The Return Of Puttiki

The cool kids out there will, of course, remember the first Puttiki... If not, check the link to feast those eager peepers and ask yourself if you've really made the right choices in life.

Well, lookit... Even though you might be distracting him from Ice Spiders on cable, your old pal LFT is not one to deny people a second chance at life. So brace yourselves, because here comes THE RETURN OF PUTTIKI!



Look at that poster.

Look at it again!

The allure of Mini Golf? The promise of cocktails?! DJ's?!!

Now look at that line up of artists...

Atomic Tony Tiki, D.D. Mae, Tiki Racer, Trader Tark, Mummy's Little Monster, Clumsy AND MORE?!

MORE?!

This is going to be a gathering of some of the FINEST low brow and tiki art in the known universe... And that is, in no way, an overstatement.

Keep an eye an it here but expect to be making your way down to Hunny Lu Lu's in Hastings for the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of August.

Break out the Wii and start warming up that putting arm people... Once you've bought some art from one of the AMAZING artists mentioned above, you'll be wanting to compete for a place on the hallowed Puttiki wall of fame!

Now, back to Ice Spiders...

When 'Aliens' Procrastinate!

It would seem that someone in the world of cinema has the two following issues:

1) An unhealthy interest in attempting to duplicate the cinematic success of Mr Spielberg.
2) An unhealthy dislike for young people in wheelchairs.

In this nugget of cinematic dog egg we see ANOTHER unfortunate youth meets wheelchair meets near death by water sequence… However, unlike Cruel Jaws (which, you will recall is in no way a carbon copy of… Jaws) this joy is Mac and Me (which, I will inform you now, is in no way a carbon copy of E.T.) and has a unique twist on the theme of wheelchair infanticide. You see, this child is not in danger of being eaten by any water dwelling carnivore. He is in danger of death by alien procrastination…

Behold yonder sequence...

The faintly phallic assembly of used chewing gum that is Mac (NOT to be confused with E.T.) spends far too long deciding whether or not to use his cosmic powers to rescue the helpless child currently splashing around in the water. This is after said child has already fallen from a great height to reach the aforementioned water (and I say child under the assumption that no one has noticed that it is some sort of shop mannequin tied to a wheelchair that actually makes the descent).

You will note, of course, that the child’s parents and immediate family are far too preoccupied with their annual recreation of the opening credits of Little House On The Prairie to offer any assistance and so it all falls to Mac, the Ponderous Cosmic Schlong to save the day...

I might point out to the mysterious film maker who would really like to be Mr Spielberg (but, alas, hates children) that if I am to believe that these two are going to become BFF’s then some swifter action on the part of Mac might have been nice here. After all, no matter how hard we try to pretend that this is a nice, accepting world, we all know that when you look different or sound weird then you have to work thrice as hard for acceptance. Let's go back and take another look at Mac shall we..?

Yeah, I'd be moving pretty quickly there Space Buddy!

And don't think for a moment that Wheelchair Kid has anything to prove here... I think the Swiftly Replacing Himself With A Shop Dummy To Perform A Simulated Death Dive just sealed him a reputation as one of the Cool Dudes at the swimming pond. The kind of sweet lovin' he'll be getting from all the Lakeside Lovelies means he can take you or leave you to be honest... Less thinking, more Space Wizardy if you want an 'in' with the kids Mac!

Just as a note of interest I will point out here that if my supposed Bestie From Space left me hanging like that I’d get myself to shore (somehow) and then use what little strength I had left in my arms to swing one of my lifeless legs up and square into Mac’s space nuts! Or, if I was feeling especially sassy, I may even use a detached limb from my freshly moistened Shop Dummy to perform the same action...

Still, we’ll give Mac & Me a solid F+ for puppetry, a shakey B for wheelchair stunt work and a questionable 'Ungraded' for decisive use of cosmic magic/child care whilst assuming that Mac is the intergalactic alter ego of the mysterious film maker and genuinely had to give the rescue issue some thought (what with hating kids and all).

Ahh, Mac… We’ve all learned something today.

So Nad, It's Good...

