Other Good Tackorama
Introduction
This is a list of other things that could easily belong to the Tackorama stable (except I had nothing to do with them). This page is not a list of links but it is a list and explanation of other Tackorama in the world, even though you might know them by their proper names. They are listed in no particular order.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975.
Brad: It's a reasonable request that you've chosen to ignore.
Janet: Brad don't be ungrateful.
Brad: Un-ger-rateful!!
(audience cries: Superman!)
Ahh the university years. Forget all the advice about working hard and getting a good nights sleep, the student years are the first steps to discovering who you are and what you are. To that end every student must "explore". There is no set list of things to try with the many, many, many, many, many free hours as a university student you are awarded. However there is a group of time-tested, ready-made experiences that each student can select from. The Rocky Horror Pitcure Show (film or theatre) is one those ready-made experiences.
(You can opt for more the socially acceptable choices such as getting drunk, getting high, or running naked through the shopping centre but you didn't want a boring life, did you?).
Rocky Horror: cinematic feast; parady of 1950s science fiction films; quirky musical; essay on sexual perversion; a cheap night out. But you must participate. The fact the audience scream back also puts it in the realm of Adult Panto. Rocky Horror thrives on such a potent and powerful exchange from the audience and what the audience get back is first rate absolute pleasure...
...Swim the warm waters of sins of the fer-lesh!
The Funeral of Princess Diana, September 1997.
The saturday of the actual funeral had followed a week of disorientation. Where the British Press once led the public they were lost as they followed the nation "reacted" to her sudden death. Where the Queen was once allowed privacy to grieve, the nation "pulled" her out of hiding. Where mourning a public death was once a quiet, solemn and dignified affair, Diana's death was the first that allowed the wholesale ejection of reason, reality and restraint.
The funeral on the saturday was a Festival of Tackiness. Playing cards suddenly became a higher-valued alternative to an ordinary card. Flowers laid outside Kensington Palace lost all dignity and grace; a sea of cellophane drowned the blooms. Her body proceeded down the streets of London and the people clapped. Actually clapped. They also cried out "We love you" and wept as shamelessly as paid mourners in Roman times. This was a funeral sans taste.
The British had to grieve and wanted to be seen to be grieving, and wanted to see others grieving too. Communal mass hysteria, and it was pleasureable for them. Pleasure from crying. Pleasure from knowing your playing card and cellophane flora was in there. Diana, the Queen of Hearts, the Peoples Princess, was un-officially canonised as the Patron Saint of Victims by the British that day. They loved it.
Footballers Wives, 2002-2006
This was a tv drama series that focused on the revolting game from the perspective of the wives and girlfriends of professional footballers. Initially I thought it was a wasted opportunity to expose the base nastiness of the football business and this criticism can still be used to slag this programme off. However this programme achieves much more by implication of the flaws of the male football professional by the portrayal of the excesses, vanities, plots and character flaws of the women associated with the men.
Footballers Wives is one of the few great tv programmes where all the best characters, dialog and jokes have women smack in the centre of them. (Not surprisingly is was written by a woman). This programme is eye candy and brain food, shifting easily between the two within most scenes. From small details revealed in a camera angle to long lasting plots this programme has had a lot of thought thrown into it and pleases at a constantly first rate level.
Footballers Wives is pantomine trash.
Rainbow Islands (Amiga version), 1989
"Often imitated, never bettered" was the quote I remember reading about this game. It wasn't a contender for the best platform game ever produced on the Amiga, it was the best platform game ever produced on the Amiga! (Lemmings was second place, debate rages for the third place).
The game itself is simple. You start at the bottom and jump up on the platforms to reach the top GOAL level. Your shoot rainbows to kill baddies, trap them and can walk on the rainbows too. Different power ups add power to your 'bows and collecting 7 rainbow gems on each island opens a secret door with a permanent boost to your power. 7 islands, 4 rounds in each. 1 disked heaven!
Where Rainbow Islands got it right (where so many games, platform or not, get it wrong) was in the tight integration of its parts: concept, graphics, music, gameplay, level layout. It all fit so bloody well together, nothing was half-baked or rushed. It was also highly addictive, a worthy successor to the spirit of the best ZX Spectrum games but finally with some juicy graphics and sound to match. I wasted many hours on this and unlike todays easier games this was one increasingly harder from the 3rd island. Yes I have finished it, with all 7 secret power gems, without cheating!
Today Rainbow Islands has been converted to almost every platform and failing that an Amiga Emulator can soon have it up and running on your computer. It has evolved into Rainbow Islands Revolutions and I've tried it: the remake is crap. Stick with the original!
The BackDormBoys, 2005 to present
Two chinese art students lip synch to pop music on the webcam in their dorm room.
