Dimland Radio

dimland radio 3-25-17 show notes

I Don’t Believe The Universe Wanted Me To Find The Perfect Line

I believe in randomness and coincidence. There are those who see a significant connection in just about everything. They think the universe has a plan. Or their god has a plan. That may be, but I don’t see any strong evidence for it. The evidence there is is based on feelings. Well, that’s not good enough.

So, when I randomly picked the perfect book to use for a brand new meme going around social media, it was a great coincidence. That’s all.

The new meme sensation is the “And then the murders began” phenomenon. Author Marc Laidlaw (I mistakenly called him Eric Laidlaw on the show) twittered in early March of this year that “the first line of almost any story can be improved by making sure the second line is, ‘And then the murders began.'” I saw that on the Facebook and took up the challenge.

I thought a children’s chapter book would be funny. The first book to come to my mind was Charlotte’s Web. I’d never read the book. I was familiar with the story from seeing the animated film from 1973, but I had no idea what the first line of the book was.

I looked it up and what I found couldn’t have worked any better.

“‘Where’s Papa going with that ax?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. And then the murders began.”

Perfect! Got it in one try!

I Have A Listener!

Well, I have a handful of listeners, but I pretty much know all of them. They’re people I have some kind of affiliation with and they listen to the show. The other day, however, someone I don’t know sent a message to Dimland Radio. He was suggesting I make a t-shirt design based on one of my show ID sounders. The one in which I pretend to be shaken by an extraordinary EVP (electronic voice phenomena – the audio anomalies ghost hunters think are communications from the dead). The EVP says one thing, but I say it says, “Bread trout.”

This listener suggested I draw a bread trout and put it on a shirt with the Dimland Radio logo. It’s an intriguing idea. And drawing a bread trout would be a good challenge.

We’ll see.

Hollywood (And Lots Of People Including Me) Likes ‘Em Shaved

Shaved legs and armpits on women specifically, I mean. I didn’t talk about other parts of women that might or might not be shaved.

This came up because there was some objection to the fact that Gal Godot, the new Wonder Woman, clearly has shaved armpits in the trailer for the soon to be released DC super-hero movie. Some of the outcry stems from pedantry: Why would an Amazon shave her armpits? Much more of it comes from decrying the patriarchy.

Well, I must confess I like the look of a woman with shaved legs and armpits. I guess I’m part of the patriarchy.

I noted that having women shaved in otherwise preposterous situations goes way back in Hollywood. Of course, so does the patriarchy. I gave the examples of Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC (1966) and Linda Harrison in The Planet of the Apes (1968). Both were playing essentially cave women and both were way too hairless to be true to life.

I also mentioned women weren’t the only ones Hollywood made shave off body hair. William Holden, a man crush of mine, can be seen shirtless throughout much of the David Lean classic The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). He’s also very hairless. Legs, armpits, chest, and back are as smooth as can be.

So smooth and glistening!

If you watch the Billy Wilder classic Stalag 17 (1953), you won’t get to see Holden shirtless (pity), but you will get to see a fair amount of chest hair peeking out from under the collar of his undershirt. Interesting. I’ve also found images of a shirtless and hairy William Holden on the internets.

What that stuff coming up from under his collar?

From what I can tell Holden had to shave his chest for at least two other films he was in: Picnic (1955) and Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). For some reason Hollywood wanted him body-hairless for those roles.

Patriarchy!

An Example Of How Bad Memory Is And How I Might Have Been The Dick

I told the story of the time the DEA came into the building in which I was working and searched one of the loft apartments. It’s quite a tale that I won’t get into here. I’ll just say that the office manager at the time had nothing to do with witnessing the three DEA agents who did the searching.

He saw nothing. He was busy with customers. Dave, one of the fellows in the shop, and I saw those three men. We had no idea they were DEA. Dave and I stayed after work to tell the police what we saw as one of the tenants in the that apartment thought he’d been burgled. We found out the three dudes were DEA days after the event and that they were searching for evidence against the tenant’s roommate.

Years later, I would hear the office manager recount the tale to customers. He told the story as though he saw the men. And he saw them sneaking up the stairs. He saw their shirts with “DEA” on the back.

No, he didn’t. He was busy doing other stuff.

One day he started to tell me the story. I shot him down. He hadn’t seen anything. Dave and I saw the men. And we didn’t know about the DEA thing until, at least, a couple days after the event.

