Some dates for your diary...if you have one...

...i do, but I often forget to put it in my bag and then something important happens and I forget to write it in when I get home...anyway:

November 14, 2005:

Is the one year anniversary of "The Life and Times of Jimmny Homunculus". Think of it! One whole year of perverted rants about She Hulk, shite films, sexual perversion, comics, superheroes, Irish slang, crap jobs. I will be putting together a little print version of the "best bits"* of The Life and Times of Jimmny Homunculus and some of my cartoons and that over the next few weeks and will post it out to anyone who wants one a wee present to say 'thank you' for surviving these semi-regular noctural electronic emissions from the heart of geeky darkness...email me your address and I'll send yous a copy (don't worry about the cost I'd only spend my money on useless pursuits like comics, porn and getting and a career-building title)


January 2, 2006:

is the 30th anniversary of Jimmny Homunculus! Think of it! 30 years of perverted rants about She Hulk, shite films, sexual perversion, comics, superheroes, Irish slang, crap jobs. (That's not strictly true, there was an early period where the rants included dinosaurs, Lady Miss Kier, The Bangles, and Fuzzbox,** but it's all much of pervy sci-fi muchness). Anyway, I will be planning some sort of 30th b-day shindig in Norwich in early January (if I survive an another Irish Christmas/New Year will keep yous posted...if you really want to see a recreation of the photo above.

*I know this is a conradiction in terms.

**tall strong crazy ladies with strangely coloured hair...mmm did certain fascinations start that early, oh dear.

The face I pull in cinema queues...

Halloween? This is Norfolk…it’s Halloween all year round.

You may have guessed that I love horror films, but I love them 24/7, 365 days of the year. Every Halloween I have to suffer people claiming to ‘love horror films’ for like the day before and day after Halloween, they’ll come up to me saying things like ‘You like horror films don’t you?’, ‘Yes’ I’d reply, and then they’ll say something like ‘I love horror films, I watched that zombie one the other day it’s got “Dead” in the title…you know people think it’s meant to be scary but it’s actual funny…” And I have to take a deep breath and question further….is it Return of the Living Dead you’ve been watching when you thought it was going to be Night of the Living Dead?. It’s kind of the same reaction one has as 24/7 pervert whenever faced by those who dress up for The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

When I was queuing up to see the hotly anticipated (by me) sequel Land of the Dead, there was a fat blond Norwich family (there are shit loads of these, it’s like the Village of the Damned meets Nutty Professor II: The Klumps ) . They were going to see Howl’s Moving Castle…god knows why, they’ll probably go…’but this is all in foreign and we have to read little sentences on the screen). Anyway one of the fat-fuck kids sees the poster to Land of the Dead and says “That looks crap!” and the dad goes

“I saw the original and that was crap as well…”

So what exact film was it you saw and thought it was the ‘original’ version of Land of the Dead a brand new film? Thank god for headphones…so I can listen to top tunes and not the dirge that comes out of some the gobs in a cinema queues. In Ireland a while back, I’m sure it was in a queue for Blair Witch Project or something, I overhead two mooks who ‘loved horror films’ saying:

“I used to love all those old Hammer Horror films with Vincent Price with the orange blood and that hahha”

“All those old Hammer Horror films?” What? Vincent Price? You mean the Vincent Price who worked mostly for Roger Corman’s American International films never made a Hammer Horror film?...and for that matter never played a Vampire?). Maybe, just maybe, you’re thinking of Christopher Lee (all hail the centre of the film universe) or Peter Cushing? (gawd rest his soul)

Things are looking up though we now have a Borders here so I can buy things like The Onion, Little White Lies and We Live in Funny Times, even there, I am not free from top quotes from the denizens of Noorfolk. One, upon exploring environs of Borders for the first time declared:

“You know what this is like? A library”

and my all time favourite from some bloke that had been dragged in the by the missus:

“I fucking hate bookshops!”

And the water had become wine...that's magic!

Oh so Vic Reeeves is shit then?

The coming of yet another wave of new arrivals at the ole U E of A has me jibbering like a loon. On Sunday, I was working on the Grad Bar and I put on Paramount 2 and I put on A Bit of Fry and Laurie and then Vic Reeves Big Night Out (and I think you know how I feel about a certain messrs Reeves and Mortimer) and this lanky frat boy guy goes, “I see where A Bit and Fry and Laurie is funny, but that Vic Reeves show is like 15 years old and It’s not funny, yet Monty Python is 36 years old and it’s still funny. I’m a service worker so I can’t wallop him around the chops with a wet beer towel. So I grit my teeth…but…what I would have said is: “Oh! I’m sorry I’ve only liked Vic and Bob for 14 years…I must have been mistaken because according to you they’re shite!…my life’s been a lie I will now change all my tastes according to you…you fucking mook”. And where did this time limit for comedy shit come from? The bibble’s a few thousand years old* and it is still the funniest thing I’ve ever read.

How can you explain to someone the fact that Bob was saying that seeing a cherry on an ironing board was his dream and then Vic brought out an ironing board with a Brussels sprout on it and Bob goes…”Ahhh! but that’s my worst nightmare!”

*I don’t have have time to work out how old the bible is. I know its about a few thousand years since some lunatics were babbling about god or some shit, and then it took another few thousand years for some other lunatics to write it down and a few more for some more lunatics to wreck our heads about it.

A certain moral flexibility...

Time travel doughnut John Cusack dream….

At work I have to go and do the shopping every morning. So I have to shrug as I buy like 16 packs of butter and a five 4 pint bottles of milk and 3 loaves of bread at Tesco, as if I go home and roll around in lots of butter in a Marlon Brando stylee. Anyway, I usually buy some doughnuts for the kitchen staff for the craic and general sugar rush, as if we need it after all the sugary tea. It must be affecting my psyche. Last night I actually had a whole 8 hours sleep, like all in a row, not over two separate nights, and I had a dream involving doughnuts. Today when I was doing the shopping I had to write down a note on the reverse of my list to remember this fine dream, I wrote:

“Time-travelling doughnut dream, 1881, John Cusack time police…mention electricity”

It was a nuts dream. I had to travel back in time for some reason to sample some really fucking class-A type of doughnut that we, with all our modern clockwork bum-machines have forgotten about. So in a Douglas Coupland-style ‘wouldn’t it be nice to time-travel with all the right disease immunity shots’ way I started hanging out in this 1800s setting. These doughnut-makers were cool guys, some sort of anarchists or some shit. So I started hanging out with them. They were the underclass in these big stately homes and I was really appreciating their fucking doughnuts while fat stately home types where throwing them against the walls and leaving them for their hunting dogs saying ‘blaawwhh…these doughnuts are shit..’

Anyway, I was trying to cheer them up by telling them about all the cool shit that’s going to happen like electricity, DVDs and people really digging their doughnuts, and suddenly I see John Cusack all in black like he’s some sort of Timecop guy and he starts going “NO! you can’t tell them that!” and we starting fighting like that ‘Thanks for the pen’ bit in Grosse Point Blank when he’s fighting the stumpy Russian guy by the lockers.
Then I woke up, so I don’t know who won… I mentioned this to 'CS' one of our chefs and dead pan he just goes...'you watch too much sci-fi man'...

Take heart..your life may be shite, but at least you're not in Norwich 'band' Zoo....rock on!

A big bit of tofu shaped like a human head?....

There’s a thin line between having an interesting life and just fucking up a lot and making the best of it.

