We Change Your Channel

First, Mz. Black's crazy footage Strange Faces gets onto the Tonight Show with Jay Leno (see below). Can we get any more mainstream than that?

Below is a piece from Blue's "My Secret Nicaragua," telling his reaction and thoughts to seeing himself and Mz. Black involved with the daily news braying out of CNN every half hour:

The night I come back I find myself filming a scene involving my BadTV partner Sandie Black and the poet Roland Verity and a bowling ball. I am reluctant, pregnant with my own plans and poetry, and I get yelled at and challenged and then concentrate long enough to get out of the shoot. In the Bank of America two days later I am making a deposit and I hear the poet's voice. I look at the plasma display, and CNN has picked up our parody of Hillary throwing bowling balls at Obama, played by the poet Verity, and I am laughing at this incongruent moment, because I hate CNN and the plasma pollution in the lobby every time I go to the bank. My footage will decorate the trash on CNN for the next 12 hours, and it feels good to swim up into the mainstream this way except that every time I see the footage, I think:

This is the principal problem with living in the United States; you are always screeched to buy, pushed to purchase, fooled into spending.

I clench my teeth in airports when I see the baggage carts locked into a dispenser, available for a dollar to cart your bags 100 yards to the exit. I bought a compact flash card, not even half the size of a credit card, and it came in formidable plastic packaging the size of a book; we had a piece on the Tonight Show a few weeks ago, and I told the producer Leno should be given four products from Best Buy or Circuit City and try to open them with scissors or a sledgehammer. That would be dark comedy.

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Anyway, you can see the CNN clip, where Sandie as Hillary and Varity as Obama appear about halfway through. Hilarious. BadTV is f------ with society! 

To see Sandie Black's clip used by CNN, click on the image above, and wait until you're about 45 seconds into the piece, when Mz. Black shows up, acting away, spoofing Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. 

I have an idea, broiled out of the user charges at the airport and Virgin Mobile's stupid texts: I am going to buy a hotel on the beach, I tell Suleyka, and buy all the eggs for four bucks a dozen, build a hatchery like the hatcheries I've filmed in Mexico, and make a tiny theatre and a tiny library and a place where the gringos can come and do photoshop and poetry and fix their websites and make a book, all in a week of vacation for twenty bucks a night, and before dinner they can walk down to the waves with a margarita in one hand and a baby turtle in the other, and this way the turtle gets into the water without being eaten by gulls or dogs and maybe 15 years from now the baby turtle will come back to this shore and bury treasure into the sand, and you know what the best part of my plan is, Suleyka? She is thinking maybe this is performance art where the audience participates: "You're going to pay for the college educations of the young girls who operate the hatchery?" Wow. That wasn't the best part of my plan, but it is now. But why girls? "Boys don't lay eggs." Yes, yes, of course. I was going to say the best part of my plan was the name of the hotel: Even tourists from England can pronounce and understand "Hotel Tortuga." But I like the girls in University on the hotel profits, for too many reasons to admit here, and this becomes the cornerstone of my plan, hatching itself into my life.

-- From Blue's book, "My Secret Nicaragua" 

If you filled up with gas in the Los Angeles area lately, you might have had the surreal experience of being greeted by BadTV's Sandie Black, right there on the vids at the pumps. How she gets in these situations, we do not know, but they are incredible. The best of these encounters was shown on the Tonight Show, and they led off with Sandie's Strange Faces vid: here's a clip from the actual Leno show, starring Mz. Black.

If you want to see the whole Strange Faces clip, now at 55,800 views, be forewarned that it is not your family's regular entertainment. But here's the whole clip.

They're meeting in Switzerland and Washington, the scientists, about the doom of the north pole icecap. Gone in your lifetime. Utterly, completely, finito.

We had a chance to catch up with one of the world's leading oceanographers this last week, and he confirmed what has been reported in the news recently: There will be no more ice in the Arctic summer by the year 2013.

Five years from now.

You can read a little of the interview, in the usual inscrutable Seanie Blue treatment: Dangerous Circumstances.


