Purple Stuff Podcast: DICK TRACY!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!

After Batman was released in 1989, movie studios were scrambling to have their own superhero at the helm. One of them didn’t wear a cape but rather a yellow trenchcoat. We’re talking about DICK TRACY! The colorful comic book film was a throwback to an era that many of us were largely unfamiliar with as kids, but that just made it all the more interesting. While it’s pretty obvious that having a cool communicator watch may not have been as cool as a Batmobile, grappling gun, or an entire utility belt’s worth of gadgets, in the new episode of the Purple Stuff Podcast, we’ll explore a ton of other high points that spawned from the Dick Tracy movie. Dinosaur Dracula and I trade our memories of the movie, some of our favorite quotes and impressions, and also delve into the awesome action figure line from Playmates. Check this episode out to celebrate the 30th anniversary of a film that left an indelible mark (made up of Tommy Gun Bullets) on our childhood!

Thank you for listening! If you would like to support the Purple Stuff Podcast please visit us our Patreon page!

Madonna, Atlantic City, and Armpits…

Photobucket
Frequently I come out with some preposterous claims. One of these includes the theory that I may have invented the “screen shot” or “screen grab” as it’s commonly known. As soon as Desperately Seeking Susan was available on VHS, Momma Armpit brought me home a copy because she knew I wanted it. I watched it over and over marveling at the fact that I could keep rewinding my favorite scene and watch it over and over. Believe it or not, my favorite scene wasn’t seeing Rosanna Arquette’s boobs, nope, as nice as they are, I was more interested in a scene most of you probably quickly forgot about. 
My favorite scene comes when Madonna is in the Port Authority bathroom looking super sexy in her hot pink mesh Atlantic City shirt. She walks over to the hand dryer and raises her arms to dry her armpit. Now, contrary to popular belief, I do not have an armpit fetish so get this out of your head right away. The name of the site might mislead you, but I just think it’s a funny scene. I wouldn’t doubt that Madonna actually came up with that herself because she’s really perverse.
Anyway, I took my 35MM Vivitar camera (that I still own!) and took a few snapshots of the TV screen while this scene was playing. My mom went to get the film developed and as she was going through the pics of the family gatherings and events there were also 2 or 3 shots of Madonna air drying her armpits. Classic.

AD JERSEUM 15: Gary’s Oasis

Photobucket
Gary’s Oasis…
All Your Fantasies Can Come True…Now Buy a Jacuzzi you pricks! I need a new car stereo!

There’s no stipulation in AD JERSEUM saying that we can’t discuss fictional ads relating to Jersey, so the 15th installment of Ad Jerseum comes from the 1985 film Desperately Seeking Susan.

During a sleepover when I was a kid, instead of hanging out and pretending we were on secret missions with toy guns and all the usual activities, I once made my best friend watch Desperately Seeking Susan. This was one of the rare times he actually trusted me and agreed to watch a film that I recommended. I was a little kid in love with the Material Girl, what can I say? Most of my friends would’ve told me in more juvenile terms that my sleepover agenda was out of whack, but not Frank, he was a trooper. He actually got into the movie and enjoyed it.

“In our New Jersey showroom we have hundreds of models of whirlpools and hot tubs at the lowest manufacturer-to-you prices…”

Speckled with New Jersey references, Desperately Seeking Susan was less about Madonna and more about Roberta Glass. Roberta desperately wanted to BE like Susan (Madonna). She was unlike the obnoxious women you see on the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Roberta lived in a beautiful home in Fort Lee, NJ and had everything she needed because her husband raked in a fortune selling spas and jacuzzis to rich assholes. Her husband, Gary (yes…Gary Glass – possibly the brother or cousin of George Glass, we’re still investigating that), was basically a self centered d-bag played to a tee by actor Mark Blum.

In the film, Glass has a party to view the airing of his latest commercial. The Gary’s Oasis TV spot has a similar production quality as a commercial you might see at 3 AM for a crappy local car dealership. But, it’s the blonde girls in bathing suits volleying the beach ball back and forth as they sit 2 feet away from each other that makes this one AD JERSEUM GOLD!!!

