Give 'Em Hell, Harry

Harry Truman tells us what we're NOT going to do about communism. The past echoes to us here in the present. Makes you think.

See the video here.

CageMatch 10-25-07

Another CageMatch, another dollar. Not my dollar, but a dollar nonetheless! Here's the video; watch it, and then come back for info.

Okay, so I went with a Halloween theme, since this will be the closest show we do to the holiday without going over. (Please have your pet spayed or neutered.) Most of it is stock footage from the Animation Factory, but I thought I used it fairly cleverly. I composited the first bit out of a still from AF, the DSI logo, and an animation from AF. The funny thing is, the animation had a moon in it, and I needed to line it up in the sky with the DSI logo. But that made the animation off-center, so if you watch it closely, the bats actually fly off the right side and disappear behind an invisible curtain. I didn't think it was too obvious, so I left it in.

The second song is one of my favourite Kiss numbers, "I Love It Loud". I extended the first drum bit so I could talk over it, then timed the speech so it went right into the lyrics. I thought it was amusing that I say "It's Halloween, and the possibilities are *frightening*" and then Gene Simmons starts off the song with "Stand up, you don't have to be *afraid*". It all makes sense in subtle ways.

The Gladiator identity is just a screen from a video game, together with a lightning background I dropped in, and a text logo I made with some pattern overlays and a distortion filter. You can see it better here.

How cool does PT look as The Emperor?

Can you identify the beginning bit and the link therein?

Shots from the show itself are here.

The Remains Of Vaudeville

I've been a fan of oldtime radio for a while now, listening to tapes of Jack Benny and Burns and Allen and whatnot since college. I've also read a lot of their biographies, and am currently making my way through the tales of Fred Allen. Allen has a lot of great stories about his vaudeville days, and it's interesting to think about a time in history when a person or group with a good eight-minute act could make a living for the rest of their life touring the various vaudeville circuits around the country. Of course, when radio came along, your fine polished act would be eaten up in a quick eight minutes, and then they'd say "what else ya got?"

Thanks to the existence of YouTube, we can peek into a little of what vaudeville was like and get aat least a taste of the unique vanished talent of that age. The picture accompanying this post is Mr. Wilbur Hall, who I had never heard of before today. He's performing a novelty violin solo act that is just amazing. You just don't see people doing stuff like this today. (And yes, he really is playing the violin here.)

I discovered that video after watching an incredible performance by Spike Jones and His City Slickers of a piece called "I Like To Sock Myself In The Face", but oddly enough, after being online for a year and viewed by over 45,000 folks, the uploader took it down sometime today. Anyway, here's another look at the weirdness and talent that is Spike Jones. Oh, and if you've never seen their classic short film for the post-prohibition song "Cocktails For Two", well check it out.

Some of y'all know I'm a huge fan of Cab Calloway. Through Cab, I discovered the amazing talent of The Nicholas Brothers, two of the best tapdancers that ever lived. Check out Cab and Fayard and Harold in this clip from Stormy Weather.

W.C. Fields got his start as a juggler, and here is his performing some of his old juggling act within the context of a larger movie. An amazing juggler who everybody knows as a movie comedian.

I was really hoping to find some footage from the movie "College Humor", which had some great vaudeville acts sandwiched in between scenes, but to no avail. Go out and rent it.

CageMatch 10-12-07

Had another CageMatch last night. Crappy attendance (like about eight people. It's hard to get fired up in front of eight people.) The video was well-received though, so I was pleased with that. This was a good one actually. Watch it here first, and then come back and read the spoilers and we'll discuss in the next paragraph.

This is the next paragraph. Have you watched the video already? Good. Can you believe that Thundercats footage? That really made the video; it was a lucky discovery. I dug around on YouTube for some Panthro footage, and found that clip and knew it would be the centerpiece of the video. What Panthro is actually saying is "You're looking at the champion scrounger," but he blends the beginning of "scrounger" in with the end of "champion", so it's pretty much tailor-made for a CageMatch video. You just edit it after he finishes the "s", and you've got him saying "you're looking at the champions." Fabulous. (You can see the original video here, at around 1:10.)

The "tiara crowning picture" is an amalgam. We didn't actually crown them at the same moment.

Joe was confused about the picture of them in suits. Y'see, Kyle had his CageMatch Champion pin in his lapel. Joe chided him at the time, saying "you don't wear buttons in a suit". So he was surprised to see himself wearing a button in his suit. (I, of course, photoshopped it in there.)

I was quite happy with the "floor is lava" effect at the end. It amused me.

