Away for the DayDoing a late night/early morning post to get the Friday regular things out of the way - I'll be away from the computer all damned day.
I'm driving Berit to the airport bright and early tomorrow for a family trip and then I'm at The Brick handling tech things for Penny Dreadful and Lord Oxford for most of the weekend, handling Berit's jobs as board op for both shows, as well as designing Penny as always.
So I'll deal with the Random Ten and Cat Photos now so I can get 4 hours of sleep or so before schlepping B to LaGuardia airport. Fun fun fun.
No comments on today's Random Ten - nothing about whether I'm dropping them from the iPod or not - I'm doing a whole iTunes overhaul as it is now, and I may just blank the whole iPod and start from scratch. There's 26,034 tracks in there now, and I want to get rid of a couple thousand. Here's the ten that come up randomly today:
1. "Up Side" - ? & The Mysterians - The Best Of ? & The Mysterians: Cameo Parkway 1966-1967
2. "Every Night I Dream A Little Dream" - Eirik Wangberg - The Ikon Records Story
3. "Most Likely You Go Your Way And I'll Go Mine" - Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde
4. "Back In Judy's Jungle" - Brian Eno - Vocal
5. "Motorbike Beat" - Revillos - Children of Nuggets: Original ARTyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era - 1976-1996
6. "Mr. Satan" - Thurston Harris - Little Bitty Pretty One
7. "Communication Breakdown - Led Zeppelin - Remasters
8. "Woodland Rock - T.Rex - History of T.Rex—The Singles Collection
9. "When Love Comes to Town" - B.B. King & U2- King of the Blues
10. "Fedora Satellite" - Pere Ubu - Story Of My Life
And apart from maybe the King/U2 track, these are all keepers anyway, so no reason to make any notes on them today.
Now that the heat's coming back on fairly often, the kitties are enjoying the radiator again - taking turns, and occasionally fighting over it. Here's Moni, taking up as much of it as she can:
And Hooker looking sweet and innocent, for once, having his turn to get really hot:
It was claw-trimming time the other night, so Berit got them and dealt with it. Amazingly, our kitties put up with this ordeal just fine. Usually, and for the most part. Moni got grabbed first . . .
. . . and then Hooker, who usually doesn't mind, but put up a bit of a fight (I think my picture-taking freaked him out):
And then they alternated between their fighting and the way they are the rest of the time:
Okay, off to bed . . .
"I'll trade you Ventnor and Baltic for Park Place . . . YOU BASTARD!"Every now and then something comes along that makes me believe Satire is dead. That nothing you could make up could ever be as insane and unbelievable as something that someone, somewhere thinks is actually A Good Idea.
And then, once you've gotten used to whatever craziness that was, something else comes along and tops it. Like the following.
This is real. It's from the front page of The Hollywood Reporter (thanks for the pointer, Jeff):
'Monopoly' has electric company
Ridley Scott will direct; Pamela Pettler to write screenplay
By Steven Zeitchik
Nov 12, 2008, 01:00 AM ET
The Hasbro-Universal collaboration "Monopoly" is jumping a large number of spaces up the board.
The feature project has brought on Pamela Pettler to write the screenplay; She penned Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride," Gil Kenan's "Monster House" and the upcoming animated adventure "9," produced by Burton and Timur Bekmambetov.
And Ridley Scott, who has been attached as a producer on "Monopoly" and has been mentioned as a possible director, is now officially attached to helm the project, with an eye toward giving it a futuristic sheen along the lines of his iconic "Blade Runner."
In addition to Scott, Giannina Facio and Hasbro's Brian Goldner are also producing the movie, which will shape a narrative out of the iconic real-estate game. Lawrence Grey will oversee for Universal and Bennett Schneir will oversee for Hasbro.
"Monopoly" marks the latest Hasbro property to look to pass go and head to the big screen. Board games and branded properties have become more attractive as studios look to mitigate risk by finding built-in audiences.
Universal is working with Hasbro on several projects as part of a long-term development deal. Platinum Dunes is producing its feature adaptation of "Ouija Board," while the maritime classic "Battleship" is also in development. Elsewhere at Hasbro, Paramount this summer is set to release Stephen Sommers' feature based on its "G.I. Joe" character. And "Trivial Pursuit: America Plays" is now airing as a syndicated television program.
Hasbro, Scott and Pettler are all repped by WMA.
{sigh} I'm looking into the rights for "Yahtzee!"
If We'd All Been Living in California, It'd Be Different . . .One of my favorite bands of all time is The Mothers of Invention - the 1960s version of Frank Zappa's band, which flourished (creatively if not economically) from 1965-1969. I know Zappa hated his fans who, like me, preferred his "early stuff" to his later work, but what the fuck, it was yer best work Frankie.
The guys from Steely Dan agreed - when they were inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, instead of giving a speech, they asked questions of the audience that seemed to be of importance to them, the first being, "Who was the original drummer for The Mothers of Invention?"
They got the correct answer from the crowd - the name and sobriquet of the man who played some tasty and difficult drums for Zappa at the start, keeping Zappa grounded in bar band rock while additional conservatory-trained percussionists (including Arthur Dyer Tripp and Billy Mundi) took on the more experimental parts, and who was the most iconic presence in the group apart from Zappa himself.
And now Jimmy Carl Black, The Indian of the Group, original drummer for The Mothers of Invention, has passed away on November 1.
Jimmy Carl is probably best known and loved for his portrayal of Burt, the Redneck, tormentor of The Mothers, in Zappa's film 200 Motels, from 1971. Here's his big musical number, "Lonesome Cowboy Burt," with a bit of the following scene with Theodore Bikel as Rance Muhammitz, who may or may not be The Devil (and while I thank the person who uploaded this, I can't believe they cut the scene one line short of the best punchline!):
(the next line, from Burt, is "You got many friends that call you Opal the Hot Little Bitch?")
Jimmy Carl, Indian of the Group, we will miss you.
In looking for that clip above, I found a whole bunch of excerpts from 200 Motels on YouTube (the film is long out of print on VHS and there's no DVD), so for those who haven't seen this mangled, difficult, deeply flawed, something-like-a-masterpiece, I've included the clips in the cut below. I'm glad to have them in postable form, but the quality is somewhat variable, sorry.
The film is the story of how touring in a rock and roll band can make you crazy, as The Mothers reach a new town, Centerville, just like all the other towns they've been in as they've stayed in 200 motels across America. The band is beginning to fragment - all of them beginning to hate playing Zappa's weird "comedy" music (which doesn't help them get any groupie action) and wanting to instead play some "heavy blues." They're also tired of Zappa secretly recording their conversations and then using it as material for his songs and for the movie he's writing (which is indeed where much of the dialogue comes from). Now, in Centerville, the band has reached the breaking point.
The film was shot on a large soundstage in England, on video, with a giant cartoony set representing the town and four groups of performers - The Mothers; actors; dancers; a symphony orchestra and choir - performing simultaneously in different areas of the stage.
They had less than a week and very little money to shoot it on, and only wound up filming a third of Zappa's dense script. Then, in the editing (for which two weeks were allowed), the story was made even less intelligible. There were outtakes, but the studio unfortunately decided to erase the master tapes to make a little money selling them back as blank stock(!).
However, what there is left is a collection of beautiful, bizarre parts that don't quite come together. I love it.
The film is introduced by narrator Theodore Bikel, with Ringo Starr as Larry the Dwarf (who will be playing the part of Frank Zappa in this filmic event). With Keith Moon as the Nun-Groupie. And the Mothers perform "Mystery Roach."
