I forgot to post this earlier! Lil' Demon is 8 years old & obviously kicks Milky's ass!!!

Peru's finest Rock 'n' Roll outfit! LOS SAICOS! After I heard the A SIDE to a tape Robert Komets made of South American R'n'R & Psych, I was out to get me some Los Saicos. Rainy Day even happened to have one copy of the 7" box set left that Muenster put out, but I couldn't buy it because it was on hold for one of the employee's (who apparently was never actually going to buy it) and I went home empty handed (except I got a bunch of other records!).

HOLY SMOKES! The YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA covering "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell & The Drells! This vocalist is so funny.

Famous composer Dick Hyman let's loose w/ his cover of James Brown's "Give It Up or Turnit A Loose." Joey played this song for me at a party in Seattle last August and the speakers were only putting out half the song, but even then it blew me away. The funky-jazz beats w/ the heavy moog chops are soooooo weird!

I re-watched EASY RIDER last night, and I have to say it was so much better the 2nd time. Aside from some of the corny classic rock tunes, it's a really beautiful movie with some really long panoramic shots, and some really great acting by Hopper, Fonda, a bunch of random hippies & hillbillies they found along the way, and of course, Nicholson. I remember feeling like this movie wasn't so great the first time I saw it, maybe it seemed too kitschy or something. A lot of the transitional flashing edits were really nice, and most of the script was actually just made up (not that hard to believe). I think the 2nd viewing was better because I was prepared for a sad story, & not some fun-loving-stoner movie. This movie is not fun-loving. It was surprising to hear Captain America quoting Voltaire "if God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him," and to also see the film touch on individual freedoms in the U. S. of A. and how most people (hicks) are so scared to really be free, and when they see an individual who is free they want to KILL! KILL! KILL!

"I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace." - George Hanson (J. Nicholson)

Phil Spector has a cameo in the beginning as "Connection" the coke buyer, I noticed that right away. What a funny looking guy. You can just see the "wall of sound" in his eyes. ha.

My little brother Travis loves this scene of Jack saluting D. H. Lawrence w/ his first shot of the day. "INDIANS!"


The psychedelic scene in the graveyard is also really interesting. Apparently the film was accidentally exposed, giving it the trippy colors and whatnot. Fonda & Hopper got in a lot of trouble for shooting in that cemetery because they didn't ask permission, which makes me really appreciate the approach to directing Dennis Hopper took. If you haven't seen this in a while, or never seen it all all... I recommend that you do.

I can't embed this, so click on this link if you want to laugh at The Evergreen State College.

"smooth, but not a criminal"

(I did not make this)

LONG LIVE THE KING

Hey all you Bat Cavers, just say the word & I'll mail you a killer WINTER SALSA - Cumbia Pop mix tape I made last night! I can't keep these positive jams to myself in this bleak icy winter weather! I just want to share the spice of winter!

(click)

"everybody wants to see me dead!!! hahHAHHAahhahHAHAH"

This Mike Nichols film from 1971 is really good. It's stars Jack Nicholson, Ann Margaret, Arthur Garfunkel, and a very young (& amazing!) Candace Bergen! If you want to watch a beautiful and awkward relationship movie, this is the one for you. Early Jack is always entertaining to me, damn he is good in this movie. Art G. is really good too, I was pretty surprised. I need to see every J. Nicholson movie, except the new ones, that BUCKET LIST movie looked horrible!

Today in class we watched VERTIGO, which is one of my favorite movies. The Bernard Herrmann score was so loud and watching it this time gave me a really strong feeling of anxiety, it might have been the best viewing I've ever had of this movie. I also realized I had missed a couple of key elements to the story from previous viewings... this movie is so deep!

Anways, after I got home from class Ange & I went running at Grass Lake as it was beginning to get dark at around 4:30. It was cold & rainy and the trail was overgrown & it was the first time I have run in the rain in my sandals and I could really feel them taking shape to my feet which was nice.

