Bad Vibes

I don't talk much on teh politics (and how has 'teh' become such a big deal? every time I mistype 'the,' without exception, it's the other way around--'hte'), but this comment about the current immigration controversy strikes me as just right.

Random Odds and Ends

Had a car accident on Saturday and traveled to Muskogee last night to visit my father in the hospital, so the story I was planning to enter in Writers of the Future is still unfinished. At least that's my current excuse. It's been an extraordinarily hard story to write, which is weird, because on the surface, it seems very simple and straightforward.

I've been listening to a lot of old radio lately, and I'm debating putting together a new podcast about it.

Saw one of weathermen at work give his seven-day forecast a couple of weeks ago. All seven days were virtually identical: similar temperatures with a 50% chance of rain. Is there any clearer way for a weatherman to say, "Hell, your guess is as good as mine. Just flip a coin already."

And just for fun, here are clips of intricate and clever Rube Goldberg-style devices featuring rolling marbles and thread spools, with an addictive little jingle at the end of each.

Superhero Weekend

It was a superhero weekend here. City of Heroes/Villains has had a double xp event going all weekend, so I got my main guy, Metatronic, to level 50 (as high as the game goes) finally. After 677 hours of gameplay, and there wasn't even a fireworks display or anything. That was Friday night and Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon, I took Metatronic's evil twin, Dark Meta, up to level 25.

Then on Saturday evening, I wrote the first draft of a new Digger short story. There's some good stuff in there, but the ending is weak, I think, so I may have to redo it.

This morning, Sunday, I took my evil mastermind, Metalord, to level 18. Then The Girl took me out for Father's Day. We went to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

It wasn't bad, as comic book movies go. As I've said before, I wasn't fond of the first one; I thought it was too goofy, and I hated what they did with Doctor Doom.

Well, Doom comes back in this one, and I don't like him any better this time around. But the adventure works a little better this time around, although the Fantasticar flies way too fast for something without a windshield. Then again, not only do the comedy bits work better in this movie, but the climactic shout-outs to the original comic and the classic villain, the Super Skrull, are pretty cool.

Then it was back home to squeeze a little bit more out of double xp weekend, leveling up both Doctor Jolt (a City of Heroes character based on one of my Hero Go Home guys) and MC Square (a hero who's set to appear in the sequel to Hero Go Home).

Oh yeah, and in between I watched cartoons. So yeah, it was pretty non-stop superhero action for me.

History of the British People

I have come, haltingly and not without much trepidation, to love history. Which is to say, in my youth, I did not seek out knowledge of older times and older ways. That stuff was old, and not nearly as cool as television, and even less cool than what was on television, like Space Ghost.

As I grew older, I discovered that ignorance of history was not an entirely good thing, so I began to read a little, and liking it, read some more. I'm not what you could call well-versed in history, by any means, but I know a bit of this and that, and on occasion, I get in the mood to be educated rather than entertained.

Which is an awfully long prelude to the story of a party I went to on Saturday night. I didn't know the lady whose party it was very well, and I knew very few of the guests. And as a sat down, I noticed a small stack of antique books on the table next to me. Curious, I picked up the top one. Green's History of the English People Vol. II.

Hmmm. Well, having nothing better to do, I picked it up to read a few pages, and ended up immersing myself in the book for the rest of the evening. It was fascinating. And when I was done, I decided to read a book that had been sitting around my house for ages, waiting for me to decide to read it. That book was Rebecca Fraser's The Story of Britain. So that's what I'm reading now.

But since it tries to handle a longer period of time that Green's book, it has to skim where Green's book dealt in depth with the rule of folks like Edward the Second. So I may end up going back to the Green volumes when I'm done with this.

Podcast Ep. 2

Yes, I continue to give the world's cheapest microphone a workout. I'm getting better at this, although I'm spending way too much time on each show. If it continues to be this much effort, I won't keep it up for long, at least not regularly. So here's the show. (25MB, 27:15)

Show Notes:

Backward masking (actually "backmasking" according to Wikipedia) started with a hoax.

Discussion of bands purposely inserting backmasked messages in songs: examples include ELO, Weird Al Yankovic and Oingo Boingo. Yes, I misquoted Al: he said "Wow," I said "Boy."

Accusations of hidden satanic messages in reversed speech. Examples include: Cheap Trick, Popeye(!), and a random guy from the BBC.

