WFMU's Beware of the Blog

YOU! You're The One! - McDonald's Memories

When I was younger I had quite a germ phobia. I was very paranoid about McDonald’s workers doing awful things to my Quarter Pounders. If I developed a cold I always blamed it on the McDonald’s I ate a few days prior, convinced that if it wasn’t a booger wiped upon my burger then someone must have sneezed on it.

I was already in the habit of checking for foreign matter hidden in my food before eating it and it came as no surprise to me when I found a great scraggly tuft of pubic hair between bun and burger, congealed with ketchup and diced onions. Disgusted, I did not eat McDonalds for quite a while.

Peggy Lee - McDonald's Theme Song (mp3)

April was the month that the carnival came to town. It was the best week of the year. It was the first breath of warm weather and the first opportunity to roam around, talk to girls and vandalize property with pentagrams and anarchy signs.

The carnival was held in the park across the street from McDonald’s. We made frequent trips there for hamburgers and vanilla shakes. Around this time, all of my friends liked to try to regurgitate on command…but I did it the best. In an attempt to be funny and impress a girl, I puked up the whole $2 I just spent on fries and a milkshake, spattering it on the parking lot in a frothy white mess. She wasn’t impressed.

Main Street Singers - McDonald's Theme Song (fries version) (mp3)

Helpless Man Femdom Art

Femdom Art - Drawings of little men with their heads stuck in the cracks of big bottomed ladies. (nsfw)

Bellydancers & Harem Girls!

Bellydancers and Harem Girls -- A Historical/Cheesecake Gallery

...a fantastic archive of historical bellydance photos- from nudie postcards to Hollywood starlets. My favorite is this spellbinding swollen siren.

The Prelinger Collection at Archive.org has a corpulent collection of old stripper film reels.

And while we're at it, we can't leave out The Metal Goddess Bellydancers who gyrate to the sounds of Ozzy and Twisted Sister. Oggle at their videos!

Distended Fertile Guts Bubble Over As Big Meaty Hooves Fondle Ripe Udders Slipping Out Of Flirtatious Finery

Project P (NSFW) is an odd fetish site dedicated to digitally morphing porno photos of women into pregnant animals.

Furball Gallery
Hugies Gallery (no animal morphs here! Just plain old digitally morphed gigantic bellys!)

The site also offers fantasy stories and short animated movie clips.

L.A. "Sunshine" Jefferson

This past weekend I was digging through the dusty record collection at Chicago's freeform radio station WZRD. Rotten Milk, a longtime WZRD DJ, foisted an odd cassette from the collection into my hands: L.A. "SUNSHINE" JEFFERSON - LIVE LONG, BE STRONG (DON'T DO DRUGS). I began to salivate as I scrutinized the bizarre cover of a headless torso with no hands rendered in an infantile scrawl.

The cassette contains one song, "LIVE LONG, BE STRONG (DON'T DO DRUGS)", a pretty catchy funk jam accompanied by a Casio, a pretty lady, and a bit of old-school rapping.

Google search on L.A. "SUNSHINE" Jefferson turns up nothing. The zip code on the cassette reveals it is from South Side Chicago.

L.A. "SUNSHINE" JEFFERSON - LIVE LONG, BE STRONG (DON'T DO DRUGS) (mp3)

A Romantika Hangjai

Introducing the wobbling warbling of wunderkind

Janika!

via szanalmas

Vintage Wet Look

"Over the years, the styles of clothing have changed along with the technical quality of the photography.

What has not changed is the enjoyment of experiencing wetlook, as reflected in these images."

Vintage Wet Look

via JAF Project

Being An Image Packrat & Voyeur

If you're like me, you save every odd and interesting image found on the internet and your computer is littered with thousands of JPGs that you keep putting off organizing into properly labelled folders. One site I check every day is the Live Journal Image Feed, which automatically pulls all images uploaded to LiveJournal. All manner of crap passes through with the occasional stunningly weird gem poking through...every two minutes I'm hitting 'refresh' to get a new batch.

