I Made An iMix

I made an iMix.

Yep. I did.

The Re-mains

I hate the fucking Eagles. Hate. Fingernails on a chalk board, a fork being dragged across a plate hate. There's a moment in The Big Lebowski when The Dude gets thrown out of a cab for saying he hates the fucking Eagles, and its my favourite scene in all of filmdom. With their vapid, dead fish-eye Southern California stares and their ability to make James Taylor sound like the Minutemen by comparison, the fucking Eagles represent everything that makes me crazy and frustrated and angst-ridden about modern mainstream country. The crap that country radio has been pumping out for the last thirty years plus has been nothing more than one long extended version of Hotel California. As Mojo Nixon once said, "Don Henley is the anti-Elvis".

Now, picture a world where the fucking Eagles never found each other, never made music for elevators and grocery stores, never defamed country rock by taking both the country and the rock out of music. Nice, isn't it.

The Re-mains are from that alternate world. It's a world where Dead Flowers by The Rolling Stones was a mainstream hit, where Townes Van Zandt is a household name, where Uncle Tupelo never split but Son Volt and Wilco still play and record. An alternate universe where every time you turn on the radio you can hear Kris Kristofferson and Corb Lund and John Prine and The Poor Choices and Elliott Brood and Cuff The Duke and Blackie & The Rodeo Kings. Willie P. Bennett is given a state funeral and The Perpetrators are given The Order Of Canada. I will call that world Austin World and I will live there very happily, thank you very much.

The Re-Mains are the bastard children of Keith Richards and Wanda Jackson, of Jeff Tweedy and Bob Dylan. They are the war orphans left behind by Nick Cave's murder ballads, by Johnny Cash's evil seed. They are Willie Nelson's outlaw country taken home and given a cold bath and a warm beer. They are the promise fulfilled by the union of Jack White and Loretta Lynn.

And they are Australian. Of course they're from Australia. A country populated by folk who left Africa 50,000 years ago and hiked halfway around the world in only a couple of generations. A country colonized by criminals and outlaws. A country whose extremes make our extremes look like suburban fantasies provided by Sears. If kick-you-in-the-ass country rock is going to be perfected anywhere, it should be in the land of vegemite and the southern cross.

Rolling Stone Magazine, which gave The Re-Mains' Love's Last Stand four stars, describes them as "Northern NSW country rock & roll hellraisers... combining a rootsy twang with inner-city smarts and genuine affection for rollicking, tumbling hillbilly sounds." Someone else said "Think the Eels after a 10-day binge." I say The Re-Mains will kick you in the ass and leave you wanting more.

Six reasons to line-up to see The Re-Mains:

1) Ballad Of A Wrong 'un - an amazing murder song, violent and mean. With the great line "He always wanted to be a star football player/But the poor guy had a build like Leo Sayer..."

2) The Dirt Farmer's Gavotte. Its just brilliant. Fred Eaglesmith should write a song this good.

3) Othello's P76. "If everybody sang like Pavarotti then we'd all sound just the same/But everybody does their best, beats their chest, and tries and tries again..." Yeah.

4) Days In The Sun. 'cause it is a piece of heaven.

5) They once killed a man. Really. They played for some shearers in the Australian bush who had been a three-day speed and booze powered bender. When The Re-Mains finished their set, the crowd wanted more. And so they kicked into "A Whole Lot Of Rosie" and one of the shearers dropped dead of a heart attack. He was in his mid-twenties.

6) "Imagine a 70's Holden, which has been fanged, hooned, thrashed and cruised from one end of the country to the other, mainly on bad roads, never breaking down but continually having parts replaced as the long distances take their toll." ABC Radio had that to say about The Re-Mains and I don't really know what some of the words mean (it's like the Australians speak in code to keep the rest of the world guessing), but I think a Holden is a car.

And so it goes.

I hate the fucking Eagles. I love The Re-mains.

