Andre Williams, self-styled Black Godfather, is the man responsible for the berserk R&B of Bacon Fat, Please Pass The Biscuits and the immortal Jailbait. He is a legend and a lunatic. There is a new documentary about him called Agile Mobile Hostile: A Year With Andre Williams.
In 2001, WIlliams gave a career spanning interview to the Perfect Sound Forever e-zine that is utterly hysterical, especially the part about his “operation” to become Jewish:
Q: Speaking of Jewish people, we hear you are a recent convert to Judaism. How did that come about?
Williams: Well, I met a lady who I like real well and she’s from the Naftali tribe, she’s Jamaican. She’s a lawyer and she said “Well, Andre. If we gonna do something, you’ve gotta skin down!” [Laughs]
Q: Was it err.. painful?
Williams: Well, it was an experience! I went to the doctor’s office and I’m thinking that I’m going first for the interview you know. So when I got there, I had the $350 in my pocket, the doctor said it was gonna cost me that. So I said “OK, when do I come back?” And the doctor said “No, we’ll do it right here!” Sweat started popping on my motherfuckin’ head and I said, you mean you really are gonna do it right now?? He said “Yeah” and sat me on this fuckin’ table and said “Drop your pants!”. I dropped my pants and he grabbed my dick and said “Oooh! This is gonna be good! She’s gonna love this!” [Everyone laughs, loudly] I swear! Man, I looked around and I said “Doc, you know, err, I’m err…” He got the needle and said “I don’t put my patients to sleep. This is much better, I know what I’m doing.” He popped me the first time with the needle and by then I’m embarrassed like a motherfucker and I keep rolling in my seat you know. Then he got an even bigger needle and by that time, everything was dead and he was just “Crrrr crrr shhccrrr…” [Everyone laughs but are shuffling uncomfortably on our seats with our knees kept very tight together indeed. Andre is obviously enjoying this tremendously] Now this is kinda strange, like cutting through material “Crrr shhcccrr ssshh!” [More horrible sounds] He was playing with bits of cotton and dabbing here and there, and then the worst part about it was that he set the dead meat up on the table! [Screams of disgust!] Then he told me “Do you wanna see what I cut off?”, I said “Yeah” and looked over and I see this big ol’ dead piece of meat with blood and everything! Then he sewed it up and put a big ol’ bandage on it. No sex for ten days!
Lonely this Valentine’s Day, bucko? Adopt a pet! If you or someone you know has been thinking of adopting a new pet and you live in Los Angeles or San Francisco, this Valentine’s Day between 11 and 3pm, Amoeba Records, the best record stores in the entire world (or at least the parts I’ve been to) will be there to make your love match with a pooch or kitty.
A man sits in a couple of different tacky/surreal hotel rooms (possibly the Madonna Inn ?) contentedly manipulating tape loops on an ancient flea-market deck, oblivious to the goings-on beneath the covers of the beds next to him. It’s the mysterious of work of LAFMS master loopist Joseph Hammer and artist/ hypnotist Sayo Mitsuishi aka The Swinging Chandeliers. Play both at once !
other LAFMS posts previously on Dangerous MInds here and here
Back when time and sleep were of the more surplus variety, I would sometimes spend the tail end of a late night with that horse-happy, cigar-waving TV preacher, Dr. Gene Scott. Scott wasn’t like the other preachers littering the cable crap-scape. He had a Ph.D. from Stanford, and, as he often demonstrated while dissecting a bit of scripture at his beloved dry-erase board, was fluent in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.
He was also, apparently, fluent in alcohol. Oh, and womanizing. As the Internet Monk’s Michael Spencer says in his terrific article on Scott, “I Just Couldn’t Look Away.”
And while his shilling for money was a near-constant, his gruff persona and random cutaways to his ponies (and “pony girls”) made it all seem oddly endearing. After an hour or so of watching, it was hard to not start hoping Scott got some of that cash he was asking (barking!) for.
So…in short, was he crackpot? Absolutely. But, hey, he was an L.A. crackpot. And just the type of self-possessed subject to attract director Werner Herzog. What follows at the bottom is the little-seen documentary Herzog made of Scott in 1980, God’s Angry Man.
