tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-110701822024-03-14T09:33:23.385-07:00The Chronicles of RidiculeI've crossed the parking lot of mediocrity, walked through the lobby of the absurd and entered the theater of the ridiculous...While I've vowed to keep my politics personal, sometimes I just can't help myself so I'll post linkage to check -- should you choose to see how far the rabbit hole goes...Remember: get into the living of this life, get involved and don't forget to write it all down somewhere. Bob's your uncle...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.comBlogger267125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-28182670441397868192007-10-02T10:17:00.000-07:002007-10-02T11:30:34.033-07:00So, Will Los Angeles Black Out on October 20th...or Watt?<p><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lPvv8pU68K8" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed></p><p></p><p></p><br /><br /><br />...that's a clip from one of my favorite films, Phillip Glass' called "Koyaanisqatsi" (slathered with the Strokes' "Reptilia")...the flick holds a message that goes with the thrust of what I'm about to say...I don't know if you've heard about this but it appears that the powers that are in my fair city are taking a proactive stab at conserving energy...but it might be a day late and a dollar short...<br /><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#33ffff;">"Led by Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke and City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, the proposed effort asks Angelenos to simultaneously go dark between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20, as San Franciscans do the same. Local officials are expected to vote on the plan next week.<br /><br />At the original event in Sydney, Australia, in March, 2.2 million people cut the lights, causing a 10% drop in electricity use. The so-called Earth Hour reduced 25 tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking nearly 49,000 cars off the road for 60 minutes...<br /><br /><br />Although officials still are finalizing which public buildings will join in the voluntary blackout, possible candidates include City Hall, the county Hall of Administration, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, DWP headquarters, the Port of Los Angeles and the multicolored pylons at Los Angeles International Airport.<br /><br />"I think it will have a big visual impact," Katona said."</span></em> (<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lightsout29sep29,1,6625059.story?ctrack=1&cset=true"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">here's the rest in the LA Times</span></em></strong></a>)<br /><br /><br />...okay, I'll bite, I said to myself when I heard this on talk radio earlier...I'll do my part but I wonder if those millions of single-serve commuters will step up to the plate for 60 minutes to see if they can make a difference...I'm skeptical as it'll take place during Prime Time on a Saturday...and if there's one thing that Angelenos can't deal with, it's an inconvenience to their party plans and intra-city travel habits...they didn't back in 2000 and I don't think even the spike in fuel prices will make 'em curb their power-sponging ways...<a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2007/09/heatwaves-wrath-squeezin-my-mind-grapes.html"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">and I said as much during that last heatwave.</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;"><br /></span></em></strong><br />...I bike around this town all the time and take notice of all the wasting of natural resources, primarily water, that goes into making what's essentially a desert by the sea look like some side street art-deco utopia...well at least in the parts where the the "ghetto birds" don't fly too often...don't get me wrong, I hope the proposal gets pushed through and everyone chips in, but I'm familiar enough enough with my fellow citizens and how a lot of them would rather sweep the whole conservation thing under the rug...until it gets unbearable and we get what we got in 2000...when I ride the commuter bus and trains in the morning, it's rare that I see car poolers...even now...so pardon me if the tongue in my cheek hinders my speech...<br /><br /><br />...ah well, a positive anything beats a negative nothing...I'm no Ed Begley, Jr but I'll give it a whirl just the same even if the proposal doesn't get approved because it's high time for us all to think about alternatives...on many fronts..."ain't nobody gonna shite, shave or bathe until some changes are made!" as my granny used to say when she got fed up with feckless proles, talkin' loud and saying nothing...it all reminds me of a piece I wrote a while back which I closed like so: "... The word "Koyaanisqatsi" is a Hopi Indian noun for "life out of balance; crazy life; life in turmoil; life disintegrating; a state of life that calls for another way of living"...<a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2005/06/koyaanisqatsi-your-future-begins-day.html"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">I still stand by that line of thought</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;"> </span></em></strong>... if you live in the area, why don't you do your part on October 20th, yo?...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-92047839892282017402007-10-01T10:54:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:40.451-08:00Check It: "Ich Bin Nackt"...mit Stereo Total<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH1m9jmN_iGKR80mvkLKqTyddE-euR-vthz74FrbMs-i_8qKwzoVXIKDnmaHe1pUjk0Bwti8xyEwvCTUbBtJbUOJLxbyWQz8GL0rWedHPk5QhAFO0-gsyWRKGqLlrwjEixmGmiKg/s1600-h/stereo+total+car.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5116428594531904770" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="327" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH1m9jmN_iGKR80mvkLKqTyddE-euR-vthz74FrbMs-i_8qKwzoVXIKDnmaHe1pUjk0Bwti8xyEwvCTUbBtJbUOJLxbyWQz8GL0rWedHPk5QhAFO0-gsyWRKGqLlrwjEixmGmiKg/s400/stereo+total+car.jpg" width="321" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">...a few things for those who read me on the regs: if you've been doing so lately, you'd know that my MacBook's been on the fritz and I took it in to the AppleStore where it is now being turned B.A.D.,"bigger and deffer", as LL Cool J woulda put it back in the day...I've grown so used to that thing that it's been kind of weird sliding back into my old rhythms, like going to the magazine stand down the street and copping that week's New Yorker and actually sitting down to read it cover to cover with a couple of ciggies and double espressos...for years that was a part of my Saturday regiment and it was refreshing to return to this weekend...</span></em><br /><br /><br />...another thing about me you might've picked up is that I loves my music and you'd be hard pressed to catch me anywhere without tunage in some configuration on my person...but there's just so much of it out there...and doing what I do, I get turned on to so much chaff that it's hard to keep up with the stuff that rises...so, I don't get in a twist when I get told where the bear shites in the buckwheat, if something's good. Case in point, this last Saturday, I wanted to check out the second season of Weeds (as you know, I do my TV shows by seasons in one sitting)...but realized that the copies that were brought to me from Europe were configured for a program that I had on my Mac...which is in the shop...so I said fuggit, called over to Penny Lane and shot down to the video store to rent 'em...while searching for the discs on the shelving, I hear in between tunes on my headphones (I'm still blasting Greg Sage & Wipers Is This Real? Box-- again, if you check me, are <a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/88646"><em><strong>another band to seek out nice 'n quick-like</strong></em></a>...I'm not too proud to say that a girlfriend hipped me to 'em...there's a grip of good sound out there that gets drowned out by the white noise of mediocre scheiße that the suits try to soft sell/shovel into the collective earholes of the record-buying public like we're being fattened up for foi gras...but there's more than one way to cook a goose...<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdbf1VZTS8RjSMrJ4LPuwui6W30tr_tLVPl6dfkaO7IuAn1QkevoVnoURywtUEZF3vUbR2jOnkC50ciZogby84kixDnPNjhJSBJw6uLkzw6-HHZXgTCsSb7VDHsRfwP_3RJw-Nkg/s1600-h/stereo+total+do+the+bambi.jpg"><em><span style="color:#ff0000;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5116428598826872082" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdbf1VZTS8RjSMrJ4LPuwui6W30tr_tLVPl6dfkaO7IuAn1QkevoVnoURywtUEZF3vUbR2jOnkC50ciZogby84kixDnPNjhJSBJw6uLkzw6-HHZXgTCsSb7VDHsRfwP_3RJw-Nkg/s400/stereo+total+do+the+bambi.jpg" border="0" /></span></em></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI5-WvcySXxmqiWEp_Ge9yTNJDlGoH0zBTdgYuBiy_-xfyAJCKUfs_d8IJGmvePC3jo5Oaq6pIVx5fNv7oeZw59nhNHxXaJIAyIoOgMuSZpoT-eWW_k_pvUREolmvE9gRmlJ2dOQ/s1600-h/stereo+total+paris+berlin+cover.jpg"></a><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KkviZFys2HU" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed><br />...I'm one of that hard-headed lot who has a habit of absorbing his data and thinks for himself, son...so it took a few seconds for my ears to perk up when I heard this cut from Stereo Total blaring out of the speakers and ask the horn-rimmed, tatted up art-schooler behind the counter for some 411 and he hips me...I turn him onto a new wave group from Deutschland I thought he'd like called Ideal...a tune called, ironically, <a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/96323"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">Berlin</span></em></strong></a> which he did vibe on, so a little barting-of-beats took place...<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI5-WvcySXxmqiWEp_Ge9yTNJDlGoH0zBTdgYuBiy_-xfyAJCKUfs_d8IJGmvePC3jo5Oaq6pIVx5fNv7oeZw59nhNHxXaJIAyIoOgMuSZpoT-eWW_k_pvUREolmvE9gRmlJ2dOQ/s1600-h/stereo+total+paris+berlin+cover.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5116430286749019458" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI5-WvcySXxmqiWEp_Ge9yTNJDlGoH0zBTdgYuBiy_-xfyAJCKUfs_d8IJGmvePC3jo5Oaq6pIVx5fNv7oeZw59nhNHxXaJIAyIoOgMuSZpoT-eWW_k_pvUREolmvE9gRmlJ2dOQ/s400/stereo+total+paris+berlin+cover.jpg" border="0" /></a> ...when I got home, I continued to strayed away from the "Off the grid" game plan for a bit and did a little research (because I gotta know once my curiosity's piqued) and found out a little more about Stereo Total...turns out that the group's based in Berlin, a city I tend to visit in the next couple of months, and are comprised of members from all over Europe among them, vocalist/guitarist/drummer Françoise Cactus from France and vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Brezel Göring who's from Germany...their debut set, Oh Ah! dropped a-decade-and-change ago, picking up where groups like Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and The Sea and Cake had gone before...which is a good thing...so, I keep digging around and although I see the album and tour with the Octopus Project mentioned in a music eZine with a penchant for grandiloquent exposition of musical minutia, I moved on and find a few cuts of theirs on MOG where apparently <a href="http://mog.com/music/Stereo_Total"><em><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">people have been blabbin' about the group since April</span></strong></em></a> of this year...you can't catch 'em all, boyo so let's not stand on ceremony with the "you read it here first" bit-- here's a video for Ich Bin Der Stricherjunge...the slice that caught my attention whilst looking for my flicks...I'd heard it before but didn't know where at the time...<br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DJdQxLLcfZ8" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed><br /><br /><br />...clearly, I'm sold on Stereo Total and will submit that this is definitely an electro-pop band worth checking out...the dude at the counter told me that I'd just missed a show of theirs in LA by about a month...(which I saw in the aformentioned eZine)...based on his description of how the band members played and built a rapport with the audience on the stage-- he told me that they hung out with the audience before blowing shit up on stage, smoking fags and kickin'it...it let me know that if they've been at it this long and they're still doing that sort of shite, they're lifers or will be around for a minute or two more, at least...they've got something to say that's worth saying and they're doing it the old fashioned way...<br /><br />...if you like early LPs from Stereolab, or that Daft Punk drift, this group won't do you wrong...these fuckers have the sack-and-temerity to take a stab at a Serge Gainsbourg cut...and nail its ass to the floorboards...they get propers from over here...as stated above, my MacBook's tucked up and I'm not writing this piece on my PC but these YouTubes are proper..."ooh, shocking"...check their video for Ich Bin Nackt (I Am Naked) from their Do the Bambi LP (cover above)...<br /><br />...I love an enemble that doesn't take itself too seriously but can actually play their fucking instruments, make their ideas felt, get shit done-- and still aren't afraid to experiment which stokes the flames of the jazz-lover in me too-- I likes it all, son...you can get a free download of "Patty Hearst" from the band's label Disko B <a href="http://www.diskob.com/c/stereototal/stream/stream.html"><em><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">for free right here</span></strong></em></a> on one of the label's landing pages; which I think is uber-cool of 'em...blowin' shite up...gettin' things done...righteous, son...here's another vid from the new album called "Plastic"...kinda Ramones...kinda Bomb the Twist...kinda "Orgiastic"...kinda nice...find this band, if you haven't already...<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CRD9fR17SMk" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-94386274200314032007-09-27T09:54:00.000-07:002007-09-27T10:43:30.672-07:00Monkey Man...Thy Name is Lieberman...<a href="http://www.fightingdemocrat.com/mt/images/bush-joe-kiss.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 288px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 234px" height="280" alt="" src="http://www.fightingdemocrat.com/mt/images/bush-joe-kiss.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.afterimagegallery.com/nyttwain.jpg"></a><br /><br /><div><br /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><div><em><strong></strong></em></div><div><em><strong></strong></em></div><div><em><strong></strong></em></div><div><em><strong>...this piece was written earlier in the morning...take your time, follow all the linkage and see where the rabbit hole goes...</strong></em></div><br /><div>...man, I'm getting tired of waking up mornings with my skin leaking...I should stop sleeping with talk radio on but that shite's like crack...I bolted up out of REM sleep this morning while subconsciously absorbing <a href="http://www.billpressshow.com/"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">the Bill Press Show</span></em></strong></a> when I heard about the Senate's overwhelming support of separating Iraq into three regions...why do I care, you ask?</div><br /><div>...ever since Joe Lieberman (pictured above in a pic that looks like he's about to swap spit with the POTUS) <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2865.html"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">dropped the "Going Independent-bomb" back i</span></a><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2865.html"><span style="color:#ff0000;">n February,</span></em></strong></a><span style="color:#ff0000;"> </span>because of the DNC's stance on sending another 21,500 troops into the combat, he's turned into a sabre-rattling arse; began acting like a hand puppet/ mouthpiece for the GOP...something along the lines of Willie Tyler and Lester or, better still, Wayland Flowers and Madame (pictured below with some of the dancers who used to appear with them on those old episodes of solid Gold back in the day)... </div><div><br /></div><div></div><a href="http://www.x-entertainment.com/stuff/l2.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 264px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 229px" height="266" alt="" src="http://www.x-entertainment.com/stuff/l2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><div>...I get a little dispeptic every time I see/ hear him deliver one of those tight-lipped, terse-mandibled "Joe-mentum", stay the course speeches cheerleading towards the right on why it would behoove us to keep shoveling our dough down that Mesopotamian money-hole...he too had a role in last nights terror-sweat and according to the verbiage I found in the LA Times...</div><br /><div><br /><em>"The White House reacted tersely, noting that the measure conditions the policy change on the agreement of Iraqis. "The amendment recognizes that Iraqis will be the ones that make decisions about their political future," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement. 'It also reiterates the importance of bottom-up reconciliation.'In the Senate, Biden's proposal has attracted far more Republican support than any previous Democratic plan, but it will have no practical effect unless it pressures the president or Iraqis to change course. Senate Democrats last week failed three times to overcome GOP filibusters of measures designed to more forcefully change the course of U.S. policy in Iraq, including two that would have mandated a withdrawal."</em> <span style="color:#ff0000;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color:#ff0000;">...<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-warvote27sep27,1,6004408.story?ctrack=1&cset=true">...<strong>read the rest here</a></strong></span></div><div><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;"></span></strong> </div><div><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;"></span></strong> </div><div><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;"></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;"></span></strong></div><div><span style="color:#ff0000;"></span></div><div><span style="color:#ff0000;"><a href="http://englischbine.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/twain.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 211px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 264px" height="478" alt="" src="http://englischbine.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/twain.jpg" border="0" /></a></div></span><div><br /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><p>...I still try to retain a modicum of optimism, though, while ignorning what sometimes seems to hang over my shoulders like a cloud of impending doom and gloom...a little hope, if you like..especially when I read news stories that begin like this:</p><p><br /><em>"An Oregon judge on Wednesday ruled that two provisions of the Patriot Act violated the U.S. Constitution's protection against unlawful searches and seizures."</em> ...<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2628372820070927"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">continued on Reuters</span></em></strong></a>...now that's a little good news, ain't it?</p><p></p><p> </p><p>...maybe the worm will turn and more of us will get the proverbial zap on their heads before the culmination of the 2008 election cycle...but, as I've said before in one of many of <a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2005/03/npr-air-america-damn-you-both-to-hell.html"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">my self-styled Letters to Americans</span></em></strong></a>... I won't hold my breath, either...</p>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-53873971734309680902007-09-26T11:27:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:40.587-08:00What Would JFK Have to Say...?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwd7EF5aCpK4njC4wl3ZzNiWimyJ4SkkjovYp4Qj72nA-JKq9IOu_59ViYuBNuLWxb4lT78b4pxZQUi8Hm0N4lfQngf-WwojNLtiartwK9Th7ykE9g1hMvGj7AIYS9PeEeU0WbWQ/s1600-h/JFK+29.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114581513781488834" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwd7EF5aCpK4njC4wl3ZzNiWimyJ4SkkjovYp4Qj72nA-JKq9IOu_59ViYuBNuLWxb4lT78b4pxZQUi8Hm0N4lfQngf-WwojNLtiartwK9Th7ykE9g1hMvGj7AIYS9PeEeU0WbWQ/s400/JFK+29.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>...I've ranted on here before about my views on how the American public does itself a disservice when they don't demand better from their media outlets but lately it's become plainer to see that <a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2005/08/dave-chapelle-vs-gore-vidal-crying.html"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">that is not a one way street</span></em></strong></a> that the American braintrust travels on...I posted a link to this for one of my readers elsewhere...I'll admit that the images can get a little ham-handed but I was shooting for the President's vox for this post...too, I thought I'd slap it on here because, to be honest, I think these words from JFK bear repeating...especially in lieu of what's been taking place on the world stage for the last couple days...press play and read along...</div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/j3oONf0hcEM" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed><br /><br /><br />JFK speech 1961<br /><br /><br />"Ladies and gentlemen,<br /><br />the very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society. And we are, as a people, inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago, that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts, far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.<br /><br />Even today there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating it's arbitrary restrictions. Even today there is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.<br />And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand it's meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.<br /><br />That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it's in my control and no official of my administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle descent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.<br /><br />For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding it's sphere of influence on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly-nit, highly-efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. It's preparations are concealed, not published. It's mistakes are buried, not headlined. It's descent is silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.<br /><br />No president should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding, and from that understanding comes support or opposition, and both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support an administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people, for I have complete confidence - <applause>- in the response and dedication of our citizens, whenever they are fully informed.<br /><br />I could not only stifle controversy among your readers, I welcome it. This administration intends to be candor about it's errors, for as a wise man once said: 'An error doesn't become a mistake, until you refuse to correct it'. We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors and we would expect you to point them out when we miss them. Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the first amendment. The only business in America specifically protected by the constitution. Not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply give the public what it wants, but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crisis and our choices, to lead, mold, educate, and sometimes even anger public opinion.<br /><br />This means great coverage and analysis of international news, for it is no longer far away and foreign, but close-at-hand and local. It means greater attention to improve understanding of the news as well as improved transmission and it means finally that government, at all levels, must meet it's obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside to narrowest limits of national security.<br /><br />And so it is to the printing press, to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscious, the carrier of his news that we look for strength and assistance.<br /><br />Confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent."<br /><br />...amen, Mr. President...CP, out...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-13695743537203571352007-09-24T12:26:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:40.829-08:00Janeane Garofalo: Still One of My Favorite Broads...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsQsgrdNMWiHWt8hbDUV__3P2sCzSqUTbUwgpSumxnXmAqnYDn9wdRM1Goh1Uy2eJYy5n5hTlTZ05-YJ-czb-TFKANe9Xibuh4fMtbgTg_LDLj3wm7cPuXvJG2j3Ucn_nW5BIpdA/s1600-h/janeane_feature-39722.