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Showing posts with label Asian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asian. Show all posts

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Hamburger Helper


If there's one product that American families on a budget know and love/hate the taste of all too well, it was Hamburger Helper.

Hamburger was super cheap back in 1971 (not so cheap these days.) And more housewives were entering the work force. So they needed a cheap, easy to make meal that was satisfying and tasty.

So the folks at General Mills created what has since become a staple in the American kitchen cupboard.

However, there was a precedent. In the late 1960s, Betty Crocker had a product called Chuck Wagon Dinner.


It was test marketed before new flavours came and the decision was to incorporate it all under the Hamburger Helper brand.

Hamburger Helper originally came in Potato Stroganoff, Chili Tomato (the former Chuck Wagon Dinner), Beef Noodle and Hash (which was diced dehydrated potatoes and beef flavouring.)

And Rice Oriental. It was my mom's perennial favourite. Which has been discontinued since the late '90s/early 2000's to the dismay of many fans. And inspiring the launch of a Facebook group, Bring back Hamburger Helper Rice Oriental
   
But for me personally, the smell of Rice Oriental Hamburger Helper on the stove reminds me of simpler times. And dinner with mom, watching the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather on a gigantic Montgomery Ward console TV.

Newer flavours have come and gone every few years. Only Potato Stroganoff and Beef Noodle, now renamed Beef Pasta remain of the original lineup. My personal favourites, Cheeseburger Macaroni and Noodle Stroganoff came in the mid-'70s. And who remembers the Pizzabake from the 1980s?)


The Hamburger Stew was absolutely delicious.
The wild popularity of Hamburger Helper spawned Tuna Helper in 1972 (which my cat loved), Fruit Helper (a dessert product) in 1973, Chicken Helper in 1984, Pork Helper appeared in 2003, Asian Helper in 2006 (which was OK, but really disappointing in the fact that Rice Oriental was not included in that line.) Pork and Asian Helper are no longer on the market and Fruit Helper has been defunct since the mid'70s.

Cheesy Potatoes Au Gratin
In 2013, they shortened the name to just the monosyllabic "Helper". Another one of those slick sounding, but ultimately pointless corporate 'synergy' things to tie in all it's products and subsidiary lines, I guess.

But on last Friday, April Fool's Day, Betty Crocker/General Mills suddenly and quite unexpectedly threw down the The Ultimate Hip-Hop Party Jam Mixtape of '16.

Lefty is the anthropomorphic talking oven mitt mascot whose image graces the boxes and appeared in countless classic commercials for Hamburger Helper.



Now for my generation and older, Lefty's transformation is a bit of an, um.... Shock? But try to understand that your career options are very limited when you're an anthropomorphic talking/singing oven mitt. So you take whatever gig you can get.


Watch The Stove Helper feat. Lefty. Listen to the entire mixtape free at Soundcloud. No word as of yet of any vinyl issues of this mixtape. 

It quickly went viral on Twitter. Stirring up a piping hot pan of delicious memories amongst the usual snarkiness. But more than anything else, this is actually starting to be considered a landmark album in hip-hop, receiving praise in Billboard and The Los Angeles Times.

Anyway, what are you waiting for? It's 3:23am as I'm finishing writing this and I got me a hot bowl of Cheeseburger Macaroni right here. Bon Appetit!

I'm a thug....

Monday, September 08, 2014

"Shake Baby Shake" Sodsai Chaengkij (1968)



Listen here

Sodsai Chaengkij was one of the biggest stars of the 1960s....in Thailand. She was also one of the few Asian pop stars who recorded pop songs with the original English lyrics, as she covered this 1958 Jesse Lee Turner classic... 

Saturday, July 05, 2014

"Hello Kitty" Avril Lavigne (2014)



When I first heard this song, I knew it was going to happen. Like radioactive debris from Fukushima, J-Pop was going to wash up on our shores sooner or later. Or maybe it was an advertisement for Kawaii Crush that somehow escaped the security of the Saturday morning TV kids show block.

Then I found out who sang it.

And yes, her husband Chad Kroeger (a.k.a. that Nickelback guy) co-wrote and produced this. After talking with some Canadian friends, we mutually agreed Canada is on it's way to a diplomatic crisis if they don't get these two under control. 

Watching this video kinda almost makes you want to write an apropos answer song back to her. You know. Something that starts out with "Chill out, what you yellin' for/Lay back, it's all been done before...."

