Australian comedian Jim Jefferies went viral with his impassioned—and hilariously funny—rant about gun control “Guns Are Not Protection” from his 2014 Netflix standup special Bare. The clip’s been viewed millions of times and sadly racks up millions more with every new gun massacre in America.
Well, Jefferies is about to go viral again with this nailed-it-to-the-fucking-wall breakdown of how Donald Trump plans to fight terrorism by profiling Muslims.
The whole thing is fantastic, and you’ll want to watch it all, but the part that I’m talking about specifically starts at the 4:30 mark. After listening to what he says here, how in the world could anyone with even a spoonful of brains think Donald Trump could possibly keep Americans safe from terrorism? Jefferies demolishes that argument. Pulverizes it. Stomps on it. It’s finished. It’s done.
No one who hears this can possibly unhear what he’s saying here. I don’t care how pro-Trump—or stupid—they might be.
No wonder all the ISIL related websites evince such a decidedly pro-Trump slant! Trump’s doing Allah’s work for him, if you know what I mean (and you surely will after watching Jim Jefferies lay it out so cold here!) Jim Jefferies’ newest streaming Netflix standup special Freedumb is now available.
In 1950, the great French criminal, poet, novelist, playwright and homosexual Marxist revolutionary, Jean Genet—one of the towering literary talents of the 20th century—directed his only film, Un chant d’amour (“A Song of Love”), a silent, 26-minute black-and-white short depicting the sexual fantasies of two male prisoners, one young, one older, and a self-loathing prison warden who gets off watching them. In the role of the younger prisoner, Genet cast his then lover, 18-year-old Lucien Sénémaud, who would later leave him for a woman.
Un chant d’amour is one of the earliest classics of queer cinema and the film caused scandal and censorship crackdowns for several years when attempts were made at public screenings. This controversy—and the difficulty of actually seeing the film allowed Genet to put his well-honed conman skills into action as he sold “the only” print to several wealthy porn collectors. Like his books Un chant d’amour kept Genet’s name in the news with near constant censorship battles.
When Jonas Mekas wanted to screen the film in New York, he had to smuggle it past customs officers by hiding the film—cut into several pieces—in his pockets. As Mekas explains in his intro to Cult Epics DVD release of Un chant d’amour, he happened to be seated next to British playwright Harold Pinter who was flying to America for the 1964 Broadway premiere of his play The Homecoming. Pinter’s fame helped him distract a star-struck customs officer as Mekas whistled by.
When Mekas screened the picture at the Film-Makers’ Cooperative (which he’d co-founded, as he later would Anthology Film Archives and Film Culture magazine), police burst in, beat Mekas, threw him in jail, and sneered that he should be shot for “dirtying America.” The case was later dropped, since Genet was himself something of a celebrity, with two plays running in New York; but Mekas received a suspended six-month sentence for screening another landmark LGBT film, Jack Smith’s gender-bending Flaming Creatures. Déjà vu: more police raids a few months later in San Francisco when Genet’s film was shown to private groups.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought suit, enlisting the expert testimony of the brilliant critic Susan Sontag, but to no avail. The California District Court of Appeals banned the film, and the decision was upheld by the US Supreme Court.
Unwittingly, Genet had helped narrow the US’s legal definition of obscenity, which had earlier been expanded to include explicit works with “literary or scientific or artistic value.” In the UK, despite a scattering of underground screenings over the years, the film was not even presented to the British Board of Film Classification (i.e., censorship) until 1992. Happily, times have changed – even if it’s taken several decades – and we can now appreciate Genet’s film on its own terms… even if, ultimately, Genet himself could not.
Today, perhaps the most shocking aspect of Un chant d’amour is Genet’s denial of it, beginning around 1975 when he huffily refused a 90,000 franc award from the Minister of Culture, of office which he equated (not unjustly) with censorship: and by the way, hadn’t he made the film a quarter of a century earlier. Edmund White offers some intriguing speculations about Genet’s denunciation: “perhaps because as his sole film it seems a slender accomplishment given his overwhelming lifelong ambitions towards cinema, perhaps it reminded him of a sterile, unhappy period in his life and of his now-dead love for Lucien, or perhaps because it was one more instance of his trafficking between art and pornography in an ambiguous territory he never felt happy about… [And] the extra-artistic reactions to his work – legal, moral, titillated – irritated him. He told Papatakis he didn’t like the film because it was too bucolic and not sufficiently violent. It is also Genet’s last attempt to portray homosexual desire.”
Genet marching with two of his revolutionary queer literary compatriots, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.