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113854719415659698" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" height="349" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsQsgrdNMWiHWt8hbDUV__3P2sCzSqUTbUwgpSumxnXmAqnYDn9wdRM1Goh1Uy2eJYy5n5hTlTZ05-YJ-czb-TFKANe9Xibuh4fMtbgTg_LDLj3wm7cPuXvJG2j3Ucn_nW5BIpdA/s400/janeane_feature-39722.jpg" width="222" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...a decade and change before Disney dropped Ratatouille I was into Janeane Garofalo...I think I started falling for her in Reality Bites when she played Vickie-- a chick with convictions; stood for what she believed in...and still knew who in the hell Willona Woods from Good Times was...since I've moved to California, I've run into some of the cast from that particular film while doing the writing thing-- like <a href="http://www.campuscircle.net/review.cfm?r=159"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">Ethan "crustache" Hawke</span></em></strong></a> (in still below with co-star Janeane ) and even <a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2006/07/matt-dillon-you-me-dupree-q.html"><strong><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">Matt "the forehead" Dillon</span></em></strong></a> but Garofalo's the one I've <em>always</em> wanted to have a sit down with and shoot the shite about current affairs and books...hell, she even pulled off a cameo at the end of Pulp Fiction...</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPLj8J43DuFFPoO4uLlhnYm_1__CQ9p_V1v1L_tFhMqbmfWM8o7DKS3SKZuBA383NQoszU5lokAPTM7aXe5Q0HAUWl-bDcYG1hCyOR07qeEUxLgvSHtgr0MFFru1Q5Q19EBJqoTA/s1600-h/janeane_Ethan_Hawke_012.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113854715120692386" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPLj8J43DuFFPoO4uLlhnYm_1__CQ9p_V1v1L_tFhMqbmfWM8o7DKS3SKZuBA383NQoszU5lokAPTM7aXe5Q0HAUWl-bDcYG1hCyOR07qeEUxLgvSHtgr0MFFru1Q5Q19EBJqoTA/s400/janeane_Ethan_Hawke_012.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>...this lady is probably why I dig on brainy brunette broads with big mouths who wear pointy glasses and usually have something to say...Garofalo's been burned at the stake for speaking her mind but she didn't just step off the stage at open mic night in the Bryn Mawr student union...she's got some big ideas that she uses her comedic chops to convey...she's earned her mumpin' bones first doing stand up, then acting and now, a mixture of the two...</p><p><br />...when it's all said and done, I think a lot of people will say they were down from the beginning...like those fuckers who say they liked the Buzzcocks long before Ghost World came out...I used to love her and Sam Seder's talk show on Air America...then it got pulled...but it was funny and I was one of the early bloggers on that show's hell raising earlier threads (BlayznSddlz, son)...check my girl out tearing Faux News' Brian Kilmeade a new one a couple of years ago, the February before the war in Iraq was initiated and, well, you see what we've wrought...Peaches...</p><p></p><p></p><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3JCakTroF88" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed><br /><br />...here she is speaking on one of my favorite HBO series: Rome...<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/u-spdg0Wius" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed><br /><br />...here she is calling Bill Maher out...a couple of nights ago for toe-ing the line on the low-low...<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/l5vkbSgZaBk" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed><br /><br />...later, breaking down Directive 17 and the "Mission Accomplished" ethos on another segment in that same show...see, put her in an environment, not in the middle of a gaggle of brainwashed brownshirts on Fox hell bent on shouting her down but one that's open to new ideas, alternate ways of thinking and she's 'bout it-'bout it...go' on, girl...<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vY_XhS6sovg" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed><br /><br />...and, finally, my favorite from this appearance...how Colin Powell, somebody I actually HAVE met... could've changed history...and didn't!!!...<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HyU73HxRbWQ" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-67813552437317684362007-09-13T08:30:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:41.161-08:00...On Livin' Large, Slingin' Slang...and Not Sleepin'<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1-ofQ0BM7fuovTYCQBsHGaH21Z3-b54PP6SHh56wjYae3GR_jvEdb2cQORBarW5FwguoJojcRFaxVxjI-MnqEN4Kdz9NxbQRU6k2SZTz2F39qLW5EdCM2sU7KFCowLdNG6qgoA/s1600-h/shins.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1-ofQ0BM7fuovTYCQBsHGaH21Z3-b54PP6SHh56wjYae3GR_jvEdb2cQORBarW5FwguoJojcRFaxVxjI-MnqEN4Kdz9NxbQRU6k2SZTz2F39qLW5EdCM2sU7KFCowLdNG6qgoA/s400/shins.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109712070137989938" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 320px; height: 141px;" align="center"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height: 122px; width: 320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="MOGPlayerpMWcWk2YOOB.mp3" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/pMWcWk2YOOB.mp3" align="middle" height="122" width="320"></embed><br /><table style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" height="22" width="100"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/111075" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/111075" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">Share</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br />...(this was written about 4:45 AM this morning)...my eyeballs popped open an hour before the alarm went off for some reason...and I'm rested...almost TOO rested...sheiße, son...what I'm feeling is akin to what Andrew "Large" Largeman felt like when he was walking through LAX on meds while taking a trip back home to Jersey in the film Garden State...been there before...all of this reminded me of when I covered that flick as a favor for a journo friend who wanted to go out of town with her boyfriend that week, she called me at my day gig making "purty-please-with-sugar-on-top" sounds, so I caved and went over to the Fox Lot to check the last screener as that weekend <a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2007/03/garden-state-worth-rewind.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">I'd have to interview Zach Braff</span></a> and there's nothing worse than talking to talent about their film that you never got a chance to see (did it once in the salad days and didn't care for the feeling, I recall thinking I was going to get called on the carpet but I never was)...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_f6f0k7RioBku6XJc1KsbjNIbtbi8Bq8Q6ycxo6uFCUYrr_8UEsgoLV0RJMY3riInsaTfORZWgvLhDtJjFgtGUxu9P12C0fqNlRd638rEssYSQ3Fvaakrxxxm5RyRhgkQzbCJg/s1600-h/natalie_portman2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_f6f0k7RioBku6XJc1KsbjNIbtbi8Bq8Q6ycxo6uFCUYrr_8UEsgoLV0RJMY3riInsaTfORZWgvLhDtJjFgtGUxu9P12C0fqNlRd638rEssYSQ3Fvaakrxxxm5RyRhgkQzbCJg/s400/natalie_portman2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109712074432957250" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://campuscircle.net/review.cfm?r=175"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...the piece I ended up doing was on Natalie Portman</span></a> as the Garden State junket went off without a hitch and I hooked my homebiscuit up with her out-of-state booty call...I even got pointed to some tunage that I ordinarily wouldn't have checked at the time as I didn't really vibe on the Shins' stuff at the time. Zach's use of the tune "New Slang" during his directorial debut on the film pulled my coat...which brings me back to right now, 6AM, staring at the ceiling; smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo as it were...which is when I'd be getting up ordinarily...damn, there goes the alarm clock...back on schedule, I guess...every now and again I'll just wake up of the middle of the night/ early morning when all of a sudden a thread of thought takes hold and I just start writing something...this has been one of them...and now, time to make the donuts...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-75922766050858329002007-09-05T18:27:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:41.461-08:00Blerd Part 2: The Coke Bottles and The Buddha...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM8yCvxw35Qz7qd3Zn3RezWh0i52uxcZq5vTT4918CRSFaD2hsSfsqIp5tg6WLI2aNEU5A4HW8oe1pEXAxN8KCqXvKQxzM6quUEkZDqnPxATfJlUw93vxgue__WV_J6ruBEgqvow/s1600-h/Buddha+and+CRASH.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM8yCvxw35Qz7qd3Zn3RezWh0i52uxcZq5vTT4918CRSFaD2hsSfsqIp5tg6WLI2aNEU5A4HW8oe1pEXAxN8KCqXvKQxzM6quUEkZDqnPxATfJlUw93vxgue__WV_J6ruBEgqvow/s400/Buddha+and+CRASH.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106897029607306898" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 320px; height: 141px;" align="center"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height: 122px; width: 320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="MOGPlayerdy9DpHiIrnk.mp3" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/dy9DpHiIrnk.mp3" align="middle" height="122" width="320"></embed><br /><table style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" height="22" width="100"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/109701" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/109701" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">Share</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><br />...Om namaha, Shivaya...that's a Buddhist chant that loosely means: Greetings to the person/ soul that I am capable of becoming...I recite it sometimes while I'm looking in the mirror shaving...I've been using it a lot lately...that gig I went to downtown last week was a bust...they didn't think I was "the material" for working in a law firm...so I continued ghost writing in one of my cafes and the guy I'm penning it for is digging on the direction I'm taking it which is cool...but I need more loot than this to keep the rain off my head while I wait for those people back in New York to get it together...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUcpIxUQHgEccGditAxtlE9lVZvKv-dCc7usbHxMtlagYBRjKy0tDAjs1Tmm08D0rEtDAEN51jOhwZ1eIqvgf28BwNcsypC6JM6qeYMJ3MsMSPv5TIJIrT9RTEQeaUBAEw-5dHJg/s1600-h/Buddha.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUcpIxUQHgEccGditAxtlE9lVZvKv-dCc7usbHxMtlagYBRjKy0tDAjs1Tmm08D0rEtDAEN51jOhwZ1eIqvgf28BwNcsypC6JM6qeYMJ3MsMSPv5TIJIrT9RTEQeaUBAEw-5dHJg/s400/Buddha.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106900044674348706" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...So I wrote and wrote and re-wrote and edited all day yesterday and, just before the sun went down, I got a call with an offer for another gig over at one of the major studios to expedite this Web-related project which, although won't last as long as the law firm editing gig, would pay a grip more $crilla than I would've if I were working with that fancy-pantsed lot down in the finance district...a couple of minutes ago I got the call back and ...I'm in there, son! I start on Monday...The ladies who interviewed me were much more laid back than those two twitchy tossers with the sticks in their keysters and we got right down to brass tacks without all of that alpha male posturing...it was refreshing...I just shot on over to the lot and acted like myself, no fuss no muss (and yes, I wore the Blerd glasses again)...<br /><br />...Om namaha, Shivaya...things work themselves out...I think once I finish re-reading James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, love to backtrack on the classics, I'll do a re-read of another fave: Hermann Hesse's Siddhārtha which follows the life of <a style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_Gautama">Siddhārtha Gautama</a>, the Brahmin Prince who eventually rescinded the cordoned life of luxury after witnessing how his subjects really lived outside the castle walls which led him on a journey that would ultimately take him to the the Sri MahaBodhi, the great Bhodi Tree which, after reaching Enlightenment, The Awakened One sat in front of for a week, while staring at it in unblinking gratitude...the temple that's there now was built much later...it's all good...I don't claim to be a Buddhist by any stretch but I definitely do dig on some of the messages and try to apply them in everyday life as much as I can...I've been cool with The Enlightened One's story for a minute...<a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2005/05/om-namah-shivaya-happy-birthday.html">and have stated as much...</a> the latter has helped me wriggle through a truckload of scrapes while as I work on solving my Saṃsāra...Om namah, Shivaya...that's word...it's funny how things get resolved on their own...work themselves out...and they all eventually do...don't they?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Vunde gurunam caranaravinde</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"> Sandarsita, svatma.<br />Sukhavabodhe</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"> nihsreyase<br />Jangalikayamane</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">, Sansara, halahala<br />Moha santyai</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Hala hala...</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Ahahu purusakaram sankha </span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Cakrasi.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Ahahu purusakaram sankha</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"> Cakrasi.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Dharinam, dharinam sahasra</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"> Sirasam.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Dharinam, dharinam sahasra</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"> Sirasam.<br /></span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Vande...<br /></span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Om shanti.<br />Om shanti.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Shanti, shanti.<br /></span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Shantay.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Om...</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">"...I worship the gurus lotus feet.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Awakening the happiness of the self revealed.</span><br /></div><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Beyond comparison, working like the jungle</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"> Physician.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">To pacify loss of consciousness from the</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"> Poison of existence.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">In the form of a man up to the shoulders.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Holding a conch, discus and sword.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Thousand headed, white</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">. I bow respectfully...</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Peace...</span>"<br /><br /><br /></span></div></div>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-83798083886881521292007-09-04T10:55:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:42.176-08:00The Heatwave's Wrath: Squeezin' My Mind Grapes...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNYwWSeuKqb_16OyBD0zD8QpLxQsSGQgRKHsPcYouvmfeBEPkNZXU5RfN7puS4bCIVJyAVOJdmUW0ftaYbezirL9kQ42L7Uqfw_dOOqXHnz_D5N40pAl4YrcUBAcS-uQF9Mun1Tg/s1600-h/MIND+GRAPES+DO+THE+RIGHT+THING.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNYwWSeuKqb_16OyBD0zD8QpLxQsSGQgRKHsPcYouvmfeBEPkNZXU5RfN7puS4bCIVJyAVOJdmUW0ftaYbezirL9kQ42L7Uqfw_dOOqXHnz_D5N40pAl4YrcUBAcS-uQF9Mun1Tg/s400/MIND+GRAPES+DO+THE+RIGHT+THING.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106410422697571906" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 320px; height: 141px;" align="center"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height: 122px; width: 320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="MOGPlayerZS5w45uEhQY.mp3" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/ZS5w45uEhQY.mp3" align="middle" height="122" width="320"></embed><br /><table style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" height="22" width="100"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/109383" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/109383" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">Share</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 204);">...it's been crazy hot for the past week and change...which started me thinking about global warming and how it seems to be getting hotter and drier every year...a couple of days ago, tens of thousands of LA County area residents were sitting in the dark and over the weekend, this elderly couple in Studio City died from complications due to the heat...that was a bummer to hear...what a way to go...I was listening to a talk radio show and one of the hostesses mentioned that she was out of it because the power was out in portions of the Hills as well...a single crocodile tear ran down my cheek, like Iron Eyes Cody on the side of a littered highway as I thought..."poor baby...don't you have one of those platinum covered generators that David Cross was talking about on his It's Not Funny album?"</span> </span><a style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 204);" href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-heat4sep04,0,4403496.story?coll=la-home-center"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Heat makes me cynical and snippy as hell</span></a><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 204);"> if you haven't figured that out yet...I'd forgotten about being back in the south and how that humidity made you want to choke people...but, still, I'm buggin' out...I'M BUGGIN' OUT!!!</span><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinH8X40kq1iHsyXdFY-xx649cBPe0q-PIIYDKJDr4kFlZsET5HJFa2MMj1_0orCcAzbEv9so9MjLVFJlS7P6VfomxHI1T99yTtqlC6erCbGdYswtX96vvk41StjFOflN6EPzb4mw/s1600-h/MIND+GRAPES+BUGGIN%27+OUT.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinH8X40kq1iHsyXdFY-xx649cBPe0q-PIIYDKJDr4kFlZsET5HJFa2MMj1_0orCcAzbEv9so9MjLVFJlS7P6VfomxHI1T99yTtqlC6erCbGdYswtX96vvk41StjFOflN6EPzb4mw/s400/MIND+GRAPES+BUGGIN%27+OUT.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106410418402604594" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...this heat-induced train of thought brought me to all the latest talks of infrastructure and the lack thereof, as most of our resources are being poured into that Mesopotamian black hole...there's people out there who think that things like taking care of bridges, interstates, the power grid and other functions that have been taken care of by government agencies with our tax dollars, should be privatized (done by businesses who'd no doubt be in it to earn a profit and would half-ass it up to ensure they'd be needed in the future)...that dog don't hunt...look at what's been wrought whenever market-driven corporate enterprises have been used as a stop-gap solution...like, say, all those war profiteers we hear about all the time...oh, they're out there...I met one in the library a couple of weeks ago, this old, Elmer Fudd-lookin' cat dressed like somebody's hayseed grandpa and though he was nice enough (a trifle TOO interested in what I was doing for my trastes, you'd never think he had his fingers crossed in hopes that we'd cross the border and go into the Persian theater...which would be a windfall for his little company-- a very high creep-out factor, there. I've been going elsewhere ever since...was kind of afraid to even bring it up here considering the political climate...but that's another story for another time...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 204);">"In the summer of 2000 a drought in the North West states reduced the amount of hydroelectric power that was available to California, though at no point during the crisis was California's sum of [actual electric-generating capacity]+[out of state supply] less than demand. Rather, California's energy reserves were low enough that during peak hours the private industry which owned power-generating plants could effectively hold the State hostage by shutting down their plants for "maintenance" in order to manipulate supply and demand. These critical shutdowns often occurred for no other reason than to force California's electricity grid managers into a position where they would be forced to purchase electricity from other suppliers who could charge astronomical rates. Even though these rates were semi-regulated, the companies (which included Enron and Reliant Energy) controlled the supply of natural gas as well."**<br /><br /></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpDxRP7oz3-aKk5Yqdv7vQkOkFQDuEy5mo83vowH6z5hypqhoK9uDkBcuxDTi64V43YBifdm6nlpezvtCcin_ClRc0o2ao7Wp2s2mWq-dCU13MPz_3SHjs4wHBydxiIUY87pNEQg/s1600-h/MIND+GRAPES+GRAy+DAVIS.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpDxRP7oz3-aKk5Yqdv7vQkOkFQDuEy5mo83vowH6z5hypqhoK9uDkBcuxDTi64V43YBifdm6nlpezvtCcin_ClRc0o2ao7Wp2s2mWq-dCU13MPz_3SHjs4wHBydxiIUY87pNEQg/s400/MIND+GRAPES+GRAy+DAVIS.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106410422697571922" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...I was on the east coast during <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis">the California Energy Crisis during the summer of 2000</a>...when the Golden State, strapped for electricity, got fleeced out of hundreds of millions of dollars by out-of-state energy concerns like Enron...I followed the story as it unfolded from the other side of the country and thought to myself...somebody's head is gonna roll..turns out, it would be Gray Davis' dome that would be politically severed...he was voted out of office and ushered in the rule of "Der Governator"...although the energy market was predominantly privatized already, there were laws in place that kept these private holdings from running roughshod over the consuming public, deregulation ceded guard duty of the proverbial hen house to the foxes; some thought that the corporate price gauging would've never been able to take place if California hadn't unanimously loosened up on restrictive Energy laws a few years from both sides of the aisle prior under the administration of Governor Pete Wilson (R) who was long gone by the time the lights went out in 2000...crooks like Ken Lay had found an open window, climbed a ladder, scuttled inside like the slimeball he is and then kicked the ladder away...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 204);">"Utilities were precluded from entering into longer-term agreement that would have allowed them to hedge their energy purchases and mitigate day-to-day swings in prices due to tranisent supply disruptions and demand spikes from hot weather.</span> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 204);">Then, in 2000, wholesale prices were deregulated, but retail prices were regulated for the incumbents as part of a deal with the regulator, allowing the incumbent utiliti</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 204);">es to recover the cost of assets that would be stranded as a result of greater competition, based on the expectation that "frozen" would remain higher than wholesale prices. This assumption remained true from April 1998 through May 2000.</span> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 204);">Energy deregulation put the three companies that distribute electricity into a tough situation. Energy deregulation policy froze or capped the existing price of energy that the three energy deliveries could charge. Deregulating the producers of energy did not lower the cost of energy. Deregulation did not encourage new producers to create more power and drive down prices. Instead, with increasing demand for electricity, the producers of energy charged more for electricity. The producers used moments of spike energy production to inflate the price of energy [5]. In January 2001, energy producers began shutting down plants to increase prices"**</span><br /><br />..."Recession", says the wind...how soon we forget...or have we really...times are a lot tougher now than they were seven years ago. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when Wal Mart announced that their earnings were in a down turn and shortly after that The Dow dropped 200 points which got my and the finance sector's skin leaking...the Fed has since infused tens of billions of cash into the market to offset that little hiccup but it can't keep doing that forever...not with the bloated deficit that somebody's going to have to pay the vigorish on at some point...we're tapped out, gentle reader...as a nation we're too broke to shop at fucking Wal-Mart, it seems...streams of finance are drying up all over the place...except for that 1% of people who are living like the cotton is high...the people that mainstream media outlets must be talking about and to but those of us knee-deep in the shite know better-- the first part of the 20s might've been "roaring" with finance sector exuberance <a href="http://www.shambhala.org/business/goldocean/causdep.