Flo and Eddie, lead singers of The Mothers, explore the town:
Here's a giant excerpt of the best parts of the film, starting with most of Zappa's cantata I Have Seen The Pleated Gazelle - which, honestly, feels dragged into the movie by its ass, but whatever - which features young unknown soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson, now somewhat acclaimed - and then the animated "Dental Hygiene Dilemma," in which Mothers bass player Jeff Simmons confronts his inner demons. Whoever uploaded this did a great job of syncing the better-sounding stereo track from the soundtrack album with the image, replacing the dull mono movie track, but some sound effects were lost. No biggie.
Ringo Starr as Larry the Dwarf (all dressed up like Frank Zappa) discusses the position of musicians in society, and why they might require some sexual attention to deal with their hardships, and The Mothers perform "Magic Fingers" to expand on this idea:
But the band must confront their male fears in "Penis Dimension":
The group expounds on the groupies in "Shove It Right In":
Martin Lickert, Ringo Starr's chauffeur, drafted into playing Mothers' bass player Jeff Simmons (who left the group a couple of days before the movie started shooting - life imitating art) confronts former Mothers member Don Preston:
The grand finale, "Strictly Genteel," in which Theodore Bikel and the entire company beg for mercy:
Let Me Blogroll ItHaven't shared my blogroll in a while - it's a pain to format it right here, but what the heck, I had to check something today that meant it was halfway towards an easy post, and people keep asking me where I get all the obscure music I play, so here's some easy pointers.
I'm not including some of the LiveJournal friends - James Urbaniak, Todd Alcott, Cait Brennan - that I normally put in here 'cause it's a pain to work out inserting them. If you're interested, check my friends' list (more interesting people there, too, besides those three). I also read Tim Lucas' Video WatchBlog, but - annoyingly - he doesn't put out an RSS feed so I just have to remember to check that one.
Here's the rest- hope you find a few new places to check out . . .
INDIVIDUALS:
COLLECTIVE AND/OR PSEUDONYMOUS:MUSIC:POLITICS/NEWS/INFO:
Crooks and Liars The Audacity of Boring FridaysStill cheery, for the most part, about this week's events. Disillusionment to come, of course, but that's well expected.
Berit's teaching me to run Lord Oxford for a couple shows next week while she has to go away on family stuff - which means I also have to do Penny Dreadful on my own. Busy next week. Currently ambling - cleaning the apartment, thinking about next year's shows, catching up on paperwork to deal with for the company, now that it's a real company.
Still trying to cut things from the iPod today, while adding more at the same time. Now there are 26,020 tracks on there. Here's today's Random Ten:
1. "Lifetime" - The Bliss - Fading Yellow volume 1
Oh, man is this a piece of nauseating wimpy hippie trash. Ick. I told Berit this was an immediate DROP and she said I might want to keep it to use if I needed to build up the will to slap someone sometime. Okay.
2. "Brief Candles" - The Zombies - Odessey & Oracle
Okay, here's how you do wimpy hippie trash properly. This STAYS
3. "Mica" - Mission Of Burma - Vs.
I came to MOB late and want to spend more time with all of their sides before culling the lesser ones (which I have a feeling this one is . . . maybe not). STAYS.
4. "It's a Good Thing" - That Petrol Emotion - Children of Nuggets: Original ARTyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era - 1976-1996
Hmmn. Kinda the same thing as the MOB - I want to know this better before dumping. What the hell AM I gonna dump at this rate?
5. "Nervous" - Victims - S/T 7" EP
Nope, not this. Great cheap punk single.
6. "See My Friends" - The Reegs - Shangri-La: A Tribute To The Kinks
Nice, but unnecessary, especially if I have the Kinks' original. If I do, it's a DROP.
7. "The Little March (live)" - Frank Zappa - You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Volume 5
Late-60s Mothers of Invention live? STAYS.
8. "Indian Feeling" - CAM Library - Feeling
Very short charming cheesy library track. STAYS.
9. "Voodoo Plan" - The Headliners - Wavy Gravy - Four Hairy Policemen…
Preceded by a radio spot for The Astro-Zombies, which is enough to keep this.
10. "I Know" - The Illusions - Pebbles Volume 11
Pretty good garage rock, but not a sure thing. DROP.
Hey, cat photos again!
Moni at the window, this morning:
Three stages of falling to sleep from Hooker, as Moni gets jealous of the attention he's getting and sneaks into the shots:
And the two together - a detente:
Out to run some household errands now. Maybe something else new soon . . .
Consummatum EstLadies and gentlemen . . .
Please rise for the National Anthem.
Twice.
from Mr. Jimi Hendrix, for the years past . . . with pain and suffering . . .
from Mr. Bruce Springsteen, for the future . . . with reconstruction and healing . . .
Last night's party at The Brick was one of the coolest, happiest, joy-i-est I've been at in a long while. There's an offical fuckload of shots and words for y'all behind this cut - not the world's greatest pictures, but there as a reminder for those who were at the party last night or those who wish they were, and to remind me of what it felt like, there and then.
So, we gathered after the evening's performance of Lord Oxford brings you The Second American Revolution - the cast, crew and audience of the show, plus guests who began to show up, right after. I had spent the show sitting in the lobby watching ABC on one of the TVs with the sound turned off, being variously happy or wary.
Then, when the show ended, we ran around getting the screen down and the computers and monitors and foodstuffs set up as quick as we could. And then we ate, drank, and waited . . .
And paid some attention to the screen . . .
A nice spread was put out . . .
Since we could only stream by computer to the big screen and four monitors inside the space, we had three TVs in the front hall with antennae to get local channels. Roger Nasser & Alyssa Simon watch ABC:
And we waited and ate and waited and drank and waited and watched and drank . . .
And behind the bar, the "media center," with the two laptops streaming MSNBC - one to the screen and one to the four monitors in the theatre. And we waited . . .
Until . . .
Champagne is poured as Berit plays the CD Richard Harrington brought of "Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead." Here I see Richard and Audrey Crabtree at left, with Iracel Rivero pouring for Ivanna Cullinan, Alyssa Simon, and Timothy Reynolds, hidden behind Robert Honeywell. I couldn't imagine another place I'd rather be this night than with these people (including the many friends and associates not in these shots who were there).
And we all keep an eye on the screen, remembering the false starts of years past . . .
And it's official!
And, then, after going nuts, the (happy) shock sets in . . . though it looks like Richard Harrington doesn't like his champagne . . .
Gyda Arber said there was cheering out in the street, so I went to look . . . it was kinda quiet . . . there were a few cheers here and there in the distance, then closer, and some car honks . . . gradually rising . . .
So our whole party moved out to the street and began screaming and cheering and whooping it up:
And we soon saw and began waving to other celebrants on the street and in cars. Berit's visible at far right here, with a big grin (!).
And the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and Lorimer Street began to fill up with people and get very very loud . . .
It got a little loud out there for shy little me, so I went back inside to quietly reflect and have a few tears about the election in the now empty theatre.
So I was there with only Audrey and a couple of others when suddenly McCain's concession speech popped up, and I ran to the street to call everyone in. It took a few times of yelling "CONCESSION SPEECH!" at the top of my lungs before everyone got the message and poured back inside, but they all did - along with a lot of other new friends from the street who had to see this . . .
It was so crowded and hard to get in the space itself I hung with Moira Stone and Robert Honeywell and watched McCain over at the bar. We agreed that, for someone we disliked and were more than happy to see go away, that he did a generous, dignified job (though he maybe emphasized the "race" issue too much at the start, as if that's the only reason Obama won, and his supporters were a bunch of assholes he had to keep telling to shut up).