The advantages of kitchen portering are:

1. Working with great people in horrible situations, it's like being an army or something, you will kill for these people. I've wanted to walk out so many times but I couldn't do it to the next poor bastard that would have to do my work in the immediate interim. I have previously posted on the greatness of work humour. This week involved doing impressions rampant rabbit vibrators like in a kind of salute by wobbling one's head and flicking one's hand around as if to simulate the clitoral simular part. I did mention that you could swallow loads of marbles to simulate the beads, but it fell on deaf years

...like my suggestion in the kitchen to the question 'what vegetarian special should we have?'
and me saying...

"Why not a big bit of tofu shaped liked a human head?!?"

2. Extra money for obscure and erotic items and bizarre endeavors.

3. A finely tuned and deep-seated hatred of the rich, those who do PhDs or MAs because they don’t really know what else to do and their parents are gullible enough to pay for it....three years and counting at the grad bar...three years and counting on hearing exactly the same arguments and creative writing novel pitches: (year 1) ahh it's about Gauguin from the point of view of his mistress (year 2) it's about Toulouse-Lautrec from the point of view of his mistress (year 3) It's about Picasso from the point of view of his mistress...

4. Learning more about lesser-known Norwich. Like such top shops as Black Lace, a fine fetish shop around the corner from the resturant where I work. They had a flyer in there for Zoo '4 piece vocal harmony group', these guys need to play at my 3oth birthday, or funeral, whichever comes first. Yeah the manga enter page looks vaguely impressive, but click on 'enter' and see what these mooks really look like.

5. Swearing: the stress of kitchen life means that I'm constantly going ballistic with Irish and/or made up swear words as more and more dirty dishes arrive in the 'hoist of doom' …ahh for bollix’s sake…cunt nuts! Cocking fucking hell!! shitbox mcgoolgle fuck-knocker, ahh you fucking prick bastards...etc etc.

Babes and Brutes

Pudding and porn…well, if people will ask…

A waitress at work was asking what I was doing… in my usual getting covered in crap and hot water voice I explained I was doing a PhD in superhero movies and was into comics and such. And she goes yeah, comics are good for hiding your porn and that. I’m there saying, yep totally, a comic collection is the perfect place to hide porn.

Little does she know comics are the best place to hide many types of porn, I mean by this: olden day porn. Porn what is held in magazine form not ‘FBI Warning’ style region ‘0’ DVDs or 'giz us your credit card number' jizz jockey Web sites, where your poor cpu explodes once you click on a word like 'pussy'. There is such an art to it: Color Climax and the small Euro pornos like Maximum Perversion* and Rodox and such are easily hidden betwixt American comics and Swank, Fox and other U.S. mags, Nugget say, are easily hidden within the folds of 2000 AD. It reminds me of when, back in the day, back in Belfast I would smuggle such filth within the fantasy across the border. When going through shopping centres like Castle Court as a teen and getting searched for possible bomb-making shite by a bemused security guard. I was scared that my sleaze would be discoved...as if a copy of Mayfair where a naked demi-wave woman covorted with saucepan full of rice pudding would be more of a threat to Belfast than a bomb?

I kid you not in liew of hardcore action English soft porn mags were reduced to displacement activites like a saucepan of rice pudding to 'spice things up a bit'. English porn is like and oxymoron...go to the east for cheap electronics....go to the U.S. of A (and I wonder what the A stands for?) for pervesrse pornography. Must stop ranting before I get in more trouble..by next Saturday...I will have working 4 full weeks in bar and kitchen work..every day a week...needless to say, I am not a throughly stable man :) . Mind you, I never was beforehand.


It’s funny how a pretty mindless job encourages me to be more open about being open about being a total ‘pervoirt’.I remember office jobs where It took weeks for the true dark side to emerge. Now it takes about five minutes.

For example, the other day I nearly had a fit because I ordered this two fine tomes…
Suicide Girls and Erotic Print Society's Young Lusty Sluts from Amazon. I was out, and a card that simply said 'Amazon' and a phone number to ring was shoved through the letter box. Upon ringing this number I found out that it was a random woman who knew nothing of any courier and even less about my mucky books. In a break in work, I rang up Amazon and explained my predicament to some poor Inadian call-centre guy. "What titles are they?", he asks. "Young Lusty Sluts and the Suicide Girls!"** I reply rather too loudly as the head chef bemusedly shook his head. "Are they for your work?" he asks..." they could be" I reply. I am, as has always been the case, a total pervoirt, but nice with it, you know...

*What is 'Maximum Perversion'? is like turning so far from the norm you are normal? this month's issue: A nonhorny slut gets some HOT TEA down her warm throat before she GOES TO MASS and swallows a bit of JC's supernatural flesh.
** This sounds like some sort of perverse version of an Enid Blyton romp!

“and later on, I’ll be telling you how to wear a bobble hat this summer…”

Keep holding on dude...

"Dude, keep holding on to her and don't let go for the rest of your life. She is about seven miles out of your league and you are never going to have tits like that in your mouth ever again (ever)"-Gavin McInnes

Hey monkey boys...you should be down there *all* the time!

What is it about guys with long hair? They can get away with fucking murder! There’s this girl, (“Dr. Pepper” knows of her) who works in one of Norwich’s attempts at an upmarket hairdressing hangout…ie it’s not called ‘The Hairport’ or ‘Curl up and Dye’. She’s Norwich’s answer to a Suicide Girl: shaven, dyed, pierced, tattooed, taut, tiny, and hobbling around on New Rock boots..etc etc. Anyway, I’m walking home during a split shift and I see said angel of depravity and then I see some long-haired guy following her. I mean, he looks like a lungfish that has had its face stoved in with a lead pipe. Is this a stalker? Is this a local Dungeons and Dragons enthusiast who mistakes her for an Orc?

Of course fucking not! He’s her fucking boyfriend, he’s catching up with her…he better catch up with her…she’s got 99.9% of the geeks of Norwich lusting after her. It reminded me of Gavin McInnes comment on one of his do's and don’ts in Vice Magazine.

“ Dude, keep holding on to her and don’t let go for the rest of your life. She is about seven miles out of your league and you are never going to have tits like that in your mouth ever again (ever)…”

It also reminded me of the bizarre system of fate that seems to pair ugly, hairy, stumpy, unfunny, boorish fucks with tall, willowy, beautiful, sexy, etc etc woman:
it’s the
“Apes and Angels Theory” recounted at length by myself and the Bad Brute (where be he? Who do that?) ….its collaries being:

Apes and Angels
Monkeys and Models
Gibbons and Girls
Chimps and Chicks
Lemurs and Ladies
Baboons and Babes
Primates and Pussy

That’s about it for now, but I’m sure I’ll think for more…why don’t yous suggest some?

Kinky John: "Hey! It's Friday night! I wanna get laid...where is everybody?..."

My Life as Vic Reeves…

In lieu of a proper post*, I have recreated my life in the medium of pictures of Vic Reeves. Not the most traditional mode of biography there is, but If one is half way through a 10-night-in-a-row, barman and kitchen porter style hell-job fest, then screen-shots of my favourite cult act from all the bizarre dvds I’m currently watching is all you’re going to get—until tomorrow night when I have ‘pencilled in’ a ‘window’ of coherent thoughts and full, well-spelt full sentences and that.

*don’t you worry they’re a comin’ one called ‘puddings and porn’ one called ‘Norwich unseen’ and more cartoons. PS as if there is ever a "proper post" from Jimmny Homunculus...-

The way I dance at the discotheques...

Upon seeing a lovely lady the two hemispheres of my brain: on the right, an attempt at nonchalance; on the left, staring.

The way I think I look, some sort of debonair guy in a suit with microphones and booze...

the way i probably look to onlookers, ooo ahhh monkey trousers! oooo

oooo: the way I actually look.

aaaaah

The way I will surely end my days, regailing nurses wit tales off my dairing do in the manner of Kinky John.

