Hustle

on,

Jack

Horkheimer!


In the late '80's and early '90's after Doctor Who and the Britcoms, our local PBS station would close out the day with The Star Hustler. We got the heads-up on awesome astronomical phenomena for years, courtesy of Jack Horkheimer. His cheesy enthusiasm was a neat addition to our homeschooling household, and his Tomita-flavored theme was the best!

He has passed away, now, at age 72. Thank you, Jack. Though the later years were PC-titled "The Star Gazer", you will always be our Star Hustler. We'll keep looking up!

Exactly WHAT are they warning us about? What are we preparing for? A sudden destabilization of Earth's gravity? I cannot fathom this. The Dread Dormomoo, who is the farthest from Fox Mulder that I can imagine, harbors concerns of Dark Possibilities, like Alien Incursions or somesuch. Precisely what is in the tiny family bug-out bag? Freeze-dried provisions for a ride to Algol or Canopus? Hmmmm....

Inroads into feminism


Here are two of our latest shirt designs. (They look better on the shirts!) I look at them as getting in touch with your inner Ward and June Cleaver.

I really wanted to do these. I designed the top one, Riatsila the bottom one.
They make me happy.

Now, the trick is, how do you market them, given the rabid feminist doctrine to which Western culture have been subjected?



You put 'em on the table, and wait.

The college freshman chick walks by, looks at the top design, reads it, and slaps the shirt with her hand. "That is SO wrong!" she huffs.

I look her in the eyes, and say with utter innocency "What is wrong with doing something to make someone happy?" Sometimes it clicks. If she is with a boyfriend, often they buy both designs, his 'n' hers, to be ironic. Sometimes, a couple will walk up, and she says to the other "I'll wear that if you buy it for me.".

I recognize the "irony factor" in many of these transactions, but I think that I am seeing cracks in the feminist facade. We will do our best to chip away at the edges.

Hello, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea:

I am reporting from the wilds of Northern Atlanta, at a Holiday Inn Select, wherein is held the Faerie Escape Atlanta, an odd little con dedicated to , well, the fantastical world of faerie. Pretty girls and older women are running around in woodland attire, trailing wire-and-silk wings, alternately hoping for and dreading a stiff breeze. There are steampunk encroachments, as well. We did the con shirts, swapped for a table, and now I am seeing every fannish person from Huntsville. Lots of Alabamastanians here, slumming in GA. We have had a lovely time, seeing old friends, making new ones, and seeing yet another facet of fandom. I have seen the teaser trailer of a lovely film, the Titania prequel by Lisa Stock. Get behind this work. It is a beauty! Hi, Lisa!!

We 'Varks have been uber busy with cons. G-Fest in Chicago was amazingly good, record-breaking, even. J.D. Lees, Ruth, and crew did the usual wonderful job of putting on a successful and drama-free Godzilla convention! We saw tons of fan-friends, and clothed lots of kaiju fans with our shirts.

Animazement (Raleigh, NC) was another outstanding anime con. We printed their con and staff shirts, lots of them, as well as setting up for selling in the dealers room. We LO-O-O-O-OVE Animazement. They are easy to work with, and know how to balance the fannish and cultural aspects of Japanese pop-culture. Like G-Fest, they bring Japanese guests: artists and voice actors to the fans of anime.

IkasuCon (Ft. Wayne, IN) was a record-breaker saleswise. It has historically been a coma con for us, but this year was our best year at the con. The food helps, too. "Pint and Slice" is a wonderful pizza place, featuring area brews as well. We show up once a year, and the owner rcognizes us, smiles and greets us warmly...she's a peach!

-----------------------------------

Hygiene tech begins to pall. The bathroom faucets with motion-sensor or IR valves still need work. The sensors can be picky, and in order to get the water to flow, it seems to onlookers that you must be playing a theremin, moving your hands about, but not actually touching the faucet. Perhaps a clever soul could incorporate theremin technology in the faucets, so that you can play ethereal music whilst getting the thing to turn on.