Octoberman

Two of my favourite authors of ever and forever are Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson. And two of my favourite books of ever and forever are Kerouac's On The Road and Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Both are travelogues, both are stories of the road, the getting to and what happened when they got there. Both had their threatening and dangerous and quite possibly insane travel partners, Jack had Neal Cassaday, Hunter had Oscar Acosta. Both are tales of hurtling towards the edge and hitting the brakes just as you come to the cliff. But, where Hunter's Dr. Gonzo always seemed to know the score, to know who was holding the good cards, seemed always to be in control, Kerouac's Sal Paradise never has that omniscient gift. He travels across America with the mad ones, never quite knowing what the deal is until after, when he has learned some truth.

There's a song by Octoberman's Marc Morrissette called Run From Safety that's got me thinking of On The Road and why, even though it is the obvious template Hunter used for Vegas, it is so different. Why it stands out as The Book for everyone who stumbles and staggers over a copy. And, I think, what makes On The Road so very special, is that Sal isn't full of wisdom and knowledge, he never quite seems to know what the hell is going on. And Marc Morrissette doesn't know what the answers are, or if he does, he's still trying to figure out what the lessons mean. And, I think, that is what makes Run From Safety by Octoberman so very, very special.



Marc Morrissette has written a song that sums up the feeling, for me, of On The Road. With just a few words and only five minutes to do it in, Marc took me back to my own attempt to relive On The Road. He took me back to a Greyhound bus pulling into Cheyenne, Wyoming late at night during Rodeo Days and having lunch at a truck stop in Bliss, Idaho and having to ask the homeless guy where I was and finding out I was in Louisville, Kentucky. With the line "Won't you come back home? Why can't you come back home. I don't think so," he has captured that mad sense of freedom that comes with Kerouac's rushing frantically back and forth across the continent. That thing that Johnny Cash meant when he said once that when he is woken at night by the sound of a train he wished he could go a little crazy one more time. "As long as we run from safety, we'll find our way out here, maybe."

For me Run From Safety is Tennessee Williams' prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages.

Check out octoberman.ca for just about the best band website ever. And check out the Octoberman on MySpace and on CBC Radio 3. And listen to Run From Safety and Elbow Room and Cisco Kid and Chasing Ambulances and be very happy to be alive.

Andrea Ramolo

This is Andrea Ramolo. The photo was taken by Kylah McGlade. And this is what I wrote about Ms Ramolo for Loplops...

Andrea Ramolo has a voice like Lucinda Williams, like Emmy Lou Harris, like Martha Wainwright. She has a voice that climbs deep down inside and sets up camp inside your soul. Her voice makes everything right with the world. Her voice is big, full of energy, but still warm, the kind of voice you want to snuggle with on a cold November night. She has a voice that sounds like it knows the answers to life's mysteries. Andrea Ramolo has the kind of voice Roy Orbison would have written songs about.

Her songs are powerful, so powerful they'll break your heart. Thank You For The Ride is one of those songs, like Octoberman's Run From Safety or Jason Collett's Hangover Days or Elliott Broods' The Bridge or Royal City's Bring My Father A Gift, that I can never get enough of, can never hype enough, that make me feel so freakin inspired about the state of music right now that I want to shout it from a rooftop. Recently, I read an interview with Henry Rollins and he was asked about the state of music today and Hank said that, in his opinion, it has never been better. And I have to agree with him. In my forty something years on this planet, the music has never been better. And Thank You For The Ride is one of the songs I'll hold up in front of Judge Wapner to prove it.

Go, now, to her MySpace. Listen to her version of Hank Williams' Lovesick Blues. She doesn't just sing it, she wears it, rides it, owns it. Listen to Thank You For The Ride and be very happy it exists.

Here is another photo of Andrea taken by Kylah McGlade...



Yeah...

Thank You, America

Hey, Get Off Of My Lawn...

Check this out - I'm going to start posting things again on this piece of real estate.

I've been writing stuff for Lopticulations, a paper-newsleter-thing for LopLops. So, what I'm going to do now is put up a few of the ones I kinda liked and a few of the ones for banks I liked even if my writing at the time sucks, sucks, sucks...

