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Archive for the ‘Video’ Category

Hogback Heaven

Posted in Early Paintings, Music, Video, tagged , on October 21, 2011| 3 Comments »

Looking through some old work, most of which was done early on while I was still forming my technique and style and before I showed my work publicly, I came across this oddity that I noted as Hogback Heaven.  It’s a goofy little scene of a rough hewn home and yard somewhere out on a back country road, the kind of place that I often passed years ago in my treks on the backroads around my home area.  All that is missing here from my memories of those places are a barking hound and a toddler in a sagging diaper playing in the gravel of the driveway. 

Whenever I come across this piece, I have to smile.  I don’t know if it’s the subject or the crazy electric feel of the cobalt blue sky and hills and the red neon outlines of the house and ground.  I’m still trying to figure out where that color came from.  Maybe it’s a smile of embarassment that this little painting is hovering in my past.  But there’s something in it that makes me not want to destroy it. 

I wanted to set this post to some fitting music and in my search came across this other sort of oddity.  Called Yiddish Hillbillies, it’s a vintage 40’s era cartoon that has had the soundtrack replaced ( in a very clever and coordinated way) with a song from Mickey Katz.  Katz was a comedian who specialized in Jewish humor, with Yiddish-tinged song parodies of contemporary songs of the time being his specialty.  Think Borscht Riders in the Sky or Sixteen Tons (of Latkes).  While much of the Yiddish-tinged wording goes over my head I do enjoy the klezmer feel here.  A note on Mickey Katz:  His son is actor Joel Grey which makes him the grandfather of actress Jennifer Grey.

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A Star Spangled Controversy

Posted in Music, Opinion, Video, tagged , on October 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Jose Feliciano at the 1968 World Series

In 1968, in that turbulent year that saw Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinated and war protesters rioting in the streets, there was a controversial incident at the 1968 World Series.  It seems so minor in the scale of retrospection but I find it very interesting and symbolic of how we as a people resist the inevitability of change.

In October of 1968, the musician Jose Feliciano was asked by legendary Detroit Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell to perform the National Anthem a before one of the World Series games in Detroit between the Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals.  Feliciano performed a slow and slightly jazzy version, much in the style for which he was known.  Little did he know, it inspired a storm of controversy.

This was before anyone had performed stylized versions of the song, before the crashing fury of Hendrix’ version or any of the myriad other versions since.  It is said that World War II vets were throwing their shoes at their televisions and the network switchboards were swamped with angry calls.  Soon, many radio stations refused to play Feliciano’s music altogether and his career went into a tailspin that took three years for him to overcome.

When I hear the version now, I am mystified by the reaction of the time.  It is a respectful and lovely version, perhaps not as bombastic or as confident as some like in their national anthem.  And certainly not as ridiculous and disrespectful as some versions since.  But we were a country in turmoil and our confidence was surely shaken by all that was happening around us.  The world seemed to be changing every day and in ways that seemed out of the control of the average person. 

 Much like today.

Here are two short videos.  The first is Jose Feliciano telling the story and the second is the recording of that performance from 1968.  Tell me this isn’t a beautiful version of the song.

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Rolling Rollie Free

Posted in Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , on October 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My internet connection was down due to modem problems yesterday and it made me think about our relationship to technology, how some of us resist  and, at best, tolerate it  even though we enjoy the benefits it provides.  But some folks take to it as though it were part of our genetic makeup, every nuance seeming easy and natural in their eyes.  While I was thinking about this I thought of this image.  I guess it exemplifies someone who has no fear of technology. Or death. Or windburn.

This photo, perhaps the most famous motorcycle image, if of the legendary Rollie Free at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1948 as he attempted to break the Land Speed Record.  Earlier in the day he had already shattered the old record by over 12 MPH with a speed of 148.6 MPH, riding the bike in his unusual laid out position which was supposed to reduce air drag.  On that attempt he had been wearing protective leathers .  He felt he had lost speed due to the drag of his gear so he stripped down to a Speedo bathing suit and a pair of sneakers and had another go.  The result was a speed of 150.313 MPH, a record which stood for over 20 years.