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have an ample ream of unwritten script ideas hidden beneath my pillow… If by ideas you mean swell sounding titles that will never have an actual story to go with them. Things like Lunar-Tick or Terror-Dactyl or Prime-8 or… Well you get the idea. Sadly, I also have a voice in my head that says things such as: ‘Hey, what a cool title but… No, no… Hang on… The only thing I can think of to fit that title is a really generic piece of crap that even the Sci-Fi Channel would be too ashamed to show… No, I’d better leave it and get back to writing Crule Jaws 2… Shame though… It is a neat title…’

So, enjoy the titles and the films you can probably imagine scene for scene from reading them but don’t bother looking for them in stores… Sadly, you won’t find them. Not even at Blockbuster.

It would seem, however, that the author of sadly overlooked masterpiece The Ginger-Dead Man shares only one of my traits… He has the sweet pun for a title but the voice in this dudes head has said ‘Hey man… Awesome title! You could totally do something with that, like… Like… Like remake Child’s Play! Yeah, that’s the ticket! Child’s Play would’ve been so much better if, like, Chucky hadn’t been so freakin’ terrifying! Let’s do it! Let’s remake Child’s Play but with a weird turd faced ginger bread thing man instead of a scary ass doll! That’s our ticket to easy street!’ And, to his credit, he has not only written it but then gone and got it made…

And let’s not undersell his work either… It is a pretty natty looking turd guy ginger bread man thing… And he does flaunt the rules of kitchen cleanliness by dripping the blood of a serial killer into the flour… AND he cuts off an old lady’s finger! As an anal retentive, the thought of old lady blood on my stainless steel kitchen fixtures is enough to give me nightmares for weeks! This film literally tears apart the coventions of the genre… If by genre you mean Child’s Play and by tear apart you mean follow it pretty much beat for beat. Face it, the script was good enough to snag Gary Busey… Enough said. This product reeks of quality AND gently baked ginger bread goodness.

What really seals this one up for me, however is knowing that there is sequel to this on it’s way… Ginger-Dead Man 2: The Passion Of The Crust. I. Shit. You. Not. And since it appears that the titular Ginger-Dead Man has been eaten and ‘re-introduced’ to the world at least once before the original was even filmed, I’m guessing that he can run and run as long as this guy and the shameless voice in his head can keep punning.

I hope things work out for those crazy kids, I really do…

When Good Sharks Go Bad...

It is my honest belief that at some point in the near future, the world will be divided into just two groups of people… Those who have seen Raging Sharks and those who haven’t.

One section of this future world will live above ground in a utopian paradise of equality and intellectual satisfaction, passing their days in sunshine and frolicking in the lush green meadows (never once having to worry about the safety of their wheelchair bound children as such devices are now a thing of the past, thanks to Hover Limbs). Hope burns brightly for these people and every day brings a new advancement in science or art that amazes and nourishes both their souls and that of their beautiful world.

The other section, however, dwell beneath the earth in dank caverns. These ‘people’ drag their boil ridden, rag clad masses through this dank, sunless underworld, their ability to reason and feel forever stunted by the one burning question that will forever plague their tortured souls… There is no hope for these people, no dream of a better world… Only the horrible memories of the nightmare that forced them into this netherworld prison. Their ruined, unseeing eyes drip impotent tears of rage as they scream into the darkness in their primitive grunts and moans… ‘How?! How could this be?! HOW COULD IT HAVE BEEN SO BAD?!’

To be honest, I think the actual question here is ‘When was it ever going to be good?’ Some wide eyed kid, fresh to Hollywood, steps off the bus from Moosejaw with only ten minutes of stock footage of sharks (assorted breeds) and two alien suits he made in his bedroom to his name. Somehow, he thinks, I’m gonna make it here! So he takes his footage of sharks (assorted breeds) and alien suits to the first production office he can find. It is located above a dry cleaners and it just so happens that the producer inside has recently been thinking to himself ‘I loved that Cruel Jaws movie and I really dig The Abyss… If only there was some way I could put the two together… Fuse the terror of a killer shark with the wonder of aliens and space and the nightmare of being trapped in an underwater research centre without just remaking Deep Blue Sea… No sir, even I have standards!’ Then comes the knock at his office door…

