Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: paula abdul

  • 12 Months of Mike Month 11: The Love Guru

    The end of our year-long immersion in the filmography of Mike Myers is in sight; but hoo boy, is this final stretch a test of endurance. Our penultimate film is 2008’s The Love Guru: the movie that finally put Mike’s career out of its misery after The Cat in the Hat roughed it up and left it for dead. Join us as we discuss the unfathomable depths to which Ben Kingsley sinks in his performance, and repeatedly refer to Romany Malco as “Romany Falco.” But really, who cares? Nothing matters! God is dead, long live Pitka!

    00:00:00 The Love Guru Theatrical Trailer

    00:07:32 Entertainment Weekly: “Mike Myers: Man of Mystery”

    00:12:28 WHO THE FUCK IS GRAHAM GORDY

    00:14:41 Here’s the Love Guru/American Idol Cross-Promotional Tie-In, If You Dare

    00:32:54 Yep, He Made That Joke in an Earlier Movie

    00:38:15 Romany Falco

    00:38:25 A Taste of Romany Malco’s Past Life as a Feline Rapper

    00:41:52 A More Realistic Portrayal of a Man as Well-Endowed as Jacques “Le Coq” Grande

    00:44:03 The First of, We’re Afraid, Several Interminable Hindustani Music Parodies in The Love Guru

    https://youtu.be/H9Ee8WJqKXw

    00:49:55 The Love Guru‘s Obligatory Late-Career Mike Myers Nightmare Fuel

    00:53:57 The Best 20 Seconds in The Love Guru by Default

    00:57:27 We Guess We’ll Count This as a Catch Phrase

    00:59:27 Seriously, What is Going on with Pitka and Rajneesh?

    01:09:34 #StinkMop

    01:12:59 (It was Rob Huebel, by the way)

    01:19:09 The Last (Thank God) of The Love Guru‘s Interminable Hindustani Music Parodies

    01:21:34 “Sexy Sadie” by the Beatles (from The Beatles, 1968)

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  • 12 Months of Mike Month 9: Shrek 2

    Well, folks, it took us nine months, but our year-long immersion into the filmography of Mike Myers has finally broken us, as evidenced by the uncontrollable fit of laughter Callie breaks into over the thought of Shrek and Fiona driving around in a giant onion. Listen as the last vestiges of our sanity finally slip away–and then come back in the first week of July when we do it all over again with Shrek the Third!

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  • Jheri Curl June Special: Jesse Johnson

    For the past three years, we’ve commenced our Jheri Curl June festivities with profiles of major figures in the style we call Jheri Curl Music, timed to line up with their birthdays in the beginning of June. In 2014, it was Prince (born June 7); in 2015, it was Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (the former born June 6); last year, it was L.A. Reid (June 7 again). But until now, we’ve never managed to make time for another architect whose birthday falls as close to the beginning of June as possible: June 1, 1960. I’m talking, of course, about Jesse Johnson.

    Jesse, in our defense, hasn’t exactly been a stranger to Jheri Curl June. His “Be Your Man” was our second-ever JCJ post back in 2014, and we’ve also considered his work both as a member of the Time and as the producer of late-’80s Minneapolis funk-rockers dáKRASH. But we’ve never taken a deep dive into his music–and that’s a damn shame, because whatever Johnson might have lacked in the innovation of his former associates Prince, Jam, and Lewis, he more than made up for with some of the strongest pure Jheri Curl Music of the mid-to-late 1980s. In other words, there’s no better person with whom to launch our fourth annual celebration of all things wet and silky in ’80s R&B music. So let’s get to it!

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  • Dystopian Listening Party Podcast, Jheri Curl June Edition: Jamie Starr’s a Thief

    Well, folks, it’s our first-ever Jheri Curl June podcast–and before you ask, yes, we’re talking about Prince again. This time, though, we’re shedding light on a somewhat less-discussed side of his career: the series of (very) thinly-veiled side projects and ghost productions he released in the early-to-mid-1980s under various pseudonyms, most famously “Jamie Starr.” If you’re even an intermediate-level Prince fan, some of these records are essential listening; so settle in, turn up your headphones, and get ready to take a bite of our purple rock.

    But first, a word of warning, as I’m afraid there’s a factual error in this one: I was speaking from memory in the section about Sheila E, and incorrectly stated that “Noon Rendezvous” began life as a Revolution outtake. It was actually co-written by Prince and Sheila for the Glamorous Life album; the Revolution just happened to cover it in concert. Oops! Anyway, I left that bit in because I still like the song, so just enjoy the music and try to ignore the fact that I’m blatantly lying to you. Finally, if you like this kind of content (with less inaccuracies), check out my new side hustle: dance / music / sex / romance, a chronological exploration of every (known) song in the Prince oeuvre, which I expect to be updating a couple times a week until it actually kills me.

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