Plugging Up A Site: DeeT's 70s Page

Ahh, THIS site.  DeeT's 70s Page.  Now this one is a true and unadulterated classic.

Now when I first got into the whole Internets thing in 1994 or so, I can remember that this is one of the first websites I visited.  Why?  Because this is all done by a guy who has a singular love of what he does...much like anyone else who has their own website.

The owner, operator and CEO of DeeT's 70s Page, one David B. Thomas, is a man who had the foresight as a 10 year-old to record a lot of passing fancies on TV and the radio with his ever-present tape recorder, preserve them and unearth them for all posterity, thus bringing to all humanity the hope and glory that was the 1970s.

You know: Boy-O-Boy-Ar-Dee, Patty Hearst, "A Fifth of Beethoven", all those TV ads for the Better Business Bureau, Orson Welles talking about Paul Masson wine, John Travolta's singing career - all of it is here, including an "ancient Chinese secret" or two.

There are audio clips, video clips, reminisces, radio ads, TV ads, all of them either from DeeT's personal archives or donated by various benefactors.  Being a child of the era myself, this stuff really took me back to a time when polyester, shiny dress shirts, bell bottoms, Sweathogs and Dandy Don Meredith were all in fashion.  He even has a page where you can download the software necessary to play the clips - now THAT is a thoughtful guy!

In fact, there is even this really fun test you can take to see just how much you remember about the Seventies and all of its pop culture enclosed within. TAKE THE TEST HERE and see how you do; funny, I hadn't thought about a Marathon Candy Bar in ages....

Speaking directly to my homies here; if there are any of you who remember anything about this decade, you probably should go over to DeeT's 70s Page right now.  This is one site which will not disappoint you.

...And to you, David Thomas - thank you so much for taking the time and effort to making a website that is fun, is entertaining, and brings back so many memories I thought were long gone forever. 

Dope out.

- TGWD

Plugging Up A Site: T-Shirt Bordello

Kids, you who know me know that I do not talk up websites if they don't live up to the hype.

When I go to all the effort of telling you what a great place a certain website is and that you should visit it even if you have to type out the address with your nose, you should listen.

Really.  You should.

The site I'm about to tell you about now is a place that is altogether wonderful, outrageous and, in a word, fashionable.  Yes, consider this your style wake-up call, brothers and sisters.  This is a place you should visit now, in fact. Go on.  Go!

Oh wait!  I need to tell you about it first!  Jeez, sorry; got carried away.

Don Myers (whose middle name just happens to be "Of The Dead"...I like that middle name) contacted me a while back and gave me the heads-up on a site of his that, while up-and-coming, still needs to be made known to the public at large.  I wholly agree...as a matter of fact, I think this is a place that needs to be better known.  I'm completely serious here..look at me, do I look like I'm kidding here???

The name of the place is T-Shirt Bordello, a nice little place that originates out of Florida and is really starting to leap up and make waves.  Sure, there's other places like this online, but I think we've got a winner here.  Especially for the discriminating hunter and collector such as yourself.

T-Shirt Bordello is a site which specializes in t-shirts (duh), but not just any t-shirts.  These are shirts that you, as an individual, a regular reader of this site and someone who appreciates a good chuckle need.  Yes, thee are shirts which are funny - andnot funny in a Big Johnson shirt way.  We're being eclectic, here....

After all, we have a fine selection of preshrunk 100% cotton shirts (no blends here, kids - 100% COTTON!) which feature imagery from such well-respected standards as Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Battlestar: Galactica, The Shining, Friday the 13th, Psycho and Ghostbusters.  Not to mention such well-respected individuals as Stephen King, George A. Romero, H.P. Lovecraft, David Hasselhoff, Bigfoot, John Stewart and Chuck Norris...well, of course you gotta have Chuck Norris in there, too.  That's a given.

Not just shirts, though...NO, not just shirts.  If this was a site that specialized in just shirts, then we'd need to go on to something else.  But T-Shirt Bordello also specializes in items such as coffee mugs, beanies, baseball caps, tavern glasses, ashtrays, keychain fob thingys and professionally-printed business cards from a reputable-looking place in Europe called Elite Hunting.  Very nice.

I'm sure Don and company won't mind, so here are a couple of pictures of their product (complete with direct links to the site so you can BUY THEM NOW).  Just look at this:

Are you kidding me; this is must-have stuff!

So go on over - right now - to T-Shirt Bordello, buy two or three t-shirts, pay promptly and thank me later. 

You're welcome.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Plugging up a Site: Cake Wrecks

In my never-ending search for sites as skewed in their world-view as what I and my readers tend to steer towards, I have been wanting to give this particular one props because, for the three years they've been in existence, they have made quite an impression on the 'Net world, and they even have their own book.

Why don't I have a book? I need to have someone look into that....

