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THE FRANTIC FLICKER
"The movie magazine that isn't..."
----Serving nonsense on a golden platter since 2004.----
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Issue #9: April 9, 2004
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www.franticflicker.com
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"There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful,
careless voyage."
- Mark Twain
IN THIS ISSUE:
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==>Snappy Introduction
==>The Matrix Revolutions
==>All You Have To Do Is Ask
==>The Visiting of the Sponsors
==>Superatomic Giveaway of the Week
==>Whodunnit?
SNAPPY INTRODUCTION
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Hi and welcome to not-so-naughty issue 9 of The Frantic Flicker. I had a really great time in
Florida (and got back in touch with some folks who may very well be reading this), but to
paraphrase Ace Frehley, I'm back in the California groove. I've been doing some work on the
website, so if you haven't been by in a while, set the old comput-o-matic to
www.franticflicker.com and see what's new. While you're there, make sure to check out the
archives, since that's where I've been sticking all the cool stuff when we're done with it.
I've noticed lately that my autoresponder has been gotten worse about responding
automatically, and some of you haven't been getting an issue until it's been out for a while, if
at all. Until I get a new one, these problems may persist, but unless you hear or decide
otherwise, I'm still doing this and you're still on the list. And just in case, EVERY issue is
available for your leisurely perusal on the aforementioned archive page.
I was going to make this week a sort of tribute to Paul Naschy (the KING of Euro-wolfman
movies), but the movie I was going to write a story about (Horror Rises From The Tomb, one
of my favorites), got pushed back and won't be out until the end of the month. So the Naschy
thing will come to fruition then.
One of the things I've been sort of mulling over in my head is soliciting contributions from you,
the reader, to sort of intensify the rapid-fire laser cannon force of The Frantic Flicker. I'm
certainly enjoying myself doing this alone, but I've got an inkling (thanks M.) that if other folks
contribute, it could be even better. I'll give you more details next week, along with a list of
themes for the weeks ahead. If you've got an idea that just can't wait, feel free to let me
know - my e-mail inbox is open 24 hours.
This week we're in a mainstream Hollywood sci-fi fever dream, and the only one who can save
us is... well, I'm not so sure we can be saved. We can be saved by next Friday, when the
theme changes. In the meantime, ponder this: would Jane Fonda's hair really look that good
in zero-gravity? If you said yes, or who cares, it's just a movie, then we're in complete
agreement.
Eric
It is my new hope that this story will attack your sense of fun with maniacal fury, and that the
disembodied phantom of fun itself strikes me back, until I am returned to a less menacing
state, less than a clone of the man I once was. At that point I will build an empire with my
cousin Jed - I'm the one in charge, though. Let's turn our attention now to the story itself, a
cautionary tale, loaded and reloaded with wisdom. I call it:
THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS
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Teaching geometry is a difficult job. After all, there's no practical application for most of it.
The only reason anyone would really need to learn geometry would be if they wanted to be a
geometry teacher. The kids give me a hard time about this, and sometimes I want to hit them.
The night before the school year started, I had this dream: I was at a rave with a bunch of
students and they were attacked by an army of robots. Most of the kids were killed, and the
only one who could save them was this ugly kid with a mullet named Ned Bailey. Ned Bailey
flew around the robots and lassoed them with extra long strands of spaghetti. He ate the
spaghetti afterwards and it was more than a little disturbing. Of course, since the school year
hadn't started yet, I'd never actually met a kid named Ned Bailey, and wasn't even sure that I
had one until I checked my roster. But sure enough, when that class came in, he looked
exactly like he had in my dream, with a terrible mullet and ridiculous sunglasses.
I had a bad feeling about him almost immediately. When I called attendance, instead of
saying "here" or "present," Ned Bailey said "These walls will crumble before I learn the first
principle of your fascistic robot science!" I sent him to the dean.
The next day, rather than call his name and start more trouble, I just looked up to see if he
was there - and there he was, with the same stupid sunglasses, and the same lousy haircut.
He ignored me, too, but I could tell he was gearing up for something big.
On Friday of that first week, we were ready to start illustrating some basic principles on
graph paper. Ned Bailey refused to cooperate.
"Mister Carlyle," he said, "I spit on your imperialistic cookie cutter geometry boot camp!" The
other students cheered as Ned came forward and ripped the chalk board off of the wall. He
was pretty strong for a 15 year-old. He put the chalkboard up against the door, and with the
help of the other students, he declared martial law in my classroom.
The kids all pitched in to cut along all of the lines on all of the graph paper (and this being
geometry, we had quite a bit on hand - it was pretty impressive) and turned it into
celebratory Ned Bailey confetti. While they were cutting, Ned made a pretty big speech.