Why does this happen? Three reasons discussed in some detail, with digressions into military radio procedures, Stairway to Heaven (Robert Plant backwards sounds like Brak, BTW), classified coded messages from North Korea, and more Oingo Boingo. Along with shocking revelations from the first podtest two weeks ago!

Most examples taken from backmaskonline.com and reversespeech.com. Theme music by Partners in Rhyme.

I need a new theme song, and a topic for next week. Let me know if you like this one, and if you'd like to hear more.

Official Episode 1

So I did another podcast. The link is here. (21 MB, 22:34)

Show notes:

Show was recorded late at night, so I'm speaking very quietly. Try not to fall asleep.

Comments on the Tomorrow show referenced last week.

Theme songs from 60's Hanna-Barbera cartoons, with a special surprise.

Theme music from Partners in Rhyme.

Have fun. We're still getting better.

I'm a Hero!

There's this cool thing that Verizon is doing called "Action Hero." Basically, you upload a photo of your face, manipulate a few sliders, pick out some plot points and lines of dialogue, and voila!

You're starring in your own action movie!



It's not perfect. The picture I used was taken at a slight angle that makes my face look more lopsided than usual, and the lighting in the picture wasn't even enough, making me look blotchy. The voice isn't at all close to mine, either, which really hurts the illusion. If I could read the lines as well as have my face mapped on the figure, it would rule.

Studio 60 Again?

So Friday, I'm looking at the programs the Media Center PC has recorded, and it has a new Studio 60 on it. Apparently, after NBC announced they'd cancelled it, they decided to burn off some unaired episodes. Strange thing is, this is one of the best episodes of the entire series, and it is the only one in which none of the three principal actors appears. Coincidence?

Pod-Test-Cast

So here's the learning experience. The audio quality isn't great, partly because I'm using the cheapest microphone on earth. It took a long time to download for me, even though the file isn't that big. It's about 18 MB and 19 minutes long. It's not great, but it can only get better, right?

Show Notes:

Opening theme, mixed by Tony Frazier from music loops from Partners in Rhyme.

Reflections about my introduction to fandom in the mid-70's, including Star Trek, Space 1999, UFO, and a passing mention of Starship Invasions.

My first con, where I met George Takei and Bret Morrison, and had them sign a Ray Harryhausen fan magazine.

Downer endings in 70's films. Lots of spoilers.

The episode of the Tomorrow show I never saw, until today. And yes, I mispronounced Harlan Ellison's name, sue me.

End theme also provided by Partners in Rhyme.

Girl-Zilla

For some reason, Encore Action was showing a bunch of Mothra movies today; the original, followed by the three movies in the Rebirth of Mothra series, followed by another movie featuring Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah.

I always thought Mothra was kind of weak as monster concepts go. It's a big moth. You know, it attacks, and you just build a big bug zapper and bzzzttt! Moth flambe. But the character caught on and became popular for reasons that always escaped me.

So I had "Rebirth of Mothra" on in the background, and I'm thinking that it really sucks. It's super-juvenile with even cheaper-than-usual effects and a so-so-so-obvious eco-sermon. And The Girl walks in, and she's just turned seven, and she has missed three-fourths of it, and she is instantly captivated. Mothra is pretty and sparkly, and the little miniature idol singers are riding around on a miniature Mothra named Fairy, and it strikes me that the folks at Toho have come up with a perfect angle to expand the Godzilla franchise to appeal to girls too. Mothra is a pretty-pretty Girl-zilla with a baby caterpillar and magical fairy followers, and my daughter instantly planted herself in front of the TV and began cheering for Mothra without any previous introduction to the character at all.

I feel a little adrift after finishing the second draft. I feel this pressure to start writing something new: a short story, or a new novel or something, but I just have no energy at all. Work has worn me out, and today I've been progressively sicker. I'm debating whether to go in and work tomorrow or not. I don't want to, but I know that there's stuff that needs to be done. And somebody won't show up, I just know it. So I'm just worn down and feeling lost, like I should be doing something, but there's just nothing in me to bring out anymore.

Ugh.

Lost and Test

We had the season finales of Lost and Heroes this week, and both pretty much kicked ass. I was a little, a smidgen, disappointed in the Heroes finale, simply because we're still not seeing these characters really cut loose. Well, that and the fact that master villain Sylar died, then came back long enough to set up the start of next season, then died again for real, and then... wasn't dead? I don't know. And of course, the fact that Peter didn't really need Nathan's sacrifice- he should have been able to do what Nathan did himself.

