Christmas Music for Freaks, Geeks, and Weirdos

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This weekend was my first big Christmas Shopping weekend, and after 5 hours of listening to the sugar plum sweet sounds of the season, I needed an insulin shot. Not only are the classics unbearably sentimental and cheesy, but I can’t even relate to them – I’m a California boy, there’s no such thing as a “White Christmas” out here. Still, I like having appropriately seasonal music for my christmas parties, tree trimmings, and present rapping sessions, so below I’ve published my list of off-beat songs for the Christmas Season.

The Residents – Santa Dog and Dumbo the Clown
Classic. Perhaps the strangest Christmas songs of all time.
They Might Be Giants – The Bells are Ringing
Explores the connections between xmas music and mind control
Oingo Boingo – The Cat is Dead
A sweet childrens chorus delighting in their tale of offing every member of the family
Akira Soundtrack – Dolls Polyphony
Music from a scene in the film when dolls and teddy bears magically come to life only to latter attack. Sweet, childish, and creepy all at the same time.
Danny Elfman – Nightmare Before Xmas and Edward Scissorhands soundtracks
Aphex Twin – Girl/Boy Song
There something classically Christmas to this song, and then there are breakbeats. Perfect for breakdancers out on the promenade at Christmas.
Perrey Kingsley – Baroque Hoedown
Classic moog experimental cheesiness makes the perfect soundtrack for toystores
lHans Reichel – Bubu and his Friends, and Street Song
A jolly little jingle played on a wooden daxophone. What’s a daxophone you say? I’m glad you asked
King Missile – The Bunny Who Wanted to be a Rat
A Christmas wish to eat garbage and spread disease
Cibo Mato – The Candy Man
We all know this one from the original Willy Wonka movie, but Cibo Mato make it sound so sexy.
Wesley Willis – Chicken Cow
About a mythological beast that only comes out in the dead of winter and can flap like a bird and stab you in the ass
Tom Waits or Ghost of the Robot – Chocolate Jesus
Let’s take the two things everyone likes about Christmas and hold our Christmas mass in a candy store.
Traditional -Carol of the Bells
No other traditional carol expresses the anxiety I feel at Christmas so well.
The A-team – Christmas Claws
Screaming hardcore that’s hard to figure out, but they do yell Christmas a couple times, so it counts. “ho ho ho fucking ho”
Run DMC- Christmas in Hollis
Too christmasy to be cool, too old school to be cheesy.
Baboon Torture Division – Cobras
A track composed entirely with a rewired singing santa doll. Sounds like the devil.
Dresden Dolls- Coin Operated Boy
Finally a sex doll for girls.
Cowboy Bebop soundtrack– Green Bird
Sounds like a traditional religious choir, but was specifically compossed for a scene of brutal mob violence. Why do these two great tastes taste so great together?
Pogues- Fairytale of New York
Spend Christmas Eve in the Drunktank this year
Rolling Stones or Only a Mother – Mother’s Little helper
Mom’s on drugs, what’s more christmasy than that?
Rasputina – Gingerbread Coffin
Because gingerbread houses are for kids who don’t use their dollys for black mass
Tom Leher – Hanukah in Santa Monica
While there aren’t that many Hanukah songs, their batting average is way higher.
Richard Cheese – Holiday in Cambodia
The Dead Kennedy’s classic gets the full tilt holiday treatment
Only a Mother – How they Show Their Love
About families and force feedings
Ralph Carney – Solstice Time
Tom Waits’s horn player gives us a appropriately cheesy secular Christmas song dedicated to feasting and solar orbits.
Dan Bern – Jerusalem
Tired of waiting for the second coming? Dan Bern is your man.
Traditional – Korobeiniki
Better known in this country as that Tetris song. To me Russia means Christmas, because it’s snowy, and there are pine trees and the kremlin looks Christmassy, and even the big fur coats look christmassy. I bet that’s why Russians are so jolly
Mastodon – Linus and Lucy
A Charlie Brown Christmas goes Metal
Logan Whitehurst – Snowman and Me
The Ramones – Punk Rock Christmas and We’re a Happy Family
Babyland – Mini Mall
Industrial anti-mall rage
Momus – Old Friend, New Flame
The ultimate gift a friend can give you is his girlfriend
Nick Cave – Opium Tea
Between the call to prayer and the thinking of his children, I do believe this is a lonely junky’s Christmas.
Depeche Mode or Johnny Cash – Personal Jesus
Who knew you could play the same song for both cynicism and sincerity and have it work and rock both ways?
LL Cool J – Rock the Bells
So much better than jingle bell rock
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – Sleepytime
Play this song to get your kids ready for beddy by and they’ll never forget it.
Leonard Cohen –Story of Isaac
What does god want for Christmas? Your son.
Tiger Lillies – Struwwelpeter
Good kids get pretty picture books for Christmas, bad kids get horribly disfigured.
Soul Coughing – Drunk on the Train to Chicago
Going home for the holidays is a great chance to get drunk on the way.
Primus – Toys go Winding Down
Totally Rad – Turtle Eggs and Mumblety Pegs

