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APRIL 2002

Diary Entry: STUPID LISTS! FREE BRAND-OLD SUPERHIP DEVICES MP3! FREE BRAND-NEW UNHIP DEVICES MP3! PARANOIARAMA!

All contents © 2000-2002, Rick Trembles

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April 25, 2002

Diary Entry: STUPID LISTS

Stupid faces that have made and/or make my jaw drop (hint: picture them in their prime)... Sandy Dennis, Natalie Wood, Sissy Spacek, Mamie Van Doren, Jessica Harper, Parker Posey, Sylvia Kristel, Kathleen Quinlan, Karen Black, Milla Jovovich, Nancy Allen, Isabelle Adjani, Mia Farrow, Carrie Snodgress, Faye Dunaway, Fay Wray, Debbie Harry, Shelly Duvall, Charlotte Rampling, Lauren Bacall, Lauren Hutton, Catherine Deneuve, Mary Woronov, Mary Tyler Moore, Geena Davis, Jane Fonda, Bridget Fonda, Natasia Kinski, Carole Lorre, Michelle Pfiefer, Julliette Lewis, Jaqueline Bisset, Jane Birkin, Alicia Witt, Lung Leg, Dana Plato, Lynn Lowry, Elizabeth Montgomery, Tracy Lords, Willow Bay, Hannah Spearritt, Louise Brooks, Niagara Detroit, Tura Satana, Justine Bateman, Haji, Marlene Dietrich.

Stupid band name ideas (some actually used for bands I was in, some I wouldn't doubt already exist out there): The Ambitionists, Brunt, Wet-Blanketry, The Befuddlers, The Bedazzlers, The Bejeezus, The Disenchanted, Decibel Hell, The Disgruntled, Hell In A Hand-Basket, Freudian Slit, Doggie Bag, The Stepford Wives, Soylent Green, Not, Blabco, Inferiority Complex, Jamby, The Ben Franklins, Tit Juice, Reverse Psychology, The Doctor's Daughters, The Couple Busters, Dracula's Doggies, Yug, Naked Peaches & Cream, Vexation, Chuck Traynor's Missing Finger, Clifford Olson Trust Fund, Obnox, The Painstakers, The Procrastinators, Hold My Thresh, The Music Industry, Dust To Dust, Uppity Snub, Montreal, Fervid Torpor, Thanxamillion, Psychosomatic, Fart Whistle, Bunji Cord, The Lollipop Guild, The Lullaby League, Sleep Lab, The Somnambulists, Mondo Topless, The Liber-Teens, Ouch, Suspiria, Lady Doberman, Rube Goldberg Contraption, Fast Company, Mother Goose A Go Go, Fetal Position, Process Of Elimination, Butt Munch, Buttmutt, Men Women & Chainsaws.

My first band The Electric Vomit actually made it onto some Florida site's "worst band name" list. Finally: acknowledgment (decades postmortem). Click here

April 18, 2002

FREE BRAND-OLD SUPERHIP DEVICES MP3! (Pictured below, the original American Devices circa 1980, featured on this week's MP3. L to R: Cups Von Helm drums & handclaps, Suzy Joseph farfisa organ & handclaps, Rob Labelle bass & handclaps, Rick Trembles guitar & handclaps)

Oh, all right… you twisted my arm. Due to the overwhelmingly underwhelming response to last week's free acoustic "kinda hip & unhip at the same time" MP3, I thought I'd inflict yet another one on you, but this time it's an ELECTRIC instrumental dance number & it's 22 years old! FUCK reverse psychology; the song Bay of Pigs is "Superhip." Click the rollover button below to download.

More info on Bay of Pigs to come, but first let's get Snubdom's mailbag out of the way…

Shortly after my Last House On Dead End Street (1977) review came out, I received the following email (refer to my strip to find out who this man is):

Hey Rick, just to let you know, I played the "sleazebag producer" who takes the hoof sausage. Not my favorite memory of the shoot, but overall we sure did have a fun time!

Best, Steve Sweet (yes, the names were changed to protect the guilty)

So I emailed him back: Wow! Thanks for dropping me a note. It makes doing these comic strips all worthwhile. Glad to hear you survived the hoofjob. Only in the seventies! What with all the mad cow & hoof-and-mouth diseases you keep hearing about, you woulda had to use a condom if the movie was made today! It really was one of the most intense moments in the film. The way the woman slowly exposes her hoof to you was very confrontational, creepy & yes, even sexy in sick, sick way.

So he emailed me back: Hello Rick, Steve Sweet again. Just to let you know one more thing about the hoof scene… Roger Watkins (the director & star -no the film was NOT directed by Victor Janos- I don't think there IS a Victor Janos) can obviously talk almost anyone into doing almost anything. When he suggested this scene to me, he wanted me to "get into" the hoof fellatio thing (the character was, after all, sleazy) but I said no, that I would not play it that way -there would have to be a struggle & the sleazy producer would have to be forced to do it. All these years later (about 28 or 29!) upon reflection, if I had it to do again, I would play it terrified & resisting at first (like the way it runs now) but as the character realizes he's going to die no matter what, then he DOES get "into it" -almost like a sexual frenzy. I think that would have been even more bizarre & "sickly sexy."

This week's freebee MP3, Bay of Pigs, originally had lyrics written & sung by our founding member Phil Nylon. When he left, we continued playing it instrumentally. Sing along if you want, picture Phil doing it in his best early Devo era Mark Mothersbaugh imitation (with a smidgen of slurring for good measure)...