Your Aardvark had great fun, working late the other night. He watched "Kronos" a 1957 SF movie that he picked up from his bud Kev with Monsterland Toys at G-Fest a couple of weeks ago.Overall, it is one of the most satisfying of the Cold War alien menace flicks, primarily because of the giant alien robot, and its non-standard design. Very cool. Watch the trailer, especially the "walking" animation around 1'30". It has the feel of the "realistic" NASA animations from the late '50s, early '60s featurettes shown early Saturday mornings on telly. The movie is available online for viewing, but it's better on DVD, so holler at Kevin! OH! Dr.Arnold Culver, the computer whiz, is none other than
George O' Hanlon, later the voice of George Jetson.

We have spent two weekends on the road (more on that later), and have discovered an epidemic in hotels. No, not bedbugs, nor housekeeping staff who don't speak the English so good. I do not go over the room with a black light to see what oughtn't be seen. No, this is worse than any unseemly splatters. I refer to hotels succumbing to Down Syndrome. You know, the kind you find on your bed. Pillows used to be fiber-fill, with at least a little support, but now, down pillows are The Thing. They offer no support, are squashy and unpleasant, and now I am forced to get a foam pillow to take to conventions.

The conventions, however, have been awesome. More on that next.

We just had our run-off election here in North Alabamastan (as he held up a purple-stained thumb).For some reason-or-other the Christian Coalition still has some pull, and backed The Other Guy for Repub Gubernatorial candidate. The ads for Bradley Byrne sounded just like the bogus Conservative ads that were really done by the Democrat / Alabama Educrats in the election which prompted the run-off.The Christian Coalition backed Byrne. I received a bot-call from Paul Hubbert, the czar of the Alabama Education Association (the teachers' union) encouraging me to vote for Byrne for Repub Goober. This decided me to vote for Bradley, an MD who refuses to take a State salary until we are back to full employment, which also decided me. We have had attack ads questioning Bradley's faith. Political ads claiming that he "doesn't believe the whole Bible".

Yawn.

I really wouldn't care if Dr. Bradley was a Neo-Zoroastrian. I've had precious little luck with the True Believers I've voted in, starting with Jimmuh Cahter, and ending with our estimable Governor Riley. Once again, I must admonish my brethren: Neither America, nor Alabama, is the Kingdom of God. Neither is it the church.

The Christian Coalition (or any Christian voting bloc organization) now plays the role of Constantine. Having seen flaming signs in the sky, he gave the church Most Favored Religion status, and made law to benefit his pet belief-system, just as the Robertson/Dobson/Fallwellbeforehedied influence groups seek today. Neither Constantine, nor the Christian political blocs of today have any Biblical authorization to behave in this manner. Neither Law handed down on Sinai, nor law cobbled in Washington or Montgomery has any power beyond affecting external behavior through threat of sanction. As the NAACP conference is in the news, this example will suffice.
Were I a bigot (Which I am not. This is an example, not my identity), the law says that I must allow a black man to sit with me on the bus. The threat of the force wielded by the State merely prevents me from taking overt action to remove him from my proximity. I may not hit him, kick him, or kill him. I must abide his presence on the bus. The law constrains my acting against him for just being.

But the law cannot make me love him.

So, too, any attempt to "Christianize" America politically. Law governs by force. This is antithetical to the Christian faith. External change may make the bus ride less bloody, but only internal change, new-birth change, can bring either of us to embrace each other as brothers.

Jesus taught to make disciples, not to make Kings. We are called to teach them what Jesus taught His disciples, and it took Him three years to do it. Changing the inhabitant of the White House or Governor's Mansion won't change the nation, nor the culture. Only changed hearts will. Vote for the ones to represent us. Pray for them, but don't expect them to turn 21st Century America into "Gloryland". That's kinda our job.

Picture from shoreacres.wordpress.com

Let's all move to Vermont!

Sparklers less than 14 inches long with no more than 20 grams of pyrotechnic mixture and novelty sparkling items limited to snakes, party poppers, glow worms, smoke devices, string poppers, snappers, or drop pops with no more than 0.25 grains of explosive mixture, that are in compliance with United States Consumer Product Safety Commission regulations, are now legal for sale and use in Vermont.
-- Vermont...Division of Fire Safety

Oooooooooh! Sounds a PARTY!!!

