Topics | Dangerous Minds (2024)

09.25.2013

03:01 pm

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The act of tussling with a broken TV set can potentially contain the primary elements of drama—but in microcosm. Person has goal (to watch TV)—person is hindered in goal (f*cking thing won’t work)—person takes action (thwack the thing on its side)—person achieves goal (can now watch TV)!

It’s no wonder that TV and movie directors go to that well so often. It’s used a lot because it works.

Duncan Robson put together a truly brilliant supercut of frustrated people getting mad at technology, selecting from a wide variety of movies and TV shows. Fonzie gets his own section, as is only appropriate. The video itself mimics the process—first we get a section on malfunctioning devices, then a section of people walloping their devices, ending with—glory be!—a section of people reacting with joy once the damn car/carnival attraction/spaceship finally kicks into gear—and we recognize many of the rejoicing characters from earlier in the supercut.

The slowly crescendoing music, by Joel Robson, could hardly be better, and the selections are consistently fantastic—Back to the Future, Brain Candy, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, WarGames, and Freaks and Geeks are just a few of the ones I caught—as I’m sure you will too.

Enjoy.

09.25.2013

02:36 pm

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This is brilliant! Hopefully California—and everywhere else—will soon follow.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today continued the state’s efforts to reduce distracted driving by unveiling special “Texting Zones” along the New York State Thruway and State Highways that will give motorists a pull-off area to park and use their mobile devices. Existing Park-n-Ride facilities, rest stops, and parking areas along the Thruway and Highways will dual-function as Texting Zones, and signage will be placed along the highway to inform drivers where the Zones are located. A total of 298 signs will be located along major highways across the state, notifying motorists to 91 Texting Zone locations.

There are also going to be tougher penalties in the state of New York if you’re caught on your cell phone or texting. I’m assuming ticket fines will be sky-high. THEY SHOULD BE.

You can read about the new texting zones (where they’ll be located) and regulations at NY.gov.

Below, I posted this video a while ago on DM, but it never gets old. A man gets sweet, sweet revenge on a texting fool.

Via The World’s Best Ever

09.25.2013

01:16 pm

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The Spanish Civil War was the primary turning point of George Orwell’s life. During the conflict, Orwell made a clear emotional commitment to socialism, and his writing afterward took on a focus and a purpose that it had previously lacked. As he wrote in his classic essay “Why I Write” in 1946, “The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.” Orwell’s greatest period as a writer (in my opinion) came after 1936 (although I do have a soft spot for Down and Out in Paris and London and some of the early essays).

Orwell was shot by a sniper in the neck while he was in Spain—unlike Hemingway, who was really there as a famous writer, Orwell, as an ordinary conscript, was in the trenches like any other soldier, alongside people who were almost certainly very unlike him. Curiously, given Orwell’s later status as a massive literary icon, his wounds in Spain play surprisingly little role in the creation of the myth (although it certainly didn’t hurt).

Here is Orwell’s description of being shot, from Homage to Catalonia:

I have been about ten days at the front when it happened. The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think it is worth describing in detail.

-snip-

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Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the centre of an explosion. There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all around me, and I felt a tremendous shock—no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shrivelled up to nothing. The sandbags in front of me receded into immense distance. I fancy you would feel much the same if you were struck by lightning. I knew immediately that I was hit, but because of the seeming bang and flash I thought it was a rifle nearby that had gone off accidentally and shot me. All this happened in a space of time much less than a second. The next moment my knees crumpled up and I was falling, my head hitting the ground with a violent bang which, to my relief, did not hurt. I had a numb, dazed feeling, a consciousness of being very badly hurt, but no pain in the ordinary sense.

On Monday it was reported that the “neckscarf and two neckerchiefs” Orwell was wearing when he was shot are being put up for auction at Bloomsbury Auctions. The auction takes place on October 3, and the final price is expected to be £1200 (a little less than $2,000). I would be very surprised if it doesn’t go for a great deal more.

