I’ve been gone a few weeks, family stuff, birthday parties and other obligations, but I’m back, although after this week I may go back to just one hour, to leave a spot open for a new DJ.
Adding Links Later
Small batch Mafia – Now or Never Baby
Schaffer The Darklord – Monsters of Rock (feat. Mc Lars)
Bonecage – Cyborg 101
Joe J. Thomas – Living With Fast Food
Mega Ran – Go Save the World
Steve Goodie – Walk of Shame
Devo Spice – Inner Voice
TV’s Kyle – I Don’t Know Why There’s a Bug in Here (feat. Lindsay Smith)
Dino-Mike – Urban Dictionary
Klly Dwyer/KILL THE BAND – Floss Boss (The Official Hardcore Rap Song About Flossing)
MC Frontalot – Secrets from the Future
MC Frontalot – Zero Day
MC Lars – The Roommate from Hell (feat. mc chris)
Jonathan Coulton – Skullcrusher Mountain
Cirque du So What – Let’s Do Improv
The great Luke Ski – Q*Bert
Insane Ian – Doctor Who
Power Salad – Corned Beef and Cabbage (Flaccid Beats Dubstep Remix)
Possible Oscar – Get Our Geek On
Steve Goodie – Weird_Al_Country_Medley
Beatallica – Ktulu (He’s So Heavy)
Mega Ran – O.P. (feat. Richie Branson & Storyville)
Clearly Guilty – Bad Nerd
Marc Gunn -The Leprechaun
Smashy Claw – Deja Vu (Deja Vu)
Todd Chappelle – OCD
Moneyshot Cosmonauts – Could Be Weird Al
Carrie Dahlby – Thor’s Big Silver Hammer
Insane Ian – Bustin Makes Me Feel Good
Devo Spice – My Atari
Worm Quartet Math is Bullshit
Mikey Mason – Big Damn Hero
Background music was Furious Freak by Kevin Macleod of Incompetech.com.
Kevin Mcleod’s music is released under the Creative Commons 3.0: By Attribution license.
Most of Jonathan Coulton’s music is Licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0: Attribution-NonCommercial Unported license.
Some songs on today’s show were courtesy of The Funny Music Project.
All other songs on today’s show, played with permission of the artist or band.
There’s an Old Fan’s Commentary On Space:1999 this week on Tales From SYL Ranch!
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard live Sundays, 20:00-22:00 UTC on //aNONradio.net//
We hadn’t planned to do this, but we’re using a new rig and providing additional streaming. Rather than risk it falling to pieces during the Old Fan’s Commentary on Star Wars (Sunday, May 7th and 14th), we decided to test it first on a known disaster.
We’ll only be commenting on one Space: 1999 episode: S01E01 – “Breakaway.” It’s a wonderful example of the show getting many things very, very right — while simultaneously being the dumbest premise ever conceived Spoilers.
Space: 1999 is so schizophrenic that it’s unlikely there will be future commentaries. It’s noteworthy for a few reasons, the most obvious being the then-state-of-the-art special effects. Some Space: 1999 model and effects artists later worked on Star Wars and were part of ILM‘s founding team.
Variations on the Eagle’s mission-specific pods. This is something the show did very, very right.
Space: 1999‘s Eagle was extremely detailed and featured a practical, modular design. It’s one of the things Space: 1999 got very, very right. To this day, the Eagle is one of the most revered (and outright coolest) spaceship designs ever imagined. It often appears in the background of other films as an Easter Egg.
The Eagle with a passenger pod on a Moonbase Alpha launchpad. Note the docking mechanism on the left and a parked moonbggy on the right.
A always, the Old Fan’s Commentary will attempt to focus more on what was happening in science fiction fandom at the time rather than interesting tidbits about the film.
As always, we’ll have The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and topical music sprinkled throughout.
To set the stage:
It’s September of 1975. You’re ten years old. You’re a huge Star Trek fan. That in turn led you to SF literature, in particular Larry Niven. In 1973, Niven adapted one of his short-stories, “The Soft Weapon,” into an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series.