5 Most Common Images:  anime sketches - 14 year old goth girls - ugly dudes hanging out with their ugly dude friends (usually with some lame caption) - Japanese porn - really sad looking band photos.

If something stirs up my interest, the image links back to the originating page and I find myself trolling through some stranger's journal. I am usually left scratching my head concerning:

1. why would anyone post something so personal?
2. why do people bother, their lives are really boring
3. people are illiterate
4. kids these days and their Marilyn Manson
5. doesn't anyone know how to properly size an image?

Abandoned Amusements

Abandoned amusement and theme parks left for nature to reclaim.

This site contains a stunning series of photos of an abandoned Japanese amusement park. The first few pictures of a rotted roller coaster are especially creepy as they were taken in the morning fog. page 1 - page 2 - page 3

Suzy Poling, an Oakland photographer, has a great photo series of an abandoned theme parks called Hidden Village. She also features a spread of old delapidated theatres: Palace of Mold

Defunctparks.com features many snapshots of parks in their heyday alongside the current state of rot: Rocky Glenn Park in Lackawanna County, PA - Mountain Park in Holyoke, MA - Idora Park in Youngstown, OH - Chippewa Lake Park in Chippewa Lake, OH .

IllicitOhio.com made a trek to the PTL's Heritage USA.

Pacific Ocean Park decimated through time.

Here is a promotional film for Santa's Village (mov. file) from Extinct Attractions, a site that preserves Disneyland's and Disney World's past through interactive DVD documentaries. They also archive information, pictures and sounds of theme park rides, attractions and brochures. Browse around a bit, they have a few more video clips.

Take a listen to Goosy Goosy Gander (mp3) and The Happy Dragon's Tongue (mp3) - they are part of a collection of field recordings from theme park rides and attractions recorded and compiled by Melinda Simon and Mark Fay and released as "Songs for Little Ones" on Dish Recordings in 1997.

Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists

" The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists is a veritable rout dedicated to a shared mandate to advocate the showmanship of oddities; espouse the belief in natural adaptation and mutation; and encourage the desire to create displays of curiosity."

Also try their "Beast Blender" where you too can create animal monstrosities!

Sound Dough

Make a glorious racket that obeys the laws of an intricate visual entanglement with Le Ciel Est Bleu's La Pâte à Son:

" The Pâte à Son (Sound Dough) is a sound toy and compositional tool conceived to encourage musical experimentation. Drag instruments, switches, and transporter pipes from the conveyor belt to the checkerboard above to make music. Rotate the pieces. Choose a melody. Change pitch, tempo and volume to fine-tune your composition. "

via We Make Money Not Art

My Commodore 64 Secret Life

I grew up with a Commodore 64 as my best friend. The C64 offered a new world to escape to from the banality of 5th grade. This is a story I always tell and people respond with a blank stare eventually uttering, "What was the point?  That's pretty stupid." So you just shouldn't bother reading this.

When I was ten I acquired a 300 baud modem. Services like Quantum Link (later to become AOL), which were primitive chatroom networks, soon lost appeal after I was repeatedly kicked off for excessive cursing. I started logging on to local BBSs (bulletin board systems) where a SysOp (one lonely guy) set up his computer to receive other users one at a time. The BBS’s featured message boards and download/upload areas. I was still involved in the real world of life, not totally ensconced in the world of computers, but I was looking for a way out, something new that would let me escape the constant ridicule of being fat and weird. Unfortunately these local BBSs were not the answer because they were usually run by old geezer hobbyists and most of the BBS members were from his close circle of friends.  On the message boards they usually talked about RUSH.

Lap Juicer

The Lap Juicer is designed for lap dancers in clubs. They can make a tasty cocktail for eager clientel who can't touch, but who can drink juice!

The Lap Juicer is on exhibit at London's Victoria & Albert Museum till August 29th 2005, as part of the Touch Me exhibition.  They are also available for order.

via We Make Money Not Art

Female Masking

"Behind my mask I am not me but a new personality ... much more exciting ..."

"Latex smoothes your face ... you are drawn inwards ..."

Do these quotes sound familiar? If so, this website is for you!