What Christmas Music Do You Reccomend?

Hijack Your Motorcade

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This job affords me oppurtunities to do I know few others have experienced. For example, how many of you have ever ruined another human beings funeral?

It was over the summer, I was doing a series of Hearse jobs for a major family themepark out in a cemetery on the east side of LA. Pause there for a moment, what an incredible time we live in when an amusement park sets it’s commericals in a cemetery, a funeral home, and a crematorium. There slogan was something to the effect of “Live life like your gonna die, cause your gonna, (so go to our themepark)” and “Your working yourself to death! (go to our themepark)” I loved it.

So there we all were, out in the cemetery, our fake undertaker walking through rows of actual headstones with actual dead people underneath talking about death and ferriswheels. It’s always weird shooting in cemeteries because the studios can’t close them down. When somebody needs to be buried, they need to be buried and no Steven Spielberg or Michael Eisner can stop it.

So not 200ft from us was an actual honest to god funeral, like the kind we were joking about. Crying children, widow in black, the whole bit. It was awkward, but what can you do, both parties wouldn’t leave till the job was done.

Eventually the casket sunk into the ground and the funeral dispersed. A while later we wrapped up cemetery shooting and headed for the crematorium. Since the next scene was indoors, they didn’t need a hearse anymore. I was free to go.

Alone, in a cemetery driving a hearse. I could do anything. I could go anywhere, park anywhere, and no one would ask me what I was doing or if I belonged there. So with a little exploration, I found a turn of the century morgue in the basement of their chapel. Hardwood cooler doors, a grisly hack saw and bone grinder, and eerie chill. I was incredible. But, I had it on good word that the best sights were in the giant stone mausoleum.

So, cruising in my hearse through the narrow cemetery lanes I saw rising over the hill a giant mausoleum. Jackpot. But as I pulled closer I saw that in front of the mausoleum was a parking lot, and the funeral party from earlier was exiting the building and heading for their cars. I checked my mirrors, no way to turn around on those tiny streets, not without driving through someones tombstone anyway. I decided to go for it. I pulled quickly through the lot and reached the gate to the street. As I started to pull out I heard a honk. The first honk didn’t catch my notice, but the next 80 or so did. I checked my mirror again.

Oh, shit

The funeral party had formed a neat little parade behind me, and were now tapping their horns to stay together. I was the lead car.

I hijacked their motorcade.

I don’t know if I did the right thing after that (or before that for that matter). The DMV handbook doesn’t cover “What to do if you accidently hijack a funeral or police motorcade,” I’ve checked. So what would you do, pull over to the side of the road and wave them passed? Sure, that sounds good now, but I didn’t think of it then.