I Love Mucky Books: The cape I need to be buried in...

new GEEKdom cartoon

my kind of Crash...

It may be Oscar worthy but it doesn't have a Japanese hitman called No.3 who gets off on the smell of boiled rice, is all I'm saying..

Who’d of thought it, but actually getting to bed at a reasonable hour and getting up early two days in a row increases creative productivity and reduces general madness and drunken rants. It’s like reversing the polarity of your life if you get up at the time you usually go to bed. Despite my rants, it takes very little to make me very happy. I’m a total graphic design geek so the new ‘Berliner’ format Guardian made my Monday. There was also a street party on Upper St. Giles Street on Sunday that was mostly a street full of charity shop stalls—it was a demented Jimmny dream come true, a whole street of charity shop stalls, bought Kids on DVD for 50p. Yesterday got Branded to Kill for 1.49 in Cash Converters-- it's one of my favorite films a 1960s Japanese flick about a hitman called 'no.3' who has to find out who the 'No.1' hit man is and he can only get aroused by sniffing boiled rice?! they don't make films like that anymore! Oh and a new Bizarre with a good Vic Reeves Big Night Out article, two of my obsessions in one place!

Also went to see Crash. It's ok, but I found it very contrived, (feel like using that line from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory : “that seemed a little rehearsed” and use it for every film or play I watch). I can’t quite articulate why Crash irked me so. First up the name, should there not be some sort of 60-year embargo on giving a major film the same name as another one? Cheedle’s opening line is such a Ballard-lite crapfest. The film seems to say that all races are just trying to get along and are fundamentally good as long as they work hard for the American dream, except for the Persian man, who is still a bit nuts, saved from tragedy only by the American flag fluttering in the background and the quick-thinking of his more Americanised daughter.

Small clichés in films always get me—do film characters never check the expiry date on milk—they look at the label they see it’s manky and then they sniff it and pull a horrible face—what the fuck do you expect. It reminds me of whenever you see a film character smoking a joint, they pull these crazy faces that people who genuinely smoke can’t be arsed to make. Crash's ‘ethnic’ music, be it the short burst of the hip hop that occurs when Ludacris and friend are introduced or the ‘hhhheeeaaaahheeey’ with bells in the background to denote any middle eastern nationality ever wrecks my head-like the musical cues in things like The Simple Life. It’s directed by a Paul Haggis! I thought it was a some sort of equity dodge name, like James Tripe or something, but no, he's real and he worked on Diff'rent Strokes and thirtysomething (I almost forgot about the 'trendy' lower case lettering!)


Upside, Ludacris is great, Don Cheadle is amazing as usual and deserves his place as a script-writing term. Cheadle seems to escape Hollywood's attitudes to sex and African-American male characters in movies, which I’ve called the “Denzel Washington why can’t I be a good guy and have sex conundrum”: Good Black Man=No Sex, (Denzel Washington in The Manchurian Candidate, The Siege, The Bone Collector) Bad Black Man=Sex (Denzel Washington in Training Day). It's like Hollywood can handle heroic black characters who save the day as long they don't have sex! This give-and-take in Hollywood reminds me of Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact : Hey, Morgan, you get to play the first African-American U.S. president... but the earth's about to be destroyed, sorry.

Checking imdb just drives me crazier in the trivia section for Crash “Sandra Bullock was so committed to appearing in this film, that she bought her own plane ticket to fly to the set”, wow! That must have really put a dent in her millions- 'triva' for 'Lorcan's Dull and Aimless Life: A Comedy': Lorcan so wanted to clean the industrial fryer on Friday morning he paid for his bus fare out of his own pocket"...actually I walked buses are like a luxury for me, a concept that does not compute in the world of Crash.

The user comments on imdb are all like: "maybe we should get along, and, you know, treat everyone equally, because, like, we’re all human and that", and you need this sort of lacklustre film to tell you that! Go read some humanism for fuck sake.

aaahh pssssfffffff

"Did ye get your hole last night?"

When you have a tough job ‘job humour’ is the only way to get through it. You don’t really have it in academia, as the main downtime job of academics seems to be to constantly bitch about everyone, not that that doesn’t happen in every job, but the camaraderie of shit jobs invoke a bizarre humour that is more or less just repeating mundane phrases until they’re funny, you know..kinda like The Fast Show. In my current job* it’s just throwing something from long distances into the sink and saying with an ironic measure of pride in an assured tone… “skills”. That’s it, simple effective workplace humour that, like a meme, you can’t help repeating once you’ve heard it. Hey, it may be mundane but it’s better that the work humour at a bakery I worked nights on summer holidays (12 hours a night, 6 nights a week…for tuppence a month…you were lucky etc) which simply involved going up to a coworker and asking ‘did you get your hole last night’** or referring to a bread-crumb maker which vibrated ever so slightly as 'the wanking machine'. I make up my own humour, humming the 'The Imperial March' to myself when handed big grey Ikea bowls that look supisciously like Imperial gunner helmets, and remembering Will Ferrell's Gus Chiggins sketch from Saturday Night Live when I get handed mussel bowls that look like prospector's clanky pots.

Oh, on a related bizarre old TV note, the ones at work also know who ‘Pob’ is and do occasional impressions of him, which is the kind of thing that I respect in a person over say, having a car, playing sports or being religious. I like shows that never get repeated, it’s the media version of fossils found at certain levels of the ground, if you remember Pob you are a certain age, tying to explain a wooden-headed Welsh puppet that lives inside your TV and then spits on the screen and writes his name in it to anyone not of the ‘age of Pob’ and you will look like a lunatic. Kinda like that bit in Spaced, ‘it’s too orangey for crows!…’

*main duties: getting covered in crap, wearing an apron, getting treated like a trained monkey.
**My response was: "how in sweet fuck can I 'get my hole' if I'm fucking here every night, and I'm staying at my folks place, and I'm in rural Ireland and am social outcast because I like comics rather than playing GAA football or walloping people?"

Gavin McInnes, of Vice magazine: Goddamnit. I'm so sick of seeing people bring their computers to the bar I feel like having a temper tantrum every time I see them. Lady, you don't have internet here so the only things you could be working on are: poetry, very loose fiction, and photoshopping your dog onto a 1950s hot rod.

Feel free to say no to this…but would you shave my coin purse?…

Almost there…two more shifts until my day off!

Things that keep me going, a copy of the Family Guy movie from 'D' at work and Do’s and Don’ts: 10 Years of Vice Magazine’s Street Fashion Critiques by Suroosh Alvi, Gavin McInnes and Shane Smith…oh it rocks, £11.99 but worth it. It does make the reader extra bitchy about the goons one faces on a daily basis though, see post below!

