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Notes towards a portrait of Francis Bacon
07.14.2011
01:45 pm
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In the final moments of a documentary on Francis Bacon, made by a French TV channel, the great artist turned to camera and jovially announced, in his best Franglais, that he had lost all his teeth to his lovers. That is what he was like –dramatically revealing intimate scenes from his life at the most unexpected of moments. His paintings did the same, as they were images, which unnervingly presented the “brutality of fact,” within the most intimate and commonplace of locations – a bedroom, a living room, a toilet.

I once played Francis Bacon on his deathbed, tended by nuns. It was for a drama-documentary, which examined the Bacon’s work through his asthma. The idea was to find out how much this medical condition shaped the artist’s life. For as Bacon once said to critic John Russell

“If I hadn’t been an asthmatic, I might never have gone on painting at all.”

If this was true, then arguably, it was his asthma that made him a painter, and his asthma, which induced the heart attack that killed him.

Of course, there have been other suggestions as to why Bacon became an artist: the childhood trauma of being locked in a cupboard by the family nanny, or more luridly, as writer John Richardson has claimed, it was Bacon’s masochism that inspired his work. Yet, neither of these fully explain his drive or resilience, or the influence of his strange relationship with his father had on his work.

Bacon was 82-years-old when he died in Madrid, on the 28th April 1992. In many respects, it is a surprise he lived so long.  Bacon was a prodigious drinker, had a damaged and diseased heart, lost a kidney to cancer, and once, nearly lost an eye, after being “pissed as a fart” and falling down the stairs of his favored drinking den. But Bacon had resilience, rather than seek immediate medical attention he merely pushed the offending orb back into its socket, and continued with his afternoon debauch.

Bacon was a gambler. He saw himself as open to the opportunities of chance in both life and art. He made and lost small fortunes on the spin of the roulette wheel. He was an atheist who saw no hope of an afterlife, and gave credence to “the individual’s perceived reality.” He claimed he had been “made aware of what is called the possibility of danger at a very young age,” which led him to treat life as if it were always within the shadow of death:

“If you really love life, you’re walking in the shadow of death all the time…Death is the shadow of life, and the more one is obsessed with life the more one is obsessed with death.  I’m greedy for life and I’m greedy as an artist.”

In the late 1940s, Bacon was told by his doctor he had an enlarged heart. One of his friends, Lady Caroline Blackwood, then wife to artist Lucian Freud, later recounted a tale of a dinner when Francis had joined her and Lucian, at Wheeler’s Restaurant :

“His (Francis) doctor had told him that his heart was in such a bad state that not a ventricle was functioning; he had rarely seen such a diseased organ, and he warned Francis that if he had one more drink or even became excited it could kill him.

“Having told us the bad news he waved to the waiter and ordered a bottle of champagne, and once it was finished ordered several more.  He was ebullient throughout the evening but, Lucian and I went home feeling very depressed.  He seemed doomed.  We were convinced he was going to die, aged forty.”

 

 
More on Francis Bacon and part two of his interview with David Sylvester, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.14.2011
01:45 pm
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Belladonna of Sadness: Softcore Anime porn for the arthouse crowd
07.14.2011
01:40 pm
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Belladonna of Sadness (Kanashimi no Belladonna in the original Japanese) is an unusual art house Anime film made in 1973 and directed by Eiichi Yamamoto.

It was unusual on several counts: First off, it was an X-rated erotic Fantasia-esque feature length animation produced by by Mushi Production. Mushi Pro is the studio responsible for classic childrens fare like Astroboy and Kimba the White Lion. It’s easy to make the case that Osamu Tezuka, the company’s founder, should be regarded as the Walt Disney of Japan. In fact, it was Tezuka’s wide-eyed way of drawing characters that influenced Anime profoundly. Although Tezuka had already stepped down from the company three years earlier, it’s still not easy to imagine Disney producing soft porn cartoons just a few years after Uncle Walt’s passing…

Based kinda/sorta/somewhat on the Joan D’Arc story, Belladonna of Sadness also incorporates vampires and orgies into her tale (?!?!). Butterflies that take flight in the shape of a vagina and other things. As I have never seen a copy with English subtitles, it is rather difficult for me to say exactly what is going on in Belladonna of Sadness, although I can report that that Kuni Fukai’s stunning visuals (reminiscent of the work of Gustav Klimt and Aubrey Beardsley) are quite incredible eye candy and unlike anything else I’ve seen.
 

 
Originally posted on 08/04/09.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.14.2011
01:40 pm
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Alejandro Jodorowsky instructs Daniel Pinchbeck on the art of fucking Earthlings
07.14.2011
01:34 pm
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Alejandro Jodorowsky and Daniel Pinchbeck 2012 Time for Change is a documentary shot for German TV series “Into The Night” which aired in November 2009.