You quickly discovered that “The Soft Weapon” is part of a much larger Known Space universe. Because Niven is a stickler for scientific accuracy, you’ve learned to demand it. In 1975, all science fiction fans demanded it.
Other than Star Trek: The Animated Series, there’s been no science fiction of note — neither in TV nor film — for over five years. There’s a burgeoning Star Trek fan community in the US that’s just finding its legs.
That fan community constantly butts heads with Old Fans. The Old Fans grew up with nothing but literature. They find filmed science fiction to be banal and insipid by comparison.
This absolutely includes Star Trek. In 1975, there was a clear delineation between “real fans” and “Trekkies.”
Through the grapevine, you hear about a new show, Space:1999. It has known stars in the lead roles. Martin Landau and Barbara Bain had starred in Mission: Impossible. Barry Morse had spent four years chasing Dr. Richard Kimball in The Fugutive.
That all sounds good. Production stills begin appearing in certain magazines, and those look good. The models look good, the sets look good, the space suits all look good.
The premise of the series is patently ludicrous. Even a 10-year-old knew that Spoilers.
Those are the things in your mind as you tune in (on low-def broadcast TV).
We’ll be trying a couple of experiments this time around. In addition to the podcast stream of the commentary, we’ll be making a low-res version of the episode available for streaming — but only during the show! If this works, we’ll do the same to the next two weeks’ Old Fan Commentary On Star Wars.
The YouTube version has so far survived a couple of years without a DMCA notice.
If you want higher definition, find a legal stream (or an illegal one, just don’t tell me about it).
Sunday’s tracklist:
“When Twilight Falls On NGC 891”
Space 1999: “Main Titles”
Space 1999 – War Games: “Armageddon”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Primary Phase – Fit the Sixth (S01E06)
Space 1999: “Breakaway”
Introduction To the Old Fan’s Commentary On Space: 1999
The Old Fan’s Commentary On Space: 1999
Space: 1999: “Theme Montage”
The Star Wars Holiday Special
“Can we air just twenty minutes of Chewie noises??”
– Jack Packard
What were fans doing in 1975 when Space:1999 premiered? Listen to Tales From SYL Ranch find out!
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard live
Sundays, 20:00-22:00 UTC on
//aNONradio.net//
[Spoilers]
Why Space: 1999 Has the Dumbest Premise Ever Concieved
You can’t blow the Moon out of orbit.
Seriously, that’s it, right there: the basic premise of the show is ludicrously impossible. Science Fiction fans are the most demanding viewers in existence. If you screw up in such a flagrantly stupid fashion, you’ve probably lost your audience and don’t know it.
The Moon is not a billiard ball that can be knocked off its trajectory by something sufficiently massive. You can’t put a rocket engine on it. It’s so large as to be occasionally classified as a dwarf planet.
If you struck the Moon with sufficient force to knock it out of orbit, that’s not what would happen. Instead, you’d start with a very deep hole. It would get deeper until such time as the Moon itself couldn’t withstand the stress. The Moon would then crack like a gigantic egg — the difference being that it would spew white-hot volcanic rocks the size of other planets’ moons.
If you were lucky, you’d wind up with a few big rocks and change. With more luck, the rocks will stay in the Moon’s orbit, meaning we’d suddenly have pieces of Moon orbiting the Earth in roughly the same spot.
If you weren’t lucky, the rocks would be small. You’d then have a nice, new asteroid belt around Earth in former Moon’s orbit.
In either case, risk of extinction by Moonrock becomes very likely. Regardless, there will be Earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, tidal waves, and tectonic/volcanic eruptions. The tilt of the Earth could change.
Worse is the location location of the explosion. The writers keep referring to “the dark side of the Moon” as though that’s meaningful. In fact, the “dark side” of the Moon isn’t dark. It’s just the side of the Moon not facing Earth.
The Moon’s orbit and rotation are such that only one side of it faces Earth. Until the Space Age, astronomers didn’t know what the other side of the Moon looked like. They called it “the dark side” to indicate that it was a big blank spot on the map.
