THE JOYLESS GOOD LUCK STREET
Greta Garbo night was a gavling successtra. Lots of ladies looking very Garboesque. The boys of the punk band Green Day were in town and wanted to do a couple of tin pan alley songs, and told me they had some great outfits. So of course i kept it a big secret that they were going to be my special guests. Word must have gotten out because there were tons of people. The boys did come by but were way too tired to peform and came after 1am. They will be in LA for a while so the surprise show may take place in the not so distant future. I hope so.
Everyone was getting so drunk and horndoggy Friday. Lots of love connections were made. My sizzling taxi dancers Summer Peaches of Augusta, Georgia and Jason El Norte of Mexico City were raising the crowds libidos. I performed a little burlesque number to the strains of CC Rider, with my spicy beef curtains flapping in the breezus.
Lots of big wigs abounding. Sweet and demure "Tarnation" director Jonathan Caouette with power publicist and sometime actor and bon vivant, the great and glorious Mickey Cottrell(My Own Private Idaho) gentle producer Steven Winters, award winning film editor and juicy juicer Brian Katz(I'd sure like to munch on that bung hole) along with Programming godesses Outfest's luscious Kirsten Schaffer, Sundances tantalizing Shari Frilot, Outfest Executive Director Stephen "Twee" Guitwillig, AIDS czar Ferd Eggen, Samuel French's Marc Simon, with his boyfriend co-hort and UCLA film preservationist David Pendleton, Mean Mommy of the Cheap Beer Club, Steak of Steakhause Productions, The Cabinet of Curiosity, art historian Robert Summers, legendary Afro Sisters Urethra Franklin and Clitoris Turner, Ventura's Dora of Wilde Planet and a host of other luminaries to numerous to mention. Wowza
THE
. . .From the Counsel of Inter-Continental Balistic Principalities
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Saturday, October 16, 2004
Friday, October 15, 2004
CABEZA DE VACA
I'm going to be swamped with work in the next few weeks. Besides preparing for Visions of Excess in the Balkans, I'm going to be working as a radio presenter for NPR and viewing movies submitted to the Sundance Film Festival.
For your pleasure i reproduce a loving email sent from one of my best girlfriends the Canadian auteur Bruce "Judy" LaBruce.
***
oh vaginal. i don’t know. i just saw Dig. it’s so depressing that mediocrity always rises to the top. i really hate well adjusted, successful people, especially when they play rock n roll. i don’t mean to be negative, but there you have it. i mean i like courtney courtney taylor taylor, but still. what’s that woody allen line about not being able to have a good time if you know that there’s even one person starving on the other side of the world? that’s how i feel all the time. anyway, the reason i’m writing is because i forgot to tell you that i had candy and naushad who just got back from africa over last night to watch the night gallery entire first season on dvd that i’d rented and there was this one episode with raymond massey and.... barry brown. it’s the first time i’ve seen barry without a beard since flesh. he looked really skinny and cool. raymond massey played a big game hunter who is really peeved that he has this milquetoast, milksop son who wears a peace button and doesn’t want to kill anything. he calls him every code word for homosexual in the book, and barry brown just looks at him with those big brown eyes. then he makes barry go deer hunting with him and forces him to shoot a deer, but he can’t do it, so old raymond tries to grab the rifle he’s holding and barry just ends up shooting the deer through the lungs and it suffers and bleeds and they have to chase it for four hours to kill it. so when they get back to the estate, barry is devestated but the extremely hot black african servant who’s into black magic who came back to america with old raymond massey the great white hunter to protect cute barry from him puts a hot voodoo curse on vieux raymond (who of course played james dean’s father in east of eden, and who is of course canadian) and the next thing you know mr. massey’s head ends up on the trophy wall along with the gazelles and lions and tigresses and his other trophy heads. it’s actually very chilling. my favourite episode so far, though, is the one with joanna pettet of the group fame who plays a dreamy young woman caught forever in a slow-motion, fashion-wind recurring dream. she’s so shot. xxx blab
Oh and another letter from my sweet pal Billy Miller of Straight to Hell/Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts
Vanigina,
yo.
