Drive-In Saturday: 'Hours'

This was recorded on a VHS camera in 1988 in the trailer that Debra and I (and newborn Nathan) lived in in Flomaton, Ala. The writer/performer is Julianne Thomas, my step-sister, and the knight is her husband Guy, both of whom were at one time involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism in Pensacola. Guy still makes impressive bladed weapons for a hobby. The video has some noises in it, some of them caused by the camera. As you can see from the quality, the video itself was barely salvageable. But it's a nice song, and I'm glad we preserved it. Here is "Hours" by Julianne:

Check out 'L-5'

There's a new sci-fi series coming to the web: "L-5" is the story of a crew that returns to earth after a 200-year journey in suspended animation and has to solve the mystery of what happened to the human race while finding a way to survive. Check out the official trailer:


L5 Teaser Trailer - HQ from Stanley Von Medvey on Vimeo.

I would have saved this for a "Drive In Saturday" but you need to see it now.

'Being Human' loses something in translation

Courtesy Syfy.com

It sounds like a joke: A suave vampire, a nervous werewolf and a cute lady ghost rent an apartment together — but there’s no punch line. Instead, that’s the basic premise of “Being Human,” promoted as a new Syfy channel “original” series.

The only thing new about it is the accent. The series, which premiered Monday on the cable channel, is an Americanized version of a BBC series that has been a hit for the past two years on BBC America.

It concerns three of the ultimate outsiders trying to blend in — i.e., desperately working at “being human.” The premise sounds corny, and while the original Brit series milked the comedic aspect from time to time, it was a full-on drama, with plenty of blood, death, sex and yes, even love.

The U.S. version appears to be following the lead, updating and Americanizing the jokes (there’s an obvious “Twilight” reference that falls flat in the premiere). The action is moved from London to Boston.

“Being Human is a smart, contemporary, young and imaginative series that reflects Syfy's new brand positioning,” said channel president David Howe, quoted in promotional materials for the show. “We are very excited to adapt this for an American audience and bring it into Syfy's family of programming.”

The series stars Sam Witwer (“ Battlestar Galactica ” ), Meaghan Rath (“ The Assistants” ), Sam Huntington (“ Superman Returns ” ) and Mark Pellegrino (best known as Jacob on “ Lost”) .

Syfy has ordered 13 episodes for the first season, which premiered on Jan. 17. That initial outing scored nearly 2 million viewers, making it the most-watched scripted mid-season premiere for the channel in five years.

(Read the rest of this News Herald review, including info on other British shows that became American hits and links to clips of 'Being Human,' at this link.)

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it

News Herald Photo: Robert Cormier
speaks at Gulf Coast Community College
in February 1988.

PANAMA CITY — I met this week with a group of women who are putting together a plan to commemorate one of the darker times in their lives, when the community was divided over the appropriateness of certain books in our schools.
This year will mark the 25th anniversary of a controversy that put Bay County in headlines across the country and around the world. It started in 1986 with some books in a middle school teacher’s classroom library that a parent thought contained inappropriate content, and it continued in 1987 with the schools superintendent listing more than 60 books and plays to remove from student access.

Teachers fought to retain the books. Other teachers opposed them. The School Board held special meetings. Petitions were circulated and thousands signed them. Oprah had some of the participants on her show. Church members were bused to School Board meetings and spoke in tongues during the sessions.

Teachers received death threats. A fire was set under a TV reporter’s car.

The final outcome was a new School Board policy to review challenged books and other materials.

An outcome that no one seemed to expect at the time was that sales of the challenged materials increased during the controversy — one of the top local sellers in 1987 was “I am the Cheese” by Robert Cormier, which had started the whole controversy the year before, according to a News Herald article.

Ten years later, the books being challenged were those in the popular “Goosebumps” series — only this time, instead of raw language or “mature” situations causing consternation, it was a fear of children embracing the occult. The review process kept those books in classrooms, as it also kept “Of Mice and Men” in classrooms in 1997 after a local pastor objected to the racist slurs in the text.

The controversy continues. In 2008, the School Board voted 3-2 to remove Avi’s Newberry Award-winning “The Fighting Ground” from school libraries after a parent objected to language in the book.

I will moderate a discussion on censorship during the Books Alive festival of reading at Gulf Coast Community College on Feb. 5. Some of the panel members will include central characters in the banning controversy of 25 years ago. I encourage you to come out and participate, hear what they have to say and share your own thoughts.

As the good book says, “Come, let us reason together.”

Peace.