The neckwear looks rather handsome, don’t you think? I wouldn’t mind draping that around my neck.


Here’s Bloomsbury’s description of the item:

A collection of 4 scarves and neckerchiefs belonging to George Orwell, accompanied by strong provenance, all with anti-facist images and colours, 2 c.400 x 400mm., 1 c.210 x 210mm. and 1 c.1120 x 190mm., this last with small hole and blood being the one worn by him near Huesca on 20/5/1937 when he was shot in the neck by a sniper, accompanying letter of provenance from Kathleen [Wigham] to Don [Bateman], the father of the vendor, describing how the items had been given to her husband Wilfred Wigham by Hugh Patrick O’Hare who had treated Orwell in the aftermath of the shooting, and had removed them prior to Orwell going to hospital

Here’s some rather silly footage from the BBC with actor Chris Langham pretending to be Orwell in grainy footage of Spain. It is a bit informative, though.

09.25.2013

01:08 pm

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You may have recently heard of Leith, North Dakota, the town of only 24 people currently at risk of Nazi takeover, because apparently the middle of the goddamn country now contains a rip in space-time, leading directly to Poland in 1939. An opportunistic white supremacist has been buying up land in Leith with the express intent of organizing a “white nationalist intentional community.” (I’d argue a lot of those already exist more discreetly in the gated communities of America, but I digress.)

Obviously, there has been some push-back from Leith citizens, including Bobby Harper, the one black guy in town, who’s clearly the most patient and laid-back man alive. But a town of 24 people isn’t the most intimidating mob, so friends and allies from nearby towns have shown up in support, most notably the above crew of Lakota and Dakota grandmothers, who stole and burned a swastika flag in protest. You have to admit, there is some serious irony in attempting to create a Nazi town in a state that shares a name with the indigenous people who lived there prior to the arrival of Europeans.

Check out the video below for Bobby Harper and his wife, who now live right behind white supremacists.

Via Last Real Indians

09.25.2013

12:49 pm

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John Cleese would spend hours finessing a script—choosing the right word, or considering where best to place a comma for greatest comedic effect. His writing partner, Graham Chapman preferred to sit quietly, listening, smoking his pipe, and from time-to-time suggest an idea that would often turn an average sketch into something extraordinary. One such example, was Chapman’s inspiration to insert a dead parrot into some old material that led to the writing of one of Monty Python‘s most famous routines.

The “Dead Parrot Sketch” developed out of something Cleese and Chapman had previously written for a one-off special called How to Irritate People. Produced by David Frost, How to Irritate People was a collection of sketches introduced by Cleese, and co-starring Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Michael Palin, Connie Booth, Gillian Lind and Dick Vosburgh. The programme was notable for being the first time Palin worked with Cleese and Chapman, a year before they created Monty Python’s Flying Circus, as Palin explained in Bob McCabe’s biography of Chapman, The Life of Graham:

‘...that was the first time I’d ever worked with John and Graham, as an actor, and that was very much like a miniPython, except that I wasn’t writing with Terry [Jones]. I was an actor with their material, but we changed it a little bit in rehearsal and we’d really enjoyed doing that, even though the end result had not been successful, largely due to problems with recording.’

The show appears never to have been shown on British television, but was aired in the US on January 21st, 1969. The programme contained elements of material later used on Python, in particular the “Car Salesman” sketch, which eventually became the famous (Dead) “Parrot Sketch.”