i hear ya about killin' the rich.whenever i meet rich people...oh well...quess you know what i'm sayin', just a waste of space here to go on about that.the main problem as i see it is that as soon as you me or anybody else gets some of that money, you feel different about things.and over time we would just end up being some version of them...don't ya think?ever notice how when you put some old lady behind the wheel of a car that where she was meek and timid before, all of a sudden she's cutting people off and acting all aggressive and whatnot?it's like they say: "Power corrupts, and Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely."in my case if i had lots of money, i honestly don't know how i'd define myself, as i wouldn't know where to stand on lots of things.guess i'd try to be generous and most of all use it to realise certain ideas, but knowing me, i'd prolly get at least a little grand along the way.i've tried in my own podunk way to be cheap version of fancy that in the end is just me trying to imitate rich people in some way, truth be told.
don't want to go back to the -bare light bulb, bathroom in a closet - apartments that i grew up in that's for sure. talking about riding the bus... when i lived in Detroit (and lots of people have written about the similarities between Detroit's car culture and the S. CA. thing) i took buses every day for year after year and am sure that my ideas about the world and society were formed watching and listening to people on the bus.here i take the train or walk or hitch rides from my Jersey City homies...it's similar, but not exactly the same thing as staring out of the bus -which never had as many people on it as here, for one thing, and everyone was from the lower class too -unlike here on public transportation where it's this mix of everything and lots of tourists (which we never saw in Motown.)
that movie "8 Mile" gives you a pretty realistic impression of some of that...although Eminem still came from the white side of 8 Mile (which is the main city/suburban dividing street) and when i was a kid i would have thought that a trailer park (where he grew up) was maybe, if not fancy, then at least cooler and less -something- than the places where we lived.you maybe have had some similar experiences as i have of meeting middle and upper class people for the first time in your teens and early twenties and being excited about the kinds of things that they were into, but then way later feeling like theywere...something else...and yet not fitting into the kinds of scenes that your friends from back in the day in the hood were into either, and developing a life long ambiquity about those kinds of things.but at some point we figured out how to deal with it on some level and....
being "white trash" is odd coz when you put on the uniform you just become that in everyone else's eyes (unlike being a supposed "person of color", where they tend to still not want to let you into the club even after you've tried to do it their way)....only i don't know how to work that exactly...so i end up being a middle class white fag who hates gays and so-called straights equally and tries to act like somebody that's rich, only hates rich people and then bitches about it to the point that it is totally meaningless and i don't know what i am.
i do think that people of color should have started killing rich white people when they had the chance -by that i mean the late 60s early 70s when they had a sizeable movement and united public sentiment behind them.not that i think that if the leaders of said movement finally took power that they would end up being that much different in the long run than those that they might dipose, but at least it would have brought a new cast in and some much needed..."color".all of this is not to say that i don't know that things need to be changed and that there aren't better ways of doing things and that solutions to many of these kinds of problems are possible...it's just that it's necessary to safeguard against just adding to the mess and realizing that.....o.k...now i'd better stop, coz i feel a rant a comin' on here.but here's a final thought, how weird was it that the leaders of the Black Panther Party were so sexy and had so much style?part Left Bank existentialist, part Afro biker, part Beatnik hipster and all Kool.i mean Huey Newtown and Angela Davis could have been movie stars or pop idols with those looks.accident or unconcious divine plan.imagine if Huey had looked like Al Roker (the news guy)...would it have turned out the same way...?
look for some more CDs soon,
yorn,
-billlleee
I'm going to be swamped with work in the next few weeks. Besides preparing for Visions of Excess in the Balkans, I'm going to be working as a radio presenter for NPR and viewing movies submitted to the Sundance Film Festival.
For your pleasure i reproduce a loving email sent from one of my best girlfriends the Canadian auteur Bruce "Judy" LaBruce.