Was trapped among the splashing hot water and sink full of discarded food until 12.45 tonight and was thinking when I get home I’m going to open a bottle of Zinfadel from these fine people at Western Wines and write a bit on the blog. I love their shiny silver bottles it makes me feel like I’m living in the future, like in 2005 or something . I have just opened it, though, and to my horror, it was their Pendulum Chardonnay! Feck I’m more of a red wine type of guy, don’t worry, like Alan Partridge said when a daddy long-legs fell into his coffee…I’m still going to drink it!. Have finally hung up my ‘apron of invisibleness’ (GEEKdom cartoon on this topic soon) for the night. I didn’t know the garb of the menial worker had such power…soon as you put it on, you are entirely invisible...I’ve seen about 6 people I knew dining and guffawing away at the place I work and I walked past unnoticed…I don’t know can the ‘help’ socialise on the job? Probably not. It’s okay, I’m happy in the kitchen gawking out at the diners..yeah you…eat your chips and get the fuck out of my sight. Post below about this…thought I’d better split the posts up a bit so as not to piss off folk with gigantic block of monkey-ramblings from chez Homunculus.

hey baby wanna play *chess*

Yes, a free Pheromone table booking is available…step this way…

There is one table just in front of one of our windows, and I swear to god it must be sprayed with pheromones or something—when the waitress asks me if I want anything I say, ‘could I have a Diet Coke, and could you hose down those horny mooks about six inches from my fucking face…I know they’re customers, but fuck! If you’re going to eat out, eat out, don’t eat each other out. . Every couple that sits there is down each other’s throats and pawing each other like they’re both going to disintegrate in an apocalyptic cataclysm in the next 2 minutes. I thought that was bad until saw a smug young middle-class couple play chess on some pine travel set that was probably bought from the back of a Sunday paper supplement magazine along with some Jean Paul Satre editions under the title ‘hey fuck face to you want to look intellectual in public?…why not join our ‘intelligensia affectation club’, every month you will receive a fine item to piss off your fellow humans…a pipe, a beret, a chess set? interested? have no opinions of your own? can't just talk to a woman when you're out for a meal but want to play chess? fuck you dude! you're not Steve McQueen, chess is not acceptable public foreplay for you...just be happy you've found someone gullible enough to suck your cock and call it a day...

I'm not saying the Great Strobe is better than other humans. I am, but that's beside the point. I can shoot laser beams out of my arms, that's what sets me apart. Can other humans do that? Can they? Can they?

Sit-Coms? Shit-Coms!!

Almost over half way through my mammoth work week of 15+ hours every day…my boss at (one of) the bars I work at is away and I’m covering day shifts then booting across town in an hour and start a night shift as a kitchen porter--cheers for the lift today 'L'. The logical thing after all that getting covered in gank would be to just go to bed, but when has ‘just going to bed’ ever been in the nature of the Jimmny?. Besides, I’m seething with rage as I have spent the last 20 minutes of work scooping tiny bits of food out of a huge sink while a manager keeps coming in and asking if I’m finished…like I’m taking this long doing this because I really enjoy doing it? Like I would wash everything and then do it again just for kicks, because I really like the sound of clanking glass and cutlery? Despite being exhausted from work I still can’t sleep, so might as well keep my nocturnal appointment with the increasingly bitter-a-rama that is the Life and Times of Jimmny Homunculus. Things will get better soon, it’s the whole ‘week in arrears’ pay thing, it feels like working for free until Friday, when I will exchange some of that coinage into the only currency that Jimmny really recognises…geeky cultural products, the imiment wishlist:


1. Vic Reeves Big Night Out on DVD ohh, can't wait..lady in HMV said Sept 26 release but Amazon says Sept 12, seriously I cannot overemphasize how looking forward to this I am....beware anyone in the UK or Republic of Ireland...I could well turn up with lots of booze and this DVD and force you to watch all 350 minutes of if...ain't no lie bubb...as anyone who was subjected to repeated showings of Big Train and the Adam and Joe Show DVD will attest.
2. Alexis Sayles Stuff on DVD-again can't wait was another favorite of mine but was always getting postponed on BBC2 Northern Ireland for some shite 'home grown' comedy like 'Provo McChuckees Dancing and Spud-eatin' Variety ShinDig.
3. Vice Do’s and Don’ts Book. looked at it many times in a book shop and must own it.
4. Suicide Girls Book the only surprise is that I haven't acquired this tome already!

By contrast, the day part of work is really quiet and I have spent most of this afternoon catching up on forgotten sitcoms.

I always feel sorry for sitcom characters, they have maybe three places they go to every day and that’s it, sure they talk about exciting scrapes like being on a runaway ship but they are clearly standing behind a stationary railing in a sou'wester as someone throws a bucket of water at them.

Paramount shows all the classics, Soap, Ink, Becker (will the Ted Danson character (what's his name?..oh yeah!, Becker) ever get to smoke that cigarette he waves around in painful sitcom shorthand for ‘I’m a cynical doctor who ironically smokes’), Mork and Mindy (my adult brain watches this and thinks…Mindy is really taking advantage of a mentally retarded guy and just tells everyone he’s ‘an alien’ that’s why he acts strange..yeah right). The Wonder Years…I caught an episode of this with with Dustin Diamond in it. What is this? some sort of parallel universe clash with Saved by the Bell, not only travelling dimensions but barriers of time and quality? that's the problem, I apply sci-fi and comics logic to sitcoms and soaps, like when Mork was introduced in Happy Days, are they all in parallel dimensions? what do the citizens of Coronation Street watch instead of Coronation Street?

Oh yeah and Bravo is showing Automan (‘sure, your secret magic friend that lives in your office computer solved the case?). So, basically I’m in sad geek heaven (do I ever leave?). The main guilty pleasure is Ned and Stacy. I have a soft spot for Thomas Haden Church because he is amazing in one of my favourite films, The Specials, seek it out! As the Mighty Strobe. It is refreshing to see a sitcom built on venom and hatred, one could not even pitch it these days…how do they even pitch sitcoms these days..I wonder.... mmmm(cue blurry shot of me stroking my chin)

Friends the pitch:
Pitcher: "err…it’s about six friends that are …err…. friends and all hang out together and that…oh yeah! They are all totally different apart from them all being white and middle-class…and all the same….Ross sometimes goes out with black girls though…em... err..coffee…lots of weddings…can we have millions of dollars? emmm…goodbye.”
Studio execs: do any of these 'friends' ever have sex?
Pitcher: 'oh god no, they talk about it a lot but then spazz out if ever they come into contact with anyone who might actaully like sex or any contact with any bodily fluid of any sort.
Studio execs: okay then here's your millions of dollars...just play down the gayness...no actually could you play up the gayness just enougth to get viewers but not enough for any gayness to actually occur?...
Pitchers: no worries boss...

Darma and Greg the pitch:
‘yeah well, emm there’s this girl who is like ‘kooky’ and ‘hippyish’ but with no discernable politics or anything and there’s this guy who’s like ‘a suit’ but is like nice and that and they’re married but like they’re totally mismatched…apart from both being quite similar and white and middle class…em….it’s not …Ned and Stacy…see, they've got different names and everything …

Will and Grace, the pitch:
‘yeah well, emm there’s this girl who is like ‘kooky’ and ‘hippyish’ but with no discernable politics or anything and she knows, like is actually friends with, a gay guy, but here’s the twist! They were like in love or something and now they share a flat and she knows a kooky woman and he knows and even gayer guy and like they’re so mismatched and kooky despite all being white and middle class…I mean..sparks will fly…it’s not Ned and Stacy or Darma and Greg…see…different names.
Studio execs: ‘Will these gay guys actually have sex?”
Pitcher: oh…em…oh god no, they’ll talk about it a lot and buy clothes and go to ‘gay bars’ but no..no cock action whatsoever...in fact they will spazz out when any actual sex is on the cards...can we have millions of dollars please?…goodbye.
Studio execs: okay then here's your millions of dollars

Thinking of some criteria for describing such shit-coms…I have come up with the following terms it's a Big Banister Show (The Cosby Show, Diff'rent Strokes) it’s a Coffee Shoper(Becker, Friends), oh! it’s a Workplacer (Ink, Spin City) it’s a Metro-Mismatcher (Will and Grace, Ned and Stacey) it’s a “ Pile of Shit but there might be some swearing or nudity” (Married with Children, Rude Awakening).

