Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the death of founding Rolling Stones member Brian Jones. Jones had drowned in a pool while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The coroner had listed “Death by misadventure”, and noted liver and heart enlargement due to drug and alcohol abuse.
Two weeks earlier, Jones and the Stones had parted company.
Below are some visuals of the funeral courtesy of Dutch Television. Keith is briefly interviewed at the end:
The British Pathe newsreel from the concert in Hyde Park that happened two days after Jones’ death, the first show featuring his replacement, Mick Taylor:
And this clip from the 1968 Jean Luc Godard film Sympathy for the Devil that features some amazing footage of the Stones, including Jones, working on ‘Sympathy’:
Jon Stewart remains one of the few sane voices left in news reporting, even if it is fake news. Tuesday night, Stewart weighed in especially heavily with mainstream media’s coverage hysteria regarding you know who with the premier of the Daily Show’s Rippy Awards. There still is intelligent life out there, it is just getting very difficult to find.
As Hollywood is short on ideas and big on remakes these days, here’s an idea. How about getting kids (they work cheap after all) to star in remakes of famous flicks? Can the acting be any worse? Everybody likes kids after all and who would criticize the attempt of a group of youngsters to reprise a classic.
As an illustration, here is young Claire Franklin and Jess Edge recreating the scene from Pulp Fiction originally played by Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer.
Since the announcement of the death of a certain “king of pop” last week, the people of Iran, Iraq and other International hot-spots have been kind enough to pause in their collective tracks to stop and hold a vigil in his honor. At least one might surmise this after witnessing the mainstream media’s wall to wall, 24/7, coverage of the once walking plastic surgery disaster.
The state of news reporting, especially in television, is perhaps at its lowest point and gives no indication of improving. Long ago I realized that yelling at the TV doesn’t make me feel any better.
But viewing any parodies of television journalism generally provides a temporary salve so instead of contributing to the sudden interest in a failed former pop star and tweeting (FFS), I went into the vaults to retrieve a heapin’ helpin’ of UK telly gold.
Beyond the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, the genre of fake news is one that (no surprise) the Brits are also especially good at. My favorite, 1997’s BBC series Brass Eye, took “hard-hitting”, Fox style, search and destroy reporting to an all time level of satire. Employing the “bushwack” style of interviewing unwitting members of Parliament, media stars and guest experts who didn’t catch on to the joke, their exploits gained them notoriety and a furor in Britain’s tabloid press (they obviously never got the joke). British tabloids attack Brass Eye following a 2001 special episode, while highlighting the blossoming breasts of 15 year old Charlotte Church. Classy!
One Conservative member of Parliament was even fooled into recording a video PSA warning of the effects of a fictitious Czech street drug and was so convinced that he raised the issue of the drug’s use on the floor of Parliament.
The brainchild of Chris Morris, Brass Eye was the continuation in the fake news tradition of On The Hour and The Day Today. Morris plays a variety of characters including most of the different “journalists”. In the segments below, Brass Eye takes a hard look at crime in Britain, ensnaring a member of Parliament, Sir Rhodes Boyson, in the process.
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
The genius of this series is staggering, and although it was recorded over a decade ago, it is more timely today than it ever was.
We will now return to minute to minute coverage of the “gloved one’s” saga for the rest of the Summer.
There are those actors that appear in film and television that we subconsciously remember although their names rarely make the billing and their faces fade from our memory until they reappear in their next role.
HBO premiered their new comedy series Hung last night and even though the posters around town pictured Thomas Jane (Ho) and Jane Adams (Pimp), the press releases that were re-written over and over on different sites and publications made less mention of Ms. Adams.
After watching the highly touted premier last night, if there will be any life in this series then the burden will be carried by Tanya (Jane Adams). But then again, Pimpin’ Aint Easy…….right?
Thomas Jane is well cast in the main role in that he is as dull and as lifeless as his character. But that does not exactly make for great television. The script is rather predictable and punchlines are telegraphed with such precision that if HBO is trying to compete with Showtime, then they have a winner on their hands. If on the other hand you have come to expect a few more surprises and imagination in your HBO premium package, well………..Mad Men is rumored to be coming back in August. Oops, that’s basic cable.