Barbie Bridges vs. Melissa Scott
Gene Scott died close to 5 years ago from complications arising from prostate cancer. His younger-by-40-years wife, Melissa Scott, seized took over the still-profitable ministry’s reigns—and still dodges allegations of having had a possibly pornographic past (see above).
Or one final screwing before you go completely. A new U.S. patent was granted yesterday for the above “Easy Inter Burial Container.” According to the patent application for the EIBC, the reasons for such a vessel are three-fold: space, time, and cash are all at a premium.
This invention relates to conserving land area and easy to install burial containers which can be pressed, agitated, screwed, self bored or by other means set into earth or other receiving materials and do not require a large amount of land area or a large pre-dug rectangular hole with subsequent refilling after the placement of the burial container.
A Clock so strange, Dali would have it himself if he were alive… A fish rotates around the clock once a minute while Dali’s moustache tells the time. A surreal Alarm Clock is the perfect way to wake you up and smack you with your own realism at 6:30am!
Doctor Who continues its steamroller assault on all fandom with the new announcement that Neil Gaiman has been contracted to write an episode next year for the new Doctor (aka “the Encyclopedia Britannica kid”). Apparently Michael Moorcock is writing a Dr. Who novel, too.
Neil Gaiman has been picking up literary prizes left, right and centre over the last year, but the fantasy author announced this weekend what could be the biggest honour yet for a long-time fan of Doctor Who: writing an episode of the television series detailing the adventures of the Time Lord.
Creator of the Sandman series of comics and author of novels including Anansi Boys and Coraline, Gaiman said in his acceptance speech for winning best comic at the SFX awards on Saturday that he had been a fan of Doctor Who since he was three years old, when he would watch the show from behind the sofa. “And while I know it’s cruel to make you wait for things, in about 14 months from now, which is to say, NOT in the upcoming season but early in the one after that, it’s quite possible that I might have written an episode. And if I had, it would originally have been called The House of Nothing. But it definitely isn’t called that anymore,” revealed the author, who won the best comic prize for his Batman story Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader.
Gaiman, whose latest novel The Graveyard Book won many awards last year, including best novel at the Hugos, the Newbery medal and the UK’s Booktrust teenage prize, is not the first fantasy author to have been tapped by the Doctor Who machine. Last year, Michael Moorcock revealed he had been approached to write a new Doctor Who novel for publication next Christmas.
From the New York Times, a rather odd article about karaoke killings in the Philippines. Sing a SInatra song poorly and it may be your last…
“I used to like ‘My Way,’ but after all the trouble, I stopped singing it,” he said. “You can get killed.”
The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”
The killings have produced urban legends about the song and left Filipinos groping for answers. Are the killings the natural byproduct of the country’s culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there something inherently sinister in the song?
Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord (New York Times)
I read about the beta-launch of something called Chatroulette this morning on a German blog I frequent called Nerdcore and something tells me this thing is gonna be HUGE. As in huge, huge. Facebook huge.
First off, it’s super easy to use—hit the “start” button, and you’re off. The people you’ll meet are from all over the world and Chatroulette works in real time (like Skype) and there’s audio, too.
What makes this thing so exciting/addicting/cringeworthy all at the same time is easy to summarize: You never know WHO you’re going to get when you click that button. My friend and I tested it out today. Our first interaction was with a male in his mid-20s. He said he was from China. Fifth go around we got the Jonas Brothers. No shit, it was the real Jonas Brothers. “Are you guys the Jonas Brothers?” They said they were in New Jersey. It looked like they were in an airport. There was a lot of starring and smiling going on. They asked if I was a fan of theirs. I said nothing. Awkward moment. Screen went black, we lost contact.
But seriously, there is lots of WEIRD shit going on here. Lonely guys jacking off in front of their computers, couples having sex and waving at you, monster mask pole dancing, obese women masturbating, lesbian orgies, guys eating pizza watching football, folks wearing clown masks, wholesome families waving at you, people smoking joints, teenagers yelling “show me your tits!’... it’s endless. I was truly shocked by what I was seeing, but that’s not to say we weren’t laughing so hard we were crying for several hours. Aside from teen pop star siblings—I mean, what are the chances?—we also encountered a hillbilly mom and her son who looked at us on her screen and murmured “They must be ‘hipsters.’ I’ve heard all about them” as well as a man… and his dog, let’s just say, and leave it at that…
Newsweek’s Daniel Stone weighs in on Sarah Palin’s potential as a presidential candidate in 2012 after this weekend’s Tea party convention speech. I certainly hope he’s right:
But business is business and politics is politics. Was tonight’s speech helpful to building her appeal as a candidate? Hundreds who adore her streamed out of the ballroom with giggles, convinced that Sarah would be their gal in 2012. But the U.S. electorate, stubborn as it is, would disagree. Elections are won and lost in the middle, not on the extremes. Palin’s fiery rebuke of Washington certainly firmed her base, but it did little to widen her appeal to moderates and independents, two groups without which she’d have a real tough time passing the threshold of electoral votes. (At one point, she even mocked the majority of voters who voted for President Obama, asking them “How’s that hopey changey thing was working for you now?”)