(This is my Undercurrents column for The News Herald for today's edition. To read a complete list of the books banned in Bay County in 1986 and 1987, click this link.)

Drive-In Saturday: 'Future Warning PSA'

Shot on a VHS home video camera (a Panasonic, I believe) in 1988 or so, and recently re-edited and tweaked. (Way back then, I had no way to create credits or on-screen titles, so the project was never completed.) This was made for a contest where you had 60 seconds to present a public service announcement about the future. I created mine as if it came FROM the future, what was then the distant world of A.D. 2005. I aimed the camera at the TV it was hooked up to in order to create the visual feedback, and used some Halloween makeup to build a layered scar on my face. The hair was my own; no special effect required.

Hope you liked it.

Next Saturday: A real live music video from the same era. (Not starring me, thank God.) Meanwhile, do you have any videos you'd like to share with the class? Post the link in comments.

Peace.

You Can Be Okay

Shameless pimping:

"Nathan Simmons and Andrew Hubbard are pleased to bring you 12 songs they collaborated on over the course of a semester at the University of West Florida in 2010. Mixing confessional lyrics with a pop/folk sensibility, these are songs you will hopefully have stuck in your head until they get around to recording again!"

'You Can Be Okay' is available on CD for $8.

It's good stuff, if you like that hippie rock'n'roll stuff, written and performed by my son Nathan and his friend Andrew.


In other news:

I met with a group of folks at the Bay County Public Library tonight to discuss plans for observing Banned Books Week in September, and also for marking the 25th anniversary since Bay County had a national spotlight turned on its leadership when some fundamentalist locals decided the books in a few teachers' classroom libraries should be removed from ALL schools; the superintendent put together a list of 60-some-odd books and stories that were to be removed from schools (including several Shakespeare plays); people began speaking in tongues during School Board meetings; a fire was started under a TV reporter's car in the middle of the night; teachers received death threats that the cops didn't investigate; Oprah came for a visit ... The story goes on and on. It was going to be a TV movie (one of our members has the third draft of a Warner Bros. script to prove it).

I will be moderating a discussion on banned books and censorship during the Feb. 5 "Books Alive" event at Gulf Community (State?) College, featuring some of the people involved in this part of our local history. Be sure to come check it out.

Carry on.

A soak in bath salts won't fix stupidity

(The following was my 'Undercurrents' column for today.)

I’ve heard of brainwashing, but using “bath salts” to get high?

Staff writer Felicia Kitzmiller reported last week that so-called “bath salts” are being sold in the area in small, flat packages ($35 each) that contain a half gram of a crystal substance users crush and snort. Side effects include chest pains, hallucinations, paranoia, anxiety, seizures and increased heart rate — and if that doesn’t sound like a good time, I don’t know what does.

“You couldn’t bathe a hamster in this,” Bay County Sheriff’s Capt. Faith Bell told Kitzmiller.

I always wonder about the people who sit around and try to figure out what is in their house that they can get high off of. How many people snorted crushed Drano, or shot up rat poison before they figured out this “bath salts” thing? What is their thought process — “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger”?

Every kid with a chemistry set thinks he’s a rocket scientist. Apparently, every meth head with a soda bottle thinks he’s a chemist.

Submitted for consideration: A recent Bay County Sheriff’s Office incident report shows what you can expect if you’re seeking that clean, refreshing (paranoid, anxiety-inducing) bath salts kind of trip.

Seems a man called authorities about 1:35 a.m. on Wednesday after he thought he had gone home to the camper trailer he lives in off County 2301 and found two men rifling through his stuff. A third was crawling around under the trailer, he said. He ran outside to his car, and they ran and got in two vehicles, a car and a truck, the report said.

The 39-year-old man claimed he followed the truck in an attempt to get its license number, but somehow it started chasing him south on U.S. 231. He pulled onto Jarvis Street and ran from house to house, knocking on doors. On Charles Street, he found a house where the occupant let him call 911, the report said. (The man must have forgotten that he had a cell phone on him.)

A deputy took the man back to his car and followed him from there to his trailer, the report said. The deputy found no signs of forced entry; the windows were all closed and locked from the inside, and nothing was missing.

The man’s landlord explained that his tenant had a recent history of mental problems “after using a synthetic drug called ‘blue bath salts,’” the report said. He had been found in the past walking around the area and knocking on doors because he thought he saw an intruder on the property.

Most recently, the man claimed to have seen “a young woman in dark clothes with an all-white face” at about 10 p.m. that same night.

Calgon, take me away!