Once thought lost, but recently found and restored by Anthology Film Archives, artist/philosopher Manuel De Landa’s Super 8 Ism Ism captures his truly inspired collage mutations of New York City subway ads during the mid-to-late 70s. Slicing and dicing the perfect faces of models into deviant ghouls, Ism Ism turns the homogenate into the ripening rot of nightmares.

“Bad Girl” and “Subway Train” by the New York Dolls is the perfect soundtrack to De Landa’s animated subterranean monstrosities.
 

 
In 1978, the founders of D.I.Y. magazine Art-Rite, Edit deAk and Mike (Walter) Robinson, collaborated with video artist Paul Dougherty in creating this eerie film and video montage for Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop” in which ordinary images are suffused with dread.

“Frankie Teardrop” is a homicidal Punk epic. It’s a working-class ballad about Frankie who’s working from nine to five and can’t survive. His solution is to kill off his family and then himself. But it’s not done in an angry way. It’s done in a frustrated way so the film implies this frustration.”  Edit deAk

Shards of New York in the 1970s flutter like the wings of dying birds.
 

 
“We’re the skate witches and we don’t take NO crap from NO one.”

Punk rock auteur, Danny Plotnick shot his YouTube classic “Skate Witches” in one afternoon in 1986 on Super 8 film at a cost of $60. In it, a group of teenage female skatepunks (and their pet rats) terrorize boy skaters.

Mark Reiss interviewed the “Queen Witch,” Jenny Parker on his Bullshitting Meets Plagiarism blog:

Reiss: So, are the Skate Witches still around?
Jenny Parker:…Hmm?

Are the Skate Witches-
Noooooooo…no. We haven’t talked since Slutty Sarah slept with my boyfriend at prom.

You guys went to prom? I figured that would be the last place you’d go to in High School.
Yeah, I mean, we were going TP the parking lot while everyone was dancing in the gym. Sarah and David lived on the same side of town so they came together. When I showed up they were screwing in David’s car.

Harsh. And that was the end of the Skate Witches?
Sorta. I had to repeat senior year. They graduated and moved on and I had to stay behind. It was a rough year.

I bet.
I mean I caught those bastards cheating on me, and my rat died. It was a lot of stress no wonder I failed.

What was your rat’s name?
Willow. She was my best friend. I accidently sat on her.

Read more of the interview with Jenny Parker at Bullshitting Meets Plagiarism.

“Skate Witches,” with commentary is available on the DVD Warts & All: The Films of Danny Plotnick.
 

 
Thank you, Tara McGinley!

 
Hmmmm… Look, I’m a (big) Yoko Ono fan, and she can do whatever she wants in terms of licensing her late husband’s name for product endorsements or whatever—I’m not asking her to solicit my approval beforehand or anything—but for god’s sake, the John Lennon line of glasses frames is simply LAME as fuck. Are we supposed to believe that these are the styles of designer eye-wear that the Beatle might have worn had his life not been so tragically cut short? Why yes, yes we are!

John Lennon glasses are licensed by the estate of John Lennon. John Lennon glasses use light and thin metal frame materials, just like John would have worn.  Wear John Lennon glasses as a testiment to the great legacy of John Lennon.

Yeah, I will get right on that… Oh please, this is just… so pathetic. If they’d have stuck with just styles he actually DID wear (and not a bunch “like John would have worn”) this wouldn’t have been so cringe-worthy. Choose from the preppy “Sgt. Pepper” glasses, go for the “Walrus” look (I thought the Walrus was Paul???)  or stick with the classic “Imagine inspired frames, there are so many to choose from. Yuck.

A REAL pair of the late Beatles’ glasses can be seen (and purchased, if you’ve got the loot) here.

Below, John and Yoko on The Dick Cavett Show on September 11, 1971:
 

 
(via TDW and reddit)

They’re as perplexed as you’re going to be…
 
Doctor Who Girl’s Knickers is perhaps the single greatest site on the Internet. You think I’m kidding, don’t you? I am not.

