Minnie and Mickey scarecrows representing the hosts of the Disney, Indiana.
Uh oh! It's podcast time again! Here's another opportunity to run my big, fat mouth! I never turn down the chance to pontificate about something trivial. It's one of the great pleasures of life. Yes, Scott and Tracey Morris, two truly sweet and generous folks whom I've known since my days on Mail Order Zombie, graciously invited me onto their own podcast, Disney, Indiana, to discuss the 1994 biopic Ed Wood, directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp and Martin Landau. As you might have guessed from its name, Disney, Indiana is a biweekly podcast devoted to all aspects of the House of Mouse. That includes films released by such Disney subsidiaries as Touchstone, the company that dared to turn the life of Edward Davis Wood, Jr. into a major motion picture. Ed Wood celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2014, so this was a great opportunity to talk about the film at length. I think we had a good, informative chat about the movie, and I hope my readers will enjoy it. If this sounds intriguing, here are some links to help you out:
And if you're still not satisfied, here's an article about the early days of Touchstone that I co-wrote with my good pal, Craig J. Clark. It has nothing to do with Ed Wood or Tim Burton, but I think it's a good read nevertheless.
I recently appeared on Monster Kid Radio to discuss Ed Wood Wednesdays.
Well, folks, I've returned (albeit temporarily) to the medium of podcasting this week. This entire blog started as a spinoff of a podcast, specifically Derek M. Koch's late, lamented Mail Order Zombie. That series signed off in April 2013, and Derek has moved on to a great new show called Monster Kid Radio.
While MOZ focused almost exclusively on zombie movies (mainly the direct-to-video variety), MKR is a more general-purpose show that tends to stick to the low-budget sci-fi and horror films of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Past topics on Monster Kid Radio have included the King Kong and Godzilla movie series, plus the careers of actors like Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and the Mexican wrestler known as El Santo. This week, Derek was gracious enough to have me as a guest on his new series, and he and I discussed the career of Edward D. Wood, Jr. and my ongoing "Ed Wood Wednesdays" project.
You can listen topart one of the interview here. Topics include Orgy of the Dead, Night of the Ghouls, and Tim Burton's Ed Wood.
Here's part two. This time, Derek and I discussed some Ed Wood movies which might appeal to Monster Kid Radio listeners. Films include The Bride and the Beast, Necromania, Venus Flytrap, and The Astounding She-Monster.
And here's part three. This is an informal "warm-up" conversation Derek and I had before the interview.
Big thanks to Derek M. Koch for letting me appear on his show and talk about this project!
The obsolete yet still gorgeous original logo for this blog designed by Scott Cole.
Perhaps you've noticedsome changes on this blog lately. You'll soon notice more. Dead 2 Rights was originally set up as the official blog of Wayne Kotke, a fictional character I created and portrayed for almost five years on the Mail Order Zombie podcast. In the beginning, I made an attempt to write the blog "in character" as Wayne and include as much zombie-related content as I could.
Over the years, though, I strayed further and further away from the original premise and just started writing about whatever interested me. The zombie references became less frequent and more perfunctory with each passing year. And now... well, they've come to a stop altogether. Wayne Kotke was a character created especially for Mail Order Zombie, and I have decided that he should expire along with that show. MOZ airs its final episode on Thursday, April 25, and that's the last you'll be hearing from Wayne.
From here on out, Dead 2 Rights is my personal blog and will be written under my own name. All the old content is still here, so if you want to look for Zomby cartoons, you'll still be able to find them. Who knows? I may even create more cartoons with that character in the future. But for the most part, D2R will be about my own life, opinions, and interests. I hope you will join me as the blog enters the next stage of its evolution.
It was bound to happen eventually. Wayne has crossed the line, folks.
Ain't I a stinker? Handsome, though.
I've been producing "Wayne Kotke" segments for the Mail Order Zombie podcast since September 2008, and during that time, I've used my few moments at the end of the show to experiment with all kinds of humor: morbid, irreverent, occasionally satirical, and possibly even tasteless. Surprisingly, considering this is the Internet, there's been very little negative feedback to any of this. Oh, there have been a couple of mild complaints over the years, but nothing too substantial. I think the key to all of this is that the MOZ segments are done in a lighthearted, all-in-good fun sort of spirit. The Wayne Kotke character is nothing if not upbeat. He's the eternal optimist, always sure he's onto the next great idea and totally unconcerned with the consequences of his actions. It never occurs to him that anyone could take offense at what he says. Over the years, I've been testing the boundaries of what people will accept from this character. Wayne has no real "filter," so he cheerfully admits to all sorts of bad behavior: copious drug and alcohol consumption, the sale of illicit substances (sometimes to schoolkids), insurance fraud, mail fraud, a whole host of scams and schemes, and many, many murders. I've sometimes wondered if anyone would ever take offense at one of these segments, but hardly anyone has.
