Bjork

Bjork is out of her friggin mind and that is why I love her. It's so refreshing to see her perform. Her videos compliment her music - they are little art installations.

Chrissy Hynde from the Pretenders put it best when she was speaking about todays female music artists. She stated when she was coming up the ranks music was all about saying FUCK YOU and now all the chicks in the music biz are saying FUCK ME! Think Britney and Jessica Simpson...

Bjork doesn't go there. She's not trying to sell herself. She just creates these incredible soundscapes using strings and horns and then throwing in electronic psycho sounds throughout it all. I think it's awesome!

Enjoy this gorgeous nightmare of a video.....

Alec Baldwin

I'm torn - I really am.

Growing up with no male figures in my life, as mi padre was non exsistant since 1 years of age, I've only been raised by women and have a tendency to lean towards their point of view when it comes to custody. The FACT is 98% of the time it's the women in the child's life that raises and wantingly nurtures them.

But that said, I kinda feel for the guy. I've never worked with him - I've heard the horror stories and he may be a dictator. WHO KNOWS! Maybe this voice message should have been leaked to show this person is a negative influence on the child's life....

The difficulty for me is - Ya know, callin your kid a pig ain't the way to secure your child's love but feeling so angry about them not being available to you - does have some meaning.

I'm not playing the victim card here but I (kind of ) would have rather had my pops yell at me (but not necessarily calling me a pig) for not being available to him as opposed to a pops that had no interest in me whatsoever.

I feel this child is being used and used again. Custody is a gnarly, friggin business and I hope all parties involved can rise above themselves to serve the best interest of the kid.

Again. that said - in every arena (work, relationships, art) it's always so hard to rise above ourselves....but it is a goal...and when others are involved it should be the priority.

Bill Moyers

Last night on PBS Bill Moyers presented his Journal series with an investigation into how the press stopped being the press before the decision to go into Iraq. I'm still dumbfounded by the situation we are in. How in the hell did our leaders shrink so quickly and be seduced so easily by the propaganda unleashed by Cheney his band of Neocon(artists)? Were we all too wrapped up in the fear and chaos caused by 9/11? We elect these men and women because they are to be leaders who will confront the worst of situations with a leveled and disciplined approach. We look to the press to friggin investigate. But all of us just kind of went into a stupified zone and let this all unfold.

I'm sure as hell guilty. I didn't get off my ass and march. Sure, I forwarded some emails about peace to soothe my soul but I did nothing. We as Americans did nothing and now we are viewed around the world as simple minded occupiers.

Now is the time to do something. Get our men and women out of this civil war and take care of them when they return. Some may say this is simplistic and you cannot just walk away. Yes - you can. There comes a time where you have to face up to the facts that the direction you are going in is wrong and turn around and chose another way. That is bravery. It is time for a diplomatic plan, a united diplomatic plan, where possibly we can undo some of the mess we have made in Iraq.

Extras

This snippet from the UK's EXTRAS truly makes me laugh. Ricky Gervais is a testament to the fact that you don't have to jump around and make funny faces to be brilliantly funny. In actor speak - this is a comedian who knows how to play the honesty of a situation and let the humor just happen.

Enjoy!

Virginia Tech

Look ....what happened at Virginia Tech was horrible. It was horrible, horrible and horrible. These students had so much promise and this schizoid, narcissistic muthafucker did the unthinkable but I can't help but think about all the soldiers and civilians in Iraq who had as much promise and we as American are not even allowed to see the coffins return to this country because this administration is afraid of the "repercussions". It makes me sick. They show a picture of each student killed at Virginia Tech to, appropriately so, honor them - but when the former host of Nightline, Tom Koppell, posted the pictures of fallen soldiers the right wing went crazy and branded him a liberal propagandist.

I'm not a great writer so I'll post an article I read in the UK's newspaper The Guardian - they sum it up better than I ever could.....