The bike he was riding that day was the legendary Vincent Black Lightning.  I don’t know much about bikes although I had a fascination with Triumph motorcycles as a child.  But I do know that the name of the Vincent Black Lightning is one of the most evocative names of any vehicle ever produced.  It sounds ominous, powerful and fast and I suppose it must have been based on the record.  It also inspired one of my favorite songs, 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, from Richard Thompson.  I featured it in an earlier post with a bluegrass version from Del McCoury but this photo deserves the real thing from Thompson himself.

Have a great day and if you must ride your bike in this manner, please don’t text!

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42 Years of SPAM

Posted in Favorite Things, Television, Video, tagged on October 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It was 42 years ago today that the BBC first broadcast a sketch comedy show that ran for only 45 episodes over four season but has endured the many decades since, inspiring countless adolescents and adolescent-minded adults such as myself with a brand of humor that was smart and irreverent.  And silly and ridiculous.  I am, of course, talking about Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

While it had a relatively short lifespan on television, the Monty Python name survived through a series of films over the years that have gained cult status including Monty Python and the Holy Grail which became the Broadway hit, Spamalot.  I remember going in high school to first see the film at a downtown theatre that no longer exists.  It was playing on a double bill with a much cruder and pretty much forgotten film, The Groove Tube. I can’t recall much about The Groove Tube but for The Holy Grail I mainly remember laughing with joy, even through the final credits.  I’ve seen the film dozens of times over the years and always find myself giggling like a kid a each.

Many of the skits have become embedded in the consciousness of the population.   You still hear of high school kids today who revere the show and can and do recite many of the skits verbatim, much to the delight of many around them, I’m sure.  Did I say delight?  I meant chagrin.  Okay, the skits are funny– when Michael Palin or John Cleese or the other Pythons are doing them.  But I’m glad that their humor still makes the young giggle in the same way that I experience those many years ago.  Hopefully, when I’m many years older, I’ll be shaking my fists at kids to get the hell off  my lawn and to stop singing that damn Lumberjack song!

Here’s a taste of the Pythons.  It’s their classic SPAM  skit, with all the shrillness that Terry Jones can muster as the waitress.

 

 

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October

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , on October 1, 2011| 2 Comments »

October.  The calendar turns once more and all thoughts of summer are put aside.  A time for preparing for the coming winter and enjoying the coolness of autumn with all the color of the changing leaves and the softer light.  A time for reflection on a year that has went by all too quickly.

The woodcut shown here is one made for the month of October in Edmund Spenser’s 1579 work, The Shepheardes Calender, which was a collection of 12 pastoral poems depicting the month-by-month life of a shepherd of that time.  I would include a few lines but, quite honestly, I struggle to get through any of Spenser’s archaic verse and don’t wish that on anyone on a Saturday morning.  I do like the woodcut, however.

Here’s a little easier to absorb interpretation of the month.  It’s hard to be;lieve it has been 30 years since the album October was released by U2.  Here’s the mood piece that serves as the title track for this album.

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Low Rider

Posted in Music, Neat Stuff, Video, tagged , on September 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Another one of those looking-for-one-thing-and-finding-another moments.  I can’t even remember what brought me to this picture but I stopped as soon as I saw this.  At first, I thought it was some spaced out lowrider with a see-thru hot tub on the back.  I mean, it’s tricked out with flashy rims and it looks like the front end is starting to buck a little. 

Then I realized this was no ordinary lowrider but was, in fact, the PopeMobile.  It kind of took me aback for a second, the idea that the Pope had somehow converted to some sort of lowrider high priest, calling himself Joey Ratz and cruising the streets around the Vatican in his souped up Benz.  Just an odd image that seems a bit out of place.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the song Low Rider from War, the classic 70’s hit that had an infectious rhythm that still clicks today.  Here it is with a video of some real lowriders doing things I don’t think Gottleib Daimler or Henry Ford ever envisioned.

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Mambo!

Posted in Music, Video, tagged on September 17, 2011| 4 Comments »

I have a great diversity of music on my iPod and sometimes I will forget some of it until it just pops up when I’m shuffling through.  One artist that sometimes shows up with a great blast of horns and that funky Cuban beat is Perez Prado, one of the original Mambo Kings from the 1940’s and 50’s. 

 It’s not a name many people, especially those of my age and younger, know or remember and the music seems from a time and place far removed from today.  It has age on it but whenever it comes on, especially when I’m driving, it raises my heartbeat just a bit and I find myself driving just little faster.  Makes me wish I could mambo just a bit and raises memory flashes of being a sixth grader dancing the cha cha in gym class with a shy little girl whose name evades me at the moment, both of us awkward and nervous.  Ah, if it had only been the mambo instead of the cha cha.

