Tetherd Cow Ahead

In Comments on the previous post about Julian Doyles forthcoming ‘Chemical Wedding’, JR made a remark that reminded me of a film that I saw quite some years ago – a cinematic treasure that I feel is my duty to introduce to all my devoted Acowlytes. Running with the tagline A Corpse is Bait in the Trap of Terror!, Michael Findlay’s Shriek of the Mutilated (1974) is a work that makes Plan 9 From Outer Space (a film widely held to be ‘the worst of all time’) look like Citizen Kane. Sure, there are many, many bad films – miles of wasted celluloid that is boring and incompetent and just plain unwatchable – but films like ‘Shriek’ fall into a very special category: Cinema that is so bad that it is entertaining.

I first saw SOTM sometime in the mid ’80s on late night tv, after I’d come home (relatively) early from a dull party and warmed up the tube to see what was on. A scene of a man attacking a woman with a broken gin bottle flickers into view, lots of slashing, lots of very fake-looking blood. Ho-hum. The man makes his way to the bathroom and fills up the tub, inexplicably climbing in fully clothed. Hmmm… I stay my hand from the off switch… Meanwhile, we find that the woman, lying ripped and bloodied on the kitchen floor is not dead. Slowly, painfully, she grabs the cord of the toaster, pulling it from the bench above and with her last remaining strength pushes it with agonizing effort down the corridor and into the bathroom, where she lobs it into the bath thereby electrocuting the man to death.

Awwright!!! I’m hooked! This couple has a toaster on a fifty-foot extension cord! With shameless disregard for the laws of reality like that at the fore, the film was plainly a work of genius! I fired the VHS into record (because my sixth sense told me I was watching a very rare event that might never repeat itself), rustled myself up some toasted cheese sandwiches and sat down for the most entertaining late-night movie fare of my life.

JR’s comment prompted me to see what I could find out about SOTM after all these years, and to my immense excitement I uncovered a YouTube vid of a trailer for the film. And, unlike most trailers of the modern era, it actually does capture a fairly true representation of the film you’re going to see, without giving away the best bits! So, without further ado, let’s crank up the Wurlitzer and give you a little taste of the kind of cinematic genius that they just don’t know how to deliver anymore (by the way, this is one of the very few film trailers where you can play ‘Spot the Armadillo’ – watch carefully, it’s cunningly disguised…):

“Sometimes… it almost sounds like… something human…”

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*Just one of countless memorable quotes from the film.

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Taped to poles at Melbourne University sometime this week:

The prevailing wisdom is that the posters were put up by a Japanese student who found the ‘cat’.

As Acowlyte Purple Dragon points out, the phone number on the poster is a 1900 number, which Telstra sells as a ‘Premium Rate’ number. This means that you are charged to ring the number.

I wonder how much they made from the scam…

In fact, it’s even funnier than I thought – I did a qualified search* on the number 1900 911 481 and found that it is a premium-rate number for the Australian Talking Clock! Hahaha! I bet those people are toasting their witticism at this very moment!

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Photo courtesy of Student Liaison, University of Melbourne, via my friend Ali.

*Yeah, well actually calling the number was my last option. I was only going to give them my dime as a last resort.

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Picture and gag by Anne Arkham. Thanks babe.

My dear Acowlytes! I apologize for my somewhat lengthy absence of late. My excuse, I think, is a pretty good one – Violet Towne and I were married in a simple and, I like to think, moving ceremony a few weekends back. There was much carousing with friends and family and I believe that a good time was had by all (certainly from my perspective anyway). Since then there has been a bit of holidaying and not a lot of sitting at computers, and hence an almost complete lack of Cow.

Not that The Cow was ever far from my thoughts as we trekked around the southern coast of Victoria on our honeymoon. Simple Graphics Man was up to his old tricks at many of our stops, and there were some great photo opportunities which I’ll share with you in due course.

And there was Scientology. Yes, no matter where you go, the lunatics will find some way to reach into your life. I’ve been meaning to do a Scientology piece for a little while now, and whilst this will not be it, I must share with you my thoughts on the recent Tom Cruise embarrassment that managed to filter into my attention as I was waiting in the queue in a great little fish & chip shop in the coastal town of Apollo Bay.

If you didn’t manage to catch it, seriously, go take a look. The Tomster could have done no worse if he’d put on a clown suit and declared himself the reincarnation of Bozo.

It wasn’t till I arrived home and scrutinized the video on YouTube that I realised how much in the error of my ways I was. I think that I have been mistaken all this time… Tom Cruise, and Scientology itself, are actually in the service of The Cow! Scoff not, faithful Cowpokes! I didn’t spot it immediately either…

OMG!!! I immediately searched for other clues that Tom and his Thetan-zapping buddies might be doing the Work of the Church of the Tetherd Cow. Well, for a start, there is the excellent science-fiction art-direction…

…persuasive evidence in itself. But if there was truly any Cow agenda operating well it might manifest itself in, oh, a wedding ceremony, say. Is there, maybe, a Scientology Wedding ceremony?