The Lost finale was exactly what a Lost finale should be. It answered a ton of questions, while setting up a ton of new questions, and ended with a twist which indicated that the show is once again going to be fundamentally different next season. I love the way that every season seems to be at once the same show and yet a different show from the season before. And the finale also made obvious that these guys haven't been blowing smoke when they say that they know where the show is going. They're not just making it up as they go along.

I put together a podtestcast, but I'm having trouble posting it. It was a lot harder than I'd though it would be, and the result is kinda dull, so I may redo it. Or not. We'll see.

Podcasting

So I mentioned Lileks's podcast a while back, and it got me searching for other podcasts. I've listened to a few here and there, and I'm thinking maybe I should give it a try. I like the concept of Kick Ass Mystics Ninjas, for instance. This is like a nostalgia podcast for old geeks like me, reviewing classic old books and not-so-classic movies and shows. Bester's The Demolished Man is an example of the former, and Airwolf an example of the latter.

If only the execution were a little better, I would seriously love this show. The audio is often of varying quality, and the shows often seem to run out of steam after a while, as the hosts all end up with long awkward pauses in the conversation.

Lileks's show is more polished, but hinges on obscure music. Anything I did would be more like the Ninjas, offering my own commentary on, you know, whatever. I have an idea for a first, test show. I have a microphone somewhere that I can scrounge up, and I've been learning how to use Audacity to put this stuff together. I may try to throw together a testcast (or is that podtest?) later this week and see if anybody likes it.

Second Draft Blues

The second draft of Hero Go Home is finished, with the exception of a little clean-up, maybe. I read the first act and a bit of the second last night, and it's better than before, although I wonder if maybe I'm pushing too much backstory in too quickly.

Most things I write don't have much backstory. They start when they start, they don't depend much on what has gone before in the characters' lives, and frequently I couldn't answer many basic questions about the characters' pasts if you asked.

But for this book, I've written a few short stories about some of these characters already, and wrote about two-thirds of an (awful aborted) novel about another, so they have histories in place. And so much of the book feels like another entry in the series, I think. I don't know if I explain stuff enough so that a new reader, unfamiliar with the short stories, will ever feel comfortable with what's going on.

On the other hand, when I decided to write Hero Go Home originally (and now I'm talking about the late 80's/early 90's, when it was a vague screenplay concept and three pages of an opening scene that no longer appears in the book), one of things I specifically wanted was to avoid the usual approach to starting a new superhero world, which is to show a normal world with heroes and vilains just emerging for the first time. I wanted it to be a world already populated with heroes, with adventures happening all over the place on a daily basis; instead of having the reader come into the world gradually, dipping a toe at a time, I wanted to yank them right into the deep end.

And for all the changes that have been made to my original vision in the intervening years, this one thing I've stayed true to. Now to find new readers and see if it works any better than before.

This Time It's Personal

I mentioned in my review of "Spider-man 3" the totally unnecessary retcon of Uncle Ben's death. Basically, they changed the storyline to add a second shooter, unmentioned in the previous two movies, and said that he was the real killer so that Spider-man can go off to indulge his desire for revenge. Not only that, but he ends up being one of the major villains in the Spider-man rogues' gallery.

I really hate this. I've hated it for years, since Burton's first "Batman" film. In that film, we learn that the young Joker killed Batman's parents: a totally unnecessary twist that added nothing to the film, in my opinion.

My dislike for this particular trope got even worse two years later when Costner's "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" came out, in which we learn that the Sheriff of Nottingham killed Robin's father while Robin was out fighting the Crusades against his father's wishes.

This was a big change to the Robin Hood I grew up with, which was the Errol Flynn version. In that movie, Robin is a nobleman who refuses to join Richard the Lion-Hearted on the Crusades, thinking it a foolish waste. He acts out of principle to oppose a war which he thinks is wrong.

But when Richard is captured and Robin learns that John has usurped the throne and kept Richard's ransom money to line his own pockets, Robin then turns outlaw, again on principle, to support the rightful ruler. Robin puts principle above his personal feud with the king and puts his life on the line to save the man who had previously branded him a coward and traitor.

This is a story with real meat on its bones, and in the Costner version, it's all "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Let me call the Waah-mbulance.

