1. What New York
needs now... more public park transsexual treesomes
Hey what's that up in that tree? Are those dudes or what? It's just
Little Bo Peep, drunk in the streets...
In case you didn't hear about it from overly serious-faced newscasters
on the always hilarious Fox local TV news, two brilliantly messy "dudes"
held part of Central Park hostage last Thursday (April 22nd) as they climbed
a tree and proceeded to (sort of) express their love physically in front
of a bunch of cheering tourists. For several hours, as police and gawking
mobs watched on, they got naked, threw branches at people, demanded that
their psychologists, their mothers and also vanilla diet Pepsi be brought
to them - only to hurl the soda back down at the crowd when only regular
diet Pepsi was delivered (good thing they didn't bother with mom). Before
the whole thing went down with police-driven cherry pickers and airbags,
the two misfits declared themselves in total, regal rule of the immediate
vicinity, deplored more people to make love, then proceeded to make love
themselves... all the while shouting nonsensical yammerings about
mistreatment by their own families because of their lifestyles, and the
subsequent misrepresentation of gays and transsexuals in the media (to
which they demanded a apology broadcast on no less that national TV).
The whole spectacle was some sort of mad homage to both James Hill's "Born
Free" and Paul Morrissey's "Chelsea Girls" ...combined into one real life
performance piece. And tickets were
free baby.
I wonder if these two are worried about an eternity in Pure Land or Pee
Pond (see # 2 below)? Before you hear what I have to say, you may want
to read on; here is a news story link
and another link
(includes video) and another link.
I hands-down support behavior like this in our great metropolis. Yes, yes...
we all know that politically-fueled corporate commerce is starting to cross
boundary after boundary, and slowly turn New York City into the safest,
most dead-eyed, boring, yuppie-stuffed strip mall imaginable. And yes,
yes I've heard you say a million times that the New York (especially downtown)
used to be a crime and freak-ridden wild west, and yes that past reputation
(combined with other things) is what put the imagined mecca of New York
City's in such a profound spot on people's temporal lobes for the whole
second half of the 20th century and blah, blah, blah, bitch, bitch, bitch...
but everything must change and all things run in cycles and to every season
turn, turn, turn and all that bullshit. There's money to be had and power
to be grasped.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yea...
I mean... I call on any and all people, not just expected misfits mind
you... but all people... to do things like this in the city. Our city needs
this. Now more than ever. I mean we really, really, really need
spontaneous fires like this to occur daily. It's not vandalism... no one
gets hurt. But it runs against the grain and "laws" ...and causes a spectacle
that is a hysterical combination of A) the scene-causers, B) authority
figures who have come to correct the scene-causers... and C) spectators
who come to gawk at the little war.
Did you read the three articles about the silliness above? Did you notice
how each article ended? That's right... the reporters talked to out-of-town
tourists. And what did those tourists say? That's right... they loved watching
the whole thing go down. They always said "...this is what we came to New
York to see." One was even quoted as saying "We were going to go to the
Empire State Building, but we thought we'd stay here instead." See that?
Even middle-America tourists (whom I had always
contended that New
Yorkers of every socioeconomic strata continue to flippantly underestimate)
are so brain-dead, wide-eyed bored with the treadmill of condescending
banality that the city has laid out for them that they literally are starving
for explosive freak shows of this ilk. Not only that... they're cheering
them on and talking about them when they get back home (word of
mouth is the most unstoppable and important kind of advertising in the
universe).
So get out there New Yorkers. Follow these two kid's example (well, one's
'officially' a kid). Let your un-rational whims guide you and punch some
life into the beige-washed wasteland that NYC has become. Don't plan
on ruining the Republican Convention. Don't plan on ruining the
2012 Olympics. Just put yourself in the right mindset and let nature take
it's course. Just let everything this cackling-witch-of-a-city does
and doesn't hand you build up inside you... and then, when the inspiration
strikes and the freedom breaks...
*snap* change the course of the
city for a few hours... and birth an unstoppable story inside the brains
of some un-dissapointed tourists. Who knows... impressionable onlookers
may witness your cathartic spectacle and, perhaps, with the right upbringing
of external chaos and inner goo... might mutate and make pilgrimages in
the future as well.
Whatever your un-planned moment of stupid brilliance is, don't hurt anyone.
And don't do anything that causes traffic or the subway to halt too much.
And you probably shouldn't do anything that causes any real damage to property.
Just do something that causes the police to have to be called to answer
to a "public disturbance." And use your imagination for God's sake...
like these two heroes did. "Crime" can be fun! "Crime" is what our city
needs! "Crime" can be something that doesn't involve celebrities
or other things that the media feels comfortable reporting about. Don't
resort to some tedious Latina gangsta hold-my-baby-stroller razor blade
cat fight stopping traffic on Delancey Street. Don't put on an impromptu
rock show at some East Village club and make some dimwitted fag call the
cops because a microphone stand you supposedly threw hit him in the head.
And for God's sake don't have some moronic activist cause attached to your
spectacle. These two gender-challenging tree-huggers came close to killing
the party with all that sock puppet-talk about "...gays being misrepresented
in the media." Yawn. (trust me kids... what you did is exactly how
we need to see more gays and transsexuals portrayed in the media these
days... you single-handedly solved your own dilemma).
Whatever you do should have the police scowling at you, as they handcuff
you away "Yea while we 're wasting our time on you nut jobs we could be
solving some real crimes!" If the cops say that to you, that's always a
good sign that you're on the right track. Also... when the cameras flash
all around you as they cart you away... you need to be either sobbing and
overly apologetic, or obliviously cocky and self-centered (be nothing in-between).
Because whether you're pleading sorry or cocky not-sorry, feeling that
you are the center of the universe is prerequisite number ONE for moving
and shaking it in our great city (and both aforementioned emotional responses
will signify that same state of mind).
But think ahead... don't end up in prison. Don't do something that's gonna
make you serve time or have to hire an expensive lawyer. The scene immediately
following your spectacle should resemble the court scene at the end of
Peter Bogdanovich's comedy film "What's Up Doc?" That's right, your concept
of the legal system, and any punishment you may face should be pure fantasy...
it certainly was in the Central Park naked transsexual tree-climber's minds!
And look what they accomplished! No but seriously... keep your spontaneous,
Three Stooges-esque carnival act in the non-lethal, non-vandalistic, slapstick
schizoid zone, and you'll probably get by with nothing worse that a great
story to tell about NYC jail holding cells.
So I say line the pockets of discontented, transsexual, naked, Central
Park tree climbers number one and two ...with no less than the keys to
the city... please. And line our streets with more little darlings with
dripping dreams.
2. Pure Land
or Pee Pond?