Missing in repeat action so far…ALF, Out of this World (sure, you’re dad’s gone away to his home planet, and he talks to you through your jewellery box!'…), The Misfits of Science….Perfect Strangers…A Different World…Mr Belvedere.

You see, now you know why I have to do Film and Television studies…I can only function while constantly spouting media-based trivia and somehow connecting it to the real world. A dear friend of mine back in the day called Aidan picked up on this trend while I used to come out with comparisons between mundane aspects of real-life like, I don’t know, cleaning out an oven and I’d go…"this is like Hell-Raiser!” or walking down a back street and I’d say this is like the opening sequence of Coronation Street!..and he would look at me and say,

‘It’s not like anything,…it just like real life!”

12 cert "nudity"?!

12 cert "nudity" part 2.

12 cert "nudity"

No sooner is my much beloved Videoplus cold in the grave but local shit shop chain Budgens started up a DVD rental shelf. Most of the new releases are £1.99 but I've been slumming it in the 99p section and it's been a clunker-rama every time with the likes of Van Helsing, Underworld, Starship Troopers 2, and The Butterfly Effect (although I did actually like that, apart from the logic that if you don't fall in love with Ashton Kutcher you immediately enter a parallel dimension where you're a crack whore, at the least the lady in It's A Wonderful Life only became a spinster librarian for turning down hetro-bliss manlove). At the minute I'm in the middle of watching The Big Bounce and the above picture is what we see as Sara Foster gets "naked" in a film that is rated 12-cert. So under 12 year olds are now going to think that when adults take off their clothes there is nothing under there apart from digitally manipulated blurriness?

Zombies man...they creep me out!

I can't talk right now...my head's in a rancid bin...

I now know I will have no problems if zombies do attack…most of my dreams are about apocalyptic events and the zombie attack ones are always the most fun, second only to one where I was in a pub with co workers and saw big triangular ufos and said “I knew the Americans had those things” before they promptly trashed the place. Anyway, I started a kitchen porter job here, which is not too bad, at least it’s money. My first job of today’s shift reminded me of a zombie attack as I cleaned out two fetid bins filled with rancid mussels and discarded chicken and steak etc. The burst leaking bin bags looked like some zombie’s guts as I prodded it with a discarded picnic bench parasol handle in order to coax out the gankfest into another bin bag while a co-worker liberally sprayed the surrounding area (and me) with Flash and water.

The awful stench wafted over the beer garden and some hellion says "you need to sort out our drains mate!" I felt like going up and saying “What?! lady!”… “You think a drain is the height of the horror that awaits me in my apron and wee rubber gloves* around that corner…you’re not the one who’s head is going to be in a rollie-bin in about 5 seconds you fat Norwich hag…shut the fuck up and jam your chips into your fat face or else I’ll have clean up what’s left at the bottom of this fucking bin next week!". Honestly just because you wear an apron people think you're a fucking idiot.

I mean the Jimmny has a strong constitution as those of you who have had the pleasure/misfortune** of seeing the effects of countless years of out-of-date ‘bargain’ beer deals, Buckfast and anything else you accidentally leave outside locked cabinets if I impose myself on you abode. (Irish people are like Vampires if you invite them over the threshold, you have to deal with the consequences...none of this civilised dinner party style 'emm would you like coffee?', if there is still alcohol of some sort in the house, then no...I would not like coffee...I don't know about you but I'm staying up to gibber nonsensically until 6am...do you want to see 'Cobumbo')

Anyway, I had to walk away and take deep breaths every so often to prevent gagging. Apart from this, it is a good place, they normally say when you work in a restaurant's kitchen you wouldn't want to eat there, but I would actually want to eat there more since I saw their chef in action. I just concentrate on my scrubbing in a Machinist stylee thinking my demeanted thoughts about how all this will be worth it in the end when I'll be "Dr. Chief"(the Chief will abide, man). The job also means that I will always finish everything on my plate whenever I'm in a resturant, seriously the level of waste is disgusting from these punters...why go out for a meal if you're going throw most of it away? Also whenever some flustered academic tells me that she/he is "up my neck in work"
...I'll be able to say, "at least you're not up to your neck in bin!..now go to your office and write your fucking wank!" (God that was harsh, but us academics don't really save lives or anything. Unless some poor soul was going to top themselves because there wasn't enough theortical books about some obscure area, say superhero movies, and then-bam-they find yours!).


*Thinks: mmm must nab some of these for ‘nocturnal fun’.
**Delete as applicable

this would be true, only I don't have a laptop...

Call Bloggers Anonymous!....

Some new stuff I’ve been working on
Along with

The Jimmny Homunculus Arts Hole now there’s

Culture Cocoon: Arefacts of the Homuncu-lair (A Web showcase of the bizarre and perverse crap that Jimmny Homunculus has accumulated).

There’s also GEEKdom, my attempt at a sequential comic strip, an online CV and rumbles of my arch-nemesis Nacrol blurting his fetid mindspill onto the blogosphere .

The...audience...is like...GINGer..in my hands.....putty!

Hip hop is the best, rap is the thing

hip hop is the best, rap is the thing...

Where is my mind...

Where is my mind...

If you live long enough…

All your favourite things become cool again. A few of my illustrious cohorts (a certain Dumb Riffer and the proprietor of the Tent of Blue) have linked to this fine article in The Guardian on The Pixies return to touring and possible new recorded material. As I have no doubt mentioned before I am a huge Frank Black fan. Heck, the new album could just include the sound of Frank Black shouting for a few seconds and going to the loo* while Kim Deal sings that there’s no loo roll left while Santiago and Lovering bump around in a cupboard to find some kitchen roll as a possible substitute and I’d probably buy it. Their available new stuff date was the great Bam Thwock. Unlike young Sinead, I have never seen them live as the Pixies but saw Frank Black and the Catholics last year at The Waterfront and saw The Breeders a few years ago with the esteemed JB. The drunken duo Kim and Kelley deal shouting things like ‘just play the fucking note’ to each other reminded me of these top songwriters. They Dealsters kept bitching to each other: ‘We were going to be playing “Drivin’ on 9” but somebody forgot here mandolin….Kelley!”.

Speaking of decade-old interests that still obsess me: Vic Reeves Big Night out will be soon on DVD, finally the young scamps who only know Reeves as that guy who asked for two fried eggs on Hell’s Kitchen, was on I’m a Celebrity Get me out of Here and then got plastered and drove into a stationary car and had to do community service will realise what comic geniuses Vic and Bob are, hopefully The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer and Bang! Bang! It's Reeves and Mortimer. I can finally get to do my Donald and Davey Stott, Paul Baron, and Kinky John impressions without people thinking I am (even more) mentally deranged.


A new Pixies album, Vic Reeves Big Night out on DVD, and a new series of Shooting Stars, it’s like all my teenage dreams are coming true, apart from all the She-Hulk/Tank Girls ones obviously.

*Where is my ROLL? CH-CH-CH-Chamin or andrex? or andrex? or andrex?

Job-Hunting, where will it all end?

Gizz'a job?!!

Since I posted this rant , I have been searching for shitty jobs in Norwich with no success. Where will the job-hunting end? I remember once in Dublin, I finished a one year contract as an arts officer in a college and literally got another office job within a day. I have been searching for work for about two months with no success. It's not like I'm a fucking oaf, I have good experience and interests. Although a certain Bad Brute once said that I should add "all holes filled" to the end of any CV. I could always start wanking for coins. It's tough filling out CVs and job applications, I mean is 'pornography' a 'hobby' or an' interest? it' s hard to know. It also reminds me of a friend at college who was a science PhD and used to say that having a PhD meant that you were 'over-qualified to do fuck all'.

