Jesus helps “Robin Cooper” with his buttock pain (there was an eagle involved, apparently).
Brit wit Robert Popper makes some of the best crank calls I’ve ever heard. His innovation to the art-form is calling into live televised digital cable religious programs and going large with his calls. Praise the Lord!
In the winter of 1963, Kirk Douglas returned to theater in the first stage production of Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Douglas starred as McMurphy, with a supporting cast that included Gene Wilder as Billy Bibbit, and Ed Ames as Chief Bromden. What should have been a triumphant return for Douglas and a theatrical success for Kesey’s novel proved to be a disaster, which was savaged by critics and closed after 11 weeks.
On January 7th of 1964, sickened by the relentless stream of invective from the press, Kesey wrote the following letter to the New York Times, defending the production, its cast, and in particular, responding to the journalists who had criticized the play for its “unrealistic storyline”. Little did these reviewers know the truth of Kesey’s novel. Now read on.
KIRK DOUGLAS
ONE FLEW OVER THE
CUCKOO’S NESTJanuary 7, 1964
From: Ken Kesey, [Redacted]
Drama Mailbag:
The answering of one’s critics has always struck me as doing about as much good as fighting crabgrass with manure. Critics generally thrive on the knowledge that their barbs are being felt; best to keep silent and starve them of such attention, let them shrivel and dry, spines turned in. So I have tried to keep this silence during the attacks on the Wasserman play of my novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest…figuring that the people who saw the play as being about a mental hospital, because it is set in a mental ward, are the sort that would fault Moby Dick for being an “exaggerated” story about a boat, also figuring that such simplemindedness is relatively harmless. And even keeping silent when the play was condemned because the subject of mental health as a whole was treated disrespectfully, or irresponsibly, or—god forbid!—humorously.
But when the defenders of “Cuckoo’s Nest” begin to show signs of suffering some of the same misconceptions as the critics, I feel I must speak out.
Mr. Friedman’s letter last Sunday was as good an argument as I’ve read for judging a work on it’s own terms. Still, by comparing the reality of the setting of “Cuckoo’s Nest” with “1984” or “The Trial,” he does injustice to a number of people connected with the research that went into that setting. First, the director, Alex Segel, who created an atmosphere so faithful to the wacky-weird world of a nuthouse ward (faithful to the real wards, not the public conception of what a hospital should be like) that a friend of mine, (a Speech Therapist in a V.A. Hospital who took time off to fly back to the opening), remarked after the final curtain, “I feel as though I just put in a hard day at the office.”
Second, the actors. Who capture that nuthouse feeling so completely with their characterizations that I found myself wondering where some of them had been sprung from. Just, for a small example, their movement: inmates have a way of walking that is both piticully random and terribly purposeful, and peculiar to no other place I know of save the mental ward. The cast has this peculiar movement. Watch Ruckly when he shuffles onto stage; he’s been shuffling that same path in those same slippers for centuries. Or watch Billy Bibbit’s neck contortions, or the caged-squirell frolicking of Marini’s madness. And Kirk Douglas..after watching his performance, in which the usual Douglas’ gestures and gyrations were secondary, to subtler actions (the way he will playfully punch another character’s arm as he passes, a gesture barely noticible, familiar, reinforcing..) I asked if he had visited any hospital in preparing for the part. “Spent a lot of time in Camarillo,” he told me. “Got to know a lot of the guys. I still correspond with one. “Quite a place. And different, you know? then you think it’ll be…”
And last, the notion that this setting is only a fictional and fantastic one does an injustice to thousands of patients in hundreds of wards almost identical to that ward on the stage of the Cort. While Cuckoo’s Nest is, as Mr. Friedman rightly points out, about more than just a mental hospital, it is also an attack on tyranny of the sort that is perhaps more predominant in mental hospitals then any place else in our land. It is by no accident that the acute ward was picked for the setting; after working for close to a year as an aide in two hospitals in California I could imagine no better backdrop for my parable. I only needed describe what I had seen and heard, what I had felt after endless swing shift hours talking with the broken and defeated men of our society, and what I concluded to be the stress thar broke them. McMurphy is, of course, fictional—a dream, a wild hope fabricated out of need in defeat—but the men he comes to save, and the menace he battles, these are real, live human being. While this world may be fantastic, it is not mere fantasy. Neither is it an exaggeration; when I hear of someone accusing the book, or the play, of “exaggerating the bad” I think of my last days at the hospital: the first draft of the book almost finished, I had handed in my letter of resignation (a day before, incidently, I received a letter from the superior nurse advising me I was being discharged for “a lack of interest in the hospital…”) and I had only one bit of research left: I wished to try shock treatment to get some idea why the patients thought it so bad. And I did. And I found out. And to those who think it is fictionally exaggerated I only say try it first and see.
