WFMU's Beware of the Blog

My inevitable review of Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain"

    First of all, within the capacity of what I think the film is (simple in it's seductive sweetness, and way-multifaceted in it's bleakness) I must say I found it very enjoyable (I loved watching it!), but the experience of viewing the picture was narrow in many ways.
    Fussed-over and coiffed even in its gritty moments, the film is oddly fairy tale-like throughout... despite its almost sickeningly blighted ending. On the film's surface it is picturesque, poetic, dreamy, slow and subtle. Skilled director Ang Lee casts the rugged wilderness of Wyoming as a gorgeous, ever-turning Marlboro ad kaleidoscope - his take on the beauty of nature would have made Andy Warhol blush. Fitting, because at it's sad, sweet heart, the story being celebrated in the media as "new" and "shocking" - is only so within it's own slim mainstream pop culture bandwidth. The story's two main characters, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) play cowboys who take a job herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming during 1963. The two fall into a gay relationship on the isolated mountain, and despite one living in Wyoming and one living in Texas, maintain the relationship for over two decades, using the mountain for an ongoing several-a-year rendezvous spot where they can see each other in blissful secret, away from the people and events that have developed in their own lives over that time.
    Sound romantic? Heavenly so. Which is why Ennis and Jack almost seem like angels, or ghosts. The two main protagonists, despite one fantastic performance and one debatable one, seem like fauxhemian robots in a lot of ways.
    It makes sense seeing as how the entire logic and energy of the film is (and forever will be) enslaved by the grandly bland-ing tradition of Hollywood films that are disciplined in anticipation for an Oscar and Golden Globe vortex parade. Remember how BOYS DON'T CRY ('99) swept the Oscars? Remember the film? No, really... can you remember it? I find this realization regrettable about BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, because I genuinely enjoyed the picture, and was sincerely rooting for it (for many reasons) when I was first steamrolled by it's media hype (over two years ago!) - I just wish the end product had turned out as less of a pose...

Why It All Went Bye-Bye

It's all Al Gore's fault. He's the one who invented the internets in the first place, right?

Whoever it was, they're getting a big piece of plutonium in their christmas stocking this year.

First our entire website disappeared sometime late Tuesday night. When it came back, our live streams were all screwy and our radio program archives were dead. It turns out that the giant energizer bunny at our data center in New York City keeled over and died, sending low voltage through all our servers, ultimately destroying the computer that houses all of our realaudio and mp3 radio archives. We're currently using our backup archive server, although it's looking like a big batch of our realaudio archives are crapping out. If anybody finds any realaudio archives like that, let me know.

Just as our streaming and archiving problems were sorting themselves out, the blog disappeared. It turns out that typepad was having similar problems, and they reverted our blog (and millions of others) to a backup copy that was a week old.  UPDATE: It looks like typepad has finally restored all articles and images. Woo-hoo!

The week kicked off for me with my first fake cease and desist e-mail. It's not enough to be besieged with fake password e-mails, fake offers from Nigerian royalty and the always entertaining dada spams. Now I have to get fake cease and desist e-mails from people about the public domain and creative commons material on this blog. Well, I briefly lost my balls and removed a few posts which I'll put back up in the next week or so. Ah, the internet. Just like Al Gore planned it.

In the meantime, listeners Lukas and Barret helped me find my balls by sending me this song (mp3).

Russian Soccer Brawl (video)

A few days ago, Brian wrote about the measures being taken in Germany to prevent soccer hooliganism at the next World Cup, namely, subjecting attendees to 26 hours of the ambient stylings of Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel. It's hard for us Americans to understand why such measures are being considered. When we riot at sports events, we don funny hats, tear down goal posts and shoot rubber bullets at each other. This video of a brawl between two Russian soccer clubs offers some perspective: download video [5MB wmv]. The two teams, Moscow's Spartak and Dinamo football clubs, march towards each other in a parking lot like Roman armies, before going at it with fists and flares. Look for the guy on fire at around the 1:55 mark. via fazed.

The Emperor's New Horror Clothes or Why Aswang Is Better Than The Devil's Rejects

I really wanted to like The Devil's Rejects.  I really did.  By all accounts of past taste, I was their target demographic, a true devotee of horror films.  It was obvious to me, after watching the film's predecessor, House of 1000 Corpses, that director Rob Zombie was also a true genre fan, one who had seen all the right films, and knew how to distill these influences into a raucously trashy good time.  (I should note that I've just recently seen TDR on DVD; due to a babysitter shortage, ever-rising ticket prices and anticipated shortcomings in theatergoer behavior, we don't get out to the movies much.  Rest assured multiple spoilers are included herein.)