“You Know That New Sound You’re Lookin’ For?…”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_jNT3vJai0?rel=0]
*After watching this a few times I realized that the creators of this video omitted some major acts! The Duprees from Jersey City, The Misfits from Lodi, as well as The Rascals who originally formed in Garfield NJ. Just read the comments on YouTube in response to this video and you’ll see about 50 more acts that were not included. I guess the video would’ve had to have been 25 minutes rather than 5.

I was tipped off to this video package by my FB friend Sil Atda BadaBing and it showcases musicians and singers who hail from New Jersey. The video has been making the rounds on the Internet recently and it was produced by Charles Ricciardi and Steven Gorelick for the NJ Hall of Fame ceremony. The Sexy Armpit goes on record as saying that Hall of Fames are dumb and meaningless. KISS not being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame proves that. Better yet, the fact that Madonna and RUN DMC made it in before KISS is preposterous considering that the first KISS album, which has only gotten better with age, was released in 1974! The NJ Hall of Fame is just another excuse to charge an insane amount of money for a ticket to an event where the elite like to kiss each others asses and the rich stick their noses in the air. F*ck that! Great video on music from the Garden State though. And for all of you New Jersey writers and bloggers, The NJ Hall of Fame treated The Armpit like a 2nd rate citizen a couple of years back, so there is one New Jersey organization that should be tossed out with the rest of our trash. They’ll see, The Sexy Armpit is gonna make like Goldie Wilson and clean up this town!

Lea Michele is May’s Garden State Playmate

glee,lea michele,new jersey

Even though her face looks like she’s trying to force out a really pesky dump whenever she sings, Glee‘s Lea Michele is May’s Garden State Playmate. She’s not full fledged Jersey though, she was born in The Bronx but grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey. Previous to scoring big with her role as high school singer Rachel Berry, Lea Michele was a promising young stage actress (showing your boobs really displays your acting chops), starring in productions of Spring Awakening and Les Miserables.

glee,lea michele,new jersey

Since debuting last year, it didn’t take long for Glee and it’s stars to skyrocket to fame. I admit watching the original preview of the show in Hulu but I couldn’t get through the first 10 minutes. It seems like the country is obsessed with hearing people perform music that isn’t theirs. It’s like everyone has the Karaoke virus. I blame American Idol. Hearing the cast sing Madonna and Lady Gaga songs doesn’t impress me. OK, so I’m a party pooper, but sue me if I’d rather pop in my ear buds and listen to the REAL songs.

lea michele,glee,new jersey

And for the record, in the world of The Sexy Armpit, “Gleek” can only describe a rambunctious blue monkey who hangs out with The Wonder Twins, but now, crazed fans of the hit Fox TV show are also calling themselves Gleeks. Zan and Jayna need to call their lawyer!

Madonna in New Jersey: “Into The Groove” – Blond Ambition Tour 1990

Recently, Madonna lent her music to Fox’s show Glee, and I inadvertently caught bits and pieces of it. I’m sorry if you love the show, but it’s fairly cheesy. Don’t get me wrong, Jane Lynch is hysterical, but the rest of the show just reminds me of a hipper version of High School Musical. The episode I saw, “The Power of Madonna,” had the cast performing Madonna’s big hits and recreating her videos throughout the show, but I would much rather hear the real thing.

I headed over to trusty YouTube and found a clip of Madonna performing one of my favorite songs of hers in New Jersey! It’s “Into The Groove,” from the East Rutherford, NJ stop on the Blond Ambition Tour in June of 1990 which took place at the Meadowlands Arena (aka Izod Center). If you can get past the banter at the beginning, it’s a damn fine performance, just as Madonna’s usually are. Also, it’s obvious that Lady Gaga’s style in the prison scene in her video for “Telephone” is clearly inspired by Blond Ambition era Madonna.

I’ll admit that I wanted to maul Madonna when I was a kid. It was abnormal because while most of my friends were tossing around a baseball with their friends, I was tossing in videocasettes of Desperately Seeking Susan, Who’s That Girl, and The Virgin Tour VHS tape to ogle my future wife. I don’t regret not throwing the baseball around since I knew I wasn’t MLB bound, but I chalked it up to the fact that all my Madonna “research” may come in handy someday when I’m older and I need to write a blog post about one of Madonna’s performances in New Jersey.

