A Real Joel Dehn

@arealjoeldehn

Gadabout and affable scamp | It's pronounced "deen" | he/him | MPLS, MN | What's new with you? Really? That's cool! Good for you.

556 Folgt1.180 Follower1.544 Posts

YouTube YouTube Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir arealjoeldehn.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· 10d

A dark gray answering machine with its door flipped open so the micro cassette tape is revealed. Ready to record your message so the world can experience your genius when they call your family? Okay, did that sound good--BEEEP!

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jun 25

Name a film with a title that is a full sentence.

The Archers, Hiller, and Livesey bring us the moving picture "I Know Where I'm Going!" Livesey, a dapper gent, and Hiller, a dame who might be thinly smiling but the smile doesn't reach her eyes, are both wearing red lipstick and Hefty black trash bags. They are hovering twenty feet above a churning sea. They look over our right shoulders in a manner that suggests that they are well on their way to passing their orienteering class and may be the first couple to find the geocache or the Best Western or whatever it is they seek.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jun 21

If you'd like, post one photo of a painting that you took with your very own hands. "Look, you can see her butt," one museumgoer remarked to another.

Two young boys take in Monkman's "The Death of Adonis" while it was at Mia, where a cowboy and horse rear back after killing a fuckton of buffalo, and a Native American woman (or a drag queen persona?) kneels and grieves over a fallen friend.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jun 4

Post a poster you used to have in your room, apartment, or house. This was in my dorm room for a year or so, without the watermark and maybe some different cropping. The very, very few women who visited my dorm room were not especially impressed.

The first French hydrogen bomb test. A giant mushroom cloud spreads out to the left and right, as if filmed in CinemaScope. The light of the blast illuminates the outer cloudy rim. A string of islands sprawl at the bottom of the photo saying, "yeah, we didn't ask for this."

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· May 23

TNG Episode: Another Thorny Moral Dilemma

TNG Episode: Battle For The Planet Of Hats

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· May 22

This is fun, but an accurate font color is hard to lock down.

Blood Meridian is the title card of this TOS episode.

The Assassination of Kodath by the coward James T. Kirk is the fake title of this fake Trek episode.

Your Humble Fabulist was probably a self-insert character created by this self-assured fake TOS writer.

Star Trek, pitched as Wagon Train To The Stars.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· May 12

Quote-skeet with a doctor you'd trust leading the hantavirus response instead of RFK Jr.

An older white-haired gent wearing a white lab coat. A white cigarette droops from his mouth like Bogey or Mitchum. He is a doctor, despite smoking in a sci-fi medical facility. He is Doc Cottle, last human doctor servicing the remains of the human race in the Battlestar Galactica reboot. (There's also Dr. Baltar, but I think his doctorate was in android studies or something.)

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Apr 27

Oh wow, I wonder if this artwork was the inspiration for the global release of the classic PS2 game Ico? Wait, "de Chirico", "Chir Ico", "Ico"?! Hang on, my mind is exploding.

In an slightly surreal art style that I think is similar to De Chirico's work, a young horned boy pulls an older girl to, hopefully, freedom. In the background, is a sunbleached windmill is stuck on the side of a bridge. In the foreground is a wall of arches with a ladder going up to the second "floor". There's a PlayStation 2 banner at the top and the game's title, ICO, rendered in a sort of savage front. Great game, by the way.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Mar 10

Post your favorite Lord of the Rings character. Wrong answers only.

The cyclops stands before Leeam son of Nee, so deep in the woods they may as well be in Fanghorn Forest

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Feb 27

"Friends" is a beloved American sitcom that aired from 1994 to 2004, following six young adults—Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe—living in New York City. The show explores their friendships, romances, careers, and personal growth over ten seasons.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Feb 21

Too general?

The album cover of Huey Lewis & The News' "Sports", where the News sits at a bar and Huey stands close to the camera, jacket slung over his shoulder, skinny black tie loosened, and also wearing a smug smirk. There is a pool table between H.L. and the News, symbolizing an ampersand in the band title, emphasizing just who is the frontman here. Or it could just indicate that he has the table ready to go, balls racked and cue stick ready. The title SPORTS is at the bottom left in orange with a horizontal stripe that evokes a varsity sport. Or perhaps, as per the question, it's billiards, which I'm pretty sure is an Olympic sport already.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Feb 2

Thank goodness the stoats have the courage to be the age that they are.

Da Vinci's "Lady With An Ermine", where the ermine/stoat had been fed with bovine growth hormones, and the lady suffered with her Gen Z status for most of her life -- now the truth can be told!