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...but it limped into the 30s...</span> </a>...whimpering<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPxs89gz1wq19jnkGbeUPgYTObkrMOcbRHerEZHSnXnvKgESv2KeHpIjcExIljbHbSuel8w5NCdRpo7snYyAjxdVICniSKlVbxyj1jCLXCYCyeAeIKdLKgp6FUtWMANqsix1jNpw/s1600-h/MIND+GRAPES+STEINBECK+COVER.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPxs89gz1wq19jnkGbeUPgYTObkrMOcbRHerEZHSnXnvKgESv2KeHpIjcExIljbHbSuel8w5NCdRpo7snYyAjxdVICniSKlVbxyj1jCLXCYCyeAeIKdLKgp6FUtWMANqsix1jNpw/s400/MIND+GRAPES+STEINBECK+COVER.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5106410431287506530" border="0" /></a>...I can't call it...this heat is crazy-making and when I don't get my rest, my mind tends to race: the heat got me thinking of natural disasters which got me thinking of the Dust Bowl which lead to images of the setting in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, then the Great Depression and what led to it..then economics and the situation that we're in right now; the eminent housing/ real estate bust all of which brings me back to where I live and the heat wave...see the logic?...as I type this, there's still 25,000 plus people still sitting in the dark all over the Southland-- 400,000 people's power has been disturbed at some point in the past week and based on the transitive laws of nature and probability, if it doesn't cool down soon, my card's gonna get pulled too... The thing is, they were predicting rain last week at one point....I even recall waking up on one of those sultry nights, my arms bear hugging a fan under the windows and hearing thunder; seeing lightning bolts...but the water never came so I thought I'd bitch about it a little, like I am now...I'll try to keep doing the right thing, however, no matter how far up the mercury rises...it could be worse going for a brother, to quote the godfather of Macroeconomics, <a href="http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=11070182" html=""><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">John Maynard Keynes</span></a>, "In the long run, we are all dead"...quite...I wonder if that ever entered the minds of those two oldsters just before they expired...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">**quotes from wikipedia for brevity...</span>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-65274304090893238282007-09-02T16:08:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:42.684-08:00Mind Over Matter...with Mammoth Hunting...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaP9aDQncnJBhHn522ZsU-Xmr58TzwrjWVNmooLe1maFx7IcGpnHxCpTfmbxUrQO5EOO0XqrmLocjtLch508Sb7tfF8JB06ChBeJQRnVy9nAYSakUTRXRpY8ZuyD0FPiSlOTsHGA/s1600-h/MAMMOTH+BOOK+COVER.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaP9aDQncnJBhHn522ZsU-Xmr58TzwrjWVNmooLe1maFx7IcGpnHxCpTfmbxUrQO5EOO0XqrmLocjtLch508Sb7tfF8JB06ChBeJQRnVy9nAYSakUTRXRpY8ZuyD0FPiSlOTsHGA/s400/MAMMOTH+BOOK+COVER.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5105748112970724898" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...I've been getting in touch with my inner cave man while sitting in the stultifying heat that's been hovering over town like a veil of hostility...it's brutal, my A.C.'s non existent, so I've been working out of library and at cafes but today, its so fucking hot, that I don't feel like moving...so I laid in bed for a couple of hours listening to ethereal sounds like the ones found on the Greek electro-composer Vangelis' Themes album while reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Hunters-Earths-Children/dp/0553280945"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 204, 204);">The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel</span></a>...tunes like "Chung Kuo" capture the mood...</span><br /><br /><br /><div align="center" style="background:#000000; width:320; height:141"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height:122px;width:320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="320" height="122" name="MOGPlayerrgkxGMZ4tdt.mp3" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/rgkxGMZ4tdt.mp3"></embed><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="padding-right:10px;padding-left:10px;"><tr><td align="left" width="100" height="22"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:12px">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/109345" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:12px">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/109345" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:12px">Share</a></td></tr></table></div><br /><br />The book, the third in her Earth's Children series, is set on the coasts and steppes of the pre-historic European continent during the 10,000 year interstitial (warming trend in the climate) that occurred during the last Ice Age (that ended about 25,000 years ago). It follows the young girl, Ayla who, after being adopted by a clan of Neanderthals as an orphaned child, is raised, taught to be a medicine woman, forcibly inseminated by a Neanderthal man who despises her for being Homo Sapien and then gets handed her bearskin wrap and cast out of their cave for learning to use weapons; hunt (which women of the clan were not allowed to do). She got the hook for pretty much exemplifying traits that would eventually put our species at the top of the evolutionary food chain, heralding the end of the less adaptive Neanderthaler model-- there's a great scenario in Clan of the Cave Bear (the first in the series that was turned into a film starring Daryl Hannah back in the 80s) where she accidentally ingests a double dose of some prehistoric peyote and sees the future, the modern age...the film's ok, I guess but it doesn't do the book one iota of justice...but I'm looking back with jaded, post Matrix/ iMax eyeballs...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0joeTYkvVpiwASE3y6kVVEtJwc_e87hSNV76U3-7AVdBZCma8NST7FILL8jYdKIRNOWO1SBgGyvesBaH9SCl8M010PjSqMf9h564Xi6a9nQOPcE8UMHJRBTWfw7okbzFX4BjzQ/s1600-h/MAMMOTH+CLAN+OF+THE+CAVE+BEAR.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0joeTYkvVpiwASE3y6kVVEtJwc_e87hSNV76U3-7AVdBZCma8NST7FILL8jYdKIRNOWO1SBgGyvesBaH9SCl8M010PjSqMf9h564Xi6a9nQOPcE8UMHJRBTWfw7okbzFX4BjzQ/s400/MAMMOTH+CLAN+OF+THE+CAVE+BEAR.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5105748104380790274" border="0" /></a>...at any rate, girlfriend has a death curse thrown her way and is shunned by the Neanderthals, so she leaves her half-breed baby with her sister (the birth-daughter of the woman who took her in) and strikes out on her own. She eventually finds a small, isolated cave far away from the clan on the coast and at the edge of the continental steppes...the valley of the horses, as it were which the second book was named. Alone in the valley, her survival skills kick in ( the same instincts that she was told never to pursue but, like ornery humans chicks tend to be, did so anyhow). She starts to hoard food and hunt in preparation for the rapidly approaching winter. Too, she domesticates a foal , which had never been considered or attempted, after capturing its mother in a pit trap for meat...she did so not to make it a pack animal but to have some other living thing around...for company and unconditional friendship. Later, she learns to speak words again -- Neanderthals spoke with sign language and grunts-- by a man named Jondolar who she nurses back to health after he's mauled by the mate of a cave lion she raised-- don't ask, get the book, son...<br /><br />...when Jondolar's health is back up to snuff, he urges Ayla to continue on with him as before the cave lion attack (!) he was on his journey back to his homelands which lie far away, across a mile high glacier (!!), in the north...she grudgingly acquiesces because she's fallen for a man of "the Others" (what the people who raised her called homo sapiens, people like us)...the second book ends with the two fording a river on horses (again, don't ask) and crossing paths with a tribe of people who called themselves Mamutoi...Mammoth Hunters...that's the book I'm reading again right now to keep my mind off the sweltering sump...cool schieße, if told by a scribe with the expository minerals and Auel, although sometimes long-in-the-tooth with her prose, has got the hazel nuts to pull it off-- and as an added bonus, the frosty descriptions of Ayla's chilled environment has helped suspend my imagination and get my mind off of this drawer-drenching humidity that has precipitated into a body-shaped sweat-angel that has my back glued to the sheets on my bed...(I started typing this with the MacBook on my stomach, BTW)...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBD913z-9xHQ5p0evZWPo9xWjnRUYUB44x6_7-0KGfMggrmtlrQqMKRGOgH3M8K4pG_baZiT4gRKomLoYVcziDHaMmpC0CriIm_3Xl7O_cokTk09S9de790hzosQYAB1yy8Kvd2w/s1600-h/MAMMOTH+SEX+LIVES+CANNIBALS.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBD913z-9xHQ5p0evZWPo9xWjnRUYUB44x6_7-0KGfMggrmtlrQqMKRGOgH3M8K4pG_baZiT4gRKomLoYVcziDHaMmpC0CriIm_3Xl7O_cokTk09S9de790hzosQYAB1yy8Kvd2w/s400/MAMMOTH+SEX+LIVES+CANNIBALS.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5105748104380790258" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...I've always liked books like this, where man's (in this case, woman's) wits are taken to task by the forces of nature from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rascal-Sterling-North/dp/0140344454"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Sterling North's Rascal</span></a> to the dogs 'n cat in The Incredible Journey to Jack London's To Build a Fire (and Call of the Wild ) on up to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Lives-Cannibals-Equatorial-Pacific/dp/0767915305/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-5136951-0467101?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188773332&sr=1-1"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">The Sex Lives of Cannibals : Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific</span></a> (a super-funny book by J. Marten Troost that should be checked)...I've even slogged it through Moby Dick as a kid, after several attempts at getting through it, to learn about whaling...it's all literary gravy...if you were to ask me, I'd probably encapsulate my thoughts with a cliche of that variety...still, the scenarios inferred in the telling of all those tales made me wonder what I'd do in similar circumstances...<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgba2jTH5PrCB_o2rdLQbdAhq0-wQHAdlx5e5LzuthlaDzG2iyv50Hv5dAGUFJnZQN0uAaTy4NydJRbkcihwgfHW_qQpcRfgbwWWz-VzprdyIrWNjsdjVYAL3mf2_RVYNOrawz-Mw/s1600-h/MAMMOTH+CASTAWAy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgba2jTH5PrCB_o2rdLQbdAhq0-wQHAdlx5e5LzuthlaDzG2iyv50Hv5dAGUFJnZQN0uAaTy4NydJRbkcihwgfHW_qQpcRfgbwWWz-VzprdyIrWNjsdjVYAL3mf2_RVYNOrawz-Mw/s400/MAMMOTH+CASTAWAy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5105748108675757586" border="0" /></a>..."You know, ironically enough, back home my dentist's last name was <span style="font-style: italic;">Spalding</span>"...I cackled like a hyena goofed out on skunk weed 'n whippets when Tom Hanks dead-panned that line in Castaway to "Wilson" the volley ball that his character got chatty with while stranded on an island in the far reaches of the Pacific Rim...look at him in that picture, engrossed in a full on back-and-forth with a fuggin' volley ball...good stuff, Shecky...yeah, I'm one of those eight people who actually liked that film...I think I'm jazzed on these kind of books because they speak to something that I've always wondered about: were we to lose all of these electronic/ solar/ gas operated accoutrements that our animal-pelt-wearing pre-historic ancestors managed to survive without for a couple of millennia while packs of hungry beasts chased 'em first around and eventually out of <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do59le.html">the Serengeti's Olduvai Gorge</a> in Tanzania, would we, modern man, make it? You know, with the furry, fanged and ferocious calling all the shots out on the desolate plains of a cold, cruel world...Doubtful...judging from that YouTube of that Teen Miss South Carolina contestant that's making the rounds recently, I'd wager that a huge swath of the current human population would not be here for long...bear food, I call 'em because people like that are the ones you'd hear about walking stupidly into the forest for a picnic...<span style="font-style: italic;">at night</span>...but what do I know?...I'm sittin' here thinking about hunting woolly mammoths and walking across a sky high sheet of bluish-white glacial ice...I might be selling some other kind of crazy when I say it but I do feel a few degrees cooler...that means it's working, I guess...time to put Ayla and the mammoths down and start punching up some more of that book that <span style="font-style: italic;">I'm writing.</span>..laters...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-61343375522722802332007-09-01T23:55:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:43.257-08:00Peter Fonda & Ben Foster Get Mean: 3:10 to Yuma (Q&A)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglO0aaAdtr8XQWJNMtNaWianMOaHgQkSlihoY5LRBqOHs1_h8hEwyg7Ty4blKUBywgiWs_avnV7agTwclgoYBhJKqjl_pvuMQ9QULRt156EOjuMuhKv4OC0pT0hHhqdP3OOxcplA/s1600-h/310+YUMA-+CRASH+%26+PETER+FONDA.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglO0aaAdtr8XQWJNMtNaWianMOaHgQkSlihoY5LRBqOHs1_h8hEwyg7Ty4blKUBywgiWs_avnV7agTwclgoYBhJKqjl_pvuMQ9QULRt156EOjuMuhKv4OC0pT0hHhqdP3OOxcplA/s400/310+YUMA-+CRASH+%26+PETER+FONDA.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5105497656247825842" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">As stated in an earlier post, I got to participate in roundtables with some of the cast of James Mangold's forthcoming western remake of 3:10 to Yuma over at the Regent Beverly Wilshire last week...I posted <a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2007/08/310-to-yuma-christian-bale-russell.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">the session with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale</span></a> already......and now I will throw on what went down with Peter Fonda and Ben Foster (pictured below)...Peter came in first and we all got rolling and Foster came in a bit later...I don't know if you remember Ben from Six Feet Under or X-Men...but when you see him in Yuma, you'll know who was in command every time the cameras were on Charlie Prince, the hard-ass he p</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">lays in the film...he rocked that joint...so did Peter but for different reasons...check it...<br /><br /></span><br />Q: So which was it that made you go for the role in this film, the genre or the character?<br /><br />Peter Fonda: First genre, then character. I'd seen the original 3:10 to Yuma and I didn't have to audition for the part-- I had to prove myself. Which, I guess, is a form of an audition. And I knew a great deal about westerns. I knew that Jim Mangold had not shot a western before but, also, I felt that Cop Land had a bit of a western rhythm to it. For me, a western is a wonderful way of telling a story about us now, without letting anybody know you're doing it. So, getting into that saddle was great because I got to be a part of that-- I did have to prove to Mangold that I wasn't too laconic. [laughs] ...but I still got to play it down and back. And I believe when you're playing a character that's, underneath, low and slow and less intense, you can create more danger with it. And my character, although not in the original motion picture, [helps develop] the character of Ben Wade very well. And, you know, I play the stone-cold killer, so I'm on the same side of the coin [as Ben Wade] but different coins. So, saddling up, I can ride like the wind-- I hate (acting on) horses, no problem, I love westerns. Motorcycles, well, Easy Rider was a western but the motorcycle I rode was more like a phallic symbol-- a horse really doesn't get there...what a horse does to a cowboy is put him right on the ground. A motorcycle does too, bike riding on the road-- it was a pleasure to saddle up for Jim Mangold, director that I really appreciated, and thought I would appreciate, whose work I really appreciated and now I appreciate it more. He was a man of great integrity on the set and, uh--- does that cover the question? [laughs]<br /><br />Q: You mentioned that a western speaks to how we are now. Could you expound a little bit more on that?<br /><br />PF: ...it's easy to address these character conflicts, whether its conflicted stuff inside one character or conflicts between two different characters without telling you that you're looking at what's happening today. Now, there's mayhem in the streets today, in Iraq. I mean there, mayhem in the streets of Baghdad, isn't there? So, in a way, we're looking at people who are stone-cold killers, the man who just joined me, Ben Foster, a stone-cold killer [introducing Foster who walks in and takes a seat beside Fonda]...serial killers, I think we've got some over there on both sides of that coin but, that way, we discuss these ethics and problems in today's view and yet with yesterday's viewpoint. And that awares an audience that that's happening which is taken up with the story. But it's entertaining, its later on that you think "that does apply" [to what's going on in the world today]...Ben's heard me say that westerns and science fiction films, really good ones, can also discuss the present but in a disguised way, that truly discusses what's going on in an hour of our lives.<br /><br />Q: You've directed a couple of westerns, why do you think the genre's fallen out of favor with the wider audience that it once held? Because its tough to even get them off the ground today.<br /><br />PF: You know what, I don't think westerns have necessarily fallen out of favor with the audiences. I don't think that the filmakers are delivering as good a western as possible. But then you look at Unforgiven, you know, what a cool wester that was...Dances with Wolves...It's not as dead as you think but the big studios don't talk about them because they don't know how to sell them. And they make them, unfortunately, I think for the film makers, for a lesser budget which means you have to do more, for less.<br /><br />Q: Would you agree also that the calibre of actors that were around when westerns were in the heyday aren't really around as much? We don't have a lot of Waynes or Jimmy Stewarts.<br /><br />PF: You'd be surprised at what we've got going in terms of actors-- its writers and studios that aren't quite sure about the idiom. But I do know what you mean about, "where are the Randolph Scotts, the Joe McRays and the Gary Coopers...wow, you know, and John Wayne, a terribly under-rated actor-- he was a great actor, I knew where he had to go [inside] to get his characters. And I like Cooper's idea that if you know what you're doing, then you don't have to act. I thought that was very cool. And the western character is a romantic thing but there can be the good/ bad guy romantic thing and there could be the bad/ bad guy romantic thing. [In 3:10 to Yuma] here, you've got I'm a bad/ bad guy, you think I'm good because I'm a Pinkerton protecting the stage coach, whereas Charlie Prince [Ben Foster] is a <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> bad/ bad guy [laughs]...take it away Ben...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTXMtZJiogQQh1Bv00MlCcMGiH70TLKH4kMpguJ71YoRVJ8EU4O7-nuYArsYSup0cWMNX4TUFvGP47GjnyXDjjIZU3Epuy8AKChsoQP0xsyxhRPJgEA25aQdpJhCidpsQA0ORGFQ/s1600-h/310+YUMA-+CRASH+%26+BEN+FOSTER.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTXMtZJiogQQh1Bv00MlCcMGiH70TLKH4kMpguJ71YoRVJ8EU4O7-nuYArsYSup0cWMNX4TUFvGP47GjnyXDjjIZU3Epuy8AKChsoQP0xsyxhRPJgEA25aQdpJhCidpsQA0ORGFQ/s400/310+YUMA-+CRASH+%26+BEN+FOSTER.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5105497660542793154" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Q: Ben, the writers said that you added a lot to your role that wasn't on the page...do you think so?<br /><br />Ben Foster: Well, that's very generous. I completely disagree, I mean, I read the script and Charlie started showing up. And it was just re-reading and re-reading and re-reading and the picture becomes a little clearer. And then I just started isolating what he cared about most and what he was willing to do for that. Preparing for it was as simple as going through archival photographs-- western outlaws seemed, to me, like rock stars. And Arianne Phillips, our amazing costume designer, has a rock 'n roll background, so it was very easy to go down that path. I found a very similar leather jacket from that time in a museum, white leather and that, to me, was sort of a glam rock approach. Next were some [wild life] documentaries on wild cats and [watching] how they deal with their prey and...then just listening to the horse. It's amazing how the environment [that you're shooting in] will teach you about the role. It's not so much about constructing it and developing it and saying "look what I made". It's more like "I don't know what this is but I'm after it and...it's over here. I don't know, I don't want you to go "here's this weirdo actor bullshit" [laughs] But that's what it is.<br /><br />Q: After you wrapped, did you have a hard time leaving behind the Charlie Prince that had grown inside?<br /><br />BF: He was a terrible character, man. I've said this before but I certainly don't know exactly what I'm doing, when I'm going in-- you're kind of in the dark, in the swamp and you're finding your way....And when you're done with the job, you definitely track some mud into the house. I mean, I'm not going home with this guy every day, so, yeah, it does take some time...I was happy to not kill anybody for a while.<br /><br />Fonda: I would watch him all day long [with his pistols], drawing them, putting them away [reholstering], twirling them, cross-drawing them...and it's that kind of practice that makes you feel comfortable with it. Because, as Mangold said, in earlier times it was an extension of your arm. I believe that it's also an extension of your character-- how you use it...or don't use it.<br /><br />Q: Peter, did you have a particular scene that was your favorite...or the most fun to do?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">***SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT....***</span><br /><br />PF: Wow, you know, I don't think about it as "fun". I think, fulfilling, maybe interesting, and I try to make every day that I go to [location] work for me that way...I would've liked to have been in that last scene in Contention because that was incredibly cool action-- this is me as the audience watching it -- in the back of my mind the film maker's like "hmmm, <span style="font-style: italic;">THAT </span>was tasty" but then, the actor inside goes "I got to play a very tasty character too." So, I can't say one way or the other if it was a "fun" scene or...It was a very difficult shoot. I always bitched about the cold but as soon as I hear "action" -- what cold? As soon as "cut"-- aahhh bitchbitch, moanmoan, bitch. So, there wasn't a "fun" moment for me, work is what I have the pleasure of doing. I get paid for it. How many people go to work loving what they have to do? If there's money in the bank and film in the camera, what time do you want me there? If there's no film in the camera and not a lot of money in the bank-- when you see me, I'll be there. So, that love, that I have, is for the work-- any particular moment or day, some are more fun than others, some are more difficult than others but I always got to work.<br /><br />Q: Was there a difference for you in the reception you got for doing Ulee's Gold as opposed to, say, how Captain America was received?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgujsa-Vqt6k5B-PRUrXpwIAVY03De86dcYwpzMiTXhezVAut7wusg_oHOFzlkPZOVcPorstvPtP2AcGl4pgjyiGYK3oYgLgzLnUJkHyhG5xjSywbvuW6540ZhgdOGeRD1YuI2j6A/s1600-h/blown.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgujsa-Vqt6k5B-PRUrXpwIAVY03De86dcYwpzMiTXhezVAut7wusg_oHOFzlkPZOVcPorstvPtP2AcGl4pgjyiGYK3oYgLgzLnUJkHyhG5xjSywbvuW6540ZhgdOGeRD1YuI2j6A/s400/blown.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5105500224638268898" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />PF: Well, you know, what's interesting about Ulee's Gold was that all the press said "what a remarkably understated performance that was" and I was like, "where the hell were they when I did Easy Rider?" [laughs] "what an understated role"...as Captain America it was like [in stoner voice]: "Wow. Far out, man...that's beautiful. Here, try some of this." [laughs] and then the last line, the most imperative line of the film, which I loved: "you know what Billy? We blew it"-- I threw that away, now that's an understated performance! [laughs] Ulee Jackson, I got to go places with that, I didn't know where it was going to take me but wow, "understated?" Where were they for Easy Rider?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">3:10 to Yuma opens nationally on Friday, September 7th.....