Enjoy.

First up...

The Impossible And The Implausible, The Art Of Li Wei



Li Wei is a photographer and performance artist. He likes to put himself into gravity-defying poses. He seeks to intentionally surprise and shock his viewer. Says Li Wei, "The first reaction is astonishment. Some people think they are full of sense of humour. They are curious about how I did this. Sometimes I am in real danger; I have to hang myself high with steel wires and people do get a little worried for me, but I am fine."



I discovered his photographs via The Wooster Collective, one of the best non-porn web sites ever, ever, ever. Through them I stumbled onto the series, "The Impossible Art Of Li Wei." Like many blogger and internet folk have commented, Photoshop trickery has turned pretty well all of us into cynics and disbelievers when it comes to photography. Which makes these photographs all the more exciting, they are non-digitalized. Except to erase wires and harnesses and scaffolding, they are not computer montages.



His self-portaits are part performance art, part photo essay. They are created using mirrors, wires, scaffolding and acrobatics. His body, stuck headfirst into a windshield, ramrod straight, feet to the sky, as if he has just plummeted to Earth from some great height. His head, sans body, is caressed by a woman, floats around her body, is stepped on. He is kicked off the roof a 25-storey building, a look of shock, disbelief on his face, captured at the moment he begins to fall. He falls horizontally out of an office building, outstretched hands trying to catch him. Li Wei again, "I am fascinated by the unstable and dangerous sides of art and I hope my work reflects these aspects."






He worked in oil until 1999, when he realized that "only performance art offers a chance to experience an action's message through one's own body." He has said that much of his work "involves the symbolic balancing act between personal freedom and emotional security, such as that of family." Much of his work is about change: "there is a feeling of losing grip on things, an uncertainty about tomorrow. It's a feeling in the air, of having nothing firm under the feet."

Blank Generation

"Punk rock should be appalling, disgraceful, totally berserk..." Captain Sensible

Punk rock was born in a fire, in a blood and feces stained bathroom stall, in a riot, at an orgy, at a high school prom, at a knife fight, in a little girl's bedroom, at a suicide. A mutant birth brought into being when Garage Rock raped Rockabilly and left her crying and ashamed and bruised and so angry she will kill. Punk rock was the kid in the back of the classroom no-one ever talked to. Punk rock was the kid too poor to take the bus. Punk rock was the kid with broken glass in his knuckles and spit in his eye.

Punk rock is ugly and mean and dumb. It is threatening and misery and death. It is basic primal energy. It is harder, faster, louder than anything that came before it or after it.

Punk rock is a high school dropout, an art school graduate, an MBA, an acne-scarred kid, and a grey haired hipster.

Punk rock is Old School, Hardcore, New Wave, Post-Punk, Oi!, Anarcho-Punk, Pop Punk, Alternative Rock, Emo, Scremo, Queercore, and Riot Grrrl.

Punk rock is shopping at the Salvation Army Thrift Store, at Hot Topic, at West 49. Punk rock is shoplifting food and investing in mutual funds and RRSP's.

I first heard Punk rock in my parents' living room in fall of '76. It was on the CBC, a news report about an ugly, ugly, ugly trend in London. Safety pins and torn clothing and hair standing at right-angles. Violent and smeared in dripping black eyeliner, the crowd at the bar in the news piece threw themselves up and down, up and down. The disembodied voice of the reporter spoke of riots and gang attacks and anarchy. The band was frightening, amateurish, clowns with a six-string guitar and drums, the lead singer droned "No future, no future..." I was ten and this was my Saul on his way to Damascus moment. I was blinded, yet I could see clearly.

