R.I.P. Don Cornelius (1936-2012)
Don Cornelius checked himself out, it would appear.
See him here — doin’ it to death — with Mary Wilson in the Soul Train line dance.
Repost of a Post Past
Going down the rabbit-hole of Cece’s post. Great rememberies here, following “flockers.”
The Mother Courage of Rock
She was skinny, quick-witted, disarmingly unprofessional, alternating between stand-up patter, bardic intonations, and the hypnotic emotional sway of a chanteuse, and she was sexy in an androgynous way I hadn’t encountered before. The elements cohered convincingly; she seemed both entirely new and somehow long-anticipated. For me at nineteen, the show was an epiphany.
Springtime 1976, I was living in the cinderblock building on the glorified median strip there where they split Highway 13, and one day I went over to this one girl’s apartment, she lived right by the guy who dealt me speed, and she said, “Hey, you know who you remind me of? You remind me of Patti Smith!”
Gave her a possum grin I’m still grinning.
from the comments
I think Paula Deen has Dianetics.
Cooking Up Change
They looked so young, the four college students who sat down and ordered coffee at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., on Feb. 1, 1960.
Legal challenges and demonstrations were cracking the foundations of segregation, but a black person still couldn’t sit down and eat a hamburger or a piece of pie in a store that was all too willing to take his money for a tube of toothpaste.
Those four freshmen at North Carolina A&T College — Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond — sat until the store closed, but they still didn’t get their coffee.
But that day helped spark other sit-in protests — led by young people like themselves — that spread throughout the South in 1960, energizing the civil rights movement. And the Greensboro Woolworth desegregated its lunch counter later that year.
It wasn’t the first time that food, or the lack thereof, figured large in the movement.
Captain Beefheart’s Ten Commandments of Guitar Playing
4. Walk with the devil
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the “devil box.” And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you’re bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
(From WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. Via Brian Beatty.)
from the moderated comments
Hi Christopher Chuckles, nice post.
But please remember there are many out there who will believe all of this.
I write as someone who has worked for over 50 years with all you describe, and more.
That just can’t do that… ‘cept in the movies.
The living have incredible power… the power of life and soul…
Were talking nasty little bity things against your immense power of life and soul…
Be well
Funk songs from Vietnam GIs
If you didn’t get a Christmas present from me, it’s because I’m waiting till the New Year to buy you East of Underground: Hell Below. (Thanks to Valerie for the tip.)
In 1971 the US was pulling troops out of Vietnam, and its bases in Germany were full of draftees at a loose end. “You were painting shovels, picking up cigarette butts – it was a lot of busy-work,” remembers former serviceman Lewis Hitt. “There was a longing by everyone, especially the draftees, to get home and go back to what you were doing before.”
This was the crucible in which were formed scores of raucous funk bands made up of servicemen, four of which have just been compiled by Now-Again Records. Adoring crowd noise was crudely dubbed on top of their records, which were then distributed in recruitment centres. These bands were used by the army to present service as varied, even hip. But the songs they cover – the bitter, suspicious likes of Backstabbers and Smiling Faces Sometimes – undermine any potential propagandising.
12 Indicted On Hate Crimes Charges For Hair Cutting Assaults Led By Break-Off Amish Group
I think this is my favorite story of 2011.
text my mom sent
check out the bear with boobs behind jesus.
30 for Thirty Days, The End.
The last day of my thirty-day project. I don’t claim it as art, just something completed.
I’m Just Askin’…
The cap I bought at Saks in Pittsburgh last weekend. Me? Or home skillet? My good friend KP said it looked like me.
spam name
Quinton Drake.
Something I’m Working On…
I’ll say no more for the moment.
from the moderated comments
Well, Fuck me… your still as stupid as before.
As the Spirit Moveth
A pentecostal minister has provoked the ire of her fellow believers after praying in tongues via her Facebook wall.
(The Dish)
from the spam
I have often wondered whether I can be both an evangelical and a neocalvinist—whether I can reconcile my evangelical priorities to abide in Christ and seek and save the lost with my neocalvinist priorities to claim Christ’s kingship over creation and fill the earth with culture.
The London Riots
Word.
Via Alan Phelan, who wrote: 21.40 Matthew Moore, the Telegraph’s assistant news editor, filmed this extraordinary speech by a fearless West Indian woman in Hackney, East London. Contains obscene language.
spam name
Jubril Lord.
Superhuman Bed Linen
When my friend Melanie was little, she tied a sheet around her neck for a cape and ran wildly around the backyard with her arms outstretched superhero-style, shrieking, “WooOOOooh! WooOOOooh! I’m JEsus! I’m JEsus!”
Her father sat her down and said in his most serious tone, “You should never imitate the Lord.”
Also, by way of an update, this, posted to the Dubuque Freecycle group Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:27 am (PDT):
I have a large blanket with the Incredible Hulk smashing through a wall if anyone is interested
“a deep remorse that you ever doubted him, and a profound appreciation for his contribution to the continued awesomeness of the world”
To prove to you that you love him, Michael Bay knows that he must turn everything up to 11,000 this time around. He has to blaze a pure, bright after-image of his Bay-ness in your mind, so that you walk out of the theater blinking and spitting up lung pieces and knowing what the fuck Michael Bay is all about. Your eyeballs will be twice as bludgeoned. Your adult diaper will be twice as heavily laden! This time, it’ll be in 3D! All of the excesses from the previous two films will be doubly in excess — except for the hip hop Autobots, who are gone.
Postcard from DC…
If you’re yearning for a lady with whom to lunch, you couldn’t make a better choice than to fly to Reagan National, get on the yellow-line south to King St. in Old Town, Alexandria and walk King to the Potomac where sits Chart House. A lovely afternoon. Cece is a delight.
Dinner with Dave at La Tomate last night, a delight, too.
Wish you were here.
XOR
Update:
Read more
Was I Bored?
“No, I wasn’t fuckin’ bored. I’m never bored. That’s the trouble with everybody–you’re all so bored. You’ve had nature explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the living body explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the universe explained to you and you’re bored with it, so now you just want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn’t matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it’s new as long as it’s new as long as it flashes and fuckin’ bleeps in forty fuckin’ different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I’m not fuckin’ bored.”
Nothing meant to nobody round here. Seriously. Just a clip from a favorite film.
quote out of context
For her performance Nobili, who says she uses dance as a form of prayer, lies spread-eagled in front of the altar clutching a crucifix or twists and turns as in pole-dancing routines.
dream name
Austin Derwatt.