Choosing songs they have clearly listened too far too many times, Wei Wei and Huang Yi Xin lip synch in one take in front of webcam. It's a devistatingly simple idea and executed by two artists with a level of grace, integrity and professionalism(?). It's refreshing to watch manufactured pop music stripped of it's styled video and piss-poor presentation and vitalised with power.
Depending on where you find their videos they have made anywhere from 7 to 17 videos. Were they bored? Who cares. Do they have a long-term plan for this? Who cares. They have since graduated and are doing...god knows what. Technically as they have taken the corporate wage a couple of times for some of their videos (so it says on WikiPedia), they should be on the blacklist. However, as the idea remains strong and has not dimished the boys (men surely?) integrity, for the moment they are recommended. Don't sell out guys, ever.
There are several places to find their videos, some on Chinese sites, some on English. Search for BackDormBoys on WikiPedia for a good list of sources.
Logan's Run, 1976
Sea greens and protein from the sea. Fresh as harvest day!
In the good old days of science fiction films, before George "Ring of Fire" Lucas's Star Wars fucked it all up, sorry, I mean, revolutionised the way science fiction films were made, the genre used to be a lot more about plot, ideas, characters, the future possibilities, and a lot less about gadgets, computers and how objects explode. Made on the threshold of this apocolyptic shift Logan's Run had a stab at effects, and what it would look like to live in an enclosed, paradise city, but it also had a damn good idea at the centre: life is perfect, you want for nothing, but you must die at 30. Cue dramatic tension as obviously some of the city's residents, when they get close to LastDay (i.e. age 30), attempt to flee the firey ritual of Carousel and become "runnners".
Michael York (Logan) was brilliantly anti-heroic. Jenny Agutter (Jessica) was fantastic in her diaphonous green clothes. Farah Fawcett was dazzling, even if she was reading crap lines. Peter Ustinov was magentic as always. Box the evil robot was terrifying even before you realised he was freezing humans. The only disappointing element about the film was the way it was toned down for a PG rating. Can't see it? Watch the film again but notice how shots of the scantily clad, except Miss Agatter, are very brief. The chase sequence that takes them through The Love Shop is selectively edited (no I didn't make the name up, this was the 1970s remember).
Soft grumble aside, this film is powerful, terrifying, gripping, elegant, clever and strangely unsettling in its core idea, namely that society pushes you towards your own death, whether you are ready or not. The Carousel ritual has exactly the right combination of a religious (pagan?) structure and mob element, as the audience chant ever louder at those on Lastday, "Re-new!", as the 30 year olds die.
Bubble Wrap, 1957 to present
Invented by accident, by engineers Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, bubble wrap was supposed to be a cleanable wallpaper of some kind. Instead it evolved into the packing aid commonly used today. But that is not why it is listed here.
Bubble wrap has earnt it's place by virtue of the stress-releaving properties inherent in squeezing out the air from each of the hemi-spherical bubbles. Pop. It's sublime. Bliss. It allows adults to unleash that childish instinct that wants to slam doors, throw objects around just to see what they do when they hit a surface hard.
Pop. I have dream that when I'm wrinkly old, other residents in the old people's home will have knitting, crosswords, chess puzzles, dominos and other common activites. I'll be there, wrapped in my warm blanket in the warmest part of the room, with a sheet of bubble wrap in my hands. Pop.
Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003
Jerry: Satan, fuck you. Jesus, fuck you too.
In the era of the chat show, where complex disagreements are reduced to crass, bear-bating style entertainment, what does the devil do when Jerry Springer arrives at his gates? He wants a showdown with Jesus! Is this the product of Jerry's mind having been shot? (Possibly) Is this a comment on the age? (Yes) Is this anti-Christian blasphemic tripe masquerading as art? (Of course not, Christians can't take any criticism and will say anything than confess to simply not liking art).
There are many reasons to sit through the two-and-a-bit hours of this opera, not least of which is to actually judge for yourself instead of listening the rabid Right. The first reason I'll give is the idea of dealing with comtemporanous ideas and sensibilities in an modern style. This is not traditional opera where frilly costumes and string instruments dominate, a la Mozart for example: "Oh no! Here comes my husband! Quick. I'll hide behind these bushes" (Marriage of Figaro, Act 4, I think). Jerry Springer's characters display attitudes and feelings that are current, and are spoke and sung in combination with a range of music styles that blend well to describe today's people. Opera can move beyond string ensembles onto modern rhythms and arrangements, which leads me to...
The second reason to see this which is the music. It's sublime, dramatic, invigorating, dirtying, absolving, I could go on and on. I've never heard a Christian moan about the music in this thing because they were not listening, well not enough to get over the surface and presentation. This opera has been successful because it is relevant, modern, stylish, beautiful, intellgent, comic, and not because hoards of atheists have clubbed together to buy up all the tickets.