Between them they have the following: Ten minutes of stock footage sharks (assorted breeds). Two rubber alien suits. The talents of Corin Nemac. Fifty two dollars. One crazy notion…

And so it comes to pass that Raging Sharks is born and the fate of mankind is sealed. You can’t hate these two guys… How were they to know that their seemingly awesome attempt to make their mark on the world of shark movies would lead to this? Their idea was simple enough… Aliens crash in space and jettison a strange canister into the waters of the Bermuda Triangle where it just so happens that an underwater research lab staffed entirely by women with huge lips and breasts (oh, and a couple of dudes too) is doing some underwater research about what makes the Bermuda Triangle so darn mysterious. The canister leaks freaky orange alien goo into the water that makes all of the sharks (assorted breeds) in the area go into a rage and attack the lab and all of the big lipped, big breasted folk inside whilst a government agent sneaks on board because the government REALLY wants the orange alien goo but didn’t know where to find it until now. Then, we’ll forget all about the sharks (assorted breeds) and just have some people run around trying not to get shot by the government guy until, just when all hope is lost, the aliens turn up again, get their goo back, heal all the good guys but let the government guy get eaten by the one shark that was actually just always raging as opposed to being affected by the goo. The end.

No, we can’t hate them… Much like Prometheus or Frankenstein or that guy in Pirhana, these two souls simply had a dream that, when realised, turned swiftly into a nightmare beyond their control. And, to be honest, if someone came to you with fifty two dollars, ten minutes of stock footage of sharks (assorted breeds), two rubber alien costumes and the title Raging Sharks, can you honestly say you wouldn’t make that movie?

Can you..?

Megashark Versus Giant Octopus Versus My Nads

We’ve all been there…

It’s Wednesday afternoon, you’re on the second pot of coffee and desperately trying to forget the Friday deadline for the first draft of your new aquatic masterpiece…

And still the page remains empty.

It would help, of course, if the two children next door would stop playing their noisy, incoherent kid games in the garden. I mean, really, who can be expected to concentrate when all you can hear is:

KID 1: ‘No way man! There’s no way a shark is flying out of the water and eating the PLANE!’

KID 2: ‘But my toy plane got eaten by the dog… All I have is the shark…’

KID 1: ‘And look how big it is anyway… That’d have to be a tiny plane for the shark to jump up and eat it…’

KID 2: ‘Or maybe it’s like… A MEGA shark! Then it could jump real high and eat anything… Like, imagine… It shoots out’ve the water and grabs the plane right out’ve the air!’

KID 1: ‘You’re an idiot… This is the stupedist game ever!’

You take a swig of coffee and smile faintly… A shark leaping out of the water and eating a plane… A PLANE! What a ridiculous ide-

Hold on a minute… That’s not too bad.

Of course, Kid 2 is right… It would have to be some kind of MEGA shark. A relic, frozen in ice… Unleashed somehow to terrorise the World! Hmm… What could release him?

Global warming? Done…

Earthquake? Done…

Eighties Teen Pop Sensation Debbie Gibson in a tiny CGI submarine dodging a pod of whales who are freaking out because of a top secret government sonar experiment? Hmm… Maybe… Just maybe…

The whales could crash into an iceberg where this beast has been frozen for millions of years… Then, Eighties Teen Pop Sensation Debbie Gibson could think she sees a giant shark swim away… Because, you know, being a MEGA shark it doesn’t need time to thaw out or get its bearings. No sir, before you can say ‘Electric Youth!’ it’s full steam ahead for terror as that MEGA shark makes for the nearest passenger jet…

Juicy stuff…

But… Hold on now… Who are we kidding here? A film cannot thrive on a plane eating giant shark and Eighties Teen Pop Sensation Debbie Gibson alone. That’s crazy… And besides, what about the film YOU, THE ARTIST imagined… Remember? The tender love story of two marine scientists, an American woman and a Japanese man, whose love defies cultural stereotypes and travels the ocean just like the GIANT OIL RIG EATING OCTOPUS they are trying to ensnare.