 

BadTV went to the Big Sky state in late October, and experienced a wild time in pursuit of photographers (found two) and grizzlies (one). A video is brewing, of course, since we shot a lot of amazing stuff, and since it was the first time in months that Black & Blue actually collaborated in person, in situ, on a project for BadTV. Notoriously opposites in entertainment tastes, Black & Blue could agree that Montana was a worthy subject to combine strengths and concentrate. The article below is the first result from the trip: a a fantasy dialogue with a model from Montana informed of the lurking toxins beneath the state's delicate beauty. Click on the banner to see more of this photo essay in JPG Magazine by Blue:

A second version with different photos and captions can be seen at Everywhere Magazine. 

Miz Black branches out every day it seems, dragging innocent bystanders into her world as surely as a mongoose collects marbles. Her latest stunt is a channel to celebrate the study of noises, in which she delivers a hilarious mimicking of one of our favorite youtubers, the massive hotforwords' Marina. Check out Sandie's first vid, a dead ringer for Marina's own Youtube intro. Next, we hope to make a viddy directly with giant wordologist herself, maybe in her native land, walking her native street, explaining the origin of the words she grew up with. Damn, that's a good idea. We have to write her an e-mail . . .

In the course of a week, Sandie gets on the front page of the business section of the Washington Post (viddying other Youtube revelers at the D.C. gathering), then gets the talent scouts at the Tonight Show to ask permission to use her Strange Faces vid for some sort of experiment in Hollywood, then sees director Rob Parrish put up her hilarious role as a blood-sucking vamp (with writer Virginia Vitzthum as the main dish), and then she shoots and edits a hilarious new Britney Spears spoof (coming soon!), before putting up tonight her Mozart piano skills in a preview of the utoob madness at Atlanta this weekend.

 Whew.

And how much of this comes from the purchase of a piano? Sandie was a prodigy on the keys, but gave the sport up 23 years ago until Blue harangued into spending $800 on a Yamaha. "It has to have 88 keys!" screeched Sandie for three weeks, but now the piano is here, centrally installed at the offices of BadTV. Everything revolves around the piano now, as Sandie rediscovers reflexes and unlocks synapses fro half a lifetime away.
 

How many people lost their jobs this week over the Emmys? Second lowest viewership ever. Is it the Internet? Is it outdoor sports? What drives people away from prime-time TV? The fools in Hollywood cannot believe -- will not believe -- that the reason is simply atrocious programming. Who gives two shits about the Emmys? The ratings say 13.1 million people watched, the second-lowest amount since 1993. Great. We love to see it. Oscars, Country Music Awards, Granmys -- all of them walking dinosaurs.

A spark between minds creates the machinery of lovers and their fuel, jealousy. How do we make this affair different from its surroundings, and yet magnetic enough to change everyone who sees us and feels compelled to fall as we do, comets, burning out, erasing all hope in tomorrow?

Sandie Black gets a call from a friend in a casino in the desert. Can Sandra show up in 24 hours with an Elvis outfit to be the witness at a wedding? Sandie wonders if she is supposed to bring a shotgun. She flies out today, and BadTV gets its third helping of Vegas.

Seanie Bue loads up the Badmobile and drives north to a polar bear in distress -- ravaged by cage madness -- and intends to look for wolves for three days in Ely, Minnesota. The boundary waters are home photo supremo Jim Brandenburg, and blue may call him to see if he wants to be on Utoob.

And a new vid goes up, of the live performance of "Watch My Sting" from the Black Hole Buddha's legendary single performance ten years ago. Written by Blue & Peter Fox, due out sometime this century.

Circus at Dawn (shot by Blue in Vegas, March 2007) 

Was it Wordsworth who said "laughter is the best medicine?" In the 10,000 years of civilized history, comedy has always been an important social element, and what better thing than to laugh at the miseries we feel ourselves? And to have been a comedian, always provoking ridicule . . . I guess that brings some obvious baggage. Owen Wilson is just lessening his burdens. he's the subject of the latest video from Sandie Black, who also scored with a hilarious send-up of Miss Teen USA South Carolina's wandering idiocy on geography. Check them both out at the sandieblack channel.

