More Summer tunes

...of fine quality for very hot days only





Back to School——Royal Truxx



Dean——Terry Reid



Too Hot, too dry——Dadamah

I joke

but the death of MJ has been surprisingly intense for me. He will be missed.
East village have already done slew of dedication shows to him. Have a listen to some of it when you're doing something by the computer.
If I HAD to choose it would be "Human Nature" and "PYT" as the best two songs in his catalogue.


HERE

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

One Day in Your Life——Michael Jackson

The roller coaster ride is finally over. Good night sweet prince.

I was at LACMA today about to see the Koons sculpture, Michael and Bubbles, when we ran into a trio of gay men who were busily texting about the news. They said they found out about his death in front the sculpture, just as they were 'talking smack' about him. "We thought we killed him!", they said.

"When they do MJ's autopsy, do you think they'll find Tinkerbell inside?"
-Michael Ian Black on Twitter

R.I.P. Farrah Fawcett

Inspiring Article

The below was a response to a young creative person who has had a hard time in L.A., having big ambitions to take part in the entertainment industry, but little headway and is considering moving back to his/her hometown in the South. [from Salon.com]

Dear Searcher,

I have three things to say to you. The first is: Stay in L.A. The second is: Consider the paradoxical fact that as you get closer to your dream it seems farther away. And the third is: You are unhappy because your needs are not being met.

So now the monologue. You feel unhappy so you think maybe you should give up and go home?

So wait a minute. What is there to do at home? What are your realistic options except to stay in L.A. and keep working toward a career in the film business? What else is there to do? Go "home"? "Home" is for visiting and getting presents. That's it. You get presents and kisses and maybe you get admired and envied and you drive a rental car. Then you go to the airport and back to your private little hell that you work so hard to disguise. You go back to your imaginary friends and your imaginary life.

Home is worse than L.A. In L.A. at least you can complain about L.A. Complaining about L.A. is soul cleansing and invigorating. Complaining about home is just depressing. People say, Why don't you leave, then?

So you did leave. Good for you. Of course you left. You have ideas. You are part of the creatigentsia. Like me. We left. We started bands and colored our nails and stranged up our hair and stayed out late in less clothes than needed, strictly speaking, except when we were in more clothes than needed, and that too was odd. We were odd. They didn't understand us. We stayed in our new city. We stayed and bitched and got into trouble and ruined our reputations.

Then, eventually, with the perverse inevitability that is history's curse, we came to run things. We became the new elite. Now we suck. We are disgusting and hated but we run things. You will be like this too. You will suffer and hate everyone and then one day you will find yourself sitting at an immense console with knobs, and when you turn the knobs some people are thrown into the fire pit and others are elevated to the banquet hall, and you say, How did I get to be in this knob-turning situation? as if you didn't, secretly, know. You pretend like it was thrust on you by accident.

So it goes.

So you hate L.A.? So what would you suggest? A newer, cleaner, nicer L.A.? And in what universe would a new, cleaner, nicer L.A. do what it has to do, which is make the movies? It takes what it takes to make the films. It takes all the awfulness that it takes. It takes all the cretins. It takes all the suntans and the bitchiness and the 10,000 watts of self-delusion and the unfathomable narcissism. That's what it takes.

So we hate L.A. But those of us who hate it from afar don't even hate it the right way. To hate it the right way you have to be in it.

You are in it. You have hating rights. Good for you. Hate it with everything you've got.

And now make some movies! Wreak your revenge.

I personally love L.A. What I love about L.A. as opposed to San Francisco is that you meet people all the time who are actually editing videotape or transporting videotape from one part of L.A. to another, or working on chemicals that go into cinema, or working on wires that connect pieces of cinematic equipment to each other, or working on the dyes that go into the threads that go into the clothes that go into the wardrobe of a motion picture actor or a commercial actor. They are doing the work. I like that. They are connected to the dream. Yet their daily lives do not seem so dreamlike. Because for them the dream is a real thing: It is a business that needs trucks and cranes and wheels and computers and chemicals.

So as you work on the real thing, the dream loses its shimmer. This is real life. It has a shimmer all its own. It has a shimmer that is sometimes sour or bitter. But it is the real thing and it is what we live in. It is a gift. It is the gift of real life.

Before, you had only vague notions of one day making films. Now, you are educated in the field. Before, you were far from the centers of film production. Now, you are living right in the worldwide capital of film production. And yet now you feel like giving up. After one year, and some discomfort and disillusionment, you are wondering whether the dream is worth it.

