is there a heavier Beatles song than Helter Skelter? and i mean heavy as in blown out sounding and loud n proud. this came on the shuffle and i still can’t believe that is a Paul song, especially that part where he says “and i get to the bottom and I SEE YOU AGAAAAAIIINNNNNNN YEAHYEAHYEAHAHAHAHA….” he sounds insane and has a really good rock scream. it’s almost…sexy. ugh no gross gross gross!!! ew i just used the words “sexy” and “paul mccartney” in close proximity. oh god i have to go wash my hands now. must wash hands right now!

anyway, i think i would put this up in my top 5 favorite beatles songs right up there with “long long long.” just the way it sounds is huge, the bass and guitar are blistering and i love that pushed to the limit Blue Cheer kinda production. i recommend listening to it on headphones for full sonic blast effect. but yeah, the vocals are the icing on the cake and are refreshing and really remind me of rob tyner from the mc5. woulda been nice to hear more of those kind of vocals from paul instead of that sentimental old timey “when i’m 64 penny lane” stuff which i cannot fucking stand. sorry, it drives me crazy and hearing it makes me want to go on a puppy killing spree which is odd because i really like puppies. yeah those whimsical 1930s sounding paul songs are not charming at all, they’re evil. don’t play them if you care about puppies

i watched the simpsons movie last nite and it was much funnier than i expected it to be. it dawned on me just how long this show has been on the air and i realized that i’ve been watching it since 9… really?? i’m old. not to mention i saw it with my old roommate and he snuck in beer for us and i felt like old times in the living room. the last few seasons have been kind of hit or miss for me though cuz a lot of the episodes seem more A.D.D. and excessive on the pop culture references that don’t pertain to anything about the story. but there have been a few great episodes. i really like the one where homer and bart convert to catholicism and marge envisions protestant heaven as a snotty WASPy nightmare and Catholic Heaven as a multi-cultural party where every party ends with everyone doing river dance on a giant cloud

seriously though i love that so much

this one is worth mentioning because i think his films are incredibly special and badass. i don’t know where to even start. scenes from a marriage, wild strawberries, & persona are ones i’m really in love with. i highly recommend you get to know him if you aren’t familiar with him outside of the Seventh Seal. hour of the wolf is awesome too but i’m scared to rewatch because it gave me nightmares for days. i used the cover for persona for my cosmic dust mix because i think Liv Ullman is kinda gorgeous

here is a decent obit from the guardian

i left my phone up on sebastopol yesterday because i am a lamebrain. here are a bunch of photos from this past week that i am too lazy to explain right now.

i love the way this squirrel is sitting

this guy has no head or torso

i started watching Life in the Undergrowth and decided i’m going to make copies of the series and give them out to friends. i feel i need to spread the gospel of David Attenborough/Alastair Fothergill nature documentaries cuz i think i love them as much as i love beer (exhibit a exhibit b). Life in the Undergrowth is better than Planet Earth (which is still amazing) and just as good as the Blue Planet. they make the most ethereal and original nature documentaries ever. i’m always shocked at how they can record wildlife so intimately mimicking human behavior. not to mention there is humor and a perverse tone always, i think i counted 9 times where Attenborough said sperm in the first episode alone. slug sex is really disturbing. there is even a scene where 2 scorpions engage in a western kind of dual complete with faux ennio morricone music standing face to face a few inches apart and they can’t decided whether they should sting each other to death with venom or make a scorpion baby together. it’s brilliant. the writers, the music, narration, editing & photography are top shelf. did you know that some snails have mouths where their stomach is supposed to be? also there were some prickly centipedes that were so cute with their different colored stumpy legs, it reminded me of something from Spirited Away until they devoured their prey in slimy the blob style horror. what i like about this particular series compared to the other two is that Attenborough is narrating on location instead of from the studio so you can see him touch 3 foot long centipedes or hold a pinhead to a mite. he also walks amongst a plain of termite hills which is seriously not of this world.

