Here is a dj set-list from the other night–R.I.P. Gil Scott Heron
tick toc tick toc–anytime soon, Rapture.
well it hasn’t happened yet and it looks to be a glorious sunny day just starting afresh, i’d venture a guess and say the rapture thing aint happening today or anytime soon. I knew Camping was wrong in his prediction because well because he’s retarded basically –it’s clear to see. Wonder if he’ll hold a press conference on sunday after not being sucked into heavens with the true non sinners and the most un-christian-like christians the world has ever seen, its a nice thought, them disappearing but i’d prefer it be the work of a massive mudslide or a special Christian only pandemic…theres a thought…what if they got their own disease spread only within their faith, besides stupidity and hypocrisy and the whole “Higher power” zombie sheep-tard mindless surrender thing. Christians dying at alarming rates all over the world–its a thought. But they would just say its The Rapture, only slightly modified. I bet the Govt. would worry a lot more than they did thirty years ago when gays started dying. Oddly enough Christians are very important to the political infrastructure of this nation. Boy we’d be like without an early Rapture warning system completely….dark days. At any rate, I think this opportunity best be used for merriment and sexual escapades, thats all i wanted to say.
Is The Eagle Tavern still closing? Not tonight it isn’t.
At this point nobody really knows exactly what is going on or has changed in the situation facing the eagle tavern and its looming closure but there has been an indication that negotiations may have taken a turn for the better. People involved are not able to disclose anything yet but theres a glimmer of hope it seems and i can’t say and honestly don’t know any more than that. It is really just too devastating for words to think about a San Francisco without the eagle tavern and the reasons are many. For me personally what I will miss the most about the eagle if it goes away is the legendary live music nights that have been going on steadily for over 12 years on every thursday night. Booked by Doug Hilsinger, these nights have presented some of the most amazing local and touring bands and created a friendly and welcoming scene of people who value and appreciate the laidback and comfortable and hip place to see bands it has become. And the totally mind-blowingly insane place it can be when a good line-up of bands totally tears it up on stage, and that is often. I wish I knew that some miraculous deal has been made and the eagle would continue on but at this time i don’t.
what i can say is this tuesday a special show was booked (considering the possible closure) to allow some of our favorite bands who play the eagle frequently to have one last kick ass show. So drag yourself out on a school night and celebrate the live music and all it has come to mean to so many people at the eagle with Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Carletta Sue Kay, and The Sandwitches. Show starts at 9 pm and each band on the bill is great. It is also a benefit to help save KUSF another endangered institution of the rocking nature. I hope beyond hope that something has been worked out and that the eagle remains as it has for 30 years, a great community hub with its welcoming doors open to everyone. This is a definitive line-up for witnessing how the eagle does it right. I just hope it’s not the last. long live the eagle.
look at this!
[funnyordie id=0b68157864 width=512 height=328]
Justin Vivian Bond’s–Dendrophile: Celebrated Cabaret Performer Returns to SF with first solo CD
Justin Bond, singer songwriter and performance artist, now named Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, and “V” instead of he/she or him/her is returning to San Francisco April 9 to the Castro Theater to celebrate the release of Dendrophile, V’s first full length solo album. The past couple of years have been a whirlwind of new creative endeavors, international touring, varied theatrical productions and many live performances mostly at Joe’s Pub in New York. These continually sold out shows earned a seemingly endless array of positive reviews, most notably in The New Yorker who named Bond “the greatest cabaret performer of his generation.” Dendrophile showcases many of Bond’s original songs, written while straddling a moss-covered log fallen across a ravine in the Tennessee mountains, hence the title, which refers to a person who loves trees or gets an erotic charge from nature. In a recent feature from Next Magazine, Bond eloquently added some insight to the title explaining, “I feel like for people like me, the hardest thing that we have to learn to do in our lives is to honor our own nature, because when I was raised I was taught to fight my own nature, and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I was able to accept and honor and love my own nature, and Dendrophile is about loving people who honor that.” Always revolutionary, ever glamorous and in a world where the truth can be dangerous, Justin Vivian Bond wields it fearlessly as always, but with grace, beauty and aplomb. Dendrophile is testament of an evolving, uncompromised and heroic talent.