Every job I go for they look at me as if to say..'em..why are you applying for this job?' And I feel like grabbing them by the lapels and shouting..'I haven't eaten today and I can't pay my rent and I need the fucking money! It's like just because you've read a few books you're not fit to hand someone a pint or a book or a fucking cinema ticket because, I don't know, you're mind might be distracted by wacky philisophical issues like how tall She-Hulk would be in real life* and that would obviously mean that I have less concentration than an 18-year-old chav crack addict.


*I reckon about 7 foot.

If only this lady got to eat someone instead of just CGIing about the place in Van Helsing!

“If your mom’s a vampire, and your dad’s a Frankenstein, how come you’re a werewolf?”

Back in my day, they used go on about films making people violent, like as if you’d go out and kill someone after seeing Driller Killer. I have just watched the 12a feature Van Helsing, and it make me violent, if I ever see director Stephen Sommers in the flesh, I would love to lamp him a good one square in the chops. As anyone who knows me would attest, I am not a violent man but the butchery of all my favourite old horror films in some sort of cgi timeless, “if it’s European it must be fictional and old” style wonderland nearly made me puke. How can you spend so much money and still make a film shitter than most of the films I normally watch? There were so many moments where I said to myself “they can’t do something so cheesy”…”oh my god…they just did”. Every 45 seconds of every minute of this movie cried out to be a story arc of a sequel that will never be made. They should concentrate on making the other 15 seconds of every minute of the damn movie be like the movie that’s actually fucking happening. Thank god I didn’t spend more than 99p to rent the fucker. God, (and I only capitalise it because it’s at the start of a sentence), how low can you go when you’re plagiarising The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I mean that’s the problem, I can handle a piece of shit if it’s made of rubber, but a piece of shit that's cgi?

Sorry, the hot water’s gone in my place and I’ve been having cold showers for the last two days…it makes one a mite tetchy.

Current Reading 1: The Deviates...

Current reading 2: Drunkard's Walk.

Best film never made?...

Freaky-deaky links and that....or 6 degrees of procrastination.

As the great Jimmy Cliff would say, 'you never miss your water until the well runs dry', which is
also true of the crazy ether procrastinato-tube that is the ole' t'internet. After being bereft of the broadband for a month or so it is overwheming to have it back and have such a source of time-wasting infromation and perversion at my fevered fingertips. Like Superhero Lives an insanely brillaint collection of all you would ever need to know about any superhero every depicted in a live-action format, where I found the above promo shots for a never-made She-Hulk movie with Brigitte Nielsen , in my head it's already the best film ever made.

Have been meaning for a while to do a semi-regular "big-up" of the fine folks on the links section of this a here blog:

First up, there's Karl Whitney , one of the post-apocalyptic climes of UEA and partner in crime on Paddy's Day, who has just returned home to Ireland after a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas style road trip around America with added 'gangsta-hand' and eye-patch action documented here. Much missed around our humble place of learning is a certain Guiness-drinking, comic-loving DJ, writer, poet and artist (it's hard to keep up with his many endeavors) who hails from Mexico, Ernesto, who has been blogging since before most of us knew what the hell it was all about.

What I love about blogging is how it keeps one in touch with old friends that one might not have hithero kept up contact as frequently such as the great Sinead Gibney of Tent of Blue who manages to write great stuff while studying mothering and catching up with international rap stars. I have written before of fond memories of a summer spent in a bizarre wee town in Scotland, which birthed top band Dawn of the Replicants, the blogging also allows a chance to keep up with the bizarre world of messrs Vickers and Small.

True story: I was wandering home from work one night listening to one of their fine albums when I got acosted by a drunken couple for a light. The woman grabs one head phone while squawking 'wot ewe listin' tooo?' I said 'Dawn of the Replicants', meanwhile her dashing Carlsberg Speical Brew-drinking 'escort' piped up 'wot's 'e listin' twe? Frank Sinatra?', no..she squawks over 'Daawn O' thee REEPlicants', she goes to me...'they're quite good aren't they, kind of 1960s-ish', indeed, I thought 'now be gone with you, I've got Chicago Town mini pizzas, comics and porn awiting me at home and must be on my way...'

But there's new friend too like Joe whoe as a fellow Phd inmate suffers the Long Moths of Boredem when he is not rocking with Tenikov and thinking about hard books and that. His goon lady friend maintain local arts/writing blog Schemes which is great showcase of Noorwich (and beyond) literary and artistic endeavours, and a few duff ones from a certain gibeering Irishman.

Then there's the amazing Laura Tooth who acquired her alias from this great early post and has maintained an always entertaining hub or perversion and provocative writing.


Whenever I started this PhD, I never thought the Internet would allow be to read the actual thoughts of my favourite super-heroes but it does, check out Hulk's Diary That is On the Internet the best use of blogging I've ver seen, but how does his big green fingers type the keys?? I found this through John Roger's great Kung Fu Monkey blog that is not only a hive of fine intellegent geekery of the highest order but also provide regular scriptwriting masterclasses from one in the know.

...And it was that site that alerted me to the amazing Web presence of one Warren Ellis, (ill at the moment send wellness vibes through the ether) one of may favouite comic writers since I read Lazarus Churchyard in Blast! I think I've nostalgically riffed on my 'golden period' of comic collecting the late 1980s-early 1990s British comic 'anthology boom'. Reading his site inspired the seeking out of the Web presence of the amazing creators that personified that period including Rian Hughes, Chris Weston and Brendan McCarthy. Speaking of these time I was giving a paper on Superman yesterday at this great conference and near shat, figuratively speaking, when I got to met Roger Sabin who wrote on the best histories of comcis Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels.


Ahh the Internet, you are on the global frequency.

But where be The Bad Brute and when will his electro-spume erupt forth again??

...be still me beating heart! on DVD Sept 12, do you remember 'The Summer of 75'?

This 'Island' made more sense...

Just because we're bereaved doesn't make us fucking SAPS!*

..And just because we're sci-fi fans, doesn't make us fucking idiots. When did Hollywood start thinking that sci-fi fans will be distracted by explosions and skintight costumes but not care about anything making sense. (I yeah I know, these pliles of shite and bollix). Sorry, I'm just back from The Island and my ears are ringing and all I see is product placement and shiny bullet casings falling in slow motion onto rainy concrete. It wasn't as bad as I expected and had some nice touches but it joins Equilibrium in the annals of new genre the "hyper-plagerisoid" where the producers feed in random bits of the likes of THX 1138, Logans Run, 1984, Fareinheit 451 into a Metal Mickey style computer and hope for the best. Best not to start asking questions, like Why? why build a hidden city of clones when you can grow organs in a jar far easier than creating whole people, how can a future of such surveillance allow people to wander around with guns and nanobots in their brain without detection, how can clones with no experience of the outside world survive for so long with cops and hired assassins after them. Hey, I'm no cirtic of a crazy concept, The Descent was my favorite film in ages, it had a mental concept but at least stuck too it and was believable, plus it wasn't 12A so some people actually die. Don't you miss those movies where people actually died, didn't just fall off a building or get nail-gunned in the hand and get up in the next scene to show everyone they're alright. Please! Hollywood! kill more people on screen! I don't go to movies to find role models I go to watch people heads explode.

On another Hollywood note, there's this guy. So when actors get up to dodginess and are constantly drunk and horny they have "priapism" and when that happens to me, I'm just a gibbering Irish pervoirt. 'dere ain't no justice.


*Need I add a quote from (c) "Best Film Ever"

Miss me?

Videoplus...I hope it'll be turned into a late-nite speakeasy...I hope in vain.

