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STATIC SHOTS

Old Saint Nick

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

War is over, if you want it

And Christmas is the time to say I love you.

Pretty words written together

To piece together a feeling only felt

At this very unique and special time of year.

Cultures join consciousnesses together

Which humanity desperately desires

And achieves true peace within.

We shed our skin suits for merely a moment

And drift high above our plastic lives

To join our most important and ignored parts of ourselves.

Use your imagination to strip away all intangible walls 

Feel the souls of many others dancing out of their heads

Like sugar plums and angels giving generously and loving full.

And then, very cruelly, this penetrating feeling

Slips away into the night

Like a beloved pet going off to die alone.

The hole inside will remain for a full discontent year

And then the somber miracle repeats itself

Revealing our species' unenlightened misgivings.

Wake up, Mr. and Mrs.

Stay connected and be a part of the point

Breathe with bliss and happiness.

- J

THAT MOMENT : It's Christmas all over the McWorld

Santa Claus, The Movie (1985)

The Holidays are a time for magic; we have the freedom to be as joyful and merry as we please, and if we suspend our disbelief, we can lose ourselves in the power of the fantastical: an understanding and unity between all living things, a mythical figure who rewards children for being kind, reindeer flying around the world, and McDonald's as a setting where friends and families could gather to celebrate life.

The first act of Santa Claus, The Movie is a spiritual depiction of the inauguration of The Man Who Would Be Claus, immediately followed by conflict in a contemporary (1985) setting. Young Joe is a Dickensian street urchin, cold & hungry in New York City. After it's established that he would never resort to stealing to make his way, he peers through the fogged windows of a now-antiquated McDonald's, witnessing smiling faces and styrofoam containers and shoestring fries - all ensconced in a warm, Norman Rockwell fantasy, complimented by Sheena Easton's "It's Christmas (All Over the World)."
Apart from the heartbreaking subject matter (or maybe in addition to it even), this depiction of the once-leading fast food joint as a symbol of prosperity, community, and fine dining(?) isn't (or wasn't) completely off base. At the very least, at the time, it was certainly a Mecca of recreation and affordability - which, at its mind, body, and soul, is the American Dream. That's what Joe sees & it's what we see, and even if there's some combination of 80s McD's vibrations, the Holiday Spirit, and my own nostalgia linked to how stuff was when it was, it doesn't make it any less accurate or powerful.

I've only been made aware in the past few years that there was, indeed, a Happy Meal tie-in to the movie upon its release -- which very much makes sense given the glowing glamour shots the movie sells us. But to reiterate, it's not wrong at all. In fact, its authenticity (the lighting, the blocking, the performances from the extras) makes me question whether or not this 'product placement' was professionally placed.

Fuck Mac & Me.
And Merry Christmas!

- Paul

These wonderful things are the things we'll remember all through our lives

Whipped Cream and Pickles (but no anchovies)

Y'know, one could determine ("one" being myself) that the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is, to date, the most artistically competent and unaffected chapter in the vast empire that is that franchise. In terms of tone and execution, all that came before demonstrated the drastic poles between punk underground and Saturday Morning sugar cubes. And everything that came after, well... I've been calling attention to the heartbreaking misstep of Secret of the Ooze since its release in '91 - when they replaced the two most engaging characters/actors from the first film with a stuntman and Vanilla Ice, spoiling an otherwise solid sequel. I've given enough thought & time to Part III (which is nearly none of either), and apart from fringe-watching the 2014 Michael Bay-produced feature, I've seen or been interested in nothing else.
Well, not nothing else...

For Christmas of 2010 I bought Jess two sealed VHS tapes from I-don't-remember-where: the video single for Vanilla Ice's "Ninja Rap," and the 1994 direct-to-video special We Wish You a Turtle Christmas.
This was a period during which we were simply acquiring; if there was something we didn't have, we had to have it, so we got it. So, we now had two sealed Ninja Turtles VHS obscurities. And over the course of the past decade, we parted ways with roughly 90% of the treasures we amassed from that decadent phase. But, for some reason, those two tapes are still with us, and on Christmas Eve of 2015, we broke the seal on the Turtles Christmas tape. (The Vanilla Ice tape remains wrapped & mint, cuz who gives a shit.) God willing, we had & still have a VCR (or, as people ridiculously call them now, "VHS Players"), and as we rushed to doze before Santa's arrival, we submitted our souls to this 25 minute high school musical of a production.