Let's all celebrate our freedom from tyranny.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

Thinking SyFy into the
cornfield.










July 4th, Independence day, has a lot going for it: Cookouts, fireworks, meditating on why Neal Boortz despises what the holiday has become, and knowing that when I turn on the telly to beat the heat outdoors, I will not be treated to Sharktopus, or The Chicken Heart That Became The Black Hole That Ate Peoria on SyFy. Always, always The Twilght Zone marathon. But in a move destined to damn eternal verities, and royally tick off fans of the channel, SyFy has chosen to compound the indignity of its name change, and run, not Rod Serling's opus as a marathon, but instead, treat us all to a twenty-hour marathon of Stephen Cannell's The Greatest American Hero .

Humph.

Now, I enjoyed TGAH when it first ran. My first experience with it was when we lived in the Smokies, and I had Galloping Bronchitis, and pulled muscles in my chest from the coughing. The dear sweet teetotalling Dread Dormomoo saw my plight, and displaying Wisdom Beyond Her Years,. she suggested that we stop and pick up some wine to relax my muscles. Heh. I didn't know from wine, but had read about port, so we got port.

We got home, and the DD prepped supper. I sat moaning and sipping a glass of port wine. Yum. I turned on the tiny black and white set that served as our link to Outside, and there was this new show about a guy who found an alien super-suit, but lost the owner's manual. By this time my near-virgin metabolism was gnawing away at the wine, and I was feeling considerably less pain. By the time My Sweet brought my supper, my opinion was that The Greatest American Hero was the finest piece of comedic Sci Fi television to spring from anyone's fertile imagination as Athena leapt from Zeus's brow.
Despite my beleaguered chest muscles, I was laughing. Uproariously.

Wine that maketh glad the heart of man. The Psalmist knew what he was talking about.

So, fond memories of The Greatest American Hero, but I know The Twilight Zone, and you sir, are no Twilight Zone .

SyFy seems to have taken FOX's programming style: give the people something good, then take it away when they are hooked. Now we have pro wrestling, and reality shows about grown people who go to dark places with night vision cameras and scare themselves like ten-year-olds on a Scout campout. Oh, and now they have a show about a psychic who makes her family's life miserable. (Ben Stein voice) Yaaaaaaay.

I may watch some of the Greatest American Hero marathon, but it will probably require port to make me enjoy it.

I could always go outside, play Handel's "Music for the Royal Fireworks" and wave a sparkler around.

Yaaaaaaaaay.

Your Aardvark has arrived. He has been accorded two honors that are wondrous strange.
Firstly, he was quoted in a church bulletin. Honest! (See scan below) The Apostle Paul
is headlining here, but I'll gladly play second banana to him.





















Secondly, he has been proclaimed the 2011 Fan Guest of Honor
at Mobicon, the SF con he attends and hucksters at in Mobile, AL
each May.

He promises to be a fair and just tyr...laird of the con, and will
seek to shed as little blood as possible during his reig...tenure.


Noblesse oblige, n'est ce pas?

Please allow an overheated Aardvark this drop of laziness.

Enjoy the show.

Friday afternoon, The Dread Dormomoo, Loen, and I headed north to Smyrna, TN to revel in Polynesian kitsch with Gothgeek and fam. The Omni Hut is a fifty-year-old tiki restaurant in Middle Tennessee, and is a wonder. The history of the place is found on their website, and I invite you to visit it. As I opened the door, I breathed in the redolence of an early-sixties family restaurant. We went in, saw the South-Seas hostess, who took our party info on a little spiral pad. The small lobby had chairs, a small aquarium with a few fish, and several lovely anemones. Next to the tank was a stack of magazines for those easily bored with the sea life.

We entered the dining room through a beaded curtain, and were politely seated by our waitress. She gave us menus, and took our drinks order. The Omni Hut has existed for fifty years without a liquor license. How have they stayed in business without selling beer and spirits?

Great food, great service...

and BYOB.

Patrons are welcome, nay, invited to bring whatever potent potables they wish. More on this later.

