the stuff

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Back in the pre-Jon Stewart days of "The Daily Show," they had a regular feature where Jon Bloom (sometimes known as Joe-Bob Briggs) would take a look at great moments in religious broadcasting: "God Stuff." Though clips of these are still available at The Door (an online offshoot of a Christian humor mag geckoman once showed me, and which I have since seen at major bookstores), I was nonetheless quite excited when -- in the course of checking out a link to what may be the most inspired use of flatulent sound effects ever -- it occurred to me to look up The Stuff.

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And there it was. 30 clips in all -- not enough, but a start. And number nine was my old friend from Christian Kiddie Show Heaven, Captain Hook, the Christian Pirate. How I have missed the inflexible presence of the Captain, and the lame parables of Mrs. Hook. And the puppets, which by their existence prove that Muppets marry their siblings. And the crew of pirate helpers, each with his own particular bad English accent.

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And lo, here too were the makers of music, including the humblest of all, the ventriloquist dummy who lip-synchs records: Pablo The Hispanic Boy. (I'm only sorry there aren't more clips, like Orangey The Bunny.) Each "God Stuff" clip is just under three minutes, which is probably a few seconds short of the point where the human head explodes.

If the site of a clown picking up a dead bird offend thee, click not on the following:

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My profound thanks go out to whoever watched hours of this stuff so that I could see the best seconds of it. I'm only sorry I didn't videotape more of "Tammy Faye's House Party," where the mascara'd Ms. Bakker used to gather with her posse and do fun things like make "Mock Apple Pie" out of the recipe on boxes of Ritz Crackers.

Yes, they ate it.
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six things

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"Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then, pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included." I'll get you for this, baldanders.

1. I keep getting extra five-to-ten-minute doses of fame. Dave Sim put my picture (and my name in a caption) on the back of a Cerebus comic. I keep forgetting the number -- somewhere around #111, I think. Some time later, my friend Harry quoted me in an article on eBay auctions for PC World, who then sent a photographer to my house to get a picture of me cackling over a laser disk of Night of the Hunter. It was a good picture. Then, Newsweek excerpted the article -- including my picture -- in an advertising supplement in the same issue with the cover where the soccer player peeled off her shirt after a goal. I am thinking there were other instances, but we famous people are so blase about such things, we just forget them.

2. I'd come home on the school bus and search the kitchen for something edible. Sometimes I would munch on cloves. Other times I sucked on bouillon cubes. For a while, Mom and I shopped at "day old" bakery shops, and would sometimes bring home quantities of questionable Twinkies, which would go in the freezer. I developed a taste for frozen ones, because the kreme would turn into ice kreme. (I also became fond of "Bunnyland" brand factory second potato chips, but not the green ones.)

3. After going through a phase of throwing out my comic books, Mom started actively helping me get more. We used to go to thrift shops together, and she also drove me 60 miles to Denver and Boulder where there were real used comic stores! Barter Bob's, in Boulder, had some good stuff. I'm blanking now on the really good place in Denver that charged something like 30 cents plus 5 cents a year for most of their stock (unless it was special enough to have a price put on it). I filled in most of my Ditko Spider-Mans for around 70 cents each. They also had old MAD magazines. (I still have some regrets for taking five grocery bags of comics to A-1 Comics and trading for about a half a bag worth of things that filled in various runs of Marvels. The comics I gave up were things like crazy old DC comics with Ace the Bat-Hound and Superman's Pals & Gals -- just the sort of thing I can re-read with pleasure now.)

4. In 1984, Cathy and I went out to get a better computer than our Timex-Sinclair (the big one, not the small one). We looked at the Macintosh, and I kind of liked it, but we decided to get something with a future: an IBM pcjr. It did have a future -- I won't let Cathy get rid of it because it's the only computer slow enough to play Xonix on.

5. Life experiences include being marooned on the railroad tracks (I got halfway across the street and cars started coming and just wouldn't let me off) as a train approached. Somebody finally stopped. Thanks, whoever you were. Other life experiences: I was locked in a bank vault, twice. It was in a gift shop located in the former First National Bank, and the shopkeeper's son was showing how to get out of the vault from inside. There's a tool that worked, at least for that particular one.

6. I was on TV when I was around five years old, "The Sammy Skimmer Show" on Cheyenne's low-budget KFBC. He asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. Unprepared for the question (I kept trying to see my face on the monitor), I said "a cowboy." The moment I was waiting for finally came when Sammy announced Felix the Cat. Oh boy! I was going to see Felix! But instead of him coming out, they just wheeled a black and white TV out in front of the kiddie korral, or whatever it was called. The set was disappointing, too.

I hereby tag people I know personally: geckoman, rtred, armoire_man, fishbliss, budwebster, and malibrarian. Ordinarily, I shy away from tagging people, but today I'm up to the task.