Hold onto your hats partners, because the most sensational extravaganza of the year just blew into town. We may have just witnessed one of the most fantastic displays of talent in our modern times, effortlessly executed by a woman barely taller than a barstool.
That’s right folks, gather ‘round because we’re looking at the second coming of Annie Oakley because this firebrand just shot down ten guys in six seconds.
“I was just doing what comes naturally. Men are pretty dumb where I’m from, and pretty much everywhere I’ve traveled, I suppose. For some reason I’m a magnet for mediocre men who think they can impress me with their dumbass finance jobs or try to race me in the parking lot when they find out I was a track star in high school.” We’re just lucky she wasn’t actually packing a pistol like ol’ Annie or we’d have a goddamn massacre on our hands!
Yessir, ten consecutive overconfident men didn’t know what hit them after attempting to brag about their personal accomplishments and quiz her about the football jersey she was wearing. It’s just slightly unfortunate they had to be eviscerated so thoroughly, but her jabs were so astonishingly accurate that the entire bar couldn’t help but watch in amazement.
“Yeah, I know the telltale signs when the wolves start circling. Tonight I guess a few of these bozos saw I was wearing a Tee Higgins jersey and one of them decided I needed to name three other players, so I named the offensive and defensive starters and then asked him to name three times his mother was proud of him. I got into a good rhythm after that and put down some other assholes looking in my direction. I knew I was surrounded, so I just let loose and took everyone out.”
It’s not every day you meet a woman you can cut a man down before they can get a word in edgewise, but like Oakley she made a show out of it almost effortlessly. She ripped on their juvenile fashion sense and lack of hygiene like she was shooting ducks. And that last sucker who attempted to smooth things over before she jumped on the bar and called him ‘short king’ without even spilling her drink? With showmanship like that, we’d gladly pay to see her do that across the globe.
“If anyone else here is willing to learn, I can teach them a trick or two about getting annoying guys away from you as quickly as possible. Busting balls just takes practice, and lord knows I’ve had lots of it.” Talk about showmanship!
The trouble with OM’s fourth album, “God is Good” isn’t that it’s bad. It’s far from it. The trouble is that it feels like a step backward creatively. Which is too bad really, because this album marks the debut of Emil Amos as the group’s new drummer. There is a lot going on here, with the droning, desert-like opening to “Thebes” sounding like a call to worship, and “Cremation Ghat I” adding in elements of funk-bass playing, but ultimately, it feels like the band became too scared after the intensity of their previous album and stepped back into a comfort zone. Like a homeschooled kid who’s tried public school for a year and demanded his Mom pull him back out of it.
OM’s third album and the last one to feature the classic Cisneros/Hakius line-up, there’s something deeply interesting about “Pilgrimage” as a sort of bridge album. The songs are shorter. One of them is even (gasp) under five minutes. Which is going at Bad Brains adjacent speeds by doom metal standards. And yet, for the increased energy and intensity, there’s something really pleasant and enjoyable about this album. It makes you wanna get up and spasm the night away on the dance floor.
OM’s debut album does one thing exceptionally well: It announces itself in spectacular fashion. From the abrasive opening to “On the Mountain at Dawn,” to the trashing, angry lawn-mower-like bass playing of Al Cisneros, to the over 20-minute long opening track. It’s easy to tell what this band is about right from the jump. And there’s something really spectacular about that. This is also the record metal fans will likely find themselves most drawn to, with more precise vocals and songs about priestesses and blue stone moons, the whole thing plays like a game of “Dungeons and Dragons” played in the midst of a DayQuil overdose.
Oh. Hell. Yes. They’re pulling out all the stops for this one: Religious chanting? Check. Lush and engaging production design? Check. Singing in Sanskrit? Check please, waiter. There’s a fly in my soup and I want it comped, ASAP. Once you see the scowling John the Baptist cover art, you know you’re in for a treat. “Advaitic Songs” is definitely the sound one would probably expect when hearing that OM is a doom metal/stoner metal outfit that plays songs that are widely indebted to Middle Eastern religion and philosophy. And that’s just wonderful. Give the people what they want, says I.
If the word “sophomore” means “wise fool,” then is not the greatest fool the fool that unwisely thrones himself as wise and yet dubs the wise foolish? I say it shall! In any case, OM’s sophomore record, “Conference of the Birds” is unquestionably the group’s masterpiece. Truly with this one OM succeeded in creating the score to an unmade Kenneth Anger film. With just two songs (both clocking in at over 15 minutes long), there is definitely a limited menu here. And yet, just like at a trendy restaurant, a limited menu is actually part of the charm here. But with the droning drums of Chris Hakius and the hypnotic bass and hushed vocals of Al Cisneros, it’s more than enough.