We need to focus on this week's deaths in Iraq - they belong to us
Any sense of proportion about fear and death has been lost as this age of individualism demands me-me mourning

Polly Toynbee
Friday April 20, 2007

Guardian

It's been a good week for death. In Iraq, 200 people were blown to bits in what witnesses called "a swimming pool of blood" with "pieces of flesh all over the place". Remember that the dead are only part of the story: add to each of the war's hundreds of thousands of civilian corpses all those burned and crippled survivors, far beyond Iraqi medical facilities' ability to cope, breadwinners and babies lost. Few families are untouched by the sheer scale of slaughter.
But it is hard for news media to find new ways to refresh repeat tales of daily carnage. The pictures and the thoughts tell the same dismal story day after day, raising the same terrible questions: what have we done, what have we unleashed, how can it end? This is our war, our fault, our bloodshed for aiding America's reckless and incompetent invasion and for failing to stop civil war. But because news needs to be new, Iraqi deaths struggle to stay on front pages.

Nor does the war find a place in the nation's top concerns: people worry about terror attacks more than the war, this despite the distrust it has engendered that is now driving our three-times prime minister from power. Perhaps the public compassion fatigue is because these deaths are caused mainly by extremist Iraqi sects killing other Iraqis, and many fewer are at the hands of our soldiers. For whatever reason, neither the horror nor the national shame quite comes home to roost. Yet on Wednesday morning more ordinary Iraqis died than all the British troops killed so far.

There is a growing disproportion and incoherence in public attitudes to death, with a curious blend of indifference about deaths that should concern us, prurience about deaths that don't, and a squeamishness and fear verging on denial about mundane dying.

It was a good week for death too on the Virginia Tech campus. Although it was hardly less unpredictable "news" than bombs in Baghdad, there was more press relish for this story. (College kids like ours?) On day one and day two, the BBC's 10 O'Clock News, like the press, gave it vacuous acres of coverage from a flotilla of senior correspondents. But these 32 dead students follow in a cortege of identical tragedies: as soon as we knew this was just another deranged loner, what more was there to think? It happened in Dunblane, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Tasmania and elsewhere, routine school misfit revenges.

The collective insanity of Americans about guns is an oft-reprised wonderment to Europeans. But there is nothing new about the National Rifle Association: even Al Gore in his Inconvenient Truth had to prove he was a regular guy by talking affectionately about his guns. Lionel Shriver made the best point: why encourage copycats by giving these narcissistic fantasists the publicity they kill for? This boy's glory video means his name liveth for evermore - and a good deal longer than the roll call of fallen US soldiers.

Attitudes to death and mourning grow odder the rarer dying young becomes. There is less sense of proportion about the risks of dying, or about the inevitability of death itself, even when people die in old age. The temptation is to regard every death as avoidable, deny any accident is ever accidental, always find someone to blame, and hunt down that doctor in charge. (A third of all NHS maternity cost now is for insurance.) At the same time, the public dare not face up to the reality of the prolonged agony modern medicine imposes on the dying. Until it happens to them or their parents, people fondly imagine morphine or palliative care will always ease the end. That fallacy means many will enter the grave via the torture chamber, for failure to demand the legal right to die at a time of our own choosing.

People no longer know how to approach death and its rituals. Abandoning religion doesn't necessarily mean resorting to reason. With no hereafter, body parts are gaining morbid significance in a strange new fetishism. The story of secret biopsies taken from dead Sellafield workers in the 70s and 80s is interesting and potentially sinister for those who live and work there, since the reports were never published. But defying all sense, the focus of the story for relatives and the media has been on the "shocking" discovery that removal of mostly small slices and some whole organs from corpses means that loved ones buried less than whole bodies. Alistair Darling had to announce an inquiry about missing organs 30 years ago, rather than the alarming "strong circumstantial evidence that plutonium ... found its way into the tissues of the local populace".

This sits oddly with the recent appetite for TV forensics dramas featuring pathologists weighing brains in scales and disgorging stomach contents in close-up. Or Six Feet Under's embalming with guts routinely extracted. All this started with the Alder Hey hospital children. It was easy to see how parents' unbearable despair at losing a child could be displaced into rage over the loss of an organ. But that seems to have set a new national attitude towards the sanctity of innards: it should only be a fetish for odd religious sects where lacking complete organs jeopardises entry to heaven. What of the growing number of people who have their loved one's ashes compressed into diamonds to wear for ever?