i’m a total nature show junkie and i’m still amazed at how much more i keep learning about nature’s idiosyncrasies. It’s gonna suck when David Attenborough retires. i can’t believe he is 80 years old! Before I knew what he looked like, I pictured an elf or jockey narrating.

he rules. you can read up on his great career in wildlife broadcasting here.

not into the song too much, but this Kanye video with Zach Galifianakis and Will Oldham is funny funny. seriously…wtf? haha

i like it when they get randoms to lip sync in music videos. remember john goodman in the talking heads’ wild wild life video? or this is like chevy chase & paul simon “you can call me al” except that i don’t like either one of those guys so this is better.

p.s.

i can relate to his where-am-i and oh my god mannerisms during that mary j blige assault. reminds me of when my mom made me go to a catholic ‘retreat’ for a weekend during junior high and there were spirit rallies

i wanted to have a four-to-the-floor theme for the next Prime Cuts & Schmaltz Liquor mix and i’ve been setting aside songs and what not. then i realized that it would be bush league to have a mix of dancey rock and not mix it together like a real dance mix. i supposed there’s way to do that on the computer these days but i’m not too up on these things, so i’m going to just use my turntable and my laptop as a pretend 4-track and pitch the record up or down live. so the four-to-the-floor prime cuts is on hold for now while i do some thinking. i’ll throw something else together in the next week or so.

i stumbled upon this tv ad for Captain Beefheart’s Lick My Decals Off, Baby on youtube that was banned for some stupid reason. i think it’s cool and fun. that album rules way harder than Trout Mask Replica. i also think that Tom Waits is a biter

weird, yesterday i was thinking how funny it is that people who don’t live in California get weirded out by the idea of earthquakes like they happen frequently here. then in the middle of the night i get woken up by one at 4:45am. it actually seemed pretty strong, but i find out it was only a 4.2 and none of my crap fell over, surprisingly. epicenter turned out to be over in oakland. on the news, they were showing all these stores with like 20 broken bottles of wine on the floor mixed in with cotton balls or fallen books mixed with boxes of tylenol and hair products. there’s a bookstore/pharmacy over on Claremont which seems strange to me, but i guess isn’t really. i was hoping they’d show a store with like 30 raw steaks scattered on the floor with lots of calculators. i’m still really tired and haven’t had any coffee. if a 7.0 or greater hits in the middle of the night, i’m gonna be in serious trouble because i’d be too sleepy & apathetic to take any kind of cautionary action.

anyway, this lil psychedelic gem from the first Red Krayola album came on my ipod this morning and i hadn’t heard it in a while, thought i’d share it. Mayo Thompson’s voice is an acquired taste much like David Thomas from Pere Ubu or David Byrne with that faux-neurotic offkey singing, but i don’t think it’s too much here. This is off of The Parable of Arable Land and it doesn’t really have a name. Most of the tracks on there are simply called “Free Form Freakout.” i know this is probably really ignorant of me to say, but it’s curious to me that a band/person as strange as Mayo Thompson could come from Houston, TX but i guess you can say the same thing about the Cleveland punk scene in the 70s. there’s a line off one on the songs on parable where Mayo blurts out “eating babies for nourishment!” and it makes me laugh so hard. i wish i knew more about TX psych bands outside of the Red Krayola and the 13th Floor Elevators.

“Free-Form Freakout”

i used to think for the longest time that Thompson couldn’t sing straight or turn the art-school filter off on his vocals and composition, but then i heard this song with Gina Birch from the Raincoats singing backup. it’s slightly off-kilter for enough charm appeal, but for the most part it’s traditional and poignant sounding. i’m posting this for contrast, but bear in mind there is approx 15 years difference spanning between the two:

“Old Tom Clark”

“HUGE! Mel Gibson Cardboard Cutout for sale!”