The office manager wasn’t happy that I shut him down so bluntly. But I thought he was being a self-aggrandizing dick by making the event about him. What a dick! So, when I got the chance I took it and told him he wasn’t there. Ha!

That was several years ago. Since then I have learned that human memory is not good. It’s very unreliable. Memories change over time and it’s very human to incorporate someone else’s memories as your own. I learned that it was very possible, even likely, that the office manager wasn’t being a dick by putting himself in the story. He probably really did remember the event that way.

I might have been the one being a dick the way I shot him down. I could have handled that situation much better.

Movie Recommendation: None

I didn’t specifically talk about a movie recommendation, but you could watch The Bridge on the River Kwai or Stalag 17 or both. They are excellent.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram‘ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Warm Leatherette‘ by The Normal & ‘Rattlesnake‘ by The Replacements

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Only You‘ by Yaz & ‘North Country Girl‘ by Pete Townshend

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook‘ by $5 Fiddle

That’s it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

dimland radio 3-18-17 show notes

And Back To The ER I Go

Monday evening, Mom was hit by a pretty severe dizzy spell and then she hit the floor. She landed awfully hard and ended up in the emergency room. Dad got a hold of me at work and I hurried through what I needed to do to get to the hospital.

Mom was pretty shook up and in pain, but as the evening progressed and she was able to get that uncomfortable neck brace removed, she was able to calm down and relax.

In fact, Dad was able to get Mom to have quite the laughing jag after hearing the tales of the false teeth and the wet pants.

She went home that night. And she’s feeling better.

Playboy: The Return Of Naked Ladies, Fake Boobs, And Comic Book Art

I had planned to talk about this last week, but time constraints wouldn’t allow for it. Which is probably a good thing, because going from talking about sexual assaults and a sexual predatory atmosphere at the fraternity for which I had done illustrations over the past 20 years, to talking about Plaboy magazine, might not have gone over very well.

But, with a week behind us, I went on to talk about how Playboy magazine has brought back the nude photos after a year-long absence. Cooper Hefner, Hugh’s son and the magazine’s chief creative officer, had said the nudity wasn’t the problem with the lackluster sales of the iconic men’s magazine. (My suspicion is that there were too many articles.) He also said that the way the naked ladies were presented was dated.

This got me to talking about the idea that the Playboy Playmate was the “girl next door.” Well, the exceptionally hot girl next door, but the women did have a quality about them that made them appear real. As time went on, the women lost the girl next door look. Part of that loss, I think was due to breast implants. The images were always touched up. Air-brushed and later Photoshopped, but the breast implants brought another level of unreality. The boobs just didn’t look right.

Breast implant technology has improved though. So, I’m told! Ahem!

That led me to talk about comic book art and one cover in particular. I showed it to my wife and said, “This is what happens when comic book artists are raised in the age of breast implants.”

The cover was drawn by Joe Madureira, who is an excellent artist. It’s a variant cover for Battle Chasers #1 (1998). The woman on the cover obviously has breast implants. Real breasts wouldn’t do what they do on that cover. Maybe Madureira wanted that look. Maybe that character does have implants.

However, she’s also either very bowlegged or her hips have been dislocated.

Dimland Radio Science Hero: Dan Piraro

OK. There are no breast implants or hip displacement here. But there is a positive and correct message presented by cartoonist Dan Piraro. His March 8, 2017 edition of his daily strip Bizarro shows a group meeting of mythical beings. The newest member of the group is the vaccine that causes autism. Truly a mythical thing.

For this strip, Dan Piraro has been named a Dimland Radio Science Hero.

Ark Encounter Not Drawing ‘Em In

Speaking of myths, the creationist’s favorite fairy tale inspired Ark Encounter has not pulled in the numbers of visitors nor the amount of dollars as had been projected. It seems God was far more successful at inspiring two of every species to head to the original ark, but He can’t direct enough paying customers to Ken Ham’s folly in Kentucky.

I’m shocked! Shoc… No, I’m not.

Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t be shocked if it was a roaring success.

Movie Recommendation: The Chase (1966)

A bit melodramatic. A bit Peyton Place. But watching Marlin Brando as the sheriff of a small Texas town deal with the pettiness, racism, and sniping cruelty of the townsfolk as he attempts to bring in the town’s ne’er do well escaped convict unharmed is very entertaining.