Everything must go

Videoplus RIP, sniff sniff...

Let me tell a lit a bit about Videoplus, one of the fine old-style independent video shops that recent closed down out street. It was one of those places that had all the old forgotten 1980s trash I grew up with, like Spacehunter: Adventurers in the Forbiden Zone and The Adventures of Bukaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension in a special basement. As the picture above shows, the last week involved all videos being sold off for 50p…50p! As ‘HH’, a friend and fellow PhD film geek happily said it was the comparable scenario for the likes of us to being kids in a candy store. It did cause for some awkward moments as I returned again and again and left with straining armfuls of VHS tat. It’s like being the audio-visual version of 78s collectors, it’s the whole VHS experience that counts like Simon Bates saying ‘sexual swear words’ or the priceless trailers for Summer Job and Ski School and the like, not to mention the trailers that all start with “In a world….” As you can see from the list below .

The wall of VHS shite...

Jimmny's video rap sheet...god help me eyes...

I chose various shite packages of VHS 'greatness' for various reasons. Now find out why, with great actual back-of-the-cover quotes© where applicable! Also, to the chagrin of the Word 2000 spell check, I have retained all the grammatical mistakes in a (sic)-stylee. Any perspective screenwriter or, I don’t know, The Wachowski Brothers, may want to take note, in case they have ‘unconsciously’ plagiarised them all.

Because I genuinely wanted to see them (gawd help me soul)
Mom and Dad Save the World. Years ago, I used to stay up until 3am and watch shite TV (plus ca change). One of the shows I loved was America’s Top Ten which showed loads of U.S. film clips of trailers of top films that would soon be on UK and Irish screens, but of course, in the case of this fine Howard the Duck-style shite-slab, they ended up being sold years later for 50p in closing-down video shop, and being bought by a gibbering Irish lunatic.
Enemy Mine. “ENEMIES because they were taught to be. SURVIVORS
Because they had to be”. I now own, and for 50p!, one of the first videos I first ever rented… that passes for achievement in my sad shitbox world.
Black Moon Rising
What the dillio? Tommy Lee Jones in an action style thriller written by John Carpenter and featuring a Knight Rider-style car, how could I not, and for 50p!
Doppelganger
“In every good, there is evil. In Holly Gooding there is something worse. Much worse…”
Monolith “The Power to Destroy Worlds” (only got it because it's sci-fi and it had Bill Paxton in almost starring role).
Xchange “Out of bodies. Out of time”
The Wizard of Speed of Time.
Saw a clip of the ending of this flick years ago and for 50p it’s worth it to own the finale, not the rest, though, ohh the 1980s…they could get away with anything. This does have a trailer for Ghost Chase, on it though. This one of Roland Emmerich’s first US movies it look awful. My friend Pete looked it up on imdb while were were watching this and I said, I bet it has a rating of 2.8, sure enough it did, what kind of shit super-power is that! Being able guess shite movies imdb ratings.
Wolfhound
I could claim patriotism with this one, but I chose it because it seemed to have lots of nudity of gore before I found out it filmed and set in Ireland: “ Beware the beast within…Returning to his parents’ ancestral home, Colum Kennedy (Allen Scott) discovers an Irish village populated by animalistic shapeshifters…” I could laugh in a disparaging fashion at this plot, but I wrote a similar horror novel about mutant cows in Co. Cavan called “Cannibull” I would claim it’s ‘lost’, but it’s just shite.
Scanner Cop “Imagine a cop who could read your mind and then blow it away”
Scanner Force “Scanners against scanners…the battle for total control has begun…within seconds…the fear…the panic…the agony”
Darkman II: The Return of Durant “Vengeance Strikes Hardest in the Dark!”
Dollman “Thirteen inches…with attitude”…”He was the toughest, baddest cop on planet Aturus. But when a high-speed space chase lands him on eath and right in the middle of a gang war, Brick Bardo (Tim Thomerson) is in a class of his own. He’s thirteen inches tall, armed to the teeth and getting meaner by the second…”

Because they are regarded as good films, or least, half-decent ones,
After Hours
Exit to Eden
Guily as Charged
Looker
Lord of Illusions
Mortal Combat
Resident Evil
"A secret experiment…a deadly virus…a fatal mistake…"
Strange Days
-December 30th, 1999..is it the end of the world or the beginning of a new one? Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) stalks the streets of Los Angeles, a street hustler, an ex-cop, a seller of broken dreams. (all well and good, but the last time I checked, new year’s eve happens on December 31st!)
Tightrope
-Superstar Clint Eastwood is back in what the Daily Mail called “an undeniably tense thriller.
Trouble in Mind
2010
Wise Blood

Because they featured statuesque warrior women. This, as any regular reader* of this site will know is own of my main perversions and peccadilloes, forwith:
China O’Brien
Dancing at the Blue Iguana
-Exposing their bodies…hiding their souls!
Red Sonja
-Two legends unite to defeat the greatest evil on earth.
Terminal Force.
-Laura(Brigette Nielsen) is a battle hardened warrior from a distant world sent to Earth to search for the mysterious Fire Crystal, key to all creation and the only hope of saving her planet from the armies of cruel invader Kyler…Amid incredible time-travelling and visual effects sequences, the two become locked in a battle with cops, the Mob and the enraged Alien, while the fate of two galaxies hangs in the balance. In a time of death-defying danger, may the Terminal Force be with you!
To The Limit
-When Frank Da Vinci’s (Joey Travolta)** wedding day turns into a massacre, he finds himself in the middle of a war between rogue CIA agents and the underworld, The mysterious Collette (Anna Nicole Smith) has the key to unlock dangerous secrets—but is she a trustworthy friend or a deadly enemy?
[P.S. this scant plot synopsis is bolstered with the following titles in large letters to coax the cock-stroking wee lad into purchase: “Guess? Jeans supermodel and 1993 Playmate of the Year” and “The newsworthy 5’11” beauty fills the screen with her presence”.

Because they featured Time Travel or Parallel Dimensions
Last Lives
“On the run from a parallel universe, only one man can stop them…time is running out!”
Outlaws
“They thought they had no future…but now they’re in it!”
TimeCop “ Turn back the clock…and you’re history”…In the year 2004, time travel is not only a reality, it’s an opportunity-for criminals of the future to alter the past for profit and power.
Time Runner
“From the creators of ‘Xtro 2’ and ‘Shadowchaser’ come this amazing ‘Terminator’-style sci-fi thriller, starring Mark Hamill from ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Bladerunner’s Brion James. (what a fine use of ‘quality by association’)
Trancers
“Jack Deth is back…and he’s never even been here before!”
Trancers III
“Time waits for no man...Deth Lives”


Because they featured robots or cyborgs:
Death Machine
“In subterranean level 10 of the Chaank Corporation Building there are 23.2 billion dollars in bonds…an in vault No. 10…”

Project Shadowchaser
“Man created him, now man is the enemy. Project Shadowchaer. Billion dollar brainchild of military scientist Joseph Kinderman (Joss Ackland)..The dream—to create a perfect synthetic warrior. The reality—a deadly one-man war machine. Intelligent. Indestuctbale. Out of control…(but aren’t we all)

Evolver
“EVOLVER is at the cutting edge of robotics, an incredible ‘smart’ robot that grow faster, stronger and deadlier with every duel it plays. Originally designed as a highly intelligent killing machine, programmed to infiltrate enemy lines and eliminate ithout prejudice, it has been transformed into a state-of-the-art games machine”…err I can see where the problem may arise.