If you look at late 60s issues of The Village Voice and other underground newspapers, there were often small ads advertising screenings of Un chant d’amour along with films like Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks or Scorpio Rising (or Andy Milligan’s Vapors, which mostly takes place in a gay bathhouse) at cinemas with names like “The Tomkat Theater” or “The Adonis Lounge.” These film titles were pretty much code words indicating gay cruising scenes, but in a manner likely to fly right over the heads of the NYPD’s vice squad.
In February the State Council of the Chinese central government released an “urban blueprint” calling for buildings that are “suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye,” and putting the kibosh on those that are “oversized, xenocentric, weird.”
One wonders how the officials behind that directive reacted when they saw the building recently unveiled by an educational facility in Hainan, China. It bears a striking resemblance to a certain plumbing object that most of us use every day.
Here’s the kicker: the school in question is actually the North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power, leading some to suppose that the commode-ish design of the structure is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the purpose of the university. That it was deliberate!
This new toilet-building arrives in a year when many people are saying that Zaha Hadid’s design for the airport in Beijing, scheduled to be completed in 2019, looks suspiciously like a vagina.
Well, that’s what folks on Twitter and reddit want to know, anyway. Is she or he okay, dammit? I mean, just look at some of these names for yarn colors, “Rotten Pistachio Cream Macaron,” “Crumbling Brick Ruin,” “Rain in a Graveyard” or “Bat in a Dark Mood.”
You can click on each image to enlarge it.
I did some digging around and discovered the yarn is made by Etsy shop Dye For Yarn. Pretty much all the yarn colors have peculiar names. But are they okay is the real question!
The career of Prince, whose life was sadly cut short at the age of 57 earlier this year in April, increasingly appears to be simply a series of breathtaking highlights. His 1987 album Sign o’ the Times, however, deserves to be singled out as something special—it’s arguably the most ambitious, diverse, coherent, and funkalicous statement of his entire career. Sign o’ the Times won best album in the 1987 Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics’ poll—the only time Prince ever won that particular honor—and the title track from the album also won best single in the same poll.
The album was released on March 31, 1987, and a few weeks later Prince embarked on a 34-date tour of Europe with a largely retooled lineup. Sign o’ the Times wasn’t an album by Prince and the Revolution—it was credited to Prince only—and veterans of Prince’s live and studio experience such as Bobby Z., Brown Mark, Lisa Coleman, and Wendy Melvoin weren’t on the tour. The resultant combo is especially cherished by Prince diehards as the “Lovesexy Band,” including Miko Weaver, Eric Leeds, Atlanta Bliss, and long-time keyboardist Doctor Fink. This was the first Prince tour to feature Sheila E. on the drums (the previous two tours, Sheila E.‘s band had served as opener).
The new live concept gives these incredible rehearsal tapes all the more meaning. Almost every song on Sign o’ the Times is represented, and the groovetastic recordings last more than 2 hours. In a way it’s probably the best possible bootleg imaginable from that tour.
When The Beatles split-up in 1970 the music press divided the pop world into two camps: those for John Lennon and those against Paul McCartney (who, coincidentally met each other for the first time 59 years ago today). That both camps were basically the same thing meant McCartney had rough ride from “hip” musos over the next decades.
McCartney was painted as straight, safe, vanilla and very very bland—the sort of music yer mom and dad listened to when riding an elevator. It was fueled in large part by his former songwriting pal John Lennon’s vicious public spat with him. Lennon excoriated McCartney in his song “How Do You Sleep?” claiming the only thing he’d done was “Yesterday.”
Lennon was perceived as cool. McCartney was seen as square, fake and lacking any real artistic credibility—whatever that may be. He was the lesser half of the writing partnership Lennon & McCartney. This was how the music press in general and the British music press in particular painted the former Beatles. Of course it was wrong—very wrong. McCartney was the cool one, the smart one, the one who was hanging out with all those avant garde artists on the edge. He didn’t have to try on different party hats to find out who he was—he knew instinctively. The way the music press wrote about him you would never have known. But then again music journalists only write for themselves and their tiny band of fellow journalists—they do not write for the public or really understand that popular music is meant for all—the clue’s in its name—it’s not an exclusive club.
How McCartney weathered it all while starting out on his solo career, raising a family with his wife Linda, then forming the band Wings reveals just how strong and determined a character/a talent is James Paul McCartney.
Understandably, post-Beatles McCartney was always cagey about giving interviews. He knew (and knows) how interviewers turn words to fit their own preconceived opinions and how interviewers like to make themselves the star of the interview.
One of McCartney’s best ever interviews came in 1978, when he was featured in a short film for Melvyn Bragg’s The South Bank Show.
McCartney and Melvyn Bragg, 1978.
The South Bank Show was devised by Bragg as an arts magazine show that would cover high and low art—from TV and films to theater and pop music. This seems utterly run-of-the-mill now but back in the seventies this hi/lo concept was considered shocking. Pop music was in no way comparable to classical music. Television was never in the same class as theater, etcetera etcetera. Bragg was challenging the perceived orthodoxy when he kicked the whole thing off with The South Bank Show in January 1978, creating the kind of mix of high and low culture we take so very much for granted today.
