Photograph by Bruce Davidson
Photos of old school New York before they switched over to the subway trains that couldn’t be graffitied on. New York has sadly lost a lot of its character since then (as well as many of its characters, too!)
Photograph by John F. Conn
Photograph by Bruce Davidson
See more photos after the jump…
Dangerous Minds pal Paul Gallagher write at his Planet Paul website about a new documentary called Norman Mailer: The American:
Norman Mailer claimed he was “imprisoned with a vision” which would “settle for nothing less than making a revolution in the consciousness of our time.” Unfortunately for Mailer, he was far too good a writer to ever do that.
The writers who have achieved such a “revolution” have always produced poorly written and unrelentingly dull books. Marx and Hitler may have changed history, but ‘Das Kapital’ and ‘Mein Kampf’ will never be page turners, let alone literature.
As for Mailer, he wrote over 40 books, a dozen of which are important works of literature. No small feat when considering how often Mailer was reckless with his talents. Now Joseph Mantegna has directed a documentary film, called ‘Norman Mailer: The American‘, which examines the life of the great novelist, journalist, film director, and actor and promises to reveal the man behind these multiple lives, with unseen footage, and interviews from his wives, his children, his lovers, his enemies.
When Martin Amis unflatteringly compared Mailer and his legacy to the ruins of Ozymandias‘ two vast and trunkless legs of stone, languishing in the desert, Amis failed to appreciate how Percy Bysshe Shelley‘s poem had made the great King immortal. Mailer’s life and books don’t need a Shelley, but it’s certainly about time someone assessed the great man’s life and work, and thankfully it looks like Joseph Mantegna has stepped up to the plate.
“A tribute to Rammellzee by collaborator and artist Part2ism.”
Previously on Dangerous Minds: “There’s no story to hip-hop—just culture”: R.I.P. renaissance man Rammellzee
(via Wooster Collective)
Slim Gaillard was a wonderful jazz performer and inventor of his own groovy dialect he called Vout. He was notably immortalized in the following passage from Jack Kerouac’s On The Road:
‘... one night we suddenly went mad together again; we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco nightclub. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big sad eyes who’s always saying ‘Right-orooni’ and ‘How ‘bout a little bourbon-arooni.’ In Frisco great eager crowds of young semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar and bongo drums. When he gets warmed up he takes off his undershirt and really goes. He does and says anything that comes into his head. He’ll sing ‘Cement Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti’ and suddenly slow down the beat and brood over his bongos with fingertips barely tapping the skin as everybody leans forward breathlessly to hear; you think he’ll do this for a minute or so, but he goes right on, for as long as an hour, making an imperceptible little noise with the tips of his fingernails, smaller and smaller all the time till you can’t hear it any more and sounds of traffic come in the open door. Then he slowly gets up and takes the mike and says, very slowly, ‘Great-orooni ... fine-ovauti ... hello-orooni ... bourbon-orooni ... all-orooni ... how are the boys in the front row making out with their girls-orooni ... orooni ... vauti ... oroonirooni ...” He keeps this up for fifteen minutes, his voice getting softer and softer till you can’t hear. His great sad eyes scan the audience.
Dean stands in the back, saying, ‘God! Yes!’—and clasping his hands in prayer and sweating. ‘Sal, Slim knows time, he knows time.’ Slim sits down at the piano and hits two notes, two C’s, then two more, then one, then two, and suddenly the big burly bass-player wakes up from a reverie and realizes Slim is playing ‘C-Jam Blues’ and he slugs in his big forefinger on the string and the big booming beat begins and everybody starts rocking and Slim looks just as sad as ever, and they blow jazz for half an hour, and then Slim goes mad and grabs the bongos and plays tremendous rapid Cubana beats and yells crazy things in Spanish, in Arabic, in Peruvian dialect, in Egyptian, in every language he knows, and he knows innumerable languages. Finally the set is over; each set takes two hours. Slim Gaillard goes and stands against a post, looking sadly over everybody’s head as people come to talk to him. A bourbon is slipped into his hand. ‘Bourbon-orooni—thank-you-ovauti ...’ Nobody knows where Slim Gaillard is. Dean once had a dream that he was having a baby and his belly was all bloated up blue as he lay on the grass of a California hospital. Under a tree, with a group of colored men, sat Slim Gaillard. Dean turned despairing eyes of a mother to him. Slim said, ‘There you go-orooni.’ Now Dean approached him, he approached his God; he thought Slim was God; he shuffled and bowed in front of him and asked him to join us. ‘Right-orooni,’ says Slim; he’ll join anybody but won’t guarantee to be there with you in spirit. Dean got a table, bought drinks, and sat stiffly in front of Slim. Slim dreamed over his head. Every time Slim said, ‘Orooni,’ Dean said ‘Yes!’ I sat there with these two madmen. Nothing happened. To Slim Gaillard the whole world was just one big orooni.’
