"Heaven has a road, but no one travels it; Hell has no gate, but men will bore through to get there."

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A SUMMER MOVIE NIGHT FAVORITE-

If only we lived in these days again- when this song could be sung on network tv and be both provacative and innocent... a duality our culture now seems to be unable to grapple with or comprehend?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3VbSfQ3nAM

CIVILIZATION by Marco Brambillo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQJVr8Lvce0

what can you really say but "gasp!?"

Thursday, June 18, 2009

HOPING FOR AUDACITY

Even ardent supporters must sometimes or maybe even often call their leaders back to reality... especially when the stakes are high and the opportunities are great and may not come along again for many years. Caution was a great strategy to get Barack Obama elected, but he's elected and now must govern- or Rule! He won, he's in charge, the Republicans have disintegrated into a poisonous pool of anger and reaction. There is no need to fear them or anyone else who has helped push America to the edge of the abyss. It's time for the President to exercise the high powers of the Office with urgency in the name of Good...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KUj3sBRSZQ

http://earth2obama.org/?m=20090612

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

A few words on Patrick-

So Patrick Wolf was here in Chicago this past week at the Bottom Lounge and I have to say the short but powerful appearance far exceeded my expectations! With Brit lad sweetness and a very genuine demeanor, he pounded out his extremely nuanced sound to a small audience that by the end of his hour on stage was completely wrapped up in a total give and take spellbinding musical interchange with him. For this, he was surprised, overwhelmed and expressive about how much fun HE was having. The supporting band was skillful, but his violinist wore a slightly stressed and wee bit scared smile while trying to keep up with his violin and the fact that while acting, singing, and posing, it never seemed quite certain exactly which of the many disparate instruments lined up on the stage he would pick up next. While he has obviously picked up much from other British alternative pop performers including Bowie, the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Marc Almond and on and on (as well as a healthy classical influence), his pop-rock-folk-lounge-cabaret-torch combo is completely unique in its youth, wisdom, political acuteness, passion and clarity. He unleashed equally spirited rebellion against the Iraq war and Proposition 8. His music contains beauty, love, anger, calls for revolution and understanding, but is always eerily uplifting and reassuring throughout. He is both versatile and sage enough to collaborate with an icon like Marianne Faithfull or an icy beauty like Tilda Swinton. His skillful use of all the tricks technology offers does not in any way undermine the earth-bound soul of his music. He is vastly talented and currently underappreciated in my view, but still manages to see farther than most singers his age while remaining humble enough to share his journey which is where he manages to connect at heart with his fans. I couldn't have asked for more- except a better camera and a little more stamina after standing for several hours of opening acts to hang out and get a picture with him. But there's always the next show. Chicago awaits til the fall, but in the meantime we'll be listening... to his current album The Bachelor, and his upcoming entitled The Conqueror. His previous albums include: The Magic Position, Wind In The Wires and Lycanthropy. Hit him up for some videos on uTube, or search him on my blog for some clips at:
www.seeingpastred.blogspot.com. You can also leave him a note on his site: http://patrickwolf.com/

http://consequenceofsound.net/2009/06/17/patrick-wolf-brings-his-battle-to-chicagos-bottom-lounge-615/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6IAtn-myak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oCNFBY-ODc&feature=related

Meryl at Plan B in the UK said:

“Life will surely never be anything but these falls and crawls back up - it can never be good or bad forever … but all I can see is Wolf continuing, unfailingly, to document life’s elegant cycle.”

Saturday, June 13, 2009

WHATEVAMAKESYAHAPPY!

Beyond prescient- 20 years ahead of their time.

