| SOL Post 58 | 07/15/01 |
| SOL Post 57 | 06/15/01 |
| SOL Post 56 | 04/15/01 |
S.O.L. POST
==========================================================================
Volume 57
http://www.msties.com/
May/Jun 2001
Formerly The MSTies Anonymous Newsletter: News for the Obscure Convergence
==========================================================================
MSTies Invade Columbia U.
In This Issue
From the Poobah
"Jenny For Your Thoughts" by jenny@msties.com
"Better 'Bots and Satellites" by bill@msties.com
June/July MST3K Schedules
Classifieds 3000
How You Can Contribute!
Disclaimers
Big Bird: Hello, nice to have you here.
Summer sucks in a whole lot of ways, but there truly is nothing worse than
heat. Now, we are not talking about that warm breeze that wafts across your
brow as winter begins to shed its icy skin for spring. And there is no ill
will felt for the roasting fire, waiting for chestnuts, cold footpads and
drunken Texas frat boys to nuzzle up to it and awaken their inner temperate
zone. A hot, steamy cup of coffee, latte, chocolate or Dr. Pepper is a great
way to start your morning, and your colon. And there is no better feeling on a
bracing November evening than leaping into your bed, doing a full one and one
half gainer with a twist, and landing in the middle of a big, huggly-snuggly
down comforter and proceeding to root around like a dyspeptic badger settling
in for a somber seasonal siesta.
Warning #1: A PROMOTION IS ONLY A PROMOTION IF IT BETTERS ONE'S LOT IN LIFE.
Warning #2: SOUTH AMERICANS DO NOT LOOK KINDLY ON ETHEL MERTZ
Warning #3: THE QUONSET HUT IS NEITHER, AND BOTH.
Warning #4: FIFTIES FASHION AND UNBEARABLE HEAT DO NOT MIX.
Warning #5: JOHN DENVER IS A DIRTY DEAD LIAR!
Montevallo, AL
Colorado State University - Fort Collins, CO
Members of MSTies Anonymous are always invited to contribute MST-related
articles to this newsletter, plug their MST3K activities/sites/etc. in the
Classifieds 3000, or even start up a regular column of their own! Stuck for
ideas on what to write about? Try the following...
#(8)o Biography of a Brain
The SOL Post is published each month on the 15th, so all items to be
published are due on the 14th. Write early, and write often! Huzzah!
From the Poobah
Oh my, what a trip. Yes, the last-minute decision to fly on out to New York
City for the MST3K panel at Columbia University combined with the newsletter's
columnists submitting their pieces this week postponed this edition of the SOL
Post to its old publication date of the 15th.
So on last Friday morning, yours truly woke up well before the crack of
dawn at 4 am MDT in order to catch my flight to LaGuardia via Chicago Midway.
On the ground in New York at 4 pm EDT, it was a half-hour, $1.50 bus ride from
LaGuardia in Queens to Alfred Lerner Hall in Manhattan. Armed only with a
duffel bag for my clothes and potential autograph fodder plus a backpack for
NYC souvenirs, I tried not to look too much like a big white guy jaunting
around the city as the out-of-place tourist I was.
Since the bus dropped me off right outside a Japanese grocery store and the
restaurant made famous by some comedian's sitcom just two blocks south of the
event's venue, I grabbed some sushi for dinner and eagerly awaited the
evening's panel while sitting on a bench on the boulevard of Broadway. Good
stuff, really. Not wasting any time, I walked the two blocks up to Lerner Hall
and camped out for the next two hours leading up to the show. Slowly but
surely, my fellow MSTies streamed into a slowly forming line and enjoyed each
other's obsessive companies during the wait.
When the doors finally opened at 7:30, those of us at the very front of the
line made a mad dash for front row, center seats. We were certainly in for
quite a show...
I'll complete the text of this report alongside what few pictures I could
take prior and following the laugh-in with a new entry in the site's Spotlight
section sometime this month. In the meantime, enjoy the SOL Post and see how
you can contribute!
"Jenny For Your Thoughts" by jenny@msties.com
Hey do you remember when Krankor mania swept the land? Well it was a long
time ago when "Prince of Space" first premiered. Though the movie flopped,
everyone loved Krankor. He was on talk shows, in newspapers and on t- shirts.