Photographer Juergen Specht
has photodocumented an amazing Izu Gokurakuen (roughly translated as 'Heaven
Park') that lies in a suburb, 200 km outside of Tokyo. This family owned
park houses a lengthy visual representation of the afterlife according
to "Ojoyoshu"
(trans: 'The Essentials of Salvation'), an ancient scripture written by
a buddhist monk named Genshin (lived 942-1017). "Ojoyoshu" describes in
gruesome detail how freshly dead earthly dwellers who lived in lazy sin
are ranked and placed into different, horrible hells in descending order
according to their sins ...while other good, pure souls are able to reach
"Pure Land," which contains six realms of transmigration bliss.
Here
is the link to Juergen's photo journal of his visit to the Izu Gokurakuen
"Heaven Park." *
Why couldn't my church-ified upbringing have been centered around a religion
as fascinating and fear-inducing as this? The Southern Baptist dogma that
was funneled and spinal-tapped into my eyes, ears, nose, mouth and ass
during my formative years needed some survivalist's hunting lessons. Do
you trap a primitive animal with styrofoam? No! You use a delicious feast
that it can't resist (tainted with a sense-dulling drug)... then when it's
gorging... you pull the string that's attached to the little stick holding
up the cardboard box and *bam!* you've trapped the rabbit. How are
you going to trap an animal if your bait is pathetically dull and of no
interest? What if your bait isn't even food? Yes, you can drive
that animal to the bait every Sunday morning and every Sunday night and
every Wednesday night (and also every summer school vacation weekday from
10AM - 2PM) and place it in front of that bait and try in vain to topple
the box over it's head... but without the delicious, rich, drugged foodstuffs
it can't resist, it will be able to make an easy getaway when you aren't
looking.
Do you know what I gained from my zillions of years sitting in my North
Dallas Southern Baptist church as a child? An unbelievably detailed memory
of every architectural interior of that massively bland chapel. That's
what I did while the pastor was shouting; inventoried the blank walls and
floors all around me day after day after day after day. I could literally
draw every detail of that space from memory... every square millimeter
of the the red carpeted, white-walled, wood pew-ed, baptism pool-ed chasm
of zero... even today. What does that say about that religion? Southern
Baptist dogma even makes Hell sound boring! No wonder so many Southern
Baptists end up as street-wandering meth-heads or married weirdoes with
secret dreams of killing their co-workers. The part of their upbringing
that was supposed to scare them onto the straight and narrow failed
and failed big. So even though I love my parents for trying, let's face
it: along with most American suburban children, my religious denominational
exposure was a big cup of boring in the morning that was my developmental
childhood.
Look at this Ojoyoshu
display! I mean... these asian kids are gonna be hooked to the straight-and-narrow
like heroin addicts from day one. The whole thing centers on how horrible
their version of Hell is and how there's six whole levels of eternal, grisly
misery. Boy those old asian religions really know how to compete with the
video games and MTV!
If my Baptist Sunday school had dwelled even one day on a "pee" and "poo"
river in Hell... we would have been compelled to pay attention instantly!
Kids love pee and poo! Imagine the afternoon sunday school puppet
shows we could have had!!! Kids would be lining up to be baptized right
out of the womb... voluntarily!
I'm convinced that the whole reason I became so fascinated with gruesome
horror movies as an adolescent is that all that blood and dismemberment
and killer stuff on the screen was replacing something that was sorely
missing in my life. That's right... the fear of Hell and my prenatural
need to process how awful it was going to be, was replaced with my actually
saving my lawn-mowing money to buy "The Amityville Horror" soundtrack record
album (yep) just so I could play it loud enough to scare my brother and
have my parents take it away and throw it in the trash as punishment.
I'm convinced that flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch probably had a really
boring church-going experience (he was raised in a 14th-century, ultra-orthodox
religious community called the Brotherhood of Mary)... hence his obsessively
detailed, vividly lapidary, visceral depictions of Hell
(and you just know that third part of that triptych
was the part he painted with the most feverish delight).
No wonder so many asians are so mind-blowingly successful at so many things!
It's all fear based! They become super-sonic violin piano playing,
brilliant computer programming, never exceeding their average body weight
(and never wasting a part of the animal) healthy eating, superior car manufacturing,
Chisenbop inventing, super floating in the middle of the air martial art
mastering, mutating American pop culture genius-ly, unbelievable super-duper
power beings ...a-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l so they don't spend an eternity
in the afterlife as a legless and armless torso, floating face-down in
a lake of steaming doo-doo.
* Here
is also a link to Juergen's photojournals of his visits to some of Japan's
outdated "erotic
museums" ...equally fascinating.
3. I'm smitten
with jogging jews on the Williamsburg Bridge in full Hasidic regalia
Springtime is here! And you know what that means... that's right; gorgeous
Hasidic Jewish boys jogging on the Williamsburg Bridge in full Hasidic
dress! I'm amazed these young, nubile, athletically-bodied young sex gods
go jogging in this dress. It's amazing! They are always wearing
traditional long-sleeved black jackets with black vests... the four tzitzis
hanging off of the four-cornered white garments they have on under that
blowing in their stride. Their shimmering payos waft gently from their
temples... framing flustered, blushed red cheeks on either side of milky
smooth skin of their totally handsome Israelite features.
God they are beautiful. I think the fact that they are so handsome is only
heightened by the fact that they have the fortitude and determination to
go sweat-ily jogging in so many hot layers, a yamaka cap and, yes, black
traditional jewish dress shoes. They are not running shoes or even athletic
shoes! But it's all "clop-clop-clop" ...these kids just keep jogging along
like they're going for the gold. Running shoe ads have no effect on these
people... they're trend-less. I mean... how hot is that? They're like fashion-less
jogging sex magnets for me. I always try and steal a quick glance as they
jog past me... but since I'm from the Other Side they don't even give me
a single glance.
The Williamsburg Bridge has significance
to Hasidic Jews. When it was completed in 1903, it prompted many Hasidic
Jewish people leaving the Lower East Side and venturing out to other New
York boroughs. I think there is some kind of symbolic thing going on with
the tradition of Hasid families I see walking on the bridge constantly.
I have seen older Hasidic men on the Manhattan end of the bridge doing
something that looks like praying or rocking back and forth, I think. And
once I saw a whole stack of matzos that had been left at the Manhattan
entrance, placed ritually to one side (it seemed).
The jogging Hasidic Jewish boys is a rare phenomenon... but I do see it
from time to time. Maybe one day I'll reach a hand out from the Other Side
and introduce myself and ask them what it's like, maybe take a picture
or two (wouldn't that be so suave of me to do while they are in mid-jog?)