I met an anarchist in Tompkins Square Park he was an angry man, spinning words so dark he called for death to rich men, death to Yuppies, death to art fags, bourgeois blacks, death to landlord Jews! Kill the bankers, kill the cops, kill him her and me, kill them all for CBS, NBC, ABC, TBN, CNN, HBO, "Life At Five", MTV Spring Break Party Weekend, Sally Jesse Raphael, Geraldo, Oprah, Arsenio, Regis and Kathy Lee... And I said, "Hey, I admire your get up and go, your youthful brooding and sexually charged enthusiasm and all your other utterly naïve and thoroughly endearing adolescent qualities and I bet you can keep it up all night, can't you? Oh, I bet you don't even use a rubber, no you don't even use a rubber... do you? Because You think you can live forever. Or do you have this adorable and misguided notion that death is something really radical and cool but I still can help being wildly attracted to your fresh-faced uncompromised tattoo'd rebel stance and goddamn! I'd like to help you sing your tune." But I've been making friends with this here death and it seems a might too soon. And I said, "Hello death, goodbye Avenue A I'm getting tired of waiting, tired of being afraid. Joseph Campbell gave me hope and now I have been saved. So I sing, 'Hello death, goodbye Avenue A.'" Now I'm not trying to be flippant here, or irreverent, or exploitive, or sarcastic, or ironic, or post-modern, and this is not a parody. Get it? Got it? Good. I've been thinking what he told me, that it's okay to cry when we held the crystal Tina Child spent 12 Grand to buy; homeopathic mantras, fresh-squeezed wheat grass juice, doctors up in Bellevue, Doctors Salk and Suess. And it's time we'll all be going home, if you can find the way, yes, everyone is going home, going home to stay. And it's time we find a way to cope, a way to find some hope, for some it's the Bible or Buddha or Mohammed or Krishna or cheesecake or the Butthole Surfers or Giorgio Armani or Romeo Gigli and you really can't afford it but it looks so fabulous on you so why don’t you take it on home, and speaking of home, isn't it about time you move out of that East Village hellhole, the one with the Honeymooners view of the brick wall out the window because you deserve something more life affirming like a tree, or a flower, or a patch of grass, or a singing little bluebird, or maybe you just want to take your boyfriend to Europe because he's never been or quit the job you always hated or learn how to play the guitar (it's easy) or get obscenely drunk in a piano bar and sing show tunes... show tunes! ...and don’t be embarrassed, because at this point I'd rather see "Brigadoon" than "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", or maybe you'd like to get politically active so you disrupt a Presidential press conference by shoving a 5 pound week old stalk of broccoli between those thin lying lizard lips that no one can read anyway because half the country is illiterate and the other half is apathetic including the First Lady who couldn't step just 500 feet out of the overdecorated White House to visit the goddamn Quilt or maybe you'd like to put a bullet into Jesse Helms peabrain but you know when you start thinking like that, when you start thinking like they do, then it's time to let go of the material world, so maybe you'd like to get yourself some religion 'cause, "Jesus is the Way, Jesus is the Way, Jesus is the Way, Jesus is the Way, Jesus is the Way." ...Besides, it's a lot easier to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior when He looks like Willem DaFoe. But maybe that stuff turns you off, so you rent "Power of Myth"; it made me feel really good (for about ten minutes), or maybe you'd rather do acid and listen to Led Zeppelin... Then again, the last time I took hallucinogenic drugs was about five years ago; I took mushrooms in Joshua Tree looking for that Carlos Castaneda kind of experience. I got off, my boyfriend didn't; he fell asleep, left me alone with the TV, turned on PBS, you know what was on? ..."Berlin Alexanderplatz". So I started watching it, and you know what...? I got really bummed out. And that's when I said "No to Drugs", "No to Drugs", no no no no no to drugs, and maybe you'd like to say no to drugs too or maybe you want to join Atheists of America or the Madonna Fan Club or watch Richard Gere follow the Dali Lama around the world and then do those oh-so-Zen like movies with those oh-so-Zen like messages like, "Hey! It's fun to be a prostitute!" I can't wait to spread my legs across Hollywood Blvd. Because then maybe some rich, handsome billionaire in a Jag will come driving up and take me shopping on Rodeo Drive and that's what a woman's all about anyway, right? Sucking and shopping and sucking and shopping and sucking and shopping but hey, who am I to argue because it's the feel good movie of the summer, it's the feel good movie of the year, it's the feel good movie of the Nineties, it's the feel good movie of the Millennium, and you know what? If it puts a spring in your step and a song in your heart, well... whatever makes you happy, Whatever makes you happy, Whatever makes you happy, Whatever makes you happy, Whatever gives you hope. Even if it's a truly tasteless joke. So... Fax a manifesto. Pencil in a date. Let me know when something gives I hope it's not too late, 'cause I'm getting tired of waiting, tired of being afraid. Joseph Campbell gave me hope and now I have been saved. So I sing, "Hello death, goodbye Avenue A..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVdNW0qRh5s&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkClQXMwVg0&feature=related

