Has It Really Come To All Of This?

O THE HUMANITY!

An impromptu photo essay by Guy Pinto
edited (badly) and titled by T. Nihilist.

That's it, from now on I'm going all Andy Warhol and letting other people take my pictures for me! If I would have shot that mess I would have been disgusted and not picked up the camera for a month! But since it wasn't me doing the shooting I can appreciate the aesthetic(?) interestingness of it? My only wish is that I didn't have to be the unwitting subject UGH! I guess it could have been worse he could have stuck the camera down his pants!?!

I think this might be a record,

three posts in three days???

A Couple of Couplets . . .

A few days ago I could not stop listening to David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars". I had just gotten some 30th anniversary edition w/ all kinds of extra tracks bells & whistles. And for days that was all I could listen to non-stop towards the end of it I kept trying to listen to other things . . . electric Mils Davis . . . Bill Fay . . . but nothing would take, I kept having to go back to the Bowie.

When this happens w/ me I'll get various snatches of lyrics stuck in my head playing in a loop over and over. The Main one that was afflicting me from the "Ziggy Stardust" album was from the chorus of "Moonage Daydream":

Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe
Put your ray gun to my head

Finally today out of nowhere I found something else to listen to obsessively, Faust's "Faust IV" and for now in particular the song "Jennifer" so I went from moonage daydream mumbo jumbo to deep a S P A C E R O C K dirge w/ a lyric that is only two lines* repeated over and over:

Jennifer, your red hair's burning
Yellow jokes come out of your mind

. . . Paging Dr. Hoffman!?!

* And a line of near subliminal doggerel in the middle of the song that is driving me crazier b/c I can't quite make it out and I haven't been able to find out what is anywhere on the web!!!

You So Crazee Mr. Ozu !?!

Ozu meets a 70's sitcom farce!?! A wonderful exchange from the latest Yasujirō Ozu movie I saw, 1960's "Late Autumn". I really can't get enough of his movies, which sucks b/c there are only two more late ones that I haven't seen that are available on DVD.

I Really Shoulda Seen This One Coming . . .

. . . But not this one fast on it's heels, the coup de grâce of 'tardation!?!




I'm Truly Speechless!?!

. . . And in other news, If I ever talked shit on Mike Watt's second solo album "Contemplating the Engine Room" (somehow I feel that I have?), I take back anything that I may have said?

Nels Cline skronking it up and Watt operating the thud staff, what more do you want? I got my hands on this album again after a long while and today taking a break from my current musical obsession listening to Iggy's "Search & Destroy" over and over again(speaking of 'tardation!?!), I gave it a listen. It really is a solid album, drags at the end a bit maybe. When I was doing the Last.FM I had Watt's "Ball-Hog or Tugboat?" in the rotation and I got to relive how much I enjoyed that album. But I think I always dismissed " . . . Engine Room", I guess I'd been confusing it w/ the one after it which I remember being really boring. I'm going to have to dig that one up and give it a listen again and for that matter his fIREHOSE material as well.

. . . Yeah, I know, I am such a big old LEZZY!?!

This picture gives me such shpilkes I can't even say!

I've been eating up Jane Fonda's blog, It's so wonderful and it's been such nice treat since Rosie hasn't been blogging as regularly as she was.

Speaking of shpilkes I just finally got to watch last night the great Mike Leigh's latest joint, "Happy-Go-Lucky". And b/c he is at the tippy top of my list of favorite directors I had high expectations for the new movie and I have to say it was at least as wonderful as I hoped it would be. Looking forward to the new movie's DVD release I re-watched his last few movies over the last month or so. The last two, "All or Nothing" and "Vera Drake" were so dour in a lot of ways, this new one was a nice change. Being very familiar w/ most of his film work, while watching this last movie I really started seeing Mike Leigh as a sort of British Yasujirō Ozu (another of my all time favorites). Which isn't really such a great leap both of their movies deal primarily w/ the modern family. What I was thinking about though, while watching this new mike Leigh movie is how not being a Japanese speaker all of the Ozu movies seem so similar and the same could be said for Leigh but being an english speaker the differences and nuances are much more understandable. I couldn't help thinking about how the dialogue of Mike Leigh's female characters (or male for that matter) is always so Mike Leigh, I started thinking of the late great Katrin Cartlidge and how Sally Hawkins character in this new movie was a happier and toned down (a bit) version of the roles Katrin Cartlidge played in "Career Girls" and to a lesser extent "Naked". One last thing I was thinking is that "Happy-Go-Lucky" pretty much ended where a more conventional movie would have begun, I really wish it could've been about 45 minutes longer. I really felt like that w/ his last one, "Vera Drake" as well. My main problem w/ any new Mike Leigh movie though is that now the great wait begins for his next movie (I just hope it won't be four years again!)!!!