This is approximately 7.5 feet tall(at highest point) by approximately 6 feet wide (at widest point). This item is made with a 1 inch high-density weather treated foam board that WILL NOT BEND!

I don’t know what you want to do with it, but Mel’s drunk face alone is worth the bid!

i choose pink eye. this promo shot for Hairspray is beyond scary. this is like the tidal wave of blood through the hall in the shining to me. or when donald sutherland realizes in Don’t Look Now that who he thought was his dead daughter is actually a homicidal midget in little red riding hood garb

this is probably not even worth posting about but what the hell, i like it. The Stranger has a recurring video segment called ‘News on Booze” where this drunk chummy news guy with a bad mustache named Dan Brockman (channeled by The Spits guitarist Sean Wood) interviews touring bands stopping through Seattle. it’s so stupid, cliche and juvenile but i love it. i don’t know why i find it so funny. maybe because that cliche rings true for me as a Bay Area citizen because local KRON sports guy Gary Radnich always seems smashed. I swear he has the same kind of chummy unhinged enthusiasm and wtf non-sequiters and he cracks me up. I loved that on the KRON site they call his smashed state a “unique off-the-cuff style.” He’s always scaring the anchorwomen who sit next to him cause he’s a close talker, loud and always has a semi-inappropriate anecdote to divulge completely unrelated to sports! like weighing in on the cult of paris hilton with a story about his buddy running into her at the in-and-out burger in Los Altos or something. I love it. Anyway, here’s Dan Brockman interviewing The Trashies at their house. I actually like the Trashies. I don’t know what’s up, it’s like the the older I get I feel like i’m taking a deeper plunge in the fountain of youth retardation and am enjoying stupidly fun juvenile punk bands like The Spits, Jay Reatard, and The Trashies more than ever. if i start a buying back issues of Thrasher next week, shoot me please.

Dog Faced Hermans were this noisey political punk band that were active from the mid 80s to early 90s. yeah their name is god awful and doesn’t go with their music at all, but they are one of my favorite bands. i can’t think of anyone that sounds like them. the closest is maybe fellow dutch band the ex, but they don’t have marion, this little woman with a powerful voice who plays skronky trumpet, bells and other stuff. her voice is the perfect balance to the brutal and scraping guitar sounds and rumbling basslines. plus some of her trumpet playing reminds me of how albert ayler plays the saxophone. there definitely is a free jazz sensibility present there. i’m surprised that youtube has any footage of all, they were pretty unknown

unfortunately the albums easiest to find are their releases on Alternative Tentacles which I don’t think are as good as their first few albums Humans Fly/Everyday Timebomb, Hum of Life, and Mental Block of Ages. Those are long out of print so here are a few mp3s. plus, their lyrics are loaded with anarchist talk, so i’d doubt they’d care.

“Live Action”
“Viva”
“Hear the Dogs”
“How We Connect”
“Love Split with Blood”
“Jan 9″

so in weirder news, jon lovitz grabbed andy dick by his hair and smashed his head into a bar 4 or 5 times. did i read that right? JON LOVITZ?? apparently andy dick made some joke to lovitz about Phil Hartman and lovitz lost it.

i don’t really feel bad for andy dick. is that mean? making fun of a guy who was murdered to his friend is lame. i like jon lovitz. i like artie ziff

i almost don’t believe this is real cause i just can’t see jon lovitz capable of a joe pesci move like that. what if this was just an elaborate hoax and the two were secretly friends like andy kaufman vs jerry lawler