We liked the video so much, we stayed after the show as they were putting up chairs and watched it again. That made me feel real good, to have people appreciate it like that.

Oh, and this is my 600th post on The Transmutation Effect. Let the confetti fall.

The Sound Of Violence

My birthday is coming up in two weeks. If anybody wants to get me something, this is a good option.

I'm not the world's biggest football fan (I like it, but I don't go out of my way to watch it) but the NFL Films music is just incredible. I used selections from this album to make all the DUAL DUEL videos this past month. It's just the perfect music to use for upbeat, driving conflict-oriented videos. Some of it is dynamic, some is cheesy, some is amusingly rooted in the 1970s, some is timeless. I love it all.

CageMatch report

Had another CageMatch this weekend. Here's the video and here's the pics.

It's hard to animate in Final Cut.

DUAL DUEL Night Three

Had the finals of DUAL DUEL last night. I sucked, but fortunately Remi picked up my slack and kept the show going, and Tommy Dynamite hit all his cues solid and went to bat when I screwed up the timing. They rocked.

I was out of sorts for some reason. Definitely not my best night. I don't think the audience noticed much (they're there to see the performers anyway, so I guess it doesn't really matter). All the teams put on a great show, and Panthro won the Grand Championship, due in part to their hilarious costume changes. Joe Jones ended up in a skintight kid's Superman outfit, and Kyle stripped down to his pants (I think Erik Martin convinced Zach that Kyle was completely naked.)

Video is here, screens are here.

DUAL DUEL Night Two

Another night of DUAL DUEL has passed. Another six teams have competed, and now we have the final four set for next Thursday's tournament. Whew! This multi-team every-week schedule is wearin' me out!

The show went even better than last week. A number of teams upped the ante and did some wild prepared stuff to make their shows special. Panthro opened up their set wearing hoodies and looking thuggish, then took those off to reveal choir robes and did a preaching segment, then took those off and had ties on underneath to do the rest of their show. Awesome. Exactly the sort of wackiness I love seeing in CageMatch. Then Crush really costumed up for their bit, with amazing makeup and outfits, as well as a hilarious way of editing their scenes that you just had to see. And Banana Breakup rocked the house with their frenetic high-above-the-stage action. (Panthro and B.B. ended up winning the evening.)

All in all, a fun night, and if you can, you should really come out next Thursday at 9:00 for the finals. It's going to be awesome, with great teams and as much ridiculous production value as I can cram into it.

Here's this week's video. (BTW, I defy anybody who reads this blog to figure out the meaning of the initial mystery sound this week.)
Here's the screens for the six teams. Vestigial Brain's art is courtesy of the one and only Remi "Artist To The Stars" Treuer (not to be confused with Troy Sterling, evil billionaire.)

Kinda Patton II: Werewolves and Lollipops

Project X revealed!

A few months ago, Patton Oswalt sent me an advance copy of his new album, Werewolves and Lollipops. Remember the crazy thing I did last Christmas for my buddy Jason? As you may recall, Patton himself really dug it, and even included it prominently on his website. Well, when he sent me the cd, he asked me to do the project again, and since last week was Jason's birthday, I spent the last two months or so assembling all the stuff mentioned on the album. So last Friday I hauled three huge boxes, three big bags, and a case of PBR over to Jason's and we assembled in his kitchen. We played the cd, and as Patton mentioned an item, I would haul it out and present it to Jason. It was a hilariously fun evening.

You can check it out here. Probably won't make too much sense if you haven't heard the album (which you should go out and buy, 'cause it's great). Go through it photo by photo to see the comments (or turn on comments in the slideshow).

I'd like to thank the following people for helping out on this immense project: Andy Neal at Chapel Hill Comics for donating the Hal Jordan figure; Nathan The Temp at work for giving me syringes and a beta blocker; my mom for making the grey drapes, giving me the wonderful fireflies, and going wayyyy above and beyond the call of duty for punching out most of the roses; Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos for the coat hanger used in the Dukes of Hazzard diorama (as well as the egg for the cupcakes, which I ended up not using when I ran out of time and just bought cupcakes); Arek Kempinski for donating the ancient cellphone; Carol Abernethy for going to CostCo for me; my buddy Ray Hunley for mailing me the Harlan Ellison; Johnny Fabulous for donating the HP Lovecraft; Town Manager Roger Stancil for going to Fayetteville to get me the Tony Roma stuff; Jeff Scronce for doing the incredibly artistic and fabulously repulsive Cirque du Soleil drawing; and to Katie Shutrump, Joe Stanton, Becky Whittemore, Jeremy Griffin, Callie Peck, Zannie Gunn, and Collette Henderson for posing for the cover of Rape Stove: The Stove That Rapes People. I couldn't have done it without you folks.

