I’ve never seen this video shot by Bob Gruen before and I’m pretty much a Patti Smith fanatic. I didn’t even know it existed.
This is a very young Smith performing at Max’s in 1974 with Lenny Kaye and Richard Sohl.
More Rimbaud than Keith Richards.
“Larry the Cable Guy” seemed appropriate somehow…
As someone who knows the value of a good headline zinging across the globe via Twitter, I can appreciate why middle-aged, well-off Caucasian Forbes contributor Gene Marks would title his well-meaning essay/advice, “If I Were A Poor Black Kid.” As every blogger knows, with controversy comes increased traffic, some feigned outrage from bloggers both left and right (which brings in even more traffic) and parody. Even ridicule brings in more traffic (it’s a fuel that the Internet and reality TV runs on). I don’t want to give the impression that I found Marks’ essay offensive—I didn’t and he makes several good points—but then again, he completely misses out on the biggest elephant (of many) in the room:
Are there going to be ANY decent jobs—let alone careers—for much of the next generation in this hollowed out American economy, whether they are educated or not?
I was told this morning that 10% of the HDTV panels that are 40 inches or larger are manufactured by just fifteen workers at the Panasonic plant in Osaka, Japan. If that’s even close to accurate, it’s staggering. What opportunities will there be in the US where we hardly make anything of real value anymore?
However silly Gene Marks’ title is, at least it inspired one of the funniest things I’ve read in some time, Vanity Fair contributing editor Jim Windolf’s “If I Were a Middle-Aged White Guy,” published this morning at The Atlantic Wire. Here’s an excerpt:
If I happened to be making a quick stop at the 7-11, I would ease into the handicapped spot, because eighty percent of those people are faking it. This one guy I heard about had asthma. That’s how he got the handicapped plate. I would leave the engine running, partly so it wouldn’t get cold, and partly so that, if some actual, no-kidding-around handicapped person were to pull up in their specially made handicap-mobile, they would figure I was coming back shortly.
If I were a middle-aged white guy, I would work hard at my job. No one likes a lazy person. And I would smile at my coworkers, because no one likes a sourpuss. I would also be sure to ask my colleagues how their day was going, and I would talk about TV shows and football games with them, and I would perhaps mention that I hadn’t seen them in church lately, which is a funny thing to say nowadays, when there are so many people who haven’t accepted the Lord Jesus as our savior.
If I were to see a coworker slacking off, I might remark, in jest, “Some of us have work to do.” And if they told me to fuck off, I would call human resources and report them, because middle-aged white guys should not have to be subjected to such abusive talk. I would also discuss the incident with my immediate boss, and if he were to tell me, “You just need to worry about your own work and let me take care of the rest of the floor,” I would probably say, “It’s funny how you asshole liberals are always talking about ‘it takes a village,’ but the minute someone steps up to point out that one of the ‘villagers’ is slacking off, you get nothing but shit for it.” And if he were to reply, “Are we done here?”, I would probably just say something like, “Yeah, I guess we are. I guess nothing’s ever going to change around here,” and then I would walk back to my desk, muttering to myself. For a little office humor I would make sure a coworker or two heard me use the word “shotgun.”
If I were a middle-aged white guy, and my children were doing poorly in school, I would smash things in their rooms, the lamps and vacation souvenirs and such, and I would inform them that the stuff I had just broken to bits had been gained in exchange for a certain thing known as money, and you get money in this world because you have skills, like computer programming, and you acquire those skills only after you earn halfway decent grades in school, and then you offer those skills to an employer who will pay you for your services, even if they never take it seriously when you make the slightest remark about how you’re the main guy pulling his weight.
“If I Were a Middle-Aged White Guy” (The Atlantic Wire)
Below, a minisode of Harry Shearer and Martin Mull’s HBO mockumentary series, The History of White People in America
Radio Soulwax’s ambitious punk mash-up mix is the “Stars on 45” of hardcore.
Thank you Glen E. Friedman of New York City, NY!
98%?! Let me say that again, 98%!!!
(via Copyranter)
A 23-year-old South African woman was caught smuggling 3.3 lbs of cocaine into Thailand by hiding the drugs in her dreadlocks!
