Empire of Groovy

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The '80s Pin Project: Brainstorm

For an explanation of what the Pin Project is, go here.Despite the idea that punning is the lowest form of wit (attributable to every author ever in the Western literary tradition) I apparently have a long-standing weakness for visual puns. Verbal ones, not as much, but a cartoon? I'm so there.So my random pull from my bag-o-pins and this week's entry in my ongoing examination of things I've inexplicably kept with me since my youth, is:Oh, the weather outside is frightful...I thought it was hilarious then. I still think it's funny now. What can I say? It's a crap joke, but oh, how it works. The lightning! The bouncing brains! The fisherman's cap! And kudos to the star of this pin, for his preparedness in the face of inclement weather. The slight smile shows he's hardly phased by brains falling at his feet, either. I don't know if that's a trait that's scary or worthy of emulating. I'll have to get back to you on that.What does this pin say about a person? It says: I want to be smart and glib, and I am cutting my comedy teeth. Check on me in ten years.I never said my pins made me social.Of course, I just remembered the 1983 movie Brainstorm, a techno-sci-fi-government-covert-ops thriller starring Natalie Wood and a creepily-laughing Christopher Walken. (Is that sentence redundant?) It was Natalie Wood's last movie, filmed two years before her untimely and, somehow, still scandalous death.[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNiZP2G-nEM]Adding this baby to my Netflix queue. Bring on the sci-fi cheese!BONUS! I just discovered that the artist who drew this pin is John Lamb, who is also an animator and film producer, and did the 1979 animated Tom Waits short, "Tom Waits for No One". Check it out:[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCNDZY4vXPs]Well. There's an unexpected yet fun fact for the day. Stay tuned! Who knows what next week's pin will turn up?