</span><br /><br /><br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HNNGfxaUXQc"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HNNGfxaUXQc" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"></embed></object>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-56600126337529287792007-08-31T06:41:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:43.614-08:00Taking Too Long: The Weight of Waiting...and Wipers!!!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJrwNmVa9M8-Rlyr_o0VTCbGbmwDeD2ioqrGogb_FerOi68uZxrG1nw2teWo6miAO1kl5amk5z_8q783_0NPc6Rt7NO8VSk-WPPM8i1_qtUJth7wGfTB_A-x2V0bGdcTnd8qe_Nw/s1600-h/wipers12.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJrwNmVa9M8-Rlyr_o0VTCbGbmwDeD2ioqrGogb_FerOi68uZxrG1nw2teWo6miAO1kl5amk5z_8q783_0NPc6Rt7NO8VSk-WPPM8i1_qtUJth7wGfTB_A-x2V0bGdcTnd8qe_Nw/s400/wipers12.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5104860652468286882" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 320px; height: 141px;" align="center"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height: 122px; width: 320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="MOGPlayerTIEBMo0pZKu.mp3" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/TIEBMo0pZKu.mp3" align="middle" height="122" width="320"></embed><br /><table style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" height="22" width="100"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/108631" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/108631" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">Share</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><br />...just bust the groove on that tune...whenever I feel like its taking too long for me to get my creative grind on, I have to remind myself of dudes like Greg Sage, Sam Henry and Dave Koupal who formed Wipers back in 1978...look in their eyes in that grainy-ass picture...young and hungry...I'm hip, son... even though they cut a couple of influential records that a grip of Seattle grunge scene machers would appropriate and use as a springboard for their respective sounds, Wipers really didn't get any dap from the world at large until Nirvana covered a couple of their cuts from their debut LP-- a decade and change later...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXQHMIaeq4VGbZN0JzXPqAN2Big3j2zsBeAdGd9EaOuc-hZEjSfT2tb2vVA9cLqWJ1xr9bvZHAWE7zbOApVUrOXYewH-tlbQ4YwxnyRA8ZOdhOOzsnW0xbdpW3JEJZ02eLGkZmSg/s1600-h/wipers_MRR.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXQHMIaeq4VGbZN0JzXPqAN2Big3j2zsBeAdGd9EaOuc-hZEjSfT2tb2vVA9cLqWJ1xr9bvZHAWE7zbOApVUrOXYewH-tlbQ4YwxnyRA8ZOdhOOzsnW0xbdpW3JEJZ02eLGkZmSg/s400/wipers_MRR.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5104860648173319570" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...that's not the first time I've heard such things, artists like Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Woody Guthrie and Ornette Coleman and their struggles to be heard, immediately come to mind...sometimes you're gonna have to be in it to win it-- and the only people who believe in you IS you...patience is virtuous and all that but, conversely, he who hesitates is lost...in short, don't forget to follow your heart and be ready when the opportunity avails itself...listen to the little guy/ chick inside...<a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/88646"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">I spoke about Sage et al back in June</span></a> and am steeled when I think of stories such as theirs and artists like the ones above, I get pumped up; the weight of waiting becomes a little lighter ...and although I've got "miles to go before I rest"...I know I can bear it...solid, son...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-2633704980624167422007-08-29T15:35:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:43.722-08:00Blerd: Would YOU Hire this Guy???<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cN-PeUm-ohuJAXTiTLTMCjb6pw7I_OZYcmuOq0AS7ICI3bf5H6-Whocfb9JGZb2Z8Y6hthyphenhyphen2ARS9pv0bulYZTcQ3R5IF7j-Jphbydu6WC0BiJYav7MGof1Z3E-vTZAKQfJDRGA/s1600-h/BLERD.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cN-PeUm-ohuJAXTiTLTMCjb6pw7I_OZYcmuOq0AS7ICI3bf5H6-Whocfb9JGZb2Z8Y6hthyphenhyphen2ARS9pv0bulYZTcQ3R5IF7j-Jphbydu6WC0BiJYav7MGof1Z3E-vTZAKQfJDRGA/s400/BLERD.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5104255607540397442" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 320px; height: 141px;" align="center"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height: 122px; width: 320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="MOGPlayerMK2SLWhuFz2.mp3" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/MK2SLWhuFz2.mp3" align="middle" height="122" width="320"></embed><br /><table style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" height="22" width="100"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/108161" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/108161" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">Share</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><br />...so I got another editing offer downtown that'd last a few months...but first I had to go down there and take a bunch of tests...find synonyms for words like arbitrate...expedite...ameliorate...words I use all the time...then the grammar test (even when I didn't have the English skills, I learned at an early age that the best way to figure these out-- utter them aloud...there's always three clunky sentences, two of which just look dumb on the screen...that fourth one, the one that sounds like a butler in a P.G. Wodehouse book is the keeper...it works for me like a charm)...t'was a joke of an examination-- I sailed through the typing test and finished the boilerplate letter-- never seen the word committee used so fekkin' often-- I finished it about a half hour early so they left me in a room by meself...to my own devices...<br /><br /><br />...so glad I brought my MacBook along...thought I'd type something up for the blog while I sat in this "testing environment" waiting to be sized up by the suits because this is truly a ridiculous setting...based on <a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2007/08/on-brick-top-my-hollywood-signs-and.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">what happened a couple of blocks over</span></a> last week, I though I'd go in with the Blerd (black nerd) glasses...use high English and all that...just lookit that picture above...doesnt' that guy look harmless enough?...let's see where it gets me...I could use two months worth of the cash they're talking about while I ghost write this book for a musician in Atlanta and await the callback for that producing thing...I probably won't get this one...it's going too smoothly...I won't be "black enough" or something equally as simple-minded as that...what can I say?...I'm a sucker for punishment...nah, I could just use the cash, son-- I won't front on that and furthermore-- ruh, roh...I hear 'em coming down the hall...Blerd-boy out....laters...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-12210522042312227642007-08-27T16:42:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:44.223-08:00...Indian Summer: O' My Brothers...Where Art Ye?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnhdvi3Z2PTgHhZizb2VfyWjrd5dtR9mhCCqv_Btrc_o-ZVjq8RK2nZx63z-ltzngKKZa5bb6_XSkp9yFrkLIS5UnUpHQkYgXQdUB9to1q3fdbBlTDBt2irZQhMR_IU82yy5g2ng/s1600-h/O+BROTHER+COVER.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnhdvi3Z2PTgHhZizb2VfyWjrd5dtR9mhCCqv_Btrc_o-ZVjq8RK2nZx63z-ltzngKKZa5bb6_XSkp9yFrkLIS5UnUpHQkYgXQdUB9to1q3fdbBlTDBt2irZQhMR_IU82yy5g2ng/s400/O+BROTHER+COVER.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103530831809197426" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...being a Southerner, with a father who loved TV shows like Johnny Cash's show on ABC, Hee Haw and listened to C&W when it wasn't hip to be black and reveal as much, my daddy would bump that shite anyway... still a country boy, West Indian roots or no...(grown men are allowed to call their fathers "daddy", where I'm from) so, there's a special place in my heart for bluegrass music...Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, cats like that...I've seen 'em play... (at an early age I learned to cut through the bullshite of the times and find my funk wherever it was)...</span><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3hALbgkxc3eDs03A881pfR69x2svQy6sqg_qTMA_k4NxsEVlE-uAfCCSA_n9aY2gfyZ4XJe-fPErrBb-6bN7F44bql3T33aFo3iAjnoem5Ku3xGO54fDvGnT31dyvlgN0e3filw/s1600-h/O+BROTHER+FLATT+AND+SCRUGGS.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3hALbgkxc3eDs03A881pfR69x2svQy6sqg_qTMA_k4NxsEVlE-uAfCCSA_n9aY2gfyZ4XJe-fPErrBb-6bN7F44bql3T33aFo3iAjnoem5Ku3xGO54fDvGnT31dyvlgN0e3filw/s400/O+BROTHER+FLATT+AND+SCRUGGS.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103530827514230114" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...years later, when I was cutting some tracks (in the same spot they cut "Purple People Eater") in Nashville, I stumbled out the back door of the studio looking for the parking lot at about four in the morning to smoke a butt and I looked across the street to find that we were right across the plaza from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryman_Auditorium"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">the Ryman Auditorium...</span></a>that big red barn where everybody who was anybody in the old-school country pantheon played (or wished they did)...it was surreal...still, I ran across the street to see if I could peek inside the windows at the back of the building that was facing where I was standing....see the stage where Johnny Cash kicked in the footlights...I couldn't see dick but I was there....<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZJ7e_pumW8SBAQ3vqXc9vQDwC3w9LWzqlY4z47Ulx9smdy4RoiNg_wZCrc7H75NJH3HEYSwHAla4_nITUY9emuFPYCdJa8ncj1M6ck_Est4rG6T76uQwTCEgiSOmOTFM7cAaXEw/s1600-h/O+BROTHER+RIMAN+AUDITORIUM.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZJ7e_pumW8SBAQ3vqXc9vQDwC3w9LWzqlY4z47Ulx9smdy4RoiNg_wZCrc7H75NJH3HEYSwHAla4_nITUY9emuFPYCdJa8ncj1M6ck_Est4rG6T76uQwTCEgiSOmOTFM7cAaXEw/s400/O+BROTHER+RIMAN+AUDITORIUM.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103530827514230098" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...by that time the performances at the Ryman had long been moved to some replicated sound stage at a nearby theme park but I knew from pictures that this was the actual, factual...we might drop our accents in college but you can't deny who you are...most southerners-turned city-dwellers don't like to admit that there's <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> country music that they'd willingly listen to but I'll tell you right here, point blank-- just like jazz, say what you will, there's some phatness from the old school in the genre that should be checked out. It was quite cool <a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2006/06/meryl-streep-garrison-keillor-lily.html"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">rapping with Garrison Keillor in the hallway of the Four Seasons</span></a> about the history of the Nashville landmark after doing an interview for his (then) new film directed by the late, great Robert Altman...I was reminded of all of this a few days ago when I copped the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack from a friend...she couldn't have known what the tunes on that LP would raise inside the depths of me...I'm glad she hooked me up with it because the tunes on that album reminded me of a time when I'd get in the wind at the drop of a hat...playing tunes...traveling...and feeling free...all of which reminds me of an alt rock band called Indian Summer...<br /><br />...I remember that we did a gig with Indian Summer, who were based down in North Carolina and we'd never met-- just heard about them through the band grapevine...they played a style totally different from the funk-rock-ska that we parlayed but everybody meshed and they performed an original cut called "Land of Plenty" that they cut in a stylee years before DMB became famous for doing tunes similar to it...after that show, we were all prepared for that long schlepp back right after the show (nothing like a ride in a van with eight other guys, all of us soaked in post-performance stank) but the bass player, acknowledging one of those unwritten codes between traveling bands, asked us over to their pad in the Raleigh, Durham area-- a hop, a skip and a jump from where we were...showers 'n shite!...grub!...west-and-wewaxation...the next morning, er, afternoon, we all rose and they took us over to this quarry to swim in its cool waters and drink beer...the scene was more laid back, gulp, back in those days...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7WyM2MUnepjaOehqhIuhSHelUXw7RPtHcZH4VJgTVa7oXVazwsAA_b73VgEbJsXbpzxkrUrMx4KbjusJQsQ2Uc4pYLACAXz44fgWG7fFGOeVz22I8JNzTTxN81EQMRR2YNowN_g/s1600-h/o+brother+SHENANDOAH.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7WyM2MUnepjaOehqhIuhSHelUXw7RPtHcZH4VJgTVa7oXVazwsAA_b73VgEbJsXbpzxkrUrMx4KbjusJQsQ2Uc4pYLACAXz44fgWG7fFGOeVz22I8JNzTTxN81EQMRR2YNowN_g/s400/o+brother+SHENANDOAH.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103530823219262786" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...after that weekend, whenever we played in that area or heard that they were in our neck of the woods in Virginia, we'd try to hook up...when I hear bluegrass songs like "I am a Man of Constant Sorrow" by The Soggy Bottom Boys, I think of the ride back home after that initial meeting. Well rested, having met a couple of stand-up friends, the jade hump-backs of the Appalachian Mountains rolling by as we snaked it on back up Interstate 81, out of North Cacka-lackey and on into Virginia's Shenandoah Valley...past Mount Pilot...through Blacksburg/ Radford...right on back into town...nothing like the countryside in my birth state especially just before autumn arrives...The Indian Summer, it's called...good stuff, son...real good stuff...I could try to make up stories like this but then, I'd be a fraud...I prefer keeping it on the real side and there's not one iota of fiction in the words above...still, I wonder where all those Indian Summer guys are right now...loved their sound...I miss 'em too...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-17773253681744042462007-08-26T14:01:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:45.614-08:00On Brick Top, My Hollywood "Signs" and The Wheel in the Sky...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz3vlHO-vnaXEQx-1jjiUFf-TTE_BGhd15CQ-aHGSut7ViNHGMKriydAtsKQdVPAeA_ukPNgVbFZAlTcDUHUcC7u-JaE0RiLWlJ3rEQHjTNtp9bcEI7jrAt_-EYSAj3ufI0CzA3A/s1600-h/Hollywood+sign+900.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz3vlHO-vnaXEQx-1jjiUFf-TTE_BGhd15CQ-aHGSut7ViNHGMKriydAtsKQdVPAeA_ukPNgVbFZAlTcDUHUcC7u-JaE0RiLWlJ3rEQHjTNtp9bcEI7jrAt_-EYSAj3ufI0CzA3A/s400/Hollywood+sign+900.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103126976034354418" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...see that sign...up close, it's just that...a fekkin' sign comprised of huge letters on a hill but it boggles my dome sometimes at all the drama that takes place in this town just below them when the cameras aren't even rolling...if those letters could talk...I started writing this last week, after a screener while waiting for a bus in front of the Larry Flynt building over on Wilshire and La Cienega, I continued writing on the subway and finished it up when I got to the pad...it was about 12:30 but the adrenaline from realizing that I was almost smoked an hour or so prior was still swirling through my veins...<br /><br /><br /><div style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 320px; height: 141px;" align="center"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height: 122px; width: 320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="MOGPlayerJoJ1E7CXYxj.mp3" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/JoJ1E7CXYxj.mp3" align="middle" height="122" width="320"></embed><br /><table style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" height="22" width="100"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/107097" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/107097" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">Share</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /></span><br /><br />...I just got in from that 3:10 to Yuma screening and will have to get right back up in a couple of hours in order get to the check in...I should be dead tired after riding around all day...but I'm not...I can't sleep because there's been a rush of adrenaline pumping through me ever since I almost lost my life, ironically, not that far from <a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2007/03/car-jamming-crashs-car-crash.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">where I almost became a road burger back in March</span></a>...but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself...<br /><br />I've mused on here once or twice about how long was I going to keep "Forrest Gumpin' " my way around this town before I either 1, got my grind on 2, tucked tail and skipped town or 3, buy the farm in some freak accident that involves me, some strangers I met in Venice Beach, a llama, a bottle of Ouzo...and a John Deere woodchipper...these have been a wild and woolly couple of months for me but I've been keeping the lupine lot loping on the lateral by writing, reading and writing some more...But just because you don't see 'em doesn't mean that they're not out to get you....my mother is a staunch believer in signs from the beyond that we all should look for when trying to get on with our lives and although I've been known to say shite like "man, the last time that occurred "X" bad/ good thing happened to me"...if I apply my Vulcan powers of logic, I know that it's a sham...a futile attempt to take control of the steering wheel of fate which is akin to ice skating uphill...you'll get nowhere fast...still things like what I'm about to explain make me think twice...<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgcVyE2gjAGRj5dD767U8o3mbk_CEnuLPswWmWk0ZRxzd_89s-UYJsth4HLX2V0cENk-q9XmbJefMhCKp0_DzkFu9ZXInZBFoUC7ZkieVMd4cR_2TYy1iCpnSy-WUVPXCy7_z6g/s1600-h/LosAngelesSkyline.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAgcVyE2gjAGRj5dD767U8o3mbk_CEnuLPswWmWk0ZRxzd_89s-UYJsth4HLX2V0cENk-q9XmbJefMhCKp0_DzkFu9ZXInZBFoUC7ZkieVMd4cR_2TYy1iCpnSy-WUVPXCy7_z6g/s400/LosAngelesSkyline.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103126984624289074" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...I've noticed out here that when you talk to someone you don't know who's been here long enough, especially during a business call with some departmental dogbody (who already hates their gig and wants you to know it). At the end of the call, instead of saying "goodbye", the person says "thanks" but its not like "thank you-thank you" it's stated more like a "sit-and-spin, asshole"...sounds like "Thaay-<span style="font-style: italic;">anks</span>"...with an extra emphasis on the forced second syllable...I fuggin' loathe hearing it...I call it the Hollywood hang-up...which brings me to a hang-up of another stripe...I had a meeting with an IT recruiter downtown today, just before the film, a meet and greet, nothing fancy...so I go down to meet her (forgetting how shitty people drive downtown when they're released from their cubicle cages)...I got turned around in the traffic and tall buildings (about two blocks from the one pictured in the center above) and instead of arriving at the address I was supposed to, I went to the same number in a building one street over-- meatheaded, right? Well here's where the "sign" part kicks in...I'd called the recruiter a few minutes prior...she knew what I looked like (from stuff of mine out there on the internets)...when I get there...she's gone! ...(she called me a half hour later when I'd gotten on a train)...I think I passed her in the hallway after I'd changed back into my riding clothes but by that point I thought, "fuck it...if they're playing games at this stage, who knows what's around the corner?"...so I left; cut my losses and headed west toward Sunset on the Red Line...<span style="font-style: italic;">they called ME!!!</span>...I've always known that I'm not cut out for die korporative Welt and this was another confirmation but a man does what he must whilst he tries to get his creative cheese spread on the Tinsel Town Ritz cracker...I must be walking around with some weird light emanating from behind or, people see a colorized cloud of ominousness hanging over my head like that character in that Stephen King novel who's cursed by an old Gipsy with a piece of funky pastry...duly noted counselor. Stay away from tall buildings and questionable cakes while trying to keep the rain off your head...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Apocryphal</span>: adjective - of a story or statement) of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true. See spurious...</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">noun/ (used</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> with a sing. or pl. verb)</span> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">1. The biblical books included in the Vulgate and accepted in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox canon but considered noncanonical by Protestants because they are not part of the Hebrew Scriptures. </span> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">2. Various early Christian writings proposed as additions to the New Testament but rejected by the major canons.</span> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">3. apocrypha Writings or statements of questionable authorship or authenticity.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 204, 204);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Apocrypha etymology</span>: [Middle English apocripha, not authentic, from Late Latin Apocrypha, the Apocrypha, from Greek Apokrupha, neuter pl. of apokruphos, secret, hidden, from apokruptein, to hide </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 204, 204);">away : apo-, apo- + kruptein, kruph</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 204, 204);">-, to hide.]<br /><br /></span><br />...did I ever mention I'm a cyclist? Yeah, a rare breed here in Los Angeles for sure...A lot of people who live here tend to believe that the automobile you're sitting in defines who you are...I'm sorry, I'm not from around here and I've had my fill of shitty car leases, swarthy mechanics and extortionate insurance bills...so I use the MTA, take taxis and am unrepentant about that...deal with it Los Angeles, I'm well aware that many of you driving around in those fancy rides can barely afford them...the jig is up...at any rate, I get to the screener, I lock up outside where I've been doing so for years and go inside, sign in with the outlet I'm covering for and settle in for the shoot 'em up...midway through the film, a blue-blazered security guy comes in and tells me the people in the club next door want me to move my cycle...and have threatened to call the fuzz to have the lock cut and the bike removed...but a sister working the floor that night had interceded because she knew I was in the screening room...good looking out, girlfriend...I made sure to tell her as much...<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg76I4gDC72lbHvJc1gUuS-zWgboIG397hoB8_W90o2jCurC3wHfbcV03qTxS-6uSnSW6ibWFYJUMcu-8K5dKMJOBjVpN8W9AOD0IkxeMEolVWfEReefMrijBj8pHV_RgRC2-DZA/s1600-h/snatchbicktopandgang.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg76I4gDC72lbHvJc1gUuS-zWgboIG397hoB8_W90o2jCurC3wHfbcV03qTxS-6uSnSW6ibWFYJUMcu-8K5dKMJOBjVpN8W9AOD0IkxeMEolVWfEReefMrijBj8pHV_RgRC2-DZA/s400/snatchbicktopandgang.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103126984624289058" border="0" /></a>...apparently the place next door was some new club down on the end of Sunset, close to BH and there was some red carpet thing going on and some celebrities were going to show...I more than likely knew most of the people covering it on the other side of the throngs of people...ain't that about a bitch? Luckily the guard in charge wasn't tripping (I found out later that she's from North Hollywood, so she wasn't fazed by the celeb stuff in the least) and she sorted me out so I could get on with what I was there for...I can still see the smirks on the faces of all those bald-headed schnooks in monkey suits as I rode off...their expressions said it all..."fuck you writer-guy"...I'm sorry...I'm not from around here, partner..so go fuck yourselves...I gave 'em a single-shouldered neck roll and sneer that would've done Snatch's Brick Top Polford one shite's sight better...like I'd just stumbled out of the Drowning Trout, stoked on pints of Irish Fighting Fuel...calm down, son...behave yourself...instead I shot down Sunset toward La Cienega....where I missed an appointment with my maker by about 30 seconds and 200 feet...<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCugZC1sZlAu4JRvew62rVEtsYQrlMRF2NWMA7RFFNg1vNxJO0WLIzgkHzmGsbvJPOTVZci69XBRTzruMyyu6U1Av9nubfskiNqobXu33VR3OoqKklo1KmAnYnhyphenhyphenNXOxtbBZNVlA/s1600-h/RANTS+GET+RAVES+cropped+08+26.