Fading cellophane bunches of flowers tied to lamp posts are a drive-slower salutary reminder that the roads kill over 3,000 people a year. The clear and present danger of the car should raise as much or more public fear than panic over very rare UK deaths by terrorism. The anxious taste for daily health scares when we have never been healthier or safer is another necro-neurosis. (HRT kills this week, though last week it was reported to save lives.)

Those harmless temporary floral and teddy bear memento moris draw snobbish criticism. Useful park benches with small plaques of remembrance are good memorials to benefit the living. But another breed of permanent memorial is now sprouting up everywhere, not just some 2,000 permanent plaques by roadsides, but slabs and artefacts scarring the slopes of Ben Nevis and other places the deceased ones loved, imposing private griefs on public places. It will not be clear to many in a few years why 28 British holidaymakers blown up in Bali have a large memorial outside the Foreign Office in a national beauty spot facing St James's Park, constructed of 20ft of Portland stone and a 5ft granite globe. Each was a tragic death, but war memorials remember public servants who died for communal national endeavours: this seems oddly disproportionate.

So does pomp and circumstance with a bishop and City of London potentates this week interring the unknown bones of an ancient Roman teenage girl, with memorial slab. If every accidental death has a "never forget me" memorial in a public place, the country will soon be a necropolis.

The real objection is not aesthetic, or distaste for emotional ostentation. It is about a sense of proportion over fear and death. An age of over-individualism is demanding individual recognition for every painful death, me-me mourning regardless of its collective significance. Near-pornographic fascination with the gory details of a meaningless madman's murders in Virginia was just grisly. This week's deaths in Iraq are the ones we should all be contemplating with due solemnity, because they belong to us.

polly.toynbee@guardian.co.uk

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

Suspiria

Suspiria is one of my favorite movies. It's directed by a freaky Italian dude by the name of Dario Argento. If you are a horror fan I'm sure you know of him. I always describe this flick as operatic horror. Most people who have watched it after my recommendation think I am insane. I love it - it's impressionistic as well as stupidly gory. Plus, the musical score is the best ever!

I don't really know why I've always been drawn to horror. Is it the rush of a rollarcoaster ride? Am I just one of those dark and twisted people who enjoy seeing horrible events unfold in graphic detail? What is it about horror films that draws in audiences and breaks box office bank every weekend?

Listening to David Cronenberg(director of The Fly, Dead Ringers, Scanners-among other creepazoid flicks) on NPR he tried to explain his fascination with those dark places we dare not tread....

He spoke of the inevitability of death and how we are all trying to either ignore or deny it's existence. By directing these horror films in some way he is able to rehearse his demise - control it. Maybe this is why we clamour to the movie theatre to see a crappy flick like Grudge 2? Does it give us some sort of false sense of immortality?

Everyone has a dark side. Wouldn't it be interesting if we could project our evening dreams onto a screen for all to watch? What would they learn about us? What about you learn about the parish priest, the sweet girl who works at the checkout stand or your lover? Much of it would be boring and nonsense but, still, what we would learn about each other?

I know my dream projection would include alot of ocean, Brad Pitt and various food items. HOT!

I don't know. I think this world pressures us to be obedient. Society thrives on repressing. Dress right, smile and do a good day's work.

Horror allows you to wear a hockey mask, sneer and not repress a single thing - regardless of the circumstances...

Now don't worry. I don't plan on committing mass murder dressed in overalls wearing a Captain Kirk mask but I am looking forward to the new Rob Zombie remake of Halloween!

Roxy Gigs

As some of you know we played a few gigs at the Roxy on Sunset about a week and a half ago. I've was able to find an embedded You Tube clip and post it. It was a gig celebrating Perez Hilton's Bday. If you don't know who he is check out his website:

www.perezhilton.com

He's kinda funny, kinda spot on at times and many times just celebrity obsessed and stupid - he and his blue hair is a guilty pleasure.

Anyway, we played a few tunes from Hedwig to a less than full crowd but I'm sure the space filled up when Dita Von Teese and Ultraviolet showed up to perform. I wouldn't really know as I escaped as soon as our last song was finished. It's not the multi level potpourri of celebrity that inhabited the club that made me run but more so the underlings that always seem to follow them around. It's the desperate pretty girl wearing that just too short or just too tight mini dress she bought at Forever 21 in the Glendale Mall. Or it's the fabulous gay man wearing the just too tight little black t-shirt complimented with the new hair frosting he had done at Purple Circle in Los Feliz. And finally it's the desperate frat dude hoping the celebrity trickled down effect will engage and they may feast upon the rejected desperate pretty girl in her now rumpled Forever 21 dress.