Because it can never be as bad in fiction as it is in real life.
See Ken Kesey’s letter, after the jump…
Via Letters of Note
Moby Grape perform the title song in the 1968 hippie/surf/biker/drug flick The Sweet Ride starring Tony Franciosa, Michael Sarrazin, Jaqueline Bisset and Bob “Gilligan” Denver.
Cool shots of a very animated Skip Spence on stage. And, yes, that’s Lee Hazlewood on the dance floor and hanging out at the bar in a suit and acting surly.
As a long time reggae fan and an early acolyte of punk rock, I was thrilled when 2 Tone Records appeared on the scene in the late 1970s with its roster of British interracial ska bands that included The Specials, The English Beat, The Selector and Madness (who were all white but alright). Adding a bit of Brit punk into a ska mix, the 2 Tone bands brought the party to the revolution that revivified rock and roll.
Enjoy this document of The Specials in great form at the height of their popularity. Japan, 1980.
Parts two and three after the jump…
“Butterflies are self propelled flowers.” ~R.A. Heinlein
Via Timothy Buckwalter
By popular demand Stuart Gordon’s campy, macabre Re-Animator™ - The Musical—which I’ve given a rave review to here before—will be extending its run through Sunday, June 26 at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood. It’s a super fun night of musical comedy.
Re-Animator™ - The Musical, the horror-comedy based on the 1985 cult movie hit and earlier H.P. Lovecraft story, has extended its run due to popular demand through Sunday, June 26, 2011 at the Steve Allen Theater. Half price student tickets available for all June shows. The production has been setting records and sending grinning patrons out of the theater humming the tunes and washing off the blood. Stuart Gordon, who directed both the new musical and the movie on which it is based, notes “There’s a lot of liquid spurting through the air. The special effects are even better in 4D than they are in 3D.”
The new performance schedule for this funny, bloody and tuneful production includes three shows per weekend: Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 8:00pm. Costumes are encouraged and seating is open – come early and sit up front in the “splash zone.” Ticket prices are $30 for general admission, $15 for students (with ID).
The Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027.
We’ve got two pairs of free tickets to give away to readers who write in to the comments and tell us why they should get the tickets and not someone else. We choose the winners. It’s up to you to get yourself to the play in Los Angeles, where tickets will be waiting for you at the door (Translation: Unless you live in Los Angeles or intend to be here before the play’s run ends, please don’t waste your time).
Below, Jesse Merlin as the villainous “Dr. Carl Hill” loses his head in a scene with Graham Skipper as “Herbert West,” re-animator.
Behold the flyer for The Mary Tyler Moore Masturbation Society (Click here and here for larger, easier to read versions). Apparently this “society” was founded by a fellow named James J. Kagel of Cleveland, Ohio. Mr. Kagel is (or was) attempting to connect to others who share his fetish for, in his words, “jacking off” to photographs of beloved actress and comedienne, Mary Tyler Moore’s “beautifully curved, ever so shapely, silken, creamy smooth, seductive, velvety soft, long, lean, graceful, tantilizing [sic], erotic, sinuously sexy LEGS [...] (not to mention her lickable feet)!” End quote.