“Masters of the Universe” did a bang-up job tying our budding sexual desires to various human/animal hybrid creatures, but the spider guy just never grabbed us. Too spidery!
Even as children with zero carnal knowledge, we knew that sex and anything called “Trap Jaw” just didn’t mix.
Skeletor’s pet attack falcon is possibly the least sexy bird creature on Eternia, and that’s coming from someone who is strongly, inexplicably aroused by “Masters of the Universe” bird creatures.
Man-E-Faces was a villain turned hero with the ability to, you guessed it, change his face. His amazing power to have the face of a human, a robot, or a monster allowed him to uh… do that. Yeah, pretty pointless at the end of the day, and not very sexy. He couldn’t even use all three faces at the same time! If he could do that then oh hell yeah, let’s talk, but nah.
Cringer is Prince Adam’s pet cuck, I mean cat. Frankly, we prefer him in his Battle Cat form. Without the Power of Grayskull Cringer is a total bottom.
Sometimes we would hold our Two Bad action figure and meditate on the duality of human nature, and what this innate duplicitousness meant to our cusping sexual identity. Other times we would think to ourselves “Hey, why am I thinking about this shit? I’m 9.”
Though sort of a minor character in the cartoon, the Modulock action figure was cool as hell because it came with over 20 interlocking pieces. The idea was that since his body was amorphous, you could mix and match the pieces to create your own unique version of Modulok every time you played with him. No matter how many different combos we tried, they always seemed to look like genitals.
Spikor planted the seed that Pinhead grew into the sapling that would one day become the tree of us spending $900 on a spiked pleather onesie marketed as “Daddy Pain.”
Kobra Khan was often partnered up with Webstor, and it’s easy to see who got all the sex appeal in that duo. To this day his calculating sinisterness, snake accent, and ability to produce knockout spray from his mouth still arouse the darkest recesses of our fantasies.
Whiplash quickly rose through the ranks of Skeletor’s crew, and it’s not hard to see why. With his take-charge attitude, powerful phallic tail, and a head that resembled our mean neighbor Frank, Whiplash really projected authority. Plus his design kinda makes him look like he’s always wearing a tank top and briefs. Sir yes sir!
There was just something about the feel of his toy’s velvety purple skin that seemed to activate something in us like it was opening the door to a whole spectrum of possibilities both terrifying and tantalizing.
One man with the power of 3 cyclopses? We would be powerless to stop this brute… not that we would want to!
Come on, all of the inherent eroticism of merpeople coupled with the fact that he has legs and therefore presumably genitals? You can’t tell us this guy doesn’t pique your curiosity. Admit it, you wanna know what he’s working with down there.
It’s the veil, it’s just so alluring. You can’t help but wonder what she’s working with under that thing. Probably a black faceless void, same as all Trollans, but still!
Mekaneck was a master spy because of his ability to extend his neck by several feet. If you were a bad guy up to no good several feet above Meganeck, he knew the score. See cause he has this helmet head, and that head extends up by the metal shaft in his neck anytime he gets curious or excited about something. Like maybe he hears a bad guy, or a crime happening, or his “aunt” who was actually just his mom’s best friend so isn’t really his aunt is wearing pantyhose smoking a cigarette with her legs crossed, or like WHATEVER! Anyway, there was something about owning the Meganeck toy that just made us feel confident.
Even as kids we knew having a prurient interest in Eternia’s most powerful villain was wrong, but that’s what made it so irresistible. Sure he’s a living skeleton, but this skeleton is jacked as fuck. Skeletor’s plans always revolved around “getting” people. He would be like “We’ll lure He-man somewhere under false pretenses, and then, we’ll GET HIM!” What happens after he gets someone? The show leaves it up to the viewer’s imagination, and that’s what makes it so erotic.
When it came to giving kids confusing feelings about human/beast hybrids, the Beast from “Beauty and the Beast” will always reign supreme, but for old-school kids who were too cool for Disney, there was Beast Man. Are you seriously going to try to convince us this character didn’t have a sexual undertone when his action figure literally came with a whip AND dat ass? Mattel knows what they’re doing.
Cringer is a pathetic worm of a cat, but when he is imbued with the Power of Grayskull and puts on some bondage gear he becomes the ferocious Battle Cat. At a young age Battle Cat instilled us with the notion that the right gear could make us feel powerful.
We gotta spell it out for you? Dudes name is “Buzz-off!”
