Lackzoom Acidophilus
Friday, October 22, 2004
Thursday, October 21, 2004
10/21/04 8:42 PM Joe Coluccio
Id Id Id Id Id
One or two odd nights a year I sit down to watch the movie Forbidden Planet. It is the movie, I think, that I have seen for the most repeat times. The watching, a glass of red wine, some ersatz buttered low sodium popcorn, high resolution computer screen, has become an important ritual to me. Forbidden Planet is clearly the best science fiction film ever made.
I know that I saw the film in the theaters when it first appeared in 1956. As proof, I will now guide you back to the cafeteria slash lunch room at William Penn School. Right off Verona Road not too far from the historic log house that has since been covered with a fine white aluminum siding. Tradition dies hard in this Mid Atlantic neck of the woods.
It is a Friday evening. It is Spring. The school year is winding down. It is the night of the sixth grade dance. The hall (hitherto known as the cafeteria slash lunch room. I just could not add another slash in good conscience) is festooned with large paper cut-outs of alien life forms. On the small raised area that serves as a stage, where I myself was a Jack-in-the-Box in a Christmas Play several years prior Boinnng! I sprang up on cue and said my line, which, for lack of the proper recording equipment in those olden days of yore, is lost in the halls of my childhood audio, more science fiction props. I'll bet it was cute as hell, though. And so, more than likely, was I. If you are imagining that scene with a passel of parents raptly sitting on folding chairs watching scores of toys in Santa's Workshop animated by their little children, dancing and singing around the stage, you will have little trouble visualizing, that same stage, some years later, the night of the dance, empty and alien save for lunar craters and twinkling stars and planets with halo's pinned fetchingly on the maroon curtain. Please note with care that the name of this alien civilization on a banner that spans the middle of the room, high over the dance active 5th and 6th grade classes is, the Krell! 1956. Forbidden Planet.
Excited! You bet I was! Here was a tribute to my miraculous Krell who had literally raised with their expanded minds the energies of the planet Altair IV to the infinite power. Who had managed to forsake physical appearance for the deep realm of the mind. And contained therein was their downfall. Those noble creatures who must have had a really wide posterior if you looked at the shape of the arches that lead back to the Krell laboratories from Doctor Morbius' office. Forgive me, but the image of Giant Barneys, giant purple costumed dinosaurs with large bottoms waddling and singing I love you as they pack off to a hard day of work at the energy lab each day comes to my aged and expanded mind. No wonder the poor things wanted to leave all physical manifestation behind for the comforting geography of pure consciousness, where the people of Altair IV looked lot more like Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis in those really innocent yet sexy and revealing clothes. But I get ahead of myself.......
Luckily the Krell are left to our imagination and though I suppress the image of purple children's television drivel as I hope you will, the sixth grade dance committee has done a fine job of green and horned creatures. (Sheb Wooley for the record, one eyed and one horned was still solidly two years in the future).
But the fine and artistic depictions did not help. For the Krell were ultimately defeated by Monsters from the Id. And have been every year since. The Id! Now, this was the first time I had ever heard the term. Freud was really never mentioned in 6th grade civics class, but I caught on pretty quickly and have been intrigued by my unconscious urges ever since. It is really the superego that I have battled the most. Good thing the Krell didn't have to reckon with it. More than likely they would have become fundamentalist Christians. A fate way worse, as far as I am concerned, than being smashed to jelly by unconscious rage.
Strangely Robby the Robot was missing from the decorations and we were not served pints of "the good stuff" fashioned by the hands of Robby by the request of Cookie. Nontehless, I was drunk. I may have even danced a little. Secure with the knowledge that the universe was a vast and mysterious place just awaiting my voyage of discovery.
"Guilty, guilty", says Morbius, as his monster is burning through a door of solid Krell metal 26" thick, trying to get at his daughter, Alta and her new lover. "My evil self is at that door and I have no power to stop it!" Oh yeah, we've all been there!
Mr. Kurtz, he dead.
Id Id Id Id Id
One or two odd nights a year I sit down to watch the movie Forbidden Planet. It is the movie, I think, that I have seen for the most repeat times. The watching, a glass of red wine, some ersatz buttered low sodium popcorn, high resolution computer screen, has become an important ritual to me. Forbidden Planet is clearly the best science fiction film ever made.
I know that I saw the film in the theaters when it first appeared in 1956. As proof, I will now guide you back to the cafeteria slash lunch room at William Penn School. Right off Verona Road not too far from the historic log house that has since been covered with a fine white aluminum siding. Tradition dies hard in this Mid Atlantic neck of the woods.