But did you know that he and Big Bird dated? It's true. I decided to go to
Sesame Street and talk to the Bird about this failed Hollywood romance.
(Sesame Street and all related elements belong to Henson Productions. Just so
you know, I always thought Big Bird was girl. I don't know why. It never
clamed a sex and if it did, I missed it.)
Kismet1 (trying to get comfortable in Big Bird's nest): Nice to be here. Now,
Big Bird, I know this is old stuff, but I wanted to talk to you about
your brief romance with Krankor. Do you mind talking about it?
Big Bird: No, I don't mind. That relationship should have ended long before it
began. I don't know why I ever went out with him.
Kismet1: So why did you?
Big Bird: I guess everyone just expected it. They thought that just because
some Hollywood stars have only one thing in common or look good
together, they should go out. So we were always sitting together at
award ceremonies and dinners.
Kismet1: So was it all public pressure or were you one time attracted
to Krankor?
Big Bird: Sure I was attracted to him. I mean, what bird wouldn't be? He had a
lot of good qualities.
Kismet1: Like what?
Big Bird: Well, he had great sense of humor, always laughing. Great fashion
and decorating taste. He was very powerful and decisive.
Kismet1: So why did you guys break up?
Big Bird: He was possessive. He always said he was going to conquer me and
take over Sesame Street.
Kismet1: Really?
Big Bird: But he never did. He was all talk with no follow through. Plus he
was such a coward and a wimp. He once threatened Elmo. Elmo just
scratched his nose and Krankor backed off.
Kismet1: Wow.
Big Bird: Plus he couldn't pick up a clue if life depended on it.
Kismet1: How so?
Big Bird: Well I had to tell him it was over about million times before he
left me alone. I came this close to getting a restraining order.
Kismet1: What a messy break up. So are you seeing any one now?
Big Bird: Yes, I'm now dating Snuffalupugus.
Kismet1: That's great. Now as I remembered, you and Krankor supported many
organizations.
Big Bird: Oh yes, Krankor was good leader. He had many ideas but would obsess
about them and wouldn't let go no matter what.
Kismet1: How so?
Big Bird: Well, we were supporting several animal rights organizations. We did
some charity work in Hollywood with the Gill Man.
Kismet1: Oh yes, I talked with him a few weeks ago.
Big Bird: We were in an organization for birds and everything was going great.
But Krankor wanted to be the leader of the organization. He and the
Gill Man had big fight and he got kicked out the organization. I
knew then that the relationship was over.
Kismet1: I bet he still came around trying take over the place, though.
Big Bird: Oh, you have no idea. Once the police had to take him away to jail.
After that he never came back.
Big Bird: Krankor had a strange vision of birds leading the world.
Kismet1: A world where birds evolve from man?
Big Bird: No, just one where they took control of the world's countries.
Kismet1: Oh, I see.
Big Bird: I knew it wouldn't work.
Kismet1: Why?
Big Bird: Not to be down or anything, but most birds are not good leaders. I
mean, sure there are a few ducks and I guess they can lead a flock
down south, but that's about it.
Kismet1: Don't forget the chickens that can count.
Big Bird: Oh yes, them too. But if you give bird hard job like writing a peace
treaty or reducing the budget, they won't do very good job.
Kismet1: Is that where the phrase 'feather-brained' came from?
Big Bird: Yes, most birds can't make hard decisions. That's why I have a
manager and an agent: people I can trust to help mange my funds and
make the hard decisions so all I have to do is perform and not go
into debt like Bert.
Kismet1: Bert's in debt?!
Big Bird: Whoops, I didn't mean to say that. See, he has taste for those
pigeon races. Ernie helps to keep him out of the red. That's why
they're still living together.
Kismet1: Are you sure that's the ONLY reason they're still living together?
Big Bird: Hey, we have saying on this street. As long you don't hurt anyone
and you don't bring it up when the cameras are running, it's
nobody's business.
Kismet1: Sure, but what do you think?
Big Bird: Hey, when did this interview turn to the subject of Bert and Ernie?
Kismet1: You're the one that brought it up.
Big Bird: I don't have any answer to this question.
Kismet1: Okay geez, I'm sorry.