That means is that they were dumping nuclear waste as far from Earth as possible — which is a good idea from a radiation standpoint. It was an idea that had been bounced around in science fiction since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
However, if you hit the Moon with force sufficient to knock it out of orbit, you’re doing so on the face exactly opposite Earth. The aforementioned massive, white-hot volcanic rock would come spewing straight at Earth.
Earth-bound disasters are hinted-at in the episode, but not enough thought was given to it. People would die by the billions. Civilization might be reduced to the Stone Age or worse.
The idea of the Moon blowing out of orbit is galactically stupid.
That doesn’t even begin to touch the faster-than-light speeds the Moon would require to reach another planet every week.
Space: 1999 is very schizophrenic. On the one hand, there are the many things it gets right. Unfortunately, it’s in the service of a laughable premise; often featuring plots with no internal logic.
“It’s sci-fi, anything can happen, so who needs to explain it?” seems to have been the writers’ motto.
An Exclusive Look Inside SYL Ranch Studios
SYL Ranch Studios – 2017-04-28. Always know where your towel is.
“The truth has lost another champion when there are so few left.” – Jay P. Hailey
The libertarian community was saddened by the loss of William N. Grigg on Wednesday.
We thought about changing our programming. It would have been easy to do an entire show of his Greatest Hits.
But we know Bill wouldn’t want that. He’d have told us not to bother on his account.
Rather than altering the songs, we’ve put them in an order we think that Bill would have approved. That’s why it’s Shania Twain week on Tales From SYL Ranch: because that’s what it was always going to be.
A podcast can be many things. Sometimes it needs to remind mourners to celebrate. Not Bill’s death, of course — but rather the man that he was.
If there’s one thing Bill knew about, it was rocking this country. He’d have rocked every country right out of this world, if at humanly possible — libertarian-style.
Shania Twain Farewell Tour, Wells Fargo Arena, Des Moines, Iowa, US
Tracks this week are:
William N. Grigg Dedication (by Jay P. Hailey)
Rock This Country
Party For Two (with Billy Currington)
Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)
Love Gets Me Every Time
You Shook Me All Night Long
From This Moment On
Man! I Feel Like A Woman
That Don’t Impress Me Much
Any Man Of Mine
What A Way To Wanna Be
Honey I’m Home
Thank You Baby!
Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under
Nah!
Ka-Ching
In My Car
I’m Gonna Getcha Good
Come On Over
Forever and For Always
Up! Live In Chicago
Shania Twain fans with phone flashes on, Wells Fargo Arena, Des Moines, Iowa, US
Things to watch for this week, in addition to the dedication:
Program IDs change to be somewhat topical.
There’s the usual Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy BBC Radio series episode. We’re only on S01E04, so it’s a good time to dive in.
There’s a faux-Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy entry by TTS voice “SYL Mike.” It’s already been posted to YouTube, but we though it’s one of the better ones so far. You be the judge.
Sunday on Tales From SYL Ranch: the conclusion of the Old Fan’s Commentary on Star Trek – The Motion Picture (the Director’s Edition).
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net.
This week, we’ll be talking about what it was like as a teenaged Star Trek fan to see the film for the first time in 1979. We’ll also talk about fandom of that period and what it was like to live through it.
We’ll also have the usual episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy. After all, you can’t listen to Bill talk for an hour without wanting to slit your wrists.
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.
Listen to Bill discuss the first Star Trek movie (the one people usually like to forget).
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net.
There is a sense in which Skylark is the science fiction novel. Its influence on the whole genre cannot be overstated. It launched the writing career of “Doc” Smith, and pioneered any number of things which became cliche later. As a result, I’m really pleased to have read it for you — and not at all pleased by the technical problems which left the recording sounding as though I was at the bottom of a well the whole time!
Devo Spice – I Am the Doctor 02 Lost in Time
MC Frontalot – Secrets from the Future 09 A Skit About Robots
MC Lars This Gigantic Robot Kills 05 This Gigantic Robot Kills (feat.
