THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUSTM Don't tell anybody, but my real name is The Somewhat Left-of-Center Reverend Lance Boyle, and I'm an ordained minister in the Church of the SubGeniusTM. Yes, it's true: I grovel at the feet and burn incense in the navel of that Grand Cosmic Salesman, J. R. "Bob" Dobbs! Why, I love "Bob" so much, I'll wind up killing the pipe-sucker! (Oh, don't go on like that; everybody kills "Bob" sooner or later. It's in our yeti genes.) Confused? Want to know more? Go to The Official Website of The Church of the Subgenius and they'll confuse you even more! But if you're of TRUE Yeti stock, your engrams or theta waves or whatevertheHell those little thingies are called will come back to thank you personally! FERRETS (but then you probably figured that out already, you genius, you) These critters have been described as a cross between a kitten and a 2-year-old human kid; I'll go along with that. Ferrets are curious, mischievous, energetic, and very loving. Sadly, they're misunderstood by some ("No, that is NOT a rodent!" - "No, they will NOT run around in wild packs, attacking the chickens!"), but are fast gaining in popularity as pets. |
I figured that this would happen sooner or later. I've got so many ferret links now (and I'm certain to add more in the future), that I've set up a separate page for them. Just click here, and you'll be whisked away like a ferret stashing loot in his hidey-hole. |
SOUTH PARK Sick, gross, offensive, and funny as all get-out. In other words, one of the best cartoon series to come along in quite awhile. What more can you ask for? Why nobody has tried to ban this one is beyond me, but I'm not about to complain. I had a site up here as a starting point, but it seems to have gone away. I'll get back to this one. Walt Kelly's POGO and George Herriman's KRAZY KAT In my opinion, these are two of the best comic strips to appear in newspaper history. (Don't ask me to say which is better.) Not much around nowadays to compare, especially since Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County ended their runs. Another favorite from The Olden Days: E. C. Segar's Thimble Theater - which introduced Popeye to an unsuspecting world. (A bit of heresy here: I'm not that hot on Winsor McKay's Little Nemo in Slumberland. The artwork is gorgeous, but the dialogue seems weak at times and poorly laid out on the page - appallingly so, in some cases.) Favorites of a more recent vintage: Tom K. Ryan's Tumbleweeds and Russell Myers' Broom-Hilda. Good sites to start with are The Pogo Page (affiliated with the Pogo Fan Club) and The Coconino County Page for Krazy Kat. PEANUTS There are times when you don't realize how precious something is until after it's been taken away. I've enjoyed Charles Schulz's "kid" strip Peanuts since I was a child - wonderfully flawed characters in hilarious, and sometimes fascinating, situations. I didn't pay all that much attention to the strip in its later years, though I still read it. And now "Sparky" is gone, and there will be no more new adventures for Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Lil' Folks. We've lost a marvelous treasure. I'll include a link to The Official Peanuts Webpage, which has quite a lot of Peanuts-related information and presents a "new" strip every day. I wish they would make all the strips available online from the very beginning, but that's me - and that would be a lot of comic strips. - There are many websites devoted to Peanuts out there; some of them are related to collectibles and some are personal websites devoted to the strip. I may add some more links later, but for now, grab your favorite search engine and go to town. BATMAN The modern personification of the Dark Avenger figure. No superduper powers, no dazzling super-techno gear (or at least not any more - the gear's been toned down since the '70s), just one very driven man fighting a dark, nasty war. As he said himself, "I am Vengeance!" Check the recent series of animated cartoons on Warner Brother's "WB Kids" lineup. (And forget the big-budget live-action junk; check out the recent animated movies Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman and Robin: Subzero to see the Dark Knight as he should be portrayed on the silver screen.) Go to Warner Brother's official webpage for The New Batman/Superman Adventures to see more (They haven't been doing Supes too bad, either); there are links to the various Batman & Superman cartoon series produced by Warner Brothers, including the radical new series Batman Beyond, with somebody else wearing the bat costume. - You can find quite a few links to Batman-related sites at a Canadian site entitled The Dark Knight. Which segues right into THE TICK! One of the funniest cartoon series to come down the pike in a long time, based on one of the funniest comic books to do the same. Goes beyond mere Superhero parody into its own realm of surrealism. [UPDATE I've taken down the link to the webring that was originally here because many of the links are either dead or now go in inappropriate directions. I'll have to find another Tick-related site now; if anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it if they would let me know. SPOOOON!! He's terrific. He's magnific! He's DANGERMOUSE, the Greatest Secret Agent in the World! This cartoon is one of those marvelous bits of silliness that the fine folks in Great Britain come up with to entertain their children; as with so many other cartoons, on either side of