The record opens with “American Wedding” lyrics by the late activist and poet Essex Hemphill put to music and sung as an invocation. In some ways this is my favorite song on the album because it is pure Justin through and through. It hits the ground running with the topic that’s on everyone’s mind these days, Gay Marriage, yet the imagery is far from the average ideal. This American Wedding isn’t the assimilation of the heterosexual institution that has proven itself a failure. These words describe a union that is free from the confines of a society unaccepting and intolerant. This wedding is taken, not granted and its revolutionary. The abstract jazz stylings and vocalizations conjure Nina Simone, and ages of heart-wrenching protest songs. Not bad for the first cut and for clocking in at just over two minutes. This is moving beyond belief and it is also the first video from the record which you can view below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X14a3G0SuLs&fs=1&hl=en_US]
The next cut is a gem that many of us have waited a long time to have a copy of on any CD. Written by the legendary San Francisco transsexual Bambi Lake, “The Golden Age Of Hustlers” has long been a staple in all of Bond’s performances and is one of V’s favorite songs to sing. Theres no wonder why this is true. It evokes a period of time that is long gone and is rendered so beautifully in the words of an individual who was there. It’s a magnificent song and it’s finally honored properly with this loving rendition.
“Equipoise” is an interesting transgender coming of age song apparently inspired by a YouTube video of an elephant painting self portraits with it’s tail for money, a creature forced to do something against it’s nature and it all comes together sounding very much like a folk-y anthem with the instrumentation being banjo prominent, a definite ode to the Tennessee mountains where Bond spends time at the Faerie retreat. The banjo struck me as an odd presence at first but the more i listened the more sense it made and the more this song carried me away, conjuring Woody Guthrie and Dolly Parton and building on an already strengthening theme of honoring ones true self.
“The New Economy” is a hard hitting song, and i believe one of the first Bond wrote. It’s about the crumbling of the worlds economy and it’s got a dark foreboding jazzy feel and again the presence of a banjo which makes for an odd juxtaposition next to an occasional screeching saxophone, like a bluegrass/jazz fusion if you will and again i’m very impressed. This music is going places, even uncharted territory.
“Salome” is a song from Bond’s recent theatrical production Re: Galli Blonde, a work inspired by The Order of Galli, a group of gender variant priests and priestesses from ancient times. This is one of Bond’s most beautiful and sensitive vocal deliveries on the album, though the rendition/mash-up of “Superstar/Diamonds and Rust” is also pretty magnificent. You can really tell these songs are very meaningful to Bond, important to V’s own inspiration and respectfully lovingly rendered.
Two songs on the album keep haunting me or urging me to play them again and again and I love them more each time and they are “The Genet Song” with its smooth lilt reminiscent of Van Morrisson’s “Moon Dance” only it dances around more eventful things than just a pretty night full of stars and lyrically has some of the best imagery and clever wordplay on the record. The other song is “Crowley ala Lee” which imagines a meeting between Aleister Crowley and Peggy Lee and bears a smooth jazzy similarity to it’s namesake.
“Twenty Second Century” is an intense political rant and it is powerful and emotional, recounting events of the past few decades and supposed events of the future and Bond really cuts loose on this one, exploring some extreme or non-traditional vocal techniques, where emotion actually over-rides technique and I have a very distinct feeling that this one will bring the house to its feet unanimously when performed live. It gives me chills and even tears when i listen to it.
Also included is “In The End” from the film Shortbus by John Cameron Mitchell and a somber and beautiful version of Joni Mitchell’s “Court and Spark,” not exactly an easy song choice to cover.