Aha! There is! Scrolling down through the incomprehensible juvenile drivel lengthy ritual that Katie and Tom presumably endured when they got hitched, we uncover the following poignant observation:

Now, (groom’s name),
girls need clothes
And food and
Tender happiness and frills
A pan, a comb,
perhaps a cat
All caprice if you will
But still
They need them.
Do you then
Provide?
Do you?†

“Perhaps a cat”!!!!!???? Scientology requires the Groom to provide a cat? Whoa! Need I draw anyone a picture?! Violet Towne is such a lucky girl.

Tom Cruise, for actions undercover in the service of The Cow, we salute you!

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*“These are the times, now people. These are the times we will all remember.” You betcha Tom. We’ll all remember.

†I kid you not. This is really in the Scientology Wedding Ceremony.

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Off to get married. See you when I get back.

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

I’ve just encountered ‘the world’s first interactive natural spring water – H²Om Water with Intention‘ Yes, you heard right: H²Om, as in Ommmmmmmm…

You can visit the website if you’ve got the stomach, but I’ll save you the pain: these people are selling bottled water that has been infused with nothing other than (supposedly) positive energy. From their blurb:

H²Om water with intention has revolutionized the bottled water industry by creating the world’s first vibrationally charged, interactive bottled water.

Got that? The water is vibrationally charged. And, to reiterate, it’s also interactive. If your Bullshit Detector Meters haven’t pinned yet, allow me to elaborate: the concept behind this water appears to be that those who drink it think about positive things while they are doing so, and then this somehow makes the water better. It’s not explained exactly how this works, nor in exactly what way the water is better. It’s just better.

The H²Om people have trademarked the slogan Think It While You Drink It™ a catchphrase that simultaneously illuminates the stupidity of the Trademarking system and the brainlessness of anyone who believes that a witless motto such as this actually means anything.

H²Om’s Vibration Hydrationâ„¢ (Oh Spare Me!â„¢) comes in seven great vibrational ‘flavours’: Love, Perfect Health, Gratitude, Prosperity, Will Power, Joy and Peace (I swear I’m not making this up).

Now I want to emphasize here, in case you didn’t get it, that these ‘flavours’ aren’t actually anything, like, flavoursome. If you buy a bottle of, say, ‘Joy’, it’s going to taste exactly the same as ‘Prosperity’- it’s only the vibrations that will be different (shit, I’m laughing as I type this – it’s so much like a parody I can’t actually believe that these people are serious).

Best of all, if this water doesn’t unequivocally bring you Peace/Joy/Love/Pretzels, H²Om have the ultimate escape clause: the water is interactive you loser – if it’s not working it’s your fault!

Still not with me? Still giving them the benefit of the doubt? Not laughing as much as me yet? Then read on:

As an added bonus, once our water is in the bottle, we play a restorative compositions of music, frequencies, and spoken word to the water.

Spoken word? Wha?

Nice water. Nice joyful pretty water. I love you water. You are the best water in the universe. Pretty pretty water. Lovely watery joyful prosperous water.

Seriously. It’s going to be something just like that, right?

Yup. If there’s one thing this website doesn’t lack it’s pages of incomprehensible waffle:

There are several distinctive vibrational frequencies that are infused in each bottle of H2Om. The First is the vibrational frequency of the label. The use of words, symbols and colors on the label. Each bottle contains the symbol of the Absolute “Om”. It also contains the vibratory word “Love” or “Perfect Health” etc. written on the label in many of the world’s languages. A specific color vibration has also been chosen for each bottle, this color coordinates with the corresponding chakra.

Now I know what you’re going to say – this is all flimsy bollocks and no-one is going to fall for this claptrap without some kind of basis in fact! Well, it’s just about now that H²Om wheels out its supporting ‘evidence’ for their miraculous product, and it comes in the form of an endorsement from a personage who was slated to appear in a future edition of the TCA Educational Series ‘Woo Woo Beliefs‘, a minimally educated Japanese ‘doctor’* Masaru Emoto. Some of you may have seen Dr Emoto’s claims promoted in the risible What the Bleep do We Know, a film that is rooted in reality to about the same extent as, oh, your average Warner Brothers’ Roadrunner cartoon.

To encapsulate, Dr Emoto has formulated some ideas (it’s absurd to call them hypotheses, since he doesn’t even pretend to adopt any form of scientific protocol) that water crystallizes in certain ways according to its response to people’s thoughts and emotions. That’s all you need to know – I’ll examine Dr Emoto further at a later time. It is sufficient to note that the H²Om people are so besotted by Dr Emoto that they have made him a partner in their company and are in the process of launching a new line with his imprimatur.

And you know what? I just bet they have the box-office attendance figures for What the Bleep framed on the H²Om office wall, with all the zeros emphasized in fluorescent hi-lighter.

Given the size of that demographic, it’s evident that H²Om’s marketing is dead accurate in one respect anyway: it is very obviously water with intention. Oh yeah. Intention of the people who make it to get filthy rich by exploiting the gullibility of simpletons.

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*His ‘doctorate’ in Alternative Medicine was awarded by an uncredited pay-your-way ‘university’ in India. Make of that what you will.

Thanks Sean for bringing the H²Om website to my attention.

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