From the files of What the @#$%?

MECO visits The League

So, on December 2nd 2004, The League posted regarding the League's favorite Christmas album, cult holiday classic, Christmas in the Stars.

Anyhow, today Randy suggested I track down a certain perpetrator of ill-will toward Mother League, and a single name caught my eye.

meco

For some bizarre-o reason known only to HaloScan, it doesn't indicate that I have any comments on this post, but the post is actually rife with comments. Not the least of which is a comment from 70's and 80's pop superstar Meco, producer of Christmas in the Stars and Star Wars Disco.

Meco had this to say:

I am the producer of the Star Wars Christmas album. In answer to two of your questions - That is really John Bon Giovi singing. He was 17 at the time and is the cousin of my producing partner, Tony Bongiovi. I ausitioned several people to sing that song, and finally settled on John. That really is Anthony Daniels who flew into New York for one week to sing - or should I say speak - his parts. After my success with the dance versions of Star wars and The Empire Strikes Back, I worked very closely with George Lucas, who approved every song and lyric before I recorded it. After it was finished, George read the credits and had his secretary call me to ask if "Concept by Meco Monardo" - could be changed to - "Concept by George Lucas and Meco Monardo". The record compnay had already pressed 150,000 copies but agreed to make that change in the next pressing. Unfortunately, the record company, RSO Records, went out of business in November of 1980. Their number one group, The Bee Gees were going to sue them for back royalties.

Can you believe it? MECO HAS BEEN TO THE LEAGUE. It's a little like looking into the face of a bajillion stars. Only I still have my corneas and my skin dodn't burn off.

Meco must have been doing a little Googling when he found The League as he posted this in May, several months after the initial posting. And, as such, I almost didn't notice.

In a way, I now have to thank the person who said awful things in place of my mother, because without them, I never would have known Meco Monardo, or someone pretending to be Meco, had stopped on by at The League.

Part of why this is so odd is that the Meco Star Wars record was one of the first records I ever owned, right after Disco Duck and maybe the Grease soundtrack.

Man, this is weird. Wish I'd seen the post earlier.

For the weblink left by Meco, click here.

The League Looks to Brand Itself

Soooo...

I was up to no good last night and I noticed... it's exceedingly easy to go onto CafePress.com and set up a shop.

Now, I like to think it'll be a sweatshop of some sort with lots of little children toiling away in sub-Saharan heat, but thats MY dream.

The question I put to you is this: Is it worth my time and effort to go and set up a design or two for official League of Melbotis merchandise? Items would include t-shirts, caps and possibly coffee mugs.

Now, the nice thing about CafePress is that once the design is in, that's it. You'd order the shirt and, voila! You got a shirt in the mail in a few days. I know the ranks of The League are too small for me to even dream of trying to make money doing this, so I wouldn't add on any profit to the cost of the shirt. That should help keep costs down a bit.

If you think you'd be interested, post to the comments section.

For those of you wondering why my Charlie and the Chocolate Factory review was, ahem, brief...

I was actually trying to get a review completed for Comic Candy.

The review is full of grammatical errors, but I invite you to go check it out.

Review of All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder

I've asked Jamie to review Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I will be reviewing the massive acne breakout I've suffered since going on my chocolate splurge.

Letters to Melbotis:

Hey,

So when does Lucy get to join the league?

Dad


Hello, Dad,

Melbotis very, very excited to hear from Admiral. Admiral is nice man who often have towel for Mel.

Unless this letter from Mel's dad. Which would be AMAZING. If so, Hello, Daddy. Mel never met you, but Mel suspect you were also a big boy. Mel is very happy to hear from you and hope you are having good life, but why you never write before? Perhaps you joined evil Empire like Darth Vader? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.....

Mel not ready to burn you on funeral pyre while teddy bears have party.

Anyhow, Lucy is very annoying, but chubby couch man say Lucy must stay. Sometime pale lady not so sure, but chubby couch man insist. Anyway, Mel mostly only figurehead at League and does not make much policy. BUT, last Mel heard, Lucy have Junior Membership in League, but not expected to perform duties of full-fledged members.