***
oh vaginal. i don’t know. i just saw Dig. it’s so depressing that mediocrity always rises to the top. i really hate well adjusted, successful people, especially when they play rock n roll. i don’t mean to be negative, but there you have it. i mean i like courtney courtney taylor taylor, but still. what’s that woody allen line about not being able to have a good time if you know that there’s even one person starving on the other side of the world? that’s how i feel all the time. anyway, the reason i’m writing is because i forgot to tell you that i had candy and naushad who just got back from africa over last night to watch the night gallery entire first season on dvd that i’d rented and there was this one episode with raymond massey and.... barry brown. it’s the first time i’ve seen barry without a beard since flesh. he looked really skinny and cool. raymond massey played a big game hunter who is really peeved that he has this milquetoast, milksop son who wears a peace button and doesn’t want to kill anything. he calls him every code word for homosexual in the book, and barry brown just looks at him with those big brown eyes. then he makes barry go deer hunting with him and forces him to shoot a deer, but he can’t do it, so old raymond tries to grab the rifle he’s holding and barry just ends up shooting the deer through the lungs and it suffers and bleeds and they have to chase it for four hours to kill it. so when they get back to the estate, barry is devestated but the extremely hot black african servant who’s into black magic who came back to america with old raymond massey the great white hunter to protect cute barry from him puts a hot voodoo curse on vieux raymond (who of course played james dean’s father in east of eden, and who is of course canadian) and the next thing you know mr. massey’s head ends up on the trophy wall along with the gazelles and lions and tigresses and his other trophy heads. it’s actually very chilling. my favourite episode so far, though, is the one with joanna pettet of the group fame who plays a dreamy young woman caught forever in a slow-motion, fashion-wind recurring dream. she’s so shot. xxx blab
Oh and another letter from my sweet pal Billy Miller of Straight to Hell/Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts
Vanigina,
yo.
i hear ya about killin' the rich.whenever i meet rich people...oh well...quess you know what i'm sayin', just a waste of space here to go on about that.the main problem as i see it is that as soon as you me or anybody else gets some of that money, you feel different about things.and over time we would just end up being some version of them...don't ya think?ever notice how when you put some old lady behind the wheel of a car that where she was meek and timid before, all of a sudden she's cutting people off and acting all aggressive and whatnot?it's like they say: "Power corrupts, and Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely."in my case if i had lots of money, i honestly don't know how i'd define myself, as i wouldn't know where to stand on lots of things.guess i'd try to be generous and most of all use it to realise certain ideas, but knowing me, i'd prolly get at least a little grand along the way.i've tried in my own podunk way to be cheap version of fancy that in the end is just me trying to imitate rich people in some way, truth be told.
don't want to go back to the -bare light bulb, bathroom in a closet - apartments that i grew up in that's for sure. talking about riding the bus... when i lived in Detroit (and lots of people have written about the similarities between Detroit's car culture and the S. CA. thing) i took buses every day for year after year and am sure that my ideas about the world and society were formed watching and listening to people on the bus.here i take the train or walk or hitch rides from my Jersey City homies...it's similar, but not exactly the same thing as staring out of the bus -which never had as many people on it as here, for one thing, and everyone was from the lower class too -unlike here on public transportation where it's this mix of everything and lots of tourists (which we never saw in Motown.)
that movie "8 Mile" gives you a pretty realistic impression of some of that...although Eminem still came from the white side of 8 Mile (which is the main city/suburban dividing street) and when i was a kid i would have thought that a trailer park (where he grew up) was maybe, if not fancy, then at least cooler and less -something- than the places where we lived.you maybe have had some similar experiences as i have of meeting middle and upper class people for the first time in your teens and early twenties and being excited about the kinds of things that they were into, but then way later feeling like theywere...something else...and yet not fitting into the kinds of scenes that your friends from back in the day in the hood were into either, and developing a life long ambiquity about those kinds of things.but at some point we figured out how to deal with it on some level and....
being "white trash" is odd coz when you put on the uniform you just become that in everyone else's eyes (unlike being a supposed "person of color", where they tend to still not want to let you into the club even after you've tried to do it their way)....only i don't know how to work that exactly...so i end up being a middle class white fag who hates gays and so-called straights equally and tries to act like somebody that's rich, only hates rich people and then bitches about it to the point that it is totally meaningless and i don't know what i am.
i do think that people of color should have started killing rich white people when they had the chance -by that i mean the late 60s early 70s when they had a sizeable movement and united public sentiment behind them.not that i think that if the leaders of said movement finally took power that they would end up being that much different in the long run than those that they might dipose, but at least it would have brought a new cast in and some much needed..."color".all of this is not to say that i don't know that things need to be changed and that there aren't better ways of doing things and that solutions to many of these kinds of problems are possible...it's just that it's necessary to safeguard against just adding to the mess and realizing that.....o.k...now i'd better stop, coz i feel a rant a comin' on here.but here's a final thought, how weird was it that the leaders of the Black Panther Party were so sexy and had so much style?part Left Bank existentialist, part Afro biker, part Beatnik hipster and all Kool.i mean Huey Newtown and Angela Davis could have been movie stars or pop idols with those looks.accident or unconcious divine plan.imagine if Huey had looked like Al Roker (the news guy)...would it have turned out the same way...?