Overall, Dendrophile is an impressive work that adequately captures a unique artist in a way that one could only hope possible. It conveys the scope and magic of an unforgettable uncompromised and unstoppable performer who has hit their stride and shows no sign of slowing down. From here anything can happen, and will. Go to The Castro Theater April 9th and you will see what I mean.
it gets worse
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfqO7zmd0oA&w=420&h=315]
Larry Clark–astonishing photographer
I’ve been a fan of photographer Larry Clark for a long time. His book Tulsa, which many of these photos are from is a haunting and beautiful look into a world most people wouldn’t believe existed. The images are shocking and austere and real and magnificent, telling a story we probably shouldn’t be seeing and are never likely to forget. Clark has continued his vision into film making with several features to his credit like Kids, Bully, Ken Park, and more. I’d really like to see an exhibit of his work at the MOMA here in SF–it’s high time for a comprehensive collection of his photography to be seen by all. Buy his books–look on Ebay–seek out this artist.
Tura Satana R.I.P.
It’s a sad sad day today. We’ve lost a true star, a dangerously tough vixen, a Hollywood bombshell who broke every mold and did things her way. Tura’s indelible mark on all of modern cinema was huge and legendary well before her demise. Immortal…as always.
I fucking love television…or, um downloading everything i want to see from all the premium cable networks and watching when i want for free!
super hot sherrif from the walking dead 
Is that so wrong? i don’t think so. i’ve been doing it for multiple seasons of truly fantastic shows like Dexter, True Blood, Nurse Jackie, United states of Tara, Weeds, The Big C, Spartacus: Blood in the Sand, Big Love, Breaking Bad, Rome, The Walking Dead and more. I generally get to view episodes on the same night that they air, just a little later because i keep on my downloading toes and find the torrent files I crave and just download away. I get way addicted and fanatic when I’m in mid season throes of one of these exciting premium channel series. I can easily say I’ve never enjoyed viewing television more, yet my television set is rarely turned on except to view part of my collection of hard-to-find or vintage art films on VHS. It’s all happening on the computer. Yeah, I’m still excited about this technology though it is kind of old hat. They told us years ago that the computer, television and telephones would indeed merge into each other in the future and they have as far as my home entertainment center is concerned, not to mention all those people with i-phones i see watching porn on MUNI or holding their phones up to speakers for positive song identification. I’m amazed by all this “magic”, but I also know that in the area of bit torrent downloading I’m not the leading tech-retardo because I tell lots of people how to do it and it’s big news to them. It thrills me to no end that I can also access the oh-so-rich and bountiful history of television with this new technology. That’s right, I can download every episode of The Bionic Woman if i want. I can marvel at the advanced social consciousness of The Big Valley the western themed dramatic series about the Barkley family from Stockton, led by matriarch Victoria Barkley as played by Barbara Stanwyck who did all her own stunts, would kill a man at the drop of a wide brimmed hat to protect her clan, and would be elegant for formal dinner, attended by servants of all ethnic persuasions whom she treated well, as if they too were family. Guest stars of major caliber would all end up on The Big Valley, Karen Black, Ellen Burstyn, Charles Bronson, Davey Jones from The Monkees, Claudine Longet, Anne Baxter, John Carradine, Lou Rawls, Coleen Dewhurst, Bruce Dern, Katherine Ross, Milton Berle, Cloris Leachman, Julie London, Susan Strasberg, Dennis Hopper, Adam West, Lee Grant, William Shatner, Ron Howard, just to name a few. I was really drawn to reruns of this show because The Barkleys were a family of the old west but their politics were extremely progressive. They looked out for their Chinese servants, especially when one was constantly attacked for inter-racial marriage by the towns people. Even after Victoria had been held prisoner by a mad Chinese man in his fortress and tortured with multi-colored light wheels and Chinese water torture just a year or so before, she still fought for her servants. Her oldest son Jarrod was an attorney and in one episode he defended some wrongfully accused anarchist Basque Settlers who were being framed by bad local villains. His associate said, “Jarrod, you cant defend them in a court of law. They’re Anarchist Basque Settlers, they are for the violent overthrow of government.” But he did–and cleared them of all accused crimes. Another of her sons was Heath, played by Lee Majors (the Six Million Dollar Man). Heath was an interloper, claimed to be the lost son of the deceased John Barkley by another woman, not Victoria. He had to constantly prove his loyalty as a Barkley, and did. He was definitely the hottest Barkley, so hot in fact Audra Barkley (Linda Evans) Victoria’s only daughter tried to seduce him to expose him as a fraud, or not-a-Barkley. This series has always fascinated me but i really didn’t plan on blogging about the Barkleys, though i could