But a song like this begs to be parodied. Luckily, it has...


Monday, May 12, 2014

North Korean Pop Culture

Morning rush hour traffic snarls in downtown Pyongyang......
First, before I go into this, I need to say I'm not a sympathizer of the North Korean regime and I'm aware of the atrocities and miserable human rights record of it. It's no joke.

But the contradiction between the North Korean 'official' line of "Paradise On Earth" and reality are embarrassingly visual just by viewing and listening to North Korea's own media and raise far more uncomfortable questions than the regime can explain or live down. So you don't ask questions. Who asks questions in North Korea?
 
That said, what I'm showcasing here is the regime manufactured pop culture of this strange country. It's one that is strangely fascinating to me because it is so far off the grid from the rest of the world, it's one that needs an illustration. There is nothing anywhere else in the world like it. (Even Cuba has loopholes.)

In most ways, North Korea is The Land That Pop Culture Forgot. Because in North Korea, the regime dictates what you have for fun, recreation, music, food and style. It must conform to "revolutionary" principles (or at least not be a threat to them.)


That kinda stifles things a bit in the pop culture development department.

First, it's hard to get a real look inside the country. You can't just arrive, check into your hotel and freely stroll around Pyongyang, meeting and talking with people, taking pictures and visiting the locals without a minder (a government official designated to guide you around to specific places and people only) Tourists are forbidden to stray beyond their hotel without one.

This isn't London, Sydney or Tokyo.

Americans in particular are viewed with suspicion in North Korea. It's been that way since the 1950s when America backed South Korea in the Korean War. A war that never actually ended (a truce was signed but never a formal peace treaty.) But there are always skirmishes along the De-Militarized Zone - a funny name for one of the most heavily armed places on earth, with a million soldiers on either side, waiting for the other side to blink. (And as long as there is a DMZ, the war is still on.)

Americans still aid the South Koreans, but in nowhere near the numbers of the Korean War itself. And a few American soldiers even went turncoat and defected to North Korea.


The funny thing about James Dresnok is while he looks like he's got it made, he sure drinks a lot. Note also all the full unopened bottles on the table. Most of us would stick that in the fridge already....

And they still like taking American POWs (as Merrill NewmanLaura Ling, Kenneth Bae and Euna Lee can tell you.)

So that kinda wipes it off most people's travel plans.

The only factor it does have going for it is outside curiosity. Because many people want to peek over the bamboo curtain and see what it looks like. Not that there's much to see.

So let's look at what's there:

Music

There is no rock music in North Korea. Or ever has been. There's been buzzing talk all over the record collector forums of The Beatles having official North Korean albums. But that's just amateur vinyl collectors trying to psyche the novices with South Korean Beatles albums and there's no actual evidence of any official North Korean Beatles releases.

Nice try.
Or ANY Western pop music. Ever. No blues, country, jazz, punk, rap or thrash metal either. Not for North Koreans.

Even in the Kim family's better moods.

North Korean music is the only music in the world in North Korea. You do not get to play the music the Dear Leader does not approve. Any other music, especially from capitalist countries, is punishable by (assume the worst.)

The only pop music in North Korea is a hybrid electronic Easy Listening / Classical / Soft Adult Contemporary kind of propaganda delivered via acts such as The North Korean Army Band, The Moranbong Band, The Pyongyang Gold Stars and The Ponchonbo Electric Ensemble and simply everybody's favourite, Unknown.

These aren't exactly The Greatest Hits of All Time in the rest of the world.

(But that doesn't mean Western pop doesn't sneak in in some strange and subtle way. Take The Pyongyang Gold Stars accordion reworking of a-ha's 1980's classic "The Sun Always Shines On TV")


Going through the North Korean YouTube channels, here are the current hits. Not in any particular order. There are no pop charts in North Korea and only a more dedicated music eccentric than I outside of North Korea would know WHEN they were actually released to the public there. If ever. Or WHO they actually are.

It's been said members of the North Korean bands change line-ups worse than Styx, Kiss, Van Halen or even Jefferson Starship. And not exactly by petty egos, drug abuse, solo ambitions or infighting either....

So here's The Latest Hits in North Korea:

"The Leader's Bright Smile" The North Korean Army Band
"Socialism, We Love You" Unknown
"If Mother Party Wishes" The Moranbong Band
"We'll Become Regiment No. 7 of Today!" Unknown
"Let's Study!" The Moranbong Band

This isn't exactly Casey Kasem's Top 40.