look for some more CDs soon,
yorn,
-billlleee
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
PARTISAN PLACEBO
I'm sleeping with the enemy. I feel so Maria Schriver. Yes i've been getting down and dirty with a very conservative, well known Republican from Orange County. He can't seem to get enough of my nappy dugout, and lives for my garden cole slaw salad. I'm sorry but Republicans just do it better then tired democrats. I know I'm a traitor to the cause, but i can't help it. A girl has got to get her gnut. I'm not the only one. Another one of my radical left New York girlfriends is getting plowed left and right by a hard bodied elephantal. Maybe we're leading a new trend.
WHARY J. BLIGE
Wonderful hunky Cesar Vega, brought me a cute fridge for my studio. Now i can have cold drinks while i'm working on projects. And boy do i have a milion of them. I've reconnected with my former Dutch editor Rebecca Voight who is now the English language editrix of Zoo, and I'm happy to report that I'll be doing a bunch of articles for them and some other publications based on the continent. U.S. magazines don't understand me.
Also got word that I'll be going to Glasgow, Scotland the home of Ewan McGregor, Bis and Belle & Sebastiane to perform for the New Moves Festival.
The University of Washington in Seattle also contacted me and want me for their winter semester in January. I haven't been to the Pacific Northwest since the Notorious C.H.O. tour in 2001 so i'm really looking forward to chugging on some hot rainy wanks.
I'm sleeping with the enemy. I feel so Maria Schriver. Yes i've been getting down and dirty with a very conservative, well known Republican from Orange County. He can't seem to get enough of my nappy dugout, and lives for my garden cole slaw salad. I'm sorry but Republicans just do it better then tired democrats. I know I'm a traitor to the cause, but i can't help it. A girl has got to get her gnut. I'm not the only one. Another one of my radical left New York girlfriends is getting plowed left and right by a hard bodied elephantal. Maybe we're leading a new trend.
WHARY J. BLIGE
Wonderful hunky Cesar Vega, brought me a cute fridge for my studio. Now i can have cold drinks while i'm working on projects. And boy do i have a milion of them. I've reconnected with my former Dutch editor Rebecca Voight who is now the English language editrix of Zoo, and I'm happy to report that I'll be doing a bunch of articles for them and some other publications based on the continent. U.S. magazines don't understand me.
Also got word that I'll be going to Glasgow, Scotland the home of Ewan McGregor, Bis and Belle & Sebastiane to perform for the New Moves Festival.
The University of Washington in Seattle also contacted me and want me for their winter semester in January. I haven't been to the Pacific Northwest since the Notorious C.H.O. tour in 2001 so i'm really looking forward to chugging on some hot rainy wanks.
Monday, October 11, 2004
I'LL TAKE MANHATTAN
Love hearing from my Aussie journalista friend living in Nuyorka. His emugs always bring me cheer.
***
New York film interns are an awkward arrogant, fear laced, ego force to be reckoned with. I mean, you should see how they lurch around the office and do that gasping laugh geeks do about how clever they're being with their 40 word synopsis pieces about some Brittany Murphy film. In the 16 months I've been ehre they've never once said hello. I gave up trying after 6 months.
Out wouldn't publish my Dude manifesto article - even though it's built that have 6 photos of hot surfers all over it. They wanted less analysis, more humour and it had to be attached to a book or a film.
I did a photo shoot with Amanda Lepore last night where I directed the whole thing because I just wrote a personality profile on her. We got her naked except for stilettos walking down the hall of her hotel and posing naked on some run down old industrial stairs in the Village. She has no reaction to anything. I told her that and she didn't react.
So - me, the photographer and the stylist are going to hopefully work together on these celeb profiles of interesting underground people where I write about their personalities and living space, the photographer shoots them in their apartment and the stylist gets any kind of high fashion couture we want and then throws the celeb into the clothes and orchestrates a setting.
Then we're going to sell it to Milan and the UK and Australia. American wouldn't touch it because even though it still is sustainably commercial it's too conceptual. It's Ruby Wax/Barbara Walters meets high end fashion and edgy severe imagery but with no anchor in film. Autralia have already bought the articles in advance anyway - they said I can do 2 out of every 3 months. I did Musto, Lepore, I want to do Harvey Fierstein, I want to do Randy Harrison and I want to do YOU honey.