The South Bank Show was originally a magazine program that featured one or two short films, plus a studio interview and usually some kind of performance. During the first series this morphed into one hour profiles of artists, writers, film directors and performers which remained the format.
Paul McCartney appeared in the very first episode in a short insert documentary filmed during the recording of the song “Mull of Kintyre.” McCartney is open to Bragg’s questions and even goes so far as to explain how he writes, giving examples of some of his best known songs. He also discusses the hurt he felt over the bust-up with Lennon and ends by explaining how he gets a thrill from hearing people whistling his tunes—or as he goes on to say, how he once heard a bird whistling a riff from one of his hits.
The following is the whole interview repackaged for Bragg’s The South Bank Show: Originals series recently broadcast on Sky Arts. It opens with Bragg talking about his memory of interviewing McCartney and contains comment from journalist Clive James who rightly describes Paul McCartney as a genius.
Patricia Morrison could very well be considered the gothmother—she’s certainly one of them—of punk. Growing up in Los Angeles, Morrison—at the tender age of fourteen—started playing bass in The Bags. She was in the best incarnation of Gun Club—along with Kid Congo Powers and the mercurial junkie bluesman Jeffrey Lee Pierce—and this was followed by a fabled stint in The Sisters of Mercy (that ended in court and a non-disclosure agreement between Morrison and Sisters frontman Andrew Eldritch). In 1994 she released a solo album Reflect on This and in 1996 Morrison joined The Damned, marrying the group’s lead singer, Dave Vanian the following year. Her iconic long black hair, dramatic makeup and frilly antique dresses set the precedent for the classic goth look—that is the elegant sophisticated, goth look, not the goofy Hot Topic mall goth look. She is like a dark unicorn that has been in the coolest bands.
Morrison is now retired as a musician and lives in England with her husband and their daughter, Emily. The following interview was conducted via email
Dangerous Minds: How did you get your start playing music?
Patricia Morrison: I always loved music, was music mad in school with my friends and spent many an hour in my room pretending to be in a band. David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Queen, etc. Many of the LA punks who I became friends with later listened to the same bands in the 70’s. I also liked country music as my mother listened to it and I grew up with hearing it on the radio in the kitchen on a daily basis. When punk came along it opened up opportunities with like minded people deciding to give it a go and I was one of those people. I found two other girls (most boys wouldn’t consider playing with girls back then unless they were the singer or on keyboards), and we started playing with cheap drug store bought instruments. It was all so exciting between ‘being in a band’ and going to see concerts of old and new bands.
Dangerous Minds: Who was your earliest influence in music and fashion?
Patricia Morrison: Music: The Sixties, 1967-69 in particular. I still listen to and love music from that time. Fashion is harder as there were not that many people creating the style I became known for and in LA that was especially true. Back then it was all blue-eyed blonde beauty that was celebrated. My pale and pasty look was not yet appreciated! Film stars I suppose. I loved the glamor, and transferred it to punk as quite a few of us did.
Dangerous Minds: How did you develop your personal style?
Patricia Morrison: Thrift shops and just wearing what I liked. There was an amazing dress shop in Pasadena called Lila’s and a dress there was a massive 10 or 15 dollars but they were gorgeous. Dresses with unusual designs and fabrics from the 1930’s onwards. We also found warehouses in downtown LA that had old stock and it was a goldmine to us. I just wore what I liked. There were no rules or directives. I refused to cut my hair and some people had a go at me for that but I ignored them. Now punk has a defined look but then it was individual. People took cues from the NY and London punk scenes but LA had a strangeness they didn’t and that I loved.
The Bags play Portland in 1979
Dangerous Minds: Early on you played with the Bags and Legal Weapon. What was it like playing with other female musicians versus joining the all-male bands you played with after?
Patricia Morrison: Any females I have played with have been strong characters and in some ways more single-minded than the men. Also, back then you had to try harder if you were a girl. As I started playing with women first, it never seemed odd or different to me—it was down to the individual’s personality so not much difference looking back on it. Male and female, we all had the same problems, issues, camaraderie and egos.
Dangerous Minds: Who was your favorite band in the late 70s/early 80s to play shows with (as peers)?
Patricia Morrison: In the punk days there were so many! New bands popped up each week. The biggest band in the beginning was The Weirdos.The LA scene seemed to mix and match and sooner or later you played with everyone. LA had a friendly rivalry with San Francisco playing with bands up there as well. There were some great bands whose music still holds up today.
Somewhere between the city of Denver and the town of Last Chance lies a “ghost town” called Cabin Creek—it’s out there on U.S. Route 36 and it’s available for you to buy.