One year is nothing. Try spending 10 years in L.A. See how that goes. Try writing 20 scripts. See how that goes. Try spending every year in workshops and classes and meeting other people who want to make films. Try living the life in earnest. It will be painful. There will be little escape from the reality of the dream. The dream will not be an escape any longer. The dream will be the job.

There are dreams and there are career plans. They are not the same. Some dreams are compensatory: visions that we retreat to in times of stress, like blankies for infants, things that comfort us and tell us what we need to be told. The dream of being a famous writer can be like that: a dream of infantile power and attention that disguises the more immediate need -- for safety, self-love, serenity, peace in our hearts.

But the work, that is another thing. The real work is staggering; the real work is work. It is not dream. It is pushing against the wall; it is hearing what we do not want to hear; it is doing the numbers; it is learning the new terms as they come along; it is sitting through evaluations and self-evaluations. It is an eternal object lesson in our powerlessness and our smallness. The real work is grinding and slow.

When I look at all the writers who have won coveted prizes and all the filmmakers and artists who have had success, what I notice is that they are the ones who actually filled out the applications for fellowships and sent their work around for critique and rejection; they are the ones who locked themselves in rooms and worked at it; they are the ones who did what was required; they are the ones who allowed themselves to be beginners and to begin at the beginning and do the next obvious thing.

What I conclude is that as creative people, we are citizens. We are citizens of the dream. As citizens of the dream, like citizens of the factory or the city, our job is to follow good working routines, to participate, to lend a hand to the greater enterprise. We are workers. Our work is ethereal but we are workers. Material must be transported. Mouths must be fed. It is work.

When seen from afar, like a rainbow, the dream is radiant and seductive; but when you are in it, there is just a lot of steam. There are men moving scenery, huffing and puffing. It is the factory of the dream.

Here is the other thing, a more prosaic thing: You are unhappy because you are not getting your needs met. Because you are unhappy, you are thinking about chucking it all. Because you feel unhappy, you feel that the dream is farther away than ever, when in point of fact it is nearer than ever.

You are lonely and tired. That is a condition of your material existence in L.A. You are lonely and tired and so you begin to have bad thoughts. So work on the loneliness and the tiredness. Do not imagine that creative success will cure these things. Whether you are successful or not, you will often be lonely and tired. It is cured by fellowship and sleep. It is cured by exercise and citizenship -- that citizenship in the dream I mentioned above.

So do not despair. Establish ways, now, of staying out of the abyss when you are lonely and tired. Take care of yourself. Go to the gym. Call your parents and have them tell you how lovely and talented you are.

Remember: You are closer to your dream than ever before. You are getting to it. The closer you get to it, the less it will seem like a dream, and the more it will seem like a job.

That is how you know you have attained your dream: It no longer seems like a dream at all.

Jon & Kate

I don't know Jon & Kate. I don't know who they is.

OMAR SOLEYMAN

Sublime Frequencies, the label run by the dudes from Sun City Girls, have released a record by this Syrian musician Omar Soleyman. It's very dancey, pretty catchy, and has some tripped out drum machine and keyboard action, and 'exotic' rhythms. I've been listening to this record at least twice a day. It's esp. good to exercise to.

Things to note in the video: I love how people are dancing shoulder to shoulder in a line and how Omar 'makes it rain'. Oh and his 'discussion' at the doorway of what I assume to be his lover is pretty funny too. They work it out and enter the room hand in hand. I don't know if this is risque for Arab culture, but I'm assuming it means they're going to do it doggy style.

Let me know if you want to find the download and I'll forward you the link.

can't wait

Michael & Michael Have Issues	Premieres Wed, July 15, 10:30pm / 9:30c
Preview - The Farting Butterfly Sketch
www.comedycentral.com
Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

Summer Prescription

This one comes with a prescription: listen to this at some point this summer, lying down comfortably, preferrably looking up at trees (palms ideally) in a calm and/or inebriated state and then try to convince yourself that this is NOT an essential summer tune.



Fly Away / Walking in the Sunshine——Laid Back

Cola

Coca——Conrad Schnitzler*


*super into this guy lately. Pioneer of the so-called "Intelligent" dance music scene.
If you're into it, I can tell you where you can find the motherload.

Oh so cute, right?

I'm confused by this inter-species relationship, but hey, Nature has no rules, as far as I know.