Boy Meets Robot – The Robots Will Kill Us All
Beatallica – Sgt Hetfield’s Motorbreath Pub Band 06 A Garage Dayz Nite
Devo Spice Devo, Are You Shoebox (feat. Worm Quartet)
Scooter Picnic – Kyle, Are You Ian
Mega Ran – Kickin’ in Doors
Schaffer The Darklord – Monsters of Rock (feat. Mc Lars)
The Rifftones (Party at) The House on Haunted Hill
The Library Bards – Gandalf
Simon Mathewson – Being_Me
Nuclear Bubblewrap – Rich Fantasy Lives
Ookla the Mok Tantric Yoda
Bonecage – Everyones A Critic
The Dreamstalks – When I Grow Up
Dino-Mike – Unexpecting the Expected
The great Luke Ski – Abby Normal
MC Lars T- Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock (feat. The Matches)
Tony Goldmark – The Road!
Max DeGroot – Don’t Sing This Song
Smashyclaw – Goldfish
Carla Ulbrich – Now and Later
Raymond and Scum – Lando (Episode VII)
Steve Goodie – Dumbledore’s Army
Devo Spice -My Atari
MC Frontalot – I Hate Your Blog
Mega Ran – Mighty (From the Game Mighty No. 9)
Prior Band – In My Driverless Car
Mikey Mason – Better Than Darth Vader
Power Salad – Leia (and other Assorted Star Wars Parodies)
TV’s Kyle I Like (8 Bit) Pie
Dany Birt – The Tale of King Arthur As Told By A Redneck
Killer Calamari – Spiderine
Background music was Furious Freak by Kevin Macleod of Incompetech.com.
Kevin Mcleod’s music is released under the Creative Commons 3.0: By Attribution license.
Most of Jonathan Coulton’s music is Licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0: Attribution-NonCommercial Unported license.
Some songs on today’s show were courtesy of The Funny Music Project.
All other songs on today’s show, played with permission of the artist or band.
Background music was Furious Freak by Kevin Macleod of Incompetech.com.
Kevin Mcleod’s music is released under the Creative Commons 3.0: By Attribution license.
Most of Jonathan Coulton’s music is Licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0: Attribution-NonCommercial Unported license.
Some songs on today’s show were courtesy of The Funny Music Project.
All other songs on today’s show, played with permission of the artist or band.
The Old Fan’s Commentary on Star Trek – The Motion Picture
Sunday on Tales From SYL Ranch: part one of the Old Fan’s Commentary on Star Trek – The Motion Picture (the Director’s Edition).
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net.
This week, we’ll be talking about what it was like as a teenaged Star Trek fan to see the film for the first time in 1979. We’ll also talk about fandom of that period and what it was like to live through it.
We’ll also have the usual episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy and a smattering of amusing bits throughout.
After all, you can’t listen to Bill talk for an hour without wanting to slit your wrists.
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net. The station is listed on iTunes, TuneIn, and other streaming services.
Listen to Bill discuss the first Star Trek movie (the one people usually like to forget).
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00-22:00 UTC at http://anonradio.net.
Sorry there was no show on 3/24/17. My trusty 2 month old laptop had a problem with the USB port, and since it was under warranty still I went ahead and let the manufacturer handle the repairs. It might take a while though, although it was set by UPS Air over night and arrived on the 24th. MSI won’t open it for 3 business days, and the estimate for laptops is 10-25 days, I’m hoping for 10 or less. You know how companies give way out there estimates so it looks like they actually did it in less time? That’s what I am hoping is true this time, but there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to stream on the 31st either. If that is the case I will send a notice to the aNONradio list again and also post something here.
This week the show was expanded to two hours, I will edit this post later with links.
The RiffTones – Plans One Thru Nine Insane Ian featuring The Stacey – Hard Corps (Green Lantern’s Light)
MC Lars – It’s Not Easy (Being Green) [feat. Pierre Bouvier of Simple Plan] Simon Mathewson – Bottle of Beer
Bill Shipper – Only Do My Taxes When I Drink
Steve Goodie – I Drink Well With Others Simon Mathewson– Drunk on a Train
Patrick Rennick and Stephen Whaley – Death Star Prison Blues the great Luke Ski– When You Wish Upon A Death Star
Power Salad – Leia (And Other Assorted Star Wars Parodies)
Random (Mega Ran), Mega Ran & K-Murdock – Drop the Load Devo Spice, featuring the great Luke Ski – Lotta Bodies
Dino-Mike – Zombie Girl Insane Ian – Some Zombie by George Romero MC Frontalot – I’ll Form the Head
Mega Ran – Space Defense Team (feat. Kool Keith & Wordburglar)
Mikey Mason – (Big Damn) Hero
Harve Mann – Can’t Get A Human On The Phone
Consortium of Genius – Middle Earth Needs Me
Steve Goodie – Everything You Know Is Wrong
Nuclear Bubble Wrap – Black Holes Suck Devo Spice – Ozzman (2013) Cirque du So What – Stupid Cowboy Thing (Reprise?)
