So you most likely know him as The Professor, but ‘Giligan’s Island’ only ran from ‘64-’67. An actor’s got to work in the meantime, and the Giligan rehash shows were years away. Thus are the circumstances that lead Russell Johnson to find himself involved in a project like this. Shot in ‘67-’68, released in ‘70, then presumably altered and re-released in ‘77, think twice before you go ‘thumb tripping’ kids, or you just might ‘Hitch Hike to Hell’, and let me promise you, there WON’T be any catchy country theme song…..

(ed. note-sorry the clip was yanked kids, somebody seems to think there is valuable intellectual property here that shouldn’t be shared with you for free… 6/8/07)

builder of things, teacher, feeler, DIY icon

 

 14. Chris Purcell interview [2:05:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

So last night I made the scene at an underground venue in Athens going by the name of Secret Squirrel (among other things) and was priveledged to catch HAm 1 back from a Tennesee mini-tour and their friends The Mattoid which is an outfit lead by this guy whose wanderings began in Helsinki, Finland and currently calls Nashville, TN home. The music itself is something akin to the Velvet Underground, but he has a definite infectious kooky charm – for example, at one point during the set he asked the audience ‘Who’s ready to do some cocksucking?!’ and picking a woman from the audience he pointed and said ‘You! I can tell you are-’ and as everyone was laughing added ‘I can already see the cock in your mouth’, somehow had this entire exchange come off as amicable and hilarious. They then launched into a song I believe was called ‘We are here to suck your cocks’. The backing band, made of equal parts male and female, performing this routine with complete professional seriousness and occassional gospel style reverence definitely helped to pull it off. He is also supposedly a tri-toned throat singer and has invented his own guitar rhythm known as ’sango’. You can hear some songs through the link above, and also through their myspace page and here’s a link to youtube video with questionable sound quality. He does some rippin’ covers, but unfortunately had to explain to us how Lionel Richie had stolen ‘Hello’ from him.

So I met this guy through tribe.net. He’s gone over to Iraq three times now (his is the story to the right of the other and continues below the first one, if you look at the pictures it makes more sense) since the war began and was recently in Afghanistan. He got a blurb mention in Playboy, as he was writing about underground sex and that’s the sort of thing they might pick up on. Maybe I’ll have a chance to do a podcast with him someday. This is what I call ‘balls out’ journalism. William T. Vollmann did a similar thing, self-financed, back when the Afghani ‘Freedom Fighters’ where doing battle with the Soviet army. Best of luck to ya, Shooter!

Warning: don’t go making a surly post if the kids’ singing of that infectious Gamera theme song gets stuck in your mental ‘heavy rotation’.

I always love serendipitous facts like these: turns out the same guy who directed the films More and Obscured By Clouds (La Valle) for which Pink Floyd did amazing soundtracks and I grew to love also made Barfly, which was to be a huge influence on me later in life, as is Bukowski’s writing in general. I actually have never seen the films Floyd worked on, or anything Barbet Schroeder did in between or since, though I’ll definitely be looking for them.

‘Grantchester Meadow’s’ above isn’t from either album, it’s from Ummagumma, around that general era. I believe these are alternate lyrics and a slightly different arrangement to what ended up on the album version.

Also, go out and read some more Bukowski!

For your consideration, linked from their own website bios, the backstory on some beauties of the screen – B movie and straight up porn.

Tura Satana

Asia Carrera

(…don’t miss the bit where Asia mentions all night fragfests with her LAN Unreal Tournament posse. And click the ‘why I do porn’ link at the bottom for more backstory than just stats.)

They came from different eras, certainly share some of the same fan base, and though it seems things were a bit rougher for Tura, they both remade themselves and carved out their own niche of Americana. If it’s dating Elvis and hanging with the brat pack, or marrying a ‘fitness guru studmuffin’ after your porn retirement, I guess on some level The American Dream is still out there for a girl with gumption.

Why, Japanese sex crazed beatniks of course! I think this film actually came out after ‘beat’ had it’s heyday (don’t know what it was like in Japan…..) but still has that look and feel due to the clothing, the jazz. The japanese also got away with being more openly S+M of course. ‘They do everything-’ Count how many times the narrator guy says the title of the film.

(ed. note- not so surprisingly, this one was yanked too, sorry)