mario mind

Just wanted to post quickly to let everyone know that I've posted pics from our vacation to Indiana over Christmas, as well as some pics we took of our First Night experience in Boston. It was a lot of fun, saw a really odd band called Uncle Monsterface. The band caught my eye because of the blurb in the First Night events booklet:

Come and see a sock puppet rock band featuring songs about lobsters and outer space, giant projections for every song including enormous prairie dogs playing guitars, a dance contest between humanity and monster-kind, and a cover of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”. Yes, the sock puppets are in the band.They play instruments, make telephone calls, and teach the world to love again. And they dance dance dance. Totally.

How could you pass up a chance to see that? Well, it was all that and a can of beans, I tell you what! They covered "Little Girls" by Oingo Boingo and it got all the prepubescent girls out of their seats and dancing in front of the stage for the rest of the night. The show climaxed with "Lobster Building," with the audience invited onto the stage for a fitful orgy of leg-kicking and fist-pumping. It rocked. Check out the YouTube video of it below.

The whole thing reminded me of another off-the-wall show I saw, which my friend Quinn Walker opened for. For a time, Quinn was opening for a family that integrated slideshows (presumably found in the trash or bought at garage sales) into their musical act. Ever heard of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players? No? Big surprise, you're probably so uncool that you haven't heard of Uncle Monsterface either. Oh, you have? Then enjoy this, my friend!

To tell you the truth, the whole thing was a little creepy. The mother had made dolls that resembled her daughter, which she sold at the shows. The kid looked so bored you'd think she was doped up on lithium. But it was campy and that sold for a time in NYC.

And last, but certainly not least, what the heck does the title for this post mean? Mario mind?!? Well, it was a phrase coined by my very best friend, James Fegley, when we first got our Nintendo Entertainment System. James had been playing Super Mario Brothers at my house so much that he began to think of his environment in terms of the landscape in the game, which he then dubbed "mario mind." It plagued him in his sleep, it tormented him while he was awake. So now he doesn't play mario anymore. But I still do, and I've been playing Super Mario Galaxy nonstop on my wii. It rocks, but not as much as Uncle Monsterface!

Ahhh!!!! We're all gonna die!

One of my favorite jokes about Boston is this: The day after September 11, 2001, the local Boston newspapers all ran the same headline--"local Hub man looses life as NYC building collapses". It's very telling in its portrayal of Boston's insular nature, as well as Boston's news culture. Today the joke was all too real, however, as thirty or so "suspicious devices" were found throughout Boston, attached to bridges, roadways, and buildings. This resulted in SWAT teams and bomb experts being called to the scene and major roads and highways to be shut down, all during the early morning commute hours. As if the poor Boston commuter needed another reason to slit their wrist. Of course, it was still a joke . . .

So I'm sure most of you have heard by now that it was an ad campaign for a popular late night programming spot on Cartoon Network, known as Adult Swim. The "devices" were really simple electronic devices fashioned to light up, portraying a popular character from one of their shows, Aqua Teen Hunger Force. What makes it even funnier is that this particular character has a huge disdain for humans--even though he's a 2-D "Atari"-type figure--which is why he always flashes his middle finger. Which is exactly what the character was portrayed as doing in the "devices" which were thought to be of a terroristic nature. See for yourself . . .


So who won in all this? Certainly not Boston. They're the laughing-stock of the states . . . or are they? At least 10 other major metropolitan cities who support Adult Swim also had these devices scattered throughout. Boston was the only city that took the bait (if you can call it that) and treated it as a potential terrorist event. That proves that Boston takes these kind of threats seriously. But perhaps they're taking it too seriously (or not thinking intelligently enough) if they get fooled into thinking that some small, flashing sign powered by 4 D-cell batteries is a possible terrorist weapon. You can link to the best news article I've found on the story here.