Folks, I need your advice.  it concerns this phone.  It just showed up in the mail one day, no box, no wrapper of any kind, but with a note taped to it that said “You’ll know what to do.”  What in God’s name is it for?  What’s it connected to?  That naked front panel is so desolate, every time I look at it I want to hurl myself out a window.  And how do you place a call with it?  Every time I pick it up, I hear this:

And it’s not even connected to anything! I don’t know what to do!  I’d really rather not get rid of it though, because the call quality is crystal clear. Also every time I throw it away it reappears on my desk the next morning.   So please, submit your technical advice to me, care of here.  The best tech support solution will receive a free Rifftrax.

I’m preparing this weekend to see the latest Bond film, Quantum of Solace, at my local googleplex.*  And I’m a little concerned that I may not take away from it any measurable quantity of comfort which would aid me in a time of duress.  However, I’m certain that there are other Quantities of other Entities that I might bring home from the experience:

• A Modicum of Heartburn
•  A Shipping Container of Mirth
• A Portion of Befuddlement
• A Mote of Chagrin

Of course I need your help, and invite you to submit your own Measurable Amounts of Physical, Mental and/or Emotive States.  The most interesting Amount of Something will receive a free Rifftrax.

*I didn’t go during opening week because I never go to anything during opening week; I am not a performing monkey.

Now you can see why this is difficult. For those of you unfamiliar with Devendra, and who perhaps out of sheer perverseness want to know more, suffice it to say that he has taken the Hippy mantle onto himself, having been born fully bearded and with a voice like an infant being burped. His song styling may remind one of a somewhat more talented Vincent Gallo, and he has a penchant for performing in his underpants, which is just fine if you’re Flea, but not if you’re infested with them.

Generally Devendra excretes his own compositions, but to get to the heart of true badness, we need look no further than his live rendition of George Gershwin’s best-known composition.

DEVENDRA BANHART: Summertime

I could only make it through three minutes of this before I was taken with the overwhelming urge to push everybody involved down and set fire to the stage. it was the guy in the cape, satin underpants and Buster Browns that got to me. See how far you can make it and report back.

As always, we encourage you to submit your nominations for our Bad Song of the Week, so long as it’s commercially available, not filthy, and not yours. Unless you happen to be Adam Duritz.

I have now kissed Darth Vader. In public, before God and everybody.

Before you ask, I’ll just say it: He’s a gentle, beautiful man. He smelled of summer lavender blossoming in the fields of Givenchy. His helmet flaps, so delicate, his control panel, so powerful. Moments after this was taken, I swooned. Didn’t think I even knew how to swoon, but swoon I did.

He’s an angel, my friends, and nothing like the churl portrayed by that oily bitch Hayden Christensen.

It’s Comic-Con time, and the folks at Legend Films are busily prepping our own Mike Nelson for his appearance at the Rifftrax/Legend Films Booth, and of course for Rifftrax Live Saturday at the gorgeous Balboa Theater. It’s no easy task – Mike has been broken down into his component parts, shrink-wrapped and packed into seventeen boxes ready to be reassembled on the Convention Center floor.

It takes six skilled technicians to move Mike, who is as delicate as an antique spinet. So when you see Mike, remember his hard-working crew, without whom Mike would simply be a random collection of body parts in seventeen boxes.

*****

UPDATE by Bill: As the Michael J. Nelson 3709-Z is shipped to Comic-Con, I’m busy working on my many, MANY costumes for this weekend’s fun.

Now, the man below is a professional model, so obviously anything would look better on him than me. But expect me to show up in this little number for our 7:00 PM live show…

What about the 9:30 show, many of you are asking? That’s when I really go crazy. (And I’m tame compared to Kevin “Slave Leia” Murphy.)

Gretchen Wilson: REDNECK WOMAN

Believe me when I say I don’t look down on Gretchen Wilson, primarily because if I did she might hit me with her baby and run over me with her Yamaha Rhino. Yet I too leave my Christmas lights on, on my front porch all year long, and I know too many of the lyrics to too many Charlie Daniels songs, although I’ve been trying to eradicate them of late and I’m considering electro-convulsive therapy.