"Here's a shocker: Hilly Kristal turns out to have been a millionaire. Just weeks after the legendary former CBGB owner passed away, his heirs - who thought Kristal was broke - are finding out that the old punk impresario was worth a surprising $3.7 million." The Village Voice, September 18, 2007

"What in the name of all that is holy was that?" Me, 1993 after seeing a Subaru Impreza commercial that claimed the car was like Punk rock

Punk has always been about the underground and the underdog. Anti-commerical, anti-mainstream, anti-establishment, anti-authority, anti-anti. Punk has also always been about selling out to the highest bidder, commercial success, mainstream acceptance, radio playlists, and chart positions. The mainstream acceptance of Punk was not forced down a mohawk tattooed throat. The Sex Pistols did not have to give their pictures for Dutch bubble-gum cards. Nirvana did not have pose for the cover of Rolling Stone. The Clash did not have to sell their songs to car companies. Green Day did not have to give their videos to MTV for airplay. Punk rock looks better than ever. It scored the prom queen and an investment portfolio.

"Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing, and playing what you want." Kurt Cobain

Punk rock loves to define itself. Punk rock is loud, violent and three minutes long. Punk rock is Hardcore. Punk rock is shouting over a jackhammer. Punk rock is Never Mind The Bollocks. Punk rock is the first Clash record. Its Mommy's Little Monster. Its Black Flag before Hank. Its Black Flag with Hank. Punk rock is what American Hardcore, Punk's Not Dead, Punk: Attitude or any of another dozen documentaries that try to define Punk rock say it is. Punk rock is not. It is not about boundaries or fences or secret handshakes or cult meetings. Or what I just found on Dictionary.com: A type of rock-'n'-roll, reaching its peak in the late 1970s and characterized by loud, insistent music and abusive or violent protest lyrics, and whose performers and followers are distinguished by extremes of dress and socially defiant behavior. It is not. It is also Mike Ness' and Eddie Spaghetti's country records. It is also Devo, The Talking Heads, Blondie, and The Boomtown Rats. It is what Cobain said. Musical freedom. As someone much wiser than me said, if your heart is in the right place, the surface material doesn't really matter.

Punk rock is dying and is alive and well and is no-code and is having heart palpitations and just got some hair plugs and is cute and is ripped and is pretty damn hot. Punk rock is eating its young to stay alive, is cannibalizing its neighbors, is denying and is shouting proudly from the rooftops.

Punk rock is complicated.

Art Ramblings

Mark Jenkins is an American artist.

Go to his website. It is here. He also has a Tape Sculpture Tutorial site. Click here. You should also check out the street art blog The Wooster Collective.



Mark Jenkins works mostly in packing tape.



His stuff and things have popped up in cities all over the world, from D.C. to Rio. It has also appeared in nature.



The nature setting seems to be a statement against the idiots who leave garbage on hiking trails. One time, I was on the side of a mountain in Alberta, keeping an eye out for grizzlies, miles from civilization, above the tree-line, when I stepped on a Coke can. Another time, I found an abandoned Yukon Jack t-shirt. I like Mr. Jenkins' art.



I like that it's playful. And fun. And a little disturbing at times. It works to knock people out of their zombie stupor.



Read an interview with Mr. Jenkins in the Washington Post





This is from YouTube. Mark Jenkins has posted several videos of people reacting to his installations. This is from New York City.



This is from Rio. It is called All You Can Eat.



There are more. Lots more. Go to YouTube and search. They are worth the hunt.

Some of my favorite art is street art. Its like guerilla war against boredom.

Strange Rumblings

Fidel has retired. And Raul is the new boss.



"Beans are more important than cannon." Raul said that. "After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's economic benefactor, it was Raul who persuaded Fidel to permit private agricultural markets and open the island to foreign investment in sectors like tourism, now a $2 billion-a-year industry in Cuba." Tim Padgett of Time said that. And Oswaldo Paya, Cuba's leading dissident, has come to view the U.S. embargo as unhelpful.

Strange rumblings, indeed.



This is a picture of Fidel and Che playing some golf. I like it. Put that on a t-shirt, bitches. Fuck t-shirt socialism.