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jan 17

I was dropping off some books at the library. When I came back, I saw someone had put, get this, a little duck on my hood up against the windshield. Looking left and right, the other cars had also been treated to similar looking ducks. Thanks, mystery duckmaster, for this duck duck kind duck!

I'm holding a small plastic duck painted blue-green and purple with an orange bill. I had just brought it into the driver's seat when I spotted it on the hood. There's a large card on it (proportional to the size of the duck). There are flowers against a blue background on the card with the exhortation "Don't Stop Trying". Isn't that sweet?

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jan 9

Yep, it's been there for a while. This was during a big snow storm a few years ago.

A T-Rex stalks down Portland Avenue, Minneapolis, stepping on a car, in the middle of a December 2020 snowstorm.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Dec 3

As a Gen Xers, Nintendo wave (as opposed to Atari wave), I think it's nice to get the recognition we crave. But Greatest is an epithet that's far too strong. We are and were merely an OK generation.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Dec 3

Is Smitty in fact still live? This is the first time I've tuned to Cities97 since the Current first took to the airwaves; I don't think I've missed much.

A screen cap of the local FM Radio station Cities 97. You can't hear it, because it is a picture, but there is a tortured harmonica wailing going on in the live feed. The picture claims that the feed is live and the on-air DJ is named Smitty, but this unceasing clip of music indicates that Smitty may have passed beyond the great station sign-off.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Nov 12

Driving around Lake Harriet, wishing some enterprising copper thief had disabled the streetlights. We still saw some beautiful red, green, and white displays, though.

A red and green smear across the night sky. Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. Located not in my kitchen, but spread across the great dome of the sky. The green light means that the topmost layers of atmosphere are reacting to solar particle ejaculate, the red light means it has pierced our atmosphere and I am currently taking fatal amounts of alpha radiation. Or something, I don't think I did well in my college astronomy course.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Aug 28

Lots of people at the Lynnhurst candlelight vigil for the Annunciation Church... massacre? atrocity? tragedy? tonight.

Hundreds of people gather in the outfield of one of the baseball diamonds at Lynnhurst Park in Minneapolis, as an activist group organized a candlelight vigil recognizing, supporting, and grieving for the children and grown-ups attacked at their back-to-school mass this morning.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Aug 17

Uh, anyone know what happened at the fairgrounds? I got an Amber-like alert telling me that while there was an extreme emergency, everything is cool now according to the police, who are done doing whatever they did. "Absolutely nothing happened today in sector 83 by 9 by 12", am I right?

A pop up phone alert "Emergency alert: Extreme. Police activity near the fairgrounds is clear - back to normal operations." OK. But, wow, IS everything okay?

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jul 26

A lock screen for an old Google Pixel smartphone. The time as of the picture's taking was 8:12 am, making this a historical document. The battery saver is activated and I was down to 82%. The lock screen picture, arguably the most important of this picture, are the painted forms of two robots and one of the best human hosts from the old TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000. In foreground and to the left, half of the yellow robot Crow T. Robot, made of a bowling pin and ping-pong balls and other detritus, stands facing you. Behind him, centered in the picture but partially obscured by Crow, is Tom Servo, who looks like a red gumball machine with a small chicken beak. Finally, Joel Robinson stands back and to the right of Tom Servo, wearing a red jumpsuit and a self-deprecating "what are you gonna do" smirk. In the far background are screenshots of famous MST3K episodes, presented as a patchwork in hexagons. There's Ann in the Pan from The Brain that Wouldn't Die, Manos The Master spreading his robe-hands from Manos: The Hands of Fate, the dead lug from Plan 9 From Outer Space, and so on. I'm afraid I don't recall the name of the original artist, to my shame.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jul 21

You've inherited a movie theater, what's your first double feature? An out of the past/out of the future noir double bill with Out Of The Past and Looper.

Movie poster for (in cursive) "Out of the Past". In the top right corner, Robert Mitchum's giant head supports a giant sickly green fedora and a giant slightly drooping cigarette. His narrow sleepy eyes are looking over his shoulder to the left side of the poster. On the left, the gorgeous Jane Greer, wearing some night clothes that suggest a Wild West dance hall that she doesn't actually wear in the movie, casually holds a small pistol loosely at her hip, pointing toe-ward. In the bottom right of the poster, Robert Mitchum bilocates and chastely yet passionately smooches Rhonda Fleming. The cast list lets us know that Kirk Douglas is in this too.

