Here’s one from the Dangerous Minds archives.
This wonderful mashup had languished in anonymity until we discovered it back in April of 2010. It has since gone viral.
As I said back then: “It takes a special kind of genius to put these artists together and make it work.” It’s the creation of Joey Propellor.
When Tara and I were traveling last month, I read George Carlin’s splendid, posthumously published autobiography Last Words on the plane. I’m a mega George Carlin fan. There is very little of his material that I haven’t heard and I just miss his voice more and more with each passing year. Sure we’ve got some contemporary greats like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert taking on the political and cultural issues of the day (I happen to like Joe Rogan’s stand-up a lot, too, he’s really underrated) but just like there will only ever be one Mark Twain, one Lenny Bruce or one Richard Pryor, there will never be another George Carlin, either. Carlin was a wise-acre product of Depression-era New York City. It was the no-bullshit (yet filled to the brim with hypocrisy!) New Yawk Irish-Catholic milieu that George Carlin was raised in that produced such a unique comic mind. I think he was a great artist and a great American. If you want to understand how Carlin became Carlin, I can’t recommend Last Words more highly.
By the end of his life, George Carlin had become more than just a mere comedian or humorist, he’d become a stand-up philosopher equal parts Nietzsche, Karl Marx and Céline. The material of Carlin’s later years is the work he was the most proud of, and indeed, it was the finest comedy he ever gave us. The darkest, most nihilistic, most rip your face off and shove it down your fucking throat stand-up comedy…. probably of all time. How could you top it? Who would dare try?
The terminal view of mankind, religion and Capitalism expressed in his 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased and 2005’s Life is Worth Losing was so bleak it was thrilling. There were several times during these broadcasts when I recall thinking “WOW, I can’t believe I just heard someone articulate that thought and in that way.” I wondered, too, what would happen to the brain of a conservative or religious person who might be unwittingly exposed to Carlin’s sneering premium cable mindfuck! (I mean how many Christians accidentally tuned into his HBO special with no idea of what to expect except cursing and watched him do “Religion is Bullshit” and promptly rethought how they’d been behaving for their entire lives? For certain people, hearing the ideas expressed in that one impassioned ten-minute-long rant must have been like having a nuclear bomb go off in their heads. It’s a more powerful argument against religion than anything Richard Dawkins has ever come up with, that’s for sure, and funnier, too!).
Carlin was never much of a topical comedian, so much of his material is evergreen and will stay that way because it expresses deep societal truths and expose hypocrisy so ruthlessly. No surprise then, that his rant about Wall Street, corrupt politicians and end-stage Capitalism is still so on the money. Watch this:
Lucy ala Peggy Moffitt
Lucy In London starring Lucillle Ball was a TV special that aired in 1966. It was directed by Steve Binder who helmed the legendary T.A.M.I. Show, arguably one of the best filmed music concerts ever. Lucy In London occupies an entirely different universe than the T.A.M.I. Show, a universe where fading stars go to get their sparkle back. In this case, it only dulled Lucille’s image. But she was not alone among the many celebrities that were trying to get hip in the Sixties only to end up looking mildly ridiculous.
In this particular clip we get to see The Dave Clark 5 dancing with a gaggle of mod chicks and some King’s Road grooviness. None of which is particularly noteworthy if it weren’t for the fact that the whole thing is choreographed to a tune called “Lucy In London” which was written, produced and sung by Phil Spector.
The audio in the clip doesn’t do justice to the Spector “wall of sound” but if you turn up the speakers you can hear it. Spector’s voice isn’t all that bad. Sounds like Jan and Dean.
Oh, and that’s Anthony Newley manning the motorcycle.
I’m posting this for no other reason than it makes me happy and I thought it might do the same for you.
What’s not to love about a cute little dog dressed up as Batman? And he plays the part so well.
Via Bleeding Cool
Another delectable mix of vintage clips of go-go and exotic dancers set to a rock and roll beat. Customized from old vinyl and decaying video tape for Dangerous Minds.
“Intercontinental Super Grind” features psychedelic, garage, pop, rock and funk from all over the globe.
01. “Srey No” - Lady Named No
02. “Saman Doye” - The Black Brothers
03. “Shake Me” - AKA
04. “Cumbia Pop - Los Beltons
05. “Generations” - Variations
06. “Songs Of A Sinner” - Top Drawer
07. “It Happens Every Day” - The Lemon Drops
08. “Paint It Black” - Patti Smith
09. “Lorke Lorke” - Siluetler
10. “Slave” - Sabana Breeze
11. “Leila” - Chiitra Neogy
12. “Pink And Green” - Shirley Hughey
13. “Treat Her Right” - The Bombshells
14. “Rule The Nation” - U Roy
15. “Kick Out The Jams” - Tubthumper
16. “Shake A Tail” - Big Wheel
17. “Caterpillar Crawl” - The Lively Ones
18. “Hold Me Now” - The Rumours
19. “Look At The Owl” - Sat Tee Touy
20. “Cat Walk” - The Soul Emissaries
Watch this in a darkened room with speakers at full volume. Burn some incense and a few candles to add the appropriate ambiance. Slathering yourself with precious oils is optional. NSFW.