Sorry - listening to N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton. When I first heard N.W.A., I felt fear for my pimply white ass. The revolution had arrived and it was being broadcast on MuchMusic. Easy E and Ice Cube and Dr. Dre were coming to my home to whack me and my white-guilt. Oh, fuckshit, the threat could not be exaggerated. Chuck D and Public Enemy were Malcolm X and N.W.A. were the Panthers, very scary, very organized. They made Bobby Seale look like a pacifist. Shitdamn. And then Easy E died of AIDS. And Dr. Dre, well Dre's living a nice suburban life. He has wife and kids. And now Ice Cube stars in movies for Disney.



Fuck The Police, indeed.

Oh, my man, the world is odd and strange and confusing and bewildering and hurts the eye at times.

How, how, how, how are we to make sense of a world where in one decade a man is straight outta Compton, a crazy mutherfucker named Ice Cube... And in another decade poses with L.A.'s finest at a meet and greet at Tower Records?

Cube posing with L.A. cops. Fidel and Che playing a round of golf.



The contrast between what we assume we know, Fidel the peasant hero, against what we don't know, Fidel the son a wealthy landowner and the family maid. Fidel the proletariat, Fidel the bourgeois golf player. Che the bourgeois golf player, Che the martyr for Latin America freedom.



The contrast between what we assume we know and what we don't know. That's the stuff to ponder, to dwell on, to dig into. "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Mark Twain said that. It's the stuff you don't see coming, like a dark Cadillac with the lights off in a deep moonless night careening towards you as you step off the curb on your way to the all night store to buy some cigarettes and some porn. It's the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson. Nixon going to China. Brian Mulroney leading the international pressure to end apartheid. Its when what you are sure you know comes into a violent conflict with what you don't know.

What we are sure we know: George W. Bush, the President of the United States, is rotten to the core. His failures, his arrogance, his bullying and his bullying and inability to master the English language. "Bush is a natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy who pimped his son out to rich oil-mongers. He hates music, football and sex, in no particular order, and he is no fun at all." Hunter S. Thompson said that. "Bush has rocked America's core idea of itself and most of the world's idea of America. He may not be forgiven, and he certainly won't be forgotten for this." Bob Geldof said this. What we are sure we know is Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, waterboarding.



At one point I suggest that he will never be given credit for good policies, like those here in Africa, because many people view him "as a walking crime against humanity." He looks very hurt by that. And I'm sorry I said it, because he's a very likable fellow. Bob Geldof wrote that.

And this what we don't know.

One woman tells how six months previously, she was bitten by a cobra and rushed to hospital. As she was passing out, she tells the President, "that little voice whispered to me, 'You'll be all right,' and I was." She pauses, and says meaningfully to him: "You know that little voice, I think?" "Not really," Bush says drily. "I've never been bitten by a cobra."

And this what we don't know.

"U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders." George W. Bush said that.

"When we see hunger we feed them. Not to spread our influence, but because they're hungry." George W. Bush said that.

"Stop coming to Africa feeling guilty. Come with love and feeling confident for its future." George W. Bush said that.

George W. Bush initiated the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with cross-party support led by John Kerry and Bill Frist. $15 billion over 5 years, it is the largest investment to fight a single disease in history. Bush wants to extend it for 5 more years, spending $30 billion.

In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines free. The Americans contribute one-third of the money to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which treats another 1.5 million. 50% of all food aid. A $350 million fund for other neglected tropical diseases that can be easily eradicated. A program to distribute 5.2 million mosquito nets to kids in Tanzania. Contracts worth @ $1.2 billion in Tanzania and Ghana from the Millennium Challenge Account. With other leading industrialized nations has granted $34 billion in debt relief for African nations in the past 18 months.

"Human suffering should preempt commercial interest." George W. Bush said that.

This what we don't know.

Bush, the "natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy", the incompetent, the arrogant. Bush, Cheney's puppet, the yes-man for oil, the guy with the bin Laden family connections. Bush, Michael Moore's fave-o-rite punching bag. Bush, evil incarnate. Bush is also the best friend Africa has ever had in the White House. He has done for more for Africa than any other president ever. Period.

"This is the triumph of American policy really. It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion." Bob Geldof said that.



Read Bob Geldof's article in Time. I recommend it. Its a shot to the gut.