So hats off to you, Gretchen, although I daresay that among the company you keep no one ever removes his hat.

Do YOU have a bad song you’d like to nominate for bad song of the week? Send us your nominees, we’ll pick only the very worst! Make sure it’s a song in regular national airplay, or at least in annoyingly constant rotation on your local station. Oh, and no filthy lyrics, please.

Actually they’re delicious. Best balls I’ve ever tasted. They make a great gift.

Jibbs: Chain Hang Low

The term “shawty” takes on a new connotation in this video by a rapper whose name reminds one of a nineteenth-century English butler. As far as I can gather, the song involves jewelry as an index of virility, impractical dental appliances, and sex. What makes it the bad song of the week – and perhaps the decade – is the involvement of children, the twisting of a kids’ song into a pimp song, and an ice cream truck that denies children ice cream.

Let’s be honest: when kids originally twisted the song “Do Your Ears Hang Low” into something filthy, the filth was more innocent.

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m actor/vegetable Nick Notcolli. I invite you to eat me. Remember, I’m part of your healthy diet, which consists entirely of you eating me. I hope you have a big appetite.

**

BILL adds: Bravo, Kevin. Your beer has been well and truly earned. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going off to scream for a while, followed by some throwing up… then another hour or two of light screaming.

Only because some of you seem to have a weak stomach regarding our penchant for cross-celebrity mutations, I present the American Purple-top “Gary” Busnip hybrid (Corbett cultivar). With a stronger, more pungent taste than other varieties, the Busnip is commonly baked, occasionally steamed , but perhaps most popular when smashed, spiked with good-quality vodka, and heaped in a big pile in the middle of the dinner table. Enjoy!

***

BILL adds: Curse you, Randy Bachman!!

…Wanted to let you know he’s been having a great day, and his fully merged form only makes him more powerful.

Of course it’s me on the left. And yes, “Desperado” was our song. The relationship didn’t last; I can’t be sure, but I think she wanted to hurt me.

In our continuing efforts to provide you with fresh silliness delivered promptly, I will be delighted to answer the first twenty-five questions submitted in the handy “Comments” below. I’ll only edit out questions that have been answered several times before here and elsewhere, so I encourage you to come up with brand spankin’ new ones. And remember, no smut.
I’ll submit my answers as promptly as I can, so have at me, people!

-kwm

First of all, thanks to all of you who feel that I may or may not resemble one person or another. Without you, this exercise would merely be annoying and self-indulgent. After asking you to suggest people that, in spite of my best efforts, I look nothing like, you sent in thousands (dozens) of wonderful suggestions, represented above by the collage sent in by Mgroves (nice, don’t you think?); and though I’m flattered by the question of my resemblance to the likes of Dennis Hopper or Gurudev Rabindranath, I more closely resemble a stalk of barley. Also cleverly suggested, to name but a few, were Howard Hessman, Paul Giamatti, Hank Williams, Jr., Billy Connelly, Wolfman Jack, Dans Haggerty and Fogelberg; the Rat Guy from Beakman’s World, William H. Macy (!), ALF, A drunken beach Santa, one reader’s dad, King Christian IX of Denmark, Mick Fleetwood, Papa Hemmingway, Glenn Close in “Hook,” Harvey Fierstein, Michelangelo’s depiction of God, John Entwhistle, Conductor Krzysztof Pendrecki, Bea Arthur and, by the dozens, Kenny Rogers. I resemble none of these men in any way. Not even reader Adam Electric, who morphed me into a perverse version of James Doohan, could make the cut, clever as it was. However, someone has to win, and so here are my top five picks:

George Carlin (Submitted first by Ninjew)

Several of you suggested that I don’t resemble George – sour, angry, keenly observational, and balding, with the forehead of a bottlenose dolphin. I look more like Kristy McNichol than I do George.

