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My Kanye Moment

I just wanna say Samantha Sang made one of the best videos of all time. Special thanks to Gavin Elster for pointing me towards this classic.

While We Were Out

Sorry for the lack of recent entries, but it's been a busy week. Transformation of the JunkPlex is heading forward, and it seems that every day there is something new and another gasp at how many zeros there are in the check written to the latest contractor. Well, it's an investment as they say and it's not as if it's being blown on parties and bad movies.

Speaking of bad movies, over the weekend I collaborated with "Friendatella" and The Blue Elephant on a short video entry for the NY Artists Unlimited International Cringe Festival 2009. It's not completely top secret, but I'm keeping details a bit vague for now. If all goes well it will be screened at the festival in late July to early August. So another Eastern Time Zone meet up may be in the offing.

After the shoot, we stopped back at the JunkPlex to watch about half of 1965's Life of Juanita Castro, one of those early Andy Warhol films I'd always been vaguely aware of but don't think I'd ever seen. Like most of his films from that period, they are much more fascinating in concept than executition, which is probably the whole point. I'd also always been vaguely aware of Marie Menken, cast in the titular role. She and her husband were supposedly the basis for George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and I am now obsessed with this experimental film maker whose Glimpse of the Garden (1957) is supposedly her greatest work, and not what you'd expect to be film of a foul-mouthed, heavy drinking dame.

Junk Thief - Without Lines or Puffiness

Hard as it may be for our younger readers to believe, once Junk Thief was not the grizzled, obese old troll that you now see on this site. He was once a perky young sprite (having earlier been a perky young sprout). As we sort through hours of archive video from the late 1980s and early 1990s, we thought we'd post this little clip from November 1989, nearly 20 years ago, in which Junk Thief gives a demonstration of the audio equipment on his then cutting edge Hi-8 Sony videocam. This is surely the most riveting 67 seconds ever committed to video. It will likely show up in the extras on the five disc Criterion release Junk Thief: The Early Years.

The Thin Line Between Tawdry and Tawny

Ain't this internets thang funny with how one random mention will lead you to a new, unexpected discovery? Huntington's comment on my "Tawdry" entry led me to search "Tawdry Kitaen" with led me to 1980s "model" and Whitesnake music video skank Tawny Kitaen and the above mug shot after her arrest for beating up her husband. It's on a too cool website called Strange Police.

Eros Ramazzotti - Bambino nel Tempo

Hearing a factoid on the order that Bananrama is the most popular British girl group of all time or that Eros Ramazzotti is the most popular Italian pop singer of all time makes me do a double take. Granted, he's from a country where Puccini and Verdi sell better than a lot of pop pap.

Now in his mid-40s, his salt and pepper locks and fondness for velvet and brocade blazers only make him more appealing. He obviously opted for reaching the enormous Latin American market instead of the U.S. which he's never conquered despite being produced by Trevor Horn and duets with duets with Tina Turner (passable, but uninspired), Cher (cheesy but passable song, but he is at his most munchable in their video), onetime girl friend Patsy Kinset (whatever), Pavarotti (inevitable) Andrea Bocelli (inevitable but unfortunate), and Anastacia (actually not half bad)

He is possibly the one singer more nasal than Rufus Wainwright, but when he's on target as with this tune, he deserves all the hoopla afforded him. As with most of his albums, this one was also released in Spanish which was pretty decent, but it just doesn't have the same sweep as the Italian original. It really manages the capture the sadness and joy of being alone on an adventure as a boy or as a man in his 40s. Towards the final 3/4s of this clip when he pulls out the harmonica while contemplating the heavens, it really takes on the level of powerful pop poetry that hasn't been seen in top 40 music in this country since at least 1980 or so. The lyric reaches for thoughts a bit higher than what is usually broadcast on local airwaves:

"At this time of doubt/I can't keep fooling myself/even with so much hope/I keep a bit of the naivety/I long to keep going like I did then/always asking why...

....loneliness keeps me company/while I'm breathing salty air/this place seemed magical in my memory/like a young boy I'm looking for an answer I don't have/just as I did long ago/It makes no difference/It just grows more stunning with the passage of time..."

Though not exactly profound poetry, it's a sharp contrast to the drivel of some 45+ shrill like Fergie braying about "all that junk in my trunk" on this side of the pond.

The vibe of this song really makes me think of the film The Best of Youth, another Italian puffy pop pastry, that pulls at me with a mix of sadness, longing and joy. I really love the idea of the best of youth, optimism, a lack of cynicism, and contentment with solitude and salty summer breezes making life joyful with all of its pain and unbearable lightness.