Strange rumblings, indeed.

John Simon Ritchie

I Can Kick:The Crispin Hellion Glover Sampler

As a wiser man than I once said, every film geek has his or her own favourite Crispin Glover movie moment.

Mine is the standing up to Biff scene in Back To The Future or the running around his car screaming scene in Rivers Edge. Or the Larry Flynt brings Jesus to Hustler scene in People vs Larry Flynt.

(Anyway... If anyone still drops by this lonely space on the internet-tubes, tell me - what is your fave-o-rite Crispin Glover movie scene...)

Crispin Hellion Glover was born in 1964. His father is an actor. His father's name is Bruce Glover. This is Bruce Glover as Mr. Wint in Diamonds Are Forever...


Crispin Hellion Glover is an actor.

Crispin Glover appeared in a made for tv movie titled High School USA in 1983.


Crispin Glover appeared in Happy Days also in 1983.


In 1984 Crispin Glover appeared in Friday The 13th:The Last Chapter.


On July 28, 1987 Crispin Glover appeared on David Letterman.




Crispin Glover is a singer.

This is Mr. Glover doing his version of Michael Jackson's Ben, from the film Willard.


And this, this is special. This is the video for Crispin Glover's Clowny Clown Clown.


Crispin Glover is a multi-media army on one.

Recently Crispin Glover filled in for Timothy Olyphant on Sports Update on Indie 103.1.


He has a website. You can find information about his films 'What Is It?' and 'It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.' and his Big Slideshow and his books and his Compact Discs and how to book him for your special event. Go to his website here.



Crispin Glover is a force of nature.

Holly Hunter Is A Brave, Brave, Brave Woman Continued

Previously on Flinging Pooh... I posted The Interview Seen Around The World. See below.

ABC News has now entered into the fray and has posted a story on abcnews.com about The Interview Seen Around The World. ABC tries hard (real hard, brother) "to delve deeper into exactly what happened during that "What's the Buzz" interview that went so famously off-track." You see, the whole thing was a hoot, a lark, a chuckle and a buckle. A couple of technical glitches, a novice and a fumble. Not that big of a deal, says ABC. Not that big of a deal at all.

Merry Miller (really, is that her freakin name - Merry?) is brand spanking new to the on-camera side of broadcasting. She's a businesswoman and booker for the late, great Joel Siegel. She taught at the Learning Annex in New York. She is a well-rounded, intelligent woman, I'm sure. Sure she comes off as amateurish, a bit squirrley, clumsy, stupid, unblinkingly retarded, inexperienced, sad, lost in the headlights, oblivious, dumber than a Jack Russell, incompetent, bungling, bumbling, floundering, maladroit, and balmy in the interview with Holly Hunter. But there is a very, very, very, very good reason for that.

In interviews like this one, the interviewer and interviewee are not in the same room and cannot see each other. They rely on ear pieces called IFBs to hear each other and to carry on a conversation. And, according to abcnews.com...

"Unfortunately for Miller and unknown to the crew, her IFB failed before she began speaking with Hunter. Another host might have known to alert the crew about the problem and delay the interview while the technical issues were worked out, but the inexperienced Miller gamely tried to speak with Hunter without hearing her responses."

I'm shocked and bewildered. The interviewer, Merry, could not hear the interviewee, Holly. Merry was working without a safety net and had been pushed off the tightrope by a simple technical glitch. Wow.

' "I couldn't hear her, and it's very hard to talk to somebody like that," Miller said. "I give credit to Holly Hunter. She was a pro, a class act. She saved the interview." '

Sweet baby Jesus, thank you. Everything is explained. Jeez Louise, I feel bad for chuckling and laughing and guffawing and carrying on like a chimp on E everytime I watched the video. I want to take this moment and apologize, from the bottom of my toes, to Merry Miller for ever thinking bad of her. For example, for ever thinking she is one chromosone short of being a gecko. Or a brain cell shy of being that guy in Japan who tried to cover up a nuclear spill with a bucket. I'm sorry Merry, I really, honestly am.

