Huh, long time no update? I was hoping to get like a whole buncha answers to questions, and have been busy...it feels like. Ten days is a hell of a lotta SG to miss. It's not that I don't want to update, it really is the I-should-look-around-SG-all-night factor working in, and I've actually seen Music board things I felt like posting about.
I was reading The New Bill James Baseball Abstract again at work. (Don't worry, I'm not gonna ramble about baseball, this paragraph is about social issues...anyway, it is a fascinating book, even if you're not really into baseball (which I'm not).) He says that old Indians outfielder Tris Speaker was in the KKK but was not a racist. Apparently, the KKK toned down the race language to recruit more people for a while in the 1920s, and two people who joined temporarily were Speaker and judge Hugo Black. I then did a Google search on Hugo Black (I was fairly sure he was a Supreme Court justice) and sure enough, the first article that came up was about this issue, and how it affected his nomination. The article goes on to show an instance where Black pardoned a black man for beating a white merchant who swindled him, and in the Tris Speaker profile James went on to say that Speaker was one of the chief supporters and coaches of Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League. Some people downplay Doby's accomplishment (another jokey baseball book I have said being the first black player in the American League was like "being the second man on the moon") but make no mistake-- any black player in the 40s and even 50s had a lot to go through. (Example -- It took the Red Sox 'til 1959 to employ blacks.)
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I was telling MisterSatan in IM about Guy Burt's book The Hole. I was trying to remember details about him and, sure enough, his second book is reviewed in a new Publisher's Weekly issue....and yep, Burt was only 18 years old when he wrote The Hole and only 19 when this new one was penned. I can vouch for the first; it is quite a creepy-ass psychological book, one of the best thrillers I've read.
I mentioned it to Satan cuz I was thinking about Lemony Snicket; you might not know it, but the successful children's goth-writer Snicket is actually Daniel Handler, who does bits in Chickfactor zine about indie rock and wrote a pretty great psych-thriller about high-schoolers of his own, The Basic Eight. I had heard this book would be made into a movie but....I think it's twist makes it a bad/difficult movie prospect, but it is a hell of a book. The Hole, conversely, has a twist that would be fairly easy to represent on film and it in fact is a film starring Thora Birch (!) and I deperately wanna see it. I don't think it was put out in America. Perhaps it's on video at a local rare-films video place....
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Questions of the Day
1. What ten animals would you like to own, if you could own any? (They could not only be non-domesticated ones, but even imaginary ones, if you want.)
My choices are maybe dull with the supernatural perameters I have given the question. Monitor lizard, llama, mountain lion, koala, pig (a regular big pink pig,
not the lil black Vietnamese ones which people do own as pets), cow, giraffe, brown bear, sea otter, and a regular black/white penguin (I'm unclear on the species name).
2. Have you ever played a song a bunch of times in a row, on a regular basis?
Maybe some of you do this a lot. I generally don't, but there are exceptions. I play "Sloop John B" many times in a row regularly. Oddly enough, I think Pet Sounds is a purely mediocre album, but I love that song. I remember discovering "So Sad about Us" by The Who at my friends house, late at night. I think I might've kept him n his kids up a lil longer playing it over and over. What a great song. I have two versions of "Special" by Garbage that I burned in a row onto a CD, and I fairly regularly listen to both, sometimes more than once each. "Wasn't Born to Follow" by the Byrds is only two minutes long, and I put it twice-in-a-row on a couple mix tapes (before I had CD-burning capability). The song is prominently featured in Easy Rider and is a brilliant song, at first purely psychedelic in imagery, then taking a strange, somewhat callous turn into a study of a failing relationship where the guy is staking his indepedence, even if "she may beg, she may plead/ she may argue with her logic". Great freak-out solo too, and all in 120 seconds (or 240 if you play it twice)!
3. Should I rent Big Trouble in Little China? Just curious whether it's worth it.
I was reading The New Bill James Baseball Abstract again at work. (Don't worry, I'm not gonna ramble about baseball, this paragraph is about social issues...anyway, it is a fascinating book, even if you're not really into baseball (which I'm not).) He says that old Indians outfielder Tris Speaker was in the KKK but was not a racist. Apparently, the KKK toned down the race language to recruit more people for a while in the 1920s, and two people who joined temporarily were Speaker and judge Hugo Black. I then did a Google search on Hugo Black (I was fairly sure he was a Supreme Court justice) and sure enough, the first article that came up was about this issue, and how it affected his nomination. The article goes on to show an instance where Black pardoned a black man for beating a white merchant who swindled him, and in the Tris Speaker profile James went on to say that Speaker was one of the chief supporters and coaches of Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League. Some people downplay Doby's accomplishment (another jokey baseball book I have said being the first black player in the American League was like "being the second man on the moon") but make no mistake-- any black player in the 40s and even 50s had a lot to go through. (Example -- It took the Red Sox 'til 1959 to employ blacks.)