I tried to lose them. I hit the gas, slowed down for green lights, then rushed through on yellow, made wild turns without signaling, and did everything the Steve McQueen movies have taught me to do if I’m in a care chase and need to shake someone. I don’t know what they thought their hearse driver was doing, but they followed me halfway to downtown before someone figured out I was a crazy person and became the new leader of the motorcade.

Then, and only then, I pulled over.
rental hearse
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Dapper Cadaver

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Welcome to Dapper Cadaver.com! Eileen and I have been working into the wee hours of the morning to prepare the most kickass, all encompasing website and shop for horror, goth, medical, and Halloween things.

I’d like to introduce ourselves. My name is BJ, I’m an ex-carny and toy designer currently working as a prop maker for film and television, primarily horror. A lot of the custom stuff available through this site I’ll be doing myself.

Eileen is the love of my life, and a kick-ass web developer, responsible for actually coding this monster and keeping it working.

The sites not entirely up yet, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing of interest. As well as this blog, I also have a gallery up with photos of some of my props, behind the scenes looks at some productions I’ve worked on, shows, corpses, art, and more.

We’ve also got a forum where you can promote your own stuff, voice your opinions, share information, and review music, movies, art, and culture.

Gynecology in Ancient Pompeii

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Usually, after a few thousand years in the elements, all that’s left of a culture are the things built to be immortal. The temples and monuments of a peoples gods and hero’s still stand, but the rest is withered away.

It gives us a warped perspective of ancient cultures. We see the strange Ibis and Jackle headed gods of Egypt, but not the fast food stands or the post offices, and we make certain assumptions.

Truth be told people stay the same, while the face of God changes so much as to be nearly unrecogizable. No place reveals this quite so well as Pompeii. When the Volcano Vesuvious erupted it covered everything and everyone in a layer of ash like concrete or plaster, and everything was preserved, and behold, two thousand years later we find the fast food stands, the post offices, even the gynecologist, and we can see, people really haven’t changed much.
Compare this two thousand year old four prong speculum (above) with a modern three prong speculum (below). This isn’t your open and take a peek model most of us are familiar with, but a model that can hold open while the gynecologist operates, and the design hasn’t changed since ancient times.
Pompeii Gynecological Speculum Modern gynecological speculum

And the autopsy instruments of the ancient Greeks were likewise similar to our modern instruments, compare this ancient rib cutter (above) with it’s modern conterpart (below).
ancient greek autopsy rib cutters modern autopsy rib cutters

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Law and Order Props

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If the smog rolls back in Los Angeles, and you squint just right in the clear air, you might just see my arm flying over head on route to New York, for a Law and Order episode.

This has been a big thrill for me, for once I can sincerley say I love the show I’m doing props for. I’m sad Jerry Orbach, AKA Lennie Briscoe won’t be there to personally fondle it. What can you say about such a giant of a man? Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, even if those thousand words are just WTF over and over again, so here’s a picture I did to express what Orbacca meant to me.

I did this a few years back, when Briscoe was alive and well. It was for an anthology show organized by Brandon Bird called Law and Order: Artistic Intent and was the birthplace of the now famous Law and Order Coloring Book

I’m sure Jerry is grabbing a dog in Heaven

Art of Bleeding Show

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My snapshots are now online! For all your Zombie Burlesque needs visit my flicker scrapbook to see our latest Art of Bleeding performance. That’s me and Eileen in full body casts, and my blood oozing down all those hot hot people. A few of my other snapshot galleries are up so if you enjoy hair mayonaise, abandoned insane asylums, or cats fighting skeletons check them out. Also check out Eileen’s photos for the behind the scenes documentary, The Making of the Full Body Casts.

If you can find hotter people drenched in blood, you’d better introduce me.
BJ

Surgery Bunny

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Have you ever been browsing for plastic surgery tools and come across a picture of a woman about to go under the knife for liposuction and the lines drawn on her belly look almost exactly like Hello Kitty in a Bunny Suit?

Now you have.
But I’ve got to know, is the resemblance coincidental, or was the surgeon getting creative? Really now, what’s up, doc?