For an asking price of $350,000, you would get “just under 5 acres of property with the old Gas Station, 8 room Motel, Road Side Restaurant Café, 8 space RV Park, 2 Houses, and private shooting range.” The gas station measures 3,300 square feet and was actually once used as a movie theater. The roadside café has “small seating area, bathroom, cook kitchen, manager’s office, underground cold storage room and 3 bedrooms in the basement.”
According to the Denver FOX affiliate, the place was once “quite the gathering spot”—as a neighbor from nearby Byers attested, the café used to serve “the best chicken fried steak in the state.”
The seller’s name is James Johnson, and he has been pleasantly surprised by all the attention the property is getting. Johnson’s wife would like to retire and do some traveling but “the project” keeps them there. To their credit, the ad does a thorough job of walking buyers through the amount of work—some of it “nasty work” that “nobody likes to do”—that would be required to make a go of it. The Johnsons are looking to relocate to somewhere even more remote than Cabin Creek—they’re thinking about “Idaho or Montana.”
The neighbor mentioned above also noted that the property has a gruesome past, commenting that “there was a murder there. There was some people that they took in, felt sorry for or something, and they found out the couple had money.”
The murder put the little roadside stopping place under a cloud. Johnson noted that after that, “everything just, literally, there was nobody here, so these buildings sat totally vacant. Nothing going on out here for a number of years.” So clearly, if you want to say the place is “haunted,” go for it (the Johnsons don’t use the word).
The property is perfect if you want to live out your fantasy of being that odd rural movie character who spooks the city slickers after they get lost in the middle of nowhere and need to gas up and get some directions.
“Most neighbors are hundreds of acres away,” says the ad, in a sentence that forges new ground in putting an uneasy weight on the word “most.”
Using the term “ghost town” for the unusual property has its up side and its down side—it’s great for attracting attention among potential buyers but when the time comes to secure a loan, it ceases to be such a positive thing, Johnson says. “The hardest part out here is you’re not going to get a regular conventional loan on this property. You say ghost town and they say what?”
In 2002, for reasons that may have been clear only to him, former Van Halen singer and professional outsized ham David Lee Roth spent a reported $600,000 making a disjointed longform music video featuring himself cavorting with a dwarf, chugging beers with pregnant women, playing with an Asian sword to the tune of “Baker Street,” doing a totally unnecessary cover of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” brandishing military weapons, cavorting with models, playing jazz guitar…
It’s a lot like what might happen if a 14-year-old boy with a brutal case of ADHD was given a generous supply of alcohol and money, a shitty ‘80s VHS camcorder, and the chance to make the music video of his dreams.
The video was manufactured as a 2xVHS package—one tape was the regular video, the other was the video with Roth’s stream-of-Ritalin commentary, which would have to be exponentially more bonkers than the video alone—and it may have been sent out to entertainment industry movers in a quixotic endeavor to score a reality show, but it’s only been available to civilians as a bootleg, or in bits and pieces on YouTube, until a couple of days ago when Roth uploaded the whole damn thing to his own video channel, so that it can at last be seen uninterrupted in all its awkward-segue glory.
If your tolerance levels for Roth and/or the puerile display of women’s bodies are low, don’t even bother, you’ll definitely hate this 100% as much as you’re imagining you will. If you’re a sufficiently advanced ironist or a big enough actual fan of the guy to handle an hour of his mugging, you’ll be treated to a deliriously spastic mashup of early MTV and low-rent Jodorowsky for connoisseurs of breast implants and mind-bogglingly inept cover songs.
Watch ‘David Lee Roth’s No Holds Bar-B-Que’ after the jump…
In recent years underground filmmaker, author and occultist Kenneth Anger has added fashion maven to his multi-hyphenate resume with his tee-shirts and clothing endeavors. Now he’s taking his designer apparel to another level: Witness Anger’s new lightweight “Resort Collection” Lucifer Rising jacket, “ideal” he claims
“...for a midsummer night’s sorceries. The deluxe “Golden Scarab Edition” jackets are made with large embroidery on a vibrant satin material, as if they’d gone through a time machine more than a few times—landing someone in the next century.”
The jackets are the latest release from Anger and LA-based artist Brian Butler’s Lucifer Brothers Workshop:
Although the satin ‘souvenir’ bomber has come into vogue recently with labels such as Louis Vuitton, Valentino and Saint Laurent, Kenneth Anger’s original design tops them all. Featuring a palette known locally as Hodos Chamelionis, or the Path of the Chameleon—the colors of the forces which lie beyond the physical universe, happens to be the Lucifer Brothers Workshop’s house mascot. Here, they are flitted over gold and black satin in a limited edition of 333 with labels signed by Kenneth Anger himself.