Wait…

What if there were some way to fuse these ideas together… What if the two beasts were frozen TOGETHER? Locked in combat… Waiting… Just waiting for Eighties Teen Pop Sensation Debbie Gibson and her freaked out whales to release them…

Oh yeah, that works… Then you can lend the whole thing gravitas by imagining that they are destined to be together just like your marine biologist leads… Oh man, this is GOLD!

And so Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus is born… Really, it writes itself… You are simply the conduit through which this epic must pass. Can’t work out why two giant sea creatures would ever come close enough to shore to menace people… Lure them in with pheromones! You know, in a bid to capture them… Obviously. Then the Mega Shark can eat the Golden Gate Bridge! Sweet… Can’t work out why we don’t just blow them to hell? Simple… They’re wiley. And bullet proof. Duh! Can’t work out how Eighties Teen Pop Sensation Debbie Gibson might defeat these beasts? Easy… Get them together and let them fight one another to the (conveniently mutual) death… Viola!

Hell… Any holes in the script will be masked by top notch effects work and quality acting, right?

Right..?

Ladies and Gentleman, I give to you… Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus!

Is it too soon to whisper Oscar?

The Condition Of My Nads...

I know what you're wondering... What exactly has been pumping my nads recently?

Let me tell you...

If you'd forgotten this magic piece of animated goodness then SHAME ON YOU! Tim Burton clearly hasn't... And nor have the good people of Warner Bros. who are currently planning a CGWHY remake.

It's well covered on other blogs, so I won't go into detail about plot and cast but know this... It's a great, great, GREAT way to spend a rainy afternoon and should even re-ignite the love of classic monster movies that Van Helsing and the recent Wolfman remake may have... Quelled slightly... Dive in and enjoy before Creature From The Black Lagoon gets 're-imagined' (or raped, as we like to call it) and the remake sullies the good memory of this little gem.

Also, you may find yourself curiously attracted to the red headed female lead... And she doesn't even get nekked Mr Zombie! That's quality horror themed animation, right there!

Moving on...

Or... 'That Movie Your Neighbour Kept Telling You Was Really Awesome But You Can't Really Understand All The Fuss'.

People, this movie was okay. Okay. Read that word again and think about it.

Okay.

I look forward to the South Park spoof and vaguely remember the film (I watched it last night...). I can only assume that everyone who had the shit scared out of them by this has never read a Shirley Jackson book or even bothered to watch that many supernatural movies.

My nads remained unmoved by this one... But I may come back to it for another view and enjoy it more.

Or I might watch...

Yep... 2012. A movie SO epic that I had to update the firmware on my Blu-Ray player just to NAVIGATE THE MENU SCREEN!

It was immense!

It was stupid!

It was the same action sequences repeated over and over (WHAT WILL JOHN CUSACK JUMP OVER NEXT?! AND WHICH VEHICLE WILL HE USE?! HOW MANY PLANES CAN OUTRUN AN EXPLOSION AFTER TAKING OFF FROM A CRUMBLING RUNWAY?!!!!!!!!!!!).

It then turned into a sort of watered down Battlestar Galactica... With Giraffes! And an Elephant hanging from a helicopter!!!

On the downside, it was as dumb as a bag of rubber cocks and (once again) we see that electing a black president is (according to Hollywood) a sure fire way to ensure the end of days (seriously, I know the studio's think the black president card is a great way to make the movie hit ALL the demographics but name one move where the black president isn't facing the end of the world or a nuclear crisis...). I can only assume that mankind stood any kind of chance in this movie because the man in question was... Well, a man. If it had been a black, female president then surely the world would just have combusted with no warning and we all would have died outright.

Great apocalypse guys... But maybe next time we can let a white president lead us all to our deaths? Not Bill Pullman though... He's a cool guy and probably would have saved the world. Some other white dude will do... Lord knows we've got plenty to choose from.

Still... I was drunk and did really enjoy this one.

Shame on me.

And Now For A Movie That Completely Failed To Pump My Nads!

Alright, so I know I'm supposed to be preparing 'jaw dropping' works of art for the upcoming Tiki Today Show at the Vision 20-21 Gallery but... I've actually been taking full advantage of the slew of animation making it's way onto Blu-Ray this month.