Female Masking Homepage (potentially nsfw)

Robot Girl Nods Out, Skinned

Like Eva, the disconcerting stoned teenage girl robot head, this little girl android, named Repliee R1, is a bit sleepy (mpg), maybe even a bit, um... challenged (mpg). When her skin is pulled off, she looks like Homer Simpson.

via planetdan

World Beard & Moustache Championships

The World Beard and Moustache Championships will be held in Berlin, Germany on Saturday, October 1, 2005.

Membership is still open for the World Beard and Moustache Association.
"The purpose of the World Beard and Moustache Association is to promote the worldwide appreciation of beards and moustaches, and to co-ordinate and regulate international events, including competitions, held in such a manner as to encourage friendship among those with beards and moustaches."

Dada Doll Aggregate

How many times have you endured some melodramatic doll painting representing the artist’s precious suffering and overwhelming mediocrity? Remember the art teacher’s video art in Ghost World? How about a Rasputina CD cover? The use of the doll in art has been seriously marred by weepy-eyed nostalgic Victorian aesthetics. Please dry your eyes with these Dada & Surrealism inspired Doll artists:

Hans Bellmer. – German Surrealist Bellmer would construct his waifish beauties, disassemble them and reconstruct them into grotesque bulbous heaps, the vulva always exposed. The dolls are always adorned in mary jane shoes.

Jake & Dinos Chapman –These brothers build hilarious mutant children out of reconstructed mannequins…genitals usually replace facial features and they all wear sneakers. more images here

Real Dolls (nsfw) – These highly detailed, custom built sex dolls are extremely creepy in their realism. Some photographers of Real Dolls like Elena Dorfman and the uncredited pictures on this page (nsfw) blur the line between reality and fantasy.

Van Sowerwine – This Australian artist creates interactive installations where the viewer can manipulate the residents of a doll house. Surreal and awful outcomes occur. Play With Me (installation documentation – quicktime video) - Expecting (interactive quicktime video)

Peter Caine creates juvenile and very hilarious doll tableaus. Think Paul McCarthy with intentionally shoddy craftsmanship. Take a look at Michael Jackson and Doodoo-Head Boy (quicktime video..nsfw) and SLICK WILLY (cubscout Bill Clinton) (quicktime video).

Girls and Corpses

"You know you've been thinking about it... dreaming about it... well now, here it finally is! If you're like me, you like two things, beautiful girls and rotting corpses. So, I thought, why not bring them together in one magazine?"

GIRLS AND CORPSES!

link via szanalmus

Girl Talk: Feel Bad About Yourself All Over Again

Girl Talk: Date Line was a late 80's board game. The objective was to get some dates.  It came with a cassette and a baby pink cassette player contraption. How the cassette factors into the game...I don't know...but it's full of irritating kids with Canadian accents calling each other for dates.  For your self-loathing pleasure, I have edited it down to the losers.

Girl Talk: Date Line - Losers! NO MATCH HERE! (mp3)

Art Dorks

Created by Brendan Danielsson, Art Dorks is a gathering ground for artists of the “Pop Surrealism” persuasion.  The online galleries feature established artists such as Chris Ryniak, Charles Glaubitz, Farmer Bob and Nate Williams alongside up-and-coming talents such as Matt Pasquarello and Travis Louie.

The layout is quite beautiful and includes a message board forum and a daily updated blog. Are you an Art Dork?

"What Do You Think of Hip-Hop Music?"

Brian Wharton AKA Thigamahjigee AKA Thig AKA Sharkula is Chicago character you can usually find in the Wicker Park neighborhood or on an El platform selling his homemade hip hop tapes and CD-Rs. His odd MC persona has been compared to Kool Kieth and Busta Rhymes.

He recently put out a vinyl-only release under the name Sharkula compiled from years' worth of tracks recorded in studios, on friends' computers, and on his rusty cassette recorder. His most recent CD is called “Martin Luther King Jr. Whopper With Cheese”…if that isn’t a brilliant play on words, I don’t what is.

