NERDERY

It’s a rare moment of actually socialising on a Sunday today, so I’ll keep it brief and just throw whatever’s on the hard drive at it. This weekend I’ve been pondering the way Ron Perlman really is a composite of Ferrell and Waits (someone on Instagram also pointed out that he’s got a touch of ‘Harry and the Hendersons’ about him too). Perlman is one of my favourite screen presences. even though I always assumed he’d be some kind of lanky dandy out of makeup after his run on ‘Beauty and the Beast’ — I never realized he was the simian-faced monk in ‘The Name of the Rose’ too. While Ron was involved in the only ‘Police Academy’ film I can’t actually sit through (despite ”Mission to Moscow’s scant 83 minute running time), him being in that recent ultraviolent ‘Punisher’ short and spending 4 hours in makeup to visit sick children as ‘Hellboy’ makes him a class act. Looking at the makeup guy’s t-shirt in that link, I was unaware of just how many pieces of Miskatonic University merchandise there are. Ain’t no nerdery like horror and fantasy nerdery…

…well, there is shoe nerdery too. At the moment I’m working on something that necessitates some ad research and I think few but the nerdiest pay attention to 1999 in favor of far earlier campaigns. At the moment we seem to be seeing a reaction to the emphasis on heritage and retros that will see us deluged with faux-tech, but the last time I can remember seeing such dedication to progression was pre-millennium, when it seemed unseemly to look back on the verge of such a spaceage sounding landmark. And here I am getting nostalgic for 13 years ago. Not only is the HR Giger-esque and brief “superclub” staple Air Tuned Max one of the last great shoes of the 20th century (I think the Jordan retro and escalating Dunk fixation, plus rap metallers in Superstars was the death knell for this kind of oddball performance product — bar a handful of highlights for the best part of a decade like the Woven, Free and Presto), but it had an ad campaign that reference sex with dolls. In fact the whole collection of ads was interesting, covering KD’s latest (with a plunger) and making light of the meat industry too when it came to the Flightposite. Check the shoe selection for spring that year in an old ‘Vibe.’ And not a reissue in sight.

MARY ELLEN MARK’S ‘STREETS OF THE LOST’

“Every person, no matter how big or tough they are, should always have a partner. You never want to go on the streets alone. It’s a mistake. It’s just you’ll get lonely, you’ll get upset, you’ll get beat up. Because, you never can tell if someone’s gonna come up from the front of you and start to get your attention, and this other dude is gonna walk up behind you and bust your fuckin’ head. Partners are always better.”

I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m suffering a bout of lower-middle class guilt for getting mad at an image hosting site for a whole hour while kids are out there starving, or just because it’s always on my mind as an underappreciated  document of the realness in it’s unfortunate bin-digging, prostituting and pimping form, but the 1984 documentary ‘Streetwise’ is on my mind again. Set among the down and out residents of Seattle’s streets, it’s essential viewing for you ’80s teen on screen connoisseurs, and the polar opposite to John Hughes’s fictional youth angst of the era.

HARRY PARTCH

Another April ’09 blog post.

Once again, apologies for my blog tardiness. Thankfully the verbal diarrhea by way of keyboard has been corked by the Imodium of a heavy after hours workload.

Passing the time revisiting ‘Rain Dogs’, ‘Swordfishtrombones’ and ‘Bone Machine’ by RZA-fan Mr Thomas Waits, who, as much of a middle-class hobo act it might be, makes the don’t-give-a-fuck look work a treat, having honed the anti-fashion ensembles since day one – and whereas with any multi, even single decade career span, I can find at least a couple of sartorial missteps, I can’t find any for Tom.