In a recent interview, the Minneapolis-born MC, Dessa, and MC Pig Pen of Salt Lake City comment on the way women are treated in the world of hip-hop. They touch on self-esteem, scantily-clad groupies, and how being in the rap game can affect your relationships. When asked if they think hip-hop stands behind equal rights for women, they both communicate their doubts, mentioning how there are VERY few female CEOs in the business.

Entrepreneurship goes beyond gender lines- step it up ladies!

http://grungecake.com/2009/12/23/grungecake%E2%80%99s-interview-with-recording-artists-mc-pig-pen-and-dessa-by-kosha-dillz/

This is How it goes down on just dontwife her.com

What the site seems like is more of a site for jealous females: that half of these women  probably  took  their  man,  or their  man cheated  on them  with.  So a lot of post  come off  as women, not  men,  that  are hating on and /or jealous  of these  women. Some  def  are  men  and  the  stuff  they say is harsh. They call  the girls every  name in  the  book: talk  about  their families, their kids , how  they are uneducated whores with no morals, and carry  STD’s. The  site seems to be a spinoff  from the site www.dontdatehimgirl.com; where women put their baby daddies on  blast, or men who  have jolted  them, cheated on them, or took them for money. Check out one of the post and  look  how cruel and  invasive  this is:

WELL DIS 512 ATX HOE IS THA NASTIEST PUTA YALL EVER MEET ! AN ONLY 22 GOT HERPIES AND NOT KNOWIN WHAT ELSE SHE MIGHT GOT ! WHAT HER MAN JAY DONT KNOW IS THAT SHE **** ONE OF HIS HOME BOYS WHILE HE WAS AWAY …. NASTY HOE ! NO MAS DALE UN VIENTE Y GARAS TODO QUE TU QUIERES! (JUST GIVE HER A TWENTY & GET EVERYTHIN U WANT) PERTTY GIRL BUT I FEEL SORRY FOR AND HER KID! LMFAO

I mean maybe it’s me but that sounded to me  like a chick  that  was hating on  this  young lady.  Then you  have  these:

Ok so she goes by the name of MS (ALOTABOOTY) Ok so she has a big butt. But is it always good to **** with a chick like her she a true money hungry **** she can suck a mean **** too. she loves to be in the limelight and around a whole bunch of niggas. Order to get her you have to have money,car and your own for sure her teeth is buck and her breath smells like **** so u do the math! Plus her ***** stay burning she got about 12 niggas with it and she’s from uptown SO YOU KNOW SHE GOT THAT HOT **** TRUST ME WHEN I SAY SHE DOES!And on the other hand she stay wearing something too small or too tight on her body period so you know her ***** be sweating ass be sweating the whole NINE.She thinks shes the next buffy but know she just the next free **** that’s going around SO PASS LATIA PASS LATIA YES GUYS SHE’ EASY AS THEY COME SO COME ON COME A MILLION CAUSE SHE TAKES ALL SHAPE AND SIZES AND SHE SOMETIMES **** ON I OWE U’S SO GET IN WHERE YOU FIT IN WITH MS ALOTABOOTY OH YEA AND BY THE WAY IF YOU GO A **** THAT CAN FIGHT PLEASE DONT LET HER CATCH YOU WITH LATIA CAUSE YOUR **** IS GOING TO TRASH HER CAUSE SHE DOSENT KNOW HOW TO FIGHT SHE’S A **** I KNOW FOR A FACT LMAO **** ASS LATIA!

That sounds  to me like a chick  hating, or a dude that didn’t even get the ass. There  are also your cases  of men that couldn’t “get the job done”, now  they wanna trash the girl to try to turn the next man off. All in all this site is both funny & sad. Funny in  a sense  that  some of  the things  being  said and the lengths that people go through to hate on others, making it sad in the same light.

We're with the band. Or at least we like to pretend we are.