2 Amazing loops of Birds, one sad, one amazing AND sad

PANTS OFF

NANCYSTELLASOTO.COM IS UP

CARS

I'm currently doing my proper research, interviews, et al into the stale sock drawer that is my carpooling past. Until the carpool driver profiles come to light, here's this little gem. It's a little heavy on the dialogue sample, but nails the ambiance of 1980s nighttime driving beautifully. Not that I would know what that is firsthand as I didn't get behind the wheel for the first time until 1993. This wheel was attached to a Plymouth Voyager Minivan. In 1995 it was totaled in a car accident on the way home from band practice with my brother. We flipped over and rolled into some bushes. Neither of us were wearing a seatbelt. The only injuries involved a scrapped knee (me) and a sore neck (Alex). Alex had his guitar in his lap and only one string broke.



Sky Ferreira——SaKura Night

Carpoolin'

(Not a picture of my old carpool)

Hopped up on Apple Fritter, (which is the new Madeleine cookie I guess) I was remembering the days when my brother and I carpooled to and from grade school in the 80s. The people who drove us to school everyday were a very colorful band of characters that surely deserve to be immortalized on my blog. I would so something very gross to find out where they all are now.

So stay tuned, because I plan to introduce the group in a future entry, and from then on devote one entry to each driver I could remember. Thus is born my "80s Carpool Driver Bio" Series.

LOOKING LOOKING LOOKING FOR THE ANSWER

Leg Work——Harold Faltermeyer

Sy Sperling on Gay Beach

Mr. "I’m not just the president, I’m also a client.”

Usually the celebrity guests on the Gay Beach are DJ Tedward's friends pretending to be someone else, but once in awhile he gets the real thing.

This time, he actually got Sy Sperling, the founder of Hair club for Men. The interview was pretty amusing and revealed Mr. Sperling to be a very cool guy. Skip to the end of the show and you can catch the talk, which even included some people who came off the street to thank Mr. Sperling for his work.
Listen to this by this Wednesday as the show will be replaced by a new episode.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Skull

Some of you may remember a song I posted on here months ago. It was called "Pizza Man".

The name of the band who made it was called OLD SKULL. I thought the name was too dumb/clever to be true at the outset, but it's the real deal: the boys who composed Old Skull were 9 years old!

I think this video is amazing for a few reasons. As a whole, it veers into amazing territory because the band had to be 'directed' by adults to some degree. This follows that the adults made brilliant decisions as to what they would coax and allow the band to do and not to do. I'm guessing this because the adults who helped obviously BELIEVED in this band's message. Not only that, but in how they were going to deliver this message. Step aside Menudo! Backstreet Boys? Aw pushsaw! More like Puppetstreet Boys! The adults let Old Skull guide their own destiny. And then they made Old Skull go to bed at 8pm.

Judging by the style and content of the video the Old Skull boys were exposed to Suicidal Tendencies, hence the "institutional" (wink, wink) setting of them sitting before a therapist-type figure. Then there's lots of 'found' footage of homeless people coupled with the boys skating hardcore. What's not to love, there?

Then you have the lyrics which don't necessarily express an opinion about the plight of the homeless, but rather a definition of the word "homeless". It almost sounds like they lifted the text from a book report on social ills, one that was done the night before high on Pepsi. And then the adults let them scream the lyrics to give the effect that the definition made them angry for some reason. Maybe the anger was really about being grounded.

And finally, they sum it all up at the end by expressing an opinion about Ronald Reagan after they let you see the text on screen in case you didn't catch it the first time. Did Capitol really sign these kids? I hope so. Because that is how a boy band should be!

Junky Music

Ozean——X-Mal Deutschland

Truth > Fiction

Do you think this is for real? Find out here.


Warning: This might be very disturbing to some folks, so think before you press the link.

WE aRe At AN ALL tiME Low

SIX MONTHS PLUS!!!

I've been unemployed for so long I might as well be disabled.

Sometimes I feel like life is a long succession of nos with occasional punctuations of yeses. They sometimes call this moments of grace. Alternately, The French term "coup de grace", seems to be the final "no". Aren't I in a cheery mood today?



No—Vivian Girls



No, No, No——The Cranium*

* Trivia: The Cranium was a band from D.C. in the late 90s. I saw them open for The Make-Up in NYC in 1998-ish and remember liking them even more than who they were opening for. One of the members, Brian DeGraw, later went to form Gang Gang Dance——"junkie music" as Nancy's friend Rejina calls it.

That's my boy!

For all doubters, look who's coming for the bigtime!

Zach