JOURNAL: Bowler

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  • So a drunken Irishman, a buck toothed Japanese guy, and a gas-station owning Indian walk into a bar... 2002-06-21 01:20:29 Amizadai: I don't think you have to worry so much about being "racist." Racism to me is defined by hatred, and it doesn't sound like you have a hateful bone in your body. :) If you notice that there's hatred in your tone of voice when you make the joke/slam, then you might be heading for the dark side. But I somehow doubt that in your case.

    Making light or humor about the more innocent generalizations of other cultures isn't necessarily racism to me. It's comedy. Now, I'm not saying that "anything goes" here. I don't find racist jokes funny (here in the U.S. they tend to come in the form of anti-mexican or anti-black jokes, where the butt of the joke is that the party in question is somehow dumber and inferior to the race of the teller). But I do find certain things funny, and not at all racist.

    For instance, I LOVE Engrish. There's something intrinsicly funny in the way Japanese people speak/write English. I don't love it because it's beneath me or mean, or because I think they sound stupid, but because the new language that's created is humorous to me. I think it's one of the many reasons I watch anime. Hearing "Bigah Oh! Showtaimu!" just cracks me up! I laugh because I like it, not because I hate it :)

    I also love dumb drunken Irishman jokes. Probably because I'm one of the guys the jokes are making fun of. But they're funny. Hell, the Irish probably wrote all the dumb drunken Irish jokes, anyway.

    Apu from the Simpsons is a funny Indian guy. He speaks with the typical Indian-English accent, he owns a Quicky-Mart, and he talks about Chutney Squishies. All pretty much stereotypical Asian-Indian-American references, and yet I don't consider them racist, because they're not hateful. They're just funny.

    I'm probably not making a lot of sense, so I'm going to just stop running my mouth now. It's late, I'm tired, and I've got a World Cup match to get up for, and then it's off to watch the Chicago Fire practice.

    But Ami, seriously, you're not a racist, so don't worry about making a small joke here and there. :) 
  • Crazy Cartoon Madness 2002-06-19 12:18:38 MC and EK: Man (people?) you guys are talking about some of my favorite stuff! :D

    "Note to all independant animators: LEAVE OUT THE SONGS."

    MC, this made me laugh, because I can't seem to start an independant animation project without music. (Don't worry, I know what you meant) But I tend to animate music videos in my head listening to the music. Right now I've got a 1/4 finished Sin City animation for the Silent Night comic (literally 1/4 finished. I need to get off my ass and animate the rest of it) done to a reeeeeealy old tin sounding copy of Silent Night. Children's Chorus. I even left the dust on the album when I recorded it, so it's reeeealy static-y and old sounding. Then I've got this freaking incredible Matrix action short-story involving Trinity blowing the hella out of a building. Again, no sfx or dialog. Only music (done to Lunatic Calm's remix of Curve's Chinese Burn, which, if you haven't heard, you MUST LISTEN TO because it freaking rocks the hizouse). But yeah, I won't be animating any freaking kiddy sing-alongs anytime soon. Like, EVER. ;)

    And Emporer's Groove had me nearly pissing myself with laughter. I couldn't believe how good it was. Just for the sheer gags and laughs. Normally, I really don't like whatshisface (name escaping me) who played the Llama (Emporer Cusco), but afterwords I was yelling "Boom, baby!" and "Boo-ya!" just because it made me laugh. Then Liz got annoyed at me and I was forced to stop. This happens a lot. Like when I saw Tokyo Breakfast and couldn't stop saying "What's upoo mah neegah?"

    "Cool World: Yeah it was Bakshi. Guy has sex with a cartoon. Goes DOWNHILL from there. Complete dreck in concept and art."

    Don't get me started about Cool World. Oh wait, too late.