CORONA

Corona
Aus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.
Im Spiegel ist Sonntag,im Traum wird geschlafen,der Mund redet wahr.
Mein Aug steigt hinab zum Geschlecht der Geliebten:wir sehen uns an,wir sagen uns Dunkles,wir lieben einander wie Mohn und Gedächtnis,wir schlafen wie Wein in den Muscheln,wie das Meer im Blutstrahl des Mondes.
Wir stehen umschlungen im Fenster, sie sehen uns zu von der Straße:es ist Zeit, daß man weiß!Es ist Zeit, daß der Stein sich zu blühen bequemt,daß der Unrast ein Herz schlägt.Es ist Zeit, daß es Zeit wird.
Es ist Zeit.


Paul Celan (b. 23 November 1920)

Corona
Autumn eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends.From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk:then time returns to the shell.
In the mirror it’s Sunday,in dream there is room for sleeping,our mouths speak the truth.
My eye moves down to the sex of my loved one:we look at each other,we exchange dark words,we love each other like poppy and recollection,we sleep like wine in the conches,like the sea in the moon’s blood ray.
We stand by the window embracing, and people look up from the street:it is time they knew!It is time the stone made an effort to flower,time unrest had a beating heart.It is time it were time.
It is time.


Translated by
Michael Hamburger

http://matthewsalomon.wordpress.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Celan

THE TIME IS NOW

http://www.theurbancoaster.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=337:the-time-is-now&catid=58:opinion&Itemid=102

SIMON

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFx_Sb2w__c

Sunday, June 7, 2009

SHIVER!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067601/

... couldn't find any utube clips- just watch it!!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Debbie-

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/arts/music/05reyn.html?_r=1&ref=arts

For extra fun, Netflix her on the double feature dvd:

"What's The Matter With Helen?/Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?!"

FRIDAY OBSCUREINSANEBUBBLEGUMPOP NOSTALGIA

http://www.afterelton.com/people/2009/6/wesleyeure

Yup- loved that show for lizard people and time travel via crystals which I used to replicate from gemstone studs at TG&Ys fashion counter and then build my own Sleezstak time portal control panel which I placed in front of a black curtained door w a flashlight behind and dry ice so that I could escape from Kansas as a queer 8 yr old from one Lost Land to another!!
Gay, gay gayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!


And add the backdrop of this song and I wonder why I find things dull and dreary at times in 09?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOB4tdabgoA

I live in a cucumber castle
On the banks of a cranberry sea
And starfish dance under my drawbridge
And blackbirds make nests in my tree
I enjoy being a boy, in love with you
I enjoy being a boy in love with you
In love with you girl, oh yeah
I live in a purple plum mansion
In the mist of a strawberry stream
And mellifluous bells ring out softly
From a hill of vanilla fudge cream
I enjoy being a boy, in love with you
I enjoy being a boy in love with you
In love with you girl, oh yeah

http://floweringtoilet.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html

http://www.walrusmusicblog.com/blog/valentines_day_bubblegum_by_the_banana_splits/

Graeme was watching too...

Well, they need to get out of my childhood fountain o' camp! ;)

I would watch that show, and original Star Trek episodes, and some other Canadian shows (I was in BC at the time)... like Rocket Robin Hood!
http://www.kevinmccorrytv.com/rrobin.html