But I've got to get to LA to do it. I was thinking of you for Blue magazine but I really fucking don't like them. they're very unprofessional and Blue is dating fast.
Love hearing from my Aussie journalista friend living in Nuyorka. His emugs always bring me cheer.
***
New York film interns are an awkward arrogant, fear laced, ego force to be reckoned with. I mean, you should see how they lurch around the office and do that gasping laugh geeks do about how clever they're being with their 40 word synopsis pieces about some Brittany Murphy film. In the 16 months I've been ehre they've never once said hello. I gave up trying after 6 months.
Out wouldn't publish my Dude manifesto article - even though it's built that have 6 photos of hot surfers all over it. They wanted less analysis, more humour and it had to be attached to a book or a film.
I did a photo shoot with Amanda Lepore last night where I directed the whole thing because I just wrote a personality profile on her. We got her naked except for stilettos walking down the hall of her hotel and posing naked on some run down old industrial stairs in the Village. She has no reaction to anything. I told her that and she didn't react.
So - me, the photographer and the stylist are going to hopefully work together on these celeb profiles of interesting underground people where I write about their personalities and living space, the photographer shoots them in their apartment and the stylist gets any kind of high fashion couture we want and then throws the celeb into the clothes and orchestrates a setting.
Then we're going to sell it to Milan and the UK and Australia. American wouldn't touch it because even though it still is sustainably commercial it's too conceptual. It's Ruby Wax/Barbara Walters meets high end fashion and edgy severe imagery but with no anchor in film. Autralia have already bought the articles in advance anyway - they said I can do 2 out of every 3 months. I did Musto, Lepore, I want to do Harvey Fierstein, I want to do Randy Harrison and I want to do YOU honey.
But I've got to get to LA to do it. I was thinking of you for Blue magazine but I really fucking don't like them. they're very unprofessional and Blue is dating fast.
Sunday, October 10, 2004
THE BIG RED ONE
I adore Billy Miller of Straight to Hell. He is the ultimate doll. Here's a little enote i just received from him:
Dearest One,
heidi ho.
sent the re-re-done (and hopefully final) version of Doowackamuthafukindoo Deux Redo out the other day.
only thing i'm not totally sure of is the ending as it's hard to do a last song using that 20s-30s stuff as they usually end the song so abruptly.
will have another installment in the series -either "The Sophisticated 20s" or "The Raunchy 20s" done in a week or so.
and will make sure it's really done before sending.
did you know that the reason that recorded music before 1927-28 sounds so tinny and like it was recorded through a wall is that in the late '20s they invented a new recording technology that picked up a fuller spectrum of sound...so everything before that don't sound too good, which is why many artists re-recorded their stuff after that (and it usually sounded way better when they did.)
if you were to have heard the music performed live at the time it would have sounded pretty much the same as it would now, but when they recorded it with the older equipment it sounded weak in comparison to the recordings that were possible to do later.
Some of the earliest recordings (on wax cylinders for instance) sounded weak partly because of the playback technology and sometimes they can now pick up a lot more sound on those old recordings with digital technology...so occasionally they've found old cylinders that now sound 100 per cent better nowdays than they did to folks back in the day.
saw a pre-code movie on cable the other day...some of those are real eye openers and suprise you with the occasional realness and freakiness.
it weird that out there on that coast everyone is so celebrity obsessed (they are here too i quess but it's not all movie and tv and not so exclusive and class specific as out there) and i was reminded that the 20s was really when that virus took hold.
i love movies, but movie stars are like so much cattle wearing designer clothes to me...whenever i see one of the new batch of tv fashion/design expert fags on cable i cringe...clowns are an easy sell to the network executives i quess...this one called Steven Cojucoojew (or something like that) even wrote a book about his standing around in front of openings called "Red Carpet Diaries" wherein he talks about such weighty subjects as who does and doesn't "give" when they're walking into an event -is that deep or what (?).
here, everyone is an ARTIST (read S.l.a.c.k.e.r.) which is sometimes even worse than being a "star" as it means that they're on some kind of higher plane of existence (at least in thier own minds) that is beyond ordinary mortals.
no one can say that they are a waitress or apartment painter (or like me: lazy disfunctional whatever-comes-along doer) which makes me feel bad for all the millions of people who think or used to think that those were worthwhile and fullfilling -and perfectly noble- occupations.
quess someday everybody will be an Artist, which has at least provided us with one reason to not want to live forever.