Which is not to say that I dislike Inigo Montoya. I thought "The Princess Bride" was pretty brilliant. A character with a legitimate grudge against the person who killed his father is fine, fair game.

What I hate, hate, HATE with a passion is the retroactive addition of this particular grudge to any established hero of popular culture when the suits in the room think his origin needs spicing up. Why does Daredevil fight the Kingpin? I mean, "cause it's the right thing to do" is just so blah. But here's an idea: if Kingpin was the guy who murdered his father...

And in Spider-man 3, it's even worse, because not only did they change the origin story from the comics to make Sandman the killer, but they even changed their own continuity, because the first film told the story correctly. So they retconned a grudge that had already been resolved.

Just blind and stupid in so many ways.

The Problem with Threes

First off, damn Lileks! I listened to the latest Diner this morning, and he played four, count 'em, four versions of "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and now the damn song is stuck in my head.

I ended up working four hours on Saturday night and then turning around to do a morning shift on Sunday, so the weekend was basically shot. My boss then encouraged me to go home early yesterday, so I finally got to see "Spider-man 3."

A little disappointed, frankly. I had hoped that if anybody could avoid the "Curse of Three," it was Raimi. But alas, it was not to be.

We know that sequels are hard, especially if they're unplanned. A good sequel has to be the same, but different. It needs to flip all the same switches in the viewer's brain, but it can't be too similar, and most importantly, it can't be smaller.

But the third film is a different beast. Often, a good sequel has not only satisfied the "same but bigger" itch, but it has also resolved lingering questions from the first film to give both films greater resonance. A third film often has to "keep going, but start over" (which is why I think so many tend to echo the first film even more than the second did). And it's beastly hard to get right. I'm hard-pressed to think of one, actually. I think "Die Hard With a Vengeance" came as close as any. Maybe "Rocky III."

The good things: Raimi's still pushing the emotional core of the character. The special effects kick ass, mostly.

The bad things: Peter's a jerk in this one. We can blame it on the black goo, but frankly, he's pretty jerky even when he's goo-free. Mary Jane's even worse. Kirsten Dunst never made a good romantic lead; her "I love you" speech at the end of the first film was awful, and you never felt the chemistry between her and Tobey Maguire. You could sort-of understand why he had a crush on her, but not why they'd end up together. In this one, Peter has a competing romantic interest in Gwen Stacy (the gorgeous Bryce Dallas Howard), and she's everything MJ is not: beautiful and fun and interested in the same things Peter is. But Peter uses her badly, so she takes off and Peter ends up in a joyless dance with MJ, two unhappy people who are stuck with each other.

Too many villains: "Spider-man 2" managed to avoid the Batman "double-the-villains, double-the-fun" syndrome, but it was just a tease. In this one, they hit us with three! And it makes everything feel sort of overstuffed, not to mention the number of mind-boggling coincidences the screenwriters devise to make everything happen. Flint Marko just happens to fall into a hole on a nuclear testing facility just as there just happens to be a nighttime test, and Peter and MJ just happen to have a romantic interlude near where a meteor bearing sentient black goo just happens to crash, and the gorgeous model Spider-man saves just happens to be his beautiful classmate, Gwen Stacy, and the black goo just happens to infect Peter right after he learns that Flint Marko is the guy who killed Uncle Ben (in one of the most unnecessary retcons of all time), and Peter just happens to try to get rid of the black goo in a church's bell tower, where the vibrations of the bell just happen to be the creature's one weakness, and Eddie Brock, who just happens to be both Peter's rival at the Bugle and a suitor of Gwen's, just happens to be standing underneath Peter when the goo comes off, and oh my God, can stuff please STOP JUST HAPPENING?

Don't even get me started on the interpretive dance number in the middle. Raimi has always been a giddily indulgent filmmaker with a weakness for goofy slapstick (see "Crimewave" for the worst example). But in this one, he indulges his worst instincts. The depiction of Peter's descent to the dark side is virtually unwatchable; the characters have no emotional continuity at all, just whipsawing this way and that for the needs of each particular scene. And Raimi's love of cameos, so much fun in the first two pictures, really brings this one down. The requisite Stan Lee and Bruce Campbell cameos just don't work, and the cameos of his kids... I understand parents indulging their children, but the kids get too much dialogue.

I really, really wanted to like this one more than I did, but it's just not there on the screen.