Francis Ford Coppola (Submitted by Dave-O)

I once met Francis, back in 1980 when I was in college. He was then, and possibly still is, charismatic, ebullient and crazier than a shit-fight in a monkey house. I am slightly less crazy, and I look nothing like the man. In fact, for this picture I had to use Photoshop to roughly triple my lower lip size so I’d bear even a passing resemblance.

Rutherford B. Hayes (Submitted first by Jef)

It was a challenge to prove that I don’t resemble our nineteenth president and founder of the White House Easter Egg Roll, in part because I have such markedly antebellum looks in general. Luckily, while the esteemed Mr Hayes has the noble countenance of a Civil War hero and eminent statesman, I look more like an overfed member of The Band (before you ask, I look nothing like Garth Hudson).

Louis Pasteur (Submitted by Yoohoo Riffer)

Try as I may, this pioneer of antibiosis resembles me as much as a kiwi fruit resembles a shoehorn. Perhaps it’s the Frenchness that prompted Mr. Yoohoo Riffer to suggest such a thing, but keep in mind that I am maybe one-eighth French on my mother’s side, tops.

THE WINNER: Tom Hulce (Submitted First by Katie M.)

I looked at this picture of the versatile and accomplished Mr. Hulce and and thought I’d have to get up pretty early in the morning to resemble him. So that’s what I did, after a night of drinking 151 rum and eating fistfuls of salt plums. And it paid off: Ms. Katie M was the first to notice that even after attempting such miserable self-treatment, I still don’t look a whit like Tom Hulce.

Katie M, congratulations. Here’s your virtual autograph.

My only regret is that nobody managed to notice the one person I feel I most resemble: Her Royal Highness The Princess Anne.

Look at those biceps, eh?

Thanks to Ninjew and Chaos (not their real names, God willing) for contending that I look nothing like George Carlin, and even with my best efforts, disembaldening and enhugenating my forehead, dammit, they’re right!

I’m off to San Diego to help lay down some new Rifftrax this week, so we’ll be taking your suggestions all week here at ResembleFest (a term I heard somebody else use, then I invented it). Next Wednesday, February 20th, I’ll post the top five (George is already one of them) and pick an all-round winner. So keep those resemblances coming folks, and remember, none of ‘em look a damn thing like me!

Never sang “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” Don’t know the words to “Let It Ride,” can barely fake it through “Got No Time.” I don’t play guitar very well at all. I’m not even Canadian.

That’s it. Nothing more to say. Full stop. Period, paragraph. End of report. Triple hash marks. Good night Irene. Katie bar the door. Hasta luego Buckwheat.

But some of you are confused, or more likely, goading me. This ought to make it clear:

See? And I even tried my best to resemble Randy Bachman. I had to use my ukulele, because I don’t have a custom made Epiphone (a tricked out Emperor by the look of that pickguard). Does that settle it? Good.

I know this is my fault, since I made the mistake of causing myself to resemble George Lucas. Now everybody and their mother thinks I resemble everybody and their mother.

So I say why not? Bring it on. Send me pictures of people that you think I resemble and I’ll do my damndest to resemble them so you can be certain that I don’t. I’ll pick the top three resemblances sent in. The winner, the person who sends in the picture of someone I most leastly resemble after I prove that I don’t, will get a Rifftrax Virtual Autograph, like the sample below.

So let’s get busy finding people that I will prove don’t remotely resemble me!

Bacon!

Bacon!!

BACON!!!

Questions for you, readers:– Is it time to retire www.hats.com from the blogroll?

– What other worthy sites should be served up on our roll, perhaps slightly warmed, and accompanied by a lemon-garlic aioli?

I’ll choose ONE honorary blogroll recipient for the month of February to the person who makes the best case for that particular site. Needless to say, it should be a halfway decent, (1) non-porn-y site which is (2) not a shrine of appreciation to Larry Hagman and — dear Lord, please! — (3) not a combination of the sites disqualified in (1) and (2). Beyond that, pitch me any site which you think has earned its place on the right, there. ———>

***MIKE ADDS…

It’s the bacon (for dogs, yes, yes, we know that) that has the flavor of bacon AND the flavor of cheese!