Saw Angela Davis on a cable show where they interview book people the other day.
girlfriend is still the bomb.
have been aware of and read some of her essays about what she calls "the industrial prison complex" which she discussed.
as well as bringing up the possiblities of other kinds of "democracies" than the American brand, which is now indisdingishable from capitalism.
she still seems to be some kind of a Marxist which is the one area where i differ in opinion with her...(wrote her a letter expressing my concerns about that as a matter of fact.)
she's not the sexy beauty she once was, but even more perceptive and focused.
what impresses me the most tho is her reserve and deference.
she never comes off angry or preachy or more-informed-than-thou.
always paced and even soft at times, yet percise.
she's to the point yet considerate of the other person's feelings and point of view.
an ongoing role model for anyone who has the humility and smartness to see.
she is a real honest-to-god SOUL SISTA.
went way over my usual 7 line limit here so...
wuv,
-bilwee
BURCU'S ANGELS
Bricktops Way Down East, Lillian Gish celebra sparkled. Andrew screened D.W. Griffiths "Intolerance" and the clubgoers were transfixed by it. The images are startling and all the different sepia tones are really striking.
Lots of handsome young men in attendance. Of course the Ditty Bops were exceptional. Those girls just embody the spirit of the club and their "Am I Blue? Theme was perfect.
Our taxi dancer Summer Peaches of Augusta Georgia sure was causing all the straight boys major tent pitching. Her revealing wardrobe had their tongues glued to the floor. A cute boy was celebrating his birthday and i pulled down his pants and took a bite of his globular buttocks cheeks. Well a girl has to get a little something sometime.
Now what are all these blasphemous rumours about me and Billy Jo of Green Day having an affair. I guess the National Enquirer ran a picture of us kissing, but that photo was really very very innocent. Believe me i am not interested in him in the least. He's way too short. Please you internet geeks stop spreading this nonsense. All you have to do is ask me who I'm sleeping with and I'll gladly tell you.
One person who came to Bricktops friday that I'd love to roll around in the proverbial hay with is Benoit Vuitton, the heir to the Vuitton empire. He came with french philosopher icon Bernard-Henri Levy, who started to put the make on pretty designer Shauna Leone who had her Prohibition Boutique set up in the foyer. Both girls and guys were buying her garters and fancy headbands. Between Summer Peaches and Shauna, it was hard for a girl to get a little attention from the men. Writer, nerd Dave Eggers was also going gaga for Shauna, but i think she prefered Dustin Hoffman's DJ son Jake Hoffman who came into the DJ booth asking me about a Tiger Lillies song i played. The Tiger Lillies are coming to LA and will perform at the tired Knitting Factory. Boy do i hate that venue.
Had a sweet discussion with art Historian and professor Robert Summers. He got fired from his teaching job because he showed one of my experimental films to his class. Boy, am i ever controvertial. Robert's handsome boyfriend the art photog Matt Lipps was causing all the girls in the room including some Velvet Hammer dancers to breath pretty heavy. Matt is dream divine. Also Jason El Norte of Mexico City is a major female trap, even the actor Dominick West, wearing hardly anything could take away the ladies attentions.
I adore Billy Miller of Straight to Hell. He is the ultimate doll. Here's a little enote i just received from him:
Dearest One,
heidi ho.
sent the re-re-done (and hopefully final) version of Doowackamuthafukindoo Deux Redo out the other day.
only thing i'm not totally sure of is the ending as it's hard to do a last song using that 20s-30s stuff as they usually end the song so abruptly.
will have another installment in the series -either "The Sophisticated 20s" or "The Raunchy 20s" done in a week or so.
and will make sure it's really done before sending.
did you know that the reason that recorded music before 1927-28 sounds so tinny and like it was recorded through a wall is that in the late '20s they invented a new recording technology that picked up a fuller spectrum of sound...so everything before that don't sound too good, which is why many artists re-recorded their stuff after that (and it usually sounded way better when they did.)
if you were to have heard the music performed live at the time it would have sounded pretty much the same as it would now, but when they recorded it with the older equipment it sounded weak in comparison to the recordings that were possible to do later.