BAY OF PIGS

© Phil Nylon 1980

Aw, Teddy knows but he won't say, they'll probably kill him anyway, he'll tell the truth but it don't pay, down in the Bay of Pigs. Every day's the Fourth of July down in the Bay of Pigs.

Don't you ask Teddy why, & Gerry who did more than investigate, lonely haunting voices ending Memorex tapes, the last late romantic sealed his fate, his little-boy dreams red across the front page, he had big wide smiles & amphetamine nerves, he bought a front row seat to his own purge, Bay of Pigs. Every day's the Fourth of July down in the Bay of Pigs.

Teddy'd say but he knows he'd die, yeah Johnny took it too seriously, should've learned from Tricky Dick, stood by his blue book when he should've politicked, should've listened to dollars & cents, they bought his head, lost the evidence, Bay of Pigs. Every day's the Fourth of July down in the Bay of Pigs.

Teddy'd say but he knows he'd die, yeah Johnny took it too seriously, it's simple to me, all just monopoly, murder in the lobby, no room to breathe, Bay of Pigs. Every day's the Fourth of July down in the Bay of Pigs.

Incidentally, last week's acoustic Devices MP3 of Got The Feeling It's was played by me & Rob Labelle on guitars & Andre Asselin on contrebass. Engineered by Marc Montanchez. Email me now for info on how to order the new Devices acoustic 7 song instrumental CD, Nacktkultur.

April 11, 2002

FREE BRAND-NEW UNHIP DEVICES MP3!

Here's a free teaser track from my band The American Devices' latest batch of recordings. The song's called Got The Feeling It's. Send me 15 bucks for our brand new 7 song CD all from the same acoustic session. All instrumentals. Add a few bucks extra for postage if you're outside Canaduh. Email me & I'll give you the snail-mail addy to order from at ricktrembles@hotmail.com. Since snubdom's emblem this past year was derived from the cover of our last musical release (pictured below), I've updated the front page of this web site with the cover art from our new CD which we'll be calling NACKTKULTUR. It's a B&W charcoal drawing I did when I was 14. "Devices Unbuttplugged" was a close second for title. One of our ex bass players, Dave Hill, said the MP3 reminded him of Mason Williams' CLASSICAL GAS; "kinda hip & unhip at the same time." So be it. Enjoy, all you unhipsters.

April 4, 2002

This is where my head was at ten years ago. Tsk tsk. Such a crybaby. I won't be reprinting the following early-nineties editorial that I introduced the second issue of my self-published Sugar Diet comic book with, so I thought I'd put it to rest in this mausoleum of a web site. I tried to poke fun at how infrequent S.D. was (it debuted in '84) by cynically declaring I wouldn't be heard from again 'til 2000 (it seemed so remote & far off at the time, just uttering that date felt vaguely sci-fi). The slideshow described is the animated film I'm presently trying to complete. A Sugar Diet per decade or so? I see a pattern here. Guess I'm due for a new ish any century now...

PARANOIARAMA

Hello, Genius… I think you'll probably all agree with me that the world SUCKS. Especially the fact that everybody HATES me. It's true… I don't have to be a genius to figure that out, nor do YOU have to be a genius to hate me, in fact you AREN'T a genius if you hate me & my work. Enjoy this comic book & I hereby declare you a one hundred per cent Jeenyussness-filled person. CONGRATULATIONS. The decade that's passed since Sugar Diet #1 has left me more bitter, cynical, fatalistic, resigned, retarded, reclusive, poverty-stricken, self-absorbed & misanthropic than ever, but I'm still pursuing my lifelong goal of wallowing in monsters, rock, comix & self-pity, just as stated in that first issue, despite committing the suicidal sin of attempting to make a living from all of the above at one time or another. The worthwhile moments in each become much too few & far between, but they ARE habit-forming… That's Showbiz!! Those "times in-between" are mostly spent stumbling through personal (overly) ambitious projects, a self imposed hermit. Forget "sharing" this vision with another. I've come to accept that being so full of myself equals nobody else! But if repression is the root of all creativity, then I'll soon run out of tender little snippets 'n' tidbits to report. Might I consciously have to begin hunting for hot topics to document where there aren't any? Must I eventually come knocking at YOUR door requesting your participation in an (easy for me to draw) scenario worthy of my exhibitionisticism addiction? Any docu-dramas out there waiting to happen that could include ME in the script? Forget its comicbookability already, I gotta get a LIFE! Just kidding. No… I don't need or want a life, cuz it would only get in the way of my humblyheroic quest to IMITATE life. Lately I've been trying to take my contribution to the current bio-glut a few steps further, format-wise, by turning this issue's "How Did I Get So Anal" into a sort of slide projected spoken-word musical stage presentation entitled "Rick Trembles' Goopy Spasms Live Cartoon Show," opening for various bands' captive audiences. I get dolled up in the same drag that's in the strip & sit next to a screen with a guitar & my prop pointer/broomstick claiming I'm a wicked witch that just rode in on it. I colorized each panel & replaced all the words with decorative carny zigzag filler so I can describe each one live from a script with a rhythm-box beat. A twang on the guitar cues the projectionist to switch slides. Sure beats looking for a publisher! I couldn't have PAID that crowd to sit down & decipher my shit, this way, they got no choice, plus they don't even have to know how to read!! See you in the year 2000…

Rick Trembles, 1992

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