I'd love to do a fashion spread of these guys. Why hasn't Morrissey written
a song about this phenomenon? It's so up his alley... I can just imagine
the lyrics...
4. Questionnaire
for "them" - Go ahead... let him know what's on his mind that came from
your mind!
Are you working for a secret, inner-world New Order controlled by the Grays
and Reptilians that is sending secret voice messages to certain people
of Earth via microscopic transmitters that have been planted in their teeth
by secretive, interdimensional dentists? Feel a weight on your conscious?
Here is a place
where you can get a few things off your chest. That's right, a "Totally
Anonymous, Untraceable Questionnaire for Mind Control/Electronic Harassment
PERPETRATORS."
But even more interesting are the responses
this person has supposedly received. Go ahead... let him know what's on
his mind that came from your mind. Merge the collective unconscious. Can't
we all just think alike? Learn to really communicate...
5. Whole Live
Lobster Sashimi
As reported
recently by The New York Press, "Whole Live Lobster Sashimi" is the practice
of eating a lobster, very alive, that has been brought to your table (claws
strapped down) with a split in it's shell down the middle. You then eats
the animal as it slowly dies (supposedly it takes about 20 minutes). Yum?
Of course animal rights activists are going ga-ga
over it all (I don't know what a lobster should worry about more in New
York restaurants these days... being slowly eaten alive by a sadistic gourmet...
or being blown to bits by a P.E.T.A. nail bomb). Several high-end Japanese
joints in Gotham have started offering this item on their menu for the
more primitive masticators among us (with the cliché about dog-eat-dog
New Yorkers who supposedly like to eat each other for lunch to get ahead,
you'd think the lines would be around the block). I like to try new things...
but I must say that I don't really relish the idea of a unique eating experience
that would leave me crying for years every time I remembered it. Drizzly,
snotty tears aren't a very good condiment.
6. Columbine
paintball game - real? No, but it has the irony perception cliché
mathematically inverted...
Apparently this Columbine High School Paintball Experience, and it's web
page, is a hoax. But what an exciting hoax! I actually thought about pondering
the fact that I might want to consider that I would love to do it... with
absolutely no sense of remorse or irony! Well... maybe a little false remorse,
just to be polite. I have been fascinated
with this garishly cruel and violent case since it occurred way back in
November of 1999.
Here is a link to the
fake Columbine paintball web page.*
If you click on any of the photos on the page it takes you to this
weird page. Yow.
What's so odd about the above web page is that it seems to be designed
to kind of satirize people's fascination with the Columbine case. Normally,
I thought it was the people who always thought in terms of "irony" that
had no sense of remorse or human sensitivity. I mean... aren't the ones
who mock everything around them with sarcasm the ones who don't "feel"
anything? Aren't they the ones who trample over the feelings of others
with good, wholesome values? "Irony" and "sarcasm" and "humor found through
contradicting semiotics that symbolize an understanding that only a higher
intellect can achieve" symbolize a blasé-faced, weak embrace of
something and an unspoken agreement between the two that they are both
part of some higher plane of intelligence that others can't see. The secret
page lurking beneath this odd hoax seems awash with the semiotics of someone
deeply entrenched in traditional values... all the way on the extreme right,
anti-government end of the scale.
You know you've been looking at the internet way too long when you start
applying post-structuralist cultural theories to web pages by totally insane
wack jobs... or maybe that's just been the key to art criticism all along.
* Thanks
to George B. for sending me this!
7. "Wash at own
risk, there are thie*s in this bldg"
Okay.
Mark
Allen's Top Seven for April 19th, 2004:
1. Are the clothes
and accessories I wear to go jogging so out of style and inappropriate
that they make me look crazy?
Or is it just the look in my eyes?
You know, this is all about my grandfather on my father's side of the family.
My grandfather (rest his soul), who we called "Papaw," was notorious for
never throwing anything away as long as it still worked. The reason for
this was that he and my grandmother raised my dad and his brothers during
the heart of the great depression, in the heart of Alabama... and they
were very, very poor. They had to stretch every penny. These habits got
so ingrained in him that, even decades later, during the 1960's and 70's
...when the economy changed and they had enough money and all their sons
were grown and off with their own families... my grandfather still stretched
every penny. People were constantly buying him new watches and shirts and
TVs and clock radios and stuff on his birthday or on father's day or whatever...
but these things just piled up in his closet because he refused to stop
using the old ones he had. He would keep everything until it literally
couldn't function anymore. And then he would still keep it.
A watch that was missing the armband? ...why that's what string is for!
A dress shirt with holes in it? ...get out the needle and thread!
A "digital" clock? Huh? Wha..?
He literally had piles of dress shirts still in their store-folded cellophane
wrappers, new watches never taken out of their jewel boxes, clock radios
still in their packaging, a VCR or two... stacked in his closet. Meanwhile
he walked around in clothes that were hardly shabby, just very old and
very functional (think 1940/50's-esque vintage with a patch or two... including
a totally great Fedora hat that he kept in mint condition at all times...
although I think in later years people convinced him to start wearing different
clothes). He literally wore the same watch for the entire second half of
the 20th century. Clock radios and VCRs were something he wasn't concerned
with.
His and my grandmother's house had an endless shed/barn construction thing
that was as big as the house itself... an endless space that had three
separate entrances and was filled with every kind of piece of old machinery
or junk or anything you could imagine... rows of jars of different kinds
of screws and rubber bands and pull tabs, bits of wire all strung together
and categorized... a whole section of lawn mower blades... a whole row
of wrecked bikes... car parts... tractor parts... a row of discarded dog
leashes... old lamps... etc. Anything he found anywhere that had something
on it that still might be of use was kept and stored away. Me and my brother
used to play in this shed (which had a dirt floor and was maze-like and
seemed to go forever). He even had the same old car from the 1940's (50's?)
parked out in the grass next to the shed (their actual car was also old...
but actually worked) because even though it had stopped working years ago,
since it had working parts in it and could possibly be fixed one day...
it couldn't be gotten rid of.
This was a trait that people in my family found mildly frustrating, but
for the most part it just made him more of an interesting character. He
just walked around looking like one of those time-tripping old people that
transcended criticism. Think William Burroughs with an Alabama accent ...minus
the heroin.
I remember he also taught me and my brother how to eat "all" of an apple...
where all that was left was just the seeds and the stem... you let nothing
go to waste. I remember he showed us this constantly... and one of the
last memories I have of him, during the last year of his life when he was
practically decrepit and in a wheelchair, was him explaining to me again
in great detail how to eat all of an apple where just the seeds and stem
would be left. I actually still do this sometimes, much to the horror of
some of my more uppity urban friends.