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCugZC1sZlAu4JRvew62rVEtsYQrlMRF2NWMA7RFFNg1vNxJO0WLIzgkHzmGsbvJPOTVZci69XBRTzruMyyu6U1Av9nubfskiNqobXu33VR3OoqKklo1KmAnYnhyphenhyphenNXOxtbBZNVlA/s400/RANTS+GET+RAVES+cropped+08+26.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103126980329321730" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...the intersection where La Cienega crosses Sunset is at the top of one of the steepest inclines on that side of town and offers a splendid vista across West Hollywood that goes clean out to Culver City, sometimes Santa Monica, on a sunny day. On weekend nights it's clogged with traffic too but not on a Monday...I shooshed on down the hill...I got a green at the 7 - Eleven three blocks down, so I kept on truckin' and then I got a red at Sunset so I started braking-- all of a sudden I heard a loud screech behind me as I pulled to a stop. I looked behind, where I'd been just seconds before, in time to see an intoxicated driver careen straight through the intersection I'd just shot by like a two-wheeled bullet and crash into a light post in front of that Seven - E...the signal was still green going in my direction so he'd run a red light, swerved uphill and hit a pole-- a couple of hubcaps kept rolling up the hill like they had better things to do...if I had hung out just a couple of seconds more fucking with those guards back at the night club, talking shite like I might've in the past, back in Manhattan, I would've probably been in that intersection when that dude punched through it...road kill...a sign?<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBtIm5ncFjEH8xuJx4tK5XewA8Put_eJcuF7KbPZIH8RU9usorZqo-O6RJUyMwFMjyE9O27az9nUgmLQ3v5lzN6vdGqxnaJlROLBmDJ8oLsbbRWBQRRkX63Hclv4jqj7RVkXgaGw/s1600-h/journey-infinity-album.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBtIm5ncFjEH8xuJx4tK5XewA8Put_eJcuF7KbPZIH8RU9usorZqo-O6RJUyMwFMjyE9O27az9nUgmLQ3v5lzN6vdGqxnaJlROLBmDJ8oLsbbRWBQRRkX63Hclv4jqj7RVkXgaGw/s400/journey-infinity-album.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5103126984624289042" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...I don't know, maybe it was...maybe it wasn't but my ass is definitely circumspect, right about now...I can't call it but I'm certain that all of this shite transpired in the span of five hours the other day and it made me wonder if this town is trying to tell me something...we live our lives going forward with one foot on the accelerator and the other on "fast" so much these days it sometimes makes me think about those necessary pauses that we should take for sanity's sake but never do or think about until it's too fucking late to do anything about it...It'll put a grip into perspective when you get down to brass tacks and realize that tomorrow is promised to nobody...things might have been rough, but not so much that I was ever ready to punch the clock for good...sure it will no doubt get rougher at some point but who fekkin' cares, boyo? ...quiet as I keep it during phone conversations with her, I still don't cotton to my mother's notion that there's signs, signs, everywhere signs but I won't reject it outright, either...seen too much of the inexplicable to do so...she doesn't read as much as I do, but experience teacheth wisdom and all that jazz (she's definitely taught me that the surest way to see whom your true friends are is to call 'em when you're down and out...then the truth arises, sure as you're born)...<a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2005/08/bastille-prison-vs-crawford-texas.html"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">I still lean more toward Marcus Aurelius' words on Stoicism</span></a> because when it's all said and done, there's nothing left to say...just get on with it...do it...as cheese-ball as it might seem to some, I've embraced the thrust of this Journey tune from the album above long ago when I was still playing music on the road...the lyrics speak volumes and if you've ever written a tune with year heart on your sleeve and played it for people, you know what I'm talking about...fuck the VH-1-ish video sideshows, every time I hear Steve Perry sing it, I immediately identify with the protagonists' self doubt...there's some truth in there...an innate, inexplicable urge to carry on, despite how dark things appear...I've seen a lot since I started hittin' it and gigging out as a 17-year old university freshman and I haven't encountered any enigmatic burning bushes or talking coyotes out there since I started, either...nope, not one yet...having said all of that, I've learned its best to just push on toward your goals, whatever they are...embrace the challenge...ignore the sucker-ducks, nabobs and nay sayers (they're full of shite, I know I can be sometimes, though this ain't one of 'em)...a positive <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> beats a negative nothing and that's word, yo...keep all lines of communication switched on and wide open...but don't forget to get a whiff of those rose blooms up in your face...when you're down, dust yourself off, post haste and get the fuck back up because that which doesn't kill us-- well, you already know the rest...laters...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-14297116877799368402007-08-22T12:59:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:46.659-08:003:10 to Yuma: Christian Bale & Russell Crowe (Q&A)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgijLLfxncpFkHaZlpp4-BPFV8sLIvrMZiiGKdLRtwiWdjdpsof9asmpOEVj7z-NuuWo4fHbUatTIt0MIHlM02_B2G6rziZ9hz5yxkXwvGW2Q6DE65VMZs5mlM8bD1PYHD6YCOKSg/s1600-h/310+YUMA-+CRASH+%26+RUSSELL+CROWE+FLIPPED.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgijLLfxncpFkHaZlpp4-BPFV8sLIvrMZiiGKdLRtwiWdjdpsof9asmpOEVj7z-NuuWo4fHbUatTIt0MIHlM02_B2G6rziZ9hz5yxkXwvGW2Q6DE65VMZs5mlM8bD1PYHD6YCOKSg/s400/310+YUMA-+CRASH+%26+RUSSELL+CROWE+FLIPPED.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101619356614112450" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">..I'd be a liar on the wink if I said t</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">hat Gladiator wasn't one of my favorite movies to come out in the past decade...about a year or so before I started pursuing writing in this town, I recall walking down to the newly opened ArcLight Theater complex across the street from Amoeba records on Sunset to see a matinee of the film when it dropped before that weekend's bum rush...best line in the film was uttered by Joaquin Phoenix when he find out that the General of the Felix Legion is not dead and that his soldiers have lied to him: "That vexes me...I'm terribly vexed"...I was the only one who burst out laughing at the "Mel Brooksness" of that line...but whatever, son...<br /><br /></span> <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...I was in a roundtable with Maximus and Bat Man when I participated in a press conference with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale yesterday for James Mangold's forthcoming western 3:10 to Yuma...due to the obstreperous, borderline bellicose nature of one of my colleagues, it was difficult to get a</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> word in edgewise but alle ist en butter... eventually, Crowe revealed that he's not the surly, virtriol 'n vegemite, telephone-throwing upstart-from-the-land-down-under with everyone at all times...although he did have </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">to call somebody out for hogging the floor...here's what went down...</span><br /><br /><br />Q: You playing any music, got any gigs with your band lined up?<br /><br />Russell Crowe: I think we've got some shows in Jacksonville, FL coming up...looks over to his right: Christian Bale...<br /><br />Q: When you talk to a lot of actors and ask them why they became actors, they talk about 'wanting to dress up, be in a world of fantasy and all those kinds of reasons. Does doing a movie like this really enforce, in some ways, why you guys got into it?<br /><br />Christian Bale: Dress up?<br /><br />Q: ...doing a western, cowboy hats, guns and all that...<br /><br />RC: That's pretty good, isn't it? And it's a good list...ride horses...ride with guns , speak in a funny voice, you know, wear pointy boots. It's a good list in terms of what you're talking about and you would approach something like this probably thinking "this is going to be a bit of fun." So I actually looked at it and I said "well, I spent this time of year in Arizona making a western [The Quick and the Dead] back in '93-'94 and that was pleasant. Warm during the day, a little cold late at night but I didn't think much of it, I thought it'd be fine. But then I realized, once I'd gotten there, that Santa Fe is actually seven and a half thousand feet above sea level and it was going to be significantly colder. So, you know, Peter Fonda actually decided [on] a scale. He said, one day he made a stand, he said that he couldn't act on location, in period costume at below 13 degrees and I think [the Screen Actor's Guild] should look into this and I think there should be a scale done. [laughs] And I think there should be certain temperatures, you know, for example [pointing to Bale] where you [can] wear a cape and stuff, and a rubber suit and certain temperatures where you shouldn't.<br /><br />Q: You ride horses a lot in real life back back home, do you bring a lot of passion into a project like this when you're shooting.<br /><br />RC: Yeah, I mean I really enjoy the thought of the story. The main thing is reading the script and seeing the dynamic of the character and on [3:10 to Yuma] it seemed like playing the character was going to be fun, so that's why I do it.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrhraCELwTfFShDU2X0hIPgaUQel7t9-IP4am25-bbH5IRIVzx4U-Ota-_qeXx8fbPyUN9RPeI6XRCMxiPtXbsHmdj42wvzaNsoWAoDEx6k4Dnz1hxzAW-5tj0NgdDaoY98lqk0A/s1600-h/310+YUMA+C+BALE+.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrhraCELwTfFShDU2X0hIPgaUQel7t9-IP4am25-bbH5IRIVzx4U-Ota-_qeXx8fbPyUN9RPeI6XRCMxiPtXbsHmdj42wvzaNsoWAoDEx6k4Dnz1hxzAW-5tj0NgdDaoY98lqk0A/s400/310+YUMA+C+BALE+.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101619352319145138" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Q: So what appealed to you about the time period?<br /><br />RC: That it was a short shoot. [laughs]<br /><br />Q: No, the setting, the time period that the story was set in.<br /><br />RC: Oh! I'll leave that up to you, Christian.<br /><br />CB: I think it that period of all westerns. It being that period of almost anarchy compared to nowadays. You know, when a man really did have to be self-sufficient. And I think that nowadays we can get away with being very vague about having opinions about things, beliefs in something-- you can kind of get away with being vague about it because there's not that much that seems to directly affect our lives. At that time, you had to be a much stronger-minded individual in order to survive. I find that appealing, to watch people who test their mettle everyday.<br /><br />Q: Are you very selective when picking a role? What are your criterion for doing so?<br /><br />RC: It's the same as it's always been: "what's the story? What's the character?" That's my finite focus when I read a script. I don't think that I've become more selective over time, I think I came into it being selective, you know? I just do things that appeal to me. And they're not going to always be the sort of things that the head of a studio thinks will appeal as well.<br /><br />Q: How do you define what is a good character, then?<br /><br />RC: I think it's always been that way, especially in my life and in the movies, you know, you get a lot of opportunities that come with a big paycheck and all that sort of stuff that doesn't necessarily appeal to you. I know a lot of people that are absolutely dead-set certain that this is something that you will love to do and then you start to read it and there's nothing in it that turns you on. You know, I think you've just got to stay true to yourself in that way. [When] I read a script-- if I get goose bumps and I like what the potential of it is then that's the thing that I do.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSbB1kXwifMSP5W-aZoQa71-RYGqf1lpPawamJd4bE9iVq-XEEiTXiaqNZV5V4S0pQDzy7AWDMi4mye5NACJ0dO-YOJaLhJKn4tszp_IJag9ii_bF5vZfgr9XjQV2uPHEYMlgCFw/s1600-h/GladiatorBigPic.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSbB1kXwifMSP5W-aZoQa71-RYGqf1lpPawamJd4bE9iVq-XEEiTXiaqNZV5V4S0pQDzy7AWDMi4mye5NACJ0dO-YOJaLhJKn4tszp_IJag9ii_bF5vZfgr9XjQV2uPHEYMlgCFw/s400/GladiatorBigPic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101623514142455010" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Q: James Mangold said that Gladiator felt like a western to him with the story's structure. Is that something you agree with?<br /><br />RC: Well, I supposed it could be considered a western if you were writing your review in Athens. [laughs] Yeah, I don't know, that's probably more of a film making sort of question, really because we didn't really think about it that way at the time. But, you have common ground, there's like, horses and stuff.<br /><br />Q: Christian, have you been approached to do the new Justice League movie?<br /><br />RC: -- he was offered the role of the Green Lantern but there's no cape, so-- no fucking way. If I don't get that cape, then I won't be doing your movie! [laughs]<br /><br />Q: How do you think that would go, if they recast the character of Batman?<br /><br />CB: As far as that goes, you know, as long as it doesn't tread on the toes of what we're doing, then it's alright. But I think we'd better figure out what we'd start before we start shooting the third one.<br /><br />Q: The relationship that you two have on screen is sort of a friendship but it's based on hate--<br /><br />RC: it'd be a "hate-ship", then? [laughs] ...a "dislike-ship"...<br /><br />Q: -- a "dislike-ship"-- is that something that developed behind the scenes?<br /><br />CB: We didn't do a whole lot of talking about it offscreen. I mean, I tend to feel that if it's working, it's working. We didn't have to sort of sit and dissect the whole thing. I mean, it was pretty evident, it was right there. We both, coming in, knew it was very strong and firm ideas about who we are, so, it was right there. It was self-evident.<br /><br />RC: It's unfortunate that you get to talk 'till the end there because it wasn't fun to go do it again. Perhaps in a more moderate climate.<br /><br />Q: [to Russel] Apparently you were the quickest draw on the set, Mangold was saying earlier, where does that come into play...<br /><br />CB: I was a rifleman...with the pistols, I didn't even bother...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFQXz5sScYCqhw_qEVqwWzbAegBBvgtLBTorGITqsNt8aZiCToy4SByObPC6WAP9lnRsCFBcOmehyphenhyphen7axY3PLbIaRjiVOP1PcP1L_lvP8HHn65SuLV1z3-E79SsVt0Naw2MId-cjQ/s1600-h/310+yuma+quick+and+dead.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFQXz5sScYCqhw_qEVqwWzbAegBBvgtLBTorGITqsNt8aZiCToy4SByObPC6WAP9lnRsCFBcOmehyphenhyphen7axY3PLbIaRjiVOP1PcP1L_lvP8HHn65SuLV1z3-E79SsVt0Naw2MId-cjQ/s400/310+yuma+quick+and+dead.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101619343729210514" border="0" /></a>RC: I was really lucky when I came over to do The Quick and the Dead back in '93, that I met this guy Phil Reed, he's an armorer, and, you know, coming from Australia I didn't have any experience with the gun culture [in America]...so, I'd never actually held a hand gun before I was on the set of The Quick and the Dead. So what that guy filled was a complete blank slate, so he could sort of put the information in my head that you need to do that sort of thing. And, over time, and it's been a long time now that I've known Mr. Reed and I've probably done like, maybe half a dozen movies with him and he just keeps giving me the tips. We've actually done silly things like, a long time ago, gone off and done shooting competitions together as a team. But that's a very specific skill, you don't get to use that very often, so it's good when a western comes around.<br /><br />Q: It's been a great career for you, the first time I met you, you were up and coming and now you're a huge success...<br /><br />RC: Just for full disclosure, I went and judged a talent contest at a school that [the Australian journo] was a teacher at, of course he was very desperate to have some credibility with the kids. That would've been about '94 or something like that.<br /><br />Aussie Journo: It was a little later than that, I think...I don't remember now...I also don't appreciate you bringing it up, Russell. Thank you very much.<br /><br />RC: Oh, I just think that you've been asking all the damn questions in the room for a while...I just think everybody else needs an explanation as to why you've been so dominant in our conversation. [starts laughing]<br /><br />Q: Christian, do you like being an actor? Is there any other kind of career that you want?<br /><br />CB: I don't look at any difference between movies [and any other job]...movies are not a business to me. Movies are not a business to me, about where the financing's coming from, it's just about the [telling of] the stories and that's the end of it, you know?<br /><br /><br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinmMMfZI8WZkalE3B_uZcHKTRV1l_IKWG1Agt8PFBucwDeWWbyH8kf5WBxTNAGxT4KOqXTfOZUujIjW_Jr5lu_Yz2EYqbH0Bw5L-FoPaP40giNfUAEmLioe00kahBGrAoEd8OqyA/s1600-h/310+YUMA+CROWE+FONDA.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 346px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinmMMfZI8WZkalE3B_uZcHKTRV1l_IKWG1Agt8PFBucwDeWWbyH8kf5WBxTNAGxT4KOqXTfOZUujIjW_Jr5lu_Yz2EYqbH0Bw5L-FoPaP40giNfUAEmLioe00kahBGrAoEd8OqyA/s400/310+YUMA+CROWE+FONDA.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5101619348024177826" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UA8cUdmyvMc"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UA8cUdmyvMc" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...Rated R, 3:10 to Yuma is in theaters nationwide Friday, September 7th...</span></object>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-69299632632358866282007-08-19T21:29:00.001-07:002008-12-08T21:59:47.411-08:00Rewind: Open Range - A New-fangled Western...with a Familiar Formula<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ME9djs6OBO7ogcEpK8Vhvo4JWwl61-1w4vkB9dme4P3F41ieulHYhVil1nFMfKusMtyqg_REAJ6oNV_k-iSU7LkNVc05CUvYnnra1AnrdVVYIJymyz0u-6vL73Vhri-R1TbRyg/s1600-h/OPEN+RANG+MARQUEE+POSTER.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ME9djs6OBO7ogcEpK8Vhvo4JWwl61-1w4vkB9dme4P3F41ieulHYhVil1nFMfKusMtyqg_REAJ6oNV_k-iSU7LkNVc05CUvYnnra1AnrdVVYIJymyz0u-6vL73Vhri-R1TbRyg/s400/OPEN+RANG+MARQUEE+POSTER.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100635529930454082" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...in a couple of days I'm going to cover the new western 3:10 to Yuma and have a sit down with Russell Crowe, Chrisitan Bale and the film's director James Mangold (who, I found during an interview for another film with Joaquin Phoenix, talked the actor into playing Johnny Cash opposite Reese Witherspoon while having dinner with Joaquin and the Man in Black, himself)...the premise of this newer Western got me wondering if the genre itself had run it's course...I had similar thoughts a couple of years ago when I covered Open Range which, it turns out, even though</span> <a style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 204, 204);" href="http://archive.salon.com/ent/feature/2003/08/15/open_range/index.html">Kevin Costner got lampooned by some for shooting it, </a><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> starring in it, etc... I liked it and seeing as the source I reviewed it for is defunct, I thought I'd repost what I wrote because I think it's worth seeing and I still feel now the way I did then about the film and the genre itself ....</span><br /><br />...Just when it seemed like this summer’s cinema would be overrun with teen-bopper one-week wonders starring the usual Tigerbeat cover models, Kevin Costner returns with the old fashioned shoot’em up Open Range. The storyline is simple enough: four cattlemen (or free-rangers) drive their herd across the 19th Century American prairie only to encounter a ruthless landowner who doesn’t take to kindly to their ilk and wants to put them in a dirt-nap. After one of their crew gets brutally beaten by a gang of dirtbag lackeys at the general store, action ensues. All of this is standard horse-opera faire but this is a film directed by Kevin Costner so you know it’s gonna be a long one, 2:15 long to be exact - Giddiyap.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPrGG5TfdGd-9weMFR1VJGWBHitqC3Ol9yUqJfsKRpheBa1lr85BeRz2H-pAdNctKo4vH8QUMFNMR8F8l6vXZAqm6hTLoPAAz5rLJFc2G23KMZbHdya45jlTjV-AVdl64L1xA_Qg/s1600-h/OPEN+RANGE+GROUP+ON+HORSE.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPrGG5TfdGd-9weMFR1VJGWBHitqC3Ol9yUqJfsKRpheBa1lr85BeRz2H-pAdNctKo4vH8QUMFNMR8F8l6vXZAqm6hTLoPAAz5rLJFc2G23KMZbHdya45jlTjV-AVdl64L1xA_Qg/s400/OPEN+RANGE+GROUP+ON+HORSE.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100635538520388722" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The group of free-rangers consists of Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall), Charley Waite (Costner), Button (Diego Luna) and Mose (Abraham Benrubi). It quickly becomes clear that the quartet are a tight knit extended family with all of the potential infighting that that would entail – a newer take on the timeworn home on the range cow poke persona. This wandering set of saddle bums are salt-of-the-earth types just trying to make their way in a word that’s learning to settle down so subterfuge is inevitable.<br /><br />As the film flows, Costner’s portrayal of Charley comes off as what John Dunbar might’ve morphed into had he left Ft. Sedgewick on the wagon with Timmons in Dances with Wolves. Robert Duvall has brought the masses a wide variety of characters throughout the run of his long career on stage and screen. From Col. Kilgore (Apocalypse Now) to Compton (Colors) to the consigliere (Godfathers 1 and 2). Duvall’s turn as Boss Spearman is as textured as the craggy squint lines around the corners of the actor’s eyes. Boss is a composite of all those earlier Duvall characters tempered with age that settles like a fine wine – either you got it or you don’t and dude has got more presence in his pinky than entire casts of other projects out on the market.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuT_s3oYstASSImDxtYOhzXDHbx6XceXpDvGMCPYtehNUxabmoHEtX2lwgiYB3MlZFHCvUxG2T3Jh9pTMlrC0hEs9kk9QGV5V7D2_gA6AeDktAQdIZQMTiRIGloJDmESWFldZZOA/s1600-h/openrangepic.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuT_s3oYstASSImDxtYOhzXDHbx6XceXpDvGMCPYtehNUxabmoHEtX2lwgiYB3MlZFHCvUxG2T3Jh9pTMlrC0hEs9kk9QGV5V7D2_gA6AeDktAQdIZQMTiRIGloJDmESWFldZZOA/s400/openrangepic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100640404718335106" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />In the middle of the film Costner’s direction begins to backslide toward his more maudlin tendencies (a hint of the Postman) but he soon regains footing and moves the storyline on as Charley and Boss saddle up and head into town to do what they gotta do. On their way, the longtime friends continue evaluating themselves (and their place in the changing world) as yet more layers are peeled off to reveal what makes them tick. The cowboy as an effusive conversationalist? The gun-slinger who upchucks at the thought of doing battle? These are a few more of the director’s revisionist twists on the classic western archetype but they work well here. At one point in the film, while talking to Sue Barlow (Annette Bening), Boss likens his relationship with Waite to that of an old married couple without one scintilla of sarcasm – Gold. These characters are not ten feet tall and bullet-proof which is why their realness radiates off the screen and bounce off the walls.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlQv2ZJ1-cEifOdI53bTkGzWxJ6s75-2VYVX77Z1bXoSNeR4Ap7HMZhNeANNsC7ElZl6QDIAjTZiOd6zSIvjuNpQeC0HORzQ7vIObL3_A5QnInXogDwNnV2tQxgcl-SeYrUS9yWw/s1600-h/OPEN+RANGE+ANNETTE+BENNING.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlQv2ZJ1-cEifOdI53bTkGzWxJ6s75-2VYVX77Z1bXoSNeR4Ap7HMZhNeANNsC7ElZl6QDIAjTZiOd6zSIvjuNpQeC0HORzQ7vIObL3_A5QnInXogDwNnV2tQxgcl-SeYrUS9yWw/s400/OPEN+RANGE+ANNETTE+BENNING.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100635534225421394" border="0" /></a>Annette Bening fits snugly into the role of Miss Barlow, the assistant to the town doctor who the free-rangers must visit on several occasions to get patched up – she and Charley eventually become attracted. Their romance is just a footnote, however, because the real meat and potatoes are the way that Boss and Charley lock horns with the wily landowner, Baxter (played by Michael Gambon) and the town sheriff (James Russo) who’s in Baxter’s watch pocket. Baxter is colder than a witch’s tit and the role of horse-town heavy is taken beyond Lee Van Cleef proportions but again, this direction feels appropriate given the setting. The supporting cast offers a memorable workout from the late Michael Jeter who plays a cantankerous (yet hilarious) livery stableman who befriends the main characters and Luna (Y Tu Mama También) has a couple of moments throughout but Duvall is clearly regulating at this particular ro-deo – look for the scene where they tell each other their real names...