Here’s what the proprietor has to say for himself:

I first started collecting knickers in 1983 when at the Longleat Exhibition I was sold a pair of Janet Fielding’s underwear by a make-up lady. But let me be clear on this; there is nothing “perverted” or “weird” about my collection. We all collect things we like, and I find knickers more personal than an autograph on the back of a plastic cup.

To date I have ninety four pairs of knickers which I think you’ll agree is a wonderful achievement! I have built this collection up by begging, borrowing and on three occasions stealing. I like to write to female Doctor Who celebrities for items of their clothing and over the years it’s become pretty clear to me that the way to ask is to not refer to their “knickers” but their “feminine undergarments”.

Once the full gallery is up you’ll see just how wonderful and original my collection is. I also intend to include a gallery of the various rejection letters I’ve received, as well as some of the more surprising replies.

People are *always* asking me if I have any men’s pants from Doctor Who. I’d like to make it absolutely clear right now that I am not a gay pervert. Lots of my very best friends are gay but the thought of asking for another man’s pants is frankly dirty. To this end I rather hope I’ve heard the last of one cast member who continually *insisted* on sending me items of his clothing.

There is a tab on the left for anyone from the press who is as interested and excited in these knickers as I am. Please feel free to browse the galleries and if you do use pictures elsewhere please do give me full credit for them.

Finally I’m *frequently* asked which item from my collection is my favourite. It’s so hard to say, but if I’m honest, if I’m really honest, then in all honesty and at the end of the day it’s actually the ones I got first of all - Janet’s.

I hope you enjoy my collection as much as I do all the time.

A

Where to start, right? (Or why even bother trying?). The real comedy here is in the details. Certain things slip out in his descriptions that are bust-a-gut funny. For instance, here’s his caption that is next to a shot of Freema Agyeman’s (supposed) panties:

She played Martha in Doctor Who and was rubbish. I got these knickers from the set when they filmed on location for the one with the scarecrows.

I can’t go into details because I might get arrested. They smell of lavender and last summer I noticed two bees sitting on them in August.

Okay, then… Here’s the caption next to Mary Tamm’s underwear. She played the original “Romana” before Lalla Ward took over the role:

These were a gift from a friend of mine who’s a fan and apparently had sex with Mary Tamm in 1991 at a convention in Cardiff. He swears it’s true and that he asked her for the knickers afterwards.

I didn’t believe him at first but then he sent my a letter of authenticity that he’d signed so I know he was telling the truth.

He even cliams that he bought seven pairs of panties from Joan Sims herself via a postal order. Joan Sims??? There’s more, intrepid reader, there is SO MUCH MORE to see at Doctor Who Girl’s Knickers.

Previously on Dangerous Minds
Masturbating to Mary Tyler Moore

 
R.U. Sirius, also known as Ken Goffman, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Mondo 2000 magazine, has a new blog called Acceler8or. The blog will curate links from around the Internet relating to technological acceleration and transhumanist/Singularitarian culture.

The round of content included an interview with Genesis Breyer P. Orridge, and an interesting essay about the new Adam Curtis documentary All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace.

In other R.U. Sirius news, Vice Magazine interviewed him over I.M. recently about the history of Mondo 2000 and he gives DM a nice compliment:

Where are all the cyberpunks that read Mondo 2000 back in the day? Was someone like Mark Zuckerberg a reader?
Mark was too young. Maybe Sean Parker. I hear from people in the computer industry all the time that they were inspired by Mondo 2000. Also, people working in biotechnology, nanotechnology… I think the Mondoids are all over the map, most of them still have many of the same enthusiasms, tempered with experience and a healthy skepticism.

You’ve used the term “gonzo anthropology,” the means of studying the more esoteric and under-researched aspects of human culture—what does that mean, exactly?
Alison Kennedy aka Queen Mu, the Mondo 2000 publisher, practices gonzo anthropology. She was the one who uncovered toad venom containing 5-meo DMT in the West. She also explores very odd and arcane anthropological theories about the uses of plants and animals as aphrodisiacs, the use of Calumas as a sort of natural MDMA-like substance. Her magnum opus appeared in Mondo 2000. It was an article about how Jim Morrison used tarantula venom and got penis cancer, based on an entire gonzo anthropological exploration of implications of tarantula venom use (as an inspirational but self-destructive intoxicant) throughout human experience. The Doors producer, whose name I can’t remember, took it very seriously and got very upset about it. Ray Manzarek, I think, was not happy either. It was a wildly brilliant and hilarious and beautifully written piece.

