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The In-Sect: It's life itself!

The Best of ABBA


Clockwise from the upper left: Most recent photos from Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

ABBA is the most famous pop group from Sweden ever, they sold 370 million records from 1972 to 1982. They were the first act from Continental Europe to score in the anglophone countries. And they were my personal entrance in popular music. And I had a crush on Anni-Frid. ABBA wasn’t really popular in my school, Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin would have been more trendy, so I listened to their music secretly. Though fashion may have changed a little their music is still perfect pop. I collected the best clips from YouTube for you. In no particular order:

Knowing me, knowing you

“Knowing me, knowing you, there is nothing we can do. We just have to face it, this time we’re through. Breaking up is never easy, I know but I have to go. It’s the best I can do.” Both marriages were divorced.

Take a chance on me

One of their most successful singles and Elton John’s favourite ABBA song!

Honey, Honey

Not one of the best songs, but a wonderful cheesy video! Yes, we thought they dressed cool in the seventies. I can’t explain it myself.

SOS

Pete Townshend declared “SOS” the most perfect Pop song of all time!

Waterloo

This one started their success. Watch them winning the national heat for the Eurovision song contest 1974.

Money, Money, Money

Lasse Hallstrom, who directed all of the ABBA videos, acknowledged this clip as the best ABBA video he ever made.

Mamma Mia

This is the song which replaced Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ from the top spot of the UK’s single charts in January 1976. (Why this song also contained ‘Mamma Mia’ in its lyrics slumbers deep down in the British unconscious.)

So long

This is ABBA trying to prove they can play rock numbers too. It was their personal chart disaster and is the worst performing ABBA single – it failed to chart in the UK completely. It’s a real good song anyway.

Related at the In-Sect: Vitas. Russian Superstar, Matthieu Chedid is ‘M’, God Bless Tiny Tim!, 10 Almost Sexy Album Covers, Pop Heroes: Wir sind Helden, Freddie and the Dreamers.

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The 10 Lamest Superheroes

I want to introduce my own list of the top ten lamest superheroes of all time. These specimen were all really printed, commercial superheroes, every detail told here is true.

The Curse of Being Immortal, Man.

This superhero clearly was inspired by the Wandering Jew, an old anti-semitic, Christian fairy tale. His superpower is being immortal. Not indestructible of course, so when you stab him, he will bleed and if you use your heat vision on him, he’s roast. And he dies, but only to be reincarnated as someone completely else. Now, that’s a super weakness in my eyes. Not only can he feel pain and anger as we all do, no: He even has to die multiple deaths!

Look at the Mess You Made!

The Legion of Superheroes is a never ending source of awe and wonder. The young heroes are bizarre enough on their own, but those who were rejected joining their ranks are even more hilarious. I barely couldn’t decide which one to pick, but I will vote for “The Mess” as my all time favorite. Like my office his only superpower is attracting dirt. Kind of super-Pigpen from “The Peanuts”. And his costume is the only super hero dress I could manufacture myself.

Vogue Award for The Red Bee

“The Red Bee” is an average Golden Age vigilante with no special super power apart from his ability to command bees. He’s not using this to earn a gazillion dollars with special flavored honey but to fight crime. His main problem is the fact that he is completely color blind and sewed himself a costume in red, pink and yellow. Stripes? Check. Puff sleeves? Check. “Stinger Gun”? Check.

Pinky’s Excellent Adventure

Being a sidekick is not cool. Being a boy sidekick is even uncooler. Mr. Scarlet superpowers: ‘Above level acrobatic and hand-to-hand combatant skills’. So being Mr. Scarlet’s boy sidekick is uncoolest. But this is just a small problem compared to his name: “Pinky” is the worst name any superhero can have. Can you imagine any given third class super villain tremble with fear when someone named “Pinky” enters the scene? Or even any kindergarten bully? I’d be more afraid of Linus…

Hoppy the Marvel Bunny

Hoppy is indeed an old fellow – born on the 1st of December 1942. He lives in the “Funny Animal Land” inhabited by cartoons and is the bunny version of Captain Marvel. He is part of the Marvel Family, along with Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel and – yes! – Uncle Marvel. In “Funny Animal Land” Superman exists only as a comic book character, which completely separates his reality from mine. But don’t be afraid: Superman and Hoppy have their share of adventures to live through together!

The Yellow Peril: Collective Man

Imagine you arewriting scenarios and this is your idea: There are five brothers which can mentally synchronize the atoms of their bodies into one human being being five times as strong as any normal man. If this “Collective Man” concentrates on the image of millions of his countryman his powers boost off any scale available in your gym. Where could such a being come from? Right: China! Did I mention that this deployment of collective power renders all five parts of the Collective Man unconscious?

