Oh dear. Forever 21 is selling the “homemade” Kurt Cobain version of a Flipper t-shirt made popular when Cobain sported his on Saturday Night Live in 1992. There’s even a “Ha, Ha, Ha” t-shirt I found on their site, although, I doubt it has anything to do with Flipper.
To me, Flipper was always the band who I thought of as making the best soundtrack for sniffing glue. I wonder what people who’d buy this product at Forever 21 think about Flipper?
This amazing animation was originally projected behind Pink Floyd when they promoted the Animals album on their “In the Flesh” tour in 1977. It was directed by Gerald Scarfe who also worked on the album cover, tour, film and theatrical adaptation of The Wall .
Eventually the record label turned it into a music video and it can been seen from time to time on Vh1 Classics. Can you imagine what this was like to see screened back then and with this number being played live and loud by Pink Floyd?
It’s still mind-blowing. I’ve always loved this song, but this film gave me a new appreciation for it. The film is included in the new Wish You Were Here Immersion box set in a 5.1 surround mix.
Christians For A Moral America took to his (their?) Twitter feed, claiming that Michael “has AIDS” and calling for people to pray for the singer’s death because of his “satanic lifestyle.”
Our Grim Reaper who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy multiple names and personalities.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in the US as it is in Iran.
Give us this day our daily hate tweets and forgive us our satanic pop singers and we will never forgive those who gay-marry against us.
And lead us not into compassion, but deliver us from empathy.
For Thine is the homophobia and the death prayers and the hypocrisy forever and ever.
Or else.
Here’s hoping George Michael makes a complete and quick recovery.
Ian Malcolm: From Chaos by John Larriva oil on panel 12” x 9” $500
The JP Show (Just People) exhibit, curated by artists Brandon Bird and Julia Vickerman, pays homage to only the human characters featured in the Jurassic Park film series. The Jeff Goldblum portrait above by John Larriva had me in stitches.
The JP Show runs December 3rd & 4th, 2011 at Nucleus in Los Angeles.
Jurassic Jeff by Lisa Hanawalt watercolor 9” x 12” $275
I’m not putting up a Christmas tree this year, but if I were to, I’d top it with Yoda… and his lightsaber. He’s available for purchase over at the NetoShop for $59.95.
There is probably only but one man in America who seriously believes that Newton Leroy Gingrich could ever become the President of the United States and that one man also happens to be named Newton Leroy Gingrich. The idea that this repulsive, hypocritical turd will ever be in a position of elected power again, is, of course, as ridiculous and as preposterous on the face of it as, well, Gingrich himself. More people loathe him than can tolerate him. He polls about as well as Sarah Palin nationally.
It’s hard to even get worked up or irate when this doofus says things like he says in the below video, to a rightwing Christian audience, because A) he’s a joke, so who cares what this pudgy prick thinks? and B) WHO in their right minds would think electing Newt Gingrich president would be a way to “take back” America from the “minority elites, in the first place, even this audience? That doesn’t make… any sense (As Paul Krugman recently quipped Gingrich is a “stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.” He went on to add “but he is more plausible than the other guys they’ve been pushing up”! How true, how pithy! How very Idiocracy...)
It’s amazing to contemplate that this universally disliked, self-satisfied “conservative intellectual” is currently the front runner for the GOP nomination. Who’d have thunk this was possible? How low will they go? Bachmann. Perry. Cain. Gingrich? You’re joking, right? Will Sarah Palin jump into the race to “save” the party from these people? Will ole “frothy mix” Rick Santorum get his day in the Republican sun? What about the least influential man in the world, Tim Pawlenty? If Gingrich can rally a comeback, why can’t he? (Imagine being T-Paw and seeing a no-hoper like Gingrich in the cat bird seat. Even it it only lasts a couple of weeks, that’s gotta be pretty galling!)
Don’t get me wrong, it would be fantastic to see Newt get the GOP nod, strictly from the lulz perspective of seeing the Republicans utterly destroyed in a national election, but you’d have to sift through trillions upon trillions of alternate universes to find the one in which the disgusting toad that his pretty blonde “Stepford wife” Calista kissed would turn into the POTUS (it’s a parallel dimension where gravity has failed, “fun” has been outlawed and Snookie is the Secretary of Spray Tans). It’s never, ever going to happen. Scott Walker has a better chance of holding on to his job than Gingrich does of taking Obama’s. These are the cold and clammy facts.
The mainstream media taking Gingrich seriously again as a candidate, has got a shelf life of how many… days do you think? Anybody want to start a betting pool on how long his front-runner status lasts?
And one more question: What EXACTLY does well-fed fascist mean by the curious phrase “Classical America” when he’s saying it to an audience comprised of Christian evangelicals?
“But we have allowed ourselves to be bullied, harassed, intimidated, and dominated by a tiny elite using the courts, using the news media, using the entertainment community, using the bureaucracy to coerce the American people against their will. It is fundamentally anti-freedom, fundamentally anti-democratic and the core meaning of the 2012 is to stand up and say “no, the eighty percent of the country that actually believes in classical America is now about to take back power from the minority elite.”
Whatever, dude… I just… can’t be bothered getting worked up about you or even to take you seriously.
And have you seen this harsh video that Ron Paul’s campaign just dropped on Gingrich’s big fat head? Ouch!
UPDATE: I have to admit that I laughed with Newt on this one...
Discovering reggae in the early 1970s was like discovering rock and roll all over again. Along with Jimmy Cliff, The Pioneers and Toots And The Maytals, one of the first reggae groups to blow me away were The Heptones. Their soulful harmonies and hooky melodies reminded me of artists I was familiar with like the Temptations, Smokey Robinson And The Miracles and Little Anthony And The Imperials but it was the tight yet supple Afro-Caribbean grooves, slathered with some New Orleans and Memphis funk, that seduced me. The Heptones created music you could languish and relax in, like a hammock constructed of sound. Motown on marijuana.
So it saddens me to report that one of The Heptones founders, Barry Llewellyn, passed away on Nov. 23 in St. Andrew, Jamaica. Cause of death was pneumonia. He was 63.
Leroy Sibbles was the vocalist on most of The Heptones recordings, but it was Llewellyn who sang lead on The Heptones’ biggest hit and one of the most sublime reggae songs ever recorded, “The Book Of Rules.”
I put together this little video in honor of Barry Llewellyn. The idea was to keep it funky and fun while reminding everyone of how deep roots music runs.
This surprisingly good documentary includes interviews with people who know what they’re talking about. Unexploitive and free of the usual finger wagging.
“One of them (The Sex Pistols) had to be a casualty to make the myth work, and Sid was only too willing to do it.” Steve Severin (Siouxsie And The Banshees).
Sid’s short and controversial life with The Sex Pistols and Nancy Spungen is profiled with new interviews from Jah Wobble, Steve Severin, Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McClaren, Dave Vanian, Rat Scabies, Marco Pironi, Viv Albertine, and many others who actually knew Sid.
Seeing a very fucked-up Sid performing onstage at Max’s with Jerry Nolan and his band The Idols (Jerry was a friend of mine and another dope casualty) was one of the saddest spectacles I’ve ever had the displeasure of witnessing. A train wreck in slooooow motion.
The last few gigs that Sid played at Max’s before his death (and Nancy’s) had become freak shows drawing crowds of curious bridge and tunnel punks to watch the ex-Pistol crash and burn right in front of their eyes. Something to share with your grandchildren as you tug your beard and run your fingers through your thinning gray Mohawk.