The “Car Salesman” was more than a piece of creative comedy, it was an idea suggested by Palin, and based on his own dealings with a less than scrupulous garage owner, as Cleese explains:

‘..that was based on a man called Mr Gibbins, which is Helen [Palin’s] unmarried name. And Mr Gibbins ran a garage somewhere in Michael’s area, and Michael started to tell me about taking his car in to Mr Gibbins if there was something wrong with it, and he would ring Mr Gibbins and say, “I’m having trouble with the clutch,” and Mr Gibbins would say, “Lovely car, lovely car.” And Michael said, “Well, yes, Mr Gibbins, it is a lovely car, but I’m having trouble with the clutch.” “Lovely car, lovely car, can’t beat it.” “No, but we’re having trouble with it.” “Well, look,” he says, “if you ever have any trouble with it, bring it in.” Michael would say, “Well, I am having trouble with it and I have brought it in,” and he’d say, “Good, lovely car, lovely car, if you have trouble bring it in,” and Michael would say, “No, no, no, the clutch is sticking,” and he would say, “Sign of a quality car, if you had a sticky clutch first two thousand miles, it’s the sign of good quality,” and he was one of those people you could never get to take a complaint seriously. And Michael and I chatted about this, and I then went off and wrote a sketch with Graham about a man returning a second-hand car…’

The sketch has Chapman, as a Jacques-Tati-like customer, dealing with Palin’s furtive car salesman.

More on the metamorphosis of the “Dead Parrot Sketch,” after the jump…

09.25.2013

12:17 pm

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Eddie Izzard has stated his intention to enter politics sometime in the next decade or so many times. In earlier formulations, he said that he was interested in becoming a Member of Parliament, a Member of the European Parliament, or Mayor of London. He has often mentioned 2020 as his target year for assuming office.

Izzard, attending the Labour Party conference in Brighton, yesterday confirmed his desire to be elected Mayor of London in the year 2020. Speaking in such a formal political setting, Izzard for the first time mentioned this goal in a way that couldn’t be written off as a pipe dream. Labour Party leader Ed Miliband indicated that he would look on an Izzard candidacy with approval. His remarks at the party conference were greeted with cheers. The current Mayor of London is a Tory, the colorful Boris Johnson. Johnson is relatively popular for a Tory—his approval rating in June was 44%, as compared to a meager 23% for the Tory Prime Minister, David Cameron.

The prospect of Izzard holding major political office would be a major milestone in the image of cross-dressers—Izzard spent most of the early part of his career working in drag, of course, although he doesn’t emphasize the ladies’ clothing quite as much as he once did. It’s striking that at Brighton yesterday, Izzard was noticeably wearing nail polish, as seen in the picture below.


Eddie Izzard and former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescot applaud Labour Party leader Ed Miliband’s keynote speech at the annual Labour Party Conference in Brighton

With a Tory incumbent and a Labour field with no clear front-runner, some have wondered whether 2016 wouldn’t be a better moment to run for Mayor. MP Tessa Jowell, one of the politicians often mentioned as a possible Labour candidate for Mayor in 2016, said, “Eddie is a man of enormous substance, generosity and conviction. His decision to do this is a vote of confidence in Labour.”

A self-described “executive transvestite,” Izzard has been bucking the odds for quite a while now. When he successfully imported his act to the U.S. around 1998, his status as a cross-dresser was more or less the only thing a lot of Americans knew about him, and he has addressed the bigotry and even beatings he put up with when he was establishing his reputation in England, especially in Glorious. To his credit, Izzard’s cross-dressing is no longer at the center of his image, even though he has never disavowed any aspect of his preference for women’s clothing. A relentless self-promoter (check out the documentary Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story if you don’t buy that description), Izzard is also very smart and is by no means a person to be underestimated. In 2009, with very little training as a long-distance runner, Izzard announced his intention to run 43 marathons in eight weeks for charity in the UK—which he then did. If he says he wants to be mayor of London, I would rather expect he might end up achieving that goal. At a minimum it will be a fascinating campaign to observe.

Here’s Izzard on The Jonathan Ross Show earlier this year; halfway through they discuss his political ambitions. About a week before this show was taped, I got to see Eddie Izzard perform at Largo in LA.

09.25.2013

11:27 am

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The popular p*rn website p*rnhub recently released a U.S. map (large image) with the most common search term broken out by state. You can also see the average length of visit in the map (darker colors mean longer visits). It’s positively heartening to think of all that American lust and release…..