Photo found at Awesome People Hanging Out Together
Crazy! Here’s some Super 8 footage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono at a party—perhaps one held at Allen Klein’s house, according to some accounts—in 1971 playing basketball with Miles Davis.
This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. you can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycga@gmail.com.
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.
Via reddit
Panos Cosmatos’ Beyond The Black Rainbow, which screened at this year’s Fantastic Fest, truly earns the description “visionary,” not in the sense of being prophetic (though it might be) but in the sense of arising out of visionary states of mind. Cosmatos is not looking forward as much as he’s looking inward to a landscape where dreams and nightmares intertwine like the snakes of Athena, illuminating the darkest corners of the psyche. Beyond The Black Rainbow is bold, uncompromising, demanding and totally mesmerizing. It is an extraordinary debut for a first-time director.
Cosmatos, who looks a bit like a young Stanley Kubrick, draws inspiration from films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Saul Bass’s Phase 4, George Lucas’s THX1138 and countless lesser-known and lesser-quality sci-fi films from the 1960s through the 80s and concocts something that, despite its influences, is personal film making of a highly original style. Mixing the grainy, saturated look of old videotapes with ultra-mod visual design and sets, while exhuming artifacts of lo-fi sci-fi kitsch, Cosmatos, in a deft act of cinematic alchemy, transforms it all into something artful, visually coherent and mind expanding. It is unusual and gratifying to see a young director aspire to a type of film making that decades ago would have been termed “experimental,” evoking Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Alejandro Jodorowsky and William Klein. What you end up with is pop culture tropes spun through a pure cinema aesthetic. A movie that asks nothing of you other than to SEE it with eyes wide open.
I couldn’t tell you what Beyond The Black Rainbow is about. I’ve only seen it once and the narrative is more stream of consciousness mashup than a tidy tale with beginning, middle and end. In that respect, the storytelling resembles the works of William Burroughs, who Cosmatos humorously references in the film. There’s a free associative dynamic to the movie where images play off each other like musical notes in a Beefheartian jam, always on the brink of chaos while the center is holding to some still point, the Tao of now. It helps that the score by Jeremy Schmidt (from the band Black Mountain) gives Cosmatos’ trippy epic a primal gravitational pull that, in the film’s wildest moments, keeps the lysergic shards of color and shape from dissipating into the void.
The movie’s central physical location is an institution/hospital/psyche ward that melds the cold clinical feel of David Cronenberg with the Technicolor eye candy of Dario Argento. Within this de-humanized world, a drug-addled scientist is attempting to create a new form of cosmic human being. Under the spell of a mad, new agey guru (Heaven’s Gate nutjob Marshall Applewhite comes to mind) the scientist performs drug experiments on a captive young woman who has either gone insane or is the only sane person in the film. The movie for the most part takes place inside her head…I think. The plot is serviceable but mostly irrelevant, serving as a jumping off point for Cosmatos’ true mission which is creating a modern “head movie.” And he succeeds.
I imagine many viewers will complain that Beyond The Black Rainbow is boring (some critics already have), but the same has been said of many films and directors that go out on their own, without concern for commercial prospects, who audaciously create something that is pure and original, that requires of the viewer an openness and a willingness to surrender to what is on the screen. What may be boring to some, I find hypnotic and riveting. To be ravished by Tarkovsky is bliss compared to being mauled by Michael Bay.
Panos Cosmato grew up around big-budget Hollywood commercial film making. His father is George P. Cosmatos who directed Sylvester Stallone in Rambo 2 and Cobra, as well as the very fine Tombstone. He could have easily followed in his father’s footsteps (he has the skill to do so) but instead he opted to make a film that takes big chances and has done so with the delirium of an obsessed film nerd whose sense of cinema and creativity holds its own against many of his influences.
Cosmatos is a young guy and Beyond The Black Rainbow will open some doors. I hope he sticks to his guns and delivers on the promise of his mindtwisting debut. It will be released by the trailblazers at Magnet films sometime in the near future.
Here’s a trailer for Beyond The Black Rainbow followed by an interview with the director at Fantastic Fest.
Interview after the jump…
Those of us of, ahem, a certain age might recall a brand of sugar-sweetened breakfast cereal called “Freakies.” It’s shelf life was from 1972 to 1976 and it was manufactured by the Ralston Purina company. They also had “Cocoa Freakies” and “Fruity Freakies.”
The marketing campaign was especially appealing to me when I was a kid and I flew my “Freakies” flag high: The Freakies, some tentacled mutants (John Wayne-esque leader Boss Moss, Hamhose, Gargle, Cowmumble, Grumble, Goody-Goody and Snorkeldorf) leave “The Old World” for “The New World” where they have heard the legendary “Freakies Tree” grows delicious high-fructose corn-syrup-laden breakfast cereal. They find the mythical tree and take up residence there, often singing 50s doo-wop songs about their favorite cereal.
They tried to revive the “Freakies” brand again in the late 1980s, but it didn’t catch on. No wonder, it really wasn’t very good. I only ate it myself to collect the “Freakies” magnets and plastic figurines (which now sell for a fortune on eBay).
Via PCL LinkDump who posted this clip with the great title “Cereal plus LSD = 1974”