<br /><br />Kevin Costner’s direction of Open Range points to both Sergio Leoni and Clint Eastwood (the marquee poster even looks like a knockoff of the latter’s Oscar winning film) but in the end it is clear that this film is all Costner’s. By reviving a genre that had gone the way of the buffalo, the actor/ director/ producer has brought an end to a ten year creative (and commercial) drought. Costner’s back on the trail and riding tall in the saddle – if you see it in a bin at your video store or it's not in your NetFlix queue, give it a whirl; put it on the list and check it out...it's actually better than a lot of the tripe that's being released as "new"...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFEZbUsyycO18nmlu2GDWhnEz8Sf4Wj0Ok8vFzzW980IU7JsYYKNBr0rsE0swsPR0hUap19ynrrZvHklikWogG8x9coDmlXvvPWruNyzWJncHNgA-6pX3qomQ8EU_mRHEZVFVq2w/s1600-h/OPEN+RANGE+COSTNER+DUVALL.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFEZbUsyycO18nmlu2GDWhnEz8Sf4Wj0Ok8vFzzW980IU7JsYYKNBr0rsE0swsPR0hUap19ynrrZvHklikWogG8x9coDmlXvvPWruNyzWJncHNgA-6pX3qomQ8EU_mRHEZVFVq2w/s400/OPEN+RANGE+COSTNER+DUVALL.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100635534225421410" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Studio: Touchstone</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Starring: Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, Diego Luna, Abraham Benrubi, Michael Gambon, James Russo and Michael Jeter</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Director: Kevin Costner</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Rated: R</span><br /><br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/I-Q_CkowWgQ"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/I-Q_CkowWgQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"></embed></object>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-1585116283476761942007-08-18T22:37:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:47.850-08:00Gino d’Auri: The Baddest Guitarist You Never Heard…Yet<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAIjUsizxhpuJXYu2B3ixokhwhJbLq7ypu7lf4FIifMmHVM1RiPERMITPj6aXJEIGHAvUxm7yda-uPQ_Tiq3kH6rwbMOnG_KXI5-hSYLk3L6pl2UyopALMERW8fUl6h5qaCusHw/s1600-h/GINO+GUITAR.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAIjUsizxhpuJXYu2B3ixokhwhJbLq7ypu7lf4FIifMmHVM1RiPERMITPj6aXJEIGHAvUxm7yda-uPQ_Tiq3kH6rwbMOnG_KXI5-hSYLk3L6pl2UyopALMERW8fUl6h5qaCusHw/s400/GINO+GUITAR.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100282140021339170" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...I was chatting with a friend online in Spain last night and we came across the subject of Flamenco dancing; music and it jogged my memory abo</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">ut a post that I did months ago on my music blog and forgot to link back to on here for whatever reason...I think it's tale that should be told, so I'll post the original in it's entirety here...<br /><br /><br /></span>...great stories I find buried in my scribbled notes (transcribed from post-its and bar napkins sometimes) is why I always tell my friends/ readers of my blogs never forget to write shit down…I’d forgotten all about this encounter with a great musician I’d had about five years ago, back when I scribed for a long defunct eZine called AtomicLife…I was over in Los Feliz and got an impulsive jones for some Spanish music, I was sitting in the Good Luck Bar (enjoying an after work oat soda, natch) and decided to walk down the street to <a href="http://www.elcidla.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">El Cid,</span></a> this Flamenco Dinner Theater a couple of blocks up, over on Sunset…(I used to frequent the joint when I first got back from NYC because it reminded me of a hole in the wall tapas bar west of 8th Ave. that I used to haunt back there)...the tapas were ok but the Sangria and the dancing is what puts the jam in your jelly donut…so I cross the street, walk over to the restaurant and order a glass of freshly mixed Sangria and begin to wait for the floor show when this wiry, olive-skinned guy walked in and sat on a stool next to me. He ordered what I was having and we raised our glasses with a salut, I noticed he had an acoustic guitar case so I asked him if he was playing and it turned out he was, I also picked up on a thick Italian accent and his English was kinda choppy so I took the liberty to start speaking to him in Spanish and things really took off from there…<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0ptvJFu8zj6t2gNpyzuxfkm_IIRo5SUE0K4jDcM8atZ5WWcNXFciDIMYS0Sp_ZQ-HscdD6vFqr5SKO0zDT6XhjMlVKKUpE9-IIuIPEwQh2Mtos-Fh9CsQR29p6S4brDut-1TWQ/s1600-h/GINO+FLAMENCO+ALBUM+COVER.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0ptvJFu8zj6t2gNpyzuxfkm_IIRo5SUE0K4jDcM8atZ5WWcNXFciDIMYS0Sp_ZQ-HscdD6vFqr5SKO0zDT6XhjMlVKKUpE9-IIuIPEwQh2Mtos-Fh9CsQR29p6S4brDut-1TWQ/s400/GINO+FLAMENCO+ALBUM+COVER.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100282135726371842" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...it turns out that this wild-eyed Italian was none other than <a href="http://wc03.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jzfrxqq5ldae%7ET1"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Gino d’Auri,</span></a> pictured at the header, one of the flamenco guitar greats along the lines of Paco de Lucia (whom d’Auri had played with often and was a friend of his since 1973… (I've written about Paco before <a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/30791"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">here, on my music blog...</span></a> Gino pointed me to other acts to check like Calo, deFalla and this Indian outfit called Gipsy Unstatia…then, at about our fourth glass of the red stuff, d’Auri delved into what to really listen for in a flamenco song, which I wrote down and will quote here word for word: “In playing flamenco, I search for the ‘cosmic clap’ [great word], the innate pulse that every musician strives for while playing his instrument,” he continued in Spanish. “Some say it’s ‘duende’ or the little devil, the word inspiration isn’t specific enough, and it comes by but briefly in a ‘pelizco’ or an infinitesimal moment.” ...Dude moved to LA in 1967 (from his mouth, not AMG ’s), began making the acoustic rounds and later started recording music with the fusion band Caldera…I see here on these badly scribbled notes from the convo [it quickly dawned on me to start writing down the shit he was dropping on me because it was profound and sincere ]...here’s a quote I found:”These days, many people think that flamenco is about playing 60,000 notes as quickly as possible…my flamenco (playing) is slower, very traditional and down to earth—I may use cello and percussion but it’s done in a traditional way, without lots of notes. For me, the music is about feeling and improvisation. I like to take chances—the communication is better that way”...just above this paragraph is the cover of his 1997 solo LP <a href="http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wbfuxqthldde"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Flamenco: Passion & Soul</span></a> which I had on tape but not on mp3…click the link to take a listen…<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV0WNnKdGlsJrlz8LsRurlOZs3NDP3O7fSOWj075f-9bq3LWp8AeaITnRLdRrA-52AqnjFiEbxdmv29yFshV4TpNkgmJD48lElCy34JRLDcrLrz1g3-9LjG3Zax0x7BT6osLmG8g/s1600-h/GINO+FLAMENCO+DANCER.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV0WNnKdGlsJrlz8LsRurlOZs3NDP3O7fSOWj075f-9bq3LWp8AeaITnRLdRrA-52AqnjFiEbxdmv29yFshV4TpNkgmJD48lElCy34JRLDcrLrz1g3-9LjG3Zax0x7BT6osLmG8g/s400/GINO+FLAMENCO+DANCER.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100282140021339154" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...Good stuff, yo…Gino gave me his phone number to call him if I was ever in the area again and he’d hook me up…shit, I’d forgotten all about this stuff because I put it in the back of a journal that night which filled it and I started a fresh one the next day…I wonder what Gino’s up to now…he got up from our little impromptu interview, got up on the stage in the other room and rocked the spot for hours as the dancers stomped all around the stage, throwing those frills, kicking those heels and proudly clicking castanets- sweetness…what a night…the whole thing the result of following my muse’s whim—one of those reasons why I don’t dis the musical ju-ju…I find, I’m losing my ability to hablo the ‘spanyole as well as I used to (need to get on that) but I’ve also found that my love for music like this and musicians like Gino and Paco has not ebbed in the slightest…here’s a cut by Paco from 1986’s groundbreaking LP Entre Dos Aguas called “La Nina de Puerta Oscura”...it’s fuckin’ brilliant…<br /><br /><div align="center" style="background:#000000; width:320; height:141"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height:122px;width:320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="320" height="122" name="MOGPlayerYzZprCkEqQj.mp3" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/YzZprCkEqQj.mp3"></embed><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="padding-right:10px;padding-left:10px;"><tr><td align="left" width="100" height="22"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:12px">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/61110" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:12px">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/61110" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:12px">Share</a></td></tr></table></div><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Note: I looked up the number that Gino had given me but it was no longer working…I looked around the day I originally wrote the piece above and found out that d'Auri had passed two months beforehand, at the end of January, still doing what he loved to do…damn…I’m glad I met the guy….</span>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-49379439980604426522007-08-17T12:03:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:48.324-08:00The Esbjörn Svensson Trio is a Bonafide FIND!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxyDkQ51OtmMhMvXzYTYmSD_xhd5_3bIdWfQ8OVBpbnjTa6GPncCFKenGfn1BAwEhi7QvDouF0qb7WFrRaJb1sdKEpsdvZk4RvCmELDD-4Z5jL5Q3QEIgaa_u_Olrc0BWJ6oAO8g/s1600-h/ACT_9010-2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxyDkQ51OtmMhMvXzYTYmSD_xhd5_3bIdWfQ8OVBpbnjTa6GPncCFKenGfn1BAwEhi7QvDouF0qb7WFrRaJb1sdKEpsdvZk4RvCmELDD-4Z5jL5Q3QEIgaa_u_Olrc0BWJ6oAO8g/s400/ACT_9010-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5099747867564553170" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...Whenever I hear of a newer jazz artist covering the tunage of one of the greats from one of my favorite musical eras 1953-ish to the late 60's (the hard bop period through the avant-garde movement; on into the early fusion stuff), I get a little twitch in the corner of my eye because more often than not, the newer take comes off like a copy of a duplicated facsimilie...<span style="font-weight: bold;">in mimeograph</span>...or the later effort, as ambitious as it may be, is being attempted by musicians who don't have the chops for the task they've set themselves...(I get a similar feeling when that jazz pianist in the house band on Michael Feldman's NPR quiz show, "Whaddaya Know"-- dude always attempts piano runs that he can never resolve...I turn the radio down every time I hear one coming...the quiz show itself is funny sometimes, though but I'm digressing...</span><br /><br />....such is not this case when the Esbjörn Svensson (piano), Dan Berglund (double bass) and Magnus Östrom (drums) got together as the Esbjörn Svensson Trio and recorded 1997's "Plays Monk" for EST Records (later to be re-issued on ACT in 2001)...if you read me, then you already know that <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 204, 204);" href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/93814">I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Thelonious Monk fan</a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 204, 204);"> </span>so, when my homebiscuit, Erin turned me on to it I was skeptical...I'd heard about Svensson but never got around to him which I began to regret as the outfit hit the ground running at a crisp, brisk clip with a rendition of "Rhythim-a-Ning" that quickly brought a smile to my face about 20 seconds and the string stuff on " 'Round Midnight" brought a fresher feel to a classic I already knew inside out...and I'm not telling porkie-pies around the campfire, either...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCvyYT6zbWw5WACPsShnWCOATqzYYcnEiUeNe4NvAUkxFXEsKc-zXg7j_CiK4ZgmI10psY843e1r2n4eXAzyqcSlacPTVxXe9ox0AiScnwIhFPYvha1QpI5UwWlPj_h11qOr1cXg/s1600-h/sjff_01_img0503.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCvyYT6zbWw5WACPsShnWCOATqzYYcnEiUeNe4NvAUkxFXEsKc-zXg7j_CiK4ZgmI10psY843e1r2n4eXAzyqcSlacPTVxXe9ox0AiScnwIhFPYvha1QpI5UwWlPj_h11qOr1cXg/s400/sjff_01_img0503.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5099747871859520482" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...going deeper into the album's trackage, one finds that " Little Rootie Tootie" has some sweet, swinging drum moments and the best way to describe their lugubrious-yet-cheerful rendition of "I Mean You": brush-lush-tastic (another joint on which the drumming shines as Östrom lays down the lutefisk...on "Evidence" the Trio turns up the heat during a brisk workout that puts the spotlight on Esbjörn's who show's that he can punch his body-weight when he's hunched over a piano...unlike the professional amateur mentioned above, Svensson's got the Scandinavian minerals to pull it off...not to get hyperbolic but it's a real revelation to hear someone else vibe on Thelonious' "tongue-in-cheek-complexity" and nail it-- love the way he drops out of that oh-so-Monk run around 4:14...nothin' but the truth, son...they hook shit up later in a similar fashion on "Criss Cross" as well...I found myself liking their rendition of the Monk staple "Bemsha Swing" just as much as I like John Coltrane and Don Cherry's version of it as well...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPR5KX0J3l773fgzKCXZnHX65XI9V_ngzUnJVNpauJjMQ0MsGgU0EKma2NTiNzGq3H4onm0MZkBTdSlBaGKGI4Nk0ooXhU5YM4KpBuYPoH83ZZ5mij-6AtMDflqPAjWhtL1-DHiQ/s1600-h/est+nattjazz.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPR5KX0J3l773fgzKCXZnHX65XI9V_ngzUnJVNpauJjMQ0MsGgU0EKma2NTiNzGq3H4onm0MZkBTdSlBaGKGI4Nk0ooXhU5YM4KpBuYPoH83ZZ5mij-6AtMDflqPAjWhtL1-DHiQ/s400/est+nattjazz.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5099747871859520498" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...music: it's the gift that keeps on giving...I've been listening to this LP a great deal since I got hooked up with it last month...and the tune I've been really vibing on is the EST's version of "In Walked Bud" which I'll close out this review with (according to lore, this is literally the tune that Esbjörn's father, a jazz musician, himself had spinning on the turntable as his toddler son learned to walk...probably untrue but I like the circle-of-life feel of the tale )...I don't think the Plays Monk is OOP, so if you see that freaky-ass, cubist cover staring at you from a record bin across the room, calmly adjust that fedora (that you're no doubt wearing), look around the room...then slowly ease over to it and snatch it up ...then do that little "Eureka jig" like Walter Huston did in the flick The Treasure of the Sierra Madre...because, Bogey, you've just found yourself some jazz gold...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">(to turn off iVoon to listen to track below, click pause on the clickwheel of the iPod in sidebar)<br /><br /><br /><div style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 320px; height: 141px;" align="center"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height: 122px; width: 320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="MOGPlayerapZbxBO7XbO.mp3" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/apZbxBO7XbO.mp3" align="middle" height="122" width="320"></embed><br /><table style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" height="22" width="100"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/104729" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/104729" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">Share</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><br />(If you're down, there's another track available over <a ref="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/104729"></a></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 255);"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a ref="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/104729">on my music blog</a></span></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> )<br /></span>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-42789947346578197712007-08-16T12:20:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:49.048-08:00Pimsleur's Audio Books: Müßten Sie etwas Lernen? (Wanna Learn Something?)....<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5RC_pgpga1SWRzkIHgUkWP_V6vr5jhQmjCNVig2jBASCaMvpJODghPTrSaMKcRyaUvPBovcM-jtqhWpebgmFptvXlnxwJkS9spL8sLTtc5aXzpU7-KisTKrGdUwqoohhBLE9Pog/s1600-h/3306_0334.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5RC_pgpga1SWRzkIHgUkWP_V6vr5jhQmjCNVig2jBASCaMvpJODghPTrSaMKcRyaUvPBovcM-jtqhWpebgmFptvXlnxwJkS9spL8sLTtc5aXzpU7-KisTKrGdUwqoohhBLE9Pog/s400/3306_0334.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5099382498991649650" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...If you've ever thought about picking up another language</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> but don't have the time for all the classes; schlepping around town, let me pull your coat on something that I think will be right up your alley...I've been studying German for the last couple of months and after exploring s</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">everal different means of study and looking around at the stuff available at the iTunes store, I've found the language learning system that has yielded the best results...</span><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLXL-GteVnNQBI86P0M1JOBcVG12X_GRHGWKAqae26tNjWOK8ZIHgHy9bRkbv8hT2ZfGHzuuuKD2xJgHkJGLf0tc3w6fMyTIwvox1_zo4lJVLRollIjw9x8LCj0OHwZKPOSY7Sw/s1600-h/Picture+1.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLXL-GteVnNQBI86P0M1JOBcVG12X_GRHGWKAqae26tNjWOK8ZIHgHy9bRkbv8hT2ZfGHzuuuKD2xJgHkJGLf0tc3w6fMyTIwvox1_zo4lJVLRollIjw9x8LCj0OHwZKPOSY7Sw/s400/Picture+1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5099382503286616962" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />..."Man, those schnitzen grübens will wipe you out every time"...You can kick those audiobooks that begin with "Learn In-Flight" to the curb, if you're just beginning and plug into the titles that will hook you up with the Pimsleur System which was developed by the language professor and Fulbright lecturer <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Pimsleur">Paul Pimsleur</a> who, while researching the psychology of language learning, developed a means to speed up the language acquisition process-- he started with children who would learn languages without worrying about the mechanics and formalities of structure, the result: Pimsleur's Language Learning System...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU2_x4eYOCHSyTgWfjrkB0jGa8TmgM3NCySV2M93R12joHjPGWtb_BinvTTtIl0tHs1VnqQfs4erepAks-mTX7d5d1tBl5LkU_3a2DN3sPZfvHHC5hV6oZNETrzgyxi3XUi36Czg/s1600-h/0764102842.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 193px; height: 319px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU2_x4eYOCHSyTgWfjrkB0jGa8TmgM3NCySV2M93R12joHjPGWtb_BinvTTtIl0tHs1VnqQfs4erepAks-mTX7d5d1tBl5LkU_3a2DN3sPZfvHHC5hV6oZNETrzgyxi3XUi36Czg/s400/0764102842.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5099386420296790978" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />...while I learned English and later Spanish the "old fashioned way", I've found that using audiobooks that utilize Pimsleur's method along with reading wörterbuchs and cross referencing those with <a style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0764102842-0">Henry</a><a style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0764102842-0"> Strutz' "501 German Verbs, 3rd Edition,</a> which holds lists of fully conjugated Deutsch, is helping me pick up aspects of the language at a much quicker pace than I ever did when I began the five years of Spanish classes back in High School/ University (I took two years of French in the 9th and 10th grades before that and didn't learn it nearly as quick as I'm picking up this Scheiße...<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >...the Pimsleur Methodology goes as follows:</span><br /><br />* The student listens to a recording on which a native speaker speaks culturally rich phrases in both the foreign language and the language used for teaching (usually English, but the method is not tied to a specific language).<br /><br />* At precise intervals (graduated intervals), the student is prompted to repeat a phrase after the speaker finishes it.<br /><br />* The student is then introduced to a new phrase and the meaning is explained.<br /><br />* After repeating a couple of times, the student is asked to repeat the previous phrase but borrowing from the words and meaning of the new one (recall and construction).<br /><br />* More new phrases are introduced, while old phrases are prompted at random. The random recall prompts the learner's mind to associate words with meanings.<br /><br />"Studies have shown that a relatively small core vocabulary accounts for the majority of words spoken in a particular language. In English, for example, approximately 80 percent of any written text are members of the 2000 most common word families."<br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQAw_tNepAzmBN45OzVhDvFxIdidI2XNTayVhG38d5Lac9qplaBYZPMMxnE-BFi6EbwZMAvndcNHZfDe46RxV_T7506kPxxSHjtYyl4ItokEYHG9S_eyDFXJ-QQtfNfTimmuF6BQ/s1600-h/lg_sn5438-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQAw_tNepAzmBN45OzVhDvFxIdidI2XNTayVhG38d5Lac9qplaBYZPMMxnE-BFi6EbwZMAvndcNHZfDe46RxV_T7506kPxxSHjtYyl4ItokEYHG9S_eyDFXJ-QQtfNfTimmuF6BQ/s400/lg_sn5438-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5099385453929149362" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...Corpus linguistics compiled for various languages show what number of words is required to cover a certain percentage of the corpus. Data for Indian languages in the CIIL corpus show the number of words required for 50% coverage varies from 199 words in Hindi to 7,699 in Malayalam, while 80% coverage for those languages is 2,874 and 126,344 respectively.<br /><br />The Pimsleur method works by teaching core vocabulary that tend to be most often used in everyday activities (i.e. to do, to say, to be, numbers, buying, eating and drinking). Pimsleur rarely teaches grammar, rather letting the student infer the grammar through common patterns in phrases."...<a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/22786/the_pimsleur_language_learning_system.html">read more on the benefits of the method...</a><br /><br />...I marvel at the learning tools out there today, I can only imagine how much more I could have absorbed back in the day...there's a grip of audiobooks on cassette teaching practically <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=paul+pimsleur&x=0&y=0">every language under the sun</a>...there's just one cock-up with the means I'm using...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLvAEx29VDYmCvHxp9H1ConhgEwX9jad93a5Vjl7HLyBYKYJ-ulQ95J3dOWHqT0YeuoozSs3YFDzrh-jI-0_U3EvBGjJEUF6wA2m7-7-MNwVdeYQwKvMYA4tuybmOS8Gvl2I5Ffw/s1600-h/Picture+2.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 384px; height: 136px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLvAEx29VDYmCvHxp9H1ConhgEwX9jad93a5Vjl7HLyBYKYJ-ulQ95J3dOWHqT0YeuoozSs3YFDzrh-jI-0_U3EvBGjJEUF6wA2m7-7-MNwVdeYQwKvMYA4tuybmOS8Gvl2I5Ffw/s400/Picture+2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5099382507581584274" border="0" /></a><br />.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />..the only real beef that I have right now is that after the first 10 lessons, the price jumps to $106.95 for the next ten (21 to 30)...after that, the German II, Lessons 31 to 60 bounces up to $249.00...but to get the whole ball of wax, Lessons I, II and III, all you've got to do is drop half a grand and you're set...that's a bit rich for my blood at the moment but if I had the means, I'd do it...I've found a couple of learn language sites online with content that has been middling at best and all hard to download...(click the header for the link to a "price beater" site with a grip of these Pimsleur books, both audio and paginated, for cheap)...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMda2aZcwyolAeSy2r3CYcIr_m68-GnfnNWzgySUYvAMa0GL11U3PQn65Egy3hEeVz6NSwT4UxfMkNCyy1Ot5PMvfst0UY2hkkyU6BEBJGsJHSYPgtGXMTeL7MfQVPjjtuzmUuKQ/s1600-h/Picture+3.