My original idea to expound on in this post was Chelsea Handler of my favorite late night talk show Chelsea Lately, which i download every day
I’ve been hooked on Chelsea Lately for well over a year now and its hard to pinpoint the main reason for this because the show serves up so damn many reasons each time i catch it. One big reason is she’s fucking filthy! She swears constantly, she endlessly talks about sleazy sex stuff based on printed media about celebrities or about herself, her family and her rotating trio of comedians from her round table, a brilliant talk show format–four very funny people tossing up comments on current topics or breaking news on celebrity hot messes, rehabs, sarah palin, dancing with the stars, etc. Her ribald, no-bullshit commentary is hilarious and pretty shocking most any night. Her unapologetic and honest enthusiasm for drinking vodka, smoking pot and jumping Fifty Cents bones or lots of peoples bones is refreshing. I started watching her first few shows of the year and it really seems to me that she has resolved to become even filthier in the new year. Its almost as if she’s trying to get in trouble with the E network or something. She somehow manages to get away with more racist comments and jokes than I can believe, likely by way of self-deprecation or at the expense of her rotating round table participants who are all very good sports as she makes fun of their penis size based on ethnicity, jokes about her mexican midget sidekick chuy being an illegal alien, jokes about being a white girl who likes rappers a bit too much, reveals which rountable member she would like to fuck with a strap-on, suggests that Susan Boyle is in definite need of penetration, and insists repeatedly that one of her roundtable comedians is gay when he’s not. It’s really a laugh a minute and i’m totally hooked on her show.
Another show that I’ve become completely enamored with and have downloaded and viewed all seven seasons and just started finding episodes for their 8th season which started airing this week in Britain is the celebrated long-running series Shameless, not to be confused with the American version of the series which just started to air this week on Showtime and is also called Shameless. Now I dont want to diss this new American television drama based entirely on the British original but after becoming a loyal fan of the original which renewed for its 8th and longest season yet with 24 episodes, I’m on the Shameless-UK team. I recommend that everyone download the original series, a season at a time and watch it if you want to see a program not quite like any other. Once you get into the groove of it you will disbelieve that anyone would want to try to recreate it for American television because it is so completely and uniquely British with so many subtle cultural touchstones and plot constructs you couldn’t p0ssibly imagine how it could be re-interpreted for an American audience. It’s about a family, the Gallaghers, living in the fictional Chatsworth council estate. The cast of characters are six Gallagher children ranging in age from 19 to 3, their drunk and unemployable ne’er do well father Frank, some wonderful neighbors and an array of incidental and unusual others who weave in and out of one of the most rollicking and crazed and criminal plot lines to ever air on television. I don’t recall exactly where or how i heard about it but from the first episode I saw I was hooked. It’s shocking, funny, touching, exciting and truly has a lot of heart. It shows that even the most morally bankrupt, dysfunctional and unusual of family structures that crops up in modern society, there can still exist a nurturing loving and magical group of characters with a broad spectrum of loyalty and dependability accepted unconditionally. The long running series has won numerous BAFTA (British Academy Of Film and Television Arts) awards. When i first started watching I quickly bonded with the incredible array of characters, probably more so than with any other television series and I’m thrilled that their new season boasts a record number of episodes. Thats a lot of quality viewing to look forward to and they aired an episode per day starting on January 10th for a week. I really suggest ordering the entire series on netflix or download them starting at the beginning because its the best thing i’ve ever seen on television.