Nemesis 2: Nebula
Los Angeles 2073 Ad. It has been 7 3 years since the CYBORG race won the Global War. The surviving humans have become their slaves. A resistance scientist has created a super DNA gene, which will produce a powerful mutant human. The child will be the first of a new generation capable of destroying the CYBORGS.

Ghost in the Machine
“Last night a serial killer died…His body was laid to rest but his soul has come on-line. Free to continue this reign of terror by using electronic circuitry, the serial killer’s next target is the unsuspecting Terry Munroe (Karen Allen) and her teenage son. Their only chance for survival is with the help of a brilliant computer hacker…”

Because they were set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, my favourite time and geographic period.

Salute of the Jugger
-In a futuristic world of the 23rd century ravaged by long forgotten wars, there is a violent and lethal game played by warriors known as ‘Juggers’. Exiled by the all-powerful league, Champion Jugger (Rutger Hauer) and his team of gladiators roam the scorched wilderness challenging all comers to savage combat. But to regain their honour, they must re-enter the League and beat the elite team.
The ultimate game is about to begin.
And winning means more than honour Far more. Today the prize is survival!
(The L.A. Times called it “Relentlessly Brutal”… was there ever a better compliment)

The Survivalist
-The Time: Somewhere in the future
The Place: United States of America
The Event: Nuclear Devastation.
…You can destroy a man’s country and pull his family apart-but you can never kill his spirit.

Future Sport
“In 2025, a revolutionary sport is the only way to stop a revolution.”

Hey guys, want to come round mine and watch some videos…hey…where’ya going?

Fin


*I’m fooling myself that I actually have regular readers, they are, no doubt, at least mentally, irregular at best.
**Like that’s a guarantee of quality.

(Frank) Black Monday

(Frank) Black Monday

A while back on a Monday (dates are hazy, I seldom know what day it is these days….is this a week day?) I excitedly purchased the new Frank Black album, Honeycomb. I had reserved a copy at the local HMV. Reserving top records used to be fun, the muso behind the counter would nod in agreement…as if to say "nice choice man…you’re probably a very cool dude". Nowadays, the pierced dullard barely offers a flicker of recognition. It reminded me of a time, back in my days in the ‘Fast where I once spied a fine video copy of a utterly-shite-but-I-like-it video, Sewage Baby, (wow it actually get's 2.2 on imdb!) and not having the £4.99 required to percure such guff and asking in a panic ‘can you keep this for me till Friday till I get paid!’. The shop guy probably went ‘great, we can finally off-load this junk to this hapless goon!’ (I’m sure it’s what most video/cd/book sellers say secretly when I enter their emporia with hard-earned coinage. More on shite videos to follow!

Anyway went to Great Yarmouth, or ‘Yarmo’ as it is known in the parlance of our times with a friend where I dragged her around all the tat shops, there are many, and got some top items of bootleg bat-paraphernalia and this fine mug (not too sure which one that refers to in pic). Also got to see the fine Yarmouth Pier where one, if one is so inclined, can see The Chuckle Brothers, The Grumbleweeds and Joe Pasquale every..single…week! Also got see a good friend 'M' who is going out with another 'M' who was one of the best bar-ladies we ever had in the grad bar. They are no doubt happily ensconsed in Australia with a little dog, where 'M', the boy, is no doubt biking around smoking rollies and taking the piss out of the Australian dudes, gawd love yous, if I had the funds I'd be over there saying hello. We had a bit of good bye drink in Yarmouth's 'Spoons with some of 'M's friends.

Iain and Lorc in Cardiff

Wonder Woman and wonderful people in Wales.

A while back I went Newtown to talk about Batman and I recently went to Cardiff to talk about Wonder Woman at this conference. My mini UK tour of gibbering about superheroes and foisting my usual perversions and peccadilloes is drawing to a close with only one more to do (this one on Superman in Nottingham). I have, as is my costom, implanted some photos of the event and the after conference free booze and food event easter egg style in this entry for those who like that sort of thing. We all stayed in this pretty lush university halls type place. On arrival, I immediately fell in with the ‘Irish massive’ a group from my dear alma matter and it was good to catch up on the gossip with the great and good of film studies. It was also a chance to catch up on important matters like geek t-shirt talk. I am proud of having a superhero t-shirt for almost every day of the week and was slightly envious of this fellow's nice Jack Kirby Captain America one. En masse the Irish massive and I went down to the students bar place that was open until 1am, as the bouncer pointedly repeated, perhaps he sensed the danger and beauty of a large group of Irish students who have demolished all the free wine, what we’re PhD students! If it’s free and nailed down it’s going to end up in our guts or our batcaves.

Yet again I had a morning slot and woke up confused, Prisoner-style yet again, Where am I? You’re in Cardiff, What do you want? We ant you to talk guff about Wonder Woman. The paper went pretty well, got to show many fine overheads and a clips of the WB’s great Justice League (now Justice League: Unlimited). Incidentally, I have recently been forcing my bar patrons to watch it in the bar when I’m working. I can often be seen emitting a wee tear or two at this fine series, leaving punters waiting…would you hold on a minute…sniff…Vandal Savage and Superman are making up to save the world…I’m sure your pint can wait!.

And Jimmny's back in the room...

Hurrm

3, 2, 1 *click* and he's back in your room

As they dragged him away, Rorschach spoke to the other inmates. He said "None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me"

Finally after a long delay the much-anticipated/feared* return of Jimmny Homunculus to the auld blab blogosphere. As you see above much has happened, including more talking at conferences in far off lands, well Wales and Nottingham, the closure of my favorite local video shop, and more bar work in a crazy Irish bar in Norwich. On my first day working there I had to prise a comatose fella in an Irish shirt out of a toilet cubicle at about 1pm as the place had been opened since 8am for some rugby match or other. Have been trying to adjust to the fact that I am trapped in Norwich for another 2 years, which did bring about some Alan Partridge-style freak-outs, including playing Halo 2 for about two and a half days solid It was slightly disappointing in comparison to finishing Halo on legendary. The ending of the sequel just involves walloping some big hairy monster! I have also consoled myself by watching lots of Family Guy and re-reading The Watchmen, my favourite book, I want to be buried with this lovely tome. It does genuinely make me laugh and cry every time, although I fear the geek inclination to identify too strongly with Rorschach though, thinking to myself that I’m not stuck here with the good folk of Nooorwich, they’re stuck here with me. Or to put it in a more positive way, "You never leave Serenity Valley, you just learn to live there..." Ahh Norwich, I’ll be wandering your streets a while yet, singing Frank Black to myself, eating copious amounts of pix and mix ‘flaneuring’ around ‘microgoth square’ and hosting bizarre film festivals for one as I return to the Riverside UCI and watch stupid amounts of movies that would make the eyes of the sensible bleed.

*Delete as applicable

Shrimps and bananas: enemies or allies?

If you have the fortune/misfortune* to know me, you'll know that I have a panchant for crap sweets found in such places as Poundland and QD style emporiums, it's the giddy sugar rush and the funny faces the sour ones make me pull perhaps. It is surprisig that old man Jimmny has any teeth in his gibbering maw after this bad habit (not as bad as some of the other one's obviously).

This pack caught my eye recently: I mean what exactly is the connection between shrimps and bananas?? Are they locked in some secret war that we humans no nothing of or are they secret lovers. Once one's back is turned in the kitchen these shrimps and bananas get it on for some shrimp-banana lovin', god knows how that would work (don't think think I haven't tried imagining it-as ever if their is sexual permutation that is anyway conceivable, I have tried to imagine it.)

Hopefully will have the ole internet back online by the weekend. Finished Halo 2this week and have been whoring myself around the pubs of Norwich (as a barman, I haven't stooped that low...yet).


*delete as applicable.