Well, citizens, my luck finally ran out this week.
Garfield: No fan of Mondays
The hosts of Mail Order Zombie have deemed one of my "Wayne Kotke" segments too potentially offensive and/or controversial to air on their program. That's their prerogative, of course. It's their show, after all, not mine. I was surprised by their decision, however. The segments I do for MOZ are so intentionally outlandish that it's difficult to take them
seriously. And besides, Wayne is just a fictional character. He's nothing like me at all. He only "exists"
on the MOZ podcast and on this blog, though lately I've been ignoring
him here and writing more personal articles. You may not agree with
everything Wayne says -- I certainly don't -- but you can't really debate
him because he's basically just a cartoon character. You might as well
write a complaint letter to Garfield, informing him that Monday is a
perfectly fine day of the week, thank you very much, and that you've never cared much for
lasagna either. If I haven't made it clear before, let me say it now: Wayne is just a silly character, and the segments I do for MOZ are purely intended for entertainment, not as advocacy for any real world political or social issues.
However, the hosts of Mail Order Zombie felt that the following segment might offend members of the MOZ listening audience because it pokes fun at the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. The segment is completely nonpartisan, and I tried to make it as balanced as possible, but the hosts of the podcast still felt it could cause a problem for them. I can sympathize with that. But still in all, I did spend some quality free time writing, recording, and editing the damned thing, so I didn't want to just scrap it completely. With the MOZ hosts' consent, therefore, I am now posting the segment here on this blog so that you can listen and decide for yourself whether it goes too far. Warning: Mild political satire (with brief profanity) ahead!
So... were you offended?
I honestly and sincerely hope not. This segment, like all the others I've done for the podcast, was just a comedy sketch and not an editorial. My segments for MOZ tend to be about whatever I find funny or interesting at the time. The week that I wrote this (and by now it's about a month old), I was suffering from severe post-election fatigue and wanted to write something about that which was even-handed and took both sides to task in a gently humorous way. This segment was nowhere near my favorite bit for MOZ, but I still wanted it to be heard. If you listened to it, thank you. And if you were truly upset by it... well, there's a comments section below just waiting for you. Feel free to use it as you see fit.
I don't know about you, but I sometimes have a tough time remembering things. I have to write them down or else I'll forget. So I'm always scribbling little notes to myself on any piece of paper handy -- envelopes, junk mail, Post-Its, etc. Here, for future historians, is one such note. It's probably illegible to you, so I'll transcribe it.
Fat Nerds: Sorry for the bluntness of the language, but this is the seed for a potential article in which I discuss my theory that many so-called "nerds" have weight issues because jocks intimidated them as children and made them associate exercise with bullying. I have dealt with weight issues myself, incidentally.
Beard/No Beard: Another potential article. Quite simple, really. I might be gingerly entering the dating scene soon, and I wanted to solicit women's opinions on whether I look better with or without facial hair. I'm currently clean-shaven, but I've done the whole beard thing, too.
The Ward: Before the experience gradually fades from my memory, I thought I should write an article about what it's like to be in a psych ward. I want to record it for posterity's sake so that I can read it later.
White Album/NOTLD: This is actually something I want to do for the Mail Order Zombie podcast. Since the Beatles' White Album and George Romero's Night of the Living Dead both came out in 1968, I want to do an audio piece which combines the two. This is super-ambitious and complicated, so it may have to wait. I want it to be good.
(in the margin)Sheep/Manger: For the Christmas season, I am planning to write a short story for this blog revolving around the Nativity. It will involve sheep and the manger.
There you have it: some genuine Wayne Kotke ephemera! Hope you enjoyed it!
An accurate representation of my mental state today.
So where were we?
If you've been following my little saga since the beginning, you might remember an anecdote from my work last week in which I was involved in an endless circular argument with a coworker over a technical triviality. That incident, more or less, is what caused my brain to stop functioning that fateful day. It was, in a broader sense, the catalyst for my recent move toward getting help for myself. At the time, though, it was just damned frustrating.
Well, anyway, that particular coworker was fired for across-the-board incompetence this morning. I had nothing to do with it, I assure you. My superiors had been wanting to oust him for a while, and today was when the axe fell. Truth be told, he was not an unpleasant guy at all. He was really nice. He was just a lousy coworker who didn't give a damn about his job, and I simply could not work around him.