Top terms include “creampie” and “milf” and “teen”—hmmmm. Kentucky is really into watching anime characters engage in sex, and Nevada is remarkably obsessed with Czech p*rn star Anita Queen. Charmingly, the term “ebony” does very well in the South, which counts a high percentage of African Americans.

Notice that the “Bible Belt” also happens to log the longest visits per user. The #3 word for Idaho is “parody,” which is really interesting! Honestly, I was a little disappointed not to see “praline” pop up for Louisiana.

You can see a more detailed and interactive version of this map here.

Probably the most interesting information to be found, though, is that Hawaii and Alaska are no longer part of the union.

via Gynomite!

09.25.2013

10:59 am

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Nina Simone and her daughter, who recently caused a stir by criticizing the casting of Zoe Saldana as Simone in a bio-pic. Noting that a large part of her mother’s impact stemmed from her dark skin, wide nose, and full lips, Simone’s daughter asserted that casting another fine-featured, light-skinned woman simply reinforced the anti-black beauty standards Nina stood in defiance of.

A few seconds into this interview, I heard Nina Simone defend conservative Republican pervert and all-around dirtbag Clarence Thomas. Honestly, after that, I didn’t think there was anything else she could say that would shock me. But I was quickly taken aback by her response to the final question. The interviewer asks Simone (in French) if she sometimes has regrets of not pursuing a career in classical piano. Nina, who attended Juilliard, and was normally so confident and poised, breaks down. Her voice cracking, she admits quite frankly that she wishes she had become the first black classic pianist, and that she believes her unhappiness stems from the lack of that achievement.

It’s an incredibly vulnerable moment. Simone openly longs for a life that, in all honesty, would have reached far fewer people than the one she actually lived. She was notoriously dismissive of pop music, and openly maintained that classical music was a higher art form- a claim that ironically lead many to accuse her of adopting white artistic standards. It’s both heartbreaking and unfathomable to think that one of the most dynamic voices of black liberation, the woman who wrote “Mississippi Goddam” and “Young, Gifted and Black,” could yearn for any other legacy.

09.25.2013

01:46 am

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Poster art: Kilian Eng.

Of the dozen or so films I’ve seen so far at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin there are two that actually enter the realm of unrestrained awesomeness that I associate with the word “fantastic.” Frank Pavich’s Jodorowsky’s Dune and Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity are head trips that leave one in a state of elation and hope. Both are pure cinema, head trips that take you to places you knew might exist but never thought you’d actually encounter.

Even though Jodorowsky’s Dune is a documentary it weaves a story as compelling and dramatic as any narrative film. And it is imbued with the magic of its subject: the fiery and brilliant Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Jodorowky’s El Topo was a life-changing film for many of us who saw it when it was released in 1970 and it continues to inspire awe in generations of audiences since. I have spent over four decades turning people onto the movie, either through rare underground screenings, bad bootlegs or the lovely remastered digital versions released in the past ten years. Giving someone a Blu-ray of El Topo is the electronic equivalent of placing a hit of Owsley on their tongue. Jodorowsky is all about changing your mind…in big and profound ways.

It was Jodorowsky’s dream to make a movie version Frank Herbert’s Dune that would give you the acid experience without the drug. Until now, I could only imagine what a trip that might have been. But thanks to Pavich’s wonderfully insightful and skillfully executed film, the Jodorowskian mindf*ck has been unleashed like a tsunami of particularly psychotropically potent melange.

Jodorowsky’s Dune chronicles the herculean efforts of Jodorowsky and a crew of extraordinary collaborators as they attempt to create a film version or riff on Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel. It’s a story that is both heartbreaking and exhilarating. You feel Jodorowsky’s pain in not being able to bring to fruition “the greatest film never made” while at the same feeling the buzz of the passion fueling Jodorowsky’s vision. In addition, by deftly animating Jodorowsky’s storyboards, director Pavich gives a glimpse into what might have been. These scenes may be the closest we’ll ever get to acutally seeing Jodorowsky’s sci-fi epic.