The point I'm trying to reach is this: I have inherited this trait, to
a certain degree. I am the worst gay man in all of New York City. Look
at my jogging outfit! It's purely functional in the most literal sense.
I'm one step away from looking like a homeless person! The headphones?
Some old ones I had... hey they may not be for jogging but sound still
comes out of 'em right? The mid 90's CD player? It still works! Half the
clothes were given to me (thanks for the Edward Gorey bat shirt Bryan!)
and I will wear them until they are literally falling apart. "Fashion"
and "style" are to me what "mauve" and "taupe" are to a colorblind dog.
I instantly confuse and alienate any faggity fag type who ever visits me
at my apartment. I don't try to... it just happens when they see all my
mis-matched furniture (clean and nice... just all found in the street).
I actually get kind of pissed at really nice restaurants because the prices
are so high and to me the food really isn't worth it. Expensive hotels
and flights? I don't care. It don't hate those things, or other people
that seek them out... it's just the way I'm built! The fact that I'm almost
always broke, and I live in one of the most expensive places in the world...
only makes it easier. Isn't it interesting the way gene traits will jump
around a family's bloodline?
So if you see a giant bug-eared-old-headphone-wearing, out-of-trend-Hell,
fashion disaster in totally inappropriate jogging clothes coming towards
you at a fast pace on the Williamsburg Bridge (my regular jogging route)
with a smile on his face and a hole or two on his shoe. Don't recoil in
horror. It's just me and my grandfather going for a jog.
2. Childhood
roadkill trauma revisited via scary 1960's kid's Saturday matinee film:
Barry Mahon's "The Wonderful Land of Oz" (1969)
I remember the first
time, as a very small child, I ever saw a dead animal on the side of the
road.
I was probably in about
the 1st grade, maybe earlier, and I was driving with my dad and brother
to church (as usual) on a very rainy, dark-ish Sunday morning in Plano,
Texas. We were on a congested two-lane road, and it was so dark and rainy
that all the cars had their headlights on. Traffic was bumper to bumper...
but moving quite quickly. I guess I had just gotten tall enough to see
out the window of the car as it went along, and notice everything around
me.
I'll never forget the
image that was burned into my eyes when I looked in the middle of the wet,
rainy road and saw, between the two lanes of rushing traffic... a clump
of dirty, white fur with one visible little leg flopped out to one side...
maybe an ear... and a gruesome pinkish-gray gash open on one side. A soaked
and lifeless clump of a poodle that used to be someone's pet... had somehow
gotten out and gotten into the wrong, confusing road, on the wrong, wet,
confusing day... and been killed. Now it's tossed and mangled old body
just laid there in the middle of the rushing traffic... getting tossed
around by filthy, oily water from people's tires... totally disrespected.
Like garbage.
I remember knowing
instantly what it was... but asking my father about it. He calmly told
me that yes it was a dog, probably someone's pet... and that sometimes
people's pets can get out of their yard and wander around... and since
pets that are raised their whole lives in homes don't know any better...
they can wander into a busy road, or even a not-busy road at night, and
get hit by a car and killed. When I asked him why no one was stopping to
pick it up... or why the owners hadn't been looking for it... he told me
that since it's already dead there's really nothing to be done... and that
the city has services that cleans up things like that and that they had
probably been contacted. And that, yes, it was very sad but that these
things just happen sometimes.
I remember this event
very vividly... like it was yesterday. I remember not being able to get
that split-second image of the poor little dog's body in the middle of
that busy road out of my head all through church. I remember when I got
home, running to find our dog, Ginger, as quickly as I could. Ginger was
of a similar build and color (poodle/terrier breed) and I was pretty sure
it couldn't have been her... and my mom had been with her all morning...
but still it felt really good to know she was alive and well. Nevertheless
I never felt the same way about Ginger after that.
I remember not being
able to get that image of the dead dog out of my head for weeks, months...
even years. Whenever I thought of it I was angry at myself for remembering
it because I hated the way it made me feel... I didn't like being reminded
how cruel and vicious the world could be.
So... believe it or
not, I had a similar set of experiences this week during and after a surprise
viewing of the Barry Mahon film "The Wonderful Land of Oz" (1969).
Barry Mahon was an exploitation filmmaker with soft-porn, cheapo movies
with peek-a-boo titles like "International Smorgas-Board" and "Run Swinger
Run!" under his belt. At some point in his career he decided to start applying
his grade-Z production techniques to making Saturday afternoon matinee
musical films based on popular children's stories... fantastical filmic
wonderlands designed to dazzle young senses, inspire the child-like spirit
in all of us... and set the musical toe tapping. This was the goal at least.
Reality being the cruel
bastard that it often is... let's just say that something became tragically
lost in his movie-making "magic."
"The Wonderful Land
of Oz" stars Mahon's son, Chan, in the lead role... and his performance
is one of the worst nepotistic disasters in cinema history. The "story"
is based loosely on the L. Frank Baum book of the same title. Any scene
in Mahon's film that required any kind of set piece or costume looks as
if it were hastily constructed from dirty, rickety, cardboard, paper-mache,
rags and felt markers in as little time as possible (the purple cow is
a doozy). All locations look (and sound) like your mom and dad's echo-y
garage. The lighting looks like it was done with house lamps (this might
have been intentional to hide all the flaws). The sound is even worse.
The pacing and timing is so slow that it probably would make Stephen Hawking's
brain explode. The editing? Non-existent. Cinematography? Huh?
And the acting... well
the acting is something that is so unbelievably lethargic and listless
and lost that you quite literally have seen nothing like it... no matter
how much of a "bad cinema" connoisseur you think you are. It looks like
the cast is simultaneously on quaaludes and sleep deprivation. At times
their delivery and diction is so awful it almost begins to look and sound
like they're underwater. Screen presence is avoided at all costs. Even
when a character breaks into song, they have all the physical animation
and cheer of someone who is being forced to perform at gun point. These
"actors" use the same dozed-out acting style perfected by Andrea
Feldman in "Andy Warhol's Heat" ...yet 1,000,000-times as flat-voiced
and sleepy and confused... and even that's when they can remember their
lines.
There is one scene
in the "Jack and the Beanstalk" picture (also on this DVD) where the giant
is singing his "Fee, Fi, Foe" song, and even though his mouth is moving
and his arms are swaying... the look on his face and in his eyes makes
him look as if he is about to burst into tears at any moment. It's like
the cast is quite literally lost in their own version of Jean Paul Sartre's
"No Exit" ...their own Hell. Imagine a general mood of perpetual ennui,
coupled with a nightmare you had about a really bad grade school play...
and you are peering straight through a dark cinematic peephole that looks
into Hades itself.