The sluggish, spoon-fed script complete with slow, deliberate narration by Thomas Jane’s character only cements the cliches in this rather predictable death march. Anne Heche’s shrill, scene study exercise-like performance was fairly underwhelming along with the rest of the supporting cast. Everybody really looked like they were….acting.
But the appearance of Adams’ character, Tanya, actually breathed some life into the story. Although she often plays the wounded, complicated supporting role, her ability to work with the lines that were given her will actually merit a return to the next episode.
Speaking of the next episode, HBO will not be airing the second episode until July 12th. In addition, the “Premier” episode of Hung ran just 45 minutes, does this mean 30 minute episodes in the future? I will at least give the producers props for the location shots of Downtown Detroit, the rock venue Harpos, and the apparent realistic setting of the story in St. Clair Shores on Detroit’s east side.
But returning to the reason for this post, what draws one to Ms. Adams is the translucent vulnerability she brings to a role. Her subtle ability to evoke empathy in the viewer in a way that goes beyond the script is truly note-worthy. Yeah, I’m a fan.
The two roles that made me notice this actress was her brief role of marijuana addicted, former recording artist in 2008’s The Wackness and her portrayal of a fragile internet date from 2006’s Little Children. Magic.
The state of customer service is often an aspect of modern life that is both frustrating and saddening. Few manufacturers seem to linger after the cash is collected and even extended warranties still often leave the consumer jumping through hoops only rivaled by rebate offers designed for disqualification.
A year ago I posted a story of an experience with an online bicycle retailer, BikesDirect.com. The story of my trials with the company are even more incredulous as eventually I was speaking with the owner of the company with the same lack of result. To date, the story has resulted in over 400 comments from both defenders of the company and others customers who had similar experiences. However, even though a search engine query for Bikes Direct places my negative experience immediately below the company’s own website, no one from the company has ever contacted this site. Instead, there has been a rather vociferous shilling campaign in an attempt to discredit the post.
I tend to complain more than praise, but my recent experience with Applecare and the Genius Bar at the Soho Apple store was really remarkable.
I bought my first MacBook Pro three years ago just months after the Intel-based models were introduced. As I was new to the world of Mac, the initial problems I experienced when attempting to load an application was embarrassingly written off as user error. I finally gave up and called the company. After some over-the-phone diagnostics, it was determined that I in fact had a real issue with my optical drive. Not the news someone that just spent 2K on a new laptop wanted to hear. In addition, since I bought the unit online and not through a store, I couldn’t just walk in and get another machine. The Applecare rep assured me that packing materials were being shipped to me immediately and that they would repair the unit as quickly as possible. Yeah, right.
Sure enough, the packing materials arrived the next morning and I sent the unit back. Within 48 hours of me shipping the computer to Apple, it was back at my door via Fedex. Okay, I’m impressed.
Over the next few months or so, I slowly made the transition over from my PC’s completely and never looked back. My Mac was on pretty much every waking hour of the day and often running tasks while I slept. It is truly rare that I get so attached to a machine and I have never even felt this way about any of the cars that I owned.
But the long hours eventually revealed the weaknesses that often exist in new models and in late 2007, some rather ominous sounds began to emanate from my ordinarily silent companion. The problem was not unique as I found other posts online about it and eventually links to YouTube where I realized that the fans in the unit were faulty. I marched into the Soho store and attempted to recreate the problem for one of the “Geniuses” to no avail, like a car that runs perfectly when in the hands of the mechanic. They agreed to keep it for observation on a Saturday at about 5 PM. The following afternoon, a Sunday, they called to tell me it was ready. Great, I thought, they are handing me back the computer with a clean bill of health so that I will have the same problem as soon as I get home with it.
To my complete amazement, not only had they found the problem, but they had replaced the fans, the logic board and the optical drive in less than 24 hours, and during the weekend. Okay, now you got me for life.
Five months later I bought the much improved Macbook Pro 2.4 ghz Intel core 2 duo. My original 2.16 became my “daily driver” for emailing, surfing and light duties while the new model handled the heavy lifting of CPU-intensive video editing with all of it’s glorious horsepower.
For the last year, I have had no major problem with the 2.16, but wifi dropouts and occasional shutdowns when the machine was taxed led me to have one last checkup before my three years of Applecare expired. My battery was pretty much toast as well.