Siggy Rhymes plays a nanny in the newest vid from your favorite TV station, and as our favorite nanny she admits she is part of the world's rapid destruction, since she flies in airplanes and uses a cellphone. She aligns herself with Oppenheimer, the Judas of science, as a destroyer of life and innocence. Another version of this piece will soon be up as soon as we find a host that allows the necessary staple of all BadTV's scientific programming: Nudity.

The crosscurrents of financial pressure, artistic opportunity and geophysical realities have merged in our decision to make "Naked babes Save the Planet," a DVD starring the killer women of BadTV. The epiphany came in a Hollywood meeting with doctors and dentists interested in "investing" in badTV. Unfortunately, for most people with money "investing" really means "owning" and we're not ready to sell the house yet. We still live in it. And one of its children is the American Babe, undressed to go or dressed to thrill, so we'll make something extremely provocative and artistic and see if we can get it into Blockbuster. A seven-minute mix (without nudity) can be seen on Brightcove, starring Murphy Tolstoy.

. . . but Jesus Christ it sure as hell is our guy. Mikey Cormier, the cameraman to end all cameraman, the gibraltar of shooters, the beatnik with a rhetoric and communications degree from Charlottesville, original Betapunker who brought us an astounding video of whales in Chile, our pal and ex-roommate and star of our video of being robbed . . .

. . . is the catch of central casting as everyone's favorite son, Jesus Christ himself, friend to virgin mothers and prostitute girlfriends, selling the one thing of all things that Mikey has bought most of in a lifetime of social misadventure . . . here he is as the main man pushing the right brew: 

 She comes in ready to say some poetry about polar bears and finds herself talking about the Sun instead. But she doesn't blink an eye. She grew up in theatres tapdancing and singing and fell into burlesque and modeling when she noticed eveybody thought she was promiscuous when in reality she was only sexual. These are the lines she gets from BadTV:

"What do you think of solar power?" she asks.

She is in a good mood, smiling. There is no menace, no weapon, no anger on her skin. She rubs her arms and stomach.

"Even my skin is happy because I know sunshine will save the planet."

Mikey turns over onto her stomach and slowly kicks her feet in the air. She is flirting with the camera, because she has a good idea on her lips.

"Everyone thinks I have some strange attraction to the Sun.
Why should I care about another lonely star?
I love the Sun because . . .
Of all the stars in the galaxy,
the Sun, our Sun,
is definitely the prettiest one."

The cameraman, Sean, asks Mikey a question after a few moments of silence. "But how do you feel Mikey, when the sun sets?"

Mikey rolls over onto her back again and points at the ceiling.

"I see it right there in the mirror, reflected in the moon. And even in the dark, in the loneliest moment of a lifetime, a woman feels the moon flushing between her legs, a little reminder that a new day will break soon, and you'd better be ready to save a life or two."

She reaches behind her head and tries to block the camera and laughs.

From our investor meeting conference call:

The Investor (Dentist or Doctor) calls the meeting to order. "How will I get my money back is obviously the first question," says the Investor, and Sandie and Seanie both laugh. (Sandie actually snickers.) "You won't." Momentary pause. "Well, what's the pitch?" asks our Investor. Sandie says: "We got a plan bigger than our last one, which was a shampoo called Frat Boy Poison, which we sold out 400 bottles at a concert." Seanie says: "We'll compile all the nudity we ever put on BadTV and plaster ecological messages on the soundtrack, edit in high-def and produce a high-def disc with babes in lingerie killing oil executives, and the best news is that all the retail stores are selling a $400 blu-ray or HD-DVD player. Do you know what that means?" The Investor draws a blank, No he doesn't know what that means. "It means that next Christmas, in six months, practically next Tuesday, a high-def player will cost $199 and ten million of them will be sold, and where's the content," says Sandie. "Everybody wants to ogle in high-def, but where's the content?" The Investor asks for a title. "Naked Babes Save the Planet," says Seanie, "And of course there will be loads of nude men in it, too, equal time, Title X and all that." The Investor laughs, he likes the title, the hook is set, now which one of us pulls in the line? Black or Blue?