The Devil's Rejects fails because it takes itself way too seriously, making nods to all the right classic horror/exploitation films, but approaching none of them in terms of being shocking, providing true thrills, or penetrating the psyche the way a real horror film is supposed to.  Though the cinematography has many merits, B-actor heroes abound (Ken Foree, P.J. Soles, E.G. Daily, Danny Trejo, and the film's stars Sid Haig and Bill Moseley), and ultimately there is great potential here, the whole presentation left me cold and unsatisfied.  ME, a veteran horror fan since age 7.

I was also excited at the casting of the great character actor William Forsythe as the vengeful Sherrif Wydell, then disappointed at the mediocre dialog he was forced to read (some horseshit about "God's vengeance" etc.)

The protagonists of the story are lawless, unrepentant, random killers, but their acts are neither shocking nor impactful, merely desultory.  Why do they kill?  These characters are not embodied with the creepiness or enigmatic power (or cannibalistic purposefulness) of the family in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a film that the director and myself clearly hold in high regard.  Personally, I ended up feeling bad for the innocent family of country musicians besieged by the killers; why them?—they weren't even having sex for chrissakes!

In horror film terms, sadistic and senseless violence perpetrated on unwitting innocents can be easily portrayed, though most often ineffectively.  In 1972, when Wes Craven released Last House On The Left, the terror was effective.  Enough to make that film a transcendent classic, one that got under your skin and disturbed you, so much so that even when the sadistic killers receive their well-deserved gruesome comeuppance, one feels sickened, maybe even a little ashamed or sad, rather than triumphant.

Captain Beefheart on the Beat Club

WFMU recently was asked to curate an hour of videos by the kind folks at NYC-TV's New York Noise program, and we got so much feedback about this clip of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band from German TV in 1972 that we decided to toss it up on the old blog. "I'm Gonna Booglarize You" (41 MB mpg) here on the Beat Club finds the band in peak mode slipping and sliding all over the place, and here's a bonus vidclip of the TV ad for the Spotlight Kid album (929K mov) that must have confused many TV viewers. Love to find a good anthology of Beat Club performances on DVD, just to see Blue Cheer once again performing buried beneath a mountain of amps (and hair).

From the WFMU News Vault: 1968 WFMU Fundraiser Programme

Listener Ed graciously contributes more finds from his collection of WFMU clippings:  "WFMU has a tradition of making money through its begathon and special events. In 1968, a few months after becoming free form, a benefit concert was held at town hall in NYC.  Here is a scan of the programme for this event and and its cover.   Billy Mitchell and Buzzy Linhart supported the station through many live appearances on air and at various events. Earth Opera became Seatrain and made a couple LPs under each name.  Peter Rowan and David Grisman are still around after being gratefully dead while PF Sloan remains on the 'Eve Of Destruction' after writing too many hit songs.  Vin Scelsa hosted the show."

Earth Opera on the Evan "Funk" Davies' show.

Bill Monroe and Peter Rowan on Hatch's show.

Buzzy Linhart on Irwin's show. 

PF Sloan on John Allen's show.

 

America's Most Wanted Art

While the Department of Homeland Security is busy protecting miniature golf courses, another federal agency is doing the hard work of democracy - tracking down stolen artworks. The FBI recently identified its "Top Ten Art Crimes," and amazingly enough, Kenny G's three-hour broadcast of weather forecasts was not on the list. But if you happen to see Munch's The Scream, Caravaggio's Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco or any of those 10,000 Iraqi antiquities that went missing, be sure to give the FBI's Art Crime Team a call.

"You Shouldn't Have!" Pt. 2

With the clock ticking and Christmas only twelve days away, some of you may be in an panic as to what to give that special A/V Geek in your life. Pay a visit to the online shop of "The Internet's #1 Audio/Visual Archive", EarthStation 1, and you'll find CDs and DVDs covering the following topics, among others:

Movie & TV / Old Time Radio / TV & Radio Commercials /  Educational/Guidance / Strange / Unusual & Bizarre! / Propaganda / Driver Education / Axis Sally / Lord Haw Haw / Nuclear War / The 1960s / Outer Space Programs / Sex Education / Juvenile Delinquency / Bloopers / Drug Abuse / Marriage Counseling / Parenting / Teen Guidance / Scholastic Guidance / Business & Industrial

The prices are very reasonable with most CDs & DVDs right around $9.99. EarthStation 1 also makes available TONS of free MP3s in all the above categories and more - including LOTS of Shooby Taylor! And I think you can still have stuff shipped in time for Christmas! (Which DVD do I wish Santa would drop down MY chimney? That would have to be "This Is A Recording".)