Seduced by Barbie

Throughout my life there’s been many reasons why people have questioned my sexuality. Perhaps it was my pink bandanna phase. I swore that it was inspired by Jesse “the Body” Ventura but no one ever believed me. “Yeah right Jay, sure…Jesse the Body…that‘s it!” Even during backyard wrestling matches I’d come out dressed up like the androgynous Goldust, face paint and all freaking everyone out. My lifelong obsessions with Madonna and Prince didn’t help the cause either. Hell, I’ve even been on the receiving end of a massage and a pedicure! Go ahead, call me metro sexual. Luckily though, in my defense, there’s never been any concrete evidence against me on the subject of questioning my sexuality. Until now that is…

You see, as a child growing up with an older sister it was extremely difficult to get her to do “boy things” with me. Somehow when my sister finally caved in on those random occasions, I found myself unfulfilled when she would play as the Princess Leia action figure. Of course if it was He-Man time, she would be Teela. She wasn’t the worst action figure player but she wasn’t quite in tune with the “scene” if you catch my drift. She didn’t know Eternia from Ecuador. Ram Man could’ve been a mythological creature who was half ram and half man for all she knew. But alas she gave it her best effort. My sister’s finest skills weren’t in the creating of an original storyline to have the action figures take part in but they were in merely setting up the figures as if they were going to be in some sort of photo shoot. She would say things like “Let’s put all the good guys over here and the bad guys over here.” She was very organizational with these plastic heroes of mine. I guess I didn’t mind either because at least she was paying attention to me. There’d be times when she actually would play with her Barbie dolls and do their hair and make sure they all had the right outfits on and then set them up against the wall to show them off. To my sister it seemed like the details were more important than what adventures her dolls would be partaking in.

When my sister was in her Barbie doll playing mood, she’d be on one side of the room while I’d be on the other with my action figures. At first I detested these Barbies but then after I watched her through the open mouth of castle gray skull I realized she was having a fabulous time. (There’s another strike against me, I just used the word FABULOUS!) It wasn’t that my figures and playsets weren’t fulfilling me it was just that she seemed like she was accomplishing something with her Barbie Dolls while I sat with a bunch of hunks of plastic and Moss Man. There was a lot more pressure on me to create my own little stories to act out with the Universe of He-Man, GI Joe, WWF, etc. She could sit there and throw Skipper on a horse and have a super good time while Barbie and Ken made out on a park bench. It was that easy. Dammit, you could have anything happen in the ginormous Barbie Dream house she had. Fuck, it was called a DREAM HOUSE! Anything could happen in it! My sister even had the Barbie yacht that floated around in the pool! Talk about a cool invention! She had the Barbie corvette and everything you could possibly think of. This was the early ‘80s when Barbie was expanding her hobbies and accessories beyond your wildest dreams. Barbie’s family and group of friends suddenly grew extensively as if she just found out that she had another entire family in a parallel universe.

With her Barbie collection there was so much to be enticed by. Meanwhile I had already planned Skeletor to invade Grayskull and rule Eternia about a bazillion times. Buzz Off was getting a little boring and Duke, Shipwreck, and Zartan were already fed up with my unoriginal plots that I’d been casting them in. Let’s just say one day we all had a little falling out and I defected to the OTHER side of the room…my SISTERS side of the room.

If you’ve ever seen the episode of That ‘70s show where Kelso lets Jackie do his hair and makeup and then puts him in a dress, that’s the way I felt that day but I had fun. This move was voluntary and purely for investigative purposes. Naturally as a young healthy boy I would never think of playing with Barbie dolls, unless Cobra was plotting a terrorist attack on Barbie’s Dream house. Nah, I didn’t have anything elaborate like that planned but it just looked like fun. After my sister showed me how to primp these bitches then I set off hot-rodding in her corvette and chillin’ out in the DREAM HOUSE. It was that day that I fell in love with a hot little piece of plastic and her name was Skipper.

To be continued…