START CLIMBIN' BABY

Deming turned me on to Egg City Radio because of the fine assortment of live Black Sabbath bootlegs, and sho nuff, the California Jam 74 performance is utterly heavy, but the selection goes deeper, deep enough that I haven't even gotten around to the rest of that fine vintage Sabbath. Live Birthday Party and Kraftwerk, long lost LPs by Dust and Von Lmo, and the great granddady of them all, one of God's favorite records, Bo Diddley's filthy masterpiece Black Gladiator. I've had it on vinyl for years, but getting an MP3 rip of this thing to blast in the car is a fucking event. I've said all I need to (and all anybody wants me to) say about this monster of a record in the Stranger, so I'll shut up, woman. Just check it out, and if you can't dig it, then you are hopeless. There, I said it.

Oh, I almost forgot, Deming says the live Little River Band bootleg up on ECR is red hot, so don't pass it up.

I love Doris Wishman.





NSFW for extreme nudist colony footage, but otherwise this is a charming interview with my favorite director, Doris Wishman, in which she talks about her masterpiece Bad Girls Go To Hell (Variety compared her to Hitchcock), blushes while describing the plot of The Amazing Transplant (it's about a penis) and denies exploiting the transsexuals she employed in the documentary Let Me Die A Woman ("Because I paid them!"). When asked when she'll retire from the cinema, Doris spits out a defiant "when I die, and even then I might make films in hell." She's terriffic.

CREATURES FROM THE ABYSS

Jane says she will kill herself in 90 days.

UPDATE:

90 Day Jane's blog has moved here. The latest entry is vague, but it appears that this is not the genuine diary of a young woman planning to kill herself, rather an art project that will be abandoned within the next few days. Are we relieved or disappointed? Regardless, it's an interesting experiment if only for the hundreds of comments that the blog's readers logged for each entry ... for every heartfelt expression of kindness, there are three vicious attacks along the lines of "why don't you get it over with you fucking attention whore" and far worse sentiments than that, believe me. And these are from people who accepted the 90-day suicide plan as something real that they had a right to weigh in on -- few of the comments expressed any suspicion that the whole thing was a put-on.

So what has "Jane" taught us? That we're so desensitized to people exposing and celebrating their ugliest impulses via reality TV, questionable "self-help" talk shows and internet networking websites that we aren't even shocked when a young woman seemingly charts her last ninety days on a blog? And not only are we not shocked, but we join in as sport, taunting her for our own pleasure. I use the royal "we," of course, as there were plenty of folks offering support and trying to help change her mind, but surely some of those people were operating with voyeuristic rather than altruistic intentions (myself included -- I left no comments but added the link here because of my own morbid fascinations). Perhaps Jane's jaundiced view of life among the humans isn't all that inaccurate.

POOR SCHOOL vinyl LP out now on Ecstatic Peace Rex. Guaranteed to fuck you up good. For the love of God, don't listen to this thing under the influence of drugs, you might never come back.

From the lips of Ramirez: "Yeah - Ecstatic Peace issued a monster for the Poor School crew. A sworn testament and sonique story of two wayward souls (one male - one female) in search of truth by seeking out the Holy Master. The two find the master and is given advice about truth - he says 'First what you must seek is the mountain inside of a mountain.' The man physically goes on a quest to find this mountain inside of a mountain - looking in caves, walking off the beaten path, returns exhausted, starved to find the woman coming out of a deep meditation. The woman says - 'The mountain inside - is the soul. You walk the wrong path. The truth is not out there - ' She points from the direction the man walked from. 'The truth is inside and must be self-defined - you create your own law, your own path considering you create your own judgement.' The man sits at the woman's feet and is now ready to be taught."

If The Stranger sez so, it must be true. RIP.

And we have confirmation via the PI.

The final word.

"THIS MEANS NOTHING TO ME"

OK, this weekend was much better, if anyone's keeping score. A loose, experimental yet satisfying practice with the band Friday night, afterwards got righteously drunk at a gathering/wake for Resonance and had more fun than I expected. The next day The End Times had a slightly marathon 4-track recording session, laying down new songs (some painfully new) plus a batch of well-worn favorites. Lori and I joined some friends that evening and watched a vintage 1985 VHS tape of the Live Aid concert (complete with commercials), much of which was barely worth fast-forwarding through (INXS, Style Council, Paul Young) but the Black Sabbath reunion was awfully good and Ultravox were a nice surprise. Sunday me and Deming -- er, I mean, Kate -- went to Kinkos to put together promotional materials for the band. Then she bought an ice cream cake and I went home and everything is kind of a blur after that ...