I see a lot of strange
films... and I've never seen anything like this. This goes way beyond "camp"
or anything of that ilk. I would recommend renting or even buying
this DVD, especially if you are an outsider-film buff... but be sure and
rent a few snuff films to watch afterwards so you don't get too depressed.
I remember recently
watching this DVD with Jim one night (it was in the 'You-Gotta-See-This-to-Believe-It!'
employee's pick section at Kim's). I remember knowing instantly what it
was... but turning to ask Jim about it. He calmly told me that yes it was
a film, probably someone's pet project... and that sometimes people's projects
can get out of their control and wander all over the place... and even
though these people have talent, sometimes they don't know any better,
or things go wrong... and their pet project can wander into the real film
world, or even the non-real film world... and get hit by a car. When I
asked him why no one tried to save it or tell the director it was awful
and not to finish the film... or why the producers hadn't been looking
for it to make sure it was okay... Jim told me that since it's already
dead there's really nothing to be done... and that the DVD and video rental
markets would take care of things like this and that they obviously had
been contacted. And that, yes, it was very sad but that these things just
happen sometimes.
I remember not being
able to get the image of the poor film right there in the middle of my
TV screen out of my head, even though I just saw it this week. I remember
the next day, running to find my DVD collection and look at the boxes of
some of my favorite films like "Rear Window" and "Withnail & I" and
"Fight Club" and "Blow Up" ...it felt really good to know they were alive
and well. Still... I've never felt the same way about those films now.
Since then, I've not being able to get the image of Barry Mahon's
"The Wonderful Land of Oz" out of my head. Whenever I think of it, I'm
angry at myself for remembering it because I hate the way it makes me feel...
I didn't like being reminded how cruel and vicious the world can be.
This fascinatingly
pathetic film disaster has also been written about very thoroughly here
and here.
3. Spam prose
...click here
Further proving the conspiracy theory that computers will one day become
more intelligent than us and eventually enslave the human population! Although
before I share this I can safely report that their artificial isn't "intelligent"
yet... automated email-producing computers have only made it up to the
level of beat poetry. Case in point: the odd practice of seemingly nonsensical
prose that they binary-ly assemble while creating text for typical spam
ads that flood my email inbox daily. The "poets" actually have names like
"belinda Wadasinghe" or "Elba Haskins" or even "??" ...but this paltry
attempt at disguise does nothing to hide the cold circuitry lurking beneath
their poetic muse. Plug in a few noodling electronic instruments, get a
vocoder... and some of this stuff would bring down the house at any Williamsbug
performance space.
Here
are a few examples (they take up so much room I had to give them their
own page).
4. Miso hungry
Jim and I have recently been into YakitoriTaisho,
a really fun Japanese restaurant on St. Mark's Place*
where you can get great, authentic Japafoodstuffs from their non-sushi/sashimi
menu. They have great skewered stuff... weird soups and rice balls, and
I have recently turned Jim onto okonomiyaki
(theirs is excellent). Afterwards sometimes we stroll over to Sunrise
Japanese Food Mart and pick up "snacks" for when we cuddle and watch
terrifying DVDs (see #2 above) later at my apartment. We recently spotted
this lovely container of ready-made miso soup that Jim just had
to have! Sorry my photo is a little out of focus. It was only 99 cents!
It's about seven inches high and about six inches around and thanks to
it's plastic covering has no sharp or bumpy edges.
Make sure to shake it up before eating! Miso hungry!
*BTW:
anyone notice how the explosion of bizarre Japanese restaurants spawning
off of the 'little Japan' on 9th street almost seem to be running against
the trend of all the corporate crap that is opening up in the area? Like
Supercuts?)
5. Poo Pen
I think Jim and I are going to have our wedding registry at the "adult
gifts" and "blacklight poster room" section of a cira-1978 Spencer's
Gifts at a long lost mall somewhere... that you have to travel back
to via a time machine... just to buy us a wedding gift (you can stop by
Orange Julius' before you return to the 21st century!).
Jim got this for me recently at some joke shop while he was on tour. No,
it doesn't have a "scent." I'd hate to see my #1 pen.
6. Bird blood
bath
One morning this week I woke up to this really strange, high-pitched, rustling
sound outside my window. I got up and peered out onto the fire escape to
see a totally knock-down, drag-out bird brawl happening not a few feet
from my sleepy face. It was so surreal looking that I thought I might be
dreaming. At first I thought that the birds must be mating... but then
I realized that they must be fighting... or else their lovemaking habits
were incredibly sadistic and twisted.
They both had clasped each other's feet in a death grip (you can see in
the photos), and were flopping and spinning around the fire escape like
a broken top. Sometimes one of them would break a foot free and bat at
the other one's beak. Every once in a while one of them would trap the
other one's head inside the space between the two slats of metal and then
it would try and bend the bird's body backwards... maybe to snap it's neck(!)
It was quite a spectacle. I ran and got my camera and snapped these two
photos quietly through the glass. But then when I opened the window to
get a closer shot... they both flew off... one in hot pursuit of the other.
These birds are Starlings...
and a whole clan of them hangs out on this little stoop outside my window.
Starlings are a very war-like and hostile bird, often invading and taking
over nests of other birds... and often fighting each other to the death
for mating rights. They have these really loud bird calls that they screech
at top volume right outside the window... they drive Domenic nuts. Literally,
they rival the car alarms. Some of these birds have literally stood their
ground and raised their feathers at me when I've gone out on the fire escape.
One time one swooped down and almost hit me in the head (I've written about
them in past 'Top Tens').
I love New York City. You're all "Oh all the murder and violence and noise
and post-9/11 stuff is really getting to me... I think I'll hole up in
my apartment and look out the window at the pretty birds who are terrorizing
each other and ripping each other's heads off and tearing each other's
brains out with their claws!"
7. Why they never
taught you Craniology in art class
Where the brain
possibly gets it's aesthetic appreciation from.
Mark Allen's Top Ten for April 12th, 2004:
1. Pet dog shitting
in public places... a human civilization's acceptance of a Freudian nightmare/fantasy
I was walking out of my apartment the other morning, on a beautiful, springtime
day. 
The birds
were singing... homeless people were crawling out of trash piles and greeting
the day with a cough... kids were trotting off to school while shouting
misogynistic and profane rap lyrics at the top of their lungs... grumbling
shopkeepers were raising the security gates of their 99-cent stores...
car alarms were going off... there were no terrorist planes exploding into
buildings... it was a perfect New York City morning.
The perfect prelude to a wondrous, beautiful, sunny day.
I was just about to break into song... when what did my five senses cross
paths with as I rounded a corner... but a man holding his BIG dog on a
leash.