First up was... 'Up'. Great film. I really liked it, even when the tone got a bit choppy and it was definately my favourite Pixar release since The Incredibles.

Yeah, that's right... Fuck you Nemo!

Then came '9'... Not bad, not bad at all... Took my back to my youth watching uneven but pretty films like The Dark Crystal and The Secret Of Nimh. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that it had a faint whiff of the Tron's about it. Beautiful but horribly flawed.

Like me...

Then came this...

I know right? Rob Zombie does Ralph Bashki via Robert Crumb with a dash of Universal Horror and some fine ass Luchadore action thrown in. Oh, and zombies... Nazi Zombies! What could go wrong..?

Suffice to say, it was the longest 74 minutes of my life and made me want to watch something, anything else. Maybe even Finding Nemo... (I can't explain to you how much I hate that film... Or why...). Sure, animated boobs are swell and everyone loves a good pop culture gag but to base every facet of the film on those two things? And then use the glue of swearing to hold it all together?

Somehow, this film felt like a criminal waste of talent and time (THREE YEARS in the making! Even I don't take that long!) and hopefully everyone involved will have learned a valuable lesson from this debacle and just give me the TEN MILLION budget next time to produce my much anticipated Why Sock Monkey, Why? movie.

The Return Of Doug...

Because these days... You gotta have a trilogy!

Part 2 of 3: Doug's First Day On The Job

Another Magnificent Distraction From What I Should Be Doing...

You know what I hated about this fantastic film?

What I hated is that this is the cover to the Blu-Ray... Pure, lazy design pile of ass.

Apart from that one, tiny detail, I can't stress enough how badly you need to see this (especially, if like me, the film you saw before it was Malibu Shark Attack...).

Alright, back to the art stuff... Onwards to preparations for the Vision 20-21 Gallery 'Tiki Today' exhibition!

The Circle Is Complete (When Star Wars Got Good Again)

Look-it... I'm not going to labour the point here because EVERYONE else has already done it but I'm a child of the seventies and, in a Tiki free galaxy, far, far away, Star Wars was my LIFE!

Prior to getting somewhere in the world of (low brow) art, I think Star Wars was the whole basis of my relationship with my father. No joke.

So, when the most recent trilogy came to pass it was much like waiting to lose your virginity... Sixteen long years of waiting, partly excited, partly braced for crushing disappointment, only to be faced with a more perplexing emotion upon finally seeing/experiencing it.

Oh... So, is that it? Is THAT what all the fuss and anticipation was about? It was much better the way I imagined it...

Then came this...

And suddenly you remembered all of the reasons you fell in love with Star Wars... Of course, these fine little episodes are made by the same man who brought Samurai Jack into my life, so they were never going to be anything other than great. Plus, I do LOVE some quality animation.

But then, some time later, comes this:

At which point you just realise that EVERYONE in the world gets what makes Star Wars so good except for the guy who writes the films and directs them.

I would have extended the whole virginity thing out through the whole post but frankly... I just didn't see the point. Just go and watch some great animation and remember the movies that probably got you into visual design, hot rods and finks.

I've yet to spot a Tiki anywhere in the Saga but, fear not, I'll post when one turns up.

Like Being There... But Warmer!

Here, as promised, is a link to the photo gallery for the opening night of the Strychnin Gallery Xmas Luau in a very frosty looking Berlin...

This is actually my Facebook Gallery and covers everything from sketching, making and sending the two pieces I contributed to the show, right through to opening night! It's not all about me though, there's an absolute landslide of jaw dropping stuff on show here by some very talented Tiki Folk.

Do your eyes a favour and swivel them in this direction.

You Know What Makes For A Good Read..?

This does...

Yeah, yeah... I know. I'm late to this one but I did finally get it (took an age to get here from the USA) and it is literally crammed with images that make a fella like me cry with joy...

If it was good enough to stop me brooding on what to do for the Vision 2010 Tiki Talk art show then it must be something special.

In the words of the immortal Zap Brannigan... "Buy it... But it now."