How can you not Love that guy?

Happy 60th Birthday Fred Frith & One More Bus

Again taking the tip from Svenn, I saw that today was the great Fred Frith's birthday so here are a couple of videos of him in action:




That clip is a perfect little snapshot of what Fred Frith is all about improvising w/ the electric guitar.



I can't believe I never thought of the paint brush technique myself.

There's also a pretty interesting dry (it gets better around pt. 3) multi-part interview w/ Mr. Frith that can be found here.

I have to make more noises again!

&

I have to read more Beckett!

Happy Valentimes Day !?!

. . .You know, fun w/ GIMP !!!

UPDATEish:

How about that, mere hours after posting the above nonsense I stumbled on (I believe) the only known photo of Richard Lloyd from Television wearing the infamous 'PLEASE KILL ME' T-shirt!



I think the story goes Richard Hell, when he was still in the band, made the shirt (gotta love that seventies puffy letter font!) but chickened-out of actually wearing it. I sure do love those coincidences only made possible by the internet!

Bus Abuse ( . . . Or, When I Finally Get That Advertising Budget !?!)

. . . You know, for kids !!!

Max Neuhaus & The King of Denmark

I saw yesterday that the great percussionist/sound artist Max Neuhaus passed away last week. I'm loath to do dead people posts (and it seems they come much more frequently anymore) but his interpretation of Morton Feldman's short piece for solo percussion, "The King of Denmark", holds a special place in my heart. I think I first heard it when I was just beginning to get into Feldman, anyway I listened to the hell out of it to the point that now after not listening to it for years (or so?) I can hear long passages of it in my mind. I know I've listened to the whole album w/ that piece on it but none of it sticks in my mind like "The King of Denmark".

I just read while looking up information about "The King of Denmark" that Feldman wrote the draft score on the beach at Coney Island inspired by the noises around him. That image is pretty wonderful. The other interesting bit of minutiae about the piece is the story behind it's title; which comes from an apocryphal story of the Danish king Christian X who is said to have worn the Star of David in silent protest to the nazi occupation of his country. For some reason I'm a complete sucker for the shorter Feldman pieces and especially the ones w/ colorful titles, my other big favorite is "Madame Press Died Last Week at Nintey" (I think I even had a post worked up I never finished about that piece?). Anyway the great UBUWEB still has up an mp3 of the Neuhaus "The King of Denamrk" along w/ the rest of that album, here. They also have some other Neuhaus stuff as well. Also, I saw this awhile ago but forgot about until now but there's a Youtube clip of a young guy performing "the King of Denmark", pretty well I might add.

WHUT !?!

Apropos of basically nothing; the featured Wikipedia article for today and having an old joke on my mind. I had made a similar image of No. 2 during the first blush of his stupid presidency, that's been lost to the ages (I think it's on our old computer?) and it's been on my mind recently. After I made the Dr. Johnson one I actually tried to recreate it but then I quickly lost interest.

 . . . good riddance to bad rubbish!

. . . And the king of all Sir Duke!

Here's my latest Youtube movie creation abomination, I made it especially for my comrade in MR, G. over at Happy Happy Fun Time Mr. Whatever.

This thing is really all about the infamous audio track, which when we first got our hands on it, G., pretty much devoted a good six months of his life to (I wish I was joking!). But that was some time ago, why I made this now, I don't know? I wanted to misquote a line from it in a cryptic comment I left for G. over on the other blog and being nutso I needed to get the line just right, so I had to go back to the original and I figured somebody must have put it up on Youtube. And of course someone had, I just didn't care for their version and I thought I could make something a little better, plus I thought it would be mindless fun to snag a buttload of Duke Wayne pictures while singing the Stevie song who's title I stole for this project (which it was). so w/o further ado . . . SIR DUKE !!!




For some reason, again I got some video glitch in the opening frames but that doesn't really bother me. I really prefer the six minute plus directors cut, it seemed to have a more interesting flow but whatever, six minutes is way too long to devote to something so stupid.

A Document(s)

. . . Sometime I forget I have a scanner, alright pretty much all of the time (. . . I can't even remember the name I dubbed it w/ when it was brand new? Darryl, I just remembered)

Anyway, every so often I get these wonderfully crypto-bizarre epistles from someone w/ a very vivid (can I say wonderful again?) imagination who knows just how much I love to receive mail (and the absurd)!

So on the occasion of receiving a new one (and remembering about Darryl):

. . . Great work in making my day Benét! I look forward to the next one!

. . . The name 'Danielle Baldwin' is pure genius!?!