"My fellow students, we stand today on the brink of education. Education from a world that
knows no shame and no taboos. Education from a curriculum that has no respect for the
sanctity of a warm fall day. Education from a teaching staff with an underdeveloped sense of
inspiration, a staff uninterested in our welfare or our interests. An education that will never
prepare us for anything, much less make us any smarter . In short, my friends, an education
straight from the bowels of hell itself."
The students all cheered, and so did I. I was trying to seem as young and hip as possible by
that point. I could appreciate their frustration, but I knew that it would stop with my class - a
school-wide coup was impossible. They did a weird tribal dance with the confetti as they
locked me in the closet. I was relieved that they didn't try to hurt me, but at the same time, I
wish I'd been able to see what happened next.
Apparently Ned Bailey, with his sunglasses still on, threw a chair through the classroom
window, and then made one last speech. It sounded sort of muffled from the closet, but I can
distinctly remember some small snippets, like "learn to confront television" and "glue sticks
because it feels inspired to stick" and "robots, oh, the robots". I would have loved to have
heard the whole thing.
According to the students questioned afterwards, Ned was convinced that he could fly. He
opened his backpack and gave packages of uncooked spaghetti to everyone, and then
stepped out of the window. They say he actually did seem to be walking on air for a second
or two, but then the terrible pull of gravity seized control, and his supernatural power, if it
ever existed, gave way to the natural power that we're all used to.
The classroom was on the first floor, but Ned hit his head pretty bad. Naturally, the kids
were upset, and it didn't take long before they decided that completely renouncing the world
was all well and good, but right then it was more important to get Ned to the hospital.
At the hospital, they had to shave off most of his mullet to get to his head, and that may
well be where the change came from. The next time I saw Ned, he was meek and
unassuming. Somehow or other, he had learned his lesson. After all they had said about
school being useless, Ned had at least learned this (I read it on his notebook the following
semester): "It's great to try to save the world from giant robots that don't exist, but in
practice, about the best you can hope for is to save some other kids from half a day of
classes."
You might say I learned my lesson, too: after seeing something like this happen every
couple of months for 10 years (only in my class about half the time, though), I quit teaching
and started my own asymmetrical greeting card company.
THE END
Interestingly, there's also a movie called The Matrix Revolutions that's new on DVD this week.
I saw it in the theater and fell asleep, but I think I might have just been sleepy. I dug the first
two, though.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS ASK
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In this section, I will happily answer any question you might have, whether I know the
answer or not. Just send them to eric@franticflicker.com with the subject line "I have a
question.". I especially like questions about regular school-type subjects, advice, or stuff
about movies.
This question came to me in a directly indirect way. The Superatomic Giveaway of the Week is
a bottomless fount of wisdom and obscurity (well, sometimes it is, anyway). We get a lot of
weird sentences that don't seem to make much sense at first glance (and I wouldn't have it
any other way) but this one really intrigued me, and it's in the form of a question, so I
thought I'd give it a whirl.
QUESTION: Who does one have to sleep with to become first? - Kevin
ANSWER: I guess the first thing to do to parse out this question is to decide what you mean
by "becoming first" and then we can worry about who one would have to sleep with to do
that. What are some things that come to mind when you think of "becoming first". In what
sort of situation might someone ask a question like that? The difficulty is that there's no
object. It's not "Who does one have to sleep with to become first the mayor, and then the
President?" and it's not "Who does one have to sleep with to become first a moth and then a
butterfly?" Those questions are very easy to answer, but just "Who does one have to sleep
with to become first?" is more difficult.
Without an object for the sentence, we have to examine further what we know about the
subject of the sentence, which in this case would be the assumed "I" (as in "I would like to
know who one has to sleep with to become first."). Based on what we know about the "I,"or
the person asking the question (actually very little) what can we assume the object of the
sentence might be? First in line? First in manufacturing light bulbs? We can't assume anything
like that. Nope. All we really know about the "one" is that he or she is a person. Is it possible
that the "one" in question might want to become the first person? Well, that's about all we've
got, so we'll have to roll with it.
Who does one have to sleep with to become the first person? That would depend on what
you believe, wouldn't it? In the Toltec tradition (at least according to the movie Altered
States) all people have inside of them a direct connection to the first person (who sort of
looks like a monkey and runs around naked and kills animals at the zoo). Then from the
Judeo-Christian perspective, the first person is Adam, who was tempted by the apple from
the tree of knowledge, etc., etc.. And those are really the only two first people I can think of
off the top of my head: Adam from the Garden of Eden and that weird monkey guy from
Altered States. So which way to go? It's not a terribly hard decision to make. As a scientist, I
believe that evolution is more likely than God creating a fellow and just beaming him down, so
we'll go with the monkey boy.