Truly and verily, I am merry that Merry got though this with some dignity intact. Rotten technology, making the poor woman seem sad and desparate while interviewing the woman from The Piano and Raising Arizona and Oh, Brother Where Art Thou? and The Firm and Crash.

Just a moment while I clear my throat...

Watch the clip again. At approximately 30 seconds into the clip there is this exchange...

Merry Miller: Okay, we love the show. Tell us what drew you to this character that you play Grace.
Holly Hunter: I'm sorry?
Merry Miller: What drew you to this character that you play Grace?

So. Lets quickly summarize. The interviewer could not see the interviewee. The interviewer could not hear the interviewee. But somehow, someway, Merry Miller knew that Holly Hunter could not hear her. There is one and only one explanation... Merry Miller is in league with the devil and is a witch. Only a witch could answer a question she could not hear. Everything explained. Everything tidy and clean.

For the entire article at abcnews.com go here. Enjoy.

Last words from Merry that prove she is some kind of freakin business genius...

"The power of the Internet is so [great]," she said. "I'm involved in some online ventures, and my gut had told me that [the Internet] was the future of the world [and this proves] that viral marketing has really kicked in. I'm going to take this phenomenon that I created and drive it somewhere."

Holly Hunter Is A Brave, Brave, Brave Woman

I know, I know - its been a freakin long time. Now, shut up and watch...
Please, watch all the way to the end.

Social Distortion - Far Behind

Okay. The new single is out. And about. Here be footage from the KROQ hoedown...



Enjoy.

Joker Revealed...

Go here. And wait a few seconds...

If it doesn't work... this is the image that you're looking for.




I cannot wait for a full year. Cannot.

Yipes Freakin Yipes

Somewhere in Hell someone is saying "Hey, is that snow...?"

"'Sicko' Shows Michael Moore's Maturity as a Filmmaker" says Fox News...

A Belated Letter To My Mom

My mom asked me to send her a note concerning why I don't go to Church. I used to.

So. Here's the letter I sent...

Here it is. Sorry it took so long. A lot of Big Thoughts and Pondering have gone into this since you first asked me to jot down "why don't I go to Church"...

I think the issue started when I was going to Church. I was younger and had a mind like a sponge. So I started reading up on this Church thing and Jesus and the rest. What I found kind of left me with a fuller appreciation of Jesus and the rest but also with a big old nasty feeling about Christianity in all of its many, many forms.

I found that the more I read about the Man and His times, the more I started respecting the man in the Man. Strip away the supernatural trappings, and you've got a guy who combined Far Eastern philosophy and contemporary thought (for him). Those were days of Trade and Commerce, so its not suprising that anyone in the Middle East would have come into contact with the East's world-view. And its not suprising that anyone then with some religious training (remember, he was often called "Rabbi" by some of his followers) would take the time to look at other religions and philosophies and beliefs. What is suprising is that he would take these different outlooks, be they Greek or Roman or Egyptian or Chinese or Indian and find the common moral ground between them all. He took the best of the Torah and everything else thrown his way and came away with a pretty simple and unique world view.

Here's the son of a carpenter. Here's the cousin of John. One foot in the world of day to day struggle. One foot in religion.

And what does he teach? What does he leave us with? This is from Mattew 25:

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Anyway.

And so as a much younger person, I started looking at Jesus without the supernatural, without the miracles, without the resurrection. Strip away the show-stoppers and the fireworks and you still have a pretty damn decent guy. Hell, for me a much more honest and human picture. And I went back and forth in the four gospels and couldn't find one instance of "Worship Me" anywhere. Lots of "follow my example". Lots of "this is a better way to live". Not a lot of "Worship Me". That comes later.

So. I read more and more and more. And then I started looking at the history of Christianity. Oh, boy.

The early Church had a power struggle. It was between those who knew Jesus and saw his teachings as a new form of Judaism. And Paul who saw a new religion to spread. Short story - Paul won. Emphasize the miracles and the resurrection and the supernatural stuff, don't really spend any time on the Message.