Is it really just for dogs…?

*** KEVIN ADDS:

Let’s not forget the Medieval scholar and monk version:

Nor can we neglect the troubled 20th century Irish painter:

Really, Bacon is so versatile! And remember to blogroll its fond companion.

Am I complaining? Pah. It violates Minnesota state code to complain about the weather. I’m just noting, as part of my winter meditation practice, that tonight when I head out for a walk (it will be too hard on the dog’s paws to bring him along), my nostrils will cling to themselves; the mucus membrane will freeze as I breathe in. By the time I get back to the house I’ll resemble Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining, and that echoey popping and cracking in the air will be the sound of the timber frames of neighborhood houses freezing.

But I’m not complaining. There isn’t a corner of the world that doesn’t have it’s own annoying climatological taunt, whether it’s swampy humidity, brick-oven desert dry, tornadoes, floods or snow measured in meters. San Diego may come closest to an idyllic clime, which is why God recently tried to burn it to a cinder. Our brutal winter is part of why the summer in Minnesota is achingly beautiful and we can grow vegetables the size of Mini-Coopers without the help of Miracle-Gro. If we have to put up with a few scant weeks when our cars die, our water pipes become bombs and our faces blacken with frostbite, then so be it.

Okay, maybe I am complaining. It feels great. Screw the Garrison Keillor whimsy and the Jon Hassler stoicism. Complaining warms the soul, bonds one to one’s fellow complainers and creates the camraderie of the dissatisfied. Hell, if the New Hampshire primary was in June, they’d vote for a puppy or a bag of marshmallows.

So come on, folks, let’s do some e-griping! Tell us about how crappy it is to live where you live during any season. Exaggerate like mad, and I want to see a lot of posts prefaced with “You think you have it bad?” Spring’s coming soon, and we’ll lose the whining window. Let’s get out there and cathart!

Thanks for making Rifftrax Live at the SF Sketchfest such a blast. We were treated like old friends by a sell-out crowd at the gorgeous Castro Theater. Many thanks to Sketchfest founders David Owen, Cole Stratton and Janet Varney and their team who work their keesters off to put on the best festival of its kind. The Sketchfest still has another week, capping it with a rare performance by The Kids in the Hall, so enjoy, you lucky people, while I freeze here in Minnesota.

Also thanks to Bill Longen and the staff of the Castro, certainly the coolest place in the city to see a movie. Please check out their schedule, in particular Noir City, the upcoming ten-day film noir festival. Also thanks to the organist, whose name I didn’t catch, but who pounded out covers of sci-fi movie themes to the cheering throng.

Most of all, my thanks to you folks who attended, laughed and cheered. You inspire us to do more and better. We’ll be back.

-kwm

This is Dame Edith Sitwell, Woman of Letters, esteemed poet, critic, novelist, droll defender of literary modernism. She died in 1964 at the age of 77….Or did she?

This is “Trent Reznor,” as she now calls herself. There’s no mistaking it: Dame Edith is alive, beyond all explanation, and pummeling us with angry, self-pitying dirges like “My Violent Heart.”

See? Right down to the three-day mustache. Come on folks, stay on your toes! Do we really want anachronistic poetesses serving up our apocalyptic industrial metal? I for one think not.

**UPDATE BY BILL: Excuse me for intruding, Kevin. But this whole thing goes much deeper than you think. Observe:

Update by Mike (with thanks to reader Yanni)

“I was wondering… if you had read my book ‘I Lived under a Black Sun’? I MEAN, if you’d seen my eccentric stand-up act. Yeah, that’s it.”

Unbelievably Important Update by Mike

Match Game contestant and TV character actress Gina Hecht is in on it! I repeat, MATCH GAME CONTESTANT AND TV CHARACTER ACTRESS GINA HECHT IS IN ON IT!!