The Geekiest Thing I've Ever Done
March 10th 2008 02:29
For a while now, I've been trying to find a way to make an admission about my relationship with pornography. It's not easy to say, and it's a bit embarrassing, but here goes: I don't like it.
I'm told there's an incredibly small percentage of the population that doesn't own porn. Male population, that is. It's something like two per cent of men, something ridiculous that can't possibly be considered anything more than a margin of error. The thing is, I'm in that percentage. Nobody ever believes me, and I realise pretty quickly that there's zero point trying to argue (exactly how do you prove this fact, and why would you want to?) In the past, I think the closest I got to buying porn was picking up the brilliant 2003 film "The Dreamers", which just led me to assume that if all porn was directed by Bernardo Bertollucci, I'd probably find it more interesting.
And therein lies my problem with porn. It's not a moral objection; in principle, pornography serves an important function in society (if any porn producers are reading, I'd really like that pull quote to appear on the back of a DVD). Intrinsically, I have no beef with porn (but I have seen porn with beef; very unhygienic). My problem is with the execution: porn is not remotely sexy.
At very least, the stuff I've seen isn't. It's just graphic, which is fine on some level I suppose, but if graphic and explicit was sexy, gynaecologists' litigation insurance would skyrocket. It's also kind-of methodical, with the checklists of deeds and positions and angles that they apparently need to tick off in every video. (And given they're all the same, why not just release the same one over and over again with ascending numerals after the title? Would anyone really notice? I think there's unexplored financial potential here.) Pornography manages to make sex look really boring... perhaps it's a very clever reverse-psychology ploy by the Christian Right. Hm. I'd better call Oliver Stone.
I don't think I'm alone in this. A few years ago, some friends of mine (three girls, for whatever difference that makes) decided to throw a horror and porn night, where we'd watch some incredibly bad horror and incredibly bad porn. There were about fifteen of us, who joked and laughed throughout whatever awful circus freak horror film was chosen to open the night (my faulty memory suggests it might have been the immortal classic "Bloodsucking Freaks"). After this, they put on "The Sexorcist", which looked like it was going to be a funny, soft-core take on "The Towering Inferno". Sorry, "The Exorcist". It wasn't any of those things, except for the "soft-core" bit. After five minutes, everyone had started talking amongst themselves, and nobody was paying attention to the screen. Why? It was so boring. They couldn't even go for so-bad-it's-good. It was so-bad-it's-dull. Also, the women were utterly hideous, as if someone had left some life-size Barbies too close to the stove.
Jumping topics for a bit (it's okay, it'll all come together at the end like poorly-built train tracks), I was discussing with some friends the geekiest things we'd ever done. I had to spend a while thinking about this: I've done some really, really geeky things in my life, mostly related to a lifelong obsession with "Doctor Who". I thought that I'd probably be better off running down a top ten list that picking the biggest, but a bit of thought led me to the obvious winner. And it happened about a year ago.
A friend had emailed me a movie trailer, but hadn't told me anything about it. The title of the file didn't give it away, either (all it said was "Abducted..."). The trailer involved four buxom blonde Hungarian women whose car breaks down on a remote highway. They get out and walk through a forest until their clothes fall off (honestly, it wasn't the most narratively-cohesive trailer I'd ever seen). Then they cut to one of the women against a wall, naked as the day she was cast, screaming in terror as the camera moves in on her. The sound effects come in... "Exterminate! Exterminate!" Then the title: "Abducted By The Daleks".
Someone had made a Dalek porn film.
For those who don't know, the Daleks are some of the most recognisable bad guys in history. They're one of the key villains in "Doctor Who", often and unimaginatively described as pepperpots. They're round pyramid-like robotic killing machines with spherical bits of metal running up and down their sides. They have three protrusions: a big central eye stalk, a cool metal gun, and either a bathroom sink plunger or a claw depending on... well, depending on whether they have a plunger or a claw.
They've been terrifying kids since their introduction in 1963, they've had two spin-off movies, and they're an integral part of British culture. They're often derided for not being able to climb stairs, but on numerous occasions we've seen them hovering and/or flying. They're genuinely scary things on the TV screen, and about ten times worse in person. (Many years ago, I was at a "Doctor Who" convention in Newcastle -- this would, naturally, be on that top ten list I mentioned before -- and three life-size accurately-constructed Daleks came down the centre aisle without warning. It was a genuinely scary moment, and then more than ever I understood how truly terrifying these things were.)