The Applecare rep was the usual cheery type, this time especially polite as I happened on a call centre in Canada. She took all of my information and set up an appointment for me in the Soho store two days later.
I knew there was a very good chance that the folks at Apple would look at my computer and the pending expiration date of the warranty, just days away, and run out the clock. It was understandable, I had three years of relatively worry free, faithful service and they weren’t in business to be nice.
The Apple “Genius” that was assigned to me was actually a real prince of a guy. I don’t mean that sarcastically. He was also actually able to recreate the issues I was having and said that not only did he think that I had a good case for a free new battery ($129) but also a new Aircard and maybe more. He also added that any repairs would also carry an additional 90 days of warranty. I was speechless.
The repair status was documented online and sure enough, within days, I got the email informing me that the repaired Macbook was heading home.
There was no detail on the repairs and the quick turnaround had me worrying that nothing had been replaced.
As I opened the box this morning after it was delivered by Fedex (priority overnight, no less) I noticed that my unreplaced battery was now holding no charge at all. In addition, within the packing material was a note that Apple recommended that I replace the battery.
Yeah, no shit, but weren’t they supposed to do that?
However, it appeared that the machine had gotten a new Aircard, new memory (really?) and yet another optical drive (thanks!, but now that makes four?), all of it at no charge.
So I’m still ahead having received a thorough check-up and some new parts, but that battery was still bothering me as both the Applecare rep and the Genius both said I had a new battery coming.
So back to Applecare I go pleading the case for a new battery on a now expired warranty. Good luck to that.
I am greeted by another cheery member of the Applecare squad and I steam in with my account of the promised new battery from last week when I was still under warranty.
“Hmm”, the rep says, “can I put you on hold?”
“Sure” I reply, but this doesn’t sound good.
Alas, after a brief wait another rep gets on the line and informs that he has all of the documentation from last week and I am in line for a new battery. He explains that the repair center doesn’t stock batteries and that he will send one out today. By that afternoon, an email with a tracking number appears in my inbox. The following morning, Fedex is buzzing my door at 8:30 and guess what they have for me?
New battery, on the house.
Though Apple does anger and confound me from time to time, an experience like this with a product over three years old has once again fed my loyalty. So much so, that I felt the necessity to post my experience.
Though I doubt that I will even register more than a few comments on this post, if any, I wonder if the owner of BikesDirect.com ever wishes he just sent me a new frame whenever he sees my rant sitting directly under his search listing.
First Ave. looking north from Seventh St., Sat. July 18th, 1942.
Recently, I posted a shot of First Avenue in the East Village from July 12th of 1942. As I walk the block on a daily basis, I was truly fascinated and apparently many of you agreed. I was able to track down one more shot, taken less than a week later, this time apparently taken from atop the building at the Southwest corner of First Avenue and Seventh St.. On the upper left corner you can make out one of the huge oil tanks that once inhabited the area where Stuy-town sits. On the lower left corner you can see that linoleum was for sale in what is now the Radio/Tile bar.
In the center of the picture, the light-colored building was the home of the Stasiuk Bros. meat market that eventually became Kurowycky’s and is now the home of Kim’s video.
The elevated train that ran along 1st Ave. was in the process of being dismantled as the St. Marks station is in ruins.
And the view today:
NEW YORK, Friday—Yesterday morning, Miss Alice Nichols, who is in charge of the Victory Food Campaign for the Department of Agriculture, attended my press conference. I was much interested to find that we have had such a splendid response to the appeal made by the Department for more food production. Now they are going to be able to tell us at certain periods what foods we ought to buy and eat fresh, because they are so plentiful on the market.
Dame Nature has had a hand in this, and from now on we should be eating as many Georgia peaches as possible. Young chicken should form a large part of our diet, and even if Englishmen can only get one egg in every three weeks, we may have as many as we want every day and feel patriotic.
Someone brought up the cost of some of these products, which in spite of being plentiful still are fairly expensive. Miss Nichols told us that a number of the chain stores are planning to get together and sell these Victory Food Specials at cost as they are announced month by month.
If peaches are plentiful, there is no reason why even a woman in the city could not buy an additional amount and preserve them, if she has space enough for shelves where her fruit can stand ready for use in the winter months.