Mostly, Lucy run around and eat grass, chew on Mel's head and take away toys Mel want to play with. She live in box at night and during hot part of day. Chubby man explain this is "C.S.Tuh." Mel not understand.

Anyway, Daddy, Mel hope you are happy dog, and hope you know Mel is good boy and have own website. Hooray!

-Mel

THE LEAGUE REVIEWS:

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY


20 minutes into the movie, I thought that if someone didn't get me a @#$%ing chocolate bar, I was going to chew somebody's arm off.

The End

Trapped in the Closet, The League bears witness

So...

Remember the dude who teamed with Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes gang to teach a whole generation he could fly (or was it them? I can't recall...)? Just who was that man singing that inspirationally treacly tune?

R.Kelly. That's who. The film: Space Jam. Yeah, I saw it. Shut up.

R.Kelly then used the launchpad of his success with Taz and Co. to do two things:

1) create a series of videos which were operatic in nature, belying the over-produced goofiness of R.Kelly's substandard R&B stylings.

2) get charged with 21 counts of child pornography.

For the past few years, it's been the latter of R.Kelly's two achievements that has really been grabbing headlines.

Well, good news for music lovers. R.Kelly is back! And this time he's come with an astounding creative vision, an operatic saga of Wagnerian proportions. Crossing the span of five songs and five music videos, R. Kelly's opus is curiously dubbed "Trapped in the Closet".

Yes, "Trapped in the Closet." R.Kelly's not afraid of ducking the big social issues. Like picking up chicks at bars and then having to hide from their husbands in, you guessed it, the closet.

This sort of stuff more or less makes up the entirety of the 5-song cycle.

Now I know all of you want to dash off to watch all the videos, but maybe you don't have 20-25 minutes to dedicate today to R. Kelly? Well, The League is here to assist.

Remember how in the summer you'd get a job and you'd be working with people you just don't know in the slightest, and then in Day 2, they decide to start unloading all of their Jerry Springer personal lives on you? And you begin to formulate a theory that this person seems to have designed their model for proper behavior between human beings by watching endless hours of Melrose Place and The O.C.?

And despite the fact they're managing to bore you AND make you uncomfortable with their stories, you can't manage to just shush them. After all:

1) Your mama raised you to be polite and listen
2) You figure that if they're telling you, it must be very important and maybe they've decided you're the only person they can talk to (until you realize every single person around knows the entire story by heart by now)
3) You figure if they're bothering to tell you this incredibly convoluted story with a half dozen characters and an obvious chain of incredibly poor choices on the part of the narrator, my GOD, there's got to be a point...

And then the person finishes the story and asks you what you what you think, and you're left standing there wondering, since their story has made you seriously consider the legitimacy of mandatory sterilization for the very first time, that maybe you're a closet fascist.

Well, that's R. Kelly. R.Kelly is the moron who sat in front of me that bleak summer at North Harris Community College who couldn't pass any exams whatsoever. R.Kelly is the twit who took up my coffee break three consecutive days at Chuck E. Cheese. R. Kelly is the flake I sat next to at defensive driving. R. Kelly is the angrily irresponsible boob Real World casting agents salivate over.

What does the song cycle accomplish?

The sheer scope of the project screams "epic", and you can almost feel it. This is IT. This is R.Kelly's big artistic moment, his chance to prove he's not just a guy who takes pictures of underage girls. He's a serious artist with a big picture of the world that he simply must share or he might explode.

And, apparently, he's a guy who doesn't think it's weird that he doesn't need to come home to his wife at night, and that he will cheat on his wife after a drink or two. We also learn that he's a serious artist who doesn't wear protection (nor even shower) after finding out about the wild world of sexual intrigue he's just foisted upon himself.

Re: the title

I don't want to give anything away. Someone in this tale is, in fact, gay... Is it R.Kelly? Well, the title would suggest exactly that. But, in a completely unsurprising display demonstrating a total lack of subtely on R.Kelly's part, R.Kelly as narrator is not revealed to be gay. He's actually trapped in the literal closet.