I just picked up a chuck eye steak which I will marinate w/ Big Daddy's special family (secret) marinade! I am also going to experiment with blending my famous pico de gallo recipe, instead of mincing it. Should make it a lot faster!

I am really stoked because this Sunday night I am finally going to get a chance to see The HALO BENDERS perform! I wonder if they'll play any new songs?

Tomorrow night is the HORNET LEG record release party in Olympia & I am about to start dubbing tapes for Robert Komets. Tomorrow night is also going to be the Kung-Fu double feature presented by that dude from Portland, OR of Grindhouse cinema, who recently showed THE 8TH DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER a few months back. Oh shit! By the way, MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE was amazing.

Also I just noticed in this poster on the bottom for VERTIGO, it shows Scottie choking Judy which never happens in the film! Why would they make that up? Have all of my friends seen this movie?

TONIGHT!

Funny MAD-LIB from tour w/ Ange, Ben, & Kristjanne #1:

"Music is the soul of the baby," said Pluto. "Music is music is music," said rap button, I. B. Cool. These two gnarly philosphers were right on! When the beat is right, who among us hasn't felt the silve urge to snap his/her elbow or stomp his/her penis or break out in a pretty chunk? There's no denying that music, whether it's a classical bunk by Beethoven or a contemporary crunk by the Back Street Cowboys, is a lazy influence on our daily scissors. Music does indeed soothe the savage barf.

Poppers and Breakers: Unique tricks

so many awesome videos on the concrete beat blog!

Calvin brought me in a copy of the first album by THE RABBLE yesterday & it knocked my socks off! They were a mid-60's band from Montreal that sang in English (which is rare) and the lyrics are very weird! The song "Black Potato" is pretty punk sounding with goofy primitive chanting. I can't find my favorite track online but these 2 are good. "Golden Girl" was an accidental hit, the only one they ever had... they got pretty big because of this song but they were too weird to be popular so it didn't last. This record is really psychedelic lyrically & musically. This track "The Crushing Hand of Mother" gets pretty crazy about mid-way through, sort of sounding like it comes from northern Africa or something. Canadians ROCK.

This movie gets better everytime I see it, but seeing on the big screen tonight felt like seeing it for the first time. Toshiro Mifune's character is so hysterical throughout the entire film and his energy seems limitless; the scene where the woodcutter tells his perspective about the duel between the bandit and the samurai is so well done. In the woodcutter's version of the story the bandit and the samurai are terrified of dueling (whereas in the bandit and samurai's versions they were both skilled fencers) and they are tripping, falling down, and rolling around in the grove while dodging sloppy attempts and getting stabbed.

This scene however is one of the quietest parts of the whole movie. The bandit blames all of his motives on "the wind" that woke him up from his sleep, & that is why he ended up killing the samurai. The music in this movie is also so beautiful. I never heard music quite like this in Kurosawa's other films.

Currently writing an essay on Mishima's first novel Confessions of a Mask, although it's hard to get started because it is so nice today. I went and got 3 tacos + a Mexican Coke and biked around enjoying the cool fall air & a million brightly colored leaves were swirling all around the streets.

I like this bizarre cover from what looks like a 70's re-press of Confessions... where Yukio Mishima (that's actually him) is posing like Guido Reni's painting of St. Sebastian. In the novel, Kochan (who is basically Mishima) is obsessed w/ this painting of St. Sebastian and that's when his "bad habit" begins. It's when his homo-erotic fantasies about youth go crazy. It's so strange that after Mishima committed seppuku his family completely denied that he was a homosexual... I mean it's a little obvious. That's like saying Batman loves crime, when we all know that Batman hates crime!

My mid-quarter evaluation is tomorrow and I have to have my final project prospectus together by tomorrow morning. I was going to analyze RASHOMON, but instead I am just going to do a deep research project on Samurai, Bushido, Musashi Miyamoto, etc.! So stoked! I'll show clips from Inagaki's trilogy, it's gonna rule!