On the train to New York City yesterday afternoon, I managed to go through a considerable amount of mail. The evening meeting of the executive committee of the International Student Service was of particular interest, for it covered the plans for the Student Assembly in Washington in September, which promises to be of real interest.
Today the city is gray and cool. I am doing one or two errands, and then attending a luncheon given by Mrs. Lytle Hull for Miss Harriet Elliott and Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. I am delighted that Miss Elliott has been lent by the University of North Carolina to help the Treasury Department organize the women of the country in the campaign for a wider sale of War Bonds and Stamps. She is not only very able, but one of the best people to work with that I have ever met.
Today is American Heroes Day, and cities throughout the nation will do honor to their war heroes by trying to break their record for War Savings Bonds and Stamps. One million retailers throughout the nation are trying to meet their billion dollar quota, as set by the Treasury Department, before July, and so 750 cities will stage drives today.
In some cities they are carrying on their celebrations for several days. Des Moines, Iowa, for instance, on Saturday will hold a patriotic rally in the Drake University stadium and admissions will be paid in War Bonds and Stamps. The roll of honor will be unveiled, and on Sunday there will be a sunrise religious service to pray for the Des Moines boys. There is no lack of enthusiasm, so this drive will certainly be successful.
E.R.
Admittedly, every few weeks the urge to cancel my HBO subscription rises up as the daily offering of Cathouse and Entourage reruns mixed with one and a half star cinematic shitshows gets to be oh so underwhelming.
I am also one of the few that will not be returning for a second round of torture, care of the new season of True Blood.
But as I near the point where I am dialing Time Warner, HBO foists a new series like car salesman throwing in free undercoating. You stop long enough to at least think about it.
The wheat paste campaign for the upcoming HBO series Hung is hard to avoid with it’s mugshot charm and pimp/ho branding. But beneath the less than nuanced approach to luring the potential viewer may actually lie an interesting series.
The story is less than glamorous. A high school gym teacher down on his luck and recently divorced, stumbles into reinvention as a male prostitute when he realizes that his “endowment” is perhaps his biggest asset. The lead role is played by Thomas “The Punisher” Jane whose best performance dates back almost 12 years to a supporting role in Boogie Nights. Additional cast members include Anne Heche…..well, she was good in Wag the Dog and she did get her start on my Grandmother’s favorite soap, Another World. Whoops……..
Perhaps the casting agent decided that both of these actor’s careers already mirrored the troubles of the characters they were portraying? That would actually be clever……..in a method sense.
So why am I even writing about this? For one thing, the pilot was directed by Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election, About Schmidt) and written by the writing duo behind the fairly memorable FX series, The Riches (R.I.P). Both of these factors may result in a darker, more downbeat treatment of the premise and a rare species in American television, a black comedy. Or it could easily devolve into a ham-fisted, frat-friendly hour of bad one-liners if entrusted into the wrong hands. I have a feeling that it might just yield the former more than the latter. This could be a sleeper.
In addition, early reports mention that the story takes place and is filmed on location in Detroit. The trailer gives off a hint that they may have even filmed in Hamtramck, an area that any Detroiter of Eastern European ancestry holds very dear. Personally, I will be watching for any locations I might recognize, but HBO could have not picked a better place to tell the story of a man making strange choices born out of financial hardship. I’m certain that the State of Michigan’s generous rebate plan to film makers didn’t dissuade HBO either.
The sad, sanitized future of the Battle of the Bands model. Coming to an Xburb near you…..
From the first time that I observed the entire “Guitar Hero” phenomenon, I was left with both a feeling of disgust and disappointment. As someone who once fancied himself a musician many moons ago, I remember quite clearly the day as a 12 year old that my brother showed me the open secret of the barre chord (the musical DNA of rock) on an acoustic guitar.
Suddenly I could, albeit very crudely, recreate the music of my gods. I played Bowie’s ‘Panic in Detroit’ for hours in complete disbelief. A month later with an electric guitar in hand and plugged into my parent’s Pilot Hi-FI, I had my first epiphany as I clumsily wielded the hammer of the gods.
Years later, as I pursued my passion in earnest, the cache of stomp boxes, Soviet-built tube heads, and pawn shop guitars represented my own Sothebys-worthy version of a prized collection.
