If there is one thing the internet is awesome at, it’s sharing media, mostly ill-gotten. Also viewing hilarious and adorable kitten pictures, but that’s another post. Several things have been of cheer this week, and goodness me, they are all available on the internet!
First up is ‘You’ve Got To Do It’, by Mister Rogers, off of the delightful Mister Rogers Music Mix from Way Out Junk, a very comprehensive collection of early and later Rogers songs. It’s not saccharine or condescending, just a simple song telling you if you want to get something done you must get out there and do it! Simple, and yet so very effective, particularly if you’re anything like me and it’s coming from a man whose soothing voice was a permanent fixture of your childhood. A sampling of the lyrics:
If you want to ride a bicycle and ride it straight and tall, it’s you who have to try it…it’s you who has to fall….sometimes….
If you want to ride a bicycle and ride it straight and tall…you have to do it! Every little bit! you have to to do it, do it, do it, then when you’re through, you’ll know who did it, because you did it, you did it, you did it.
It’s more low-key than Andrew W.K. but no less positive. Also included in the Mix are songs demonstrating Mister Rogers’ uncanny ability to read his audience’s fears, including one about how your limbs won’t fall off like your doll’s can, and another called ‘Everybody’s Fancy’ that reassures your body is fancy inside and out, and if you’re born a girl/boy, you stay a girl/boy and won’t suddenly switch.
Next we have Mystery Science Theater 3000, gotten on the cheap volume by volume from my local library (yes, that’s a plug. Your local library is chock full of resources, including free movies and bizarre collections donated by eccentric benefactors!) I just finished enjoying “The Atomic Brain”, with such gem lines as “Knit one, purl DIE!!!” before a knitting needle stabbing, and featuring the worst English accent ever, INCLUDING both Keeanu Reeves AND Wynona Rider in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. Full episodes are totally all over YouTube: I highly recommend “Progress Island” (last I checked it was still called Puerto Rico), and the full movies “Hobgoblins”(“It’s the ’80′s! Do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Regan!”), “Puma Man” (“PUMAS CAN’T FLY!”) and “Space Mutiny” (“RAILING KILL!”). Below is one of my favorites, though that’s partially due to repeated high school viewings. Some friends of mine liked it so much they actually had a band called ‘Rowsdower’:
The Final Sacrifice
This one you can actually watch in its entirety. Hooray!
The Home Economics Story
The Internet Archive has recently added a bunch of intriguingly-named movies to its Sci-Fi/Horror Archive- with just an internet connection you too can watch “Werewolf Woman”, “Carnival of Souls”(if you’re too cheap to spring for the Criterion version), “The Vampire’s Night Orgy”, “Breakout From Oppression” (sounds like a Lifetime movie), and “Cathy’s Curse” (yes, the curse involves blood; no, it’s not an educational film).