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMda2aZcwyolAeSy2r3CYcIr_m68-GnfnNWzgySUYvAMa0GL11U3PQn65Egy3hEeVz6NSwT4UxfMkNCyy1Ot5PMvfst0UY2hkkyU6BEBJGsJHSYPgtGXMTeL7MfQVPjjtuzmUuKQ/s400/Picture+3.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5099382511876551586" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...I don't like to cut corners on stuff like this because you only end up cheating yourself out of a richer learning experience, so, more than likely I will pony up the dough for more of the lessons after I finish the ones I have in iTunes right now (that is if I don't find CD's of them in the big Library downtown or the one in Glendale or the Pasadena Central Branch)...it'll be well worth the effort if I can score these for the nice price...I'd imagine that these lessons would work well with someone brushing up after years of not speaking a language as well...as one who often has to twist his verbiage around in print, it's clear that I've got a long way to go mit mien Deutsch aber I must admit I've never had more fun picking up a new tongue...I'll be slurring my "r's" like Blazing Saddles' Lili von Schtupp in no time...it's like linguistic crack..."die Sprache ruft zu mir" it be calling me, I tells ya...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-48699709590324845702007-08-15T11:24:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:49.654-08:00...Sometimes, There's a Man Who Fits Right in There...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0AFmMfdUfGw7Ey1Mgh6sWZervv8bkIK2nCaXylm__MsqkN9wJ5LhKjcisXypLXTkHgy66qSRZ2_yTzNkaMHzGkyYFt-ConqeA9chXJRAoF0zFHy95ZC6SG499GCz4a984vpL2Rg/s1600-h/biglebowski21.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0AFmMfdUfGw7Ey1Mgh6sWZervv8bkIK2nCaXylm__MsqkN9wJ5LhKjcisXypLXTkHgy66qSRZ2_yTzNkaMHzGkyYFt-ConqeA9chXJRAoF0zFHy95ZC6SG499GCz4a984vpL2Rg/s400/biglebowski21.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098995765306803762" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> ..."Way out west there was this fella I wanna tell ya about...he called himself "The Dude". Now, "Dude" - there's a name no man would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place so darn</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">ed interestin'. See, they call Los Angeles the "City Of Angels"; but I didn't find it to be that, exactly. But I'll allow it as there are some nice folks there...after seeing Los Angeles, and this here story I'm about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin' every bit as stupefyin' as you'd seen in any of them other places. And in English, too... sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? Sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here - the Dude from Los Angeles. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude. The Dude, from Los Angeles. And even if he's a lazy man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in all of Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide. Sometimes there's a man, sometimes, there's a man... "</span><br /><br /><br />...so the heat in this town has been abominable for the past week-and-change and I remember looking up one day and screeching to the sun in my best Jeff Lebowski/ Bridges drawl: Dude, new shit must come to light"...so I've been doing most of my online work/ studying at the library...from morning, through the day and into the night...what can I say? The A/C is boomin' and its good to see other people toiling at whatever they do on their laptops, sometimes you need to witness first-hand that you're not alone in your exploits (I've closed the joint about four times so far)...<br /><br />...there's a cafe here that sells somewhat overpriced cups of joe/ sandwiches which isn't very cost effective or any better than shite I can bring in myself, so that's what I've been doing-- these days a fool is expediently divested of his loot, even at la biblioteca...after the first couple of days, I started to bring coffee I brewed myself, the way I like it...and I'd worked out a little tip scheme with this female barista wherein I'd get a couple of packets of brown sugar, a little cream and I'd tip her instead of buying a cup of that overheated, overpriced swamp water...und alles war mit der Welt gut...well, all was good with the world until today, that is...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHVXnxhvdGgZzsV_-ZmMiE-BKsTjgpLo1FJ-JcSxk77i86xSsigcta7I5gdZsb4vV647JpkEjosO6bbjsE4K4x5thvkdLkb9sf99kZvuOuQwknvyKjgjWZlP7TQMeOqodBmV10OA/s1600-h/big-lebowski.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHVXnxhvdGgZzsV_-ZmMiE-BKsTjgpLo1FJ-JcSxk77i86xSsigcta7I5gdZsb4vV647JpkEjosO6bbjsE4K4x5thvkdLkb9sf99kZvuOuQwknvyKjgjWZlP7TQMeOqodBmV10OA/s400/big-lebowski.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098995417414452722" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />..."This agression will not stand, man"...the regular lady wasn't there, so I asked this white-haired, white guy if it'd be cool if I got a couple of packets of the sweet stuff..."what and not buy any coffee?"...well, yeah, I have my own..."Well, I think not."...there were a couple of other people sitting around and, as I jacked into the vitriolic fury that only a man, jonesing for caffeine while trying to quit smoking can feel, I looked him straight in the eye and said: "thanks very much, punk"...I could've continued and offered to pay for the sugar, which I started to do...but then I looked at the way that fucking homunculous' attitude changed when he thought I wasn't going to proffer any loot and it sickened me...would all of the wheels have fallen off the wagon if he'd given me two packets of sugar? I understand the laws of supply and demand and all but damn son..."mark it zero, dude..."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTjEgDMiDQ1qlWBZZDzwrSFcLr9SJmsAHpmtW0t56vD-uivL6dZ6KB3cskh4fExRxbCq7klYiNlBUpm9A_4UQjR0xEXKE_S-79mnjCLpylux_Rok33usFQP1J3WhCT4vgAliX1g/s1600-h/big115.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMTjEgDMiDQ1qlWBZZDzwrSFcLr9SJmsAHpmtW0t56vD-uivL6dZ6KB3cskh4fExRxbCq7klYiNlBUpm9A_4UQjR0xEXKE_S-79mnjCLpylux_Rok33usFQP1J3WhCT4vgAliX1g/s400/big115.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098995421709420034" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...and then there's the "testosterone thing"...I wasn't going to give that macrocephalic oldster the satisfaction...something in his tone didn't jibe (women, I know this sounds crazy but men go through little pissing contests such as this all day, every day...whether we'll admit or not is another issue altogether...just accept it...I have)...I didn't threaten to throw him a beating as a younger me might've...I passed and am now drinking my coffee sans sugar and milk...as I do so...I'll live...the question is, would I ever sink to that if my life were so drab that I found satisfaction in condiment blocking (when one of those cardboard-hatted, fast food people standing behind on of those cash registers with the little pictures on 'em, act like they're giving you ketchup that <span style="font-style: italic;">THEY THEMSELVES BOUGHT</span>, when you ask for a couple more...when they finally acquiesce to your plaintive beseeches, they do so grudgingly...like they're doling out loaves 'n fishes...what the fuck is THAT all about?)...would I suck the bullet out of a barrel, rather than take that exit to McJobland?...I think not...whatever's clever, son...keep your fucking sugar...I'll wait for that cool chick to return...hope this gig in foisting bad java on the world pans out for you...I'll live, besides, things could be worse...I could have YOUR GIG...and just to give you a feeling what straight black coffee does to me on an empty stomach, I leave you with this Jackie Treehorn, Gutterball Production...(to stop the tunes in the iVoon, just click stop on the iPod)...laters...<br /><br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7Z423wD7c8g"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7Z423wD7c8g" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"></embed></object>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-88355101187259210212007-08-14T16:56:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:50.418-08:00Karl Rove: Can the Turd Blossom Get His Frog-March, Please?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_UXTPQ13vtnLwSC5V1RflrxNa_7SROZa7FuIHrxH_fKsv6mach_nWXwPSZuceUeMdY5GvRfOxEo-ViU7COQ52G2W3LCQtFLiUlE8pf5s_cy7Zih9boYwQQ8PdSa9sNCKz7PY3wA/s1600-h/karl_rove_architect-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_UXTPQ13vtnLwSC5V1RflrxNa_7SROZa7FuIHrxH_fKsv6mach_nWXwPSZuceUeMdY5GvRfOxEo-ViU7COQ52G2W3LCQtFLiUlE8pf5s_cy7Zih9boYwQQ8PdSa9sNCKz7PY3wA/s400/karl_rove_architect-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098710961730438562" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...man, that's one spooky picture, ain't it?...I don't know if its some primal, atavistic urge that I'm tapping into or not but I'm praying, with fingers and toes crossed, that Karl Rove gets frog-marched from the court room on C-Span, the cuffs slapped on his wrists just before he's man-handled, kicking and wincing out of the court room on C-Span...a fitting beginning to a punishment long overdue...say what you will about my tendency to lean left; think of my fellow human being but Karl Rove was never one of the "good ones gone wrong" he's been a radioactive turd of darkness floating in the back channels of beltway policy for years now, which seemed to be justified when his boy, Bush the Younger squeaked into office in 2000 on a technicality that Americans never saw coming...seems like he'd been honing that talent for a while...</span><br /><br />"In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally (Dixon eventually won the election). Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2pl2f2J0aH5ad0C6L9Y73ODOOzS7XQtgnANgpf8RSpvUgKxCGm3PXnawd8UoaR7ig_1YX4jxaYkUJvGYkYGfL48jOLeGW2YcBCJsk9mU7B9Me5JQ5uMM14F_SLI1lgKkhntQsow/s1600-h/ROVE+n+BUSH.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2pl2f2J0aH5ad0C6L9Y73ODOOzS7XQtgnANgpf8RSpvUgKxCGm3PXnawd8UoaR7ig_1YX4jxaYkUJvGYkYGfL48jOLeGW2YcBCJsk9mU7B9Me5JQ5uMM14F_SLI1lgKkhntQsow/s400/ROVE+n+BUSH.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098710974615340498" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...just lookit...look at those two staring, ever so tenderly at each other...heckuva job, Turd Blossom...doesn't it just make you want to bust out crying...well, don't it?...it seems this guy's had a penchant for seeing around corners while working in the muck-filled runnels of Presidential campaigning...and lately, since it seems that members of Bush' administration walk around like those diplomatic immunity-crazy Afrikaners in the Lethal Weapon movie with some invisible force-field of media retardant Teflon while pulling the "Executive Privilege" card...they all but had Clinton drawn and quartered for getting a BJ...a small but politically influential group of people (of which Rove is a member) have pulled scams that make Iran Contra-era Reagan Admin Loyalists look like a bunch of Keystone Cops...hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civilian Iraqi deaths, trillions of dollars spent on a war that the general public (and all but a few members of the House and Senate were frightened into making after 911 when Bush made that "smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud" remark......blessed be Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D) who was the sole "nay" when KR and his crew were "slam dunking" thier way to that fiasco of foreign policy that was originally going to be named "Operation Iraqi Liberation" until somebody dropped dime and pointed out what the acronym would spell out) ..."<span style="font-size:85%;">We must not rush to judgment. Far too many innocent people have already died. Our country is in mourning. If we rush to launch a counterattack, we run too great a risk that women, children, and other noncombatants will be caught in the crossfire.</span>" here's a link <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050923070551/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/09/15/state1844EDT0072.DTL">to the verbiage of Congresswoman Lee's sole dissenting voice</a>...her words proved prophetic (hindsight 20/20 and all that, I guess)...from what I've read on research on him, Rove's fingerprints are all over the place....not only does he know where all the bodies are buried...he knows what brand of lime was placed over the corpses...I think of all of this <a href="http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2003/Karl-Rove-Salmon-Killer30jul03.htm">and other less known</a> and it makes my skin start leaking when I wonder what he's up to now...what kind of political horror-show DON'T we know about...nobody can beat the clock...time always prevails...<br /><br /><br />..."A word to the wise is infuriating", if I might quote Hunter S Thompson...That Rove has actually deigned to leave at all while the level of hubris for this Administration reaches critical mass (a feat in and of itself) is telling, I don't know where all those rubes who fell for the skullduggery, truth obfuscating and misdirection that made minced meat out of John Kerry's message in 2004 but I do recall throwing up in my mouth when I heard of those Swiff Boat dudes...remember how the GOP trivialized the Purple heart by wearing those purple band aids?...Remember that purple ink on their fingers...that the media fails to report any of this in detail but can offer pages and pages of minutia about on Nicole Richie's dietary in intake is telling...I'm not saying that the latter is Rove's fault but he's definitely had a hand in making being uninformed and disenchanted with hard news on the political front what it is today...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVkh2m7KlY9dzA_BoxXyPrJGjM59DoN7_h32s4UC2tFd1iyu_33r5QNvU1HDk8J7QnLJ6dalMzKvZxqr9DKMI8MRIuEYSduqm4krGNp35fn8dDea6fpLReJRsaHGMDmJumz1H3A/s1600-h/Karl-Rove-Salmon-Killer30jul03.GIF"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVkh2m7KlY9dzA_BoxXyPrJGjM59DoN7_h32s4UC2tFd1iyu_33r5QNvU1HDk8J7QnLJ6dalMzKvZxqr9DKMI8MRIuEYSduqm4krGNp35fn8dDea6fpLReJRsaHGMDmJumz1H3A/s400/Karl-Rove-Salmon-Killer30jul03.GIF" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098710966025405890" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...my stomach turned and I wanted to projectile vomit on multiple occasions while I watched <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/view/">this series about him on FrontLine: Karl Rove -- The Architect</a> (the landing page itself is a veritable treasure trove of Rovian factoids that, when seen grouped together, really do bring this guy's life of political malfeasance into sharper relief...the stove-pipe hat and handlebar mustache were pencilled-on way back before he even worked for Bush the Elder (who fired his ass outright for trying to pull off the very shenanigans that would get Bush II into the Oval Office...<span style="font-style: italic;">twice</span>...<br /><br /><br />...ever hear about the push polling he launched against Anne Richards in Texas where the automated voice-over asks in the thrust of it's campaign patter if the caller would still vote for Richards if they knew that her campaign staff was over-run by lesbians?...she lost...later, he pulled out the shower shank on John McCain with similar tactics in South Carolina...""would you vote for John McCain if you knew he had adopted a black child which he parented with a black woman?"...it worked like gangbusters in ultra-red South Cacka-lackey, where racism and politics still run as strident and free as the bulls of San Fermin on the streets of Pamplona...being a southerner, and seeing living, breathing "Dixiecrats" all around me coming up, it's hard not to see the irony in that last little act of treachery being committed in the home state of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurman">that hypocritical bigot Strom Thurman</a> who had an extraordinarily lengthy political career built on a foundation of a race-baiting political platform...later, a little after his death it was revealed that he had fathered a child with a teenaged maid way back in the day...let's get real, there's been scumbags like Thurman and Rove involved in politics throughout the course of human history...<br /><br />...their bloodsucking ilk have been in our midst from the days that <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.html">Hammurabi sat down to write his code of law</a>, written ironically in Mesopotamia back in 1760 BC...<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia">the latter, would also drip with irony, if it weren't so sad</a> ...still, I can't think of one person who's oily touch seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once...is that him making sure Jack Ruby puts a pill in the right patsy?...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmaDAojX-Vi2cD-Iia40waF3Kzmv4VhV5mLGlBYhz6i9LnbQDwhpbFrAHhNS5v8QpYfrLtbVbxyUSu1Nf0e5NmMMlHT1G47Ggfssr5qAmauTjtGFssmBOrIKG2dKDGj3Qwgvtz-w/s1600-h/jfkoswald-rove.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmaDAojX-Vi2cD-Iia40waF3Kzmv4VhV5mLGlBYhz6i9LnbQDwhpbFrAHhNS5v8QpYfrLtbVbxyUSu1Nf0e5NmMMlHT1G47Ggfssr5qAmauTjtGFssmBOrIKG2dKDGj3Qwgvtz-w/s400/jfkoswald-rove.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098710966025405874" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...not to put too fine a point on what I'm saying here but Karl Rove is one of those motherfuckers that I'd lay out long scratch to see tarred-and-feathered (by the same means that he'd done so with his political enemies past, some, like Valerie Plame's husband Joseph Wilson for simply telling the truth when all the Rove wanted was to sell us the big lie by any means necessary...I want to see his ass thrown under the jail and thrown under a jail and every nanosecond of a his stay chronicled on DVD, like an episode of Oz for posterity's sake; kept in that time capsule of our national brain trust...I'm dreaming out loud again, ain't I?...we already know that such is never has been and never will be tjhe case with the thugs running the current administration...they just screw things up, steal as much as possible (by way of kickbacks from corporate cronies who have all let themselves go)...it goes on and on...I just hope the Democrats have the political minerals to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2148348,00.html">to stay focused on his slippery, eel-like ass</a>...if they don't, they'll be complicit in letting one of the biggest criminals slip right through their fingers...<br /><br /><br />...politicos with "daddy issues unite: he was kicked off of Bush the elder's team, only to be hired by Bush the younger to do those things that got him fired by his father..."Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief Robert Mosbacher Jr. (Esquire Magazine, January 2003). Novak provided some evidence of motive in his column describing the firing of Mosbacher by former Senator Phil Gramm: "Also attending the session was political consultant Karl Rove, who had been shoved aside by Mosbacher." Novak and Rove deny that Rove was the leaker"...<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">..."When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">--Edward R. Murrow --</span><br /><br />...a few weeks ago <a href="http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2007/06/lying-ass-bitches-2nd-coming.html">thoughts similar to these surfaced in my mind</a> vis-a-vis the recently released I. Scooter Libby...cheating has become such a substantive part of the GOP modus operandi, that it has begun to leak over into all other aspects of the political process so many ways that it's hard to recollect a time when things weren't so unabashedly covert and cut throat......the ubiquitous use of the underhanded tactics mentioned above and a grip of others that I haven't mentioned, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove">(so check the links that I drop, son)</a> ...see for yourself...take-no-prisoners-partisanship has became the coin of the relm while Rove was slithering around the halls of the White House...his tactics have made him politically radioactive (even for this administration) and he's being thrown under the bus...probably to pre-emptively run interference for something much more ominous but lets not get ahead of ourselves...one crook at a time, roight?...I've said it on here more than once and I'll re-iterate: what is past is prologue and based on what I've learned over the past six and a half years is that no matter what goes down, people like this guy will more than likely slide off and slip back into the dark swamp they rose from...only this time they'll have a lucrative lobbying gig, maybe even write a book or two...I know Rove's due at least one tell-all, as he begins working on re-writing the scandal and blood soaked history that he, himself helped bring to fruition...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw_zKwc8McdqyciYZ7kRZqCxTQxbo-gJvpXgcjdp823u17n6tc_zNQhiLZH_m3zeW8owFx1ymK_Zl0BIVMWFF-5G2NfpfE4acTJNTwu0of2LgxeTyIv8s_js5xrM73qv4xttJ4lA/s1600-h/rove_arrested.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw_zKwc8McdqyciYZ7kRZqCxTQxbo-gJvpXgcjdp823u17n6tc_zNQhiLZH_m3zeW8owFx1ymK_Zl0BIVMWFF-5G2NfpfE4acTJNTwu0of2LgxeTyIv8s_js5xrM73qv4xttJ4lA/s400/rove_arrested.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098710974615340514" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...I don't think he'll be able to totally pull off that last caper, I mentioned...too many eyeballs...too many people wired in...maybe if this were William Randolph Hearst's day, he'd be able to...more and more people are getting the zap on their domes and looking beyond the info-holes run by that handful of media giants...that "the-bigger-the-lie-the-more-people-will-believe-it" angle has gone the way of the Schickelgrüber...slowly but surely the cadre of loyal anti-constitution crooks, corporate shills, arm-chair generals and draft-dodging chicken hawks is thinning in their numbers...the re-tooling that this lot has done on all the moving parts under the hood of our nation's Democracy will take decades to uncover...I shudder at the thought...laters...Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-28590839044253069912007-08-13T12:51:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:51.159-08:00On Born in the USA, Bruce Springsteen Springs Eternal<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcUGS07jHnJgFyF3MrPGYcFZf9UqPTp-d1_yAFA_SkfSyedlCKb92GYlGEqzVrWq5zu9WHQCvoeb-UPX7WII8CaCXtpeLXxoXecH7tzzrO5meA1mwdwNAgs9Kg_Y6h0lV2kkik_A/s1600-h/AlbumCovers-BruceSpringsteen-BornintheU.S.A.(1984).jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcUGS07jHnJgFyF3MrPGYcFZf9UqPTp-d1_yAFA_SkfSyedlCKb92GYlGEqzVrWq5zu9WHQCvoeb-UPX7WII8CaCXtpeLXxoXecH7tzzrO5meA1mwdwNAgs9Kg_Y6h0lV2kkik_A/s400/AlbumCovers-BruceSpringsteen-BornintheU.S.A.(1984).jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098276353989756226" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><br />...I've had cuts from this LP on me for years on cassette and burned on CDS, when I got my shite digitized I scooped some of it's tunage in that Greatest Hits joint but it was just until a couple of days ago that I realized the import of what this, Bruce Springsteen's 7th LP at that point, meant when it dropped back in the summer of 1984...hard to believe it's been 23 years...</span><br /><br /><br />...this was the joint that made me double back and take another look at the earlier stuff with a clearer lens, er, ear... it was hard for me to grasp a lot of what was being written between the lines of the lyrics on tunes like "Downbound Train" and "Working on the Highway" and "Darlington County"...I wasn't stupid, either and there was a palpable shift in the way earthly things were going, obvious even to a kid...I hadn't been anywhere yet and if I'd started believing what people were telling me (stop writing in your journal, listening to that "jungle music", rock, and learn a shop trade), I'd probably still be there doing something less than fulfilling, creatively or otherwise...but I'm not...this was back when you sat down with an album and read all the lyrics/ credits in the jacket as you listened and learned...ain't music grand?...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA4Uc7MHEUdM3s0p4jvJcN7I2Al24Wbi09NO_N7vCdNABkRNxE_4l9wQIUL9w4pKW2zxFtF0o0ZA66tUjoNWMCLQk8d0KREpBPl9Kecuwug2lWQ3CP6HszpdF7EwQs0lXPuABy6Q/s1600-h/bruceband72.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 310px; height: 207px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA4Uc7MHEUdM3s0p4jvJcN7I2Al24Wbi09NO_N7vCdNABkRNxE_4l9wQIUL9w4pKW2zxFtF0o0ZA66tUjoNWMCLQk8d0KREpBPl9Kecuwug2lWQ3CP6HszpdF7EwQs0lXPuABy6Q/s400/bruceband72.