That much coke on your head would make for a very numb skull, wouldn’t it? That might explain why this numb-skull tried to import 3.3 lbs of coke into Thailand, a country known for enforcing harsh penalties on drug smugglers, including death.
(via Arbroath)
What could be a worse insult than this from those fine folks at Fox News?
A picture of Jerry Sandusky standing in for Mittens, perhaps?
Via Media Matters
Yes, ‘The Can” is the ‘Can’ we all know and love - Holger, Jaki, Michael, Irmin and, in this early 70s incarnation, the iconic Damo Suzuki. Here is a clip of the band performing the title track of the Roland Klick film ‘Deadlock’ in 1970 on Germany’s Westdeutscher Rundfunk television station.
When I first stumbled upon this clip, I assumed the TV producers had made an amusing mistake by adding an unwanted definitive article to the start of the band’s name. However, after checking the Can wiki page, it turns out that the additional “The” may not have been a mistake after all:
[By 1968] the band used the names “Inner Space” and “The Can” before finally settling on “CAN”. Liebezeit subsequently suggested the backronym “communism, anarchism, nihilism” for the band’s name. [Wow, what an amazing backronym!]
However, by the time this footage was recorded in 1970 the band had already released two records as ‘Can’ - Monster Movies and Soundtracks, which mostly featured Malcolm Mooney on vocals rather than Suzuki. So I think a little chortle can be had without feeling too foolish, but who knows, maybe it was a genuine mistake or maybe the bad flirted with a new name for a new singer? Either way, if it’s ‘The Can’ or just plain old ‘Can’ this is some great early footage of true musical pioneers:
The Can “Deadlock” live 1970
After the jump, the awesome ‘Mother Sky’ from the same session…
Photo by Allen Ginsberg
This wonderful short animated film by Drew Christie recounts musicologist John Cohen’s first meeting with Harry Everett Smith, polymath autodidact weirdo, experimental filmmaker and the Grammy-award-winning compiler of the classic Anthology of American Folk Music.
It’s an absolute delight! Guaranteed to make you smile or double your money back.
There are several similarly charming Harry Smith anecdotes like this one recounted in books such as Harry Smith: The Avant-Garde in the American Vernacular (Andrew Perchuck and Rani Singh); Think of the Self Speaking (edited by Rani Singh); American Magus: Harry Smith (edited by Paola Igliori) and the monograph Harry Smith: Fragments of a Northwest Life (Darrin Daniel).
My favorite Smith anecdote, and I think this one comes via Allen Ginsberg—pretty sure—is that Smith usually wore eyeglasses that he found in the trash. If he happened upon some discarded glasses, tried them on and they were better than the ones he was wearing, he’d toss the old ones and keep the new ones!
And speaking of Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, if the animation intrigues you, and his Anthology box set is something that you are unfamiliar with, you can listen to this special podcast about it on the American Standard Time blog’s Roadhouse Radio show.
Via John Coulthart
Charley says… was a series of Public Information Films, shown in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s, in which a talkative cat, Charley, advised a young boy, Tony, about everyday safety issues. Along with my fellow generation of young things, I learnt not to go off with strangers, never play with matches, and beware the dangers of tables. Sadly, these days charlie usually advises me to do all of the above.
The voice of the incomprehensible ginger tomcat was supplied by Kenny Everett, while the boy was voiced by the child of one of producer Richard Taylor’s neighbors. The Charley says… animations were so popular that they were voted the UK’s favorite Public Information Film, and came in at number 95 in Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Cartoons in 2005.
More miaows of wisdom from Charley, after the jump…
If embattled WI Governor Scott Walker can’t win fair and square at the ballot box in the now all but inevitable recall election he faces—WI Dems are making a big announcement on Thursday about the recall campaign’s progress—then why not try something immoral and shysty?
I’ll tell you why NOT, Scott: It makes people hate your fucking guts even more and it makes them all the more determined to kick your ass to the curb.
For every story of voter suppression and menacing of Recall Walker volunteers by brain-addled reichwingers, there are more people making up their minds by the minute to boot this toxic motherfucker out of office.