But more importantly, I could play guitar. I could write songs and no matter who never heard them, I created something.
As the music industry continues to tank, there has been a new emphasis placed on the influence of Guitar Hero as an introduction to the “Rock of Olde” for the next generation of budding RN’R fans. Full frontal embraces from the likes of Aerosmith and Paul McCartney (now in bed with Microsoft, eeww) are perhaps based on the fact that royalties from the games are now more significant than actual record sales. Hey Macca, does the world really need any more bloody Beatles fans?
Yeah, Yeah, I know, there is a reason why they call it the music business. But getting your original, first-hand, RN’R kicks from Guitar Hero can only be analogous to losing your virginity to a rubber doll.
The music community has been strangely silent on this side of the argument, but thankfully comes a mild rebuke courtesy of Jack “White Stripes” White and RN’R Odin himself, Jimmy Page. From NME:
“Speaking at a press conference in Los Angeles on Friday (June 19) for ‘It Might Get Loud’, the forthcoming documentary film that chronicles their musical careers, the two renowned guitarists said they don’t believe video games are an ideal way for people to be exposed to music or learn to play instruments.
“It’s depressing to have a label come and tell you that ['Guitar Hero'] is how kids are learning about music and experiencing music,” White said. He added that although he doesn’t try to dictate “which format people should get their music in…if you have to be in a video game to get in front of them, that’s a little sad.”
Page added that he can’t imagine that people are really learning anything significant about playing instruments by playing video games.
“You think of the drum part that John Bonham did on Led Zeppelin’s first track on the first album, ‘Good Times Bad Times’,” he said. “How many drummers in the world can play that part, let alone on Christmas morning?”
Actually could this be a blessing in disguise? If this video game lures the next generation of Fall Out Boy wannabes into a life of video games, Hot Pockets and bongs……..could that create just the right vacuum to nurture the true future rock gods in the few remaining households that don’t allow video games and encourage their children to practice an instrument? I, for one, can only hope.
Just about two years ago, I had embarked on yet another Summer tour with a LA based band and a bus driver who would soon reveal his true personality………and his insanity.
The coach leasing company sent out a replacement who was much more affable but in need of a lot of attention. Many a late night was spent by yours truly assisting with directions, keeping up morale, and when necessary, providing assistance in parking a 55 foot Prevost XLII entertainer coach with a 20 foot trailer. As the driver and I were keeping so much late night company, I took it upon myself to bolster his non-existent music collection with something we could both enjoy, old-skool country.
I was well versed in the genre, and the hard drive that accompanied me on that tour included all the Waylon, Johnny, George, Merle and Hank that one would need to keep a bus driver awake and happy for those overnight hauls. Problem was, that I had been listening to all of that stuff for years and some new additions were necessary.
I had long heard the legend of Kris Kristofferson: Rhodes scholar, US Army Ranger officer, boxer, esteemed songwriter, country music “outlaw”, overall RN’R badass of his era, and unfortunately, the victim of a number of unfortunate casting decisions. By the Summer of 2007, the only memory that I still held in regards to Mr. Kristofferson was his performance in the Mel Gibson snickerfest, Payback.
When you live in hotels, sometimes there really is nothing else to watch…..
But late one night, in a very far off truckstop, I spied a very inexpensive Kris Kristofferson compilation and thought, “how bad can this be?“
To my surprise, it was brilliant, for the most part. There are a couple of tracks that I can’t ever understand charting, but ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’ shook me to the core. When reaching civilization on a subsequent day off, I filled out the collection and developed a new found love for Kris.
The track carries some rather fascinating lore. Kristofferson, a trained chopper pilot, unexpectedly landed a helicopter in Johnny Cash’s backyard to deliver the song personally after unsuccessful attempts through more conventional routes.
Kris Kristofferson turns 73 today.
Kris and Johnny from 1980 with ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’:
The sense of isolation evoked by the tune hit home especially hard back then. To this day, whenever I hear it, I immediately flash back to sitting in the jump seat up front in that bus drinking my 12th beer and staring out onto an endless moonlit interstate feeling completely disconnected.
Actually, a better memory now than I thought it would ever be.
Kris performing more recently during the Johnny Cash Tribute:
