A night out at the “theatah” with Jakob and Mandi. Specifically the Rhubarb Festival in Toronto. Blood, shit, piss, vomit and transgendered country singers. Bravo!
Shownotes here.
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Guess who chose this? And he’d been drinkin too much brimstone to defend it. Apologies to Dune and Frank Herbert…
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Whatever did we do before the internet and cell phones and the like? Some of you young’ns may not even remember the days we speak of. Days of going outside, making up games and generally risking life & limb in the pursuit of entertainment. Let us take you back to the good old days, where life was analog…
Need more MoN? (Who doesn’t really?) Check us out on The Gunaxin Show, at Gunaxin.com or on iTunes.
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2 live shows and a new ‘We Know Celebrities’ interview this Thursday night 3/11, probably starting around 9pm EST, 2am GMT. While we should have the webcam going for both, only one will be put out as a video podcast. One of these shows will be a St. Patty’s Day special. Bring your drinking hats & join us on the Live Page.
This week we announce our first super-fan listener and take a look at some of the clothing of Star Trek.
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Jakob rolls 1d4, 1d12 and 1d20 to select a CD from his collection to review.
Today’s roll: 3 – 2– 5
Result: Standing In The Dark by Platinum Blonde.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this album, which might make me the preeminent Standing in the Dark scholar working today. That’s probably a fairly accurate statement since image searching Platinum Blonde brings up fewer and fewer results for the band every year. Once the biggest Canadian pop-rock act working, the group is almost forgotten and, for the most part, rightfully so. Their 2nd and 3rd albums were exercises in rapidly diminishing returns, but for their debut album to be swept under the rug as well… well, that’s a crime against Canadian culture.
As you know, I am a newspaper reporter. Over the past couple of months, I have covered events as diverse as health board meetings, student science fairs and attempted robberies. It’s a busy life, and an eclectic one, but once in a while, an assignment comes along that really lights my fires.
Like the time I was sent to interview a flying serial killer.
I don’t get to actually see him fly, because his studio is kind of small, and he’s not really a serial killer — he only plays one in the movies. But he does make a table levitate for me. It’s fun watching my very tall photographer duck as the table swoops around his head. The outtakes from his camera show a lot of shocked expressions, on his face and mine.
The flying man is Peter Loughran, the Master of Illusions. He’s a Canadian magician, actor and illusionist who, most of the time, works behind the scenes. You’ve seen his large-scale and small-scale illusions on Las Vegas stages and in the shows of some of the top performers in the field, including Criss Angel. But Loughran works on his elaborate magic closer to my neck of the woods, in a nondescript building on the shores of a cold lake in central Ontario.
Inside that nondescript building, though, magic is found. Swords hang from the walls. A bleeding, dripping severed head sits on a shelf. On the wall is a huge poster of Loughran in midair; he invented and sells a device called The Elevator, which allows users to levitate, even when surrounded by a crowd. In other words, flying.
He won’t tell me how it works. In fact, he can’t say much about his work, as it has to remain a secret. At one point, I try to jot down some observations from a secret formula pinned to the wall; Loughran points and my pen vanishes. Luckily, I have another.
The reason I’m here in Peter’s lair, with a photographer, is to talk about Plaster Rock. It’s a new low-budget horror film that was shot in December in New Brunswick, Canada. Loughran plays a key role in the film, as a mysterious magician/villain who prowls the remote forests of Plaster Rock.
“How were you cast in the film?” I ask.
“Well, they needed an actor who could also perform magic, as that’s a part of the character,” he says. “And they needed someone who could double as the magic consultant, and assist with special effects and makeup.”
In other words, it’s a pretty narrow field for casting agents. As soon as the producers started asking around within the illusion community, Loughran’s name kept popping up.
Within days, he was out in the snow, filming the movie. It will be released this spring, with a gala launch in — where else — my living room. No, actually, it’ll be in Las Vegas.
Plaster Rock is loosely based on a true story about a murder case from the 1930s. Adapted to modern-day, the film tells the story of a group of young people on a cross-country ski adventure race who run afoul of a black-cloaked figure who lives in the forest and can disappear in a cloud of smoke. This is, as Loughran calls it, micro-budget horror filmmaking … in other words, right up my alley.
There are days when I thank my assignment editor profusely.
Kennedy, Starbase 66
Note: Thanks to Global Universal Pictures and Peter Loughran for the photo.
The girls are back! A take-away length episode for you.
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This week we welcome Will Tristram, host of The Definitive Word and For Those About To Rock, aboard the station to discuss great genre films that were totally betrayed by their descendants.
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The latest episode of SHaFT is now available to download from MusicalMouseMat.com . I urge you to go get it now. You can find the show notes here thanks to Scott Redman maker of fine writing tools.