After McCain's speech, Berit played the other track on Richard's CD - a rousing '30s "Happy Days Are Here Again" - and we had a celebratory singalong. Michael Gardner noted that given the current financial situation of the USA, maybe it wasn't such an appropriate song, but I replied that it was pretty much the same case the last time that song was a hit, so it was pretty apropos indeed.
Then, it was the wait for Barack's speech . . .
And when he appeared, everyone gathered in the theatre again . . .
And made it difficult to get in.
So Berit and I sat together in the lobby and watched the speech on the ABC monitor while listening to it, out of sync, from the MSNBC feed over the theatre speakers. We were both a bit afraid that, in the midst of his speech, he'd say something that would piss us off just enough to take away our high, either some sop to religion or bipartisanship (luckily, none of the former, and only a tiny bit of the latter - not enough to take away from the rest of the beautiful speech).
A pleasant young drunk man walked in to listen, moved by Obama's election, and chatted with us about Obama and whether he could actually get anything positive done. We were all worried that, no, given the system as it is, the corruption is so ingrained that no real progress could be made as it is, but that if there maybe was a chance, maybe, just maybe, then this was a positive step - a baby step, most likely, but a step in the right direction. This nice stranger shook my hand hard, hugged and kissed Berit ("Been a while since I was hugged by a drunk stranger," she says), and vanished into the night.
And I cried more than a little bit.
And then it was over and we got out of there as soon as we could (I hope the rest of The Brick staff didn't get stuck with too much to do - I tried to make it clear B & I would come in early Thursday to put stuff in order).
At home, we kept our eye on the races and Propositions still in play for some time, until I fell asleep on the couch. I didn't know until I went to upload my pictures this morning that I'd been joined by my special buddy, and B had taken a shot of us. Nice way to end a nice night . . .
And now, a word from Mr. Lee Dorsey & Mr. Allen Toussaint:
A few more from The Chambers Brothers:
And a final word from Mr. Sam Cooke:
All that said, the dark side of the day is that a number of heinous anti-Gay Propositions (notably, California's Prop. 8) and state Constitution rewrites have gone through. Fuck you, the majorities of California, Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida.
The Great Work continues, folks . . .
CivicsThe purpose of this place here where I write is to deal with the day-to-day things that feed me as an Artist-type-person. Which means that besides writing about my shows, other peoples' shows I'm working on, promotions for and processes of these things, I do post things that feed me as a person, hence, as an artist - usually this means music, cats, other arts, and sometimes humor (ie; those things that make life bearable). Some things, like, say, the Halloween party photos from last entry, make me feel a bit uncomfortable, like I've gotten off the track - but since a large percent of the people who read this are close friends anyway, sometimes I do a little something that's pretty much for just them. Whatever. It's my place.
Politics has always been a fuzzy subject for me to deal with here - it's not the purpose of the space, but it's been more and more informing the work that IS the purpose of the writing here. So as I've moved towards making political theatre work - World Gone Wrong, That's What We're Here For, my version of Foreman's Symphony of Rats, my version of Hamlet, Spell, Everything Must Go - a lot of which probably doesn't seem political to anyone but me and Berit, since we were the ones planning, discussing, and debating them during their creation, and who know what we were trying to say with those shows, and good for us for keeping it subtle - politics has come into this space more and more.
For most of my adult life (say ages 18-30), I've been a fairly (and admitted) wishy-washy bleeding-heart liberal who accepted the Democratic party as the closest thing to my beliefs in the public arena, so I might as well come out and vote for them every four years and not think about it the rest of the time. Whatever. Art was more important - I'd focus on that, first and foremost.
That began changing, for reasons, unknown to me, even before the election of our current President. My shows mainly concerned various states of psychic/emotional/spiritual/sociological confusion and splitting - being torn in multiple directions by the things that make us human. Politics, if apparent, was a symptom of a much greater disease evident in the state of merely being a member of our species.
Then I did a production of Foreman's Miss Universal Happiness in 1999 that posed a question that had begun eating at me - if Art cannot, in fact, change Humanity for the better, as it appears it can't, and you begin to think that the only way to accomplish any real, and potentially, ultimately, positive change is through violent revolution, then isn't it incumbent upon you to give up the Art and start making bombs?
That show ended in violent chaos, the question unanswered, the bomb delivered back to destroy the American Patriot Terrorist by a couple of Beauty Pageant Angels (Mr. and Miss Universal Happiness) and a Christian-Marxist Prostitute. I wound up answering the question for myself this year - NO - in Spell.
Where this came from then, I dunno. I had been very political from ages 15-18, and I have no idea why that happened either. I think it came from joining student groups opposed to nuclear war and realizing the daftness of that whole scene - I mean, who supported nuclear war, right? It seemed, the more I looked into it then, that the whole USA/Soviet nuclear race was a fine bit of misdirection to keep people from finding about about the truly scummy, dirty, illegal and unConstitutional things out government was doing in other places - primarily at that point, Central and South America (this is '83-86, a fine time for traitorous scumbaggery in our Nation's capital). So I joined other groups and worked for several years in protest of those actions - helping bring speakers from Nicaragua and El Salvador up to Massachusetts to speak to schools and colleges and so on (somewhere in Washington, there's a little file with my name on it, I'm sure . . .)
Then, I became disillusioned by looking even further into the matters and discovering that the issues were even more complex and dark, and while my government's actions were heinous, I couldn't in good conscience always give my full support to the alternative. And often, the people I was working with turned out to be morally bankrupt themselves, not really caring about the issues as much as being knee-jerk contrarians simply against the status quo - if it hadn't been the Reagan years and actually some kind of vaguely-leftist time, they would have been reactionary conservatives. It was clear that the enemy of my enemy was not at ALL necessarily my friend.
So, with a fine feeling of "to hell with ALL of youse," I went off to film school at NYU and did pretty much nothing but Art-stuff for many years. Yeah, I got beaten by cops in Tompkins Square in '88, as I wrote about, but I was primarily there as a documentarian for a friend and got in the middle of a bad scene I didn't expect.
In my work, I became purely interested in the way human beings work, or don't, internally - the mind/body problem, the struggle between heart and head, the location or existence of "the spirit," how trustworthy in any way are our perceptions, that sort of thing. And I moved from Film to Theatre, but that's another story, and even less clear to me.
Something started changing in me while working at, and living in the basement of, Nada on Ludlow Street from 1996-2000 (for you young 'uns and non NYC theatre folk, this was a theatre, it was cool and beautiful for a time, we did good work there, I can say no more without bringing up VERY bad feelings and old conflicts). No idea why, but it did. I think maybe it was because I had begun to read more on American History, which fascinates me, and the more and broader I read about the past, the more I could see clearly exactly what was happening in the present, and worse.
A week before we were evicted from that space, Berit and I, still a new couple, watched the 2000 election on the old early-'70s Sony Trinitron I had there, with the rabbit ears. Stayed up most of the night in amazement at the drama of the election, but not entirely concerned about how it went, one way or the other. I had voted for Nader - and I admit it happily. New York was definitely going Gore, and I agreed more with Nader than Gore anyway. One thing had become clear to me by that point in my life, and remains true today, that I wouldn't vote for anyone on the actual Democratic or Republican ticket unless I absolutely HAD to - which DOES happen, as I generally won't sit out from a vote in any category, and some people run unopposed, or on several tickets I don't like. I didn't think the 2000 election would change things all too much.