Do you feel that in some ways you guys were too left field for some people?
I think we were too anarchic, playful, and incomprehensible for a mainstream magazine about the uprising of the digital technoculture. One of the first things that I noticed about Wired was that they had letters to the editor from people expressing ordinary Republican or Democratic political views, whereas we would get letters about the green aliens on acid who wrote the letter writer’s new software program and how many different drugs Hitler used. I mean, off the wall stuff. But I think Republicans are on a wall that I can’t relate to. So yeah, there was a limited relationship between us and a mainstream audience. The mainstream media people liked us because we seemed colorful and novel. And as a result of the attention, the people who would read the magazine found out about it. Wired does some great stuff online now, though. It’s an OK institution. I have to say though, they send me the magazine and it usually winds up in recycling, unread.

What do you see as your legacy? Who is continuing what you guys started?
Well, Boing Boing have been their own thing from the start. They were the small magazine when we were the big one, but they’re a relative. Maybe Dangerous Minds, Richard Metzger’s new site, in spirit. But I think Mondo was unique. It was an art project really using journalism and technoculture as a context. It was just a few unusual individuals following instincts. The mistakes were obvious but the energy of it was so much fun that as Richard Kadrey once said, “You have to have a mighty big stick up your ass not to love it.”

Mondo 2000 and gonzo anthropology (Viceland Today)

 
The beautiful and talented Kim Sisters were one of the most popular acts of all in Las Vegas during the 1960s, although they are little remembered today. The group was comprised of three of the seven children of well-known Korean classical music conductor, Kim Hae-song. Their mother, Lee Nan-Young, was one of Korea’s most famous singers, best-known for her version of “The Tears of Mokpo,” a traditional folk song.

When their father was killed by the North Koreans during the war, their mother had Sook-ja, Mi-a and Ai-ja (then 11, 12 and 13-years old) form a vocal trio to entertain the U.S. troops and to help support the rest of the family. Speaking no English at the time, the girls sang phonetically and were given gifts of beer and chocolate bars which they could then trade on the black market for real food. The G.I.s would also gift the girls with American pop records that they would learn to perform.

When news of the singing Kim Sisters reached America after the war, the girls were invited to become a part of the “China Doll Review” at the Thunderbird Hotel in Las Vegas. Eventually the Kim Sisters became accomplished musicians playing a dizzying array of instruments in their glitzy stage show. They were the act on The Ed Sullivan Show more than any other performer, a total of 22 times. Sullivan made the Kim Sisters a nationally known act and soon they were making $13,000 a week. When Sullivan became aware that their mother was still in Korea, he generously intervened and helped her get a visa, the catch being that she had to perform on his program.

During the 70s, all of the Kim sisters got married and the act ended. Ai-ja Kim died of lung cancer 1987, but Sook-ja and Mi-a are still alive and living in America. They are rumored to be working on a documentary about their lives. I hope that’s true.

You can read a fascinating oral history of the Kim Sisters here.
 

 
None of the Ed Sullivan clips have made it to YouTube, sadly. Below is a clip of The Kim Sisters on the Hollywood Palace television show. Stay with it for when they all three start playing the xylophone together (or go directly to about 3:22 in). It’s pretty cool:
 

 
Thank you Douglas Hovey and Billy Beyond!