Transpacific Sound Paradise remote broadcast this weekend

Being a homebody doesn't fly in New York (or New Jersey, for that matter, given that it's right next door to Gotham) and it especially won't fly this weekend because WFMU's Rob Weisberg is bringing his always-stupendous Transpacific Sound Paradise program to Barbes in Brooklyn for an evening of live music accompanied by genuine seat-of-the-pants live radio from 6-8 PM! This Saturday (12/17), grab your honey, hop on the F train, and head out to Barbes (376 9th Street at 6th Ave, Brooklyn) for this special live broadcast which will feature performances from virtuoso mandolinist and Klezmer-revival kingpin Andy Statman, the Venezuelan-bred cumbias crossed with psychedelic surf guitar of Chicha Libre, and the traditional Greek music of Mavrothis Kontanis. Rob and co-host Irene Trudel will be MC-ing all night, and passing out ungodly amounts of free WFMU swag to anyone who stops by the broadcast booth to say hi. If you can't be there in person, you can of course check it out over the air or on any of our webstreams. Check out WFMU's Upcoming Special Programs Page for more details, or email Rob for the lowdown.

With You Always

Jesus is with YOU always!

Germany To Employ Sonic Mind Control at World Cup

7 Seconds' hopes for "We're Gonna Fight" as official World Cup Anthem down the toilet. From Oddsnark by way of CSTB:

World Cup organizers in Germany today unveiled their secret weapon to ward off disturbances by soccer hooligans. Organizers announced that techno-ambient composer Brian Eno and artsy-fartsy singer Peter Gabriel will perform a 26-hour-long concert at the tournament’s opening ceremony. In addition, Eno’s trance-inducing Ambient 1: Music for Airports would be played on an infinite loop during the games, while an extended version of Gabriel’s mind-numbing “Biko” would be used to lull would-be vandals into a state of compliance at other times during the month-long championship competition. When asked what officials might do if the double-dose of soporiferous artists didn’t assuage violence at the games, Wolfgang Niersbach, executive vice president of the organizing committee, held up a copy of OK Computer and said, “Don’t make me play it, because I will.”

Mutant Animal Mania

Presenting freaks of nature, human intervention, and urban legend:

- Green puppy
- Green kitty
- 2-headed tortoise
- 2-tongued cat
- 2-faced kitty
- Mutant feline HQ
- Eyeless turtles
- Fish that glow in the dark: a biomarker in the lab, a conversation-starter at parties
- Variegated mutant lamb
- Fainting goats
- Dancing mice
- Asexual worms get randy with radioactivity
- Deformed frogs
- Hermaphrodite frogs: caused by a weed killer
- Mail order clear-skinned frogs
- Fistulated cow: sounds dirty, huh? Imagine the poor fool who has to feed the hole...
- Of course, NJ is not to be upstaged... WFMU's homestate has its own windowed cow
- Hairless mice: a fave of research biologists far and wide
- Albino fruit fly: another reason you shouldn't trust whitey
- Cat-fox or coati?
- Male fishies grow eggs in CA... thanks to the magic of sewage! Same thing happened on a larger scale in the Thames estuary during the late 70s/early 80s. Back then, the amount of synthetic estrogen in the birth control pill was much higher, leading to uber-femme sewage.
- El Chupacabra: ok, so this is unconfirmed, but check out the gnarly photo!
- Jersey Devil: often spotted at WFMU

Click the link below for some choice photos...

One Of The Famous Bands

During this past Friday's Communication Breakdown, I used a Skype feature - Skype Me - to contact people in China who like to practice their English and ask those I reached - Jesse and Jacky (MP3s) - how they felt when they heard John Lennon died.