Pyongyang 105.2 FM - This is the local FM radio station of Pyongyang. It broadcasts only in the evenings and plays a daily mix of anthems, arduous marches and easy listening pop. All of which praise the regime or are nationalistic in some way.


No "Hit or History" new song battles, no wacky morning zoos, no Top 40 countdowns, no love songs and dedications hours (unless they're for the Dear Leader. Your boyfriend can go boil an egg for all they care.)

Concerts: Did I mention there is no thrash metal in North Korea? Good. Your codpiece is invalid anyway in North Korea. No mosh pits, no festival seating, no Bic lighter waving power ballads, no shouts of "PLAY FREE BIRD!", no high decibel volume levels or risque stage antics. You can take your most conservative grandma to a North Korean concert with confidence.

Some people take a video cam to a concert, others take their hashpipes. Dear Leader takes his big oak office desk. When was the last concert you did that? Slayer?


The Moranbong Band (North Korea's answer to....I guess the closest thing this side of Pyongyang to these girls would be Celtic Woman) is currently the most popular band in North Korea. Because the Dear Leader says so.

Shopping

Shopping is a tricky subject in North Korea. Because there isn't any.

Actually, there is - in  Pyongyang. But what's there is mostly for display. There is always new construction going on in Pyongyang and what comes up are usually big gorgeous department stores with everything.

Except customers.


But this isn't the real North Korean shopping experience.

This is.


TV


First, there is only one TV channel in North Korea. And only in Pyongyang.

It broadcasts 6-8 hours a day. Usually in the evening hours There is no weekday television, filled with gossipy entertainment talk shows, soap operas, infomercials and trailer trash. People are either working or going to school.

The only other daytime broadcast option is a state controlled radio channel that wafts in through most Pyongyang apartment kitchens with programming mostly for housewives.

These radios are built-in and tuned to the main state radio channel. It is only capable of receiving that station. No others. In fact, there's a seal on the back that if broken could send you to the prison camps because it would indicate you were trying to listen to foreign broadcasts. And while you can turn down the volume, you can never turn them off
The TV broadcast day begins at around 4:30pm and features a test card with a soundtrack of instrumental easy listening music similar to the kind you hear on Pyongyang 105.2 FM.

The hottest prime time TV programs in North Korea stars the Dear Leader as he goes around inspecting all sorts of new construction, making comments and gestures as if to say "You know I hate that shade of blue, don't you?"

Often, he is flanked by several army members and an entourage that writes down his comments on little notepads.
 You can watch it live online here: http://112.170.78.145:50000/chosun. Note that program start times are very erratic. That's because there are no commercials on North Korean TV. The only break up between programs are the music videos (again, only of nationalist music. No titillating girls shaking their butts all over the hoods of sports cars.) 

Food

North Korea is one of those places that would even make a dedicated foodie like me nervous.

Purple beer?
But in a country that starves the majority of it's citizens (except for Dear Leader of course), they take what they can get.

Even the names of the factories that make North Korean food are gross...


It's "crabonated"!
But the first indicator you may have strayed too far (if you missed the Beijing airport, the Air Koryo terminal and the Ilyushin IL-62 you are boarding) are the infamous Air Koryo in-flight hamburgers. 




Computers & Internet

First, there's two platforms of internet access.


For you, the tourist with your tablets and smartphones, there's 3G mobile service thats limited to the special tourist hotel you'll be staying at (P.S. Watch what you tell your Facebook friends and Aunt Sadie in Peoria. It's monitored.) You have to have a special SIM card to call out or receive incoming calls/texts.


For you, the North Korean in Pyongyang, a special intranet that connects only to a government server with only regime approved (and created) sites. There is no home internet service (so much for "Paradise on Earth".) All access to this North Korean-only network is for university students and higher-ups and only at The Great Study Hall and certain universities. The two networks do not connect at all.

Newspapers will be alive and well in North Korea long after the civilized world has abandoned them.
The main computer operating system is North Korea's own Red Star OS. Which is based on Linux and functions similar to Windows XP. It is only in Korean and accesses the North Korean intranet only. There are download links to a pirated copy and if you dare with an old computer, you can install it. But you won't be able to access the North Korean intranet, as it is completely off the grid from the main internet.

These are screenshots from an older version. The newest version which came out earlier this year resembles Mac OS X.    





