mondojohnson

Fanboy.com continues its unending, ass-kicking parade of delights today with photos of a “Popeye Shipwreck Game” , unearthed from the depths of the Great Depression in 1933. The blogger, Michael Pinto, snapped some lovely shots of the well-preserved game, which he spotted in a shop window in NYC.

See the rest of the pix here.

It’s tonight, on an appropriately insane and hot night in New York City. Raise a glass, look to the Heavens and you just might see the Big, Bald, Nasty and Rude Diva blowing Air Kisses to the Masses from on high. Let us revel in all things Dean Johnson tonight! Tonight, Dean is my sorely missed, ingenious, pain-in-the-ass friend — he did a lot for me, this city and this world. Tonight, I — we all — must show some love for my dear departed freakshow. Tonight we have Drink Tickets in Valhalla!!

I was delighted to learn that the well-reviewed Theatre of Science was coming to New York after its successful London run. I was even more delighted that I got to go with megapals Chris and Jake Carr, and that we got to eat Indian food down on 6th street.

AS IF that weren’t enough, I met Simon Singh and got him to sign my copy of The Big Bang. (Frequent visitors to the site will recall that I have a bit of a “thing” for Dr. Singh….. and stop laughing, the logs show that there really are frequent visitors….)

Anyhow, the show was fun, as expected. Simon Singh set things going with an incontrovertible proof that the Teletubbies are evil (I won’t spoil it… look it up). We also got treated to a variety of perceptual illusions, including the infamous “sweet Satan” backwards message in “Stairway to Heaven”, and the truly strange “basketball/gorilla” demonstration. The show also included a contortionist, who fit into a tiny plastic box.

The capper was Simon in a mesh cage between two giant Tesla coils, which crackled with million-volt lightning bolts. From what I’ve seen in pictures, I don’t think they quite pulled it off as dramatically as they have done in the past. Still, it was pretty Ghostbuster-ific, I must say.

The only downer was the number of ill-mannered children. I was ready from the get-go to toss them into the Tesla zapper.

Snapped on my way home from work.

Here’s a better picture from NEXTFEST 2006.  It’s me & Jake, composed by a mosaic of live TV channels.