    I worked with the character designer (and she also doubled as casting director?!?) for Cool World for a couple of years (long after she finished that movie and moved back to Chicago): Louise Zingarelli. When whatsherface (Kim Basinger?) holds up the drawing of herself in the movie in real life, that's a drawing that Louise made. The woman was an INCREDIBLE artist. One of the best I've ever seen. She could crank out drawings and pastel renders so fast, and they were better than anything I could ever hope for. Any rate, turns out Bakshi was high on coke the whole time, as if you couldn't tell. Evidently the movie started out well enough, and then he started getting high all day, and started bringing in this 17 year old mistress. I guess he started letting his little screw-toy make design decisions (not like his coke-high ones were any good).
    In fact, the scene where Basinger's character is dancing as a 'toon is actually his 17 year old hump-machine filmed dancing eroticly and rotoscoped by the animators.

    The project snowballed (no pun intended) and got majorly fubared. Watch it again (if you can bare it). When the poorly animated 2D characters come dancing across the screen in the foreground (and you're asking yourself "WHY?"), Bakshi decided on one of his coke-highs that the scene wasn't *carazy!* enough, and there needed to be some wacky 'toons running through the scene. I guess he had the artists rotoscope them from old cartoons, and then they just panned them across existing shots, which is why they look like compete crap, and don't match the scene.

    Of interest to note was Louise auditioned then unknown Jim Carey (sp?) for the lead role that they eventually gave to pretty boy Brad Pitt. This was long before In Living Color was even an idea for a TV show. I remember her telling me that Jim *really* impressed them for a serious role, but he didn't have a pretty enough face to carry a lead. She told me that he had the makings of the next Tom Hanks. This was right about the time he was getting done with Living Color and doing his first comedy movies that she told me this. Then he surprised everyone and did Truman Show (or whatever it was called) and now Majestic. I know, I know, it's no Oscar performance, but I'd bank that he wins one before his carreer is over.

    I've got some political dirt on Iron Giant (which I LOVED), too, but I'll wait for MC's review of it before I spill ;) 
  • bWAHA! 2002-06-16 01:03:48 ek: Tokyo ska paradise orchestra - sesame street theme

    That just sounds too good to be true. Must. Have. Please. Share. :)
     
  • Don Bluth should never be forgiven. 2002-06-11 14:32:11 MCWagner: You talkin' 'bout Rats of Nimh? Because I could be talked into forgiving him for that. But not much else ;)

    EK: I saw you mention Painter 7. Anything new and snazzy 'bout it? I saw some pieces done with Photoshop 7's new brush library, and while I didn't like the stonework (fantasy/castle piece) since it looked a bit ameteurish/airbrushy, the fleshtones and the armor/et all were done *really* nicely. I couldn't believe it was Photoshop. Just wondering if you've had a chance to try out Pshop7 for yourself yet or not. I'm looking for some product reviews here (Pshop7 vs Painter7) :)

     
  • Fish onna stick. 2002-06-06 15:09:27 EK: That guy's Enigma! He toured with the Jim Rose Sideshow for awhile. I'm not sure if he's still with them (or if they're even an "act" anymore). I couldn't imagine getting that much of my body tattooed. I thought it was interesting that his "wife's" tattoos aren't finished yet.

    And that South Park thing RULES. Here's my stupid self-portrait:

    http://home.earthlink.net/~monolithgrp/SouthParkSteve.jpg

    Kyburg: I'll watch the rest of Metropolis tonight, if for no other reason than to see pretty visuals :) I *do* remember the old Popeye dioramas (or at least remember seeing them in re-runs, obviously), and I remember them looking much more coherent. Maybe it's because everything was in black and white (no color/texture contrast) or maybe it's because the dioramas were built more to the design sense of the characters. I don't really know. All I know is that Metropolis gives me headaches :)

    And Kyburg, I really hope things start going better for you, like, SOON.


    In case anyone's interested, I've started one of those dreaded Blog thingies, since there's times when I just want to run my mouth off about stuff and this isn't exactly the best place to do it:

    http://home.earthlink.net/~monolithgrp/blogger.html

    All I have to say is that the Blogger interface RIZULES MY FIZACE. They just needed to be a bit clearer in their "setup" routines for the ftp junk. 
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