Derf Backderf

Tonight’s date night. In 35mm! So good.

Excellent. Lanternites are everywhere!

Yup! he loved it. As did I. He lived in the Towers!

True enough. I'd go back as far as the Ewoks, those annoying little fuzzy bastards.

Cover of Star Wars #16.

The only new Star Wars material at this time was the Marvel series. With no direction from Lucas & Co. it went far afield. The infamous green space bunny etc. That's worthy of the Holiday Special!

I actually enjoyed the title. Archie Goodwin stories. Art by Chaykin, Infantino, Simonson.

And on this day I got to wish Bruce a "Happy Life Day." The guy who invented that line!!

He laughed. "I wish I had copyrighted that phrase! I'd never have to work again!"

YouTube video by FoundationINTERVIEWS Bruce Vilanch on "The Star Wars Holiday Special"

A personal triumph is that I met the guy who wrote it, Bruce Vilanch. We both went to Ohio State, and worked for the student paper The Lantern (he was older). We were both invited to an event on campus.

Everyone else there regarded him as a WTF alien. I went over to him like a shot!

You all know that Lucas tried to erase it from history. It aired only once. Lucas wouldn't allow it be released on VHS. It existed only in memory, or on bootleg (which I had).

Then the opening scene. The Falcon. Han and Chewy. Oh man, this is cool! A great start.

Then the intro credits. Waitasec... Art fucking Carney? Harvey Korman?? MAUDE?????? What the FUCK is happening? Itchy & Scratchy?

An hour & a half of sheer hell.

I was pissed FOR WEEKS!

I blew off my buddies that night. The folks were out with their gang of friends. My brother was gone, too. I had the house, and the shitty b&w Zenith (the Old Man was too cheap to spring for color), to myself. Just me and the dog & cat.

I made a frozen pizza and nervously waited for 8 pm.

Ad for the Star Wars Holiday Special.

I'll never forget that night, Friday Nov. 17, 1978.

I saw Star Wars 16 times in the theater in 1977. We'd had NOTHING for a year and a half, just rumors that a new film was in the works. The news of the Holiday Special was a potential feast to starving fans.

I counted down the days.

YouTube video by John Johnson StarWars HolidaySpecial Opening Credits

Damn. Ya know, I was so wrapped up in the deadline for my new book (now met) that I forgot to wish everyone a Happy Life Day! Nor did I do my traditional Life Day viewing.

Yes, I watched the legendary Holiday Special the one time it aired in 1978.

‘Mouthpieces for Trump’: inside the rightwing takeover of the Pentagon press corps Pentagon press passes once held by credentialed journalists are now in the hands of rightwing pundits and Trump allies

Except it isn't "takeover."

Banished reporters can still cultivate sources, report the leaks, uncover the truth etc. All they've lost is access to is Pentagon briefings, which are all lies. Rightwing lapdogs can have that.

The laziest journalism is ONLY reporting what the authorities give you.

OK. Let's start with the tech billionaires.

That's the intro TV movie. There was a subsequent Channel 4 series, 3 seasons and 29 episodes according to the Electric Interweb. With guests and videos, sort of a precursor to Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast.

There's an earlier Brit series I've never seen. Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future . Need to track that down.

"The story depicts a near-future where corrupt corporations control much of the world and manipulate the public for the sake of ratings and wealth."

Like I said. Spot fucking on.

Technically 2 seasons, but in reality only 14 episodes, aired over 2 seasons.

It aired Friday night at 9pm. I was 27 and seldom home on Fridays, so I saw only a couple episodes, until it came out on VHS.

It's a really good show.

Richard Corben.

Richard Corben at his board.

Max Headroom is a very underrated sci-fi show. Set in a dysfunctional society of the future w/ manipulative corrupt corporate media and a total surveillance state, and ruined cities. Max is an AI presence gone rogue. Pretty fucking spot on. This is looking ahead from 1985, too! Only 2 seasons.

Maher as a smug tech creep is totally believable.

Rocket was a member of the SNL cast in the disastrous Season 6, after Lorne Michaels and the remainder of the original cast all quit. Rocket was sacked after saying "fuck" on the air.

He never became a star but had a long career as a character actor in film & tv. Took his own life 20 years ago.

Bill Maher players a tech creep.

This episode of Max Headroom I'm watching (Sat afternoon veg) has Bill Maher and Charles Rocket as the villains!

It starts with knowing the truth. Don’t allow yourselves to be gaslit into believing this is a real question.

Pond frogs devour murder hornets, stinger and all Insect venom means nothing to some amphibians.

All hail our frog allies!

We pulled the plug on this documentary 15 minutes in. The AI recreated "voice" of Ed is gross. I didn't realize they'd done this before starting it and it was SO obviously AI we just turned it off. A dumb, and unnecessary, decision filmmakers.

This is like “Severance” for MAGA.

Gehry designed building in CLeveland.

RIP Frank Gehry.

His building here in Cleveland always brings a smile to my face when I go past it.

Exclusive: Woman detained by feds in Keys says she was following agents’ orders “This is not the America that I grew up in, and this is not the America that we represent.”

“Traumatized, humiliated, degraded.”

The nurse, a US citizen, 4’11”, 85 lbs, says she was following orders when she was dragged out of her car by masked immigration agents in Florida.

It was the 3rd time she had been stopped and told to produce ID.

Free link ⤵️
www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Yup.

Once again, as you can no doubt tell, I have insomnia and woke up at 3:30 am.