Richard Pryor Fronting "Black Death" (Video)

Relatively tame by today's TV standards, 1977's Richard Pryor Show on NBC-TV was still a landmark freakfest that set out to forcefully challenge censors, and only lasted four episodes before the plug was pulled. We remember one of the greatest American comedians with this clip of the band Black Death [68 MB mpeg], somewhat of a cross between Sabbath, Sunn o))) and Funkadelic where frontman Pryor basically leads the crowd of Whiteys into a frenzy like lemmings before wiping them out. Pretty dark stuff for 1977 primetime without a doubt (and stick around for the segue to commercial!) Watch out for extra Sandra Bernhard in the crowd, she was a writer for the short-lived show (along with Robert Altman).

Cleaning Out My Inbox

Here's a video for Chinese Rocks by Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, featuring some actual footage of the band performing the song, although the footage isn't necessarily in sync.. whaddya expect from a bunch of junkies singing about junk? Download Video [28 MB, mpg]

WFMU's full of vinyl fetishists. But not like this.

Mira Craig of The Fugees answers the philosophical question, if a performer jumps into a crowd, and nobody is around to catch her, does she hit the ground? Download Video [1 MB, WindowsMedia], via Compfused. For some successful (even genre-defining) crowd surfing from 1970, see this Iggy Pop post.

Project 15 is a video blog that's been making one fifteen second video every day of 2005. They're haven't linked all the videos yet, but let's hope they do, if more of them are like this post from May 1st. Download Video [Half a MB, Quicktime]

All the Beatles Christmas records - original artwork and mp3s. And here's a page of Beatles' anomolies.

The cigarette smoke art photography of Thomas Herbrich. via Hemaworstje

BZ Gas, the super-hallucinogen developed here in Nutley, New Jersey by Hoffman LaRoche (and actually used in Vietnam, as imagined in the movie Jacob's Ladder) has reportedly been self-administered in Iraq by insurgents. This isn't exactly the application the CIA had in mind when they developed it. Link (via boingboing)

Beware of the Blog's own Fatty Jubbo in a very not-safe-for-work Bobby Conn video, Angels. Link. (No hints on which one is Fatty.)

Will this site put an end to Andy Breckman's endless Albino jokes?

Don't end 2005 without getting your Drunken Russians 2006 calendar!

Adventures In Amplitude Modulation - Part 2

It was heartening and reassuring to get so many favorable comments (and emails) after my last post (which was part one of this series and can be found here). The topic at hand is the avocation of DXing-- taking advantage of the extended range of AM & shortwave broadcasts at night and listening to discover what can be heard over the radio  from your location. For better or worse, it's one of those habits most people dabble in when they're alone at night. And most of us who participate in this habit have close friends and/or partners who would probably be bored to tears or just openly annoyed if subjected to the challenging listen of trying to read a far off radio signal.

Once in my room I was sitting with a friend having a beer and just for the hell of it I switched on my old Trans-Oceanic and quickly zoomed into a faint English broadcast from Albania. For some reason I thought he would be half as curious about the discovery as I was, and for a couple of minutes I was hanging on to every word trying to hear the news from the Balkans over the noise floor in my apartment. Then I saw the pain in his face, and shut it down and put the music back on. He thanked me.

While there’s no shame in it, scanning the AM and shortwave dial for sport and recreation is an acquired taste. You have to be willing to put up lots of static, whistles, buzzes and some really stupid and boring radio. But it’s an offbeat way to sample some free (and sometimes fringe) media from around the country and around the world. And when you power up that receiver you never really know exactly who, what or WHERE you’re going to hear.

Winter is better in general for DXing the broadcast bands, and lately I’ve been getting better than usual reception. Since I recorded this scan of the NY upstate AM dial in late November, I’ve gotten strong readable broadcasts in New York City from several stations that eluded me that evening. But the reality is that every night is different That’s part of what makes it interesting.

Sushi-Ya Etiquette

The Japanese Tradition:  Sushi   [31 MB, QuickTime]

In the mid-80's, sushi bars first appeared on most Americans' cultural radar as a novel backdrop to the greedy power lunches of snow vacuums.  No longer just a food fad, sushi is now easily found in most large cities, and the idea of raw fish is traumatizing to fewer and fewer.

Japan is famous for its punctilious observance of formality, and the sushi shop is no exception.  But Americans typically struggle with the sometimes counterintuitive intricacies of Japanese protocol and are often seen as big huge loud stupid rude people.  Which couldn't be farther from the truth.  Even if you're not traveling, this kind of stuff's always interesting.  To appreciate the differences among cultures is truly to appreciate the richness of the human spirit.