Old Radio

On Sunday evenings here in Tulsa, local AM radio station KRMG plays old-time radio shows. This past Sunday, they played an old Jack Benny, which was a revelation. Things were just so different then, you can't imagine.

No, I'm not talking about corny humor or Rochester as a racist stereotype. Frank Sinatra was the guest star, you see, only this was early in his career. So there were no references to him as the grand old lion of show business. No Rat Pack. No Vegas. No mob rumors. No "Chairman of the Board." No "New York, New York."

No, the jokes were all about how skinny Sinatra was. How insubstantial. How he looked like a pencil wearing a toupee. At one point, he's talking to a female cast member, and they start to go through a door. Sinatra can't open it. Because he's so skinny and weak, you see.

The woman, of course, opens it easily.

It's like observing an alternate universe. Really.

Lost, by the way, after an uneasy start to the season and a long hiatus that almost made me give up hope? Rockin'. And guaranteed three more seasons. (warning: the link to Zap2It will try to give you popups)

My random prediction? Sun and Jin find out they are brother and sister.

Anime: What I'm Watching Now

I've written before about Full Metal Alchemist and Neon Genesis Evangelion. The shows I'm watching currently are Blood+ and Bleach, as well as the occasional Naruto and Samurai Champloo.

I've also been sort of watching a show called Eureka 7, mainly just cause it was on in the same Adult Swim bloc as Bleach and Blood. Eureka 7 is the winner of the Most Annoying Character Name award this year. Although in English we pronounce "Eureka" as "yoo-reek-uh," on the show they consistently pronounce the character's name as "eh-ooh-wreck-uh," which rolls awkwardly off the tongue and just freakin' annoys me every time I hear it.The story itself is a mish-mash of nature worship and techno-fetishized mecha. You know, "we've killed the Earth with war and pollution and now we've got to save it--with giant freaking robots!" Completely senseless and convoluted, but some fun action scenes.

Blood+ is one I had high hopes for, but I'm not blown away by it so far. It's a sequel to the awesome short film, "Blood, the Last Vampire." In the original, Saya is a young-looking girl who battles monstrous vampiric creatures called "chiropterans" on an American airbase in Okinawa right around the start of the Vietnam War. For the sequel series, Saya has been redesigned to be more innocent-schoolgirl and less bitch-from-hell, but has lost her distinctive look in the process. She's like a cheap Sailor Moon clone now. The tone of the show also lacks the dark vibe of the original.

The chiropterans are still effectively creepy, but the story has turned into a turgid soap opera without the distinctive realistic flavor that made the original such a fun ride. The original had an almost documentary feel that made it feel completely different from other anime; the series, not so much. It's not Blood-plus; it's Blood-lite.

TV Round-Up: May 2

Heroes: Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!. We get a Days of Future Past-style future dystopia, complete with the deaths of practically the entire cast if Hiro can't get his shit together and kill Sylar already. Most of the action is still taking place off-stage, with only tiny hints of the powers being used--the big final confrontation between Peter and Sylar takes place outside a door around which we only see tiny flashes of light, for instance. Either they're saving up effects budget for a kick-ass season finale, or else the show going to tease us forever and never really cut loose. Hints of what's to come: Sylar is apparently going to kill both Radioactive Ted and the shapeshifter chick before they bring him down.

Drive: Fun show from an executive producer of Firefly and Wonderfalls , starring Nathan Fillion from Firefly. I liked it so much, it's canceled after three episodes. Tim Minear's next show show is going to be canceled before it airs, and the one after that is going into negative episodes.

American Idol: The two contestants from the top 24 with vague Oklahoma connections are still in it (Phil and Melinda), and I think Melinda's in it to win it, which will do incredible things for our station, having another hometown winner.

I'll doing some anime comments tomorrow or the next day.

Yes, I Know What I Said Before

I'm almost finished with the second draft of Hero Go Home. Yes, yes, I know what I said before about putting it aside to write a better Digger novel. But even in that entry, I mentioned that as soon as I decided to stop, my block seemed to disappear.

Here's the weird thing: when I wrote Blue Falcon, lo these many years ago, it took me almost exactly one year to write the first draft. I thought the second draft would go much faster, but once again, it was almost exactly a year.

When I wrote the first draft of Hero Go Home, I seemed to have learned a lot about how to write novels. Instead of a year, the first draft only took about seven months, from November 1, 2005 to May 27, 2006. I figured I'd knock out the revision over the summer, get the book in the mail by fall.