Well, it has and it hasn't. Frankly, a lot of the evil that's been done the last eight years has ALWAYS been going on, and maybe we can be at least grateful to the current Administration for being so shamelessly horrible that more people at least got distracted from the bread & circuses and realized, "hey, these aren't such good things happening here." Again, I've been reading a lot about the Country these last ten years -- most of the evil here has ALWAYS been here, and these times are not unusual.
At the same time, the stakes have gotten higher. And the last eight years have been . . . well, the last eight years. We are now dealing with actions that have consequences that CAN'T just be "fixed" when they blow up on us. The planet itself is in trouble, and Our Fearless Leaders seem to care more about how to plunder it during the brief time they're here and get away with it, and merely LOOK like they're doing something positive, than actually doing anything.
I am continually amazed at the depths to which These Leaders will sink in pursuit of power and money -- Berit never is, and I don't think any politician could possibly sink low enough to surprise her - I think, if it were discovered tomorrow that the President and Vice-President were sacrificing 15-year-old virgins to appease Yog-Suggoth while sodomizing goats and eating live kittens, she'd shrug and ask, "Well, what do you expect from those people?." But then, her earliest memories of politics - and not positive ones - are of the Reagan era, and mine is of watching Nixon resign and thinking that I was learning that the "Bad Guys" always get caught, even if they're the President.
The stakes got high enough that my own work changed and my precepts about keeping politics out of them went by the wayside. I think I've handled the shift well, myself, continuing to put the cart behind the horse by putting the Art before the coarse.
So, I will vote today, and as you might expect. Hell, no point in being coy about it, of course I'm voting for Obama, much the way I did in '04, for Kerry, and again not on the Democratic ticket but in Row E, under the Working Families Party. At the time of the last election, I debated going for Nader again - I mean the state was going Kerry anyway, definitely, but I decided (and still am conflicted about this) that as unified a front had to be made against the man in the White House as possible, as many single voices. Fat lot of good that did, huh?
There's some less nose-holding this time, and more hope. But as I think I've made clear, I don't really trust ANYONE who's part of the political machines of either the Democrats or Republicans, and Obama has pissed me off on more than a few occasions. I can't just suck it back and put on a smiley face and cheer the man unreservedly, but while I can't completely trust him, I can still have enough hope for and in him to join in, and really feel that I am voting not for a "lesser evil," but for your standard politician who may help some things, good or bad, hinder others, also good or bad, against a MONSTROUS FUCKING EVIL THAT WILL DESTROY THIS COUNTRY. REALLY.
Towards the end of his life, that deep cynic Frank Zappa began a push to register voters at his concerts, and encouraged participation in the Democracy of this land. He felt that Americans had lost touch with what their job was in the process - he partially blamed this on the elimination from most school curriculums of that subject once known as "Civics," which was supposed to teach our kids how the country is supposed to work (he was proud of the fact that, while he had been miserable in school and a mostly-bad student, he had gotten A's in that subject). He began putting statements on his album covers such as, "DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER TO VOTE - THE SYSTEM SOMETIMES WORKS WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IN IT OR NOT," or simply "VOTE!" In that spirit, I join in that message. If I have any hope that's grown over these last eight years, it's that many in this country have begun to pay attention and learn "Civics" on their own, and are no longer being apathetic and claiming they are simply "withdrawing in disgust" (as often as not, a cop-out). I believe in the basics of this experiment that is this country, and I'm pulling for it not to fail.
Four years ago, B & I watched the returns at home, again putting a makeshift antenna on a TV so we'd get reception (we don't normally bother) - which we do, as B says, in times of disaster, like 9/11 or that '04 election.
Berit's up and in the shower, and when's she's out, we're off to vote. Tonight, we'll be with friends in our home theatre, The Brick, where, hopefully, it's all been worked out so we'll have streaming video on the big screen. If not, I'm bringing that 1973 Sony Trinitron, with the old rabbit ears, with me so I can set it up and switch channels around, just like the old days.
And finally, having gone through all that, here's two funny videos to make light of this serious occasion, from Funny or Die:
Calling out with hope at the other end of a tin can on a string here in this world gone wrong, I remain your friend.
PartiesGreat Halloween party at the home of Matt & Dina Gray on Friday night.
The theme(s) was/were "Come as a Corporate Logo/Mascot" or "Fine Art, that is, come as Jackson Pollock or come as a Jackson Pollock."
Berit and I went the latter route - she taking on Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror, and I, as mentioned here before, not thinking then that I'd actually go this route, got a dusky red sweater and black pants and went as Mark Rothko's No. 14, with identifying card, as you'd see next to the work in a museum -- which became the joke, as people would look at me and ask, "What are you?" and I'd hand them the card or hold it next to me - which was better for the joke but spoiled the image a bit - and stand very still. I was surprised how many people actually got this and laughed (or, well, groaned appreciatively), but considering some of the artwork on display, maybe I shouldn't have.
I took quite a few photos, but because of the party lighting - not only low, but VERY red-tinted - my camera, which usually works well in low light, got poor results. It was better with flash, but of course those don't look too great.
So, behind the cut - because these are probably only of interest to friends of those of us there who aren't on Facebook and seeing all the shots of that night posted by many of us who were there - are a few of the better shots from the evening . . .
The hosts - Dina and Matt Gray - split on the themes themselves, with Dina taking on The Jolly Green Giant and Matt as Magritte's The Son of Man:
After the first few shots, I moved onto using the flash, which didn't give me great shots, but created some very strange effects at times, in combo with the hazy red lighting . . .
I'm not sure Dina had the character of the Jolly Green Giant down, but she was pretty fetching in the getup . . . ho-ho-ho . . .
Mateo Moreno came as Jared from the Subway ads and Becky Byers as the Chicken of the Sea chick - here adding to the multitude of shots I've been seeing on Facebook of the two of them with these approximate facial expressions:
They were soon joined by Capt. James T. Kirk (Gavin Starr Kendall), who beamed in with no cares as to the party's themes and went for the mini-Snickers bars. Boy, the flash gives some serious red-eye, huh?
Gyda Arber, there in her costume from Lord Oxford, which could easily pull double-duty as the St. Pauli Girl, wanted a photo of "The Two Norwegian Girls," so here she is with Berit, the Girl Before a Mirror (showing off her identifying card):
Berit took about 8 photos of me, and none of them were good (or anything I wanted to share - either blurry, hazy, or even less-flattering), but here's the least-lousy of them, with me as No. 14 - I probably look unhappy because it's still pretty early in the evening and, as I'm driving, I can't drink any more of the fine punch or spiked hot spiced cider, which is really depressing me . . .
Berit by the kitchen, with some of that very nice punch, providing an odd alternate view of her Picasso face:
I didn't stay long enough to find out who won the costume contests, but for me the winner in the "Fine Art" division had to be Aaron Baker as Francis Bacon's Head Surrounded By Sides of Beef, here seen threatening the Jolly Green Giant. The back of Roy Lichtenstein's Girl with Ball (Rita Menweep) can be seen at right (and I'm REALLY embarrassed I didn't get who she was until the next day, when Aaron mentioned it - she had DOTS on her face for chrisssakes!):
The odd groupings you get at a party like this . . . here the Bacon painting chats with his ladyfriend the St. Pauli Girl, while in the background James T. Kirk macks on Hannah Montana (Samantha Mason):
And of course, no party of artworks today would be complete without "The Flower Chucker" (Scot Marshall) by Banksy - to the apparent consternation of the cheese-eating Bacon painting at right . . .