As you may have already guessed by the hilarious picture accompanying this (or if you were paying any attention at all to the title of this post), my subject for today is Cake Wrecks, a site which celebrates the absolute worst of the worst of cake designing and mispellings of such simple words as "graduation", "congratulations" and "Happy Birthday".

Every once in a while, though, webmistress Jen will show us some absolutely beautiful cake designs and some astounding examples of what the icing and sculpting of fondant should look like. And believe you me, they are breath-taking.

But much like my site, wherein I celebrate just what makes bad movies bad, Cake Wrecks goes to great lengths to celebrate everything that makes bad cakes bad. You think you can just bake a cake, ice it and have something that can go on Cake Wrecks? Nope; it takes talent to be as bad as what is featured on that site.

After all, not everyone has the ability to make a complete disaster out of a Father's Day cake. Not like the pros featured here. No sir. Nope.

So congradulations (see what I did there?), Jen and everybody who helps and contributes at Cake Wrecks; this is one site that always brings a smile to my face and tears of joy to my eyes.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Plugging Up A Site: Tars Tarkas

Although this is Dope-A-Palooza Month, I do feel the need to recognize worthy websites that give me my entertainment time's worth and are worth the effort of typing in their addy to visit.

In my never-ending search for entertaining websites on the 'Net, I tend to look for the same three things: subject matter I care about, a writer who knows what they're writing about and something FUN!

A lot of time it's rare to find a combination of all three criteria in one site. Aside from MINE, natch. But there are a few who do, in fact, keep me coming back for more. One of them is the one I'm about to let you in on.

TarsTarkas.net is a movie review site that goes one step further than others and contains some of the most twisted, arcane films ever created by man. There are a few of the titles here that even I have never heard of before, and for that fact alone, I give the man props.

Props to you, TT!

We have your kung fu, we have your horror, we have your foreign exploitation, we have your sexploitation, we have your Star Trek fan films, we have your Star Wars fan films, we have your Ghostbusters fan films, we have your films that are so absurd that they absolutely defy classification. They are all here and then some.

And I have seen no one else who enjoys writing in loving detail about films with titles like Ninja Cheerleaders, My Girlfriend is an Agent and High School Ghosthustlers (AH! I saw your eyebrows raise in recognition there! Don't deny it....).

I thoroughly enjoy the form of reviewing he employs here; Tars (if I may be so bold) lavishes as much detail as possible on each and every film he can possibly muster. The research and history he imparts to his body of work is something to behold. Even if it's a bad movie.

And something else: the ratings he give his films are oneof three: Good, Bad and Ugly! And woe be ye who desires to see an Ugly movie. With such titles in the Ugly stable as Hot T-Shirts and Emmanuelle 2000: Emmanuelle in Paradise, they are indeed classified as such for a reason.

So here is to Tars Tarkas: the owner, operator and CEO of a site that is indeed one worth visiting, revisiting and re-revisiting time and again. Good work, TT!

Dope out.

-TGWD

Plugging Up A Site: The Cinema Snob

You know, it's been a while since I posted anything supporting another site - after all, it's all that I can do to keep my own blog as current as I do as it is. So anything I can do keep my regular sojourners up on what else is out there is just gravy.

Now, as far as today's gravy goes, this is a site which I visit regularly and find very entertaining. This guy really knows how to make a really bad movie sound better than it is with his style of reviewing.

...even if he is a Snob.

A Cinema Snob, that is.

My plug this time out is for The Cinema Snob, who is by far one of the few movie reviewers out there that goes to all the extra trouble of not only videoing his reviews but adding clips, doing random bits of comedy and playing a character who, despite the volume of his product being extremely bad, goes about it as if it is the bane of his existence...even if it is apparently the only thing he talks about.

I think he's in denial....

The first time I came around to the Snob was when he still had videos on YouTube, where he had reviewed such classic films as Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws, Tales from the Quadead Zone and also a little beauty called Nail Gun Massacre - which, because of their complaining of his using footage from their masterwork, got him kicked off of YouTube.

Good thing/bad thing, since this was the impetus which got him his own site and also produced a whole new direction for the Snob. He now has segments on the site wherein he reviews VHS Z-Grade crap (The Big Box), a tribute to the classic Italian films of a particular director (The Bruno Mattei Show), Kung-fu flicks (Kung Tai Ted), public domain movies (Public Domain Theater) and even his own podcast (Radiodrome). Not bad.

I guess the best thing about The Cinema Snob is the fact that its creator, Brad Jones, has such a love for what he does and a real desire to entertain that is more than evident in his video reviews that it comes through to the viewer and becomes something that they treasure as well. Even if it's a review of Bloodsucking Freaks or Bruce Lee Vs. Gay Power. He's just that good of a host.

So go now, check out The Cinema Snob, leave some favorable comments on his boards and enjoy the best showman in this little sub-genre of reviewers out there on the ol' Inner-Nets.

Thanks, Brad...I mean: thanks, Snob.

Dope out.

- TGWD