Now I love dogs.
But at this particular moment, the man who owned the dog was standing at
a distance from his pet... the leash pulled taught between them, his face
looking away with an oddly embarrassed/awkward expression, a plastic bag
rustling in his other hand.
This is because... yep, you guessed it, his dog was crouched over in full
grunting/shitting position... with it's open anus pointed right in my direction,
tail raised (and lit into flaming detail via the direct morning sun on
it's hairy cheeks).
The dog's open thighs greeted me like a sunflower.
A sunflower that was churning out a HUGE and I mean HUGE, THICK, soft,
brown, bacteria-filled, putridly reeking log of FECES.
It was literally birthing right out of the dog's ample sphincter, and plopping
onto a HUGE pile that had already been deposited there not seconds earlier
via the same passageway.
The dog's fur was short and beige-colored... and it's ass was rather large.
It's buttocks were round and muscled.
It's sphincter?
Well I couldn't differentiate it's sphincter from a human's sphincter in
a porn movie, or a police line-up... I can tell you that much!
Not that my gaze lingered mind you.
All this horrid information was gathered in a split second, as my field
of vision had been unexpectedly assaulted.
I turned my eyes instantly... my head swimming with nausea... determined
to try and put it out of my mind and still try and make it a beautiful
day.
The point I'm trying to make is this: what is the difference between this
fully-lit, fully viewable spectacle of rotten, enormous feces logs coming
out of a giant dog's ass in full view of my eyeballs in broad daylight
...vs. a human being doing the same thing in front of me?
I know, I know... one is a dog's excreting ass and the other is a human's
excreting ass.
But trust me... if you had viewed what I viewed in that split second before
I averted my gaze... you'd find it hard to disagree that the line separating
man and beast was becoming just a little blurry.
Is this how far we've come as a civilization?
I mean... what is the difference between this dog's wide-open buttocks,
and pulsating sphincter dropping out huge stink logs onto the pavement...
and a human's?
Really! Please
tell me! I
wanna know!
I think it's an extension of forbidden human behavior... a way to curse
your demons in public.
I wonder what Sigmund Freud had to say about people taking their domesticated
dogs out in crowded public and, with a normal look on their faces, holding
them by leashes as the animal anal-repulsed all over the place in full
view of everyone?
Did people do that back in Vienna in the late 1880's?
And what about horse-driven carriages?
I feel like people
domesticate dogs in public cities (which they have to walk in crowded public
spaces) as therapy.
It's a way to keep your primitive wild side at bay.
You can just take a living, breathing extension of yourself out on a leash
and stand away from it (while still attached to it via the umbilical-like
leash) and let it crap all over the place in full, sloppy, shameless view
of everyone and everything, while you chat away with a fellow human neighbor
about air conditioners and manicures.
The privacy and inevitable repressed shame of the human's home bathroom
is architecturally inverted and turned in on itself.
It allows you to symbolically play act "letting loose" in the most
repulsive way possible, in a way that is socially acceptable.
It's the same theory behind those little hand puppets that child therapists
use to get kids to open up and talk to about their darkest, most shameful
fears. When it's
over you feel symbolically cleansed.
Probably three times a day or however many times you walk your dog!
Who cares if New York City sidewalks are covered in disgusting dog shit,
if it means that the city's human inhabitants who own those dogs are getting
free mental therapy three times a day!
No wonder all the re-birthing clinics in Manhattan go outta business!
I mean, when you pick
up the dog's fresh load with a plastic bag... feeling that steaming fresh
feces, with it's oozing and squirming dead bacteria, warmly festering between
your fingers on the other side of that thin plastic bag must really challenge
that deep memory hidden in your subconscious that your moment of conception
originated from a human spermatozoa penetrating a human egg and not that
of a platypus. Your
imagined position on the food chain is subconsciously re-inforced.
Who's to say that I'm wrong?
I wanted to take a picture of a dog shitting on my sidewalk, with some
really well dressed person holding the leash... but I was too intimidated
really. I mean
could you imagine me saying "Hi! I'm doing a commentary on my web page
about people letting their dogs drop hot feces in public right in people's
faces... could you please have your dog move it's anus more into the light."
But, I realized that if I was the one to unexpectedly take a picture of
a person holding a leash with a dog on the other end, making some fresh
"earth of the butt" (as Mexicans call it) plopping right in full view of
children, that's right... I, the photographer, WOULD BE THE PERVERT!
So then it was too late and I didn't want to stand outside all day waiting
for such a creepy opportunity... or go to jail... so I took these photos
(above) from the web.
Somehow the whole recent Ashcroft statue breast thing seemed appropriate.
Maybe I'm just nuts.
Maybe I have too much pent-up repression.
Maybe this is all normal and I'm just getting worked up over my own neurosis
and repressed traumas and internal shame.
Or maybe... maybe if I go to the local shelter and get my own public crapping
machine that I can exhibit in public three times a day... I'll be able
to calm my own inner demons.
2. This great
new mural in my neighborhood
I have seen this mural for over a year now. It's painted on the front of
a live chicken store around the corner from me (yes they sell live chickens).
Isn't it a riot? It was obviously painted in reverence to the police and
firemen who served and lost their lives during the attacks in NYC on 9/11.
Something got lost, or something subconscious in the artist brimmed to
the surface here... it has an unintentional psychotic quality. Is the fireman
about to hack the police officers to bits? Since it's literally right next
to this
mural, and I assume it's by the same artist... I'm beginning to think there
might there be such a thing as "mad chicken disease." I would love to meet
this artist and interview him. Ahhhhh.... what a fool I am! I just looked
closely at the signature under the mural in my photograph. Is that a web
or email address I see? Will investigate...
3. I found some
blood in my semen and it fucked with my head really bad for about five
minutes
FRANK: "Ted, now that the ladies are gone... can I talk to you... man to
man?"
TED: "Why sure Frank... what's up?"
FRANK: "Well Ted, the other night... after Sally and I had sexual intercourse...
I noticed, well..."
TED: "Oh go on Frank!"
FRANK: "Well Ted, I noticed I had a little ...discharge, you know... down
there."
TED: "What do you mean exactly Frank?"
FRANK: "Ted, there was a little bloody discharge in my seminal fluid."
TED: "Oh Frank... it's noting to be too worried about. Why, the occasional
bloody discharge in seminal fluid is natural in a man's body..."
...and so begins the dialogue of the 1950's male sexuality high school
filmstrip that was never made. Boy I wish I had seen it. This week, after
a very NORMAL and HEALTHY round of MASTURBATION. I noticed, after cleaning
up and placing my PENIS back into my pants, what looked like traces of
blood tracks against the inside of the front of my white underwear. Yes
it was blood... little traces of it where the semen had continued to seep
out a little bit.