So with that in mind here are a handful of clips. He has so many great songs, it was hard to narrow them down !
First a few live clips from his mid-40’s heyday. A young Scatman Crothers on drums:
More Slim after the jump…
Like many of you, I am sick to death of watching ill-educated and misinformed Tea party-types attempting to hijack the notion of “what our Founding Fathers would have wanted” in favor of what they and their ignorant brethren actually want. Whenever someone pulls out the “Founding Fathers” card these days, I recoil immediately because I know I am dealing with an intellectually dishonest scoundrel from the get-go, as this is usually an admission that what they have to say is totally bogus and very often has next to nothing to do with actual history. Referring to what the Founding Fathers would have wanted has become a fall-back straw-man argument of the historically-challenged Glen Beck set and it’s being rendered meaningless the more and more often it gets repeated by ignorant people wanting to shoot their mouths off on TV and at Tea party rallies regarding issues they know nothing about.
While we can’t know exactly what the Founding Fathers would say about the racists on the radical right who are protesting the plans for the Cordoba House in downtown Manhattan, we can read what George Washington himself said about religious freedom on this very in history, August 18th, 1790, in his letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island:
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people.
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
Not very ambiguous is it? Even something like the above would probably still fail to faze the Facts? Who Cares About Facts? brigade of the Republican party. If you are going to invoke the matter of what the Founding Fathers would have wanted, you simply can’t pick and choose from history willy-nilly to suit your argument and be considered credible. But whether they are misinformed or simply lying, however you slice it, when these folks start to evoke what they Founding Fathers would have wanted, they are almost always just plain wrong.
Dangerous Minds pal Rich Fulcher will be appearing as his groupie alter ego “Eleanor the Tour Whore” at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe at The Udderbelly from August 21-30. One of the best comedy shows I’ve ever had the pleasure of laughing my ass off at, I’m sure Eleanor will be the hit of the Fringe!
Below, Eleanor works her charms on Har Mar Superstar in the first episode of Eleanor’s Happy Place:
Priceless detail from NYT article on Wyclef Jean’s political ambitions that I wanted to call your attention to:
But Yéle [Jean’s charity] needed a way to account for $250,000 that Mr. Jean, through the check to Telemax, had used to help cover the costs of a carnival float, Mr. Rawal said.
The float featured Mr. Jean in a frilly blouse and gilded epaulettes as Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the Haitian revolutionary hero. Mr. Jean also imported a lion for the spectacle, keeping it in the parking lot of the Montana Hotel, now destroyed, where the kitchen crew fed the beast sirloin steaks. (Emphasis added).
If this guy is elected president of Hati, something that seems highly likely to happen, the inevitable next chapters will include all kinds of financial malfeasance, rampant cronyism and who knows what other fuckery? But what will happen after a year or two of President Fugee spending relief money to glorify himself is easier to predict: International relief organizations and nations will simply refuse to deal with Haiti and the people will rot.
What’s good for Wyclef Jean is not synonymous with what is best for the people of Haiti.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the spectacle of seeing an egomaniacal pop star trying to get into politics as much as the next guy (I can’t wait for Sting to decide that he should be the UK prime minister, for instance), but this isn’t about the schadenfreude, it’s about how poorly Haiti will fare should this moron get elected.
Thank you Chris Campion!
Star’s Candidacy in Haiti Puts Focus on Charity (New York Times)
This is indescribably surreal. Just watch.
Film footage from 1970 Czech film Na Komete (On The Comet). Moog music by Jean Pierre Decerf and Marc Saclays from the album Pulsations (1980).
I first discovered Brit rockabilly wildman Vince Taylor when I saw him and his band in some French Scopitones. I was blown away by his over-the-top stage moves and fetishy black leather outfit. The cat was ultra-cool in a synthetic sort of way, a simulacrum composed of bits and pieces of Elvis, Gene Vincent and interstellar tonup boy. Vince had a string of hits and was a mega-star in France. But, LSD, alcohol, and being absolutely convinced he was Jesus, brought Taylor’s musical life to a loopy end.