There are plenty of familiar faces in this one including EG Marshall, Angie Dickinson, Robert Duvall, Jane Fonda, and Robert Redford. And keep an eye open for a young Paul Williams as one of the town’s teenagers.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram‘ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Erica’s Word‘ by Game Theory & ‘And Through The Wire‘ by Peter Gabriel

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Scarecrow People‘ by XTC & ‘Eliminator Jr‘ by Sonic Youth

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook‘ by $5 Fiddle

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

dimland 3-11-17 show notes

Show Number 311 On 3/11

Relax numerologists and conspiracy theorists. There’s nothing mystical and there was no secret plan going on to make it so that the 311th show of Dimland Radio would fall on 3/11. Honestly, it’s just a coincidence. I mean it.

Oh, and iTunes (or wherever you get podcasts) subscribers, don’t forget Dimland Radio was a show on the Z Talk Radio Network since March 13, 2010. That’s why there have been 311 episodes. You can listen to most of those first 300 (iTunes’ first show was technically 301) from the Show Archives page at ztalkradio.com.

A Most Unpleasant Sunday Morning

For a sizable chunk of the last 20 years, I have done the t-shirt design for the yearly Pub Crawl event for Delta Upsilon, a fraternity at the University of Minnesota. Its humble beginnings of a drunken bar scene evolved into a Where’s Waldo-ish illustration depicting inside jokes relating to each of the members of the fraternity.

Over the years, I’ve drawn plenty of drunkenness, some pot-smoking, animal antics, vomiting, defecation, crashed cars, various other strange behaviors, and sex. Yep, sex. I did what I could to keep the sex PG-13 or, at most, rated R. In fact,until the last two years, I had managed to hide the naughtier parts of the naked co-eds. However, the nipple was freed in the last two designs.

Well, I shouldn’t be too flippant, because in mid-February I saw a brief news item on the local TV nightly news. The item was about a fraternity at the U of M being suspended. The fraternity was Delta Upsilon. The news report had no details, so last Sunday morning, after a couple of weeks with no news, I looked for what I could find out about it online.

I got into more detail on the show, but suffice it to say the suspension stems from the alleged sexual predatory atmosphere in the house. There were sexual assaults a couple of years ago, that led to investigations and, at least, one member expelled from the fraternity and the university. But a current member raised concerns that the fraternity hadn’t changed its ways.

Thus the suspension. And thus my very uneasy feeling about the work I had been doing for those guys all these years. I can’t be certain I never drew depictions of rape. And that makes me feel so gross. I naively thought the sex was consensual or just made up as a joke. But I doubt if I had asked if all the sex was consensual they would have admitted any of it was rape. Still.

You can read more about it here and here.

What Makes A Meh Beer Better Than Meh?

When that meh beer is free. But not much better.

Over the years, my boss would occasionally give me a 12 pack of beer. Since I don’t drink as often as I used to, I decided that when I drink beer I’ll drink one of better quality. I had settled on Summit Extra Pale Ale as that beer and my boss would get that kind for me when his generous mood struck him. Until, that is, last week.

Last week, he brought in Rolling Rock. Meh.

I was gracious and thanked him.

So, now I have to try to consume that meh beer. Oh, well. It was free.

Pedantic Moment: A Twofer From 12 Angry Men

I had two Pedantic Moments from the classic jury room drama from 1957, 12 Angry Men. It really is a good movie. Still, it is not immune to pedantry.

Also, this was the first ever listener contributed moment of pedantry. If you should have a good candidate for a Pedantic Moment, send it to me at drdim@dimland.com. I might share it on the show.

One moment dealt with a re-enactment being timed to see if the witness could get from his bed to the front door of his apartment was a quickly as he claimed. The experiment showed he couldn’t. The move from the bed to the front door took longer than testified to in court. However, the amount of time the experiment took according to the story was about 10 seconds longer than the actual run time in the film.

Watch the clip. You can time it yourself.

My listener’s Pedantic Moment was even better because it would result in a mistrial. In this scene (see below), Juror 8 did some of his own investigation and found a knife identical to the murder weapon. That’s a no-no. Jurors are to weigh the evidence presented in court. They are not to investigate. The duplicate knife was left in the jury room and the bailiff certainly would have found it. Mistrial!