Bored with not-drinking, I got Berit and left and we missed a whole bunch of friends who showed up soon after (should have stayed, dammit), but we got one last photo at home before Berit took the makeup off, before our own bathroom mirror . . .
Today I go see a show for the NYIT Awards. Glad I realized about daylight savings time or I'd have been there WAY early and in a foul mood. Saw the final performance of The Master of Horror last night and then Bride of Sinister Six at The Brick. Busy.
Tuesday night is the Election Night Special performance of Lord Oxford at The Brick, followed by watching the Election results there - we're figuring out how to stream the video to the big big screen. I'll probably drag in my old TVs as well, hook them to antennas and switch channels around, then maybe point a video camera at them and broadcast that on the screen as well.
I've been wanting to do the whole night with us on the Brick staff as the "Brick Action News Team," as if we're covering the Election ourselves, live video camera and microphones, delivering insane, non-sequitur commentary on what we're seeing, but I don't think that'll happen, as much fun as Berit and I have been having with the idea:
IAN: (loud, cheerful) This is Ian W. Hill, media supervisor of the Brick Action News Team, live from the bar area at the rear of the theater, throwing you now to Berit Johnson in our state-of-the-art Brick SuperMedia SkyBooth. Berit, can you hear me?
BERIT: (flat, joyless) Yes, Ian, of course I can hear you.
IAN: That's incredible, Berit, you're coming through with amazing clarity!
BERIT: Ian, I'm four feet above you.
IAN: Well, that's great, Berit! Boy, that new Brick SuperMedia SkyBooth is really something, huh?
BERIT: It's the tech booth, and I'm right over you, you don't have to shout.
IAN: Well, that's terrific! Say, isn't it great seeing our Democracy in action?
BERIT: I'm a Socialist, Ian, you know that. This is all a Capitalist farce between two barely-differing segments of the Money Party that rules the State.
IAN: Hey, great, it takes all kinds to make up our fine country!
BERIT: I'm cutting your damn microphone, Ian.
Probably, we'll just stock up on food and alcoholic beverages and have a suspenseful (?) viewing evening.
See you on the other side of this piece of history . . .
Fate Never ChangesHappy Halloween.
I'm awake, but not cheerfully - insomnia, up and down all night. In the end I got the full hours of "a good night's sleep," but not in a row.
This had nothing to do with any Halloween scariness, though on one of my times up in the middle of the night, puttering away online, I encountered THAT commercial from 1978 that caused me a few sleepless nights back then:
{shudder} I remember seeing that in the middle of an ABC primetime screening of The Sting, and then - even worse - while sneaking and watching a midnight Twilight Zone rerun (Agnes Moorehead in "The Invaders") on my little black and white TV under the covers. Aw, man, that was bad.
Oh, what the heck, let's continue the creepy horror trailers theme for today!
Meanwhile, back in the iPod, there 26,012 tracks taking up 72.27 GBs, with less than a gig for new music, and months of acquired music to put in. What tracks from today's Random Ten shall be dropped to make way for better things?
1. "L'Estasi Dell'Oro (from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)" - Ennio Morricone - The Dinosaur Gardens Tribute to Il Maestro
Better known as "the music that plays as Eli Wallach runs around in circles for three minutes looking for Arch Stanton's grave." One of my favorite pieces of music. STAYS.
2. "Final Achievement" - In Camera - Return of the Batcave
Whoa. The opening of this is someone doing a low-rent Arnold Dreyblatt impression, apparently striking an electric guitar with a bow. Then it completely changes into a good little post-punk, post-no wave alt-rock song. Not great, but good enough and obscure enough to keep. STAYS
3. "Idiot Wind (original version)" - Bob Dylan - Blood On The Tracks - New York Sessions
Just got this recently and it was good enough to shove on the iPod ahead of the rest of the backlog. A very different version of a song I already love, maybe not as good as the released version, maybe as good, maybe better. Ask me next time I hear it. STAYS.
4. "Gloomy Sunday" - Sinéad O'Connor - Am I Not Your Girl?
From her album of standards, which I love. However. This song is slow and depressing in the wrong way for the iPod. This one is to be REMOVED.
5. "Louie Louie (medley)" - The Troggs - The Louie Louie Files
This is pretty cheesy. It's probably barely the original Troggs, much later than their 60s prime, doing a medley of various 60s hits. Almost charming enough in cheesiness to stay, but it the end I think this should be REMOVED.
6. "Who's Gene Autry? " - Johnny Cash with John Carter Cash - Legend
Pretty corny track from The Man. GOES.
7. "Glory Box (live)" - Portishead - Roseland NYC (Live)
Great song, made better in this live version, which is not what I would have expected from this band. Actually, EVERY song on this album tops the original version, while sounding almost identical to it; there's just some little bit of extra live energy to them that puts them over the top. STAYS.
8. "Electric In General (from Flower Power & Gunpowder)" - Jerry Finegold - Public Guy Private Dick-Selected Cuts From The Original Soundtracks
Neat hot instrumental that STAYS. Wish I knew where it was REALLY from - Finegold created soundtracks for NYC-area Z-pictures by just needle dropping tracks from other albums, and actually had the nerve to release a "soundtrack album" of tracks he'd just lifted outright from other places. Not even had replayed by new musicians, he just TOOK them! Some chutzpah there . . .
9. "La Vie En Rose" - Sam Butera & The Witnesses - Ultra-Lounge 10: A Bachelor in Paris
Good cheesy lounge version of the song. Not necessary, but STAYS, for now.
10. "Greyhound Blues" - D.A. Hunt - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 5
Don't really know this song yet, and I need to live with it a while longer. STAYS while I get to know it and see if it keeps penetrating, or if it's one more REALLY good blues from the time and place that I have dozens and dozens of now, and can't keep all of them in the iPod.
Some political stupidity to link to . . .
So, have you heard the latest wingnut rumor about Obama? About his parentage? Oh, it's astonishingly mad. ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) urbaniak breaks it down with his normal wit HERE. Yeeesh.
Meanwhile, a group of Christians decided to band together (after one had a dream in which God spoke to her and told her to do this - really) and DO something for our economy. What did they decide to do?
They decided to get together at the giant bronze bull statue down on Bowling Green - not Wall Street, as everyone keeps saying, but it's close enough - and lay hands on this symbol of Capitalism and pray for it to be healed.
It's not quite worship, and not quite a golden calf . . . but close enough to make you wonder how well these people had read their Bible. Oh, right, that's that "Old" Testament, the one that only counts when it's on about killing homosexuals. More words, photos, and video on this glorious non-ironic derangement HERE.
(you know, this same poor bull, right after the beginning of the financial crisis, had its prominent testicles painted bright blue - I'm not sure what event is more insulting to this proud beast . . .)
Oh, and Wil Wheaton, TV's Wesley Crusher, wishes you a very Happy Halloween in his own way . . .
We ALL float down here, Georgie!
Boo!
Scary WeekendVarious things going on around town from my friends and collaborators . . .
Bryan Enk has put together his third yearly compilation of short horror videos from various artists, following The Sinister Six and Son of Sinister Six. This year it's Bride of Sinister Six and the six short works are all created by women. It plays tonight and tomorrow and info about the shorts and where and when to see them can be found HERE. I hope Bryan keeps this up, as Berit and I finally had a good idea for a short this year and would like to put it together for the next one (The Sinister Six Strike Back?).