GG recommended the TAHITIAN FEAST:

EGG FLOWER SOUP, BORA BORA (Bacon Wrapped Pineapple Chunks), WON TON, CRAB RANGOON, EGG ROLL, RUMAKI (Bacon wrapped Chicken livers and water chestnuts dredged in island sauce.), POLYNESIAN PIT RIBS, BEEF TERIYAKI STICKS, SHRIMP PANAMANIAN, TAHITIAN TID BITS, SWEET & PUNGENT PORK, CHICKEN CHOW MEIN, SHRIMP-FRIED RICE.

The appetizers came out on a flaming Pu-Pu tray. with one tray sufficing for three adults (four, if one is prudent to remember that these are, in fact, appetizers) The drinks for our table were iced tea, and Hawaiian Tea, which at $3.50 for a bottomless glass is a delicious steal. It consists of fruit juices, coconut syrup or milk, a cherry, and a paper umbrella (Ooooooooooooh, exotic!) over perfect drug-store soda-counter crushed ice.
It may actually have some tea in it to keep it honest.

It is by all intents a Virgin Daiquiri. This underscores the importance of the BYOB policy, for given a bottle of one's favorite spirit, and the Hawaiian Tea, one could be well anaesthetized by meal's end. Now, I do not practice public intoxication, nor do I condone such; I merely project probabilities, here. The drinks boy (I pretend I am an adventurer from the '40s) kept all the drinks well filled. Perhaps the Liquids Lad would be better, but I doubt it.)

After the appetizers settled, (and in future, I would settle for the appetizers, and maybe an entree) the meal arrived: SWEET & PUNGENT PORK, CHICKEN CHOW MEIN, SHRIMP-FRIED RICE. All were lovely, delicious, and also delicious.

But you could have that at any Asian or South Seas dining saloon (I speak with watering tongue slippery-ly in cheek), but the raison, the thing of it all is the tiki ambiance. Tiki masks and carvings festoon the walls, with Day-glo painted tropical flowers, all excited by hidden UV lamps. The big aquarium in the wall of our room was filled with large goldfish and koi, I believe, with the obligatory suckerfish to tidy up the glass. The Polynesian mania of the '40s and '50s lives on in the Omni Hut. Grab your Tiki shirt (available at aardvarktees.com !) and visit the place. The service is equal in attentiveness and competence to the best (real) Japanese restaurant I have frequented. This is by no means a "fine dining" establishment -no putting on airs and discussing Kubrick and Truffaut. It is fun dining in the not-Happy-meal sense, that of friends and family islanding out for an evening, having different nom-noms from normal, and being cared for by an attentive and friendly staff, soaking in the '50s exotica. The background music is Island, but not obtrusive...truly atmospheric.

Please treat yourselves to the Omni Hut sometime. It WILL be a treat.

VITAMIN PILL WITH LEGS!

For your amusement:

(PLEASE watch Miss Hutton's face and movements. What an amazingly fun performance!)

Created by Oatmeal

Well, the morning after, and the assault on the Constitution continues. Barack Hussein Obama (PBUH) has strongarmed BP execs with demands for a $20 billion-dollar trust fund to be set aside and administered by A Third Party. Beyond the fact that the Obamster does not have (as Neal Boortz put it) authority to demand the set-aside of a roll of toilet paper, much less twenty huge, the prexy's ignorance of business fair takes the breath from me. Here, in the middle of an pollution crisis, we propose to take working funds away from the people who are trying to solve the problem. "But what about the shrimpers?"
BP has responsibility to take care of those whose livelihood has dwindled because of the oil spill- did I forget that BP is also responsible for the spill?

No, but so is the Federal Government, the "regulators" Trans-Oceanic, and likely Dick Cheney's shoe salesman. A veritable slick of groups have some culpability in this. BP must certainly pay its share, do so timely, and pay those legitimately hurt by the Gulf spill. BHO's imperial decree for BP to escrow twenty billions of dollars displays a brazen lack of business sense, which surprises me no end, himself being a Chicago community organizer and all.