Movie Recommendation: None

I didn’t get to one this week. You are on your own.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram‘ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Another Nail In My Heart‘ by Squeeze & ‘No Reply At All‘ by Genesis

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves‘ by The Smiths & ‘Lover Is For Lovers‘ by The dBs

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook‘ by $5 Fiddle

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

dimland radio 3-4-17 show notes

Illness, Hospitalization, And Death

I spent the first segment letting people know why there hasn’t been a new show in a couple of weeks. I had been sick and the aftermath of that illness kept me coughing and sniffing so much it wouldn’t have been a pleasant listening experience if I had done a show. I’m not sure it’s a pleasant listening experience when I’m not sick, but certain not when I’m a phlegm and mucus factory.

There was death in the family. My uncle and his wife died over the course of one weekend a few weeks ago. Both had been very sick, but he was the one told he had days, maybe weeks, to live. So, when my aunt died, it was a little surprising.

My dad and dad-in-law both spent some time in the hospital during my time away from the show. My dad had pneumonia and my dad-in-law fell. Both are out of the hospital and are doing better. But they’re both 81, so how “better” they are is relative.

Mary Tyler Moore Show Theme Says What?

A popular feature that started in the pages of the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper, the Bulletin Board, had moved to the internet last year. I had been a regular contributor in the past but had stopped when I longer got the daily paper. When I learned the Bulletin Board was moving onto the internet, I began to read and contribute again.

There was an item last Friday in the Bulletin Board that claimed most of the tributes to Mary Tyler Moore that included lyrics to ‘Love Is All Around,’ the theme song of her show, got the lyrics wrong. Most were listing the line in the chorus as variations of “You can have the town.” I had always thought it was, “You can have this town.”

According to my fellow Bulletin Boarder, the line is: “You can never tell.”

That got me falling down a rabbit hole in search of what the line really is. I looked up lyrics, listened to several clips of the song as done by it’s writer (Sonny Curtis), I listened to cover versions of the song. I couldn’t find anything definitive.

Then I realized that Sonny Curtis is still alive. The rest of the story is on the show. Or you could go here and read what was in the Bulletin Board.

Please follow the Bulletin Board. You, too, can become a member of “our community of strangers.”

Pedantic Moment: State Farm Ad And Home Burglary

The State Farm ad for their renter’s insurance shows two women admiring a recently purchased couch, then, at night, two men are admiring the same couch. One of the women had just bought it, because she had to have it. The men are there to steal it, because one of them had to have it.

Oh, so clever, but home burglars aren’t breaking into houses at night to steal furniture! Can you picture burglars attempting to lug out a couch without waking the renters or homeowners?

Punching Nazis…

…is still wrong, unethical, and immoral if you’re punching Nazis because of their bad ideas.

I talked about a podcast and a YouTuber trying to rationalize their wrong ideas. Sure, Nazis have bad ideas, the worst ideas. Just about everyone can agree on that Nazis are bad, but they still have the right to have bad ideas and not be punched because of them.

It occurred to me that some of these folks enjoying the idea of punching Nazis had most likely expressed the idea that violence against terrorists would just make more terrorists. Wouldn’t violence against Nazis do the same?

Watch this scene in Sidney Lumet’s ’12 Angry Men’ (1957) in which Juror 10 (Ed Begley) goes off on a bigoted, racist, and hate-filled diatribe about “these people.”

I think those podcasters and that YouTuber might have liked the scene better had the other jurors all punched Juror 10. Yeah, that would have felt so good! Punch the racist! Punch him good! That’ll learn ’em!

Movie Recommendation: None

I didn’t get to one this week. You are on your own.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram‘ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘OK This Is The Pops‘ by Tones On Tail & ‘Dark Entries‘ by Bauhaus

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Bitter Fruit‘ by The Alleycats & ‘Electric Lash‘ by The Church

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook‘ by $5 Fiddle

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

dimland radio 2-11-17 show notes

A Dimland Radio Look At Sports

Although my favorite game is baseball, I do also like football and last weekend was the NFL’s biggest game: the Superbowl. Since I’m certain the MN Vikings will never again play in that big game, I never have much of a rooting interest in which team wins the game. Sometimes I might pull for a particular team, but most of the time I just want a good game. A game with plenty of offense and great plays. A close game, in which the teams are evenly matched and that either could win. Blow outs are boring.