I also hope that Bryan has the additional cast/crew screening at The Brick of these films, as I can't see them at either of these screenings -- and for that matter neither can two of the filmmakers and several more of the actors involved, as they're all involved in one of the two shows below (ah, we're an incestuous little group, aren't we?).
First, Lord Oxford brings you The Second American Revolution continues tonight at The Brick. More info is HERE, and here's a little promotional word from Lord Oxford himself and his little Irish ward Pattie O'Pattiecake:
And closing this weekend . . . from Nosedive Productions . . .
The Blood Brothers present... The Master of Horror
stories by Stephen King
adapted for the stage by James Comtois, Qui Nguyen, and Mac Rogers
directed by Pete Boisvert and Patrick Shearer
photos by Aaron Epstein - more info on the show at the title link above.
I'm trying to get both of these in, and a party or two, and another show. Halloween is just a busy time of year . . .
Late Night CheerI haven't been doing much if anything in the way of comment on the election. I provide quotes and links sometimes to various other items of political/social note, but the election . . ? Not my bag for this place. This is a place for sharing words and images related to the Art-Stuff I do, even tangentially in terms of feeding me in some way to make the work. This does include political things, if they have some relation to how I think about the Art-Stuff or can use it in some way. Usually, that means constitutional infringements or other outright criminal/traitorous acts from the Administration.
This quadrennial farce is not artistically interesting in any immediate way to me.
I will be voting, I hope you will, too. I will not vote Democratic or Republican if I can avoid it - I despise the two-party system we've devolved to, and I despise the two parties themselves. If I feel I HAVE to vote for the candidate running as a Democrat (or even, yes, as I have in some areas, usually small county positions, Republican) I will vote for them, where possible, in another column - in the case of Democratic candidates, usually under the "Working Families" party. It's a small thing, but I'd rather not throw my support behind one of the corrupt and corrupting Big Two. If, like . . . well, many people, you feel you have to vote for the Democratic candidate this year, might I suggest the Working Families Party. If you're in New York or Connecticut, that is - the Party is only on the ballot there as yet.
And if you're going to vote this way - for a Main Candidate but on another ticket but the Big One - check your state's rules -- in some states, the votes aren't added together if, say, a candidate is on both the Republican and the Conservative tickets, and even if he gets enough votes under those two parties combined to win a state, it won't matter because only the bigger number will count, and if an opposing candidate gets more votes under one party than that bigger number, they win. In New York State, all votes for a candidate are added together, for all tickets that candidate might be on. Good.
I only have one last comment on the election for now, a photocropping inspired by an identical one created by capthek I saw (along with the full original photo) on urbaniak's blog:
Well, to get the bad taste out of my mouth, two more new favorites that have shown up on the LP Cover Lover site. First, one that . . . well, yet another example of a perfectly good title subverted by time and the change in the most common usage of a word:
And, judging from this cover, the sermon contained inside maybe REALLY stretches a metaphor a bit far:
I dunno . . . Jesus' team looks a little light to me. Maybe he should bring in Joseph to the lineup, with Lot batting cleanup.
The Bible verse noted there that apparently inspired this sermon is "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." I'm not sure quite how this applies to the National Pastime in any useful spiritual way, but maybe I'm just not enlightened enough . . .
Inspirational Text for the Day #1In thinking about what I do. In doing what I do. The words sometimes come. My own or others.
When I did Ten Nights in a Bar-Room - Romero zombies in Temperance-landscape, a Punk friend said with complement that it was "Punk Rock Theatre."
This is the ideal.
To do in these works (my theatre, what I do, the Gemini CollisionWorks) what I find in the best Punk, the best Garage. What David Thomas of Pere Ubu calls the "Avant-Garage." Burn it all down. Smash what's still standing. Pick up the pieces. Look at them. See how you can put them together in different ways that make you understand better what they were in the first place. Start again. Do better. Destroy things better. Fail better. Rip it up and start again. Be angry. Be joyful. Always be angry with joy.
The thought been done occurring to me that the best rock 'n' roll - the perfecting of it - came in the hands of those American garage rockers of the 60s. That this was what RNR was supposed to be - the line that starts with "Good Rocking Tonight" and "Gee" and "Rocket 88" and "That's Alright Mama" down to a bunch of kids creating greatness in limitations and ignorance. Good rock been done made since then, but not actual rock 'n' roll. Not quite part of the original line. Like film noir - REAL film noir - only existed in USA filmmaking from 1941 to 1958 . . . everything else in the noir "manner" is a conscious imitation of a natural national style that unconsciously just HAPPENED. Maybe that's it then, real RNR only existed in the USA from 1951 to 1968.
The punks came in and reconstituted it, the garage ideal, the RNR ideal, but from an intellectual point-of-view - most of them were college educated or dropouts, or could have gone that path and chose not. Smart people trying to lose their smartness in energy and non-reason and volume. Closer to something basically human underneath. But always aware somewhere that this was indeed Art. Nuggets and The Stooges were the key, the hinge on which it all turned. What was it, transforming Outsider Art into Modernism? Not quite - you can't call something as consciously planned and created as Ike Turner's "Rocket 88" an Outsider work, no - but something like that . . .
This is a point of view, not a prescription for the Work. This does not mean violent and loud and messy always in action. Precise, clean works can be done from this mindset. Even "pretty" ones.
(when I directed my first play, several people described it to me as "exquisite," with one even saying it was like a "perfect little jewel box" - and it didn't entirely sound like praise to me - I was [relatively] young; I overreacted; I made my second production as loud and chaotic and confrontational as I could - it was appropriate for the show, but I know better now - sometimes the Work is just supposed to be a jewel box)
It is all about the place of the individual Work in the context of the larger Scene. It is about Reconstruction, not Deconstruction.
It is a mindset. It is important for all the collaborators to be on the same page. It is about a kind of energy, a kind of awareness. It is about operating the tools we've been given with care and respect and precision in a manner that will destroy those tools. We are using these old forms and filling them with a real human energy while we take them apart.
(I often use the example of Penn & Teller doing the classic Cups and Balls routine, where they do it "properly" and then do it again . . . with clear plastic cups so you can see - supposedly - how the illusion is done - and they do it so skillfully that while you can actually see the trickery, it's more impressive and amazing and moving than seeing it done "right" - THIS is what to aim for)
It can be Matt and Bryan's Penny Dreadful, or Jeff's Babylon Babylon, or Nosedive's The Master of Horror, or Robert & Moira's Lord Oxford, or Michael's Notes from Underground, or Bouffon Glass Menajorie or whatever show I'm trying to do this week - and not all of these were entirely successful, maybe, sure - but they all have that quality of self-awareness, that ability to share with the audience the smile and laugh about how dead these forms we're using are (aren't they? I mean, aren't they?), and then stun them with how real and sad and painful and human we can be in these forms.
This is what we're doing at our best in Indie Theatre, Off-Off-Broadway, whatever you call it. I just call it Theatre, the rest is just a marketing label.
(which is not unimportant - and the Punks were brilliant in their marketing using limitations as strengths - something to look at and think about and write upon in future . . . we now have to try to convince the audience that's out there and only thinks of what we do as a dead museum that it is being reinhabited with new energy and life . . .)
In other words, we're not playing around.
Inspirational Text for the Day #1.
