I visited word press several times thinking I might start a blog but after seeing the “3,102,094 blogs and counting!” and “More than 100,000 updated today!” I was like, yuck, I just can’t do it. Like I have anything that fascinating to say. What a bunch of sheep we are, clinging to that feel-good ’70s chesnut that we’re each SPECIAL! Unique!
Not unique enough for more than 3 million blogs on one site alone…but I’m doing it anyway. Even though it’s dumb. Or will probably ..likely…be dumb. But heck, it’s less dumb than myspace; haven’t logged in in a week, hurray for me!
Anyhoo, I’m at my thrilling proofreading job in Chatsworthless, Calif., but perhaps I’ll start by recommending this movie: http://www.amazon.com/Chalkdust-Memories-Classic-Classroom-Films/dp/B000PE0GPU. I bought it because I am fascinated by old instructional films; for years I was obsessed with finding this bizarre short film about government sterilization (and I think I finally found it recently! I can’t play VHS tapes so haven’t watched it yet). It was pretty amazing, this young earnest couple appears in court to beg to be allowed to have a child but the judge says, No, there’s insanity in your family, sorry. So they leave all forlorn, but resigned that the government knows best.
I picked up Chalkdust Memories because I thought it would be funny, and at first, it is. The first cautionary tale opens with this racist Italian stereotype sloppily painting “and SUN” on his shop window in aniticipation of the birth of his bambino! Abbondanza! But alas, the bambino was born dead because Tony had a little sore-ah onna his you know what, and he do nothing about it! There’s even a tasteless comic moment where Tony drops his accordion when the doctor gives him the bad news. A valuable, painful lesson was learned. They at least moved on to some white venereal disease sufferers, and it kind of struck me as if the filmmakers were saying, but hold on, you, there! Don’t think venereal disease only strikes filthy foreigners!
Pretty funny, as were the horrifically hilarious “find a doorway and duck and cover” atom bomb films. The many references to “immediate danger” are interesting (as in, “Cover your head and face to avoid the immediate danger of flying glass”). They never mention that little Billy and Sally won’t have a prayer of finding potable water once Mutant Dad leaves the bomb shelter to forage for supplies, but at least they knew what to do to avoid flying glass!
We stopped laughing at the drug films, surprisingly. We found them rather effective, much more so than the “just say no” bullshit on tv today. (I believe one is from 1967, one from 1971.) They just interviewed people about how they got on drugs and what it was like, and many of the tales are very compelling, even moving. I think the partnership for a drug-free america could save thousands and thousands of dollars if they just edit snippets of those old interviews together and put them on TV now. Who cares about the peer pressure angle, really? Those things are so dumb. Oh, boys think smoking pot is unattractive, so I’ll stay straight. What the fuck ever. You’d think that kind of message would have been on TV in ‘67 and not the raw accounts of jail, withdrawal and misery shown in those films.
Recommended! Just be sure to start fast-forwarding once you see small furry creatures on screen; they detail LSD experiments on poor little pregnant hamsters and it depressed the shit out of me.
2 Comments
June 21, 2008 at 9:24 am
This is way more adult than your rantings about Rock of Love 2
June 23, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Yes, but what did you eat for lunch?