Instead, here I am with about 10,000 words to go, and it's looking as if it will be within a week or two of the one year mark by the time I finish. A year again. What the hell?

Oh yeah, and speaking of Digger, it looks as if Agog! is finally going to publish the DaiKaiju sequels this year. I'll be in the number three anthology, due for publication in October. I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, it's cool to finally end that suspense and add another publishing credit to my resume, not to mention the fact that every published Digger story increases the potential audience for the novel. On the other hand, the story is approaching three years old now, I think, and it's not my best work. Both Digger and I have grown since the story was written. I'm tempted to ask them if I can polish it up a bit before publication.

Creepy Memory Lane

When I was a kid, I loved scary stuff, but I hated being scared. So I would simultaneously seek out and avoid creepy stuff. There was a local horror movie show that would come on at midnight on KOCO channel 5 in Oklahoma City, called "Nightmare." It would open with this guy in a long robe with a scythe and a hood hiding his face. He'd walk through a fake graveyard, CO2 fog clinging to the ground, and there was this creepy narration, and then he would pull down his hood to reveal that his face was a skull, then the movie would start.

That creeped the shit out of me. I would watch the movie, but I would close my eyes and turn down the volume, or else turn the channel knob just for a couple of seconds right before he would drop that hood. I remember one night, I fell asleep waiting for "Rodan" to start, and woke up just as Skull Guy was saying, "I hope you enjoyed the movie." I got even more creeped out than usual, knowing that the entire terrifying spectacle (I hadn't seen "Rodan" yet, so I didn't know how comical it really was) had played out right there in the room with me, without my being aware of it. Brrr....

I'm reminded of this tonight, because when I was a kid, my friends were constantly telling me about this cool scary stuff they'd either seen on TV or heard on the radio. One was "Johnny Got His Gun," which I never really watched all the way through, but I've seen bits of it on TV. The first time I saw it for myself, though, or bits of it anyway, was in the video for the Metallica song, "One." The kids at school would go on and on about the dude with no face tapping Morse code with his head, "Kill me. Kill me. Kill me."

Another one was "The Vulture," a Z-grade movie starring Akim Tamiroff, about a guy who turns himself into a hideous bird-man to kill his enemies (and I should mention here that there were a lot of commercials for horror movies that just terrified me as a kid--"War of the Gargantuas," "Dracula vs. Frankenstein," "Mad Doctor of Blood Island"--where I couldn't believe the actual movies were so cheesy and cheap-looking when I finally saw them years later). I still have never seen that one.

There was a third, a legendary song called "D.O.A.," about this guy who dies in a crash. I remember specifically being told a lyric about his arm feeling numb, and he looks down and nothing's there. It hit the charts briefly in 1971, when I was 8-9, and though I occasionally tried to listen for it, it was never on. The crazy thing was, for years afterward, I not only never heard the song, but never ran into anyone else who'd even heard of it.

And then, tonight, I'm listening to Lileks's last few Diner podcasts, and he's recapping some Seventies songs, and BAM! "D.O.A." in all its cheesy, creepy glory. As death pop goes, it's not awful. It's certainly upfront: no tiptoeing around the subject, couching things in code language. The guy's dying, his girlfriend's dead, end of story. "One" is a creepy video, but the song is sort of bombastic and dull. This song is simplistic- not scary, but certainly cold.

And then there's "I'm Cold," by Whale. Whale was this weird little Swedish group. They put out an awesome single called "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe," a wall-of-sound assault with a video featuring their hot female singer in braces and polka dots. Their EP was followed up by a very uneven album called "We Care." None of the songs, except for "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe," is very good.; the lead singer has an affected cutesy style, and the backup singers are tone-deaf. Everything sounds kind of cheap and off. Until you get to the next to last cut on the disc, and then there's this weird little number, with Cia Berg singing these spaced out lyrics in her little-girl voice, and it's sort of delicate and lovely until you realize she's singing about being trapped in a car after a crash, going into shock as the car burns, and this gospel chorus rises up in the background as she sings, sounding like they're taking her soul straight to heaven, and it is one of the eeriest fucking songs I've ever heard, seriously.

You can tell that "D.O.A." has got my mind going in a lot of directions, all of them backward. But I'm telling you, what a discovery to finally hear that song after over 35 years.