For me, Dune will be the coming of a god. I wanted to make something sacred, free, with new perspective. Open the mind!”

The journey of Dune involves a collection of “spiritual warriors” who, despite not arriving at the end of their destination, ultimately managed to alter cinema forever. H.R. Giger, Moebius, Dan O’Bannon, Michel Seydoux, Chris Foss and countless others infiltrated pop culture through a trajectory mapped out in the alchemical forces generated by one of the great magicians, Alejandro Jodorowsky.

While it may never have been embedded in silver nitrate, in many ways Jodorowsky’s Dune has had a life that transcends celluloid. It moves through the ethers waving an invisible wand over the theater of our minds. Its influence is incalculable. Pavich’s film makes a case that virtually every science fiction made since the mid-seventies has borrowed or stolen ideas, design and visual concepts from Jodorowsky’s plans for Dune.

Jodorowsky’s Dune won the Audience Award at Fantastic Fest and Best Documentary. It will be released in early 2014.

I had an opportunity to meet director Frank Pavich and we talked about his film. What was intended to be a conventional interview became a lively rap session in which we both sang the praises of our hero. I normally don’t inject myself into an interview to the degree I do here, but I couldn’t help myself. Frank and I are kindred spirits and we were both on a Jodo roll.

09.24.2013

06:11 pm

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Because of the inclusion of his classic song “Draw Your Brakes” on the gazillion-selling soundtrack album to the iconic Jamaican film, The Harder They Come (starring the great Jimmy Cliff) many people have heard the music of reggae DJ David Scott, professionally known as Scotty, but they probably have no idea that he had several other records which were equally good. Like many reggae artists, Scotty had many hit singles on the island of Jamaica that were pretty much not heard anywhere else around the world, except on the turntables of the reggae fanatics. This began to change when labels like Trojan and Blood and Fire began to release deluxe CDs of music that had heretofore mostly existed on scratchy 45s (which was the case of most ‘70s roots-era reggae). Even though reggae collectors have always found a way to get the records they wanted, until the genre started to really get taken seriously in the 1990s (record heads had already plowed through easy listening, then free jazz, so reggae was the next obvious genre to plunder) it wasn’t all that easy to hear a lot of this music.

I discovered Scotty on various Trojan DJ collections I had (like the amazing High Explosion: DJ Sounds from 1970-1976 set) which included scorchers like “Riddle I This,” “Penny for Your Song,” “Salvation Train” and “Do I Worry.” When I finally got my hands on a used copy of a shoddily packaged—but awesome—Trojan comp called Unbelievable Sounds, which contained pretty much every song the guy ever recorded, I was thrilled to hear nearly two dozen stone classics. Many of his songs feature a kind of style known in reggae circles as “singjay.” There was a charming, childlike quality to Scotty’s raps (and persona). His voice was young sounding and he sang about Sesame Street. His melodies were A-B-C’s simple. (Kids tend to immediately respond to Scotty and it’s obvious why). I have read that he would often perform wearing short pants and a beanie. This makes sense!

Although I have a number of favorite Scotty songs, my top favorite has to be “Clean Race”—with a loose rap that would have Snoop gagging it’s so f*cking good—delivered atop the riddim for Lloyd Charmer’s classic, “Save the People.” This was recorded in 1972. It’s often been said that Jamaican DJs like Big Youth and U-Roy were the originators of rap music—which is basically true—but I’d nominate Scotty for being the artist of that time period who most closely predicted the form rap would ultimate take. Listen to this amazing vocal performance and see if you agree (and listen for producer Derrick Harriott’s turn at the mike as he explains his concept of how a hit record is made!)

David Scott left Jamaica to set up a recording studio in in Florida in 1974, effectively ending his career as a DJ. Below is a video of him performing “Draw Your Brakes,” apparently sometime in the US during the 1980s. Scott died in 2003 at the age of 53.