Grandpa Woodstock hosts his show ‘The Flower Power Hour’ from wherever he might be at any given time, whether it’s a box or a cave in Arizona. I like him. This old flower child is a perennial. An American sadhu.
He has a Facebook page. You can check it out here.
“I will continue to spread peace and love for the rest of my life.”
Even if peace comes I still won’t stop.”
I like the way Grandpa schools that young fuckin’ punk hippie.
“Now you wanna lay on Grandpa’s bed and smoke the bowl all day.”
I wrote a version of this for Planet Paul, but as it’s getting near time for Halloween I thought I’d share. I love horror movies, and when I was younger I was a member of the Peter Cushing Fan Club. No seriously, it was cool. For your dollar a year you received a monthly newsletter, lots of free pix, and many other oddments. One such was a news clipping about the great actor and his longing for death, after his wife, Violet Helen Beck died. Helen gave Cushing purpose and meaning and although he was born in 1913, the world famous actor preferred to see the year of his actual birth as 1942 – the year he met Helen.
It was a love-at-first-sight thing, and the couple married in 1943, and thereafter, Helen, a former actress became the centre of Cushing’s life, encouraging him, and supporting him throughout the early, lean years of his career. As Cushing later said, “I owe it all to Helen. She was an actress and gave up her career for me. She made me what I am. She gave me a confidence, I could never have found on my own.”
If you look closely, you’ll see, in many of Cushing’s movies, a small silver framed portrait of Helen, placed as a prop on the desk of Baron Victor Frankenstein or in the study of Professor Van Helsing.
Cushing’s life with Helen was lived more on a mental plane than a physical one, as he told New Reveille in 1974, “We didn’t consider the physical aspect of marriage very important,” he explained. Yet, their love was so great that Cushing claimed his life ended the day Helen died in 1971.
That night, Cushing repeatedly ran up and down stairs in an attempt to induce a heart attack. He failed and later claimed his actions had been caused by the trauma of his Helen’s death - “I had always hoped that we would depart this life together, but it was not to be.”
From then on, Cushing had a death wish, and stated death was the only happy ending to his love affair with Helen.
“I am not a religious man, but I try to live by Christian ethics. Helen has passed on but she is with me still. She is all around. What I am doing is merely existing – longing for the day when I shall die and join her for ever. We will be together again but time does not heal.”
Before she died, Helen wrote Peter a poem telling him “not to be hasty to leave” until he had lived the life he had been given.
“I could not take away my life, because that would be letting Helen down. But I would be so happy if I could die tomorrow.”
But death did not come quickly for the great, good Gentleman of Horror, Cushing lived for a further 23 years, during which time he made some of his most memorable and successful films.
Where would we be without a good conspiracy theory? Here’s one that’s currently circulating the web, from a Doctor of Inter-Stellar Anthropology (no really), who was allegedly hired as a “special consultant” to the CIA, on the project “dubbed Red Rock,” to locate and operate a mysterious “device” that emitted all-powerful sound waves, which the Doc had to get working before 2012, otherwise we’re all dead. This, according to the voice on the video, is the reason America invaded Iraq. Hm…so that explains it..eh?
The people controlling our planet DO NOT WANT YOU TO HEAR what this guy has to say, but he is a respected academic and has first hand knowledge of the real reason the US invaded Iraq and ancient, alien tech - ET disclosure in imminent, we may as well know the truth. This video explains why everyone is trying to buy up the gold, the stuxnet virus, the NWO’s plans to attack China, the real reason behind the September 11th attacks and what is going to happen on December 21, 2012.
Make your own mind up, but just remember, this guy gets to vote.
Happy Birthday Pablo Picasso, born today in 1881, the artist whose talent and vision revolutionized art in the 20th century, and who once famously said, “Give me a museum and I’ll fill it.” Throughout his long and prolific life he did this and more. Out of all his incredible and brilliant work, perhaps his most famous picture, along with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, is his giant black and white painting Guernica.