It is a Friday evening. It is Spring. The school year is winding down. It is the night of the sixth grade dance. The hall (hitherto known as the cafeteria slash lunch room. I just could not add another slash in good conscience) is festooned with large paper cut-outs of alien life forms. On the small raised area that serves as a stage, where I myself was a Jack-in-the-Box in a Christmas Play several years prior Boinnng! I sprang up on cue and said my line, which, for lack of the proper recording equipment in those olden days of yore, is lost in the halls of my childhood audio, more science fiction props. I'll bet it was cute as hell, though. And so, more than likely, was I. If you are imagining that scene with a passel of parents raptly sitting on folding chairs watching scores of toys in Santa's Workshop animated by their little children, dancing and singing around the stage, you will have little trouble visualizing, that same stage, some years later, the night of the dance, empty and alien save for lunar craters and twinkling stars and planets with halo's pinned fetchingly on the maroon curtain. Please note with care that the name of this alien civilization on a banner that spans the middle of the room, high over the dance active 5th and 6th grade classes is, the Krell! 1956. Forbidden Planet.
Excited! You bet I was! Here was a tribute to my miraculous Krell who had literally raised with their expanded minds the energies of the planet Altair IV to the infinite power. Who had managed to forsake physical appearance for the deep realm of the mind. And contained therein was their downfall. Those noble creatures who must have had a really wide posterior if you looked at the shape of the arches that lead back to the Krell laboratories from Doctor Morbius' office. Forgive me, but the image of Giant Barneys, giant purple costumed dinosaurs with large bottoms waddling and singing I love you as they pack off to a hard day of work at the energy lab each day comes to my aged and expanded mind. No wonder the poor things wanted to leave all physical manifestation behind for the comforting geography of pure consciousness, where the people of Altair IV looked lot more like Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis in those really innocent yet sexy and revealing clothes. But I get ahead of myself.......
Luckily the Krell are left to our imagination and though I suppress the image of purple children's television drivel as I hope you will, the sixth grade dance committee has done a fine job of green and horned creatures. (Sheb Wooley for the record, one eyed and one horned was still solidly two years in the future).
But the fine and artistic depictions did not help. For the Krell were ultimately defeated by Monsters from the Id. And have been every year since. The Id! Now, this was the first time I had ever heard the term. Freud was really never mentioned in 6th grade civics class, but I caught on pretty quickly and have been intrigued by my unconscious urges ever since. It is really the superego that I have battled the most. Good thing the Krell didn't have to reckon with it. More than likely they would have become fundamentalist Christians. A fate way worse, as far as I am concerned, than being smashed to jelly by unconscious rage.
Strangely Robby the Robot was missing from the decorations and we were not served pints of "the good stuff" fashioned by the hands of Robby by the request of Cookie. Nontehless, I was drunk. I may have even danced a little. Secure with the knowledge that the universe was a vast and mysterious place just awaiting my voyage of discovery.
"Guilty, guilty", says Morbius, as his monster is burning through a door of solid Krell metal 26" thick, trying to get at his daughter, Alta and her new lover. "My evil self is at that door and I have no power to stop it!" Oh yeah, we've all been there!
Mr. Kurtz, he dead.
Monday, April 12, 2004
April 12, 2004 7:13 PM Joe Coluccio
The Beast Fed, At Last, But Not Really Tamed. AKA Comedy Heartburn!
I make this promise every week.
I will write something for the blog. (The last entry was Sunday 10/16/03 4:25 PM)
And every week something manages to catch my attention and lure me away from my keyboard and the pages of the Lackzoom Blog. Alas, sometimes it is the bed which brings me sweet temporary relief from the formidable work of the day.
I swear to you last night I sat bolt upright and thought ‘time to sleep when you’re dead!’ This, I think, you will all admit, is a sad state of affairs. I just turned over in the light of that shocking revelation and fell back asleep. Apparently my narcoleptic psyche has better sense than I do.
Here’s the deal. The Lackzoom Acidophilus Comedy Hour has been on the air since Sunday, Jan 25, 2004. Tomorrow I will FTP (File Transfer Protocol. A means of sending files via the internet) show number 12 which will air on April 25, 2004 to WURP 1550 AM. This is a milestone and I’ll tell you why, next paragraph…
For the first time we will be ahead of the game. We thought our first show would air on February 1, 2004. Show 1 aired, instead, one week early. We were really not prepared for the weefollwoing week’s show. We worked, we persevered and Show 2 became a part of our notable history.
For the next three weeks we began to look at the show as a great gaping grasping maw that would be satisfied only by more and newer comedy. We wrote, we performed, we edited, we produced music (All the musical intros and outros and interludes on Lackzoom are original. Luckily, most are composed by a piece of software called Acid and loops of music that are purchased and free of royalties. Without it we might well be sunk) we compiled shows all in the living rooms and basements of our on homes. It is truly a miracle of the digital age that we can produve a radio program without using a recording studio.
Then Show Number Five, because of a problem at the radio station, only aired for the last half an hour. We repeated the same show the next week which put us on a reasonable maintaining schedule. Essentially we gained back the week that we lost in the first place.