i saw Rescue Dawn and enjoyed it. it’s probably one of the most conventional movies Werner Herzog has made as far as the story structure goes, but it still had his touch all over it like his weird sense of humor, lots of madmen (both the violent and the ‘good intentions’ kind), intensely intimidating (and breathtaking) scenes of the jungle/wildlife and strange but endearing bonds born out of the most dire and anomalous circumstances. i was a little scared when i read the examiner review and they mentioned Rambo in it, which I guess i can see cause it’s about Dieter Dengler. Dengler was the subject of Herzog’s documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly and Rescue Dawn is Herzog’s dramatized film about Dengler’s experience in 1966 in Laos. He escaped a POW camp deep in the dense nowhere of the jungle after his plane got shot down and his story of surviving is nothing short of a miracle. any fictionalized movie based on his experience during the Viet Nam war inherantly has “suspense” and “action-adventure” built into it. So yeah, it has elements of a popcorn flick and it had some flaws, but it’s not like Herzog is having an identity crisis or anything. Christian Bale plays Dengler like the subject of any Herzog movie: a guy with unreal optimism so stubborn and unwavering that it’s dangerous and borders on delusional. However unlike a lot of Herzog’s movies, this personality trait (or disorder depending on your take) ends up working out to the subject’s advantage. Although the title of the movie can’t help but remind me of Red Dawn, it isn’t pro-patriotism or gross heroism schmaltz like the trailer makes it out to be at all. the killing of ‘the enemy’ isn’t done in a macho celebratory light but rather out of complete paranoid desperation. god the trailer is garbage though. i guess they have to entice the broader audience with that kind of teaser. It’s just a good dramatic story that would (and did) make a decent and satisfying movie. what can I say though, I’m a total sucker for “man vs. nature” stories and read Lord of the Flies 4 times in 7th grade and The Most Dangerous Game like 1000.

uh.. here is a photo of werner with an AK-47 on location

i assume for gunning down leeches in the mekong delta

bingo nite was super fun, even though everyone won except me. lindsay won twice and picked disguise props solely for the photobooth

i’ve had danzig stuck in my head all day, but i don’t know the words so i’m making stuff up and cracking up to myself like a total ass. motherrrr, tell your children to get off my lawn, tell your children to file my taxes…whoahohhhoh…. MOTHER!

to make matters worst, i see this re-edit and am cackling so hard. it’s a hysterically funny epic. i’m talking beyond beyond!

first, young showed me how to open and extend these cameras last night:

i like the lens and i think they take 120film.

anyway, i scanned and cropped about 30 of these found photos. it was a pain in the ass

this was one of the few color ones:

after looking at the expiration date on some of the film, i’m pretty sure these are from ‘91-92, which might explain the ‘losing my religion’ aesthetic on the first batch i took snaps of? anyway, i attempted to google the person for a contact email but it’s a too common of a name.

while going through the clutter bomb disaster that is known as the back storage room in my house, we came across many boxes of photos, proof sheets, misc. camera and dark room equipment that belonged to a previous tenant. my roommate has no idea who it belonged to, since he’s only lived here since 2001 and judging from the clothes on a lot of these proofs i’m guessing it was around the late 80s early 90s. some of them were really interesting, so i kept like 1/4 of it- about 2 boxes of proof sheets and full size photos, some film that i don’t know how to use and is probably worthless, some alien agfa camera, and a small box of negatives. haven’t had a chance to look closely at the lot, but here is a quick overview. i’ll actively scan and post good ones in the future

agfa pd16 folding camera?

box o negatives

i’ve been obsessing over youtube footage and flickr documentation of the 77 Boadrum performance where the Boredoms performed with 77 drummers in Empire Fulton State Park on 7/7/07 this weekend. It looked amazing. i can’t find a full list of all the drummers that participated and i’m curious because i noticed brian chippendale, sarah lund from unwound, and andrew w.k. (looking refreshingly nondescript and normal) in there as well as drummers for enon and m. ward. it said on the press release that there were people from no neck blues band, crash worship and sunburned hand of the man and others but that only a handful considering there were 77 drummers. god that still sounds insane to me. seems like a really diverse and awesome lot of musicians. i’m so jealous! and to add insult to injury, that was the only U.S. stop on the boredoms tour.

(edit: I found the full list of drummers here)

i really wish whoever shot this footage didn’t invert it

soul night is always good times