The Daleks are owned by the Estate of Terry Nation. Terry Nation wrote the first Dalek story ever, and did it on spec, making them the only "Doctor Who" villains owned by the writer instead of the BBC. (Some argue -- and I'm one of them -- that a good deal of the credit should go to Raymond Cusick, the guy who actually designed the Daleks. Nation's original description was relatively unsophisticated, and it was Cusick who made them so iconic. But that's neither here nor there.) Whenever the Beeb wants to use the Daleks, they have to enter into some inexplicably complicated negotiations with the Terry Nation's Estate. Naturally, all interested parties were not impressed to hear of "Abducted By The Daleks", especially as it came just as "Doctor Who" was enjoying an unparalleled resurgence of popularity.
The BBC took immediate legal action, forbidding the company behind "Abducted" to sell any more copies. The company thought they had a brilliant way around this, and began selling alternate copies entitled "Abducted By The Daloids". This clever ploy did not, unfortunately, fool the BBC, who pointed out that the Daleks were still in the actual movie, and this was still a massive copyright violation.
Both myself and my associate, Tristan Nieto, read this saga with interest. We did not care about any of these legal wranglings. All we saw was that someone had made Dalek porn, it was an unprecedented collector's item, and the banning was only going to make the pieces rarer. We have some pretty amazing pieces in our respective collections, be them paintings, original signed posters, books, movies, etc... This was surely going to be a signature piece, and we both had to have it.
I began Googling keywords I thought would lead me to a site that would sell "Abducted", but I couldn't find anything. Tristan didn't bother with searches; he directly typed in URLs to underground video sites, and did so from memory, making me wonder exactly how often he did this. Eventually, he found a place that was selling copies. The problem? They were selling "Abducted By The Daloids". Now, you know and I know that this is the exact same movie, but we weren't buying it for the movie. We were buying it as a collector's item, and in terms of rarity there was a notable gulf between "Daloids" and "Daleks". We both agreed we (he) should keep looking.
It took about three days. All sites that hadn't been shut down were selling the "Daloids" version, and I was beginning to think that, save for a last-minute eBay appearance, there was no chance at getting our hands on a copy. Then he found it.
We almost couldn't believe it. One place, and one place only, was selling copies of "Abducted By The Daleks". Taking into account currency conversion and postage, the DVDs came to forty bucks a pop. This was when we hit a problem neither of us had considered: which one of us was going to buy it? As a bigger "Doctor Who" fan, I thought it should be me, but Tristan was also a "Who" fan and he had a pretty decent collection of "extreme" DVDs that this would slot nicely into.
Thankfully, they had enough in stock to cover two orders.
By the time the DVDs arrived, a lot of our friends had their curiousity piqued enough for us to justify a special Hungarian Lesbian Dalek Porn evening (greatest genre name ever, by the way). Once the lounge room was filled, I gave a brief talk on the history of Daleks, the history of Hungarians and the history of lesbians so that everyone would be informed enough to enjoy what was to come. So to speak.
The result? Unparalleled awfulness. Like "The Sexorcist", it couldn't even hit so-bad-it's-good. It was just boring. There was no sex in it, by the way, just a lot of nudity and whipping (the Daleks made the girls torture each other, slowly and tediously). Then there's some bizarre sub-plot about a masked serial killer who appears in the woods at the end to steal the girls' skin or something. Even by Hungarian standards, this couldn't have made sense.
It was ridiculously tedious, and I think everyone left feeling unsatisfied (though possibly for different reasons). But that didn't matter, 'cos I had an awesome, rare collector's item that also served as a great conversation starter... assuming, of course, that was the sort of conversation you wanted to have.
So, many months later, I'm trying to answer the question of what the geekiest thing I've ever done is, and the answer hits me like a Sontaran battle cruiser: I only own one piece of pornography, and I didn't buy it for the girls... I bought it for the Daleks.
And if you think I'm not incredibly proud of this fact, then you really don't know me very well.