I live with desperation on a daily basis so this carnival of LA hotspot mingling is too much for me. Or maybe it's just I suffer from panic disorder thus I can no longer partake in the fun....?

The second gig was a much more all around put together event. You Tube will not allow embedding so I can only post a link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pINJ2xGyPCo

Donovan Leitch (awesome guy and singer) got a bunch of people together to perform Femmes and Phantoms. We played some Hedwig tunes and some songs from this strange 1970's cult movie directed by Brian DePalma and written by Paul Williams (yes - The Rainbow Connection - that Paul Williams). The movie was called Phantom of the Paradise. It was huge in France - and I say that seriously.

Dono and friends are creating a stage version of the movie and I'm sure it will be a huge success and end up on Broadway alongside the complicated new works the likes of Legally Blond, Grease and some jukebox musical based on the work of Styx or ELO.

Broadway musicals.....don't get me started on my love/hate relationship with them.

The Roxy gig was packed and the band rocked. Dave Navarro (also an awesome guy) and Paul Williams (didn't meet him but I'm sure is an awesome guy)got up and performed along side Donovan, Monet Mazur (a Goddess), and Mig Ayesa.

Ok - Mig Ayesa. Yes - that is - Rock Star INXS Mig Ayesa. This bitch can sing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pINJ2xGyPCo

I could only hope to pull off this song wearing a pink wig and stripped spandex. He is so very yummy. It's nice when a hot guy turns out to be as nice as he is talented. Here's a link to his website:

http://www.mig-music.com/

I think he has a CD coming out so buy it.

That's all for now. Happy Easter!

The Devil is a Liar

In the spirit of Easter I would like for all of you to enjoy the inspired, if not abundant, lyrics of our songwriters. I do not post this in any sort of heresy. I plan on going to 11:00 Mass tomorrow and then celebrating the day with my dear friends Shannon and Patty at a soul food (appropriate choice - given the day) restaurant in Eagle Rock.

You mustn't watch the entire video - just the first 2 minutes will suffice or until after the first rockin guitar solo.

I was listening to NPR today and they were asking some sort of expert as to why Easter has come to be filled with colorful eggs and cute pink nosed bunnies. The expert explained in ancient Egypt and other Sumerian-esque cultures the egg would represent fertility and thus spring and thus rebirth. The Egyptians would paint mosaics, and such, upon the eggs to celebrate. Kegger!

The Anglo Saxons has a fertility Goddess named something like Trixie. Ok- not Trixie but a Nordic sounded etheral name - ENYA? So Trixie/Enya would celebrate the coming of Spring and to amuse the children of the Saxon worshipers she would change toads and what nots into bunnies. I meet many toads in LA but I've never been able to change a single one into a bunny. Fuck.

Thus - reeses peanut butter eggs (food of the Gods) and marshmellow peeps represent fertility.

The Savior has risen and Sanjaya remains.

Seriously - God Bless y'all.

A beginning?

It's the evening of April 6th and thus begins the start of some sort of blog. Do I have anything interesting to add to the already crowded ether we call the internet? I have no fuckin idea...

I'll throw out some ideas, some commentary, maybe a review or two and ask the slightly off centered Los Angelinos I call my friends to contribute. Hopefully we'll create a dysfunctional but highly readable blog about life, Los Angeles (if life is to be found here), politics and - i don't know - my latest fetish.

Speaking of fetish - David Soul.

I don't care. Starsky never came close. David beat his wife but still sang in his tenor tones about "Don't Give Up On Us Baby".

Go to Napster and get the single - genius.

He didn't feel the need to fly into Starsky-esque testosterone fueled arguments with Huggy Bear. No - he'd question the perp quietly yet forcefully. And when it came to a car chase - it was all David. Paul Michael paled in comparison.

God Bless DS. I look forward to seeing him on some sort of reality show and/or a CW drama.

Enjoy the blog Mofos....