Show Number 8. Was viewed and reviewed in the light of the new and more nasty FCC regulations and was found lacking. It was cut and gutted. We decided to regroup and to miss the following week. We recorded new, scrapped old (and forever offensive to the palettes of our new moral leaders) and moved onward. Show 9 aired a week late.
This gaping maw of comedy ( 50 minutes each week of recorded, edited and produced comedy) is only satisfied by hard and constant work. Which is why I neglect this Blog terribly and we tend to neglect our website..
Our program, I feel, is unlike anything that has been heard on the radio. I am a great fan of what has come to be called Old Time Radio. I listen to shows frequently. I am a great fan of what is left on the raft of radio after the wreck of Clear Channel Broadcasting and Infinity Radio. I listen to everything, outside the entropy of bland gray colored popular music, frequently. I love radio and have since my parents bought me a powder blue AM only Arvin transistor set with the antenna set in the handle which revolved nicely to find the proper signal strength. So I set myself as expert as anyone here.
Lackzoom is a unique comedy group, made up of five people (Marc Simon, Phil Trafican, Foley Zelenak, Dean Mougianis, Joe Coluccio), five people with differing ideas and differing styles. And we work at it, to paraphrase the Commitments; we are the hardest working comedy group in the USA.
I guess the question is, are we funny? Listen, via the internet, go to http://www.theedge1550.com/stream and click on 'Click on this link to listen' Sunday’s at noon Eastern Daylight Time.
The answer?
You’re damn skippy, we are!
The Beast Fed, At Last, But Not Really Tamed. AKA Comedy Heartburn!
I make this promise every week.
I will write something for the blog. (The last entry was Sunday 10/16/03 4:25 PM)
And every week something manages to catch my attention and lure me away from my keyboard and the pages of the Lackzoom Blog. Alas, sometimes it is the bed which brings me sweet temporary relief from the formidable work of the day.
I swear to you last night I sat bolt upright and thought ‘time to sleep when you’re dead!’ This, I think, you will all admit, is a sad state of affairs. I just turned over in the light of that shocking revelation and fell back asleep. Apparently my narcoleptic psyche has better sense than I do.
Here’s the deal. The Lackzoom Acidophilus Comedy Hour has been on the air since Sunday, Jan 25, 2004. Tomorrow I will FTP (File Transfer Protocol. A means of sending files via the internet) show number 12 which will air on April 25, 2004 to WURP 1550 AM. This is a milestone and I’ll tell you why, next paragraph…
For the first time we will be ahead of the game. We thought our first show would air on February 1, 2004. Show 1 aired, instead, one week early. We were really not prepared for the weefollwoing week’s show. We worked, we persevered and Show 2 became a part of our notable history.
For the next three weeks we began to look at the show as a great gaping grasping maw that would be satisfied only by more and newer comedy. We wrote, we performed, we edited, we produced music (All the musical intros and outros and interludes on Lackzoom are original. Luckily, most are composed by a piece of software called Acid and loops of music that are purchased and free of royalties. Without it we might well be sunk) we compiled shows all in the living rooms and basements of our on homes. It is truly a miracle of the digital age that we can produve a radio program without using a recording studio.
Then Show Number Five, because of a problem at the radio station, only aired for the last half an hour. We repeated the same show the next week which put us on a reasonable maintaining schedule. Essentially we gained back the week that we lost in the first place.
Show Number 8. Was viewed and reviewed in the light of the new and more nasty FCC regulations and was found lacking. It was cut and gutted. We decided to regroup and to miss the following week. We recorded new, scrapped old (and forever offensive to the palettes of our new moral leaders) and moved onward. Show 9 aired a week late.
This gaping maw of comedy ( 50 minutes each week of recorded, edited and produced comedy) is only satisfied by hard and constant work. Which is why I neglect this Blog terribly and we tend to neglect our website..
Our program, I feel, is unlike anything that has been heard on the radio. I am a great fan of what has come to be called Old Time Radio. I listen to shows frequently. I am a great fan of what is left on the raft of radio after the wreck of Clear Channel Broadcasting and Infinity Radio. I listen to everything, outside the entropy of bland gray colored popular music, frequently. I love radio and have since my parents bought me a powder blue AM only Arvin transistor set with the antenna set in the handle which revolved nicely to find the proper signal strength. So I set myself as expert as anyone here.
Lackzoom is a unique comedy group, made up of five people (Marc Simon, Phil Trafican, Foley Zelenak, Dean Mougianis, Joe Coluccio), five people with differing ideas and differing styles. And we work at it, to paraphrase the Commitments; we are the hardest working comedy group in the USA.
I guess the question is, are we funny? Listen, via the internet, go to http://www.theedge1550.com/stream and click on 'Click on this link to listen' Sunday’s at noon Eastern Daylight Time.
The answer?
You’re damn skippy, we are!