Iggy Pop to Peter Gzowski, CBC, March 11, 1977:
I'll tell you about punk rock: punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and, uh... and, uh... heartless manipulators, about music... that takes up the energies, and the bodies, and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds, of young men, who give what they have to it, and give everything they have to it. And it's a... it's a term that's based on contempt; it's a term that's based on fashion, style, elitism, satanism, and, everything that's rotten about rock 'n' roll. I don't know Johnny Rotten... but I'm sure, I'm sure he puts as much blood and sweat into what he does as Sigmund Freud did.
You see, what, what sounds to you like a big load of trashy old noise... is in fact... the brilliant music of a genius... myself. And that music is so powerful, that it's quite beyond my control. And, ah... when I'm in the grips of it, I don't feel pleasure and I don't feel pain, either physically or emotionally. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Have you ever, have you ever felt like that? When you just, when you just, you couldn't feel anything, and you didn't want to either. You know, like that? Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?
Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?
35 Favorite MoviesEarlier this year, I posted a list of my "50 Favorite Movies." As I noted then, if you were to go through all of my notebooks (as I sometimes do, all the way back to age 15 or so, looking for interesting ideas to develop I'd forgotten about), you find these lists, of varied length (10 films, 15 films, 20 films, 25 films), carefully dated, occurring here and there, months apart, sometimes years, sometimes just weeks.
No good reason to do this really, especially at first (except if you're a film buff, you get asked what your favorites are fairly often, so making lists means you usually don't forget them). Now that it's been years of doing this, I like to go back and see what's stayed or vanished or newly appeared on my lists, and what filmmakers I love but who don't even have one film on the list (most often, as below, Powell & Pressburger, Ken Russell, Kurosawa, Bergman, Tarkovsky, with whom their entire oeuvre means more to me than any individual film; Godard used to always be in this bunch, too).
Looking over a list of my "favorite films" on Facebook today, I felt that a few things were missing. By the time I added the missing ones, today's list was at 35. This time I didn't stop at a "5" because that's how lists normally work (last time I hit 45 and then kinda forced in another 5 to make an even 50), I just stopped when I had a list of the very VERY special films that make me feel a little more something (at least today, right now) when I think of them than any other movies do. This doesn't always mean they're "great," of course (there are movies generally regarded as "bad," and VERY understandably so, below), but they ARE my Favorites - that is, when I think of any one of these movies, I am overwhelmed with a great sense of love for and protection of them, and want to see them again IMMEDIATELY (luckily, I own video copies of some viewable kind of all but 4 of them).
The list is maybe a bit more English-language and American than last time - I think I was self-conscious about that then and forced in some non-English films to try and seem less USA-centric. Well, I am that, I guess.
Here's today's 35 Favorite Movies of mine:
Sherlock, Jr. - directed by Buster Keaton, 1924
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - directed by F.W. Murnau, 1927
Citizen Kane - directed by Orson Welles, 1941
The Seventh Victim - directed by Mark Robson, 1943
Detour - directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945
Magical Maestro - directed by Tex Avery, 1952
Duck Amuck - directed by Charles M. Jones, 1953
Glen or Glenda? - directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr., 1953
Kiss Me Deadly - directed by Robert Aldrich, 1955
The Birds - directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1963
Contempt - directed by Jean-Luc Godard, 1963
Two or Three Things I Know About Her - directed by Jean-Luc Godard, 1967
Wavelength - directed by Michael Snow, 1967
Point Blank - directed by John Boorman, 1967
How I Won the War - directed by Richard Lester, 1967
2001: A Space Odyssey - directed by Stanley Kubrick, 1968
Performance - directed by Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg, 1970
THX-1138 - directed by George Lucas, 1971
The Last Picture Show - directed by Peter Bogdanovich, 1971
Tout Va Bien - directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972
Mean Streets - directed by Martin Scorcese, 1973
Singing on the Treadmill - directed by Gyula Gazdag, 1974
Barry Lyndon - directed by Stanley Kubrick, 1975
Eraserhead - directed by David Lynch, 1977
The Falls - directed by Peter Greenaway, 1980
Bad Timing - directed by Nicolas Roeg, 1980
Stardust Memories - directed by Woody Allen, 1980
Videodrome - directed by David Cronenberg, 1983
Tough Guys Don't Dance - directed by Norman Mailer, 1987
Road House - directed by Rowdy Harrington, 1989
Barton Fink - directed by Joel Coen, 1991
The Age of Innocence - directed by Martin Scorcese, 1993
Heavenly Creatures - directed by Peter Jackson, 1994
Schizopolis - directed by Steven Soderbergh, 1996
Lost Highway - directed by David Lynch, 1997
Any connecting threads here? I'm a little surprised to see that most of them (at least 26, but maybe more if I thought about it) deal with problems of identity in some way, as in "Who Is This Person?" or "Who Are You?" or "Who is ANY person?" or mistaken identities, or shifting identities, or masks and hidden identities. Hmmn.
To Terrorize Y'alls Neighborhood . . .Two incredibly lovely and cheer-inducing videos have shown up in various places in the last day. And, for some reason, both of them are French and involve the performance of Michael Jackson's "Thriller."
And no, neither of them are the dancing prisoners video. That's from the Philippines.
(but if you haven't seen that one, it's HERE - more videos from the dancing prisoners can be found HERE)
No, these are two other videos that both demonstrate both a great and cool determination to complete a complex, pointless, and joyful task, and that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is a great song that cuts through all kinds of bounds of nation and clique.
First, a gentleman who performs his cover version of the track:
Neatorama, which originally posted this, provided a Babelfish translation of Macré's description of his work:
Description: Here a resumption of the title “Thriller” which I completely recorded with the voice. I thus imitated each element of the original title (instrumental, vocal, rhythmic elements and sound effects) by using 64 superimposed audio-video tracks (as this clip attests it; -). This recovery is thus a piece of a’ cappella multitrack, comprising only the sound of my voice, without addition of any instrument, sampler, limps for deforming rate/rhythm or purposes (only effects used being of Réverb and light Chorus). Moreover, I used the technique of the loop for the parts which are repeated (like the rhythmic one). Finally, on the whole of the piece (which contains thousands of notes distributed on the whole of the tracks), I transposed 8 notes which were impossible for me to sing in the acute ones.
Perhaps that does not have the air, but this musical project proved to be relatively titanic! At all events, I hope that you will take as much pleasure to listen to this piece than I had of it to record it. Thank you, in advance, to encourage me by your comments. Good listening and in Bientôt.
Meanwhile, at a French high school in Rouen (I would guess, from some of what we see, maybe a performing arts-centered one?), what looks to be the entire student body uses "Thriller" to create a pretty remarkable one-shot, lip-synced overview of their school and themselves:
Courtesy of Shakesville.
Berit notes that it is especially cool to see all the different cliques - the preppies, the hipsters, the jocks, the band geeks, the stoners, the skate punks, the goths, etc. - all getting their little bit together and then joining together to do this bigger thing. And we both agreed that "Thriller" is just a song that can have appeal to ALL of these groups in some way.
Berit also notes jealousy of the facilities these kids have - some damned fine classrooms, and hey, they gots FOOSBALL!
Enjoy.
More of the SameWell, having blown everything I had saved up or found to share yesterday, I got nothing today for the NEVER-TO-BE-MISSED Friday post that I HAVE to do.
Still have the same things to do, the shows I worked on will be running tonight, and the world is still a fascinating, beautiful, massively-fucked jewel covered with good ants building useful stuff and evil, oily things scurrying around stealing and dealing in the non-useful.
