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Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" -- "I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!" |
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Tuesday, July 30, 2002It's good to take a walk now and then and let the thoughts in your head play themselves out rather than continue to feed on information, shoveling it into your mouth. Visited the new Union Square. The fronds of the palm trees are tied up and they look like a woman coming out of the shower, with her hair in a towel. The square itself I'm unsure of. First of all it's not actually completed. More open space though. I'll give the designers credit for that.Should I celebrate my birthday at Kennedy's Pub with $5 PBR pitchers and deep fried chicken chunks? Or how about a viewing of the Ghosts? I saw an interview with these undead rockers in the SF Bay Guardian a couple weeks ago and it was funny. Immediately alarms went off in my head. "Wait, something in the Guardian that's funny? I thought they weren't allowed to hire people who are funny!" (My apologies to David Fear and the lovely and talented Cheryl Eddy.) But lo, it was true. Basically the Ghosts are five guys/girls who wear sheets over their heads and get wildly intoxicated before they play. These are my kind of people, living my kind of dream. Whether the music is even listenable is what I'm determined to find out. They've got their Tenacious D-esque rap-schtick about being dead people down cold though, and it is droll indeed. Although what you see on the site is not as good as the interview. Here are a couple excerpts from said interview -- Mike Dead: "When not rehearsing or haunting mortals, ghosts watch a lot of television. We decided that we should be the ones on TRL. Not only is Carson dreamy, it would be our chance to bring honest, violent, fuck rock back to the kids. Grim Horror-Again: " ... it's time for something new. Something honest, like a band of 100 percent nonliving, hard-rocking, sometimes frightening apparitions. When we say 'the Ghosts,' we mean that. It's a quality guarantee as much as a name." Wasn't feeling too hot on Saturday, so I wound up staying in and watching "The Best of Mike Myers" on Saturday Night Live. Luckily, I was able to extract some very important life lessons from this passivity, so the night was not a total waste. Life lesson numero uno, without further ado: Myers poached the shit out of his own earlier material for Austin Powers. And now, without further ado, a slight variation of what I just said, in bold-faced title form: The Four Major Examples of Mike Myers Poaching his Own Earlier Material for Austin Powers. But first, a two-part subsection, in italics: Part one: There is no life lesson numero duo, as it turns out. Part Two: "Why is this a life lesson?" you might ask. Because it goes to show that even one of the funniest (not to mention highest-grossing) comedic talents of our time (ah, let's say 1993 - 2002) is not a limitless fount of ideas; he has to work at and struggle with his craft. And now, back to ... Poaching Example # 1: In a skit with Myers as "Masterpiece Theater"-type arch-Englishman who is host of a show about the theater, Steve Martin's character talked about someone who possessed "what the French call a certain 'I don't know what,'" which you will Dr. Evil saying in Austin Powers "The Spy Who Shagged Me." Poaching Example # 2: In the famous and funny skit on Weekend Update where Mike Myers played Mick Jagger and Mick Jagger played Keith Richards, Myers as Jagger told the incomprehensible Jagger as Richards to speak the King's English and "throw us a bone," which you'll remember Dr. Evil saying in the first Austin Powers. Poaching Example # 3: In same skit as in Example 1, Myers does the bit where he has "difficulty controlling the volume of my voice," which exact bit he did later as Austin Powers when he's unfrozen. And Poaching Example # 4: The phrase "Sound as a pound." I forget which skit this was used in, probably same skit as in examples 1 and 3. You'll remember Austin saying this one in the first Austin Powers. Alright, I'm spent. It all goes to show, however, that Myers spent years perfecting the mannerisms and accents etc. that later went into his biggest success. .: posted by hornswaggler 1:08 AM| |
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