I'm told there's an incredibly small percentage of the population that doesn't own porn. Male population, that is. It's something like two per cent of men, something ridiculous that can't possibly be considered anything more than a margin of error. The thing is, I'm in that percentage. Nobody ever believes me, and I realise pretty quickly that there's zero point trying to argue (exactly how do you prove this fact, and why would you want to?) In the past, I think the closest I got to buying porn was picking up the brilliant 2003 film "The Dreamers", which just led me to assume that if all porn was directed by Bernardo Bertollucci, I'd probably find it more interesting.
And therein lies my problem with porn. It's not a moral objection; in principle, pornography serves an important function in society (if any porn producers are reading, I'd really like that pull quote to appear on the back of a DVD). Intrinsically, I have no beef with porn (but I have seen porn with beef; very unhygienic). My problem is with the execution: porn is not remotely sexy.
At very least, the stuff I've seen isn't. It's just graphic, which is fine on some level I suppose, but if graphic and explicit was sexy, gynaecologists' litigation insurance would skyrocket. It's also kind-of methodical, with the checklists of deeds and positions and angles that they apparently need to tick off in every video. (And given they're all the same, why not just release the same one over and over again with ascending numerals after the title? Would anyone really notice? I think there's unexplored financial potential here.) Pornography manages to make sex look really boring... perhaps it's a very clever reverse-psychology ploy by the Christian Right. Hm. I'd better call Oliver Stone.
I don't think I'm alone in this. A few years ago, some friends of mine (three girls, for whatever difference that makes) decided to throw a horror and porn night, where we'd watch some incredibly bad horror and incredibly bad porn. There were about fifteen of us, who joked and laughed throughout whatever awful circus freak horror film was chosen to open the night (my faulty memory suggests it might have been the immortal classic "Bloodsucking Freaks"). After this, they put on "The Sexorcist", which looked like it was going to be a funny, soft-core take on "The Towering Inferno". Sorry, "The Exorcist". It wasn't any of those things, except for the "soft-core" bit. After five minutes, everyone had started talking amongst themselves, and nobody was paying attention to the screen. Why? It was so boring. They couldn't even go for so-bad-it's-good. It was so-bad-it's-dull. Also, the women were utterly hideous, as if someone had left some life-size Barbies too close to the stove.
Jumping topics for a bit (it's okay, it'll all come together at the end like poorly-built train tracks), I was discussing with some friends the geekiest things we'd ever done. I had to spend a while thinking about this: I've done some really, really geeky things in my life, mostly related to a lifelong obsession with "Doctor Who". I thought that I'd probably be better off running down a top ten list that picking the biggest, but a bit of thought led me to the obvious winner. And it happened about a year ago.
A friend had emailed me a movie trailer, but hadn't told me anything about it. The title of the file didn't give it away, either (all it said was "Abducted..."). The trailer involved four buxom blonde Hungarian women whose car breaks down on a remote highway. They get out and walk through a forest until their clothes fall off (honestly, it wasn't the most narratively-cohesive trailer I'd ever seen). Then they cut to one of the women against a wall, naked as the day she was cast, screaming in terror as the camera moves in on her. The sound effects come in... "Exterminate! Exterminate!" Then the title: "Abducted By The Daleks".
Someone had made a Dalek porn film.
For those who don't know, the Daleks are some of the most recognisable bad guys in history. They're one of the key villains in "Doctor Who", often and unimaginatively described as pepperpots. They're round pyramid-like robotic killing machines with spherical bits of metal running up and down their sides. They have three protrusions: a big central eye stalk, a cool metal gun, and either a bathroom sink plunger or a claw depending on... well, depending on whether they have a plunger or a claw.
They've been terrifying kids since their introduction in 1963, they've had two spin-off movies, and they're an integral part of British culture. They're often derided for not being able to climb stairs, but on numerous occasions we've seen them hovering and/or flying. They're genuinely scary things on the TV screen, and about ten times worse in person. (Many years ago, I was at a "Doctor Who" convention in Newcastle -- this would, naturally, be on that top ten list I mentioned before -- and three life-size accurately-constructed Daleks came down the centre aisle without warning. It was a genuinely scary moment, and then more than ever I understood how truly terrifying these things were.)