I don't wanna bore you with a premise, but: it's Christmas Eve, and the Turtles need to get Splinter a gift. That's it. Oh, and they sing while they're trying to find him one. Except their mouths don't move when they sing. And the songs are dumb, punny parodies of Holiday songs with Ninja Turtle-centric lyrics about pizza and sewers. And their faces don't really move or emote also. And none of the popular supporting players show up like April or Casey Jones. And there are no villains: no Foot Clan, no Rocksteady or Bepop, no Krang, no Tokka or Rahzar. And there's no Shredder.

I'll repeat that: There's No Shredder.

I've never seen the Star Wars Holiday Special & I have no desire to; why would I want to see an unintentional mockery of an otherwise better-crafted piece of pop? That's part of it -- the other part is that (only to my vague understanding) it doesn't portray any kinda conflict (at least not in the sense or style of the saga it derived from). Like Star Wars or Batman or an Elm Street movie, I came here for the Bad Guy - instead, we're just left with these Teenage Turtles. But, they're not the Turtles - they're not even caricatures of the original caricatures we'd become familiar with at that point. It's like someone got a sense of who they were and how they act and what they looked like, and said, "We got this." But they didn't get it; this is the crust of a pizza that you can barely tell what the toppings were.

Most of what I've written here today would probably closely match the content of any & all millennial 'fan reviews' you'll find on this internet - using phrases like "frightening faces" and "so bad it's good." I don't know about any of that - it's certainly "so bad," and not in a Power Glove kinda way. But not so bad that it's boring, and that's a redeeming determinant. But the other thing, the main thing, the thing that actually has me coming back is that the video is Christmassy as all hell, and that's what we're about this month. Not attributed to anything behind the production necessarily (no one accidentally nailed the Holiday Spirit through writing or performances or any kinda pathos), but the vibe is still prevalent somehow - maybe it's the incessant sleigh bells that beat me into comfort and joy.

But all that's written here is prologue; the really real reason to take a look at something like this is that it's undeniably fascinating. Its failings are loud & confrontational and it's distinctly irritating at a continual pace; that's the sorta 'train wreck response,' sure. But if you consider Turtles not just as a cultural phenomenon or the money-making corporation that it is, but rather as the artistic movement that it also is: a period when all media began to borrow & emulate the tone of whatever connects to the most people. And with the experiment of We Wish You a Turtle Christmas, the test tubes shattered.

I'd post a button to send you to YouTube to watch this, but that eventually results in dead links, and I hate dead links. But it's there now for your Holiday bemusement. Or you could come to my house - we can heat up a frozen pizza with toppings you don't like and watch a Ninja Turtles video on my VHS Player that you don't wanna watch.

- Paul

STATIC SHOTS

TOYS ARE US : The Real Ghostbusters

I've actively participated in the modern cultural ritual known as "Black Friday" several times now - and I don't mean like 'online' shopping. For a period of 5 years or so, I went out to the big stores & malls at 12am - trippin' on tryptophan, drunk on adult beverages, sinuses packed with pumpkin pie - and would experience the experience just for the experience. I've never actually sought out a particular item in the hopes of getting it at some mildly lower cost - if I had, then I'd maybe more-fully immerse myself in "what it's all about." But what I've experienced in these excursions has been hot, loud, crowded, and very intermittently exhilarating. But even more prominent than that, I've noted that it's very structured, there's (mostly) a cooperative sense of discipline, and a heavy police presence. There was no sprinting or trampling or fist fights like in movies or TV. It's just like being in a really crowded store in the middle of the night with gastrointestinal cramping and a vague recollection of what it's like to be at home, in bed, asleep.

But was it always like this? Probably not. I hope not - I went out looking for blood, looking for a train wreck, looking for a fucking party! I was hoping to be part of a viral video - instead, it's a chaperoned middle school dance in Nazi-occupied Poland, and they have flatscreen TVs mixed in with the hosiery. The ideas I had in my head of "search & acquire" Xmas shopping was always graphically detailed to me by my parents, recounting their blood, sweat, & tears pursuit of anything (or even everything) from the Real Ghostbusters Kenner line of merchandise in the holiday season of '87.