After the first half and well into the third quarter, I thought this year’s Superbowl was going to be a bore. I was happy for Atlanta, but the game would still have been anticlimactic.

However, the Atlanta Falcons were playing the New England Patriots. And hard to believe as it is, those Patriots managed to come from a 25 point difference to win in overtime. Insane!

I got that good game after all.

Speaking of baseball, which I did on the show, there’s an experiment that MLB wants to try on the minor league level. In an effort to shorten games, they want to, in extra innings, place a runner on second base at the beginning of the inning. (Oh, boy! More bunts!) Extra inning games might get shorter, but that’s not the cause of longer lasting games. Most games don’t go to extra innings, but can still go for more than three hours.

MLB is considering other options, but this one just seems dumb to me.

Pedantic Moment: An Explanation

One of the regular segments of my show is the Pedantic Moment. Last week I did one on a McDonalds McCafe TV ad. I was needled in the chat room that I needed to lighten up. It’s just a commercial.

Well, yeah. A Pedantic Moment is called that for a reason: I’m being pedantic. Duh.

If I lighten up, I wouldn’t have a segment for my show. And you try filling an hour each week.

An Example Of Fake News

A Facebook friend posted a bit of fake news from a site called vaccines.com. The anti-vax site posted a triumphant article about how the Center for Disease Control and Prevention “admits 98 million Americans were given cancer virus via the polio shot.” Well, that’s not exactly what happened.

I replied to my FB friend:

This anti-vax site is an example of fake news. If you read the information in the screen capture from the CDC that the anti-vaxxers are so proud to have captured you would learn:

1) The CDC did not admit 98 million Americans were given the “cancer virus” via the polio shot. 98 million Americans received one or more doses of the polio vaccine between 1955-1963. Of those 98 million, 10 to 30 million could have received vaccine contaminated with SV40.

2) SV40 is a virus found in some species of monkey. And, although some research results conflict, the majority of the scientific evidence does not show SV40 to be cancer causing in humans. Quoting from that same page “…the majority of studies done in the US and Europe, which compare persons who received SV40-contaminated polio vaccine with those who did not, have shown no causal relationship between receipt of SV40-conaminted polio vaccine and cancer.”

3) This information is not gone from the CDC site. The information is still there, but it has been summarized as follows:

“Some of the polio vaccine administered from 1955 to 1963 was contaminated with a virus called simian virus 40 (SV40). The virus came from the monkey kidney cells used to produce the vaccines. Once the contamination was discovered in the Salk inactivated polio vaccine in use at that time, the U.S. government established requirements for vaccine testing to verify that all new batches of the polio vaccine were free of SV40. Because of research done with SV40 in animal models, there was some concern that the virus could cause cancer. However, evidence suggests that SV40 has not caused cancer in humans.”

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html

Judging by what the anti-vaxxer wrote, they hadn’t read the information thoroughly before believing this to be some “grand admission” by the CDC. That was evident from the jump when they claimed all 98 million polio vaccine recipients got the contaminated vaccine.

Vaccines.news is what fake news looks like.

Some True Crime Is Too Difficult To Listen To

I briefly talked about a podcast called Sword and Scale. It is a true crime podcast that the real monsters of the world are real. One particular story real monster was Luka Mignotta and what I heard on the show had me fast-fowarding because it was just too much.

I think I’ll talk more about this on next week’s show. I didn’t have time to get into it fully this time.

Movie Recommendation: Dirty Harry (1971)

Yes, this is the classic tough, play-by-his-own-rules cop drama featuring one of Clint Eastwood’s signature character and you’ve probably seen it. If you haven’t, it’s a very gritty and compelling film. If you have seen it, but it’s been a while, I recommend watching it again.

I watched it again recently and I was struck by Andrew (Andy) Robinson’s performance as the serial killer named Scorpio. He’s so intense and his angelic face makes his demented need to kill and for fame even more distrubing. His plea that he has rights when suffering Harry’s wrath is so creepy in one of the film’s pivotal scenes.

Eastwood is solid, but Robinson steals the show.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram‘ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Waltz The Halls‘ by Game Theory & ‘Absolute Beginners‘ by The Jam

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Time The Avenger‘ by Pretenders & ‘Perfect Skin‘ by Lloyd Cole & the Commotions

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook‘ by $5 Fiddle

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.