It is another character who disappears after Song 3 that is figuratively "in the closet". And while Figure #3 is important, he's not really central enough to make you think he should really be grabbing the title.

The whole enterprise sort of leaves you wondering. Is R.Kelly that naive to think that the title wouldn't raise a few eyebrows, or were the extra two parts of the song just R. covering his tracks? The world may never know...

Now, for no particular reason a gun enters late in Track #1, adding both an alarming insight into R.Kelly's first line of defense in a confrontation and a lot of awkward and pointless gun waving during the interminable Track #2.

Musically, all 5 tracks are the same indistinguishable mass of steady beats and audio loops. What's supposed to be carrying all five tracks, in theory, is R.Kelly's vocal. There is a sort of rhyme and meter, but the entire thing feels more like R.Kelly made up as kooky of a story as he could while floating in the tub and then added a few loops behind it.

Still, you doubt The League? Here are some of my favorite lyrics.

Damn, here comes a police man
He drove right up on me and flashed his light
Then I pulled over without thinkin twice
He hopped out the car and walked over to me
And said license and registration please
I looked up at him and said
Officer, is there somethin wrong
He said no, except you were were doin 85 in a 60 mile zone
Then I said officer
Let me explain please
Ya see the truth of the matter is
Is that I have an emergency
He said no excuses
And no exception
I said this is some bull...as he gave me the ticket

Tellin' it like it is. Reportin' from the streets. It's R.Kelly. For all the lyrics, click here.

The truth is, this actually reads about 10 times better than it actually sounds.

Leaguers, I simply CANNOT RECOMMEND "TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET" ENOUGH. It's a rare thing when one sees a project so obviously important to an artist, a project so near and dear to an artist's heart that they want to say, "THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE ONE THEY'LL REMEMBER ME FOR!" And it is rare that such a labor of love is such a complete trainwreck of misery and crapola completely exposing the artist for the hacky schmuck he really is.

To watch the entire epic, click here.

I have no idea what TP.3 means. Maybe it's slang for "The law requires that I inform you that I am living in your neighborhood."

TTSNB, San Diego ComicCon Part 1

It's San Diego ComicCon time again, and that means it's time for a whirlwind edition of TTSNB.

As always, The League is just leeching off the good work done by the folks at Action-Figure.com.

The San Diego ComicCon has become a real launchpad for new toy lines and showcasing new product from existing toy lines aimed at collectors. So not all toys in this edition of TTSNB are necessarily TTSNB. There are also toys The League finds to be of interest.

DC Direct usually just makes DC Comics related merchandise, but recently decided to add items to thier line which include other WB properties. Not the least of which is the popular Looney Tunes characters. The League tittered like a little girl at seeing the new Looney Tunes Golden Age collection.

You can have your action heroes and I can have mine. Johnny Cash gets his own action figure from SOTA TOys. I can't wait to see the battles between Johnny and Megatron.

Do the chickens have large talons? Now you can decide! Set up Cage Fighting matches between Napolean and Kip. Make up your own election speeches for Pedro! Envision your own, unique dance for Napolean! All your wildest dreams will come true with these collectible figures from Napolean Dynamite.

Personally, I wanted a Debbie figure with her handcart loaded with plastic crates.

Vote for Pedro.

Did you enjoy seminal 80's action film "Die Hard"? The League did. Coming soon, the folks at Palisades Toys will be bringing you adorable likenesses of our friends Hands, John, and Argyle. But, curiously, no Al.

The League is so far most excited about a new line of DC COmics toys from Mattel which appear to tie in with the Batman line The League has been so fond of (anyone remember The League welcoming Killer Croc home?).

While The League is puzzled over the Batcentric nature of the toys, The League suspects Mattel had some Bat-TOys all ready to go when they decided to go to a DC line instead of a strictly Bat-Centric line. We're hoping we see a Wonder Woman and J'onn J'onzz in pretty short order. But we do have a new Bizarro, and that ain't all bad.

This may also explain why DC Direct is now moving into creating non-DC Comics related figures.

update: I forgot the link to the new DC figures.