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098281447820969362" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...I was still wet behind the ears, to be certain, but I had a bit of pre-internet savvy while watching the bands perform in video on the (then) new MTV network (which was still in the throes of learning what it wanted to be..kinda like my teenaged self back then)...No, I wasn't what the Spaniards would call "mundial" by any stretch but I was tuned in enough to tap into the verbiage on tunes like "Working on the Highway", "Cover Me" and "Dancing in the Dark" (which would become an MTV staple; help launch Courtney Coxx' acting career...who knew "Friends" would become the monstrosity that it got to be?...it just dawned on me that I always liked that the protagonist was giving the middle finger to his troubles and was still trying to write some shite down anyway)...so <span style="font-style: italic;">THATS</span> when it started for the young "Crash"....<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY0qBqIjrHRHosddc-wLUqqvrM2ixZc65YRfG0YCXpvnGWTSlrY_HM2s0rHcUqn6tX7nXqbDBbAzCG6DYnbb9gJA-PW8mEb-fXRI8xnUhhOf1Fs-t4tR4aWXDUN70uL8Lj4ZbSPw/s1600-h/bloodbrothers.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY0qBqIjrHRHosddc-wLUqqvrM2ixZc65YRfG0YCXpvnGWTSlrY_HM2s0rHcUqn6tX7nXqbDBbAzCG6DYnbb9gJA-PW8mEb-fXRI8xnUhhOf1Fs-t4tR4aWXDUN70uL8Lj4ZbSPw/s400/bloodbrothers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098276362579690850" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...at any rate, I clearly recall that it was a time when, Grecian Formula'd Bald Eagles swooped back and forth across the Cold War skies, as Michael Franti, formerly the front man of the Disposable Heroes of HipHoprisy might've put it) and times were a trifle tough for a grip of us in America...people like my folks who worked hard for their pay doing jobs that required uniforms and name tags...kinda like right now...yeah, I was too young to tap into the pain that my parents were going through but, hindsight 20/20, I now understand why, when my mom got her brand new Columbia House subscription, this was one of the first LP's that she ordered...as soon as she got home it was this album and then some David Bowie (Let's Dance)...people weren't crankin' that kinda shite in my sepia-toned neighborhood (at least not at the Tufnel-esque levels that she would when she was getting her post-work swerve on)...she played Born in the USA a lot, it seemed while she kicked it out on our balcony figuring out how she was going to rob Peter to pay Paul.....she'd crank tunes like "I'm Going Down", "Cover Me" or "I'm on Fire" and sometimes (especially on Fridays) she'd bump "Glory Days" like it was going out of style...it took me a minute to figure out how she could program the turntable arm to jump to that cut without getting up to do so herself...<br /><br /><br /><br />...in my travels I've met people who could never get into "The Boss' " sound and sometimes, even when they could check an LP like Nebraska, they just didn't cotton to Born in the USA for some reason...a grip of European friends think that Springsteen's Jersey Bard stance can get a trifle sappy but to that I say, this is one of dude's best offerings, his word smithing is in top form and I especially liked that he got salty and took issue with Ronnie Ray-Gun's administration and other conservative corporate shills who tried to utilize "Born in the USA" as a campaign theme song...Too, there's a lot of lesser known tracks like "Bobby Jean" and "No Surrender" that are evocative of that quintessential, individualist spirit that was once thought of an influenza that only certain people were born with... I don't think so, I just think dude was in the right place at the right time doing what he'd always done...when I lived in New York, I had a friend from university who lived in Red Bank, NJ (Bruce's stomping grounds)...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLluT6HzJbgmSt6OkTu4SWAVc8QFHsyaAonkrv_B-NSK6FeveZRp-FhJcBtPRBl_UwJy1cPOiHrFD7g2WvhFD7WxBhRMbGQzfj0nO3lZKDQ05bbgynLLOZ_sjVweK8bOr45PtrHg/s1600-h/bruce_and_clarence.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 332px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLluT6HzJbgmSt6OkTu4SWAVc8QFHsyaAonkrv_B-NSK6FeveZRp-FhJcBtPRBl_UwJy1cPOiHrFD7g2WvhFD7WxBhRMbGQzfj0nO3lZKDQ05bbgynLLOZ_sjVweK8bOr45PtrHg/s400/bruce_and_clarence.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098276362579690834" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...Listen, Mister back in the early 90s, sometimes I'd escape Gotham and all that that would entail and take the NJT PATH train over to the Garden State for a weekend to visit Jennifer and her husband perform in their Blues outfit, <a href="http://www.terraplaneblues.com/index.html"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Terraplane Blues</span></a> , we'd suck down shots and pitchers at Jersey clubs with tiny stages in 'em...the same stages that people like Bruce, Stevie Van Zandt and a grip of others who have "made it out" used to perform on when they needed a place to sharpen their chops while keeping the rain off their heads...this was many years before The Sopranos hit the airwaves and skewed everyone's perspectives on how it really is; you could still feel that "rock-n-roll" elan coursing in the fiber of the dark hardwood that the interior of these places are lined with(probably still can but I haven't been there in a minute, so I'm spitballing)...it smacked of visiting Colonial Williamsburg, VA as a kid growing up down in the mid-Atlantic South...seafood, caught hours beforehand, fresh out of the Chesapeake Bay...hearing the cicadas' loud trills in the treetops every couple of years...you couldn't forget it if you wanted to...the timber's so old and has been used for so long that all of the lies have been worn out of 'em...on the music tip, in East Jersey's case...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuxwMOTwJxXuEHU_Ly9UGIRCyRekiydJ6EH1xYg1bNWjC8FhgyxsqhgJ3AVmAtX6Ut2w0T2V-kmk4-I7vYVAkArLR7ertn9eNgnqqeRK4LUtKCbcNXZPFF7Qx8tnG3SoMEFMiwgg/s1600-h/zap_bruce.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuxwMOTwJxXuEHU_Ly9UGIRCyRekiydJ6EH1xYg1bNWjC8FhgyxsqhgJ3AVmAtX6Ut2w0T2V-kmk4-I7vYVAkArLR7ertn9eNgnqqeRK4LUtKCbcNXZPFF7Qx8tnG3SoMEFMiwgg/s400/zap_bruce.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5098276366874658178" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...I haven't seen 'em in about five years but I know that my friends are still rockin' out there, holding down day gigs and keeping it real by night... I launch my love out into the cosmos at 'em every chance I get...and every time I do so, like I'm doing right now as I type this, I feel like one of those characters in a Springsteen tune who "when they feel like crying, [they] start laughing, thinking 'bout -- Glory Days"...there's a reason that this is one of my favorite rock albums from my teenage years on up to the now, aught seven...it has always spoken to the inner working-class guy buried inside me somehow and these last seven years his voice has gotten louder and louder...more poignant, as it were..."on Main Street, whitewashed windows and vacant stores...seems like there ain't nobody want to come down here no more"...having traveled through some of those forgotten hamlets that people like to talk about passing through but never stopping at, when I was on the road playing all over the East Coast, I know that there's a truth in the things that this LP covers that isn't sexy but remains relevant, especially now which is part of why I still like it so much...dude's saying something, here...rarely do I admit this because she'd never let me live it down but: my mom was onto something back in the day that she knew I'd understand decades later...and now I do...man, those years sure pass right on by you, don't they?...like "in the wink of a young girl's eye"...it's all good, though...Been "Working on the Highway" all day?...Well, pull up a chair, son and sit a spell... take a listen...I got this round...<br /><br /><div align="center" style="background:#000000; width:320; height:141"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height:122px;width:320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="320" height="122" name="MOGPlayer3trWFHyoA5M.mp3" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/3trWFHyoA5M.mp3"></embed><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="padding-right:10px;padding-left:10px;"><tr><td align="left" width="100" height="22"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:12px">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/103496" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:12px">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/103496" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#FFFFFF; font-size:12px">Share</a></td></tr></table></div><br /><br />...an extra pat of butter to the Pimp (once again) for reminding me of an LP that I slipped on...you can check a couple more tunes from this LP on <a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/103496"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">my music blog...</span></a>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-39531642868056548322007-08-11T13:14:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:51.693-08:00Ginsberg's Sunflower Sutra: The Beat Goes On...In Me.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbI9ueBF80l5IQxjmOq2gVN6_mZIRERqGNqtTKFdUra-0820TpJFjK7MA2t577DZll6dAHNe2GBJHiZWhO4Iul6vrRxGa7ICraiG54ma7M4KZu8ZHFybpZW5ftL788oLB9FJnK7Q/s1600-h/ginsberg_enlarge.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbI9ueBF80l5IQxjmOq2gVN6_mZIRERqGNqtTKFdUra-0820TpJFjK7MA2t577DZll6dAHNe2GBJHiZWhO4Iul6vrRxGa7ICraiG54ma7M4KZu8ZHFybpZW5ftL788oLB9FJnK7Q/s400/ginsberg_enlarge.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5097539475040716082" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...lately, I've been craving the prose of Ginsberg...I've always adored The Sunflower Sutra...because, like the sun does for the Helianthus Annuus, it has always lent me psychic nourishment and more recently its helped replenish the expended stores of optimism I had begun to suckle from several months ago as I watched the last of it circling the drain, seeping into the barren ground that had become the soil of my inner self; as the world seemed to wax into a solemn quiet all around me, they gathered in silent gaggles, muted herds; a collective hush that would bear witness to another anonymous expiration on the troubled side of town; a fresh denouement realized...they'll wait for it altogether, while listening with pricked ears, attentive, anticipating the whisper-like groan that would be my ultimate rattle of breath; the moment of demarcation crossed when I break under the weight of youthful aspiration gone all kinds of wrong...as I go to the other side...but Allen's words always help me remember why I've done things the way I have...<br /><br />..."poor dead flower, when did you forget you were a flower?"...I'm too far along to refocus; desist with the existential search...I'm Ahab in the crow's nest of the quotidian, squinting through a sextant pointed towards that place where the heavens and earth meld, surveying the azure horizon for some huge ivory hump, the telltale funnel of spume that will inform; guide me onward..be it tangible or imagined, I'm consumed with the follow through...the scrape takes on a clayish form and even though the blade of my shovel has gotten dull around the edges, I still attack said trench with eyes scanning crazily; my hands grasping blindly for purchase...the crowd of spectators looking down at me continues to expand..."and you there, standing in the sunset", staring down on me with creaky, crooked grins will have to wait a while yet...best be on your way...as there will be no sermons to the soul for this one, here...at least not today...for I am still a beautiful sunflower...<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbg48uSX6u1n9i4hd8-3VeUpd-Ie8qRBxFndSprmsTQgEkvGTiLAAWjDin3Tmn94DRsf8Ny22fG_fwOOXrkjryFmZF7TU0MF-YJkHaNleIJlOlD8DlpGcNmJZAUB2tf7vCJGr7NA/s1600-h/sunflowers.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbg48uSX6u1n9i4hd8-3VeUpd-Ie8qRBxFndSprmsTQgEkvGTiLAAWjDin3Tmn94DRsf8Ny22fG_fwOOXrkjryFmZF7TU0MF-YJkHaNleIJlOlD8DlpGcNmJZAUB2tf7vCJGr7NA/s400/sunflowers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5097539470745748754" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 320px; height: 141px;" align="center"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height: 122px; width: 320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="MOGPlayerg1FpEYnQxAp.mp3" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/g1FpEYnQxAp.mp3" align="middle" height="122" width="320"></embed><br /><table style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" height="22" width="100"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/103036" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/103036" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">Share</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><br />1955 - Allen Ginsberg recites the poem “Howl” at the Six Gallery in San Francisco with Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Phil Whalen.<br /><br />1956 - Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books publishes “Howl,” and “America” is released.<br /><br />1957 - Ferlinghetti is arrested and taken to trial for publishing “Howl,” which is deemed “obscene material.” Jack Kerouac’s On The Road hits the bookshelves.<br /><br />1961 - Ginsberg’s Kaddish And Other Poems is published, featuring the epic ode to his mother's tragic life.<br /><br />1962 - The “Howl” obscenity trial comes to a close, and the not-guilty verdict is announced, bringing even more publicity to Ginsberg and the Beats.<br /><br />1963 - Reality Sandwiches is released, and Ginsberg goes on a pilgrimage to India. William Carlos Williams, one of the first major poets to support Ginsberg’s style, dies.<br /><br />1965 - Ginsberg takes the Beat movement abroad, reading at the Royal Albert Hall in Britain, invoking the underground scene in Europe. Additionally, the poet travels around the continent spreading the tenets of new consciousness.<br /><br />1967 - Allen Ginsberg joins Michael McClure, who’d read with him at the legendary Six Gallery session a decade earlier, at San Francisco’s Be-In.<br /><br />1969 Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg’s longtime friend and fellow Beat writer, dies.<br /><br />1970 - After meeting Chogyam Rungpa Rinpoche, Ginsberg becomes a follower of the Tibetan guru.<br /><br />1974 - Allen Ginsberg is given the National Book Award for poetry.<br /><br />1977 - Ginsberg collaborates with Bob Dylan on the film Renaldo And Clara.<br /><br />1988 - Ginsberg continues to buck the system’s censorship policies with PEN (the Poets, Essayists, Editors, Novelists Club), the ACLU, and an small army of lawyers to contest Jesse Helms’ indecent language laws imposed on the FCC, which would ban broadcasts of anything deemed "indecent/ obscene" from the nation’s airwaves.<br /><br />1997 - Allen Ginsberg dies in New York City.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPTf1_9_5Pza59oSM-81ApjuBN_JvP7FR6zu9_SrrTzTyYXsl_WTz9ppv6i2P-UzVN2ZwhPE8da1qywgF-75KzmErIxkgs6Mt1BpFmv6JqYs2zXOKZ0XmBDLWK0F897doWzPBEKg/s1600-h/AllenGinsbergNumber2blkongld.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPTf1_9_5Pza59oSM-81ApjuBN_JvP7FR6zu9_SrrTzTyYXsl_WTz9ppv6i2P-UzVN2ZwhPE8da1qywgF-75KzmErIxkgs6Mt1BpFmv6JqYs2zXOKZ0XmBDLWK0F897doWzPBEKg/s400/AllenGinsbergNumber2blkongld.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5097539470745748770" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />• Although Allen Ginsberg’s father was a published poet himself, he urged his son toward a degree in law. Allen continued on this scholastic path until he met Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady during his first year at Columbia University in New York, his introduction to the burgeoning counterculture.<br /><br />• Shortly after meeting fellow Patersonian/poet William Carlos Williams, Ginsberg headed west to the fertile poetry scene of San Francisco. There he burst onto the scene with the premiere oration of “Howl.”<br /><br />• Ginsberg’s style of free verse, typified in “Howl,” helped to turn conventional poetry standards upside down. The stream of consciousness flow of his works seemed to follow impromptu speech patterns as opposed to a formulaic template, which was unheard of in the intellectual brain trust at the time.<br /><br />• The poem “Howl” has become one of, if not the, definitive beat era writings (in spite of mainstream attempts to discredit its form). Ironically, Ginsberg admitted later that he’d never intended to recite or publish it. He’d written it to share with his chum Jack Kerouac. When it was finally put to print, only a few hundred copies were made.<br /><br />• In the early ’60s Ginsberg joined the fold of Timothy Leary’s crusade supporting the “new” drug LSD. Both made concerted attempts to get celebrities and artists such as Thelonious Monk, William De Kooning, and even Jack Kerouac turned on to the psychotropic drug.<br /><br />• Allen Ginsberg appeared in Bob Dylan’s video Subterranean Homesick Blues.<br /><br />• Ginsberg’s provocative means of expression rarely wavered in an artistic careerspan riddled with right-wing bridge burnings in America and abroad. He also got booted out of both Czechoslovakia and Cuba in 1965 for his candor while orating his opinions.<br /><br /><br />• At the time, the iconoclastic viewpoints of the beatniks gained an unsavory reception from the “straight” public. Exploring Eastern philosophies (specifically Zen Buddhism) and alternate lifestyles, later, the scene becoming almost cliché, got them written off as cultists.<br /><br />• Ginsberg’s writing style echoed the patterns refined by the likes of American poets such as Walt Whitman (considered by some to be the original beat poet) and Ezra Pound, who forged prose standards based on American speech rhythms. Taking this principle a step further, the beat poets incorporated the harmonic flow of the purest forms of American music, jazz, and blues into their newer beat equation.Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-54576758743652105872007-08-10T17:06:00.001-07:002008-12-08T21:59:51.802-08:00Spoon + Breakin' Baby + 30 Gallon Tank = CrashUp...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmdCqowjVbyWMFJW9YpHyAcRtdgW0BjmIAQwmsVdxuR-MkIqHaP97CkTOuJBth6MSpyRezjeNptfB-OSDXsoFjWxZAXOn1dfD6N2yUft6ozzZKxicTCzXIPwDMs-eERB4wkOuoYw/s1600-h/30gallon.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmdCqowjVbyWMFJW9YpHyAcRtdgW0BjmIAQwmsVdxuR-MkIqHaP97CkTOuJBth6MSpyRezjeNptfB-OSDXsoFjWxZAXOn1dfD6N2yUft6ozzZKxicTCzXIPwDMs-eERB4wkOuoYw/s400/30gallon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5097227776379143426" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...from the "You-got-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter; You-got-peanut butter-in-my-chocolate" Dept: I was listening to Spoon's 30 Gallon Tank EP when I checked this YouTube of a breakdancing baby that somebody shot me...he can't pop for shite, but this toddler rocks wild with the freezes...<br /><br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tqjS-KOCfZU"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tqjS-KOCfZU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />...press play on the YouTube above (turn the volume down) and then start the mp3 player below and check it...this kid got mad skills...<br /><br /><div style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0) none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 320px; height: 141px;" align="center"><embed class="MOGPlayer" wmode="transparent" style="height: 122px; width: 320px;" src="http://mog.com/player.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="MOGPlayerQ1m1UbV0fgA.mp3" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="info=http://mog.com/l/Q1m1UbV0fgA.mp3" align="middle" height="122" width="320"></embed><br /><table style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td align="left" height="22" width="100"><a href="http://mog.com/" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">mog.com</a></td><td align="center" width="160"><a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/102824" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">More about this song</a></td><td align="right" width="60"><a href="http://mog.com/blog_post/share/102824" target="_blank" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 12px;">Share</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11070182.post-79407462325257171702007-08-09T18:10:00.000-07:002008-12-08T21:59:52.071-08:00...My Appetite for Destruction Meets The Pimp…<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGA7JQjqelpevC58yBkqCEJ8RgihA6cGf1Z3Pc7uyRLMQH_OKHe0OrKoL3NFLKtoZcSK0BhUoD3q-AM4Qlftiz1ouTmR9bY1_8P4jP9InrDZ7m9VJideOfl7woQL99Ve0y9M7qjA/s1600-h/guns-n-roses.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGA7JQjqelpevC58yBkqCEJ8RgihA6cGf1Z3Pc7uyRLMQH_OKHe0OrKoL3NFLKtoZcSK0BhUoD3q-AM4Qlftiz1ouTmR9bY1_8P4jP9InrDZ7m9VJideOfl7woQL99Ve0y9M7qjA/s400/guns-n-roses.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096876314910344434" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">...About a week or so ago, I was sitting outside doing a little sippin' and scribin' at a cafe when this Rico Suave-lookin' dude drove past with some big-haired chick pumping the Extreme's "More Than Words" and it made me want to chunder...</span><br /><br />...it reminded me of when I had to do this gig at a high school in BFE North or South Cack-a-lackey back in the day and while we waited to go on stage that song came on and the whole band groaned in unison: "it's going to be a looong night, fellas"...so we got good and plastered before stumbling out and started to musically whore ourselves out for a couple of sets-- we were tight enough to phone it in, though...hell, I even managed not to cuss 'n shite...(shows like that is one of the reasons I still don't trust managers of any stripe to this day-- no matter what happens, they still get their cut)...I'd imagine that the dude sitting in that muscle car at the stoplight was staring ever-so-tenderly into that chick's heavily mascara'd eyes (behind those mirrored wraparound shades he was rocking on his grill) but that's neither here nor there...whatever, I still felt like puking at the blatant, overall sappiness of that tune and how its now being used to say, urp, "more than words" at weddings these days...the horror...the horror...I felt compelled to bump something from back then that sounded like it had a pair...that used to get me going in the other direction as I do like <a href="http://mog.com/CrashPryor/blog_post/90646">some of the shite from back then</a> , you know but alas, the LP I wanted wasn't to be found on hand...I put the word out and got the hook from the Rock 'n Roll Pimp (one of my homebiscuits from MOG)...the big hair had it's time but now 99% of the people I see sporting the look weren't even cilia when bands like G 'n R dropped...<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvLgHVh4e2Ez_OEYOZFdSqaWmB2zzaQQj7iboBAhFF5_IJ72NT5OBeV2X2plVQOPwxur0KjMx6ydjwNYAZWqf6NrsMQDRhhOsajEO9f_6irNS8msqo5pvX09DyFWjlbsu5oRlGNA/s1600-h/Guns_N'_Roses+cropped.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvLgHVh4e2Ez_OEYOZFdSqaWmB2zzaQQj7iboBAhFF5_IJ72NT5OBeV2X2plVQOPwxur0KjMx6ydjwNYAZWqf6NrsMQDRhhOsajEO9f_6irNS8msqo5pvX09DyFWjlbsu5oRlGNA/s400/Guns_N'_Roses+cropped.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096876310615377106" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...corn braids, car crashes and overall craziness aside, I will admit that I used to pump the shit out of Appetite for Destruction...I remember seeing this video as a kid thinking..."man, California's full of freak-a-zoids...my people...I gotta see that place"...funnily enough, I used to live a couple of blocks from where Axl got off the bus in the video for a minute...a "welcome to Los Angeles, hayseed" anthem if ever there was one...nothing like hearing a tune like "Paradise City" on the radio as you pull into your town after being on the road for a couple of months, either...although I've since had thoughts of shooting off to other places, I'm still playing around in the jungle...for now...this one's for Keith and all you other born-again-hard rock 'n rollers...<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxPIhbmSbghGNHZ3WTUEM47Hpmc2O8mbb5hcK_Ab9KObAG_tX_eMwrvU2qLYpc-y9JP25PVBYPL6OHvfzzLarpTKJBjPIADFXzQYlAUIV_kMmEML6jFz6MXd9f2ALNzozdpzHKAg/s1600-h/GUNS+n+ROSES+COVER.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 411px; height: 411px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxPIhbmSbghGNHZ3WTUEM47Hpmc2O8mbb5hcK_Ab9KObAG_tX_eMwrvU2qLYpc-y9JP25PVBYPL6OHvfzzLarpTKJBjPIADFXzQYlAUIV_kMmEML6jFz6MXd9f2ALNzozdpzHKAg/s400/GUNS+n+ROSES+COVER.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096876314910344418" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ysFhDfGwbys"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ysFhDfGwbys" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"></embed><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ysFhDfGwbys"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ysFhDfGwbys" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /></object>Crash Pryorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10863410723496984244noreply@blogger.com1