Big Bird: It's okay, but I have to go.
Kismet1: Thanks for you time.
"Better 'Bots and Satellites" by bill@msties.com
Vol. 3, Issue 8
Feeling Hot Hot Hot: Summertime, and the living is greasy!
No, the kind of heat we're referring to is the thick, dank, fetid kind; the
primordial ozone of Hell itself; its the inside of Satan's Dan skin; it feels
like the moist, blotchy terrarium nightmare that is Joe Don Baker's Spiderman
underoos or the inside seam of Old Man Crenshaw's bayou baked bib overalls. It
fires across your face like a bacon-y belch after an IHOP Golden Fruit Rootey
and it streams across your body like boiling mineral oil being liberally
brushed upon your overheated carcass, basting you into a state of advance
prostration. It's the kind of heat that turns your forehead into a sweat
waterfall, your back into a soggy Rorschach test, and your butt crack into
Joseph Conrad's biochemical Heart of Darkness. In places like Arizona, it
manifests itself in dry aridness, making people glad they don't live in Texas
or Florida. In places like the Cattle and Sunshine states, it turns people
into serial killers and Jeb Bush.
Sure, when you are laying on the beach, brazing the upper layers of your
epidermis into a pre-cancerous long pig rind, the generous blast of the Sun's
hydrogen factory makes the acrid red tide smell of an ocean filled with half-
dead croppies that much more palatable, not to mention the melanoma all the
more malignant. And after seven hours in the frozen tundra of a Midwest
maelstrom, trying your damnest to put one foot in front of the other (in true
Winter Warlock fashion) less frostbite become your toe jams latest side dish,
the fatty blast of a good old fashioned basement oil furnace is welcome along
the odiferous and slowly turning gangrenous appendages. In Wok cookery, high
temperatures are a must, less your Chow Mien become minor and your Moo Goo Gai
simply stick to the Pan. Spicy foods are also fine, unless its one of those
abnormal India curries which substitutes the dark matter of black holes for
Garum Marsala. One only eats those if they have a lead lined alimentary canal
and an asbestos anus.
However, when heat becomes less beneficial and more dictatorial, when it
tells you what to wear, when to open your door and just how rank you will
indeed smell, it is time to consider the alternatives. You could while away
your remaining days in the various and sundry mountain ranges of the world,
with cool crisp air filled with the pungent aroma of pine trees, snowfall and
Appalachian children surrounding you. Perhaps you'd prefer an extended stay in
the fertile farm field of America's heartland. It's no worse than the Gulf
Coast, and what would you rather put up with? Tornados, blizzards and the
occasional plague of locusts, or hurricanes, brush fires and elderly white men
in tank tops and Bermuda shorts, puffy and aged skin reddened and ripe with
age spots? Maybe you'll want to make the leap all the way to Canada or Canada
Jr., otherwise known as Montana, where the only time things get hot is when
discussing Quebec, the death penalty or domestic beer. Finally, either one of
the poles, would be perfect for the person wishing to avoid the whole $5 T-
shirt and saltwater taffy tackiness of the touristy tropics. After all, the
Artic or its southern Ant have very few outlet malls. Or all you can eat
Asian buffets.
But the one thing you would never, ever want to do is make matter worse.
And yet that is exactly what the Dufus family does in the recently unveiled
great lost MST3K short, Assignment: Venezuela. Instead of heeding the heat and
getting right out of kitchen, they throw frying pan into the fire, toss baby
into the scalding bathwater and motor toward the Equator, Hades halfway point.
"Better 'Bots and Satellites," having recently viewed this long lost wonder,
offers the following warnings as to why exactly one would want to avoid
Central and South America all together, unless you are talking about Brazil.
That is one swinging place.
The boss walks into your office. He seems a little more pensive than usual.
