i Want to Be a Clone

Steve Taylor live! Listen to these lyrics. The song is kinda DEVO-esque, which adds to the appeal for me. What I respect about this guy is that he's a Christian and a rocker, not just one pretending to be the other. As I'm getting to know the Bible, this guy seems to get it. Still, like a true rocker, he questions authority and mocks convention. He's clever and witty and edgy... and right! I think I could be like that.

Plagos toon, Dwayne Meets Frankie

Months ago, I posted a script of the dialogue between Dwayne and Frankie when we first met her at one of our gigs in Hollywood. Thanks to Xtranormal, we are able to present this scene to you as a 3D animated short. The roles of Dwayne and Frankie are, of course, played by little toy people. Hey, isn't this how Pixar started out?

Knute Rents the Loft

Well, hello, dear readers! Yes, Dwayne and I are still kicking around here in the '80s. There is so much to learn about this internet of the 21st Century... when we're lucky enough to connect to it. We've recently discovered a website that allows anyone to create their own 3D animated cartoons just by typing in text and dragging directions into the text box. It's called xtranormal.com, and we highly recommend you try it while it's still in its free beta stage. This little movie was made from a scene that was originally written to be a comic strip, but when we discovered this xtranormal thing, we had to do it like this. We just hope you get the joke. It was funny at the time. The old guy, Mr. Curmudgeon, doesn't really look like this, and the character representing me (Knute) looks and sounds more like Ray, but you have to make compromises when working with free technology! Eventually we'll post pics of Mr. C, who looks a lot more like a Muppet of an old guy.

BECK - Mongolian Chop Squad

Wow! This thing is still here! I thought for sure they'd drop us since it's been months and months since Dwayne or I wrote anything on this blog. I guess it doesn't work that way. As you may have figured, we've been busy. I've been discovering all these other things you can do on the internet, like Facebook and MySpace. My buddy from the future, Mark, is helping us to get some interdimensional connections going. Meanwhile, Frankie has got me listening to this guy Steve Taylor. It's quite amusing how he sticks it to the man with his Christian worldview. I could go that way. I'm actually starting to read the Bible seriously, and I'm surprised at how much sense it really makes when you give it a chance.
Last time, I told you Dwayne and I were looking for New Wave "anime". Well, here's the closest thing we've found. There was an anime series made a few years before the year it seems to be there right now. The show is called BECK - Mongolian Chop Squad, and it's about this kid who reminds me a lot of Dwayne, trying to become a guitar player in a rock band in Tokyo. Except Dwayne is a drummer. I'll just show you what it looks like.
Hopefully I'll get in here again soon, but who knows?
One more thing. I see from your future internet websites that you now have a black president! It's about time! Rock on, Obama!

Still here...

Dude! It's been a whole month since Dwayne and I were last able to get on here! So much has been happening, we didn't really have a lot of time to blog, anyway.

It is apparent that our readership is extremely limited, and our web presence isn't exactly shaking the house. This is a little depressing for us, because to me it means that 25 years in the future nobody is going to care much about Knute Fuzzbox and the Skinks. Consequently, that means either that we aren't ever going to make the big time, or we'll be a flash-in-the-pan. Maybe one-hit-wonders, if we're lucky. Well, as Yoda said in 'Empire Strikes Back', "Difficult to say. Always in motion is the future." And Marty McFly found in 'Back to the Future' that one's destiny can be altered... if one has a time machine. Where's our Doc Brown? Yeah, we've found a way to communicate with the future, but the future isn't responding! Maybe we need to make a video for YouTube, that seems to get a lot of attention.

Well, I've learned a lot lately. Frankie took me record shopping, which was cool 'cause it was kind of like a date, but not really. It was very enlightening, because she showed me some stuff I was not aware of.

I mentioned before that Frankie is a church girl, yeah? Christian. She doesn't like to go around talking about that because she says she knows a lot of people are prejudiced against Christians. OK, wow number 1. I thought it was the Christians who had prejudices against every other belief system and lifestyle. Hm. Well, she took me to a Christian bookstore, which was pretty scary for me at first. All those crosses creeped me out, like I'd just stepped into a horror movie about vampires or demon-possessed little kids. Thankfully, we walked straight back to the record section. There were a lot of albums with guys in leisure suits and ties, not even cool skinny New Wave ties, but wide striped ties. However, there was this one section labeled, "Contemporary", and that was our target destination, apparently. Wow number 2: They had albums by U2 and Human League! There was also this hot-looking chick called Amy Grant... I'd buy her albums just for the covers! Not New Wave, by any stretch, but great hair and an adorable smile.