Oops: Doop!

Remember Slimer, the green ghost from the Ghostbusters? Well, that is exactly Doop. Cap’ America – may God rest his soul – stated that Doop is an US military experiment gone wrong and capable of destroying our whole planet. I can not tell you what his superpowers are, but take anything from the X-Men universe and combine it and you get the picture. He once dated a beautiful married woman, but her husband send a PI called Chandler (Oh, the irony!) to investigate. Doop ditched the woman instantly and had an affair with the detective. That he once fought with Thor for the final piece of his brain and that he swallowed all of the X-Men via a swollen pimple is better not further discussed here.

The Gay Ghost

Keith Everett, the Earl of Strethmere, is killed in 1700 and haunts his castle until his last descendant from America returns to the castle and is killed by Nazis. (We write 1942.) Guess what’s the super power of this ghost? Well, the Gay Ghost can slip into another man’s body and can still use his skills with the sword. And that’s what he does to avenge the death of Deborah Wallace. Later he travels to America with her would-be fiancé. Would you please stop smiling?

Carmen, do you know what foreplay is?

“Good. Neither does El Guapo.” Yes, this hero shares his name with the villain from “Three Amigos!” Mr. Handsome’s special ability was a symbiotic relationship with his living skateboard. If the board and Guapo were separated, he immediately felt sick. Fighting the Taliban he first lost his legs, which made it harder to do cool skater stunts. Finally he sung himself to death.

Emetic: The Maggot

Once upon a time there was a little boy called Japheth, born in South Africa under the bloody reign of Apartheid. He could not digest solid food and the doctors gave him up. He didn’t want to be a burden to his family, so he ran away to die in solitary disgrace. He was found by Magneto, who explained his super power to him: “Instead of a stomach you house two sentient slugs who eat themselves through you chest. Using their super power enzymes they can digest any solid material blocking your way, thus strengthening you beyond imagination. But they slugs must reenter your body to release their storage, which hurts like hell every time.” Japheth named himself “The Maggot” and his maggots “Eanie” and “Meanie” and was a happy little mutant ever after…

The ‘Pop Culture Addict’ features a list of the Top Ten Lamest Superheroes. This is a fine read and recommended. Another one collecting weird and lame heroes is Blogzarro.

Related at the In-Sect: Vitron – Evangelical Superhero, The Bat Pages, Darna: ‘Ding ang bato!, Problem’s Home: Cap’n Alcohol or Anne Frank Conquers the Moon Nazis.

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In-Sect's WebFame-Starsingers: Round I

I always wanted to be a juror in televised singing competition like American Idol or Pop Idol – wouldn’t a casting show for casting show jurors be a great concept, Mr. Endemol? – so I invented one myself: Welllllcooome to the first round of the In-Sect’s WebFame-Starsingers competition. The first assignment is – drum roll – “What’s Going On?” from the fabulous “4 Non Blondes”. Give your best! And here they come:

10 Metaplasma featuring Carlo D’Agosto

This band is too busy watching their instruments. Mr. D’Agosto seems to be a quite skilled guitar player. But it really would help, if he’d play the same song as the band. My tip: Don’t quit your dayjob!

9 Biboille:“I know I suck”

This is not really a cover, instead we watch a 12-year old practizing the guitar. Adding 10 points for the chuzpe to upload this, subtracting 10 points for the bad camera angle.

8 Cajo Kosiner: Maniac Version

Cajo is dedicated and really a guitar pro – but why does he sit on a sofa, when he wants to dance? This makes the performance a little nervous – but I like the Bob Dylan part at 1:50!

I’m sorry, male competitors: It seems like this is a women’s song – or do you really have problems with our little brotherhood of men?

7 Ann Spade

I’m totally objective with a clear clinical approach to my job! I’m not distracted by the fact that Ann is clearly the best looking competitor, but the guitarplay just is not convincing, sorry.
Hah – now you see, what you get for not dating me!

6 Nishtha: YourNightmare

Hey, she took that nickname all by herself! And it’s misleading: I can’t imagine she’s looking nightmarish, that she’s gotta hide in the shadows! Nishta, we average-joe-consumers are quite used to actually SEE the artist. 10 points minus for playing hide and seek. 3 point plus for creative guitar play!

5 Demented Poet

Rosanne, I like your hat and your website, but you clearly overact here – that’s just too much staginess, sorry.

4 Elen: The singing life of Els

Ah, finally we reach semi-pro level! But, it’s just the same: Too much facial expression. 7 points minus for not playing the guitar, 3 points plus for the artsy greyscale and 2 points plus for showcasing your hometrainer.

