Life on Mars - Our other favorite Martians; Part 1 - Ziggy Stardust

Ziggy Stardust - In 1972, David Bowie transformed himself into the extra-terrestrial  psychedelic, bi-sexual leader of the alien rock band, The Spiders From Mars(themselves named after a 1954 UFO sighting above an Italian soccer stadium that was later credited by officials to migrating spiders).  

The height of early 1970's Martian fashion

Ziggy came to earth to warn the population that it needed to get its act together before the planet's impending demise. Unfortunately, hedonistic Ziggy became consumed by the rock and roll lifestyle and was destroyed by drugs, sex and the adulation of his fans before his job was done.

Alien fashion icon.

Ziggy may have failed in his mission to save the human race, but what was accomplished was Bowie ascended to icon status and became the kind of Pope of Glam. His time as Ziggy set Bowie on a course of ever changing stage personas and constant musical experimentation that has made him one of the few rock stars of his era that are as still as prescient as they were in their youth.

The cultural impact that Ziggy had can not be overlooked. His sexual ambiguity and androgynous looks inspired numerous pop stars that came after. The 1980s was the decade where Ziggy's offspring really sprang into the public eye. Robert Smith of The Cure, Adam Ant, Boy George, Morrissey, Annie Lennox and other pop stars of the Reagan/Thatcher era who played with gender and sexual identity through either behaviour or eye-shadow can all trace their lineage to Ziggy Stardust. The effect these sexually ambiguous performers had on culture as a whole was to help soften views on sexual conformity and create acceptance of LGQBT people within the mainstream. Flash-forward a few decades and you have a world in which Marriage Equality is the law of the land in the vast majority of the USA and Europe. Without Ziggy Stardust, none of this may have been possible.

Perfection captured on vinyl

Musically, the impact of the two Ziggy Stardust albums, The Rise and Fall Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and Aladdin Sane, are two of the most influential albums of all time, representing an evolution of rock music as transformative as the one caused by The Beatles in the 1960s. The sound of these albums, especially that of Spiders' guitarist Mick Ronson, can be heard throughout the punk and later alternative rock movements.

Bowie really, really likes Ronson's guitar playing. I mean, really likes it!

Pretty good stuff for a failed space-age messiah.







The Rottenest of the Undead.

We here at the Emerald City Zen Center love us some zombies and in The Martian Invasion of Oz we introduced the Ozombies, led by Gabraham Stinkin.  That said, we don't love all the zombies that have been put out there. Here are three zombie films that we highly recommend you avoid.

1. Against The Dark (2005)

That coat button is about to shoot off and go right through a zombie's brain. Well played, Seagal.

 

Imagine a world in which a plague has transformed the majority of the population of the planet into vampire-like zombies. You flee for your life and barricade yourself in a hospital to avoid the horde of ghouls from ripping you to shreds. Things look bleak indeed but take hope! Help is on the way - in the form of bloated, right-wing, ego-maniacal, mumble-mouthed, zero-charisma having has-been Steven Seagal and some nameless sidekicks dressed like geeks everywhere did right after The Matrix came out in 1999. The problems with this straight-to-video, Romanian produced brain haemorrhage of a film are legion but if you're making a zombie picture in which your unstoppable horde of flesh-eating fiends is easily defeated by the sluggish sword play of a well past his prime Steven Seagal, you have some pretty lame zombies on your hand. I mean, the guy can hardly bend!

2. Dead At The Box Office (2005)


One of those where you wish the film makers would have spent the money it cost to make this movie on cyanide instead.

A mysterious film canister containing a Nazi experimental film somehow ends up in a Chicago area cinema. When it is played, the audience is transformed into zombies. Not the worst premise ever but the execution makes you beg to be executed. This Gary, Indiana filmed no-budget, eye-gouge inducing piece of blech is an example of why the democratization of the media via digital technology is not exactly going to lead to a utopian future. With its poor lighting, horrible acting, sloppy cinematography and Kevin Smith-wannabe dialog, this could be one of the worst things to ever happen to the horror film genre. We attended the premiere of this hot-mess nearly a decade ago and there are parts of our brains that have still not returned to their normal state after being atrophied by this miserable excuse for a movie.

3. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972)

If only the movie was half as interesting as this poster.





A group of actors are led to an island somewhere near Miami but their director, who is the most annoying person on the planet. This young, vaguely hippy-ish film troupe end up having to deal with the not-at-all funny practical jokes of their director, played by actor/director/make-up artist/doll-maker Alan Ormby, who in the midst of the lame-hijinks accidentally raises the dead when he stages a kind of black magic ceremony. Director Bob Clark went on to make the classic slasher-film Black Christmas (1974); the inexplicably popular, unfunny, teen sex-comedy Porky's (1982) and the holiday classic A Christmas Story (1983) but this tedious piece of low-rent junk has none of the tension of Black Christmas or the humour of A Christmas Story, but it does have all of the unfunny of Porky's. When the zombies finally do show up, about half-way through this soul killer, you just hope the cheap looking things quickly do away with the cast so you can work on self-inflicting head injuries in the hope that you will lose the memory of having seen it.                                           

Predictions for 2015

Welcome to 2015! This is the year that Griff Tannen smashes up the Hill Valley courthouse and the Chicago Cubs beat Miami to win The World Series. These are well known and documented future events. We here at The Emerald City Zen Center have contacted our old friend Captain Pug, whose exploits have been documented in A Zen Master In Oz and The Martian Invasion of Oz (both available now on Amazon's Kindle service), to pop into his reality hopping steamboat, The Laughing Tortoise, and find a universe where time is running a year ahead of ours. He brought back several amazing insights into the year ahead. We have sifted through them and present our top 5 predictions for 2015.

1. Nigel Farage revealed to be a Muppet: The leader of the anti-EU, anti-immigrant, anti-progress and pro-banker UK political party UKIP, Nigel Farage, will be revealed to be a puppet that escaped from the Henson Creature Shop.

2. Rand Paul actually appreciates the FDA - Libertarians (racists who like to smoke pot and make themselves look smart by spouting off about Ayn Rand's objectivist crap philosophy) will be devastated when in an unguarded moment, Rand Paul admits that he is glad that the Food and Drug Administration is around to keep the acceptable levels of rat faeces in his peanut butter as low as possible without ruining the taste

3. UK Prime Minister declares his love for actor/comedian/social activists Russell Brand at a press conference in front of 1 Downing Street. At an anti-bedroom tax rally in London, Brand is surprised by Cameron parachuting in with an engagement ring to pop the question.

4. Barack Obama defeats invading alien force single handily and FOX News complains he did not do it fast enough - An invading fleet from the planet G'rx arrives to enslave the human race this year. Thankfully, President Obama is able to reveal that he had been trained as a child for just this moment. After destroying the fleet and killing the G'rx emperor in a sword fight, the world rejoices. Fox News' Sean Hannity questions if it really should have took the president an evening to repulse the alien invaders. He goes on to state his belief that the delay on the president's behalf was politically motivated.

5. Dalai Lama releases number one selling dance track of all time - The dance floors of the world pulsate with the deep grooves of Tenzin Gyatso - the 14th Dalai Lama's dub-step inspired dance track, Bodhisattva Booty, drops on an unexpected public this summer.