From my own experience, most of Christianity is obsessed with the Son of God aspect of Jesus' life and not with the Son of Man aspect. Where are the stories of this complex historic figure in any Church anywhere? He taught forgiveness during a time of occupation. He taught peace and then went into the Temple in Jerusalem and started wrecking the place. He taught that every person is responsible for their own actions, towards themselves and towards everyone around them.

Christianity, the Church, whatever we call it, has a pretty dismal record of actually practicing what it preaches. For Two Thousand years, we have seen Christian countries invade and plunder and kill and rape and slash and burn. The Crusades. The Inquisition. The Holocust. And now...

It just seems to me, from where I sit and watch, the Church, in all of its forms, has never, ever been about Jesus.

That's a big part of why I walked away from Church. Its the current atmosphere of hate and prejudice that keeps me away. And not worrying about my immortal soul.

Go back to Matthew 25. Now look at the Church as it portrays itself to the world. Christianity has become a two issue religion, abortion and homosexuality. Okay, at Christmas its a three issue religion. (By the by, Christmas as we know it is a pretty recent idea. It has not been a tradition for a very long time at all. However, the idea of a celebration at midwinter is almost as old as civilization. So Bill O'Reily can shut the hell up. And Happy Holidays comes from Happy Holy Days. Shut up Fox News.) (Sorry.)

One more thing... Where, oh where is the mass Christian outrage against the Rev. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church? This is a man and his flock who the secular world see as a representative of Christianity. The Rev. Phelps is the most hate-filled piece of something I scrape off of my shoe with a stick I have ever, ever, ever seen. Look him up on Google. He's a charmer. And so is his Church.

Anyway. Why did I walk away from Church and never look back? Because the Church in all of its forms comes off as one-dimensional and home to some seriously Bad people. Because the Church has rarely ever been keen to recoginze that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

And so I sent it.

Any thoughts?

Wiiiiiiii!

The Mii Lebowski.

Poor Donny.

This Is Jackson Pollock.

This is Jackson Pollock.

The picture was taken by Arnold Newman. Jackson Pollock was a painter. Fifty years after he died when he was thrown from his car and hit a tree, lots and lots and lots and lots of folks still argue and argue and argue about him and his paintings. Lots and lots and lots and lots of folks say "he was a freaking genius" or "he was freaking Jesus in blue jeans" or they say "my kid can do that" or "I can do that" or "that shit is shit".

Me? I like Jackson Pollock the bestest of all the painters who have ever, ever painted in the whole of the world. Ever. And my job here isn't to tell folks what they should think or not think about Jackson Pollock. My job is to... well, I don't know what my job here is today.

Jackson Pollock, was he a genius? I don't know. Genius has become one of those words that get thrown around way, way, way too much. I know he was a heck of a painter artist guy.

He painted some of the twenthieth century's most iconic images. And he helped bring a new dynamic to art. And he proved that folks in the Americas knew a thing or two about art. And he was complicated and driven and needed, needed, needed to tear down all the rules of art that had been set in freaking stone.

Was he Jesus come to save the artists from the rules and regulations they had grown up with? Nah. He was just a guy born in Cody, Wyoming. He wasn't sent from on-high. He grew up surronded by the mythos of the Wild West and brought that rebellion to whatever he was going to do when he grew up.

When he became famous, all The Great Art came from Europe. Only. Any pretenders in this hemisphere were only ripping on Picasso and those cats. So the guy born in Cody who liked booze and cars and women and painting kicked at the Established Way of Doing Things until the Established Way of Doing Things sat down and shut up.

And this is Jackson Pollock. Complicated, moody, friendly, generous, selfish, outlaw, sellout, artist.


This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.




This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.


This is Jackson Pollock.

And that was Jackson Pollock. Complicated, moody, friendly, generous, selfish, outlaw, sellout, artist.


For more information, please consult your local library. Or go here.

For more information on the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, go here.

And for more way too much fun... go to jacksonpollock.org. Just run your mouse over the page, click for different colours. Enjoy.

Ciao.