There is now a little tablet computer for North Koreans, based on Android called Samjiyon. It comes with a North Korean version of Angry Birds. It doesn't have any internet or even North Korean intranet access.




Style & Fashion

Note the pictures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on the walls. They are mandatory in every apartment, every house, every building and every office and in every public room in North Korea and are to be treated with the same reverence a religious person would give their most cherished symbols. If not more so... 



You know those big books of modern hairstyles you see in most beauty salons? In North Korea, they have those too. Each one carefully selected by the regime (lest your hair become a subversive agent in itself.)

There's even a TV show in North Korea called (and I'm not making this up) Let's Trim Our Hair In Accordance With The Socialist Lifestyle

No slacker shags. No dreadlocks, no poofy curls, no punk mohawks. You can't dye your hair or go totally bald. Or deviate and create your own look in any way. What you see is what you get. 

But more recently, it's been said all male university students must now have the same Operation game haircut as the Dear Leader.



I must say that's not a look that works for every guy. Not even Dear Leader. But who's going to tell him "Dear Leader, your hair looks like a mustache glued to the top of an egg"? Who?

You can't get tattoos in North Korea. No string bikinis for the ladies. No badass leather jackets. No t-shirts, no jeans, no sneakers.

The military look seems all the rage. When a third of the population is conscripted to some military service, that's to be expected.

When all is said and done, you're probably thinking "These people will never change. They will live forever in this existential hellhole of make believe on one end and brutal repression, starvation and very bad taste on the other." 

That's not entirely true...

Outside pop culture is sneaking in (as it always does.) On black market thumb drives and DVDs filled with South Korean TV shows, movies and other material. However, DVDs are becoming a less favoured option and here is why. Electricity is scarce in North Korea and blackouts are frequent. But most especially, some of the blackouts are planned. So police can conduct door by door searches for any contraband and should you wind up with a naughty illegal DVD stuck in your DVD player because you can't open the thing (not an easy thing to do in the dark with cops banging at the door), you and your entire family are doomed. Thumb drives are easier to hide and most modern Chinese made DVD players have thumb drive players built in. Little wind-up shortwave radios are also coming in. 

You see, any totalitarian regime begins to collapse when it suppresses pop culture. It's simple human nature to have fun and colour in our lives. To not only see and dream about the outside world, but to travel beyond our own borders. Be they geographic or in our own minds

Rock 'n roll itself caused more rust to the Iron Curtain than any of Reagan's tough talk in the 1980s through smuggled records and tapes in the '60s and '70s.

A magazine ad from 1980.
By the 1980s, Gorbachev himself knew the totalitarianism of his predecessors was impossible to maintain. The people of the former Soviet Union were demanding change. He had no other choice but to begin glasnost (or "openness".) Which led to fall of the Eastern Bloc nations, the Berlin Wall to where we are today. China itself, once one of the most hardline of totalitarian states, now has freewheeling pop culture.

Will North Korea change?

It will. But not overnight. Change doesn't work that way. You just have to keep chipping away until the wall finally collapses.

But it will collapse. History doesn't lie.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas From Chun King


These records were pressed as promotional items for the staff and associates of Jeno's Inc. Which made Chun King products in the late 1960s

They were pressed on the lids of their long discontinued frozen entrees.


More incredible non vinyl records here https://www.wfmu.org/MACrec/index.html

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Super Rare Rolling Stones Album

Viva released a Rolling Stones compilation in the Asian market, using the same label blank as the US issues.
http://www.bsnpubs.com/warner/distributed/viva.html

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Forgotten Cable TV Channels

In the early days of cable TV, there weren't many channels. In fact, they were mostly your local over the air TV stations (with a few from the hinterlands, or over the border if you lived near Canada or Mexico.) The places where cable TV at that time was most frequently used were in areas too distant from cities with TV stations, where signals were too snowy and ghosty to watch - if they could be received at all.

That changed in the early '70s with the introduction of HBO and Showtime premium movie channels. By the late '70s cable began adding "super stations", over the air TV stations that offered their programming to nationwide cable (WTBS Atlanta - now known as simply TBS - the original Atlanta TV station was sold in the mid '80s. And WGN-TV Chicago and a few short-lived channels.)

The lineup was vastly expanded by 1980. And along the way, there were countless startup channels that grew and morphed into household names we know today: Lifetime, Fuse, MSNBC, Bloomberg, ABC Family and so on.