I Heart Berlin... Or, Shameless Self Promotion!

Not much to say about this one...

The Berlin Show opens tonight and I'm sat in my underpants snooping around the internet for any feedback on how it's going.

Ahh... The glorious life of the artist, it's not all glamour...

I did find this on lifestyle blog 'I Heart Berlin' though... I was quietly pleased to see my Ukulele piece getting some press alongside the work of Shag and Seymour (both WAY more famous and a lot better than me).

Guess that makes me one of their 'pearls of the Tiki scene' then.

Made it Ma! Top of the world!

Most. Depressing. Movie. Ever.

Maybe I'm just at EXACTLY the right age for this movie to be horribly efficient at pressing the right buttons...

It sure was depressing though... In a good, well crafted sort of way.

What struck me as odd though is that I felt like I had seen quite a lot of this movie before... Just without the festival buzz... Can't for the life of me think where though...

Ah...

More Berlin News...

Yep... It's official, this show is going to be AWESOME!

(And I'm officially pumped to have made the flyer!)

If you can't get there but want a sneaky peek at the works on show (and sale) then you can have a good old snoop on the Strychnin Shop... Just be sure that you have your credit cards tucked away someplace safe because there is a LOT of very purchasable goodness on show here!

Pictures from the opening will be up on Saturday...

A Couple Of Movies That Pumped My Nads

Yeah... I know.

An art blog is supposed to be all pretentious guff about this exhibition and this great paint dauber... Truth is, I like a night off from the ink slinging as much as the next guy. Anyone unlucky enough to subscribe to this mess of a page is going to find a LOT of film talk here... I LOVE a good movie. And by good, I don't mean critically lauded. I mean a movie that PUMPED MY NADS!

As time goes by however, you will discover that my nads and I have slightly questionable taste, so don't go expecting to see any essays on the merits of Citizen Kane here... It bored the ass off of me and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

Enough explaining for now... Let's get on with discussing two movies that I have seen recently that did, as I have previously mentioned, PUMP MY NADS!

Oh man... I LOVED this movie! I loved it because it was the pure bred offspring of every piece of crap VHS I ever rented when I was a kid. But put through the class filter. With a twist of EC Comics thrown in for good measure.

I may be a Tiki guy but Lord knows I love me some good, creaky, old fashioned horror. Don't believe me? Check out my dA page...

Are you back? Can you tell I've read some EC and seen a few Tales From The Crypt in my time?

Good...

I'm not going to go on about this film since there a million different reviews out there already... But Trick R Treat made my Halloween this year. Since it has the VERY distinguished honour of being the last ever DVD I bought, it needed to be good. And it was.

Which brings us neatly to my first Blu-Ray horror puchase...

The beauty of watching child actors speak in a language you don't understand is that you have no idea if they're crappy actors or not, so these guys sell this nice, slow paced story completely. Seriously, if you think back over the (mercifully short) fad for J-Horror (most of which came out of South Korea, by the way), how many films would have been trashed as soon as the kid opened his stage school mouth to deliver some wooden dialogue? We'll never know since we don't speak the language and have no idea if this is a convincing performance or not!

Therein lies the beauty of the child actor/foreign film mesh!

So, other than the slightly distracting fact that girl in it looked a little bit like Darlene from Roseanne (or am I just showing my age here?) it was a perfect way to ignore pending artistic deadlines on the comfort of my pleather couch. Plus which, any smug Twilight fan out there needs to see this and Lost Boys and then go away and think about what they've done.

Trick R Treat and Let The Right One In can now make their way to the neatly alphabetised shelves of Los Furias Tiki, happy in the knowledge that they have PUMPED MY NADS!.

Next!

Strychnin Gallery Xmas Luau

The fine folk at the Strychnin Gallery in Berlin have graciously offered to let me hang some of my half assed doodles up on their walls this Christmas... Wedged SLAP BANG between the work of some insanely talented people!

And if you think the show looks good, wait until you lay eyes on the aftershow!

Frankly, if you're not booking a flight to Berlin right now, you really need to question what you're doing with your life... Just sayin'.

See more about it all right here on the Strychnin site.