This is lovely…literally lovely. Alejandro Jodorowsky and Daniel Pinchbeck meet and discuss many things in this intimate conversation between an old wizard and a youthful spiritual gunslinger. Alejandro gives Daniel a Tarot reading and advice on how to treat women. Pinchbeck wants to discuss the cosmos in general mystical terms but Jodorowsky keeps pointing back to the feminine principle and familial love as the ultimate source of bliss.

Jodorowsky, the master of symbols, has turned toward less flash in his old age and seems somewhat impatient with Pinchbeck’s talk of extraterrestrials and drugs. Jodorowsky has become the old yogi armed with the butterfly net in El Topo who defeats the young gunslinger with his own bullets. In this case, the bullets are Pinchbeck’s didactic cosmic buckshot and the butterfly net is Alejandro’s heart. Art is dead, spiritual materialism is dead, all that matters is what heals…and love heals. It seems that Jodorowsky, even amongst his clutter of books and icons, has found peace within an internal space uncluttered by the flotsam and jetsam of the symbols that he long ago mastered like a juggler masters colorful balls and spinning silver hoops. The glittery aspect of the mystic has given way to the pureness of love. The video ends with Daniel and Alejandro in the presence of their female lovers. Alejandro pats Pinchbeck’s girlfriend’s arm and says to Pinchbeck “you take care of this here.” In other words, forget about the fucking extraterrestrials and learn to love the Earthlings in your life.
 

 
Originally posted on 02/22/11.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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07.14.2011
01:34 pm
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David Liebe Hart: Christian Scientist; Puppet Guy on Tim and Eric Awesome Show; Famous Los Angeleano
07.14.2011
01:25 pm
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As Los Angeles-based fans of Tim and Eric know, David Liebe Hart, the slightly off, but obviously harmless Christian Scientist puppeteer and singer/songwriter, has been one of the city’s…er best kept secrets for over two decades. I’ve seen Hart with “Doug the Dog” and his ventriloquist dummy “son” Chip the Black Boy performing outside of the Hollywood Bowl and the La Brea Tar Pits, singing his songs about alien abductions, staying off drugs and how badly he wants a girlfriend since I first moved here. Not only would I often see Hart busking for spare change, I’d also see him on cable access television with his Junior Christian Teaching Bible Lesson program. In fact, James Quall, another Tim and Eric cast member was (is?) a member of the Junior Christian Teaching Bible Lesson posse himself. Praise the lord that Tim and Eric have seen fit to provide gainful employment for these two rather eccentric fellows.

You can find numerous examples of David’s cable access handiwork on YouTube but here is a very revealing segment from The Daily Show where we catch him describing how his wife left him and trying to give out her phone number so people can harass her for committing adultery!! (I once recall seeing him tell a story about getting a venereal disease on a live cable access show and then giving the woman’s name and telephone number out on air. Each time someone would call in, the host would tease Hart that it was this woman on the line and that she was really angry. He seemed genuinely terrified every time the phone would ring).

One day my wife and I were driving down Beverly Blvd and we saw a determined guy with a deteriorating Afro darting across the street. “Hey… look… it’s….” I said, stammering at the famous face in front of my car, but she was quicker. “SALOME!” she shouted and David Liebe Hart grinned from ear to ear that, happy that at long last, he was finally being recognized.

Sadly Chip the Black Boy was “kidnapped” from David and has not been seen again. Don’t expect to see him on any milk cartons.

David Liebe Hart Was Viciously Slandered.

An uncomfortable David Liebe Hart anecdote

David Liebe Hart and Adam Papagan on MySpace (listen to their paean to “Ellen Degeneres”!)

Chip The Black Boy

He’s More Than Meets the Ear; The Hollywood Bowl’s ‘puppet man’ would like a better gig, but mostly he just wants to belong (Los Angeles Times article by Tricia Nelson)

Originally posted 08/20/09.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.14.2011
01:25 pm
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High Noon on Friedrichstrasse: The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall
07.14.2011
01:20 pm
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Let’s start with the painting, for that was the sign something ominous was about to begin.

In East Germany during the Cold War, you didn’t join the Stasi, the Stasi asked you to join them. This is what 19-year-old, Hagen Koch discovered when the Stasi approached him and said, “We need you to help secure our country’s peace.” 

Koch arrived in Berlin on April 5th, 1960, to a city without a wall, without barbed wire, without division. He had been chosen for a specific job and was soon promoted to Head of Cartography.

It was a warm day in August 1960, when Stasi Private Hagen Koch arrived at Checkpoint Charlie and started painting a white line. No one took much notice, which was understandable, only in the following days would the enormity of Koch’s actions become apparent. For unknown to Berliners and the West, Koch was marking the ground for the building of the Berlin Wall.