The $20B really has nothing to do with the shrimpers, the hoteliers, the restauranteurs or the trash-picker-uppers on the sugar-sand beaches. It is punishment, a fiscal time out for BP. "Go to your room, and give me your allowance money!" When campaign mouth-flapping about hope and change does not suffice, BHOOTUS can be relied upon to resort to his Chicago political roots. Careful, or the president of BP will wake up with an oily pelican head on the pillow next to him.

Mmmm...mmmm...mmmmmmm....

A Parabolic Tale of Woe

There is a road accident involving three cars: my Aardvan, a doctor's new BMW, and a beater driven by a drunk. The doc gets out to survey the damage. His Beemer is totaled, and he is shaken but unhurt, having been protected by the forty-seven airbags that deployed on impact. The drunk who caused it all is relaxed, unhurt save for some bruising, and his '74 Impala is crumpled but driveable. The Aardvan, apparently built out of cola cans, has shredded places with sharp bits, one of which has nicked the Dread Dormomoo's femoral artery, which is fountaining. I am freaking, and trying to stanch the flow. I happen to see the doc, face contorted in fury, pull out a gun and put an end to the drunk's DUI career.

I have a choice. I can call the cops, and have the doc hauled away for Murder Most Foul, OR, I can call the doctor over, smoking gun still in hand, and have him save my wife with his expertise, and then let jurisprudence take its course.

I know what the White House would do, because they are doing so on the Gulf Coast. Having the Progressive's penchant for focusing on drilling for dollars, they are spending much time and energy extracting bucks from BP, rather than letting them focus on the job at hand, stopping the oil leak.

I have no great love for BP, but they do have expertise that, I believe, could be more fruitfully brought to bear on the problem if BHO would back off, and leave the strong-arming 'til after the faucet is closed.

Then you can bleed 'em dry, 'cos, y'know, all those British pensioners don't really need the BP dividends to get by on. They have the National Health!

So the cries of outrage begin. Abby Sunderland, the 16-year-old sailor who attempted to sail around the world solo, ran into equipment malfunctions and had to be rescued, has a cadre of supporters coming to her aid.

The parents should be charged with child endangerment!!! (commentor on NBCSports)

Geraldo has proclaimed her homeschooling parents as "kooks", and divined that she was seeking escape from her parents' control. Where's that Psych degree, G.?

Abby, whom I do not know, even though the Dread Dormomoo and I are part of the same kooky homeschooling thing, is apparently a self-starting ambitious person, with a strong sense of competitiveness. Oh, if only she had used her skills in a meaningful way, like wresting the captain of the football team from the clutches of the head cheerleader. Wait...she would probably be the head cheerleader, if only she had been public-schooled.

Alas, she was homeschooled, and had kooky ideas, ideas above her station, ideas like SAILING AROUND THE FLIPPIN' WORLD ON HER OWN! And she tried it. And she failed. And she wants to try again.

Idiot. She COULD have been hanging around with gang-bangers and drug peddlers in the halls at school, but NO. She and her family think that they are BETTER than everyone else, and that being able to read, and do sums, and navigate the globe have some intrinsic worth. Heck, she probably knows the meaning of 'intrinsic'. Uppity thing.

Kiddies, let me be clear: if you do NOT want your kids to be self-motivated, intelligent, willing and able to take risks and rise above their failures, by all means, do not be a kook.

Send 'em to government schools. I'll guarantee, you won't have to worry about their accomplishing anything out of the ordinary.

Word to your mother.

Your Aardvark has been in the thick of it. We are in our "Christmas season" business-wise, and are just this side of gibbering.

Last weekend we attended Animazement, the wonderful Raleigh convention I have gushed over in years past. We print their convention shirts each year, several hundred of them, and have prodigious dealer room sales, besides. This year, we also did the concert shirts for a band that appeared at the con! Uchu Sentai NOIZ is the band, and we were privileged to do their shirts. Very cool.

The weekend was marred by Fellow Dealers Not With Us.. Frank and Lisa, of Frank's Cool Stuff, purveyors of used anime DVDs, are our normal neighbors. They could not make it this year due to a scheduling conflict. We had Loen, Riatsila, James, Micah, and Your Humble staffing the AardBooth, and we ate well! We re-visited Tir Na Nog, the Irish pub with wonderful food. We were ably served by Victoria, a lovely lass who did a faboo job. We found that we five did not form the critical mass necessary for Maximum Enjoyment. We did not have Frank and Lisa with us, and missed them mightily. Next year in Raleigh!