the Atlantic, this one attracted an adult fanbase as well. (I think I like what this says about adults being kids at heart.) You get lots of British cultural references here - for instance, our hero lives in a "pillar box" {mailbox to us Yanks) on Baker Street in London - which I enjoy. This series was at one time carried over here in the US of A on the Nickelodeon cable channel, for which I'm grateful to them. For starters, I'll point you to this site. I'll explore some other sites later to find one with plenty of links on it. (By the way, has there ever been an American cartoon hero that wore an eye patch? Popeye doesn't count.) I've always enjoyed mysteries, especially those involving the traditional British detectives - Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Lord Peter Wimsey, Father Brown, etc. I'll admit to liking Adam Dalgleish and Inspector Morse, as well. But for me, the absolute best of the bunch has to be SHERLOCK HOLMES, the World's first consulting detective. I not only enjoy reading the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - and the innumerable pastiches - but I like reading the "writings on the Writings". There has been a remarkable amount of tongue-in-cheek scholarship about Sherlock Holmes, much of it based on the conceit that Holmes actually existed and Sir Arthur was acting as the "literary agent" for Dr. Watson, publishing his accounts of real events as fiction. Since Sir Arthur was human enough to make mistakes, there are a lot of inconsistencies that Sherlockians attempt to explain away - in a scholarly manner, of course. It was inevitable that these scholars would get together and compare notes, and that they would form organizations devoted to their own particular madness. In the United States, such an organization is the Baker Street Irregulars. Over in Great Britain, the corresponding organization is The Sherlock Holmes Society of London. I am not, alas, a Baker Street Irregular, but I am a full member of the Sherlock Holmes Society. I have yet to attend a gathering in London or one of their regular outings to Sherlockian locations - someday, hopefully - but I do receive the twice-yearly Sherlock Holmes Journal, a quite nice publication, regular notices of activies, and I have the opportunity to purchase the many special publications and merchandise that they offer to members. I am quite proud to be a member, and I like receiving more-or-less regular overseas mail. And it comes as a pleasant surprise that an organization such as this, devoted to a subject for which "it is always 1895", has an extensive multimedia website. Here is a link to The Sherlock Holmes Society of London Website. (If Sherlock Holmes were still alive, would he have his own personal webpage? What would it be about - techniques of crime detection? The motets of Lassus? Bee-keeping?) There's four directions on this map, but you're only going one way: due SOUTH. The innocent in the Big City is a classic story, and this television series from Canada told it quite nicely. Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his Father, and (for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture) remained attached as liaison with the Canadian Consulate. He is also an unofficial partner to Detective Ray Vecchio (one or the other) of the Chicago Police Department, and together they fought crime on the mean streets of the City of the Big Shoulders. Wonderfully defined characters, first-rate writing and a nicely romantic theme song made due South great TV. Alas, no longer in production, but there's a strong fanbase out there. I'll link you to three sites: the first is The Official Due South Web Page, with an episode guide, cast information, information on merchandise for sale - the usual for an official site. The second site is fan-run and fan-oriented and has a lot more stuff: William and Elyse's due South Page. Episode guides and character information, plus fan reviews of the episodes, origins of character names and episode titles, a quote file, a drinking game, cast news and interviews, etc., etc. There are also the ever-important internet links, including links to due South fan fiction, something I'd never paid much attention to before; I've read a lot of what's online, and it's quite good. I've been tootling around the alt.tv.due-south newsgroup for some time now, and I've met some very nice people there. One such person is known by the moniker Anything. Here is a link to her home page, Anything's Blue Room. She has several links to due South-related pages (including my own). (I'm going to make a confession here: ever since I was a child, I've thought that the bright-red uniforms of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were absolutely marvelous! The RCMP switched uniform colors to more subdued tones many years back, which makes sense, I suppose - bright red makes for a good target - but is nonetheless a shame. They don't make police uniforms like that anymore.) |
NEW! NEW! NEW! I've got me a separate page now for my "due South" fan fiction! Just click here to go there; let me know what you think. Quite frankly, I'm proud of how it's turning out so far. |
Science Fiction and Fantasy in general I've enjoyed it since I was a kid. As far as I'm concerned, SF&F can be just as literary a genre as the "mainstream" stuff. Can't point to a favorite author, but I'm partial to Alternate History as a subgenre. Comes right down to it, I just love good stuff. |