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
I was telling MisterSatan in IM about Guy Burt's book The Hole. I was trying to remember details about him and, sure enough, his second book is reviewed in a new Publisher's Weekly issue....and yep, Burt was only 18 years old when he wrote The Hole and only 19 when this new one was penned. I can vouch for the first; it is quite a creepy-ass psychological book, one of the best thrillers I've read.
I mentioned it to Satan cuz I was thinking about Lemony Snicket; you might not know it, but the successful children's goth-writer Snicket is actually Daniel Handler, who does bits in Chickfactor zine about indie rock and wrote a pretty great psych-thriller about high-schoolers of his own, The Basic Eight. I had heard this book would be made into a movie but....I think it's twist makes it a bad/difficult movie prospect, but it is a hell of a book. The Hole, conversely, has a twist that would be fairly easy to represent on film and it in fact is a film starring Thora Birch (!) and I deperately wanna see it. I don't think it was put out in America. Perhaps it's on video at a local rare-films video place....
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Questions of the Day
1. What ten animals would you like to own, if you could own any? (They could not only be non-domesticated ones, but even imaginary ones, if you want.)
My choices are maybe dull with the supernatural perameters I have given the question. Monitor lizard, llama, mountain lion, koala, pig (a regular big pink pig,
not the lil black Vietnamese ones which people do own as pets), cow, giraffe, brown bear, sea otter, and a regular black/white penguin (I'm unclear on the species name).
2. Have you ever played a song a bunch of times in a row, on a regular basis?
Maybe some of you do this a lot. I generally don't, but there are exceptions. I play "Sloop John B" many times in a row regularly. Oddly enough, I think Pet Sounds is a purely mediocre album, but I love that song. I remember discovering "So Sad about Us" by The Who at my friends house, late at night. I think I might've kept him n his kids up a lil longer playing it over and over. What a great song. I have two versions of "Special" by Garbage that I burned in a row onto a CD, and I fairly regularly listen to both, sometimes more than once each. "Wasn't Born to Follow" by the Byrds is only two minutes long, and I put it twice-in-a-row on a couple mix tapes (before I had CD-burning capability). The song is prominently featured in Easy Rider and is a brilliant song, at first purely psychedelic in imagery, then taking a strange, somewhat callous turn into a study of a failing relationship where the guy is staking his indepedence, even if "she may beg, she may plead/ she may argue with her logic". Great freak-out solo too, and all in 120 seconds (or 240 if you play it twice)!
3. Should I rent Big Trouble in Little China? Just curious whether it's worth it.
VIEW 11 of 11 COMMENTS
1) Anteater, Llama, Pelican, Bull Mastiff, africanized bees, Pteradactyls (I want two of them because I wanna see how dinosaurs fuck. Especially the flying ones. It would be cool if they quacked like ducks.) That fucking flying fluffy dragon dog from the Neverending Story, Komodo dragon so I can make it maul the neighboors atomic-shitting Ren Hoek dog. Octopus. I always thought a true villain or village eccentric should have a big ass octopus in his or hers living room. It just looks menacing and makes my hillbilly ass look worldly. One of those island parrots like the pro wrestler Koko B. Ware had. That guys was a piece of work!
3) Heroes and Villains by the Beach Boys. Always See Your Face by Love. Symptom Of The Universe by Sabbath (well, at least until that hippy dippy shit at the end comes in). Time of the Season by The Zombies. Mississippi Queen by Mountain (Cmon cheech, I'm from the midwest. Can't I be allowed at least one Beer Commercial classic rock radio rotten apple?) Cheap Sunglasses by ZZ Top ( I know that's two but Nascar is on and I'm feelin froggy. And I was named after the bass player). In Dreams by Roy Orbison. Ever Fallen In Love by The Buzzcocks.
3) Yes, because John Carpenter is the one of the few people making bad movies right. Plus Kim Catrall is a hot little number. Kurt Russel is also running around with one of those Tech Nine machine pistols that the gangster rappers use.