Ragazzi's in Cary, NC was our Sunday night dinner. They have marvelous Italian food, and creme brulee to boot!

The Animazement staff did their usual outstanding job of putting on the con. Thanks, guys and gals!

I have been a science fiction fan for almost as long as I have memories. I remember "It Came From Beneath the Sea" being shown on TV, along with the Ivan Tors series "The Man and the Challenge". Of course, "SUPERCAR" goes without saying. Later, I became a voracious reader of everything from The War of the Worlds and the SF short stories in "Boys Life" magazine. It wasn't until college that I became introduced to fantasy as a genre.
(I include McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series in that pigeonhole, though she has science elements in the stories. Go ahead and complain.) Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams all contributed to my fondness for both types of story. Heinlein was my favorite hard SF author, followed by Bradbury, for his glorious evocative prose. College found me in the clutches of Niven and Pournelle. I did not, however, discover SF fandom until 1980, when I attended my first convention: PhilCon 80. It was our first foray into the world of huckstering (the selling of fannish goodies at a con). It was that which introduced me to the wild and wacky world of SF fandom, and SF conventions (would that be SF Con-dom?)

The Dread Dormomoo has been an artist most of her life, and picked up the airbrush in 1980. We took her t-shirt painting setup all the way from the Grand Strand of SC to Philadelphia, in our little blue Monza wagon. She was a hit, but we learned the quirkiness of SF fans right off while she was painting unicorns and rockets on shirts when a lady came up and asked if DD could paint a portrait of Johnny Mathis on a shirt.

Johnny Mathis??!?

The DD could, and did. Later on at MunchCon, held at Marshall University in Huntington, WV, we had a lass combine her interests by having the saucer of the USS Enterprise, with a unicorn rampant, put on a shirt. Then came the endless string of D&D players who had her paint their game characters on shirts: elves, dwarves, orcs, you name it.

MUCH later, after we began screenprinting our own designs to sell, the guys popped out of the woodwork to fix our shirts, to make them O so much funnier. One of our earliest designs was the "classic":

C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN\DOS\RUN

For those educated after the Seventies, this was a takeoff on the Dick and Jane readers:

See Dick.
See Dick run.
Run, Dick, run.

Now, the helpful souls, usually bearded and stooped, would sonorously intone: "You need to add a fourth line: 'RUN\DAMMIT\RUN'."; never mind that it completely misses the syntax of the original first grade reader quote. Admittedly, that is more annoying than anything, but the modern trend is far worse. The old-school SF cons were built around the science in science fiction. panels about space travel and even time travel abounded.
Today, the shift from science to psy-ence has taken its toll: fans of the "telepathic lesbian were-seal"-type stories are numerous, as are their preferred plotlines, shaky on the hard sciences, strong in agnostic or a-theist mysticism. One of the last SF cons I attended featured at least one author of that ilk, and in the dealer room (one is not a huckster any more) there was a nice lady with a webcam, and "video aura" software, which would visualise your chakras. (Now, I remember a couple of conventions years ago where the guys had a Polaroid camera with a diffraction grating over the lens, which gave you a lovely rainbow "aura" from the backlight. Ooooooh, lookit my aura!) This modern version spits out a printed book with your image, and various interpretations of the picture. The lady then gave a 15-20 minute counseling session. The customer paid real money to a total stranger to advise him about his life. Another woman, a guest of the con, offered Tarot readings to the infidel faithful.

Hmmmm...let us step back and examine the context. These women are not advising Heads of State, nor the Crown Princes of Europe. They are doing fortunetelling at a science fiction convention. A small one. In the huckster room.

Current science fiction fandom has abandoned its science for credulity, its Western skepticism for non-theistic open-mindedness. The "thump" you hear is its collective brain falling out.

The WiFi at our aging Holiday Inn was not as reliable as some, so reportage about our triumphal Animazement sojourn will be up tonight sometime. I hope this explanation protects me from Murder Most Vile!