Years later, Koch said the Wall was not against the West but “against the population of East Germany.”

It was also the first sign that East Germany’s so-called “Workers’ and Peasants’ Socialist Heaven” had failed, and marked the start of the slow and difficult demise of Soviet bloc Communism. 

Moreover, the creation of the Berlin Wall led to a standoff between Russia and America that nearly caused World War Three.
 

 

 
How the Berlin Wall nearly led to War and how holidays brought it down, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.14.2011
01:20 pm
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‘Boogie ‘Til You Poop’: A horrific and hilarious climbing experience
07.14.2011
01:00 pm
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I believe this guy admits to having a hangover just before climbing the rock.

“First of all, I got my knee stuck in the crack and I got quite scared and I couldn’t get it out and then… I shit my pants.”

Shit happens…

Originally posted on 08/10/10.

(via Nerdcore)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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07.14.2011
01:00 pm
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A pie chart detailing the devastating ramifications of same-sex marriage
07.14.2011
12:15 pm
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Originally posted 04/06/11.

(via BuzzFeed and with thanks to Gavon Laessig for the awesome title)

 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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07.14.2011
12:15 pm
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What it’s really like to work in a music store
07.14.2011
12:10 pm
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And there you have it. These videos are mini-masterpieces of comedy. Not only are you laughing at the “musicians” testing out instruments at the store, but when this guy makes his cameo appearance, the look on his face will have you in tears. He doesn’t have to say anything at all and it’s side-splitting. When you make eye-contact, you know what he’s thinking!
 
Watch more hilarious videos after the jump…

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Posted by Tara McGinley
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07.14.2011
12:10 pm
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The legend of Jimmy Smack
07.14.2011
12:08 pm
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After I posted this mix in April I received a fair number of requests to post my archive of private press vinyl by the mysterious early 80’s Los Angeles performance artist Jimmy Smack. Seeing as how I don’t know another soul that has this material and/or the inclination to share it, here ‘tis ! Anybody that attended or played shows in the post-punk Los Angeles underground circa 1982-83 most certainly came in regular contact with Jimmy Smack. He was a good decade or more older than most of the bands and was quite the scene fixture in his town of San Pedro where his Star Theatre was a primary hang-out and rehearsal space for early iterations of The Minutemen, Saccharine Trust and the rest of the fertile South Bay contingent. His live performances were incredible: Basically the man, made up in elaborate corpse-paint (certainly the first I ever saw), in fall tartan gear playing amazing electric bagpipes accompanied only by a then de-rigeur Dr. Rhythm drum box and reciting in a demonic Beefheart-esque growl some occasionally great, occasionally goofy (in a “going insane inside my brain” kind of way) doom and gloom poetry. All of this punctuated by unexpected and frightening screaming fits and wild underwear dancing. Indeed Smack claimed to have been a member of the L.A. Ballet company (whenever it existed) and was evidently also a professional choreographer. I purchased these pieces of vinyl directly from the man at various shows back then and had scarcely listened since. In revisiting them I’m truly blown away by his electric bagpipes and creative drum box mangling. If you didn’t know what you were listening to you’d be forgiven for thinking it to be some wild modular synth playing. I’m glad to be able to present these extremely obscure works for your listening pleasure. Doubtless this stuff deserves to be presented in a proper album format someday.

Death or Glory 7” E.P. :

 
Depression/Hating Life 7” :

 
Anguish 12” single :

 
(below: Jimmy Smack in 2009)
 
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Jimmy Smack Vinyl Archive
 
DROVE UP FROM PEDRO An Early History Of San Pedro Punk By Lina Sedillo-Litonjua
 
thx Jeff Karlsen !

Originally posted 06/03/10.

 

Posted by Brad Laner
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07.14.2011
12:08 pm
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Badass Bastille Day with Johnny Hallyday
07.14.2011
04:12 am
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Living in Paris as a young kid, I was into Francoise Hardy and Johnny Hallyday before I’d even heard of The Beatles. Along with Sylvie Vartan and Serge Gainsbourg, these were my rock and roll heroes. And for those of you who think the French can’t rock, check out these videos of an intense Hallyday performing “Je N’ai Pas Voulu Croire’  live in 1969 and covering Hendrix’s version of “Hey Joe” in 2006. Hendrix actually opened for Hallyday in Paris in 1966.

The older Hallyday gets the cooler he gets. He looks absolutely dangerous in the 2006 performance which is probably one of the reasons, along with his fine acting skills, he’s been getting cast as gangsters in recent films.

In a fist fight between Nick Cave and Hallyday, my money’s on Johnny.

Happy Bastille Day and don’t fuck with Johnny Hallyday!
 

 

 
Hallyday and Hendrix in 1966.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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07.14.2011
04:12 am
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