Hey, I'm Famous

Looks like the OMEGA documentary I participated in is finally becoming a reality. I'm actually even in the teaser video! More videos are here, and you can preorder the dvd set here. I haven't seen it yet (dammit, where are my free copies!?) but it looks to be pretty damn cool. I filmed all the intros for the various segments as Scott Sullivan, and then did a sitdown interview as Ted Hobgood, done in the center of the empty Southern Pines National Guard Armory, where OMEGA was born.

For those of you who don't know about OMEGA, it's the pro wrestling promotion that I used to work for as announcer, commentator, graphic designer, costumer, etc, etc. It was created by Matt Hardy and Tracy Caddell in the early 1990s as the East Coast Wrestling Federation, which then became the New Frontier Wrestling Alliance (a name I was proud to have come up with!) and finally OMEGA. This small wrestling group from rural North Carolina put on some of the best shows in the country, and our tapes were traded all over the world. People came all the way from New Jersey to see our shows. We produced more homegrown wrestling superstars to make the bigtime than any other independent wrestling organization in America. I never made it big, but I'd like to think I had a small part (albeit a very small part) in helping the guys realize their dream.

I'm really looking forward to checking this documentary out.

DUAL DUEL Night One

Yesterday was Night One of the DUAL DUEL, a little three-day two-person-team tournament I'm producing for DSI. It was an incredible show, and very personally satisfying. Everybody seemed to really appreciate what I did, and many folks came up to me afterwards and thanked me for the production. I tried my best to go around and thank everybody as well, as the groups all had really high energy and everybody seemed to be excited about participating. It was a good feeling.

But between that and Project X (more on that later) I'm exhausted, so that'll have to do for the description of the DUAL DUEL Night One.

Here's the video.
Here's the six new team identity screens.

Revisiting PTSIAM BTTF

So way back in February of this year, PT and I did a very special episode of PT Scarborough Is A Movie for the annual DSI Improv Festival. We produced a little surprise intro to the show, where we bluescreened PT into his favourite movie, Back To The Future. I just came across a few stills of that session, and thought some people might be amused or interested to see a glimpse of how we did it. It was pretty simple, actually; just required some pre-visualization. I had the whole thing in my head, and I just had to match it up in real life.

Here's the final product.
Here are the stills: one, two, threeeeeee!

Basically, I printed out a screen capture of the scene we wanted to drop PT into: the shot of the flaming tire tracks after the DeLorean has come back from its test mission. That let me approximate the right camera angle to shoot PT from. Then I went out to a couple of fabric stores to find a good shade of blue fabric. I cut it in half and sewed the two lengths together to make a big square, and we just went down to my recycling area and threw the fabric over the back of the enclosure, pushpinning it down where it was draping wrong.

Then I just had PT plop down on the fabric and say his lines. For the cigarette-lighting part, we first tried to actually light the cigarette on a Jesus candle, but ended up using the shot you see here, where he already had the ciggy lit and just mimed leaning over to light it. After it was all in the can, I took it all into Final Cut and got rid of the bluescreen via advanced technology and selected my takes. The scene we were supering PT onto is only about three or four seconds long, so I spent a little bit of time reversing and overlaying it over and over to get a usable length out of it. There's actually a license plate spinning around on the ground, but we planned the shot so that PT would be obscuring.

I think it turned out dandily.

We need to get PT back on stage again. I miss his performing genius.

DUAL DUEL is coming...

Next week, in fact. Check out the teaser here.

Hey, this might be a good time to test Blogger's new video uploading feature.

Cornering El Gigante

This past weekend, my ol' buddy Ray (famed for his appearances in two episodes of I'm Sorry, I'll Draw That Again) came down for a whirlwind visit. Ray is my oldest pal, and whenever we get together, we can just fall into our old ways and hang out and talk about the geekiest things possible and laugh until we cry and our faces turn red.

We could only hang out for a few hours, but in that brief time, Ray, his brother Dave, and The Great Keijiro (appearing without his trademark mask) all conquered the monstrous El Gigante burrito at Bandido's. Then, wearing their championship t-shirts, they wandered over to the DSI Comedy Theater, where I secretly arranged to have Ray shanghaied and pushed onto stage, where he performed some comedy improv in the game "Four Corners" during ComedySportz. Check out the adventures de Ray here.

Besobaru

Japan rules. Even their baseball is better than America's.