Vince Taylor may have lost it (or found IT), but before he flamed out he managed to record two of the best rockabilly songs ever recorded, Jet Black Machine and Brand New Cadillac (later covered by The Clash). He was the inspiration for David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona and provided the fashion proto-type for Elvis circa 1968. He opened for the Rolling Stones, copped his first hit of acid at a party for Bob Dylan and slept with Brigitte Bardot. Morrissey used footage of Taylor dancing as a visual backdrop during his 2007 tour.
Vince’s moment of fame may have been brief but it was action-packed and he left an indelible jet black impression.
In this fascinating BBC documentary, Taylor’s story is told by his former drummer (the wonderfully animated Bobbie Clarke), David Bowie and people who helped guide his brief but amazing career. Enjoy.
Over at Daryl Lang’s History Eraser Button blog, he’s posted some shots taken the same distance from the World Trade Center as the site of the proposed Cordoba House cultural center, AKA the “Ground Zero Mosque”:
What’s my point? A month ago, I wrote about my support for a group of Muslim New Yorkers—whom I consider my neighbors—and their right to put a religious building on a piece of private property in Lower Manhattan. Since then, the debate over the Park51 community center, inaccurately nicknamed the “Ground Zero Mosque,” has jumped from talk radio to mainstream conversation, and turned nasty in the process. Sarah Palin wrote that, “it would be an intolerable and tragic mistake to allow such a project sponsored by such an individual to go forward on such hallowed ground.”
Look at the photos. This neighborhood is not hallowed. The people who live and work here are not obsessed with 9/11. The blocks around Ground Zero are like every other hard-working neighborhood in New York, where Muslims are just another thread of the city fabric.
At this point the only argument against this project is fear, specifically fear of Muslims, and that’s a bigoted, cowardly and completely indefensible position.
Bravo! Here’s a link to some of the responses he got to the photo essay.
It’s painful to see how a hate-filled harpie like Pamela Geller (of the ridiculous Atlas Shrugs blog) and her rubbish wingnut bigotry and foaming at the mouth anti-Muslim racism has been allowed to hijack and steer the national debate for a few weeks. In recent weeks she’s been elevated to the new “hate lady” on cable news channels. I can’t stand seeing her fucking face. I have to change the channel I find her so revolting. Facts? Why let facts get in the way of irrational hatred? Pamela Geller represents a new intellectual low even for Fox News!
Duncan Dowling has come up with some stylish concepts for redesigning American dollars. The vertical layout makes the money easier to handle because that’s the way paper currency is exchanged between people and machines.
You can read more about the project at Dowling’s website.
We have submitted a design concept to a competition being run by New York designer Richard Smith. The Dollar ReDe$ign Project hopes to bring about change for everyone. We want to rebrand the US Dollar, rebuild financial confidence and revive our failing economy.
More bucks after the jump…
As seen on Ebay. Opening bid is a million bucks.
Here’s an item you won’t come across everyday! This is the toilet that was personally owned AND used by J.D. Salinger for many years! It sat in his home in Cornish, New Hampshire, and was installed in the ‘new wing’ of his house.
When he died, his wife inherited all of his manuscripts with plans to eventually release some of them! Who knows how many of these stories were thought up and written while Salinger sat on this throne!
This vintage toilet is from 1962 and is dated under the lid. It will come to you uncleaned and in it’s original condition when it was removed from Salinger’s old home!
It will also include a letter from Joan Littlefield. Her and her husband are the new owners of Salinger’s house and are the ones who had the toilet removed and replaced. It is dated April 16, 2010.
Don’t miss your chance to own a piece of history!!
Note that the toilet will not be cleaned. Presumably so the purchaser has a chance of some literary genius rubbing off on them?
Thank you. Chris Campion!
Rock journalist Steve Krakow (Plastic Crimewave) is blogging about forgotten musicians of Chicago. The Secret History Of Chicago Musicians sheds light on a number of bands I’ve never heard of and it’s a fascinating read.
Krakow went in search of the Windy City’s equivalent of Anvil, a band that flirted with fame but ended up in the cutout bin of history, and he found Amulance.
Amulance’s story is filled with your typical rock band nightmares. Formed in 1984, the group suffered through shady management, bad record deals, tours that fell through and even a murder. It’s another tale of speed metal gone off the rails and heavy metal heartache.
In compiling the reasons Amulance never made it, I’d put the vocalist’s and the lead guitar player’s fashion sense some place close to #1. Fortunately, the band has revamped it’s look for it’s recent re-union gigs. Good luck guys, it’s a jungle out there….but you already know that.
More heavy metal thunder after the jump…