In a way, I'm grateful to him because (very indirectly and inadvertently) he led me toward managing my depression and anxiety. I don't know whether this was ironic or appropriate, but I wound up filling in for him today since there is no immediate replacement available. How about that? Funny old world.
My body continues to adjust to the meds. My appetite is starting to come back somewhat, though I'm not exactly craving food these days. We got free taffy apples at work today, and mine is just sitting uneaten in my fridge. A year ago, I would've been all over that!
I'm still not in a "funny," creative mood either. How do I know this? Well, I wake up very early for work each weekday even though I'm the opposite a morning person. To help revive myself, I often make up absurd little songs and sing them in the shower or in the car on the way to work. It comforts me. Some of the little ditties I've performed on Mail Order Zombie were written this way. But I haven't been making up songs in the mornings lately. That part of my brain is shut off, like a deserted wing of an old mansion.
I've not felt much of an urge to play music, listen to music, or draw. I'm writing in this blog pretty often these days partly because I'm forcing myself to do so. I don't want my creative muscles to atrophy. (Gah! What a crummy analogy!)
WTF With Marc Maron
But there are positive aspects, too. I've been calm all day and even cheerful and upbeat for long stretches of it. There have been no panic attacks or crashing lows. There have even been times when I felt like "myself," whatever that means.
I'm almost getting too cocky about all of this. I don't know if you listen to the podcast called WTF With Marc Maron, but you really should. It's one of the few non-fan-created podcasts I listen to, and it's basically a stand-up comedian interviewing other comedians and people in the creative fields. I'm bringing it up because in today's episode, Marc was talking with one of his guests, Jake Fogelnest, and they're both recovering substance abuse addicts. One topic that came up during their interview was a common mistake made by recovering addicts: they're doing so well that they decide they are strong enough to break the rules and indulge in their old habits again. That's sort of where I'm at.
Today was pretty easy for me, and I felt like I got a lot accomplished. There's the temptation to say, "Hey, maybe I don't need meds or therapy or any of it. I can just do this on my own." But I've done that all my life, and it's taken a toll on my mind and body. I have to stick with the plan this time. No backsliding.
Miscellaneous thought:It's so weird that jack-in-the-boxes have endured as a toy. I mean, have you ever really thought about them? They have exactly one use, and that use is terrifying and disturbing. They're like some weird Pavlov-meets-Clockwork-Orange experiment to get children to associate music with fear and alarm. "Oh, yay! I'm listening to a catchy song! And I'm making the song myself by turning this handle! This is.... AHHHHH!!!! SCARY CLOWN MAN!" What a world we live in!
Ah, another "rotting corpses sure do stink" joke. Is there any more dignified way for this blog to turn 2?
Yes, folks, today marks the two-year anniversary since the beginning of this blog. I'd like to thank absolutely anyone who has ever read this blog, especially those nice folks who took the time to leave comments. October 2011 has been the blog's best-ever in terms of traffic, and I hope you will continue checking in to Dead 2 Rights regularly for updates. This would be a great time to thank Chris Toohey, who originally set this blog up and has provided technical support along the way, and Scott Cole, who designed the gorgeous Dead 2 Rights logo.
And, of course, we cannot forget Brother D and Miss Bren of the Mail Order Zombiepodcast, without whom none of this would exist. MOZ is on hiatus for the rest of 2011, but I'm looking forward to contributing to the show when it relaunches in 2012.
And now, if you'll forgive me, I'd like to share a few of my favorite posts from the first two years of this blog:
If all this feels a tad self-indulgent, well, I put an absurd amount of time and effort into this nonsense so I want to get as much mileage out of this stuff as I possibly can. By the way, don't think that these are the only decent posts in two years. I've posted well over 400 various items to this blog, each one a gem of its own kind. Like that one about cartoon shows based on pop groups, for instance. Why I didn't get the Internet equivalent of a Pulitzer for that, I'll never know.
Mourn me til you join me!
Wayne Kotke,
President, Spokesman, and Founder of Dead 2 Rights
In the last few episodes of the now-on-hiatus Mail Order Zombie podcast, I courted a bit of controversy by discussing the longstanding rivalry between zombies and ghosts. Well, the following cartoon implies that the feud extends all the way to the animal kingdom...
But speaking of ghost dogs, here's the trailer for a Forrest Whitaker movie I haven't seen. FUN FACT: After watching this trailer, you will be a fully-qualified samurai!