The Dark Dream

So I had this weird dream last night. It was about a movie that starred The Simpsons and Calvin and Hobbes, but it was a dark horror movie in the Cthulhu vein. It took place in a small New England town, and the town square (a sort of grassy open meeting place that would hold flea markets on the weekend) was covered overnight with weird thrown-together shacks that looked like the folk art of the damned. One had little cages that were full of small toys, one of which had hundreds of little rubber gorillas in it. People disappeared, there were rumours of mysterious killings and women giving birth to hideous creatures, but it was discovered that a small girl held the key to the mystery. That girl turned out to be Maggie Simpson. Occasionally, Calvin would chime in with some learned witticism as the lynch mob trudged through the snow. One of the most frightening moments in the movie came after the wedding scene, when a woman married the priest of He Who Must Not Be Named, in an attempt to save herself. But after a Christian church service that attempted to exorcise the spirits of evil, the bride appeared at the back of the church hall, only she was now just a bridal gown wrapped around a sheaf of cornstalks. Ooooo...

Somewhere in there I was going back to college, living in a towering dorm with an absent roommate, really hungry and sleepy, and my mom cleaned up my room.

This is what happens when I eat too much pizza after being in the sun too long.

How I Spent My Saturday

This weekend I did a lot of stuff, and had my camera. Here's how I spent my Saturday.

Went to Mom's house in Burlington to celebrate her birthday. Fixed her computer and gave her cool presents, like a Lego backpack and the pictured fan that spells words as it spins. We also went out to an antique mall and Big Lots and all that sort of stuff, but we had to stop at a local veterinary hospital that had hilarious huge inflatables of a tick and a mosquito. It was particularly ironic that these were lit up by floodlights which were covered by dead bugs.

We ate at the Blue Ribbon Diner, which was pretty amazing. I'll definitely be returning. Lots of good food choices. Apparently, each month they have a different burger, and this month featured this amazingly titled item. Believe it or not, I decided I had to get something else, that being the "Knife 'n' Fork Chuck Burger". Not as cool a name, but check out that description! "Black Angus Chuck Burger on 'Texas Toast' topped with cheese, bacon crumbles, a little brown gravy and an onion ring on top. Served open-face with 'gravy fries'" Well, I was sold. That whole description sounds like a Patton Oswalt routine. Had to do it. Here's what the masterpiece looked like.

Back to Carrboro to do some shows at the DSI Comedy Theater, saw a really great Cajones set and a decent episode of Match Game. Then off to Casa Ward to play Scattergories. Fiz SitKimmons and I were a team, and we smoked the fuck out of everybody. Mainly because in the final round, I volunteered Hollywood Hulk Hogan and Hunter Hearst Helmsley. It was fun to be around everybody, especially Eitan, who made it into just about every picture. Finally met the lovely Kathleen, who did not sing "Take Me Home Again", but was fun to be around. Katie was giggly, Joe was amusingly caustic, and Tommy tragically died and was marked by his assailant.

Oh, and Jeremy got his revenge on me by using my camera to take a picture of his man-staff.

Sunday had no pictures, but Brantley and I brunched, I shopped, I napped, and I lazed.

Flea Market Wackiness

So this weekend I went out to do some flea marketing with my friend Jess, and we came across some nutty things, which I thought I'd share with you courtesy of the fine folks at Flickr.

Actually, it all starts the day before when I saw a cool crack in the sidewalk that looked like a directional arrow, pointing straight down the street.

Okay, onto the fair. We got there and discovered that the Dorton Arena was hosting some sort of Christian inflatable party activity demonstration fair. Oh YES! Music was provided by, of course, Heaven. The whole arena was full of these giant bouncy amusement thingamajigs. Jess and I were quite amused by the inflatable church, thinking that there should've been a sign that read "If the chapel's a-rockin', don't bother knockin'." For some reason, I just loved the roller coaster with the stiff-backed inflatable people jammed into their ascending car. The best one, though, was the huge Steroid Man that invited you to jump up and down under his crotch.

Elsewhere at the fair, we had the loneliest employee in the park, trapped in her giant orange pac-man. I waan't quite hungry enough to have a giant neon fried Twinkie. I think the most artistic shot of the day came from some lovely painted mermaids. My favourite product was the extremely creepy chimp-dominated Noah's Ark, accompanied by the pitiful Cleopatra.

But the photo of the day has to go to something Jess pointed out at a booth selling crappy purses. Yes, please.