I asked Frankie, "What are U2 and Human League doing in here? I hear them on KROQ, and that is not a Christian radio station!" She said she thought they were sold here because of their worldview. Now, I'm a college kid, but that was a new vocabulary word for me. I won't go into definitions here, if you can read my blog you can look things up online. Bottom line, I got curious about music with a "Christian worldview". I have listened to the lyrics of those bands, and they seem decent... not like they have some political agenda, just that they believe we all have flaws but there's hope for everyone. Seems pretty cool, really. So I said I was open to it, and Frankie smiled and pointed me towards Sheila Walsh and Steve Taylor. She bought their latest albums and said she'd lend them to me to listen if I wanted. I think I will.

One more thing I wanted to mention that we've discovered recently. This thing you guys call "anime". Animated movies and TV shows from Japan. Nothing new, really. I was watching Speed Racer when I was a little kid. But good golly Miss Molly! In the year 2008 there's more animation from Japan than Disney and Warner Bros combined! Well, Dwayne is totally geeked out about it, and now we're searching for something Japanese that fits into our "idiom". (That's not a new college vocab word, I got it from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'.)

Well, that's all I've got time for now. Just wanted to make sure you knew we're still here and living. Rock on 'til next time!

Poll Closed

Well, my first poll has closed, and it's the anticlimax of the century. After two months, only 6 people voted for their favorite New Wave babe. The winner is Susannah Hoffs! Not too surprising to me, since that's who I voted for. (When she does that thing with her big eyes shifting from one side to the other in the 'Walk Like an Egyptian' video, my heart skips a beat!) So my poll shows that at least two other people agree with me. It was a tough call between Susannah and Chrissie, really, because Chrissie has such a sultry, lower-range voice, and the bangs-over-the-eyebrows look does something for me. I can't explain it. But Susannah tends to dress a little sexier, and she plays a black Rickenbacker with white pickguard like John Lennon's, so she scored extra points for that. Maybe part of the problem in getting votes was that we left out Kate Pierson from the B52's; there were a couple of reader requests for her after the poll was already posted.

The main purpose of polls is really to give the blogger an idea of how many people are reading the blog. So you can imagine my depression at this moment. Eh, it's a blog. We're doing it for us, the band, not fame and fortune. That's what MySpace is for! (LOL... right.) It might be a while until I post another poll. Ray has suggested we follow it up with a "Hottest New Wave Guys" poll, (figures...), but in my mind, that's a contradiction of terms. With a few exceptions, the best New Wave guys are nerds like Dwayne... no offense, buddy! I mean, who's gonna be in that poll? Elvis Costello? David Byrne? Thomas Dolby? Oh yeah, hot guys! The main reason for doing the 'babes' poll was to exploit the power of sex appeal to draw an audience. Maybe it's too soon for that. Need to get a fan base started first. I dunno.

I think Ray must be thinking of New Romantic guys, like Simon LeBon, Adam Ant, and Prince. Eh. New Romantic is just a movement to get more Tiger Beat models on the music scene. Hey! I've got an idea! Maybe we should have a poll asking, "What would be the best New Wave poll?"
Any ideas from our readers? All five of our readers?

Nothing Special

Hey, gang!

("Gang"? Have enough unwitting wanderers stumbled upon this blog to constitute a "gang"?)

Anyway... enough college vocabulary. I just wanted to offer a lame explanation for why I haven't posted in over almost two weeks. Y'see, our ability to connect with the internet of 2008 is by its very nature a scientific phenomenon, and as such doesn't happen with any regularity. There have been soooooo many things I've wanted to write about in the last two weeks, but Dwayne just never got lucky enough to make those mysterious windows appear on his Wang that enable us to see into the future or write to it. But today it happened! I still have no idea how, although Dwayne has tried to explain his "theory" to me. It's just *zoom* over my head! (Can you tell I'm doing better in English than in Physics? At least finals are over!)

I'm going to keep it short this time, hoping I get to write more later this week. There is one thing I wanted to process with you all here while I have the chance. Recently, I found out why Frankie always begs to split early when we have a Saturday night gig, rather than helping to break down the drums and amps. It turns out she's got a fairly regular Sunday morning gig. Frankie's been holding out on us! Apparently she's been playing keyboards for another band. She assures us there's no competition afoot. She calls her Sunday morning church band "ministry". (Isn't that the name of a synthpop band? I know that's not who she's playing with. I mean, "with whom she's playing.") Turns out Frankie is a Jesus Babe! Who knew? She's so cool!

So now I feel kinda creepy for some of the things I've said (and thought) about her. She seems somehow more pure and innnocent now, like a little sister I'm supposed to protect or something. What confuses me is why would such a hot babe want to play rock music in smokey clubs with a group of post-punk dudes when she's living by the Bible? I mean, is she allowed to do that? I'm gonna have to ask more questions about this. For now, I'm grateful that she doesn't mind playing in a "heathen" band, 'cause not only does she make us sound SO New Wave, but she makes us look good, too!

More later, but not too much later, I hope!