By their account, it was apparently quite the stereotypical hard target quest, striking out from store to store: Bradlee's, Kay-Bee, Child World, K-Mart, Sears, and probably various other now-dead or dying places of retail, gradually accumulating as many of the pertinent products that were available, but not stopping until they got their hands on what they thought was the most indispensable item of all: the Proton Pack.

It should be noted that this was all meant to be a surprise; this wasn't a Jingle All the Way situation where I was demanding (or even expecting) these products. I'm not even sure I was entirely aware of their existence. But my parents clearly were, and they weren't about to settle for anything less.

It's sad: I've got an excellent memory that reaches pretty far back - nearly to the beginning. But even for a nostalgic sap like myself, it's hard to 'totally recall' emotion in regards to (or maybe in lieu of) personal events or physical activity. Though I think it's fair to assume that I was adequately excited on Christmas morning of 1987.

I remember the logo. Anything that had the logo (which was everything) would draw my eye into wherever it stood: particularly its prominence on the soundtrack cassette, and especially on the plastic Ecto-1, because, as I've done my best to explain in the past, the contrast of the logo against solid white has always been the turn-on. I also remember posing for some hero shots for my parents, and intentionally mugging like Egon in the theatrical poster that I woke up to in my room every morning.

I was a fan of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon series -- in the sense that I watched it regularly and it was colorful and had moments of humor and it filled the moments between watching the Ghostbusters movie. But it certainly read as counterfeit in a lotta ways, and the tone was ham-fisted in comparison.
No big deal, except the designs for the toys (as accurate as they were) derived directly from the show, and I'm overwhelmed with confidence when I say that there was no way I was the only child who felt a constant dull ache of disappointment that these playthings didn't more closely resemble the imposing black scientific weaponry from the film - as opposed to the candy-colored blues & yellows that better matched the Slimer show that spawned them.

I can't complain, and I sure-as-shit didn't complain then. However, nowadays, I've seen stuff online and at places like Spirit Halloween that offer much more true-to-life replicas of the actual movie-movie props. (That screen-accurate Trap is concentrated pornography.) I'm both excited & envious for my son's inevitable plunge into Ghostbusters and the officially licensed merchandise he will have at his dispense.
But in the meantime (i.e. 1987) I "made due" as it were; the hollow vinyl Proton Pack on my back gave me the satisfying sense of miming the action of busting ghosts to the tunes of the sprawling soundtrack that had all the other, cooler songs that weren't the Ray Parker theme. The PKE Meter - as aesthetically pleasing as it was - was the biggest disappointment as it looked nothing like what Harold Ramis was using. The Headquarters was solid and majestic in appearance, and felt like an 'important toy' (my father still recounts the assertive absurdity of the assembly directions), but I mostly sidestepped the action figures it was made for -- I didn't want tiny little Ghostbusters. I was the Ghostbuster. Ultimately it was just a cartoonish monument to real life architecture.

There were other things: the Ghostpopper that shot foam yellow cylinders (and resembled nothing from the show or movie), the Ghostzapper that projected images of cartoon ghosts on the wall in the style of the Bat Signal, the decidedly Pop Art comforter that eventually became a dog bed until 1995, the plush Mr. Stay-Puft with the glow-in-the-dark 'no-ghost' logo on its ass... An endless parade of 80s-colored plastic junk that may've well been solid gold. But the truest & most lifelike gem of that jam was the Ecto-1: my favorite movie vehicle, and though a depiction of the cartoon car, the differences were negligible.

But it's funny: as consciously careful and respectful I was to my toys, they'd eventually succumb to the elements - natural or man-made - and slowly deteriorate and die.
The Proton Pack's final resting place was outdoors, on a bed of leaves, behind my house. Season after season, year after year, I'd peripherally pay my respects as its bright colors and plastic form endured the punishment of time, until one Spring when the snow melted and it was not there anymore.
Even my beloved Ecto-1 lost whatever functionality it had (shocks, brakes, brake pads, lining, steering box, transmission...).

But it's ok, right...? I mean, possessions are fleeting & all that, and whatever physical/emotional/spiritual voodoo the toys discharged into my young life was certainly and wholly consumed by my head & heart. I don't wanna make this some deep metaphysical thing (so I won't), but I suppose the true magic of it is my satisfaction in participating in a major pop-Americana sensation of my generation. For my age at that particular time, it was my Moon Landing.
I mean, I did see the Berlin Wall torn down on live television, but this was better. And more important.

- Paul