CageMatch 8-9-07

We had another CageMatch last night. Not much to say about the production side. I had a devil of a time coming up with a screen for the challengers, 1-2-3 Ingestion. Lordy, these names. The video was a simple affair, focusing on Elaine's stupendous achievement of five CageMatch wins. I amused myself by using incidental music from "Battle Of The Planets" and a remix of Europe's "Final Countdown". I also chose an amusing entrance theme for 1-2-3 Ingestion, "Eat The Rich" by Aerosmith.

The identity screen is here, the video is here.

We also premiered the new CageMatch Loser Pin last night, via a special appearance from PT Scarborough as famed Smitty's Bar postal deliveryman Shoney "Postie" Taylor. PT was hilarious, as usual, and it seemed like people were really happy to see him on stage again, so that was cool. Elaine gave a boffo show and won their sixth title, a measure equaled only by the now-legendary Siegel-Prov.

After the show, a bunch of us moved over to Speakeasy and celebrated Joe Stanton's birthday. Much fun was had by all, Zannie and Becky danced to the live tunes of Big Fat Gap, and I kicked Zach Ward in the balls. Zach and I also made plans for the upcoming Dual Duel tournament in September, which should rock (if people actually form two-man teams and submit them...). I love tournaments. Brackets rule.

Yes, I Bought An iPhone

Well, I was planning to wait until the price dropped and they worked the kinks out, but after an upsetting trip to the dentist, I decided I deserved a present, and bought myself an iPhone. Yeah, it was expensive (I got the 8G model); yeah, the per-month charge is expensive (another $20 on top of the $40 I'm already spending); yeah, AT&T sucks (but I was always happy with Cingular, and couldn't find a provider in town who I liked more); BUT I bought one anyway.

I like it. Lots. My number one love is that it just WORKS. I've had smartphones before (a Treo and a Kyocera Palm), but they were clunky, the applications didn't work consistently, and the interface was atrocious. The iPhone is very smartly designed, and works like you expect things to work. The touchscreen is phenomenal. The apps are quick, useful, and fun to work with. The interface helps you do what you want to do instead of getting in the way of what you want to do. And my biggest bane from my old phones is nowhere to be seen, as the iPhone syncs beautifully with my computer, sharing calendars, contacts, pictures, mp3s, movies, and just about everything.

The camera is pretty damn phenomenal for a phonecam, taking clear 1200x900 pictures (that get reduced to 640x480 when emailing the pictures from the phone; the full rez versions get synced to iPhoto when you dock the iPhone). I didn't like the software-based keyboard at first, but I'm quickly getting used to it, and it's certainly the best on-screen keyboard I've ever used. The Google Maps interface rocks, and was immensely helpful while wandering through NYC this past weekend. I also had the Manhattan subway system map stored in my Photos application if I ever needed that. There's a dedicated YouTube program which can be amusing, although there's a lot of YouTube videos that haven't been formatted for the iPhone yet. Hell, I even check on my one share of WWE stock every once in a while with the Stock app.

What it doesn't do: to my knowledge, the Notes program doesn't sync to anything openable on the host computer, which is pretty surprising. The camera is stills-only, so you can't take video (which is also pretty surprising, since you have tons of onboard storage space). There's a big omission in that there's no To-Do list. And currently, the iPhone doesn't do Flash, so you can't watch cool animations or see some features of websites. (This is why not all of YouTube is accessable yet.) All of these can be easily fixed with a firmware upgrade, and I'd be willing to bet they will be.

One of the most glaring omissions, for me anyway, is that this thing is an iPod AND a phone and YET, you can't use your own mp3s as ringtones. This smacks of some stupidass agreement that Apple made with recording companies or AT&T or something, and it pisses me off. There's a third party app that fixes this error, but I haven't tried it yet for fear of fucking up my phone. The onboard ringtones are great, and there's enough other toys to play with in the iPhone, but for an iPod phone to not let you use custom mp3s as ringtones is outrageous.

But overall, is it worth it? Hellz yeah. I wanted a phone that worked and worked well, that would sync cleanly and work smoothly on a day to day basis. I didn't need the iPod functionality--I have an iPod for that! But now that I have the iPhone, I notice I am just listening to music or watching videos when I might not otherwise do so. The speakers in the iPhone are pretty decent, and you can just set the thing down and listen without the need for earphones. The video screen is huge and crazy sharp. People are really impressed when I show off the ripped dvd of DON that I have on there. It's a lot smaller than the Treo I used to use, and unlike the Treo, it doesn't crash or run out of juice randomly. The iPhone actually fits invisibly into my daily life, as a good tool should.

I heart my iPhone.