The Daleks are owned by the Estate of Terry Nation. Terry Nation wrote the first Dalek story ever, and did it on spec, making them the only "Doctor Who" villains owned by the writer instead of the BBC. (Some argue -- and I'm one of them -- that a good deal of the credit should go to Raymond Cusick, the guy who actually designed the Daleks. Nation's original description was relatively unsophisticated, and it was Cusick who made them so iconic. But that's neither here nor there.) Whenever the Beeb wants to use the Daleks, they have to enter into some inexplicably complicated negotiations with the Terry Nation's Estate. Naturally, all interested parties were not impressed to hear of "Abducted By The Daleks", especially as it came just as "Doctor Who" was enjoying an unparalleled resurgence of popularity.
The BBC took immediate legal action, forbidding the company behind "Abducted" to sell any more copies. The company thought they had a brilliant way around this, and began selling alternate copies entitled "Abducted By The Daloids". This clever ploy did not, unfortunately, fool the BBC, who pointed out that the Daleks were still in the actual movie, and this was still a massive copyright violation.
Both myself and my associate, Tristan Nieto, read this saga with interest. We did not care about any of these legal wranglings. All we saw was that someone had made Dalek porn, it was an unprecedented collector's item, and the banning was only going to make the pieces rarer. We have some pretty amazing pieces in our respective collections, be them paintings, original signed posters, books, movies, etc... This was surely going to be a signature piece, and we both had to have it.
I began Googling keywords I thought would lead me to a site that would sell "Abducted", but I couldn't find anything. Tristan didn't bother with searches; he directly typed in URLs to underground video sites, and did so from memory, making me wonder exactly how often he did this. Eventually, he found a place that was selling copies. The problem? They were selling "Abducted By The Daloids". Now, you know and I know that this is the exact same movie, but we weren't buying it for the movie. We were buying it as a collector's item, and in terms of rarity there was a notable gulf between "Daloids" and "Daleks". We both agreed we (he) should keep looking.
It took about three days. All sites that hadn't been shut down were selling the "Daloids" version, and I was beginning to think that, save for a last-minute eBay appearance, there was no chance at getting our hands on a copy. Then he found it.
We almost couldn't believe it. One place, and one place only, was selling copies of "Abducted By The Daleks". Taking into account currency conversion and postage, the DVDs came to forty bucks a pop. This was when we hit a problem neither of us had considered: which one of us was going to buy it? As a bigger "Doctor Who" fan, I thought it should be me, but Tristan was also a "Who" fan and he had a pretty decent collection of "extreme" DVDs that this would slot nicely into.
Thankfully, they had enough in stock to cover two orders.
By the time the DVDs arrived, a lot of our friends had their curiousity piqued enough for us to justify a special Hungarian Lesbian Dalek Porn evening (greatest genre name ever, by the way). Once the lounge room was filled, I gave a brief talk on the history of Daleks, the history of Hungarians and the history of lesbians so that everyone would be informed enough to enjoy what was to come. So to speak.
The result? Unparalleled awfulness. Like "The Sexorcist", it couldn't even hit so-bad-it's-good. It was just boring. There was no sex in it, by the way, just a lot of nudity and whipping (the Daleks made the girls torture each other, slowly and tediously). Then there's some bizarre sub-plot about a masked serial killer who appears in the woods at the end to steal the girls' skin or something. Even by Hungarian standards, this couldn't have made sense.
It was ridiculously tedious, and I think everyone left feeling unsatisfied (though possibly for different reasons). But that didn't matter, 'cos I had an awesome, rare collector's item that also served as a great conversation starter... assuming, of course, that was the sort of conversation you wanted to have.
So, many months later, I'm trying to answer the question of what the geekiest thing I've ever done is, and the answer hits me like a Sontaran battle cruiser: I only own one piece of pornography, and I didn't buy it for the girls... I bought it for the Daleks.
And if you think I'm not incredibly proud of this fact, then you really don't know me very well.
| 90 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by Harry
World Art
Sydney Diary
Personals
Video Games
Brisbane Diarystar
Zoo Parent
Comment by Patricia 7
Inside my Mind
Free Speech
Damn, I hate it when that happens!
:]]
Comment by Tash Jayasinghe
Death To Your Speakers
Comment by Umran
There are a number of copies on the UK ebay for under £10 including delivery at the moment, and they have different covers.
I hunger for dalek porn