Picasso painted Guernica in response to the German Luftwaffe’s and the Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria’s aerial bombing of the Basque town, Guernica, during the Spanish Civil War in April 1937. Between 200 and 400 innocent civillians were slaughtered in the attack, which led the Fascists, under Genral Franco, to defeat the Republicans, and seize control of Spain.
Originally commissioned by the Spanish Republican government for the ‘Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques la Vie Moderne‘ in Paris, Guernica became a symbol of the harrowing tragedies and suffering the Civil War inflicted on the innocent. As he worked on the mural, Picasso said:
“The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom. My whole life as an artist has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against reaction and the death of art. How could anybody think for a moment that I could be in agreement with reaction and death? … In the panel on which I am working, which I shall callGuernica, and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death.”
After the ‘Exposition’, Picasso refused to allow the painting to return to Spain, until the country was a Republic once again. Between 1939 and the late 1950s Guernica toured the world as a symbol against war. At Picasso’s request the painting was then exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, where it remained until Franco’s death in 1975, and negotiations began to have Guernica returned to its rightful home, which eventually happened in 1981.
There is a story that while Picasso was in Nazi-occupied Paris, during World War II, he was asked by a member of the Gestapo, upon seeing a postcard of Guernica in the artist’s studio, ‘”Did you do that?” To which Picasso responded, “No, you did.”
As a statement against war, Guernica continues to resonate. In 2003, the painting was covered up with a blue curtain, when the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the press over the American case for war in Iraq - the horrific irony of this would not have been lost on the great artist.
This 3-D animation by Lena Gieseke examines the details of Pablo Picasso’s powerful painting.
In what is beyond the shadow of a doubt UK pop crooner Paul Young’s finest moment I have somehow found the mythical and difficult to obtain Dangerous Minds toaster post. I guess this was a top 20 hit in Blighty back in ‘78. Fine topic for a tune,really. Any song wherein actual toast is used as an instrument is just fine by me. Every time you go away you take a piece of toast with you.
More sad news in the music world: the great roots reggae crooner, Gregory Issacs has died. Issacs was well-known for his soulful vocalizing and “lover’s rock” sound. He was also known for being the reggae world’s answer to Keith Richards. Issacs died in his London home after traveling around Jamaica for a while following a lung cancer diagnosis last year. He was 59-years-old.
Below, “the cool ruler” in a memorable performance from the movie Rockers:
Hey everyone, it’s lucky episode 7 of the Dangerous Minds Radio Hour. Dig the dream logic inherent in this latest batch of selections from musical nerdiac Brad Laner and his bottomless well of miniature personal epiphanies. There is nearly too much sonic goodness packed into this one 70 minute session. Please enjoy in moderation.
BPeople - “Whether to Worry”
Moonshake - “Coward”
Bubble Puppy - “Thinking About Thinking”
Slapp Happy - “The Drum”
Betty Harris - “There’s a Break in the Road”
Os Mutantes - “Desculpe, Babe”
John Lee Hooker - “Tupelo”
Chris and Cosey - “Raining Tears of Blood”
This Heat - “Health and Efficiency”
Kate Bush - “The Dreaming”
The Beach Boys - “‘Til I Die (Alternate Mix)”
Kim Jung Mi - “Towards The Sunlight”
Dennis Parker - “Like an Eagle”
Heléne Sage - Frissons Dans La Cochlee
In 1981 Wendy was arrested for obscene conduct during Plasmatics shows in Milwaukee and Cleveland. The authorities found her nipples guilty of some kind of criminal act. Here’s a brief clip of her discussing her legal hassles with New York TV newscaster Jack Cafferty . Williams was ultimately acquitted of any legal wrongdoing in both cases. She avoided any future dustups with the cops by covering her nipples with electrical tape.
Cafferty is currently a conservative talking head on CNN.
The newscast begins with a clip of Wendy driving an exploding Cadillac into the Hudson River.