P.S. I was so charmed by the image of the floating, glowing dog that I am now going to present it in quadruplicate.
And a Ziggy/Zomby-free alternate version:
SPECIAL REQUEST TO THE ROBOTS WHO COLOR "ZIGGY": Please consider dropping such hideous shades as "burnt umber" and "guacamole" from your color palate. There is no reason for this cartoon to look like a 1970s kitchen.
Elliott Gould delights us all in Dead Men Don't Die.
Recently, the host of the Mail Order Zombie podcast, Derek "Brother D" Koch, sent me three (!) full-length zombie movies on DVD. One of these was the infamous Buddy Bebop Vs. The Living Dead, which both Brother D and Scott "Need-a-Nickname Scott" Morris awarded a score of 1 headshot out of a possible 5. Not a promising sign. But Brother D said he compensated for this by sending me at least one "good" movie to balance out the awfulness of Buddy Bebop. Unfortunately, he couldn't remember exactly what he did send me, so I guess it's up to me to figure out which one that is.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
With only three movies, my odds of finding the elusive "good" one are fairly high. And since Brother D has already acknowledged that Buddy Bebop is not it, my chances are getting even better. It has to be one of the other two films, right? I began my quest tonight with a 1990 film called Dead Men Don't Die starring Elliott Gould. Could this obscure comedy be the chosen one?
In a word, no. In two words, fuck no.
Right away, the film's packaging caused me to have serious doubts as to its quality. Dead Men Don't Die didn't come in a standard DVD box but rather a cheap case made of clear hard plastic with the title of the movie printed on flaps at the top and bottom. If you regularly buy your movies at the same place you buy off-brand laundry detergent and expired candy, you know the kind of case I mean. Besides this, the cover also depicted Elliott Gould seemingly dressed as a clown or mime and making a "funny" face like he was receiving a digital rectal exam from Freddy Krueger. Add to this some wacky mismatched fonts, and you have the kind of packaging that screams, "Ignore me! I am a waste of your time! Do not purchase me or rent me!"
Dead Men Don't Die somehow manages to be even worse on the inside than it is on the outside. Tedious beyond belief, relentlessly unfunny, and embarrassingly racist, this was quite a chore to sit through. The film's ugly and cheap costumes, shabby scenery, unconvincing makeup, and insipid music combine to make it an assault on the eyes and ears.
Briefly, the plot concerns an egotistical newsman (Gould) who is murdered while snooping on some drug dealers but is revived as a "voodoo zombie" by a Jamaican cleaning woman (Mabel King). Thrown into the mix are a bumbling cop, an ambitious female anchor, various thugs, and some other people you won't care about.
Dead Men is trying, I guess, to be a farce, but the writer-director forgets that farce depends on a furious and escalating pace and instead allows his film to become unforgivably sluggish and repetitive. The acting is very hammy and sitcom-ish for the most part, while Gould (who has given brilliant performances in the past) spends most of the film making moronic faces and grunting. Meanwhile, Mabel King's stereotypical character seems like a holdover from another era entirely. How sad that this was her last role.
To make matters worse, virtually the entire film takes place within one very unremarkable office building, so we spend a great deal of screen time looking at narrow hallways with low-pile carpet and drop-panel ceilings. It gets very monotonous, to say the least. The only element of visual interest here is a boom mic that enters the frame in nearly every scene. Seriously, the microphone gets so much screen time it should be listed in the cast.
I can only imagine that Dead Men Don't Die was made as some sort of tax write-off or as a way to launder money. There is no other reasonable excuse for making such a film. I cannot begin to catalog all the ways in which it insults the viewer's intelligence. Dead Men fails in seemingly every way a movie can fail. The people responsible for making it should be ashamed for having wasted perfectly good money and resources.
A suitcase on a bed. A closed door. A group of mirthless travelers standing in line. Finally, an empty airport. In today's Ziggy, these are merely the props and settings for a tired gag about airport security. But with the title character removed, this becomes a haunting meditation on absence and abandonment. Someone seems to be discarding his life and his home for unknown reasons, shedding his very existence like a snake sheds his skin. Perhaps all of these people in line are giving up their lives as well. Some catastrophe has caused them to leave behind all that they know. One is reminded of the brilliant 2000 Swedish film, Songs from the Second Floor, which you really ought to see right this minute. Perhaps the trailer will convince you. Keep in mind, the trailer is NSFW but it's Sunday so you shouldn't be at W anyway. Songs comes pretty darned close to being a zombie movie, as you'll soon see, so I hope it is covered someday on Mail Order Zombie.