After completely freaking out for what I thought was an eternity
but turned out to be only about five minutes (especially considering my
history with testicular
cancer and the fact that I have a prothesis down there), I eventually
pulled myself off of the ceiling and did some research on the internet,
as well as called a friend who's a doctor. Turns out guys, it's a very
normal thing that happens occasionally to the male species, and
is nothing to get really too worried about at all. Turns out that little
infections inside the body, particularly around the prostate, are normal...
and what you are seeing is traces of the body cleansing itself. If you
notice it, you're supposed to keep checking on it and make sure it doesn't
continue. If it does (which it most likely won't), you need to go see a
urologist right away. Apparently though, it can happen for a period of
up to three weeks (!) at a time and still be considered okay (if it happened
that long to me I'd see a doctor though). However if these bouts are happening
more than occasionally (read: more than once or twice a year) you need
to absolutely get it checked out. My doctor friend very reassuringly told
me that it's similar to when you blow your nose and there is blood in your
mucous, which happens to everybody. Turns out... they're right... my emissions
have been snow white ever since! So calm down... it's normal!
I took this photo (above) of the fear-inducing underwear (which I saved
just to photograph for this educational entry). Then after I photographed
it, I didn't want to put it up because usually when I talk about anything
even remotely related to sex or the body or pee pee or poo poo or weenies
or cooties... soon every pin-headed, porn-addicted, fat, drooling, socially
maladjusted loser dirty old man starts emailing me asking me to please
show my "naked bottom" on cam sometime or something. So I decided
to not put it up, but then I thought; If some weird freak is into bloody
semen-stained underwear, then they need a healthy outlet for their
desires! So here you go guys! Hot, right studs? Hope you get off!
FRANK: "Whew! Well Ted... boy is that a weight off my shoulders!"
TED: "Hey Frank... not a problem at all. As we grow older, men's bodies
are filled with functions and quirks that may seem strange or even scary
to us. But they are nothing but God's way of 'cleaning house.' If you'd
like to learn more about the occasional bloody seminal discharge, and what
to do about it, I recommend talking to your family doctor, or visiting
your local medical library research facility!"
FRANK: "Will do Ted! Will do!"
*GIRLS ENTER
STAGE LEFT CARRYING A TRAY OF ICED TEA*
SALLY: "Hello boys! Would you like some iced tea?"
TED: "Oh Sally and Janet, you just know how to hit the spot!"
FRANK: "That sounds super!"
JANET: "What are you two boys talking about in here anyway?"
*MEN EXCHANGE
SMILES*
TED: "Oh... why nothing Sally. Just who's gonna win this year's Super Bowl!"
FRANK: "Yea... Ted here thinks the Falcons are gonna beat the Cowboys
this year dagnabbit! But I had to set him straight!"
TED: "What? Haha! Oh why you dagburned rascal I oughtta..."
SALLY: "Oh you two! I don't understand any of that silly man talk!"
FRANK: "Damn straight!"
ALL FOUR (raising glasses in a toast): "Ahahahahahahahahahaha!!!"
*CUE MUSIC*
Buck Angel (from transexual-man.com)
4. Trannyfags,
and everything in between - for EVERYONE!
I recommend those same porn fans I razzed earlier take a wide-eyed and
closed-legs trip through the world of "trannyfags." I'm still trying to
figure out how any one syllable of that term actually describes or defines
what a "trannyfag" actually is... but maybe that's the point. These are
women, or "gender-less" people or "gender fuck" beings (isn't that phrase
so five years ago?) that are often females who are somewhere between a
female-to-male transition... and I guess are just stopping at each stage
to explore it completely.
There are a lot of these people in San Francisco... as well as New York.
I remember last summer, Jim went to this lesbian barbecue picnic in Prospect
Park and there was a lesbian there who had recently had her breasts removed
(strictly for cosmetic reasons) and was parading around shirtless showing
off her scars and no-boobs to everyone. Meanwhile giant hunks of meat were
sizzling and frying on nearby grills. Ngh...
Don't take my (or Jim's) sense of humor the wrong way, I actually find
these people to be pretty brave and mind-blowing and very edgy and, to
be honest, intimidating. I mean... whoa. How can you not find this totally
fascinating?
Here is a link to porn site that
is selling porn videos of these guys... oops I mean girls... I mean...
wait... HUMAN BEINGS... no... CLOUDS OF ENERGY in action. Here is a link
to
an article that was recently in the Village Voice about them. Here is a
link
to the Buck Angel site, a trannyfag porn star (pictured above). Here is
a growing collection of links from the excellent
Fleshbot.com
(where I got most of this stuff). And for educational purposes, here are
female-to-male
transgender information links. It should be noted that many of these
guys and girls don't necassarily consider themselves "trannyfags" or "genderfuck"
or whatever... some just consider themselves bisexual men, or bisexual
women, or men with vaginas (Buck Angel considers himself a bisexual man
with a pussy). Like Auntie Mame said... life is a buffet... and most people
are starving to death! But not these kids! Carpe Diem!
I can't wait for the next wave of brave experimentation against society-imposed
roles to take form... that's right... forget "gender fuck" ...I want "species
fuck!" Is it a man or a beast? Human or dolphin? I'm sure there's some
plastic surgeon in Mexico, and some mad gene-splicing scientist in Switzerland,
and some radical P.C. theorist/lawyer from some northeastern university...
that can put their noggins together and create the first "human being"
to blur the lines between man and animal. Screw society's dumb laws! I
wanna be your dog! Hmmm... somehow that relates to my #1 entry above.
5. Discovering
Mort Garson's "Wozard of Iz" album in the trash - priceless!
Typical record finding story. One day in the hallway of my building, near
the trash... someone had left a huge pile of records that they were obviously
throwing out. Since they weren't covered in empty crack vials and rat urine
yet... and being an on-again-off-again vinyl junkie, I leafed through them
and found it to mostly be a 70's rock-centric collection with some very
popular titles and a few odd items (like an original copy of Sun Ra's 'Astro
Black' - score!). Amongst the Kansas and Dan Fogelberg was also an odd
record with a funny cover. It appeared to say "The Wozard of Iz" in faded
letters on the front, and on the back were some photos of a man with a
funny mustache and glasses in front of a bunch of old electronics keyboards
and wires, and some text about how the "contemporary moog-man attempts
to fuze words with wires and create a contemporary version of a children's
classic." Interesting. I put it aside for future investigating.