So who is the mother of the first person, and wouldn't the mother of the first person be the
first person herself? Not necessarily. If we're talking evolution, then the mother of the first
person was just ALMOST a person, some sort of prehistoric monkey lady.
If you were in fact to go back to a time when you were in a position to sleep with the mother
of the first person (although I'm not exactly sure how much good those bragging rights would
do you in the street), then you could in effect "become" the first person, and the former first
person would be the second person, and then each of us would then change our official order
in the universe by one.
You might be thinking that if you had a time machine you wouldn't have to sleep with the
monkey woman to
"become first" but I believe it's essential. Just traveling back in time wouldn't make you the
first anything, you would still be the 40 billionth person or whatever, just in a different time.
If, on the other hand, you were to go back to just before people were around and
impregnate the monkey lady who gave birth to the first person, then you would have dual
status as 40 billionth AND first. But in my considered opinion, the monkey lady impregnation
would be key.
In conclusion, in order to "become first" one would have to sleep with a prehistoric
half-human monkey lady (or monkey man, if the "one" is female), and not just sleep with
them, but sire or bear a child that is half monkey-person and half regular person, and just
over the line into what would technically be considered a human being. Please note that
Kevin never asked who HE would have to sleep with to become first, just who ONE would
have to sleep with. I hope his friend finds this information useful.
Eric
THE VISITING OF THE SPONSORS
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The Superatomic Giveaway of the Week awaits, but first you must cross the dreaded chasm
of commercialism!
EBAY!
I have my grand master black belt in eBay (username mothra911, feedback rating 889 and
counting). Buy my ebay stuff! It is good. It is excellent. It is so good and excellent and cheap
that you feel like you must buy it. Lotsa cds and still some 7" singles left, plus other weird
stuff. Check it out!
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=mothra911&include=0&
since=-1&sort=3&rows=50
PREORDER THE ORIGINAL STAR WARS TRILOGY ON DVD NOW!
Star Wars / The Empire Strikes Back / Return of the Jedi and an extra disc of bonus material.
Sure, they're the "special editions" and not the "original" original trilogy, but lighten up,
they're almost the same. They come out in September and the current price via this link is just
$42.99.
http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?item_id=601761&partner_id=90841311
FULL-SIZE ALIEN HEAD BUST - IT'S 3 FEET LONG!!!
Check out this crazy item - a 3 foot long Alien head. It's an exact replica of the creature's
head from the original movie in a limited edition of 500. You can preorder it now, and it's a
steal at just $899.99 (but even if you don't want to buy it, it's still cool to look at).
http://www.sideshowtoy.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=franticflicker&page=http://www.
sideshowtoy.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=props^item=2903
SUPERATOMIC GIVEAWAY OF THE WEEK
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Part of my whole reason for being here is to expose people to cool and/or weird stuff that
they might not otherwise know about, and one of the main ways I want to do that is by
giving stuff away for free.
This week's giveaway is a BRAND spankin' NEW DVD of the totally insane 1974 sci-fi classic
ZARDOZ, starring Sean Connery. Now I know you're thinking yeah, Sean Connery, sci-fi, it
sucks. No indeed. This weird slice of cinematic wheat bread is sci-fi w/Bond alright, but it's
sci-fi w/Bond about a bizarre utopian society with heavy sexual hangups, has outrageous and
surreal art direction, and comes with a full-scale Frantic Flicker Seal of Approval! See the
website for further details.
To win, send an e-mail to superatomic@franticflicker.com. Put your NAME (first and last) and
ADDRESS in the BODY of the e-mail, and use the SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD in a
COMPLETE SENTENCE as the SUBJECT line. Your information will not be used for any other
purpose.
The SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD for this week is... (gotta subscribe to find out).
Visit the superatomic section of the website (www.franticflicker.com/superatomic) for
complete rules, more details and a photo of this week's prize. Contest ends late Thursday
night, April 15, 2004 (if the message says Friday, that's too late Thursday night), and the
winner will be contacted by e-mail and announced on the site on Friday.
By entering, you confirm that you are 18 years of age or older. US or Canadian entrants only,
please.
WHODUNNIT
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Written, compiled, researched, edited and published by yours truly, King Boss Man Eric
Henderson! Thanks for reading it!
The Frantic Flicker is a weekly e-mail newsletter published by Eric Henderson.
The official Frantic Flicker website is a site to behold. I bid you burst your fetters and check it
out!
www.franticflicker.com
If you have any questions or comments, I'd be more than happy to hear them. Gimmee a
holler at:
eric@franticflicker.com. If you don't want me to print your letter, let me know.
I'll talk at you again next week. Thanks! Eric
All content copyright 2004 Eric Henderson. All rights reserved, but feel free to forward this
e-mail or link to my home page. Thanks.
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THE LIVING END