It’s odd that it didn’t occur to to Walker and his weasely Republicans cronies that this kind of story might prove to be a bit of a public relations NIGHTMARE and that there would be push-back—and plenty of it—with this sort of extremely ill-advised move. From People’s World:
For more than 60 years Ruthelle Frank has not missed an election in her town, her state and her country. She first voted in 1948 and has voted in every single election since then.
She is herself an elected official in her hometown of Brokaw, Wisconsin. She is a member of the Brokaw Village Board.
Now, however, because of the new Republican voter ID law in Wisconsin, 2012 will be the first year Frank can’t vote.
Under the new law people must carry a new state issued photo ID in order to vote. The ID itself is free but one must have a birth certificate in order to get the free ID. Birth certificates, for those in Wisconsin who don’t have them, cost $20. Opponents of the Republican voter ID law argue that this, by itself, amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax.
Frank’s first problem is that she does not have a birth certificate. People born at home in the 1920s in Wisconsin did not receive official birth certificates. Like many others in 1927, Frank was born in her own house.
The ACLU have stepped in on Ruthelle Frank’s behalf to challenge this vileness in court.
WHO would think something like this is smart politically??? Well… Republicans apparently. If you can’t beat ‘em, CHEAT ‘em.
Taking current GOP front-runner, Newt Gingrich—and his plan to put inner city children to work as janitors—to task, Crooks and Liars managing editor Tina Dupuy writes of her own experiences working as a child janitor for the princely wage of $4.25 an hour (she made $75 a week before tax!). As Dupuy writes, it’s not that America’s poor children need jobs to discipline them and to make them better workers, it’s that the jobs need to be better for America’s adults!
Full disclosure: I, too, worked as a janitor at a municipal park in West Virginia at the age of 14 and made this exact same wage. I don’t really think it harmed me in any way. In fact, I wanted to do it so I was able to buy punk rock records, marijuana and LSD, but that’s not the point here: It’s that apparently Newt Gingrich thinks that America’s adult workforce should be competing with their own children for jobs that pay a third world wage.
Why isn’t it being framed like that in the media? It seems so obvious, doesn’t it?
You’d have to be a fucking Republican to believe such nonsense…
Now 49 million Americans live in poverty – with 2.6 million falling into the category last year. That’s 16 percent of Americans. There are more Americans living in poverty than there are Canadians on the planet.
Gingrich is trying to equate poverty with a moral shortcoming. It’s a warped offshoot of the prosperity gospel – riches are a sign of god’s love – poverty is a sign of his indifference.
But also in this richer-and-therefore-holier-than-thou diatribe of Gingrich’s is an attempt to bust unions. He suggested firing union janitors to hire children to clean their own schools. Yes, a janitor with a job that pays him enough to live on is, in Gingrich’s eyes, a problem. In the call for hiring children and ending child labor laws is the call to end working for a living.
All the anchors of a middle-class living (pensions, benefits, decent salaries) are being dubbed “luxuries” by Republicans, to be sacrificed so magical “job creators” can be cajoled into saving us all.
Because, really, the greatest threat to America is that janitors are paid too much. Please. Wealthy janitors are, to borrow Gingrich’s phrase, “an invented people.”
Gingrich has a dark vision for a Shining City Upon a Hill: where poor children work in place of union labor. It’s basically the 20th century played in reverse.
Working (even scrubbing toilets) should mean making a living. If someone who works is still eligible for food stamps and government assistance – it’s really the employer who is federally subsidized. These “job creators” are taking advantage of government programs so they won’t have to cut into their profit margins to pay living wages.
The best example of this is also the biggest private employer in the country: Walmart.
If Newt and his Republican same-thinks want to go after Welfare Queens and those who don’t value work – go after the Walmart heirs. According to economist Sylvia Allegretto in 2007 the six Walmart heirs own more than the bottom 30 percent of Americans. And that was four years ago when their wealth was estimated at $69.7 billion, now it’s thought to be around $93 billion.
KA-POW. ‘Nuff said.
And this evil piece of shit is the Republican front runner!
On point, it’s hardly because GOP primary voters are rejecting Mitt Romney for a more conservative candidate: They just want someone MEANER!
Confessions of a Child Janitor (Crooks and Liars)
If he did, I’m pretty certain they would read like this. You can see more Rick Perry Seussifications at BuzzFeed.
One more after the jump…
Comic by Nitrozac and Snaggy from The Joy of Tech.