Dunno why all the poison and evil around always becomes "oil" to me. it's not literal, but in my head it's always a gummy, thick black poison that soaks into the earth and poisons it. When I directed my second production, Mac Wellman's Harm's Way at House of Candles in 1998, placing it in the "Old Weird America" I had been reading about in Greil Marcus and scoring it with the Harry Smith Anthology, I tried to get across to the actors the idea that they were in an America where all the evil had seeped into the ground and poisoned it, like an oil spill, and that it had begun to come up into their bodies, like plants leeching bad things from the earth, and they should feel a little sick and nauseous the whole time. I don't think I was able to convey this well to the actors at the time; they just seemed confused by this idea. But something like that came across.
I'm still pleased with that production, though I wouldn't have chosen that play on my own to do - I like Wellman, a lot, but I didn't like that play (it feels like a poet just beginning to become a dramatist - great language and characters but poor structure and momentum - hard to make one thing feel like it's actually supposed to follow the last). I did it because I was asked to replace another director and it was an opportunity, and I made myself fall in love with the play while I was doing it - I found my "in" to it, which was through "The Old Weird America" and I pushed that aspect of the play.
I met Mac while I was rehearsing it, and when I mentioned that I was using Marcus and Smith as touchstones for the play he was very enthusiastic about that approach (he was reading and listening to the same things at the time), and when he asked me the running time of the play, and I told him it was going 80 minutes but I was actually trying to slow the actors down and get it to 90 (which I said warily, for most playwrights I had talked to at that point wanted everything in their plays to be punchier and faster), he thanked me, and said most people did that play WAY too fast and it was over in an hour. And while I was doing the show, I loved it and thought I really GOT it.
But at that time when I was doing the play (and pardon me, those of you who remember me saying this before over two years ago), I thought I was looking at a pointillist work with too few dots, so the picture was illegible, and it was my job as director/designer to add the missing dots to make the picture clear. In retrospect, I wonder if the picture I saw in the dots was actually there at all - maybe it was actually an abstract that I was forcing to fit my personal obsessions - and my job should have been to intensify the colors of the dots that were there to start with, not add my own. I still don't know if I did the right thing by that play (people who dislike the play seem to think I did, and say I made a good production of a bad play - praise that gives me mixed feelings, to say the least).
Well, Mac appreciated the show when he saw it (which was a kind of embarrassing night, as we'd had big crowds for the rest of the run, and he came on closing night and it was nearly empty). At least he said he was "never bored nor horrified" by the production, which someone closer to him told me was actually high praise from the man. Maybe.
In any case, in the present day, I'm still using the Friday Random Ten as a way to find what songs to eliminate from the cramped iPod so I can put more stuff on.
It's even more cramped now that I shoved on the new Bob Dylan Bootleg release and the new album from Electric Six as of last night.
I still need to listen to the latter for real to see if I like it anywhere as much as their other albums, the Dylan - outtakes and rarities from 1992-2006 - on the other hand is amazing even at first listen. I also recommend - as I did - actually taking all the tracks and reordering them so they play in strict chronological order - the order they chose is good, but there's something nicer about hearing him struggle to find the new sound he's looking for in the Oh Mercy outtakes, hearing a bit of it come to him in the live tracks and abortive early-90s sessions, then really taking shape in the Time Out of Mind sessions (the bulk of the set is from this time) then finally hearing it with confidence in the Modern Times leftovers (oddly, nothing really here from the "Love and Theft" sessions - he must have used everything there was from then on that great album).
So here's what the iPod threw up today . . .
1. "Don't Crowd Me" - Keith Kessler - Ear-Splitting Punk
Standard good 60s garage rock that blows open with one of those guitar solos you get sometimes in the genre - inept but brilliant, passion outstripping technique - that makes this worth keeping on the iPod. Also has a great and truly unexpected false ending and final outchorus. Yup. this stays.
2. "The Maid" - The Ron-de-voos - Back from the Grave 7
And, by contrast, okay 60s garage rock that doesn't quite cut it. The guitarist is technically better than the one on "Don't Crowd Me," but doesn't sound like he cares. This one gets eliminated.
3. "My Heart Is a Flower" - King Missile - The Way to Salvation
Silly but good. This stays. Closer to an actual "song" than a lot of their stuff (Berit's the fan of theirs with the albums - I like them, but not as much).
4. "Just Because I'm Irish" - Julia Sweeney & Jonathan Richman - You Must Ask the Heart
Trifling little novelty song, but short and charming. It stays.
5. "Midnight Train" - The Shamrocks - Pebbles Volume 12 - The World
Garage from abroad. Hard to decide if it stays or goes. Pretty standard garage with nothing special except an above-average vocalist. Almost sounds like Canned Heat. Nope, not good enough to stay.
6. "Hey Mister" - Fever Tree - Mindrocker 60's USA Punk Anthology Vol 12
Ooh, Fever Tree is one of my favorite obscure 60s garage discoveries (I used two of their songs in my production of Temptation) but this one . . . beautifully sung but a loping, stupid song. I dunno. The singing nearly saves it, but it kinda ambles to nowhere. I think this one goes . . .
7. "Land Ho!" - The Doors - Morrison Hotel
Hey, one of those Doors songs I actually like! It wouldn't be on the iPod if I didn't like it in the first place, so it stays. For years I had huge animosity towards The Doors - what am I saying, I still do, pretentious silly little fucks. Then I realized that among all the crap - the Lizard King/Mr. Mojo Risin' posturing - were quite a few lovely little pop gems, like this rewrite of "Shortnin' Bread."
8. "Socks, Drugs & Rock n' Roll (live KCRW 1998)" - Buffalo Daughter - Rare On Air Vol 5, KCRW Morning Becomes Electric 1998-99
Wait, isn't that supposed to be "Morning Becomes Eclectic?" Isn't that the name of the radio show this is a sampler from? Oh, well, whatever. Strange "alternative" very-90s song - beepy, jokey, spiky, jangling post-Fear of Music guitars and a bridge that sounds like Cibo Matto. Pleasant, but nothing special. I think I'll leave it on the iPod, though, cause I don't have many songs like this and it makes a nice change-up.
9. "Goin' Too Far" - Boys From Nowhere - Eat A Cherry...Rare Punk, Psych + Glam (but Mostly Punk)
More garage, this one from a WFMU fundraising premium. Good, but not great.
10. "High Wall" - The Fabulous Wailers - Orgy of the Dead
Okay, here's something amazing - a great saxophone-led instrumental, slow and creepy, courtesy of Frank Cwiklik, who used it in the stage adaptation of Ed Wood's Orgy of the Dead that I was in. It was the big climactic dance number, and while I wouldn't normally use a track so prominently used in a show by a friend (a rule I broke by accident when I forgot that a cue I used near the end of Everything Must Go was the climactic cue from Frank's Bitch Macbeth), someday I'll have a place in one of my shows to put this moody, beautiful piece.
Oh, and something I need to mention I've been forgetting . . .
Occasionally, I get offered swag for being a blogger. Amazing considering I probably have a regular readership in the low three figures. Maybe. The VERY low three figures, at best. I don't take a lot of the swag usually, admittedly because I'm not interested in a lot of what I'm offered, but sometime because I feel silly about it, even if slightly interested.
However, even though I felt silly about it, I took a free copy of Leonard Jacobs' book Historic Photos of Broadway: New York Theater 1850-1970 because I'm a nostalgic SOB who loves feeling part of the continuum of American Theatre, and I LOVE old theatre photos.
Didn't mean I'd necessarily like the book, though, and when I saw in the intro that it was comprised of 240 photos, that seemed like a low number to me and I expected to be disappointed.
But if they're the right | 