On the day I actually decided to give it a spin... my ears and eyes bloomed
to a brilliantly warped, counter culture, drug-marinated version of The
Wizard of Oz that sounded like "Cats" on a bad trip... fused with a maddening
moog/electronic score. I looked on the web and found that the album is
by one Mart Garson, a kind of electronic music pioneer who made quite a
few really wonderful records but mostly stayed out of the limelight. And
it turned out that "The Wozard of Iz" was a pretty rare recording that
was highly sought after. How it ended up in the trash bin in the hallway
of my building is just another one of life's little mysteries.
Mort
Garson was a hippie-ish electronic music scientist and guru, who specialized
in the more extreme possibilities of the moog. One of his most ambitious
projects was a single spoken word LP for each sign of the zodiac, set to
an electronic score. He also recorded the moog album "Electronic Hair Pieces"
- that one with the great cover. "The Wozard of Iz" was one of his later
recordings, and was a collaboration with Jacques Wilson (who apparently
wrote and conceived the project). The musical, which might have been intended
to go beyond just a recorded album, is a psycho-electronic re-working of
"The Wizard of Oz" that sounds like the soundtrack to the greatest LSD/freak-out/moog/synth/electronic
musical that never was. This oddity is a hysterical and typical leftist/hippie
commentary on the socioeconomic human condition of the average American
in 1968, and uses the analogy of Dorothy taking a "trip" from Kansas for
a brighter and better world where one can really be "free."
The record begins over a kooky electronic score, while a male voice (with
a deep Brooklyn accent) intones:
"This is the story of why Dorothy began her search for the Wonderful Wozard
of Iz! Or somewhere... over... what rainbow? Our Dorothy...
locked into one suburban acre of negative vibrations... boxed in with a
pair of authority symbols; a hypnotized aunt, and a mesmerized uncle, who
had turned life off... and turned the television set... on... and on ...AND
ON!!!"
Then the music builds and builds as another voice commands Dorothy:
"Congratulations Dorothy, you're about to join the ranks of other famous
teenage drop-outs... like Shirley Temple, Candy, and Tallulah Bankhead!"
To which a synthesized male voice in the background repeats over and over:
"Leave the driving to us! Leave the driving to ussssss!"
...to which the voice of Dorothy makes it's first appearance and sexily
coos:
"I'm out of the coffin... I'm out of the box... Kansas City isn't where
it's at... it's a place where people throw rocks at dreams, and the dreams
shouldn't be stoned... only the dreamer. I want to be in a place where
I can see a stranger, and offer him a flower. I want that kind of power!"
And that's just in the first few minutes. The record goes on and on and
on like that. Dorothy meets a bag lady "on a bus" who tries to hand her
some pamphlets written by an army general from "normalville" ... but Dorothy
convinces the army general to "...trade his dog tags in for love beads..."
and the lady on the bus eventually gets attacked by some "free press" pamphlets,
and becomes The Wicked Old Witch in protest. Dorothy eventually decides
to "...find the Great Wozard of Iz... because if I find out where the Woz
was, I'd find out where it's at!" Then she gets advised by some more witches
on busses to leave "Upset Strip" road in search of "the yellow green road"
past the land of "surf and muscle tan" where she notes "...everyone has
sunburned teeth from smiling so much." The scarecrow she eventually meets
is an excessive consumer who buys too many American gas-guzzling cars and
who has substituted "things" for "zing" and decides to follow Dorothy on
her quest for the Wozard who can perhaps help him "think" instead of "thing."
All the while, insanity-inducing electronic sounds bloop, swerve, echo
and boom in the background. This LP is a MASTERPIECE!
The rest of the album goes all over the place... using plenty of instruments
and a whole chorus of vocalists. The songs sound like they could be in
ANY musical... and it's a wonder that the production never made it anywhere
past an LP recording. The voice of Dorothy is provided by sometime Lee
Hazelwood vocalist/partner Suzie Jane Hokum. There are rumors that this
woman is actually Nancy Sinatra (it certainly sounds like her)... but looking
at some of the discussions about this album on the web... it looks like
the verdict is still undecided as to whether it is her or not. It could
be... or it may be just a vinyl compleatist nerd's urban legend.
Now I won't say any more about this great record except that you should
keep an eye peeled for it... and hear it if you can. It's a total blast.
When I first looked around the web, I found a site where some guy had uploaded
every track from the album in mp3 form... and would send you a password
for the mp3s if you emailed him nicely... but now I can't seem to find
it. Maybe if you search around you can find it.
6. Camille Paglia's
latest... "The Magic of Images: Word and Picture in a Media Age"
"The
Magic of Images: Word and Picture in a Media Age" As usual, a
very interesting read. I think she's dead-on about the current trends in
film which tend towards hyper-editing and CGI effects... and their effect
on a generation of eyeballs - totally agree with her here. She talks a
lot about art history courses and their importance in education. Oddly,
I remember some of the most mind-blowing and enlightening courses I took
in school were art history/appreciation classes where the professor lectured
in a dark-ish room in front of four simultaneously changing slide projector
images.
7. Short, but
kind of interesting Creem magazine interviews with William S. Burroughs
from 1978
Fascinating Creem magazine (remember that awesome mag?) interview
with William S. Burroughs from 1978/1979... mostly about Burroughs
relation to mid-career David Bowie, and Burroughs' novel "Junkie." I recently
saw the film "Christiane F."
(1981) and found it to be totally visceral and timeless (or beautifully
dated?) but really superb. Somehow I feel that's related... Bowie... the
heroin thing.
But mostly I remember how totally great Creem
Magazine was. When I was a kid, really into certain types of music
and art, and too young to go to clubs or concerts or "scenes" or even drive...
me and my friends used to collect Creem (as well as Maximum Rock 'n Roll
and Thrasher... believe it or not even those were find-able in the suburbs
of Dallas, TX) like mad and worship every page.
8. Nigerian man
invents working refrigerators with clay pots and dirt, no electricity needed
Totally great.
I want one. He won some kind of scientific award for this.
9. Raymond Pettibon
Just because.
Passé? You said it, not me. I love his work and have been looking
at a lot of it lately. I find that I'm often drifting into a mood where
his warped and dreamy, open-ened drawings, filled with blunted, loner rage
and surreal social criticism, make a lot of sense... or the fact that they
don't simply does. Here's a nice link to an online
gallery and bio. Here's a link to a
gallery show. Here's a nice
interview and two video clips from a PBS thing. A few (badly scanned)
scans of old
Pettibon flyers for Black Flag. You can browse through all the Black
Flag album covers (most using Pettibon artwork) here.
Hell, if you punch "Raymond
Pettibon" into Google Images... holy fuck you get a bazillion pictures.
10. Jim is visiting
me this week
Yay!
Copyright 2004 Mark Allen