A movie poster for "Looper". The tagline reads enigmatically "Hunted By Your Future. Haunted By Your Past." There's a clock face in the first O set to 3 o'clock. A large figure in the middle of the poster kind of resembles Joseph Gordon-Levitt if he had put a lot of shit on his face to make him kind of like a younger Bruce Willis. He's holding a big gun in his left hand that looks like a cross between a shotgun and a cattle prod. You only clearly see JGL's head and body's outline -- the middle of him looks like it was blown away by a similar gun or turned into dust like Spider-Man in Avengers: Infinity War. Inside that outline is a Bruce Willis dressed like his Butch character in Pulp Fiction but standing like Jane Greer in the Out of the Past poster to the left.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jun 12

There's a sad duet in the news today.

Illustrations accompanying two stories in the evening edition of the June 11, 2025 Washington Post website, where David Hogg (top), lips pressed sadly together, leaning into a microphone, faces the accompanying article that "David Hogg to depart as DNC vice chair after months of turmoil", while below, a file photo of Brian Wilson (bottom, alive), lips pressed sadly together, leaning into from a microphone, looks away from his accompanying article/obit, "Singer-songwriter who created the Beach Boys dies at 82". I believe that this shot/reaction shot does not break the 180 rule, and perhaps neither prodigy were made for these times.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Apr 10

This used to be a proper country.

Old Home Foods, the makers of the best cottage cheese ever chunkily squirted out of a cow, made up an apologetic sign promising to get right on fixing their lack of production of said cottage cheese. The sign was found in the dairy section of my local grocer. Or is it "at" my local grocer? Anyway, I want my Old Home 4% Cottage Cheese, preferably with sea salt, and hope that they will reach out to me upon seeing this skeet with a carton or two (unexpired!) to try to make it up to me.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jan 16

Dang. It was selfish of me to want him to go back and take another pass at his Dune, but what a career. Lynch's movies were the mirror to an eccentric world, and by most accounts his meteorological updates were accurate.

David Lynch's Facebook page notes that he passed away, to the great loss of the species.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jan 13

Followed closely by this, my second favorite Doctor Who, I think.

What if Dr. Giggles, resplendent in blood-drenched lab coat, vest, and bowtie, and a rictus grin, was a Time Lord?

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jan 13

Post your favorite #DoctorWho. Wrong answers only.

A man in a white derby, flamboyant yellow bowtie, and technicolored dreamcoat smiles, or does he scowl? This guy is my favorite Dr. Who, or so I purport.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Jan 12

There were some recent comix adaptations of boring ol' nonfiction books that I thought were really good. Showtime At The Apollo Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors

A WWII-era destroyer rocks back as her guns let loose, the dark clouds of cannon smoke dim the billowing white clouds and clear blue in the background. This ship is in combat and will likely soon be sunk, no matter the cleverness or daring of her crew. Or maybe it will survive? The title reads in blood-red: THE LAST STAND OF THE TIN CAN SAILORS

The marquee of the world-famous Apollo Theater reads "SHOWTIME AT THE APOLLO: THE EPIC TALE ID HARLEM'S LEGENDARY THEATER". Below the marquee, some of America's best musicians pose smiling, some holding instruments.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Dec 9

Yeah, these are fun.

Sub-Zero from the Mortal Kombat games levels a nonsensical ice-themed zinger borrowed from Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze from the godawful Batman and Robin movie: "You know what killed the dinosaurs? THE ICE AGE!!!"

The screen in the racing game Outrun where you choose what tunes you want to listen to before promptly flipping your dad's Ferrari. The radio station selected is 80.3 and is playing LCD Soundsystem.

Officer Jim Walls, the muse and Dungeon Master of Sierra's first few Police Quest games, shakes his head sadly in a death/failure screen. He advises you to "turn off the bodycam first and tell your partner it malfunctioned." What? That's more like something that Darryl Gates, the designer of the next few PQ games, would say!

A monk from Final Fantasy Tactics says in a speech bubble: I never got far enough in this game. I hear you, monk. I've played it on the PS1 and PS3 and never got close to finishing the game. But maybe one day...

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Sep 1

Age yourself with a movie you saw in the theater as a kid. Somewhere between the Borrowers and The Secret Of Arietty were The Littles. I remember loving the show and this movie at the time, but don't care to check it it holds up for a grownup.

This is a movie poster for 1985's "Here Come The Littles", which was about the mouse-like people who lived in a house, stealing and scavenging materials to make their own shadowed reflection of Big People society. I think the bad guy wanted to catch them, but not necessarily because he thought they were vermin.

A Real Joel Dehn@arealjoeldehn· Sep 1

Pfft. Whatever.