rupert Murdoch's Fox News about this appointment so we can all follow along. New ones appear first:

Reverse Racist: 1) to be of an ethnic background which is discriminated upon, yet suggesting that benevolent caucasian overlord minority is not infallible. 2) anyone that isn't a white conservative pundit on FOX News

Activist Judge: a judge that rules according to the law, even if the law doesnot support the corporate christian conservative agenda; exceptions can be made in the case of Gore V. Bush, where 5 conservative judges associated with defendants and thier families and party, ruled in favor of defendant instead of appropriately recusing themselves, especially Judge Scuzzlebutt Scalia who had been hunting with defendant Dickhead Cheney only weeks before. That is not 'activist judges'; more appropriately those are assclown judges.

Filibuster: Not to be confused with a filet-mignon. These do not taste good and just make for very annoying people discussing things.


Fascist: 1) One supporting the creation of a single-party state. In
direct opposition to liberal democracies and class-exploiting
communism. 2) Barack Obama.

Communist: A word you use to describe everything when your party didn't win.

Nazis: Obama lovers and ACORN, who fixed the election just so the
muslims can come bomb us again.

Empathetic: secret African code for "baby-killin'"

Tea Party: when patriots dumped tea in King George's bathtub to
protest the lowering of taxes of 90% of the population.

Socialist: Nancy Pelosi when she wants to buy all the banks and
hospitals and stuff with YOUR TAX DOLLARS.

lifetime appointment: a pretty sweet gig. I'm looking at you, Souter.

'merica hatin: America hating. And we're only talking about the REAL America.

Hitler: some guy slightly less worse than Obama.

Godwin's Law: huh?

Progressive Happy Hour: a gathering of great people doing great things
fueled by beer and fries.

Remembering Bob MaCabre

Bob Austin as Bob MaCabre, from his personal collection.

Bittersweet moment today; I was a guest on one of my favorite podcasts, the locally produced Nine Panel Nerds podcast, which was great fun. At the end of the show, host and friend of the blog, David Krause announced that his friend Bob Austin died. As Bob MaCabre, Mr. Austin served as horror host on Springfield's ABC affiliate in the 70's. Mr. Austin was featured in a phenomenal episode of the podcast, where Dave spoke with him about his long and busy life: from playing dj to the troops, meeting and performing with Bob Hope and Lana Turner, managing a series of movie theaters throughout New England, and eventually hosting old horror films on Springfield's ABC affiliate, channel 40. He's a great story teller and has some great stories.

This is a must for horror fans, movie theater fans, and just any local that remembers when local television stations actually produced their own programming: Springfield's only horror host, Bob MaCabre. Mr. MaCabre was played by Springfield, MA local, Bob Austin, Highly recommend it.

From Dave's description:

Another special episode and this time it's a very personal show as we talk with Springfield Massachusetts only original horror host Bob MaCabre! Bob MaCabre was played by Bob Austin a very sweet man who has lived a very interesting life as you are about to hear. Bob has preformed with Bob Hope, auditioned for the role to play Barnabas Collins brothers on Dark Shadows, managed movie theaters and of course been the horror host he played back in the 80's. Bob talks about all this and more. Joining us is the voice of NPN Jim Kaye, who does the opening for the show. It's a long show but it's worth ever word. So join us and I hope you enjoy it!