And thus ends Experimental Zomby week. Join us tomorrow for "classic Zomby."
I like to tell people I was in a Jeff Bridges movie. This is kinda, sorta, technically true-ish in the sense that Jeff Bridges is in this movie and I am also in this movie... but not in the same scene.
Either way, here's the trailer. See if you can spot your humble Wayne-meister in it. Those of you who listen to MOZ know what my voice sounds like. Keep in mind that I was heavily disguised that evening and do not much resemble my usual, dapper, living impaired self. But the voice, for better or worse, is the same.
I don't know what it is, but the Sunday ones are like comedy Kryptonite. They just repel laughter. Which reminds me of a story: when I was a kid, I had these little toy Scotty dogs with magnets glued to the bottom. The idea was that the magnets would either repel or attract each other depending which direction they were facing, so you could make the dogs "kiss" or "chase" each other. It was a neat toy.
Even after two years plus of appearing on the Mail Order Zombie podcast, I realize that the Living Impaired still have plenty of image problems. I sat down to think about how to solve this problem, when suddenly the answer came to me...
A lovable, cuddly living impaired cartoon character!
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce ZOMBY! He may remind you of another Z-named comic character, but this one happens to be living impaired. Through the misadventures of little Zomby, you'll see the various heartaches, frustrations, and disappointments my people deal with on a day to day basis.
Here are a few samples:
So what did you think? Lovable, right? Adorable, right? I'm picturing a whole line of "Zomby" merchandise -- greeting cards, calendars, plush toys. Besides raising awareness of the plight of the living impaired, this little guy could be a cash cow.
Hello once again, my dear readers and cherished friends:
On the last episode of Mail Order Zombie, a listener claimed to be offended by my use of the term "redneck" and accused me of "spreading propaganda" each week on the show.
Let me answer the second charge first. A propagandist? Moi? Don't make me laugh! I'm giving a three-minute editorial at the end of a podcast each week. That's hardly propaganda. On the other hand, I'd say that decades upon decades of so-called "zombie" movies, comics, novels, and video games are much more suited to being called propaganda, insomuch as they've been used to poison people's minds with incorrect information about the living impaired. This charge is baseless. I plead not guilty and fully expect an acquittal.
But now, let's deal with a thornier issue: my repeated use of the word "redneck" to describe the people who routinely hunt the living impaired for sport. Before we rush to judgment, let's examine this term and see what it really means. First, it should be obvious that "redneck" does not necessarily refer to Southerners. I am originally from Michigan, and I can tell you that my home state is crawling with rednecks. Hell, my own family tree is crawling with rednecks! (More about them later.)
George Romero's "dead" films frequently feature those I would call "rednecks," and they're set in Pennsylvania, for pete's sake! Let's take a look at some of these folks in action:
In short, rednecks are everywhere! (NOTE: The comedian and actor David Cross, a Georgia native, has a good bit about this on his album, Shut Up, You Fucking Baby!)
So if I don't use "rednecks" to mean Southerners, do I use it to mean lower-income, poorly-educated white people? Absolutely not. Most of the "rednecks" I know are not poor! Many of them certainly have more money and socioeconomic clout than I do, that's for damned sure! Look at all the products which are directly marketed to rednecks! If you haven't been to a Wal-Mart lately, just go in and look around to see what I'm talking about. The existence of all this crap leads me to one conclusion: rednecks have money! Guns cost money. Ugly hats cost money. Terrible comedy albums cost money. You think they're giving lawn ornaments away? No, sir! I know I can't afford that junk, even if I wanted it.
If rednecks aren't defined by money or by location, then who are they? To me, "redneck" is a mentality. It's a state of mind, a chosen lifestyle. To be a redneck is to embrace everything that is tacky and puerile and to turn a blind eye to knowledge, truth, beauty, and progress. I know it well because I've been running from it all my life: figuratively during my "living" years and now often literally as an LI. You see, as I said earlier, my family is full of rednecks. To attend a Kotke Family Reunion is to see a Larry the Cable Guy routine come to life. But early in my life, I made a vow to myself that I was not going to live like that. No, I was not going to have the police break up a domestic disturbance on my front lawn. No, I was not going to lose a foot to diabetes. (I ended up losing an arm, but that couldn't be helped.) No, I was not going to limit my reading to "Bazooka Joe" comics. In short: NO, I WAS NOT GOING TO BE A REDNECK!
So that's why I use the term and will continue to use it. Thank you for reading this rant.