Some of the earliest recordings (on wax cylinders for instance) sounded weak partly because of the playback technology and sometimes they can now pick up a lot more sound on those old recordings with digital technology...so occasionally they've found old cylinders that now sound 100 per cent better nowdays than they did to folks back in the day.
saw a pre-code movie on cable the other day...some of those are real eye openers and suprise you with the occasional realness and freakiness.
it weird that out there on that coast everyone is so celebrity obsessed (they are here too i quess but it's not all movie and tv and not so exclusive and class specific as out there) and i was reminded that the 20s was really when that virus took hold.
i love movies, but movie stars are like so much cattle wearing designer clothes to me...whenever i see one of the new batch of tv fashion/design expert fags on cable i cringe...clowns are an easy sell to the network executives i quess...this one called Steven Cojucoojew (or something like that) even wrote a book about his standing around in front of openings called "Red Carpet Diaries" wherein he talks about such weighty subjects as who does and doesn't "give" when they're walking into an event -is that deep or what (?).
here, everyone is an ARTIST (read S.l.a.c.k.e.r.) which is sometimes even worse than being a "star" as it means that they're on some kind of higher plane of existence (at least in thier own minds) that is beyond ordinary mortals.
no one can say that they are a waitress or apartment painter (or like me: lazy disfunctional whatever-comes-along doer) which makes me feel bad for all the millions of people who think or used to think that those were worthwhile and fullfilling -and perfectly noble- occupations.
quess someday everybody will be an Artist, which has at least provided us with one reason to not want to live forever.
Saw Angela Davis on a cable show where they interview book people the other day.
girlfriend is still the bomb.
have been aware of and read some of her essays about what she calls "the industrial prison complex" which she discussed.
as well as bringing up the possiblities of other kinds of "democracies" than the American brand, which is now indisdingishable from capitalism.
she still seems to be some kind of a Marxist which is the one area where i differ in opinion with her...(wrote her a letter expressing my concerns about that as a matter of fact.)
she's not the sexy beauty she once was, but even more perceptive and focused.
what impresses me the most tho is her reserve and deference.
she never comes off angry or preachy or more-informed-than-thou.
always paced and even soft at times, yet percise.
she's to the point yet considerate of the other person's feelings and point of view.
an ongoing role model for anyone who has the humility and smartness to see.
she is a real honest-to-god SOUL SISTA.
went way over my usual 7 line limit here so...
wuv,
-bilwee
BURCU'S ANGELS
Bricktops Way Down East, Lillian Gish celebra sparkled. Andrew screened D.W. Griffiths "Intolerance" and the clubgoers were transfixed by it. The images are startling and all the different sepia tones are really striking.
Lots of handsome young men in attendance. Of course the Ditty Bops were exceptional. Those girls just embody the spirit of the club and their "Am I Blue? Theme was perfect.
Our taxi dancer Summer Peaches of Augusta Georgia sure was causing all the straight boys major tent pitching. Her revealing wardrobe had their tongues glued to the floor. A cute boy was celebrating his birthday and i pulled down his pants and took a bite of his globular buttocks cheeks. Well a girl has to get a little something sometime.
Now what are all these blasphemous rumours about me and Billy Jo of Green Day having an affair. I guess the National Enquirer ran a picture of us kissing, but that photo was really very very innocent. Believe me i am not interested in him in the least. He's way too short. Please you internet geeks stop spreading this nonsense. All you have to do is ask me who I'm sleeping with and I'll gladly tell you.
One person who came to Bricktops friday that I'd love to roll around in the proverbial hay with is Benoit Vuitton, the heir to the Vuitton empire. He came with french philosopher icon Bernard-Henri Levy, who started to put the make on pretty designer Shauna Leone who had her Prohibition Boutique set up in the foyer. Both girls and guys were buying her garters and fancy headbands. Between Summer Peaches and Shauna, it was hard for a girl to get a little attention from the men. Writer, nerd Dave Eggers was also going gaga for Shauna, but i think she prefered Dustin Hoffman's DJ son Jake Hoffman who came into the DJ booth asking me about a Tiger Lillies song i played. The Tiger Lillies are coming to LA and will perform at the tired Knitting Factory. Boy do i hate that venue.
Had a sweet discussion with art Historian and professor Robert Summers. He got fired from his teaching job because he showed one of my experimental films to his class. Boy, am i ever controvertial. Robert's handsome boyfriend the art photog Matt Lipps was causing all the girls in the room including some Velvet Hammer dancers to breath pretty heavy. Matt is dream divine. Also Jason El Norte of Mexico City is a major female trap, even the actor Dominick West, wearing hardly anything could take away the ladies attentions.