Which is to say that electorally speaking, tonight’s speech may have been a self-inflicted wound for Palin, offering ammo to opponents to argue that she’s simply too far right and too niche to win widespread support for national office. Speeches like this make the people who love Palin love her even more, and the people who don’t ever more certain why they don’t. In other words, Palin further polarized herself to the American public.
That may have been the point. With tonight’s speech, Palin cemented her role as the de facto head of the Tea Party movement. But in a bigger sense, as the fearless warrior leading conservatives into battle in November and beyond. That might be where she’s most effective (and undoubtedly where the pay is best). Because at this point, it’s increasingly unlikely that Palin will seek national office. Until now, the Palin guessing game has focused on whether she’s running. On her current course, she simply wouldn’t be able to win.
Why Sarah Palin Can’t Run for President (Newsweek)
Last week when I posted about the Wiseblood gig in 1986, I found this pretty amazing interview with Lydia Lunch conducted by my good friend, Merle Ginsberg (who you may know from Ru Paul’s Drag Race or Bravo’s Launch My Line) dating from 1983. Lydia discusses working with Jim Thirlwell, Marc Almond and Nick Cave on the short-lived Immaculate Consumptive performances and more.
Mr. Novicoff and I got to meet the lovely Rachel Rosenthal today taping next week’s Dangerous Minds episode. She’s awesome and she brought her gorgeous, snow white, part-wolf canine companion, Sasha with her. You know you’re having a good day when it involves meeting a living legend and a “national treasure”—I called Rachel this on camera—of course it’s been said of her many times before—and she comically demurred and said that she’s more of a “local treasure,” instead.
Well that’s true too and if you are lucky enough to live in Los Angeles (some people like snow, I’m not one of ‘em) then coming up the weekend of February 19, for three performances, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Rachel Rosenthal introduces her new improvisational theater group, TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theater Ensemble with monthly performances in Los Angeles, thereafter.
From the press release:
The name, loosely translated, means “collision or chaos” which Rosenthal describes as not what the Company does, but the process they go through to do what they do. Each monthly performance will span three nights during one weekend. All performance begin at 8:30pm. Tickets cost $20. Reservations are necessary to insure seats and can be made by calling 310-839-0661 or online via Brown Paper Tickets at http://www.rachelrosenthal.org. The Rachel Rosenthal Company’s venue, Espace DbD, is located at 2847 South Robertson Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90034. Street parking is available.
The Rachel Rosenthal Company’s TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theater Ensemble, the latest offering in the 83-year-old Rosenthal’s remarkable career, is inspired by Jean-Louis Barrault’s concept of “Total Theatre” and Antonin Artaud’s “Theatre of Cruelty.” Echoing Barrault’s and Artaud’s revolutionary notions about theater, Rosenthal’s performance aesthetic integrates movement, voice, choreography, improvisation, costuming, lighting, and sets into seismic experiences. This genre of work, total free improvisation, is completely unique. Nobody knows in advance what will happen – not Rosenthal, not Company members, and certainly not the audience. This uncertainty makes the performances psychologically charged for all involved.
“Improvisational theater is the most difficult art form in the world. You can’t perfect your technique and there are no lines to rehearse,” says Rosenthal, “Everything happens in the moment.”
TOHUBOHU! total free improvisation pieces typically start in a similar manner; there is a group warm-up, then Rosenthal directs the group with a few words — sometimes only three or four. The words she selects reflect an idea she’s been thinking about, something related to a current event, a random verb, or perhaps instructions for the number of elements to include on stage. The studio space is darkened for a few moments. One of Rosenthal’s dogs might run by, wagging its tail, as colored lights and sound emerge from the darkness.