Here’s a bit of Prado.  It’s his Mambo #8.  The male dancer here is famed Mexican actor Resortes (Adalberto Martinez) who is primarily known as a comedian and a dancer.  He appears in a lot of Prado’s films of his music.  Little known factoid:  Resortes originated the Moonwalk made famous by Michael Jackson.

Anyway, it’s the last Saturday of summer.  Here’s a little bit of heat  for you.

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Rocket J. Squirrel

Posted in Neat Stuff, Video, tagged on September 2, 2011| 5 Comments »

I’ve written about these guys before, those brave but crazy few who climb into nylon flying suits and dive headfirst from ultrahigh perches to blaze through the sky at incredible speeds like a superhero or something from a dream.  I’m envious beyond belief at the thrill and sensation they must be feeling as they hurtle through the sky and everytime I come across videos of them doing their thing I’m mesmerized.

Jeb Corliss is one of the big daddies of wingsuit jumping, shown here as he flies over Sugarloaf in Brazil, and travels the world over finding new challenges to conquer.  Besides an upcoming threading of a narrow canyon with his wingsuit in China in late September, his goal is to do this at some point completely without a parachute, landing upright on the ground.

This is his newest video called Grinding the Crack which shows him in Switzerland, I believe, where he soars along a rockface ( watch for his timy shadow as it descends away from him on the rocks) and threads through several trees barely 10 or 15 feet from the ground.  There are shots from the ground in this video that show how close it really is.. It’s pretty remarkable.  It certainly makes my day look pretty dull, and extremely safe,  by comparison.

I’m not complaining.  It’s just that this is- wow!

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Journey to the Center of the Mind

Posted in Music, Video, tagged , on August 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I can’t say I’m a fan of Ted Nugent in any way.  His music certainly has seldom excited me (Cat Scratch Fever? Gimme a break!) and his act as the ultra-conservative bowhunting badboy dressed in camo is just aggravating.  But he has his fans.  Over the years I have locally encountered graffiti of his name scrawled on buildings, overpasses and any other sort of public space you can think of.  Shown here is a painting by one of my favorites, Dave Higgins, called, of course, Ted Nugent which features the name emblazoned on an old garage.  There was a reservoir overflow on the highway near Corning that had the name in huge letters across it for quite some time until it was finally painted over.

I don’t know if it was the same guy in every instance who sprayed the name or if a cult of sorts has formed that inexplicably worship the aging rocker.  I found one example of this graffiti online from a site that concerns itself with the canal towpaths of England so perhaps this is not as local as I had thought.

There was one Ted Nugent song that I did like, from his early days with the Detroit based Amboy Dukes when he was barely out of high school in the 60’s.  The song is The Journey to the Center of the Mind.  With it’s thinly veiled drug references ( Nugent says he never knew what the song was about!)  it’s the sort of song that could be used as one of those songs used in a movie to define the timeframe for the scene in which it’s used.  I like this video and the lead singer’s British Invasion influenced garb.  Give a listen before you go spray Ted Nugent on the side of your local Wegman’s.

 

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The Creeper

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , on August 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

I came across a song yesterday, an old surf guitar instrumental from the Ventures called The Creeper, that reminded me of this painting of mine of the same title.  I had written about this painting before here a couple of years back but had not mentioned how it was one of the paintings that I regret selling.  This was part of the Exiles series that I painted in the mid 90’s, mostly grieving figures painted with segmented features. 

 It was the first real series I had painted and was the basis for my first solo show.  I think I only sold three of those pieces and regret having taken any of them from that group of work.  I think because those pieces were so much the product of a specific emotional state at a certain time, I will not be able to capture that exact feel again.  I have periodically painted figures in that style over the years since and  while they have certain charms, they lack the impact of these earlier pieces.

These few pieces are gone but at least I have images to take a look at when their memories start to creep in, much like that fellow above.

Here’s the song that reminded me of this painting, The Creeper from the Ventures.  This piece is very reminiscent of Wipeout ( with maybe a little Peter Gunn thrown in) but is really distinguished by some super organ work  from the great Leon Russell in an early appearance in 1964.  Give a listen– it’ll rev up your Sunday.

 

 

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