You realize that this may be the first time ever that he has ever stepped foot
in the 4 x 8 cubicle that you call Hell House, or your workstation. (He's
never seen the Dilbert and Dogbert combination pen, pencil and penicillin
holder. He may like the Dale Earnhardt commemorative mouse pad, or even the
Dale Earnhardt Jr. decorative back and neck support. He'll probably object to
the Gilmore Girls At-A-Glance Wall Calendar, but even an old, tired coot like
him could not find the Fiona Apple flexible stick ruler fetching.) His
cholesterol choked heart and bottom lined filled head tired from the extended
rat race he has found his life and/or career track on, the stooped over
superior pulls the Triple H wastebasket from beside your stress reducing,
anatomically designed desk chair and overturns it, spilling Subway sandwich
and Met-Rx Bar wrappers all over the floor. He places a pale and pensive paw
on your tired forearm, and utters the words that you have been longing
to hear:
"Congratulations, Henderson, you've been promoted. Pack your bags, you and
your family are moving to the Dry Tortugas."
As he leaves, lumbering down the corridor leaving a mist of failure and one
too many Rob Roys in his wake, and right before you make that personal call to
the Missus and proclaim your fiduciary fortune, perhaps you should stop and
think: is this actually an upgrade? A professional betterment? A vocational
vacation, or is it only an invitation to dance with scorpions, constant body
odor and prickly heat. If only the henpecked hero in Assignment: Venezuela,
had stopped to ask a few questions, maybe he wouldn't have looked so lost,
limp and out to lunch. The next time your occupational better wanders in to
pitch the notion of you making a bee line to Belize, ask him the following
questions:
(A) Will this new job consist mainly of sweating profusely?
(B) Will I be required to spend countless hours dodging the sun and its
ultraviolet radiation?
(C) Should I start hydrating now?
(D) Does the insurance plan cover all types of skin cancer?
(E) Does the insurance plan cover all types of stroke, or just the
conventional, paralyzing non-heat type?
(F) Was being pitted out part of my job description when I signed on?
(G) Can I still get a letter of recommendation from you if I, right now, knee
you in the groin and run away screaming like a little girl?
Once you've covered the basics, issues regarding weekly Solarcane
allowances and a Malaria prospectus can be worked out. And remember: you went
to community college for this!
There is an episode of the classic I Love Lucy in which the aforementioned
Ms. Ball is writing a Hispanic play for hubby Ricky to star in. She offers a
copy of the completed script to her blousy and buttery best friend, played
with vim, vigor and a little Vitalis by Vivian Vance. Agreeing to help
rehearse this future Tony winner, she opens the pages, seems confused, recalls
the appropriate sense memory, and awaits her cue. The comedy begins, as Lucy
enters the room draped in a taco franchise style shawl and the following
hilarious exchange occurs:
Lucy: Buenas Dias, Mamasita Como Estan?
Ethel: My bean low kitta.
Guess you had to be there. Anyway, this is a perfect example of why South
Americanos hate Norte Americanos. The language barrier is just that, a means
of keeping the Spanish and English away from each other, like delineating the
masculine and feminine gender of a word, or the Alamo. If one finds themselves
knee deep in Cinco de Mayo without a pelota, than follow these easy steps to a
truly bi-lingual communication breakdown.
Rule #1 - Something spoken loudly, and incorrectly, is still being spoken
loudly, and as such, should be paid attention to, damnit.
Rule #2 - Failing the proper pronunciation of a word, it is always better to
make it sound even more silly by adding stereotypical suffixes like
"-eo", "-io", and "-ole".
Rule #3 - A sentence like "Yo quiero Taco Bell" is, never has been nor never
will be a workable pick up line.
Rule #4 - Being able to say "I appreciate all the help you have given me," in
Spanish is one thing, but knowing how to blurt out, "Should I really
be vomiting this much blood," will come in far handier.
Rule #5 - "Si" means "yes". No means No. "Que" means "what" and "caca" is
rather self-explanatory.
And don't forget. Nothing is more fluent louder to a person earning $.25
per day slaving away in a multinational sweatshop pumping out designer
watchbands than the almighty US dollar. Either that, or just shouting at them.
I mean they must be deaf, not understanding English.
Nothing screams the summer electric better than the searing kiss of cool
flesh on blistering metal. Remember when your wicked Uncle Ernie grabbed your
short shorted behind and propped you up on the hood of his sun seasoned
Oldsmobile, thigh backs hitting the white hot fender with a sizzle that would
make Emeril Lagasse swoon. Or am I the only one? Anyway, the sun loves metal
and visa versa. The natives of the Central and Southern Americas understood
this, and chose to build their adobes, doublewides and ranch style
subdivisions out of dirt, peat and mud. You see, your basic compost holds onto
the sun only when it is necessary, letting go of the wanton warmth when the
dweller needed a repast. They would never think of cutting an industrial sized
coffee can in half, and then living in it. They may drink from the same river
they pee in, but they know better than to live in a human sized roasting oven.
