Song for Natalie

WhiteWolfSonicPrincess played the Red Line Tap last night. We did "Song for Natalie" which was inspired by Natalie Wood. We dedicated the performance to Dennis Hopper.

This is the full band captured by our little digital recorder. I love that you can hear the crowd partying, playing pool, chatting. The band was in fine form. One of our most satisfying shows...

Check out the song here:

Dennis Hopper is Dead...

No, no, he's just outside looking in.

I heard the sad news. And thought, the man will never be dead to me. He and some of his performances are indelibly etched into my consciousness. He will be with me until I'm no longer too.

I see the manic long-hair on his motorcycle in "Easy Rider," I see the mad prophet photojournalist in "Apocalypse Now," I see a twisted spoke of human degradation on the darkness on the edge of town in "Blue Velvet."

Those performances were so vivid, alive, and Hopper's intelligence, passion and charisma informed every moment.

Plus there's the legend: a friend of James Dean, the rebellious battles with the Hollywood establishment, phenomenal success with little biker movie, the drug-crazed madness, time in a nut house, the 4 hour cut of Easy Rider, the great lost masterpiece "The Last Movie," the out of control madness of Coppola's Vietnam opera.

He was a supreme method actor and in the method much madness and life. A mad visionary. I saw it too!

Frog VS. LENIN - EPISODE TWO

It's been awhile since we've had a Frog VS. Lenin Episode. For those who forgot Episode One, check it out here...


Frog: What's up with the head-gear?

Lenin: I have headache!

Frog: Dude, your head is metal.

Lenin: I still have feelings, you green little scamp!

Shaman Thursday!

So yes, the moon was full and we did the Shaman thing.

We turned the lights down low.

We lit candles.

We chanted and sang songs.

We burned stuff.

I beat a drum.

And floated above the room and called back all my ancestors.

And then when Jethro Tull's "Living in the Past" blasted in the room, everyone laughed and danced!

So...

Well, yes, so history is a circle.

And it's a full moon.

And our friend is coming over to do some kind of Shaman Dance...

Free and Easy Wonderer

You wonder if basically we all do know right from wrong, but since we live in a world where we are paid to do the wrong thing all the time, and call it a "job", that we end up doing the wrong thing willingly, consistently and with gusto...

Ancient Chinese Secret!

Our Acupuncturist (everyone should have one) has got us on the juice...

Chinese herbs to enhance our lives.

First, there's the Phlegm Transforming stuff - can we transform that phlegm into gold?!

And now there's "Free and Easy Wanderer." I wander, I wonder. It is all so free and easy!

A handful of tiny black pills, plus some Kenyan AA free trade coffee and I'm ready to wander through the hills and the dales!

The Stoned Buddha!

This is the next photo I'm putting on my refrigerator...

Check out the NYT on Exile on Main Street.

Also the Telepath's Big Bang has a great take on the re-release of the Stones' "masterpiece."

Write Me a River

"We don't write songs, we write rivers." - Mike Watt

Running in the Fog

I'm lacing up my running shoes this morning, getting ready to go for a run on the lakefront. A heavy fog has descended in the area.

That's right, running in the fog. That's my life...

Shaky Town

Shaky Town. That's where we live. Shaky Town.

dj. shak·i·er, shak·i·est 1. Trembling or quivering; tremulous: a shaky voice. 2. Lacking soundness or sturdiness, as of construction: a shaky table. 3. a. Not to be depended on; precarious: a shaky alliance. b. Wavering in firmness: a shaky belief. c. Open to question or doubt: shaky evidence. shaki·ly adv. shaki·ness n.

Days of the Weasel

Dear Smiling Weasel: Your days are numbered. The KARMA TRAIN is barreling down the track and it has your name on it!

School of Hard Knocks

"Hey kid, my advice... don't take anyone's advice."

Inner Light Video

This is a pretty cool video

my brother put together

using "found footage."

All public domain stuff.

Plus, he worked in some

of his artwork.

That's sunnyjimmy on vocals

and guitar, and that's my brother

(I call him Bacchus Blue) on harmonica.

Nice job, Brother!

Pop Culture Curmudgeon

You know you are a Pop Culture Curmudgeon when...

Basil Rathbone is Sherlock Holmes.

Sean Connery is James Bond.

Errol Flynn is Robin Hood.

Adam West is Batman.

George Reeves is Superman.

Humphrey Bogart is Philip Marlowe.

Also, when you no longer actually need to see the latest Blockbuster, must-see movie to know that it is a flaming pile of crap, all you really need to see is the over-heated trailer and the multi-million dollar PR campaign.

Huge Oil Plumes Killing Oxygen and Everything in their Paths

The old TV show told us it was "Black Gold," and I guess it was and is, but, at the same time, it has always been "Black Death" too.

Crisis Management

When the burden of a world gone wrong gets too great...

When crisis overload grabs you by the throat...

You are left with one last defense mechanism...

The Marty Feldman Method of Crisis Management: "What Hump?!"

Time for a Re-Think?

Watching the PR machine in action, I'm starting to suspect that they really have no hope of capping that oil well at the ocean floor.

If that's true, then that sucker is just gonna empty out, leaking maybe 2 billion gallons of oil into the ocean.

Heartbreaking. An ecological disaster of major proportions.

Maybe it's time for a re-think? About our way of life?

Alone Again, Naturally

You listen to the news and it all sounds like madness. Babel. Then you read John Robb at Global Guerrillas and some sort of "sense" emerges:

"Instead, the current sovereign debt crisis is about something much more interesting: it's another battle in a war for dominance between "our" integrated, impersonal global economic system and traditional nation-states. At issue is whether a nation-state serves the interests of the governed or it serves the interests of a global economic system."

It is the Great Unraveling, and we are watching the Global Market at war with Nations. And the Global Pool of Money (They say, "the love of money is the root of all evil," and this pool of money is seriously in love with itself and only itself!) seems to be winning.

"You are on your own. You are in direct competition with everyone else in the world, and your success or failure is something you alone control." - J. Robb

If Life is...

If life is a poem, a messy, meandering poem - opaque and obscure, with false starts and dead ends, and no clear moral lessons, well, hell that's just the way it is...