Sets are composed on the spot from lengths of bright fabric, boxes, and folding chairs. Props might be added in by Company members from a large backstage collection of objects that include items such as a dress form, telephone handsets, old books, a houseplant, a bird cage, an oscillating fan, fake plastic flowers, and paper bags. The Company stirs in recorded music, sounds, live music, or perhaps chanting.
These initial seeds germinate a piece. From here, the convulsive physicality of the Company begins. The members’ primal actions operate in concert with each other as well as the formal aesthetic elements of light, sound, props, and physical space. Text, which is primary, even tyrannical, in traditional theater, is absent in uniquely ephemeral TOHUBOHU! Through a mysterious alchemical process, the players act, react, and respond to surprises. They collaborate with each other, and everything around them, to create composition, form, and meaning. Since there is no established narrative to satisfy audience expectations, viewers are forced out of passive complacency as they digest what’s going on and anticipate what might happen next.
Performances function formally in space more like visual art than traditional theater, requiring the audience to actively interpret all the various elements. Results can be either abstract or realistic.
“When it’s good, it’s sublime. And when it’s bad, it can be a painful experience. Much like human existence,” says Rosenthal in a naked assessment of the art form, “Sometimes you walk away scratching your head wondering what the hell you just watched. We embrace that sort of uncertainty and chaos which is counter to highly processed culture.”
Alejandro Jodorowsky—well known to readers of this site as the director of El Topo, Santa Sangre, The Holy Mountain and several other film reels of symbolic dementia, is also one of the world’s most recognized experts on the Tarot, which he has studied as a tool of self-exploration and transformation for almost 60 years. Destiny Books just released the English translation of his 500-page magnum opus The Way of Tarot, which summarizes his work with the cards. Interestingly, Jodorowsky works with the old European deck—the Marseilles Tarot—which far predates the more commonly used Rider-Waite or Thoth packs. Looks like absolutely essential reading for fans of the man and the tarot alike.
From the promo copy:
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s profound study of the Tarot, which began in the early 1950s, reveals it to be far more than a simple divination device. The Tarot is first and foremost a powerful instrument of self-knowledge and a representation of the structure of the soul.
The Way of Tarot shows that the entire deck is structured like a temple, or a mandala, which is both an image of the world and a representation of the divine. The authors use the sacred art of the original Marseille Tarot—created during a time of religious tolerance in the 11th century—to reconnect with the roots of the Tarot’s Western esoteric wisdom. They explain that the Tarot is a “nomadic cathedral” whose parts—the 78 cards or “arcana”—should always be viewed with an awareness of the whole structure. This understanding is essential to fully grasp the Tarot’s hermetic symbolism.
The authors explore the secret associations behind the hierarchy of the cards and the correspondences between the suits and energies within human beings. Each description of the Major Arcana includes key word summaries, symbolic meanings, traditional interpretations, and a section where the card speaks for itself. Jodorowsky and Costa then take the art of reading the Tarot to a depth never before possible. Using their work with Tarology, a new psychological approach that uses the symbolism and optical language of the Tarot to create a mirror image of the personality, they offer a powerful tool for self-realization, creativity, and healing.
When idiosyncratic director Wes Anderson was rumored to be helming the “reboot” of the blockbuster “Spider-Man” franchise, many comic geek types scratched their heads in amazement. What would that be like?
Well, wonder no more, thanks to this pitch-perfect parody by Jeff Loveness that’s making the viral video rounds of late.
BBC is holding a mega Doctor Who auction: If you ever wanted a Dalek of your very own, now’s your chance, fanboy! Plus costumes worn by Kylie Minogue, Billie Piper and David Tennant going under the hammer. (Bonhams)
Head of Buddha from Daianji Temple, Japan, Tempyo period, 8th century, p110. “Even in its ruinous condition this head possesses the classic serenity of expression and feeling for sculptured mass that characterized the great masterpieces of Tempyo sculptures” (p142).
“Many Japanese Buddha images… are informed with a feeling of expansive volume described by the Japanese term ryo, which approximates the suggestion of the presence of an inner breath or pneumatic force…” (p31).
. Original and necessary scholarship, one of the best books of the season. An in-depth interview with author Don Lattin. 