As with the ferret links, I've moved my SF- & fantasy-related links to a separate page. Just click here, and you'll be taken there like magic (which, after a point, becomes indistinguishable from technology). |
TOM LEHRER DR DEMENTO "WEIRD AL" Just about any Incredibly Strange Music How can you truly enjoy your favorite music if you can't laugh at it once in awhile? Tom Lehrer, my idol since childbirth, was a master at what would be called "Politically Incorrect" musical fare back in the '50s & '60s (My favorites: "The Masochism Tango" and "The Christmas Song"), and he's still enormously popular in some circles. I'm gonna have to do a search to find a good Tom Lehrer website soon. ("A Webpage Wasted on Tom Lehrer" seems to have gone away, which is a pity, because it's a great title.) - And what Lehrer was in the '50s/'60s, "Weird Al" Yankovic has been since the '70s. Listen to Weird Al's versions of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Achy, Breaky Heart" and you'll never listen to the originals in quite the same way again. A good starter is Yankovic!. There are links to sites with lyrics, audio files, pictures, etc. I'll also include a link to The Official "Weird Al" Yankovic Web Site, which is maintained by no less than Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, the drummer for Weird Al's backup band. There's an image archive; a FAQ; merchandise for sale; a page of the ever-important links (which are always nice to see on an "Official" webpage); and more information on Al's TV, movie and video appearances, awards, live appearances, etc., than you ever wanted to know. You know, the more I read about Weird Al, the more I realize that he's really a nice guy. (And his band is made up of nice guys, too.) - And what list of Incredibly Strange Music links would be complete without mention of that National Treasure, Dr. Demento (who gave a young Al Yankovic and his bologna their start on his very show in 1979)? The official Dr. Demento site is here - All right, how about Stan Freberg? He's had a successful career as a satirist and an advertising executive (I know that it's hard to believe, but advertising can be funny.). His lampoons of popular TV shows, in such bits as "Wun'erful, Wun'erful" (a takeoff on Lawrence Welk) and "St. George and the Dragonet" (If you can't guess this one, you don't know your television), were brilliant when they came out in the '50s and '60s and are still great today. And what's more - I think he's still doing it! I'd suggest going to The Stan Freberg Page. - And then there's Allan Sherman. During the 50s and 60s, he had a successful career as a musical satirist, with several albums and a string of TV appearances. He tended to play the reactionary in response to the latest trends in music, especially during the early '60s; and a lot of his work has a distinct Yiddish flavor which may be considered un-PC today. But he was still funny. Possibly his most famous song was "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" about the awful Camp Grenada; this even inspired a board game! I even remember the commercials! Alas, he's largely forgotten today, and there is only one album of his stuff available, and that's a compilation (My Son, The Greatest - look for it through your favorite music outlet.) The websites I had pointed to seem to have gone away, alas. ED WOOD and BADFILMS IN GENERAL Most of the stuff released nowadays is dull junk - well-polished and snazzy-looking junk, I'll grant you, but still as dull as dishwater. After Hot Shots, how can anyone watch Top Gun with a straight face? (For that matter, which one of them had a sequel, if you measure quality by that sort of thing?) When I talk about "badfilms", I don't mean the dull stuff, but the low-budget, cardboard-set, nobody-can-act-for-beans, the-boom-mike-is-showing-at-the-top-of-the-screen stuff that's somehow tremendously entertaining. And when the subject of badfilms comes up, it always gets back to Ed Wood, and rightly so. His films aren't the worst around, but they manage to be so obviously bad and great fun at the same time. I only need mention Plan 9 From Outer Space. I'll point you to two sites: The Ed Wood Unofficial Home Page and The Ed Wood Appreciation Page; the latter is a Swedish site and has a link to an honest-to-gosh Ed Wood webring. - For bad movies in general, I'll point you to The Bad Movie Review Website. IRISH & CELTIC MUSIC Maybe it's the accents; maybe the haunting ballads. I know part of it's the bagpipes. A good site for Celtic music, with a lot of information and plenty of links to play with, is The Ceolas Celtic Music Archive. - Favorite band: The Chieftains. I'll have to hunt for a Chieftains website. AVIATION- & SPACE-RELATED STUFF I loved watching the Gemini & Apollo flights as a lad. I'm not as goshwowboyoboy nutso about manned spaceflight as I was back then - the Challenger accident in 1986 deeply tarnished the luster - but I still believe a manned presence in space has much to offer Humankind. (And besides, the hardware is cool.) I've also developed an interest in the history of aviation and space (and, oddly enough, an interest in the history of the American Civil War, but that's another category). |
In an ongoing effort to streamline (little aviation humor there, heh, heh) my Whirled Wide Web presence, I've moved yet another block of links to a separate page, this time the Aviation- and space-related ones. Just click here, and you'll fly there on electronic wings. |
MORE STUFF TO BE ADDED LATER |
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