Kagel goes on to totally over-share about his fetish for MTM’s legs developed as a boy watching her on The Dick Van Dyke Show and her own eponymously-titled, long-running TV series. He mentions that he is “proud” to admit to masturbating to Moore’s gams—I, for one, believe him—and that his wife bears a “slight resemblance” in the face and legs department to the actress. He even asks members of The Mary Tyler Moore Masturbation Society to send him their own MTM leg fantasies! (I wonder how many people joined?!?! Furthermore, what would be the pleasure of sharing such fantasies with James in particular? He won’t judge you?)
You can pretty much tell that it was made with a type-writer, scissors and glue stick. I won’t describe any more of it, you’ll have to read it for yourself, but this truly had us ON THE FLOOR gasping for breath, laughing. This flyer is all kinds of wrong, but my god is it fucking hilarious. Even the obvious, kooky sincerity of it is mind-bending in the extreme.
And then you have to wonder what Mary Tyler Moore herself thought about this when she saw it, because you just know that at some point, someone had to have shown this to her.
There is also a Yahoo Group called “MTM Legs”
Photographer and artist Francesco Capponi’s “Pinhegg” creation is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. Capponi said he had a strong desire to create a special camera that took only one image: “The purpose was to sacrifice the camera in the process of photo creation—I wanted the camera to become the photograph.” The images within the eggs are not only haunting and beautiful, but the end result makes you wonder “How the hell did he do that?”
If you’re curious how Francesco Capponi made his “Pinheggs,” there’s a step by step post on how to build and use one here.
More after the jump…
Rarely heard live recording of a John Cage and Sun Ra performance from 1986. It was recorded at Sideshows by the Sea, the last surviving freak show along the Coney Island boardwalk. A carnival barker and a snake lady hawked the show outside and there was free pizza served, too. Can you imagine?!?! This concert took place on June 8th and pressed as a limited edition LP the following year.
Tyler Fisher writes on Sputnik Music:
Due to variety and musicality, Sun Ra heavily defeats John Cage on the performance. He opens the concert with a huge, furious, dissonant keyboard performance. The crowd cheers wildly and the spacey synthesizer sounds jump all around the range of the instrument and jump around in styles just as quickly. Elements of jazz flow in and suddenly a huge, orchestral sounding chord will overpower the recording instrument. The synth voices change frequently from a typical square lead voice to a bell sound to a synthesized voice. Sun Ra uses his range of voices perfectly, creating a heavy, metallic sound at some points which makes an even more frenzied sound to the already insane harmonic structure. He manages to jump from the most beautiful chords to the most dissonance in a matter of seconds. His first appearance goes on for 7 and a half minutes, garnering tumultuous applause from the audience. He later closes out the first half of the performance with a much more eastern tinged movement. Just when his playing couldn’t get any darker, he spends most of the second half making ambient, creepy noises. Much in the manner of the Mars Volta, he goes off without any sense of time or rhythm, creating whatever comes to mind. However, he lets the ambience slowly build into huge, crashing chords of either beauty or dissonance. Everything is going somewhere.
John Cage is just the opposite. His performance is much simpler. He merely steps up to a microphone and makes strange vocal noises. Cage’s voice sounds akin to an aging Johnny Cash. However, Cage never steps over saying more than 3 or 4 syllables at a time. He takes minute breaks before starting another few indistinguishable syllables. Of course, he relies on his “chance music” theory to get away with the minutes of silence. Sure, it’s a profound and intriguing idea, but it just gets old after a few minutes, especially when the recording buzzes in the background due to the quality. In truth, Cage is reciting excerpts from one of his poems in some strange language, known as Empty Words IV. However, who knows what he is saying? Luckily, Sun Ra saves the performance on the second half by filling in where Cage leaves silence. He fills with light, dainty keyboard lines way up high on the keys. He lets Cage have the show, not doing much of anything, but neither Cage still does less than Sun Ra. Cage proves a better composer and philosopher than a performer. Regardless, the crowd eats everything up, probably being mostly young, profound college kids themselves.
You can download John Cage meets Sun Ra at Adventure-Equation.
Read the back of the album cover, here.
The story is told of a furious George Harrison storming out of a Beatles recording session in 1969 and then going to see a Ray Charles concert in London. Billy Preston (who Harrison had met in 1962 when Preston was playing in Little Richard’s group) was performing with Charles. Harrison invited Preston to come into the studio with The Beatles where his friendly personality and musical talents calmed the rising tensions within the band.