3 Michelle & the Stuff Toys

Michelle is a professional musician with regular gigs at places called the Mox Bar, BarStop, Wala Wala, Balaclava or ACID bar. But the sound quality of the clip is just plain… horrible. Also knowing the lyrics could prove helpful.

2 Ben Harpette

“I think it’s not bad, isn’t it?”, Ben writes. No, it’s not bad – it’s the second place – and I think there’s even more to develop! But, alas, a penalty for not switching on the light again.

1 I’m Jennifer. I am 13

“I hope some day for a MIRACLE and I will be DISCOVERED!” I always have a spooky feeling when 13-year old children sing like grown-ups, but she really has a great voice and great potential. Winner!

(Fanfare, Clapping. Howling. Tears. Laughter. Paternal smile of the showmaster – that’s me.)

Note: Excluded from the contest were Michael Flatley (Thank you, Ghost Morphine for showing that “What’s Going On?” syncs perfectly with Michael Flatley’s Lord Of The Dance.), the 4 Non Blondes for being the original, the Gay He-Man for being too well-worn and Pink, just for being too good to be true.



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The X-Files Phenomen

When I saw Jane Fonda kissing Stephen Colbert at Barbara’s blog Hello, Stranger I thought: “This looks familiar. Who was harassing Letterman? That was funny!” It was Gillian Anderson! And wasn’t she witty, sexy and intelligent? And wasn’t the X-Files a great series? Though they lost me around the time the first movie hit the cinemas, the quality of scripts and filming was constantly good and the Ufo/Conspiracy/FBI cocktail so pure genius and so perfectly describing the nineties, it deserved its long run. Without the X-Files there would be no Dark Skies or Lost. Supernatural for example is just a ripp-off in my eyes. A new X-Files movie is on its way, says Frank Spotnitz, the series’ writer.
Follow my research: Gillian kisses Letterman, her official website, a well-kept and informative X-Files fansite, the X-Files online adventure. And visit Robert Parada’s website, who painted the funny American gothic remake above.

Related at the In-Sect: MacGyver: Hero or Saint?, Alias Smith and Jones, The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, R.I.P.: The Wombels, The First Columbo Day

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MacGyver: Hero or Saint?

Recently I found myself whistling a tune and wondering what it was. It was the tune of the “MacGyver”-intro! Burped up from unconsious after all these years!

Dear MacGyver! Times have changed. Nowadays you’d be called a dull white-bread! You refused using guns – today we think about a gun per classroom for defense. You were vegetarian (even if not too observant) – today we got supersized menues. You were a teatotaller – today we got binge drinking 12 year olds. Your show ran prime time – the series popular today are all casting shows or shows with coroners. You only once kissed a girl but fell in love forever – can you imagine that nowaday we got superstars that got famous for a accidently published sex video in the internet? (One week prior to the premiere of her first TV show.)

As a recompense for reading through this cant, here are the finest MacGyverlinks online:
Obvisiously you want to see the intro and hear the tune I whistled, and you may want to visit two fansites: MacGyver Online and MacGyver Land. Both could need a little CSS cosmetics. After all this reading a little MacGyver adventure game would be nice. Stuck in the middle? Maybe checking the wonderful list of problems solved by MacGyver?
And if you want to know who this Richard Dean Anderson is: The biography at IMDb is informative. Oh, BTW: He made a Mastercard commercial starring as MacGyver in 2006. Don’t forget to watch this very funny blooper from Stargate SG-1: Stuck on a glacier with MacGyver

Related at the In-Sect: Shatner’s Lucy in the Sky, The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, Son of Chewbacca, Dragon’s Lair LinkoMania, Supersonic Man

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The Free Unsexy Image Cards

There are situations when you need nothing more urgently than a solid unsexy thought. You know, just to distract yourself, get your mind off…nudge-nudge, wink-wink, when the situation isn’t opportune. I think you get the idea – some aid in breaking a mental fixation or soothing an intellectual … tension. Nothing gross or shocking, just something solidly, completely unarousing.

Some years ago I discovered Joel Bass’ Unsexy Thoughts page, but I always felt us visual types would benefit from having something similar to work its magic by way of the optical nerves. That’s why I created these 42 “Unsexy Image Cards” , which you can download right here! Download any or all of these PDF-files (depending on which have the most … calming effect on you), and print out enough copies to stash some in every place you fear temptation might strike (if you want to keep some in your shower, don’t forget to laminate them). Keep a further set handy at all times for emergecy use. And yes, this generous, philanthropic offer is completely free.

Download the Unsexy Image Cards (Adobe PDF): Art, Celebrities, Comics, Design, Food, Household and Science. Thank you Joel!

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