And now, let's take a look at the cable TV grid of yesteryear.......



- Cable Health Network (1982): Featured mostly medical and health related programming with some programming aimed towards women. Became Lifetime in 1984.

- SPN (Satellite Program Network, 1980-1988): Really low budget affair, ran mostly old public domain films from the '30s and '40s, some foreign programming and low budget, often politically biased programming. changed it's name to Tempo before being bought by NBC and relaunched as CNBC.

- The Video Music Channel (early '80s): One of the few pre-MTV video music channels and seen on selected cable TV systems as well. The VMC, like WTBS and CNN was based in Atlanta (but unrelated.) And it was one of a few major market over the air UHF TV stations that ran all music videos (others were in Boston and New York.) It's been said the original plan for Seattle's KTZZ-TV (now KZJO-TV) was to run primarily music videos, but the idea was scuttled after Viacom threatened to not carry the station on it's vast Seattle area cable system, lest it harm it's precious MTV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJcg0ZPf8NU 



- The Nashville Network: Cable TV's first video music channel aimed primarily at country music fans. The Nashville Network had some modest success, but later expanded into programming for men, adding wrestling, action movies and other fare and briefly rebranded as The National Network before becoming Spike TV. The Nashville Network however has been relaunched in 2012 as an over the air DTV sub-channel network.



- The CBN Family Channel: Launched by evangelist Pat Robertson as a "family friendly" TV channel  Initially all religious, it moved towards mainstream classic TV with sitcoms and westerns from the '50s. It was eventually sold to Fox and later Disney/ABC. But as a precondition, the network MUST to this day carry Robertson's own show, The 700 Club. Why? Because Pat Robertson owns the word "Family" (as trademarked/marketed as a TV network.)


- FNN (Financial News Network) An early business news channel. A pretty interesting one I must say - you never saw Frank Zappa hosting a show on CNBC did you?


- Alpha Repertory Television Service (ARTS): One of the first highbrow fine arts cable TV channels (along with Bravo and The Entertainment Channel.)

One of the early predictions of the expanding cable TV boom of the early '80s was these channels would be so successful, there would be no need for government-funded PBS (which the Reagan administration and all Republicans afterward absolutely HATED.)

Unfortunately, advertisers for these channels were hard to come by. Commercial advertisers were never big on classical music, opera, ballet and the fine arts to begin with and most finicky arts-oriented viewers resented the whole idea. Period. ARTS merged with The Entertainment Channel to form - what else, Arts & Entertainment or simply, A&E. 

Originally, ARTS aired on Nickelodeon's channel after Nick signed off. After A&E was formed, the evening hours formerly used by ARTS became Nick at Nite, originally running rerun sitcoms from the '60s and '70s.

- Kaleidoscope: A channel for those with disabilities. Looked like a great idea, but disabilities are far too wide ranging for one channel to specialize in.

- MuchMusic USA: MuchMusic (or simply Much) is a Canadian video music channel that stepped into the American market. with limited success. It rebranded as fuse in 2003 and has for the most part replaced MTV as the primary TV source of music videos, which the original MTV ended in the early 2000s to focus on solely on teen oriented "reality" shows.

- Fine Living Network: A network targeted to upscale viewers. It was replaced by The Cooking Channel.

- The International Channel: Became AZN, targeting Asian Americans. AZN folded in 2008.


- Trio: An unusual cable network. A joint venture of the CBC (yep, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and NBC, this channel specialized in American TV shows that were largely forgotten or unseen in most of America and Canadian and UK TV programs such as The Littlest Hobo, Follyfoot and Coronation Street and then-current Australian programs such as The Blue Heelers. It also showed the infamous American Pink Lady & Jeff show for the first time in nearly 25 years in 2002.

This is likely to be the first in a series. So many cable TV channels have come and gone, it's hard to name them all.

Monday, April 15, 2013

The Bhutanese Stamp Records



(The Bhutanese Stamp Records....Actual Size.....)

Anyone who collects stamps knows the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has by far the strangest and most unusual postage stamps in the world.

But these have to be amongst the STRANGEST of the strange. In the early '70s, Bhutan issued record-stamps. They are actual one-sided phonograph records, playable on any turntable without automatic, end of side pick up.

They featured history talks and traditional Bhutanese folk music.

In a 21st century update, Bhutan recently issued a series of CD-ROM stamps....