But that is what a Quonset hut is: a half-moon of metal stuck into concrete
with magma and lava, and then lined with toaster wires and convection fans.
Now, in Iceland or North Dakota, this would be a fairly viable living option.
The tin roof can rust and all manner of hail and/or gallstones can pelt the
foundation, and with an acetylene torch and a ball peen hammer, you're Norm
Abrams. But in the equatorial easy bake environment to our South, a Quonset
hut becomes a George Foreman grill with convenient high intensity nuclear
meltdowns on all sides for even blood boiling. Now imagine living inside, all
stifling day and night long: hair crispy and starting to smell; pores
excreting toxins, precious bodily fluids and McDonald's cheeseburgers. Hinder
producing it's own gravy and armpits swarming with sea monkeys. Suddenly, the
concept of burning in Hell forever comes sharply into focus. And seems like
an improvement.
Overly starched white shirts with pressed collars and crisp cuffs. A
Seersucker suit made of the finest manufactured fibers, all insulating and
constricted. Tight leather shoes housing support hosed legs and palm-ade
plastered pates with hard angled fedoras adorning them like fabric caps on
ready to burst overheated human radiators. Women in gowns, dresses and Capri
pants, hair piled high and heavy upon their overly pan caked mugs. Wool
jumpers housing flannel under wire bras, and long, skin suffocating silk hose
slicked on the legs like paint on a Laugh-In dancer. While the style of
clothing in the Fifties lent a sort of moral and social decency to everything
it came in contact with, there is no denying that in the sultry swamplands of
Tropic of Cancer, there is nothing more out of place. Or chaffing.
Little children had it much worse. Mom and Dad were used to binding their
beef and booze bloated bodies and bodices into all manner of ill fitting
garments just to go to the grocery store, but Junior and Little Kim were used
to wandering the landscape fresh, clean and pressed in smart dungarees and
cottony summer dresses. The t-shirt was a badge of honor and the short pant a
coming of age. Then they hit the warmer climes, and Pop thinks nothing of
making little Johnny march around in a pair of itchy dress pants and a mohair
dress shirt. Suzy, carefree and simple, is introduced to a whole world of
undergarments that she is mentally, and physically ill prepared for. And all
of this is in pursuit of the ever-elusive white man's burden of trying to
convince the far more comfortably dressed natives that the gringos are wry and
sophisticated, when all they really should be is dry and odor free.
I hate to break it to the dearly departed Duke of Dork rock, but sunshine
on one's shoulder, eyes or even on the water is neither a cause or source of
happiness, a reason to weep (unless you've burnt out your retinas) and could
hardly even be considered at even a Dorothy Kilgowen level of loveliness. In
Venezuela, it is hot! Unbelievably hot! Friggin' in the riggin' hot! Smokin'
hot! Powerfully hot! J Lo at the Grammys hot! The sun beats down on your brain
until it becomes a Hannibal Lector entree, and your ears buzz with an internal
hotfoot that no amount of Lipton iced tea can brisk you away from. You start
to think weird thoughts: insects would make a viable food source. Soccer is an
entertaining sport. Drying and crushing this fermented leaf into a white
powder would create quite the economic boom for my 32 children and myself.
Someone once said that a person could go crazy from the heat. The fact that
Ricky Martin was huge in lower half of the Western hemisphere for years before
he made it big in the US of A seems to bear that out.
Sunshine is not your friend; it is your worst enemy. It bakes the skin into
fine leather, suitable for handbags and shoes, but not a garment bag, as it
tends to clash with Armani and Donna Karan. It fades colors to the point that
street gangs in Peru are named after the primary colors in their bandanas: the
Pearls, the Eggshells and the Vanillas. Without some water to counteract its
destructive properties, it provides draught, blight and that really boss
looking cracked earth pattern upon the ground. Sunshine may have been a
favorite fixation with Johnny D, but ask him what he was thinking about as his
plane was plummeting to the rock hard ocean surface. I doubt very seriously it
had anything to do with sunspots, solar winds or flares. Solar power, maybe.