But my favorite Sharkula/Thigahmahjigee material comes from the cassettes he records of himself walking around freestyling and approaching strangers to ask them what they think of hip-hop music. He often asks for the person’s phone number…”to receive information on hip-hop music.” I’m not sure if the interviewees realize the conversation is being recorded and the tape will be sold for $5, but most give their phone numbers without blinking
(I edited out the phone numbers)

Thigahmahjigee - street tape excerpt #1 (mp3) (NSFW)
Thigahmahjigee - street tape excerpt #2 (mp3)

Read more about Thig/Sharkula here: 1 - 2 - 3

Audio Relay

From Chicago art collective Temporary Services comes a traveling portable pirate radio station:

The Audio Relay is an autonomous radio station plus a music and sound archive. It travels from city to city gathering and presenting the work of musicians, sound artists, documentarians, and people whose work can be listened to. The Audio Relay houses a 4 watt FM transmitter, a folding antenna, a 30 watt amplifier, two speakers, two drawers that hold up to 200 cds, a cd player, two solar panels on a detachable cover, one chair and has storage space for posters and other informative material.

The Audio Relay is compact and easy to move around. Its dimensions are 22 1/2 in. x 22 1/2 in. x 9 in. The Audio Relay can be set up  anywhere. The solar panels provide some of the power. The Audio Relay  can run off any international AC power source or, for remote locations, a 12volt car battery.  The battery can be re-charged by the solar panels or by plugging the unit in to a wall outlet.

The Audio Relay can play music for an intimate audience as well as broadcast material in a radius of up to a mile away.

Audio Relay designer, Brennan McGaffey, also constructs other environmental altering projects such as the Utility-intertied Signal Generation & Transfer which transmits an Extremely Low Frequency signal by using and altering the electromagnetic field surrounding the powerline network in localized areas of the city.

link

Sweet Young Children Grab Bag

The Genius Kids (mpg) - an astounding video of a North Korean girl playing xylophone backed by a band of violins and melodicas.  via Rob Pongi, who also does a zany dance party meets Uncle Floyd show  in Tokyo.  Browse around his site, there are many other wonders.

Mini-Pops - Disco Medley (mp3) - an odd and severely grating children's record from the 80's.  This is the "Disco Medley" which includes "YMCA" and "In the Navy".  A creepy leering adult voice backs up the children on "Celebration".

Raooul - Possessed (mp3) - Raooul was an East Bay Lookout band from the early 90's comprised of 14-15 year old girls.  Their music, which they called "Jail-bait Core" is a limping screech that always make me laugh.  This is from a Very Small Records comp...their split LP on Lookout might still be in-print.

Babies with Respiratory Problems Choking (mp3) - Someone gave me this tape years ago.  The only information  on the tape is a hand scrawled "Child". 

Fatty Jubbo, Age 11 (mp3) - A recording of me, age 11.  I was obsessed with Malcolm Jamal Warner, dildos and heavy metal.  I pronounce "Fetish"  FEEETISH.

University of Michigan Inpatiant Therapy Program - Oh Come All Ye Faithful (mp3) -  From a record of a Children's Psychiatric Hospital Christmas Concert (oh...it's never too early).  This was taken from the wonderful Pastor McPurvis Vinyl Orphanage mp3 Talent Show website.  Pastor McPurvis posts a new album every week of amateur and vanity press records.

Draaiorgel!

These beautifully ornate Dutch street organs, or "Draaiogels" populate Holland streets.  Some beefy thick-neck turns a crank and the mechanical organ churns out a tune.

I once conversed with a Holland native on Soulseek about these organs:

"I hate them.  They're operated by drunkards, usually with their retarded brother, always smoking a cigar.  Then they get very belligerent when you don't give them money.  I hate them"

I would rather have these beauties on the street  than your average busker bleating out bland renditions of Billy Joel songs!

Dutch Street Organ - De Vijf Beelden (mp3)
Dutch Street Organ - De Arabier (mp3)
Dutch Street Organ - De Vijf Beelden (mp3)

Draaiorgel website - complete with info on collections, events and CDs.