Our boy Will glides through Lalaland and takes us for Korean on 8th Street and recounts the day we shot 36 scenes for a movie about the Vatican and a squirrel. Is that really Sandie in the pudding, wrestling? What happened to the nice girl from the suburbs? Those days are over, says Seanie. Now we've all got less time than we did then, and it's burning quicker which means no more drinking on Friday nights and gossiping about Lindsay Lohan; on our deathbeds, Sandie and Seanie will be lamenting every stupid football game or courtroom drama they ever watched. And Will, bless his hard-working soul, wonders when we ever watched that shit. Seems to him we've been in a scheme ever since we've known him. What football? Whose court case? But that's not the point, I tell him: Point is, we need to get you the Oscar winner into a movie with Jack Nicholson with a budget for twenty five kay, as in $25,000, total, insurance, lawyers, everything, because that's the future. Will always listens to me, since we've known each other as long as John Travolta, but now he gently remonstrates: Sean, I didn't win. Who cares? What about a movie for $25K?

Absolutely burnt. A book of 50 pictures and 50 thousand words, or 1,000 words per picture, is almost finished, and will be published soon by a mysterious new press in the Imperial City. The book details BadTV's encounters around the world with Abbi Hendrix, an equally mysterious model and would-be assassin. The pictures were taken in Brugges, Amsterdam, Paris, Iceland, San Remo, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Cuernavaca, Palenque and Belize over the course of three years as Seanie Blue attempted to capture the deceptions and desires of a love affair with Ananda Shields, mankiller. "I was there for the Iceland segment, when Abbi was between jobs, and Blue was writing the strangest stuff off the top of his head," recalls Sandie Black, "And we'd be out filming in a blizzard while Abbi walked around like a tiger in the flakes, without clothes, armed only with poetry and poison, and Blue has sat on all this stuff, 17,000 pictures and 30 hours of viddy waiting for who knows which planets to align before he springs his trap onto society. Now he says he's got something. We'll see. But he promised to put up at least ten pix here on BadTV with one thousand words attached to each and I'll hold him to it or drop him in the Sacramento River." Black snarls at Blue's procrastinations, and the nips and growls move him to action like lava, slow and hot. The BadTVRV (the "Badmobile") has moved him to act with more sprite, because here is a production house on wheels, pointed towards the wilds of Alaska and Montana, into the barrios of grizzly and timberwolf, and he can't wait. "It's ciao Hollywood, baby," says Blue, "And hello tundra." More, soon. Blue is calling the book "Burnt," and it will be part of a massive project called "The Burn & the Scar," which has been mentioned briefly here before. Two books, five discs, a dreamcatcher, coins and knick knacks from around the planet, and a million angles on the shadowy Abbi Hendrix. Three years in the making and not done yet. "There's a sex temple in a tiger reserve in India," notes Mr. Blue, "And when I get Abbi there to shoot the final thoughts and acts of this love story, I'm done." More and more, sooner and later.

I was out in the new Badmobile, taking pictures of wildlife at Mason's Neck, including this shot of ducks coming home, when we passed the one million mark in viewers of our videos on Utoob, Revver, Brightcove et al. Got back in time to have a vitamin water (now owned by Coke!) with my Oscar nominee pal, and he climbed around the Badmobile and wanted to know what we were going to do with it, and I told him it was on its way to Glacier National Park. He would have laughed, but he knows us pretty well so instead he said: "When?"

The more TV adolescents watch, the more likely they are to develop attention and learning problems, and to do poorly in school in the long-run, a new study confirms. The findings "suggest that by encouraging youths to spend less than 3 hours per day watching television, parents, teachers and health care professionals may be able to help reduce the likelihood that at-risk adolescents will develop persistent attention and learning difficulties." This comes from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, reported by Reuters.

3 hours of TV a day? It should be three hours of TV a week. Marie Weiss wrote a book called "The Plug-In Drug," in which she maintained the act of watching TV was bad for you, never mind the content. Just watching makes you a moron.

Turn off your TV.