(via reddit)
As a proud Los Angeleno, I like to brag about the great things the city has to offer, like Cinefamily. This weekend the heroic programmers have cooked up an insane 24-hour telethon for their year-end fundraiser, which you’ll be able to watch online live as it happens at their website (I’ll post it here also).
If you’re going to be in LA on the 17th and 18th, admission will be free, given out on a first-come, first-serve basis, but new audiences will be rotated into the theater every 4-5 hours (see schedule). You can always get right back in line, though, just like at Disneyland, (and also like Disneyland, donors/members get the “fast pass,” and get in first to these shows, i.e. the best way to get in is by donating or becoming a member).
Yes indeed, the idea is to sell as many Cinefamily memberships as possible, and there is a private event on Sunday that is only for new and renewing members that should sell several: Actor Michael Cera will be presenting a special selection of mind-blowing shorts, crazy commercials and other rarities from the early career of Jim Henson.
Cinefamily members will get priority admittance to the event. It’s free but donations will be gratefully accepted.
Opening: 12pm – 4:15pm (Saturday Dec. 17th)
- Spike Jonze live!: Spike takes us on a trip through his work from the very beginning to now!
- Jake Austen (Roctober Magazine) will present a special video show on Outsider Music, hosted by Neil Hamburger, and followed by live performances by Guy Chookoorian & Paul Zone (of The Fast)
Primetime: 4:15pm-9pm (Saturday Dec. 17th)
- Jonathan Gold (L.A. Weekly’s Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic) will give a lecture on “Food and Film”!
- Shadoe Stevens presents an encore presentation of “The Best of Fred Rated & The Commercials of The Federated Group”!
- Surprise guest Q&A!
- Benicio del Toro presents Kaneto Shindo’s masterpiece The Naked Island!
Midnight Madness: 9pm (Saturday Dec. 17th) – 1am (Sunday, Dec. 18th)
- Doug Benson and surprise guests will do a specially-constructed multi-movie Movie Interruption
- Everything is Terrible! takes over
- Cinefamily’s Mondo Christmas Special!
The Nite Owl: 1am – 6am (Sunday, Dec. 18th)
- No Age & Friends (including Lance Bangs, Doug Aitken, and Patrick O’Dell) will play, and curate a show at 1AM.
- Thu Tran (Food Party) will show a new short film about her experiments in black-light food, and will set up a special black-lit restaurant on our backyard patio!
- Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields will host a program at 3AM that we’re calling “Films You Can’t Go To Sleep To”, with original ditties on the uke to intro each short film!
- “We Program In Public”: Cinefamily’s call-in talk show w/ guests!
Good Morning Cinefamily: 6am – 11am (Sunday, Dec. 18th)
- Dawn Salon: a meditative morning of rituals & visuals, with live sitar, soundbath and other musical accompaniment! (Performers include Paul Livingstone (sitar) & Homnath Upadhyaya (tabla master from Katmandu, Nepal), DJ Carlos Nino, Build An Ark, JR Robinson, and members of The Melvins, Pit er Pat and The David Grisman Quintet!)
- A sneak peak at the new documentary on The Source Family by Process Media’s Jodi Wille, who will also conduct an authentic Source mind-expanding ritual and exercise
- Cinefamily, Jr: hosted by DJ Lance Rock from “Yo Gabba Gabba” and featuring Saturday morning cartoons, kiddie commercials and other Sunday funnies!
Finale: 11am – 2:30pm (Sunday, Dec. 18th)
- A Conversation With Elliott Gould
- NEW-&-RENEWING MEMBERS-ONLY EVENT: Michael Cera presents “Jim Henson: Commercials & Experiments” + Members-Only Donor Lunch (provided by The Foundry on Melrose!)
This clip was recorded live this past August in Moscow, and showcases the Mistress of Filth’s new dj-cum-live-style show. Once you get past the mash-up of Slayer’s ‘Angel of Death’ (and the bizarre but entertaining dancers/fighters) Peaches stops the set to launch into a surprise piano-ballad version of the Mark Knopfler-penned, Tina Turner classic. It’s heartfelt and really quite powerful. Is this a new direction I wonder?
After the jump, Peaches’ guide to Berlin…