 
This summer in downtown Los Angeles there’s a photography show at the drkrm/gallery that explores the history of the acid-gobbling, show-stopping star-children of the infamous Cockettes drag troupe. From Frontiers:

For those who neglected to Netfix their eponymous 2002 documentary, here’s the skinny on the Cockettes—they debuted on New Year’s Eve 1969, as part of a midnight showcase in San Fran’s Palace Theatre. Combining Broadway parody, cross-dressing and LSD-fueled choreography, their performances soon gained high profile media attention in Rolling Stone and the Village Voice. In the Chicago Tribune, critic Rex Reed described the show as “a nocturnal happening comprising equal parts of Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street, Harold Prince’s Follies and movie musicals, the United Fruit Company, Kabuki and the Yale Variety Show, with a lot of angel dust thrown in to keep the audience good and stoned.” Kitsch aficionado John Waters recounted, “It was complete sexual anarchy. You couldn’t tell the men from the women. It was really new at the time, and it still would be new.” On the Tonight Show, novelist and professional dandy fop Truman Capote simply stated “The Cockettes are where it’s at.”

Cashing in on this unexpected fame, the Cockettes moved their show to New York. Unfortunately, the troupe’s free-spirited hippie aesthetic was perceived by elite Manhattanites as unprofessional and sloppy. John Lennon, Liza Minelli and Angela Lansbury were some of the many celebrities to walk out on the opening night performance. Gore Vidal hammered the final nail in their patchouli-scented coffin when he infamously proclaimed, “Having no talent isn’t enough.” The group returned to the West Coast and disbanded in 1972.

The photographs in Children were shot before the East Coast snafu. Consisting solely of black and white portraiture by longtime Cockettes member Fayette Hauser, the exhibit depicts her various castmates flower-powering around ‘Frisco—bearded men in boas and evening gowns performing on ramshackle stages; women with theatrical beat smeared across their face lounging in antiquated Haight-Ashbury houses; fierce tranny geishas frolicking through Golden Gate Park. Each picture is a crystalized moment from an artistically and culturally groundbreaking epoch.

Children of Paradise: Life With The Cockettes. Photographs by Fayette Hauser, drkrm/gallery, 727 S. Spring St., Downtown L.A. June 4-July 2

Below, the trailer from the excellent 2002 documentary, The Cockettes,
 

 
Via World of Wonder

Graffiti Rock‘s Michael Holman and DJ Jimmy Jazz
 
Before Yo! MTV Raps and Rap City hit the markets in the late ‘80s, New York culture maven Michael Holman first made the move to put hip-hop culture on TV with the show Graffiti Rock.

In 1984, Holman—who played music with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Vincent Gallo in the legendarily obscure band Grey—got a bunch of banker friends to put together $150,000 to shoot the pilot for the series at Madison Ave. and 106th St. It screened on WPIX channel 11 in June 1984.

Holman turned the show into a seminar on the culture. Alongside future superstars Run D.M.C., Kool Moe Dee and Shannon—and cameos by “Prince Vince” Gallo and Debi Mazar—he featured his own crew the New York City Breakers, pieces by graf artist Brim, and hilarious slang translations. For the time, the show is pretty slick and ready for prime-time. Holman picks up the tragic story from there…

So the show airs and actually does much better than people thought! We got great ratings and aired in 88 syndicated markets, nationwide. But when we went to Las Vegas to sell the show at NAPTE (National Association of Producers of Television Entertainment) we hit a wall. First, the station managers (the people responsible for purchasing new shows in their markets) didn’t understand why “Graffiti Rock,” and hip hop was different to what Soul Train was offering. Secondly, certain stations wouldn’t take the chance to buy “Graffiti Rock,” unless other, larger markets did first. Chicago was waiting on L.A. to bite, and L.A. was waiting on New York. But the major New York syndicated stations at the time, were controlled by unsavory characters, and they wanted money under the table to put the show on the air! My main investors refused to deal with these forces (I of course would have done whatever I had to to get it on the air, and am still pissed they didn’t play along!)...

Graffiti Rock proved a legendary snapshot into what hip-hop TV was about to be. What a shot in the arm it would have been for the culture. Gnarls Barkley would later lovingly spoof Holman and the show for the video for their 2008 hit “Run” and before that, the Beastie Boys sampled Holman’s excellent little seminar on scratching in pt. 2 on their tune “Alright Hear This.”

I’ll leave part 3 of the YouTube of Graffiti Rock off this post in an appeal for you to reward a culture hero like Holman by buying the DVD.
 

 
After the jump: more Graffiti Rock