Billy Preston was the only musician the Beatles ever credited alongside them, for his contribution to “Get Back.” The song was also performed in the rooftop concert of the Let It Be film with Preston in tow (see below). John Lennon allegedly proposed the idea of inviting Preston to be the “Fifth Beatle” but Paul supposedly replied that it was bad enough already with four. (Preston also played on Abbey Road’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and “Something.”)
Musical prodigy Preston played with gospel legends Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland, and Andrae Crouch. In 1963, at the age of sixteen, he played organ on Sam Cooke’s Night Beat. Preston was also a frequently featured performer on ABC’s musical variety series Shindig! and a member of the house band (lots if clips on YouTube). Below, Billy Preston performs “Agent Double O-Soul” with Ray Charles. Check out his moves!
He recorded a great song in 1965 with a young Sly Stone called ““Can’t She Tell?” that was produced by David Axelrod. Do yourself a favor and hit play:
His 70s solo career saw his friendship and professional association with George Harrison continue. Preston appeared onstage at the Concert for Bangladesh and his records came out on the Apple label. His first really big solo hit was “Outa Space” which sold a million copies and won the Grammy for “Best Pop Instrumental Performance of 1972”:
Preston also played on several 70s Rolling Stones albums Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup, It’s Only Rock’n Roll and Black and Blue. He toured as a support act on their 1973 European Tour and played with the band as well. Mick Taylor played guitar on Preston’s live album. In 1974 he co-wrote “You Are So Beautiful” with his songwriting partner Bruce Fisher (and an uncredited Dennis Wilson) for Joe Cocker.
More Billy Preston after the jump…
Bollywood mud-flaps spotted on the streets of Ahmedabad, India by Flickr user Backview Bollywood. India gets to have cool Bollywood mud-flaps, America has Truck Nutz.
More after the jump…
Doubtless an entire generation of future sound manglers were forever altered by this fun slab o’ vinyl from much beloved champion of all things Sci-Fi, Forrest J Ackerman and composer/sound effects master Frank Allison Coe which was sold from the pages of comic books in the early 60’s (see below). It’s always nice to find early examples of truly experimental music from outside the usual academic sources, though I love that stuff too.
Tone Tales From Tomorrow : 15 minutes of pure primitive electronic glee. Perfect for annoying grown-ups, neighbors and siblings. God-like.
Tin Age Story: This time with Ackerman narrating…
With thanks to Eddie Ruscha and Gary Panter !
A revealing interview with Sid Vicious conducted by Judy Vermorel in August, 1977. In it Vicious rails against “grown-ups” and “grown-up attitudes”, TV host Hughie Green, insincerity, and why “the general public are scum” (his opinion about “99% of the shit” out on the street).
Vicious sounds incredibly young, perhaps because he was, and claims he “doesn’t like anything particularly” and that, “Nobody has to do anything”. There is some interesting thoughts on Russ Meyer’s plans for a Sex Pistols’ movie, which Sid dismisses as a “cheap attempt to get money.”
At the end, he rails against Malcolm McLaren, slightly incredulous to the information that Johnny Rotten and Paul Cook thought McLaren was the fifth member of the Pistols:
The band has never been dependent on Malcolm, that fucking toss-bag. I hate him..I’d smash his face in…I depend on him for exactly nothing. Do you know, all I ever got out of him was, I think, £15 in all the time I’ve known the fucking bastard. And a T-shirt, he gave me a free T-shirt, once, years ago. Once he gave me a fiver, and I stole a tenner off him, a little while ago, and that’s all. I hate him.
..But he’s all right. I couldn’t think of anyone else I could tolerate.
This is the interview where Vicious famously made an eerie prediction:
“I shall die when I am round-about twenty-four, I expect, if not sooner. And why my friend will die soon.”
His friend was “that girl” Nancy Spungen, who can be heard in the background of this interview.
Elsewhere on DM
Sid Vicious’ handwritten list of why Nancy Spungen is so great
Sid Vicious does it his way, after the jump…