Worm Quartet – A Song for Worm Quartet to Sing with TV’s Kyle Cirque du So What – How To Speak ShoEboX
Ookla The Mok – The Other Side Kobi LaCroix – Look Directly at the Floating Polystyrene Head
MEGATHRUSTER – Super Duper Con
Lauren Mayer – Dear Internet Trolls
Marc Gunn – Doctor of Gallifrey
Carrie Dahlby – Titanic Monday
Smashy Claw – Deja Vu (Deja Vu)
Bonecage – You’re the Man (In Black)
Background and closing music was Furious Freak by Kevin Macleod of Incompetech.com.
Kevin Mcleod’s music is released under the Creative Commons 3.0: By Attribution license.
Most of Jonathan Coulton’s music is Licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0: Attribution-NonCommercial Unported license.
Some songs on today’s show were courtesy of The Funny Music Project.
All other songs on today’s show, played with permission of the artist or band.
It’s all-comedy all-the-time on this Sunday’s Tales From SYL Ranch.
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00 – 22:00 UTC at // aNONrado.net //
(If you’re not in UTC, either do the math or ask Siri/Google.)
About three-fourths of the show is my informal “best of” “Weird Al” Yankovic. His career stretches back to the early 1980s. The task became narrowing it down to about an hour-and-a-half.
They’re all gems. In fact, I had to cut some I liked for time, so it’s really the best of Al’s best.
Update: “Weird Al” dropped a new collection, Medium Rarities, this week. The timing was entirely unintentional. However, I’ve changed the playlist accordingly.
“It’s Still Billy Joel” has been downgraded from “rare” to “medium rare.” “Chicken Pot Pie” is still “very rare” and is from my personal collection.
The Holy Grail of “Weird Al” fans, “Belvedere Cruising,” has downgraded all the way to “medium rare.” It’s the song that got Al his break on the Doctor Demento show; which in turn propelled him to stardom.
Younger listeners may not be aware of the Hitchhiker’s Guide strange history. It began as a BBC Radio series, then a couple of books, then more radio, then TV, then more books, then a movie, and then more radio.
I’ll be playing all five radio series, starting with series one, episode one on Sunday. I’ll be running them for about four years.
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00 – 22:00 UTC at // aNONrado.net //
And the following two weeks , you’ll hear my voice for the first time — and you will ultimately be grateful for the respite of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy.
I’m going to do a two-part “Old Fan’s Commentary” of Star Trek – The Motion Picture.
I’m doing this not because I have any great backstage knowledge. I’ll talk about what I know, but that’s not the point. This is a fan commentary. I’m going to talk about Star Trek fandom in the 1970s, and how it was for a teen-aged Trekkkie to see the film for the first time.
I’ll be commenting on the Director’s Edition, so if you want to follow along, get out your DVDs, stream from your favorite service, or … well, you know.
Tales From SYL Ranch can be heard Sundays from 20:00 – 22:00 UTC at // aNONrado.net //
For reference, here’s the full playlist. With the exception of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, they’re all “Weird Al” Yankovic songs.
Don’t Download This Song
Belvedere Cruising
Another One Rides The Bus
I Love Rocky Road
Ricky
Eat It
Nature Trail To Hell
Chicken Pot Pie
Like A Surgeon
The Brady Bunch
It’s Still Billy Joel To Me
Theme From Rocky XIII: The Rye Or the Kaiser
Amish Paradise
I Lost On Jeopardy
Gump
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 1: Primary Phase – Fit the First
