Loud obnoxious goodness

8/15/2005 08:04:00 p.m.

Bought Rob Zombie's Past, Present and Future album today. It's his greatest hits compilation CD/DVD, and has stuff like "Thunder Kiss '65" and "Dragula" on it. Great tunes, if you like that sort of thing. The man (and his band, the now-defunct White Zombie) pretty much invented grindcore, I think. And if they didn't invent, they surely refined it and brought it to the People. Or something.

Two weird things about this:

1. I bought it in Wal-Mart. Now I'm in Canada, so maybe things are different up here, but I thought Wally World didn't stock music with Parental Advisories on it.
2. Far be it from me to complain, but, man, Rob, you're slippin'. What happened to album titles like Astro-Creep 2000: Songs of Love, Destruction, and Other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head? I mean, really. Past, Present, and Future sounds a little like a Loverboy reunion album or something... (Please don't kill me.)

Hmmm... there's a tune on here, no kidding, with Lionel Richie on guest vocals. Lionel Richie. And Rob Zombie.

For the uninitiated, RZ looks and sounds like this:


And Lionel Richie looks and sounds like this:

Just so's you know what we're dealing with here.

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Pop culture trivia time
Even if you're not a fan, you've probably heard Rob's work. There was a period a couple years back when you couldn't see three movie trailers without hearing a snippet--usually lyrics-free--from "More Human Than Human", off the Astro-Creep 2000 release.

The best part about "More Human Than Human" is that it's a song inspired by one of my favourite movies, Blade Runner. First off, the title is the motto of Tyrell Corporation, manufacturers of the replicants. There's a line in the song that goes "I am the Nexus One", which refers to the Nexus Six line of replicants that Deckard has to retire in the movie. And Rob borrows from Batty's dialog: "I want more life, f@#$er".

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Best. Dialog. Ever.
Last night Grosse Pointe Blank was on TV. I love this movie. It's one of my top five, I'd have to say. The screenplay snaps and crackles, and never slows down. I think my favourite scene might just be Joan Cusack, playing John Cusack's secretary, "just taking down the office, sir" bit (as she douses everything in gasoline and takes a five-pound short-handle sledgehammer--which looks a little like Marvel's incorrect interpretation of Mjollnir*--to her computer).

This led me to IMDB, that wonderful, wonderful site.

Ten points to the person who can tell me what TV show this quote is from:

Normally at a time like this I'd ask you for advice, and you'd say something that would make no sense at all, but somehow it would all fit together. Like, I would tell you, "Sir, I have a problem," and you'd say, "Well, what is it?" and I'd say, "Well, sir, Lisa wants to have a baby, but she doesn't want to get married," and you'd say "Dave, why milk the cow when you have a fridge full of steaks?" And I'd say, "Sir, that makes no sense," and you'd say, "Well, it sure made sense when that guy Chuck Connors said it in that movie Chinatown," and I'd say, "Sir, Chuck Connors wasn't in Chinatown," and you'd say, "Dave, if I wanted to have this conversation I'd have hired that guy Siskel Ebert to do your job," and I'd say, "Sir, Siskel and Ebert are two people," and you'd say, "Dave, just because the man is fat is no reason to make fun of him."

Every time I even think of that quote, I laugh so hard that, if I were drinking milk, it'd shoot out my nose. I try to avoid thinking of it at breakfast time. Orange juice, I have it on good authority, hurts.
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* The Marvel interpretation of Thor's hammer features a wooden handle. The mythical version from the Norse sources is one chunk of solid iron, and the handle is short, so short that Thor can only hold onto it with one hand, because Loki, ever the trickster, disguised himself as a fly and harried the dwarfs as they forged Mjollnir. (Yes, I am a bit of a Norse myth geek. Why?)