So the next time you are dying for a Rocket pop but there is not a single
non-molester owned Ice Cream truck in view, as the sweltering day turns into a
balmy night and the re-circulated air machine you rely on to keep sane picks
up and moves to Minnesota and you've taken yet another tepid shower while
never once moving from your Barca-lounger, remember this one thing. Billions
of years from now when your overheated and sun soaked body is nothing more
than the dust under an atomically destroyed and rebuilt civilization, or
swimming in the undersea mud after the final melting of the earth's ice cubes
into its evolutionary cocktail, the star at the middle of our galaxy will
blink a couple of times, grow dim and fade from view. And like God turning out
the light on the kids in the backyard, life will take its assortment of human
Pokémon and finally go to bed. And the earth will be covered in ice. And on a
nearby planet somewhere, some alien slob in a sweat soaked space suit will
wish he lived there. On second thought, lets not think about it. It's just so
damn hot!
June/July MST3K Schedules
Sci-Fi Channel
{All times are Eastern and tentative}
06/02/01 - 9:00 am - 1010 It Lives By Night
06/09/01 - 9:00 am - 1004 Future War
06/16/01 - 9:00 am - 0817 Horror of Party Beach
06/23/01 - 9:00 am - 0818 Devil Doll
06/30/01 - 9:00 am - 1009 Hamlet
07/07/01 - 9:00 am - 0913 Quest of the Delta Knights
07/14/01 - 9:00 am - 0910 Final Sacrifice
07/21/01 - 9:00 am - 1003 Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders
07/28/01 - 9:00 am - 0822 Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
{All times are Central and tentative, at Gwen Cupp's House unless noted}
06/01/01 - 7:00 pm - EPISODE TBA (invite-only, not at Gwen's)
06/15/01 - 7:00 pm - 0604 Zombie Nightmare
07/06/01 - 7:00 pm - 0019 Hangar 18
07/20/01 - 7:00 pm - 0812 Incredibly Strange Creatures
{On hiatus until classes start again in August.}
Classifieds 3000
ahaws@thegrid.net writes: "We all have choices in life. Some are easy: Kirk or
Picard? Some are a little tougher: Ren or Stimpy, chocolate or vanilla? Some
are downright cruel: Joel or Mike, Bobo or TV's Frank, Dr. F or Mrs. F? The
debates will keep raging but they won't keep you from watching. Join Andrew &
Company for open discussion... but not during the episode, okay? Certified
MSTies by the MST3K Info Club: Andrew & Co, CrowNTom@bolt.com, (408) 514-2600
x7813 (with apologies to Sam Swanson)."
How You Can Contribute!
#(8)o MST ASCII art
#(8)o Short MSTings of a Usenet posts
#(8)o Any episode/season review
#(8)o 'Bot building experiences
#(8)o MST event experiences
#(8)o Turn your favorite newspaper article into your own about MST
#(8)o Gateway Con
#(8)o Tape trading trials and tribulations
#(8)o MST site development hell
#(8)o Old series war tales
Disclaimers
All material written by club members in this publication does not necessarily
reflect the views or opinions of the staff of MSTies Anonymous. Endorsement of
above publicized activities not operated by MSTies Anonymous should not be
implied. Published material is subject to editing only for spelling, grammar,
clarity, and formatting; other changes are not made without express written
consent of the author.
Events presented by MSTies Anonymous of Colorado may be sponsored by one or
more of the following campus groups: the Associated Students of Colorado State
University, the Association for Student Activity Programming, and/or the
Panhellenic Council (long story).
Mystery Science Theater 3000, its characters and situations are copyright 2001
Best Brains, Inc. This publication is not meant to infringe on any copyrights
held by Best Brains, the Sci-Fi Channel, or their employees.
"Gizmonics" and all related elements are copyright and trademark Joel Hodgson.
This publication is not meant to infringe on any copyrights held by him, so
please do not sue us.
© 2001 MSTies Anonymous
The Poobah mstanon@msties.com
Jet Jaguar kret0419@blue.UnivNorthCo.edu
Zen Psycho zenpsycho@yahoo.com
"Wha-hubba?"