It’s been over twenty years since I last ran screaming down an alley after a hastily retreating tour bus hollering for its occupants to validate my existence with a wave or a smile. So tonight in order to honor the girl I was and the bands that played on the soundtrack of my youth, I plan to eat a generous helping of humble pie. I’ve spent so much time demanding my pound of flesh from defunct 80’s supergroups that I forgot to take a moment to say thank you. That’s right, I stand before Stewart, Sting, & Andy and give thanks for all the albums, the rigorous touring schedule and  the peroxide. You were the cherry on the cake of an almost perfect decade. While I wish I hadn’t been outfitted in wool jumpers, knee socks and pig tails so that I could have whored around backstage with the rest of the  groupie skanks that  hung barnacle like in the  concrete hallways leading to the dressing rooms, I still had a great time stalking them under the watchful eye of my befuddled parents. This also gives me the added advantage of NOT being riddled with numerous STD’s , so for that I’m also grateful. The Cure, R.E.M., the Go Go’s, The Smith’s, Squeeze, the B-52’s etc. thank you for all the fun. 

After careful consideration I also realized I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to the brothers Copeland, hell the ENTIRE Copeland family for having a hand in crafting the careers of over half of the bands I listened to as a kid. 

Warning: Uncalled for off topic rant coming….. 

Here I would like to go off on a massive tangent related to the above mentioned family. The Copeland family connection is clearly the vital missing link in the history books between overwhelming  band success or failure. Clearly, being a Copeland carries with it the implication that it is genetically impossible to fail. I think they even tried it once or twice, but it didn’t work. Failure = sticky eggs. Copeland’s= teflon pan. It just falls off of them and onto the floor. Sunday brunch with this clan must be hell. Can you imagine how fraught with boasting and one-upmanship this meal is? Hey, I single-handedly changed the entire middle east! I just wrote two well received books-WHILE I WAS SITTING HERE! Oh yeah, I composed two operas, founded a band that took over the world, wrote a book , produced seven kids, and wrote and directed a movie! I just quietly prevented Armageddon using only the power of my mind (that last one was   Miles, he scares me). 

I hate to think what would have become of me had I not had all this great music to distract me from my school work and what could have been a higher calling. I suspect that I could have amounted to something fairly important (doctor, lawyer, missionary?) or I could have just flailed around blindly and become a classic rock fan with bad hair and too much Covergirl charcoal black eyeliner.  But, it is as it was meant to be. New Wave and I found each other and the rest is history.

http://www.spudgoodman.com/blog/blog1/index.php?

Tonight I had a phone chat with my dear friend Taylor (the omnipresent-and-yet-still-absent contributor to this blog). She’s getting her old job back at her Chain Name Retailer, which means we will have the same job at rival Chain Name Retailers. (We also have the same car – a Suzuki Forenza – except hers is blue and an automatic and mine is black and a manual. I mention this as it is funny.) We shared Arrested Development jokes and reminisced about certain musician friends of ours. She talked about her recent birthday awesomeness of seeing the Modern Skirts play some hoity-toity hotel in Athens, GA and sitting with the press because that’s just how awesome she is. (She also got a tambourine as a present from the band that may or may not have been played by Mike Mills of R.E.M.) And I remembered that Athens legend Pylon has just unearthed their music video for “Beep” that was shown only once on MTV back in the 80’s and disappeared.

Why am I telling you this? Because this conversation really made me miss the “good old days.” Back to the early days of the Taylor/Amanda Mae friendship (and I also must include all the wonderful ladies who made up our group of friends known collectively as The Gajas). Most of us were in college and mostly carefree, except for a few tests and papers. We’d roadtrip all over the southeast following Jump, Little Children as underaged groupies, hanging out in bars, selling merch, collecting musicians’ phone numbers like trading cards, and having a grand old time being young and made of awesome. I lived in Athens, but I’d go to Charleston for the weekend about once a month, and even before I moved to Charleston I could walk down King or Meeting Streets and bump into at least two or three people I knew. I was well-connected in the music scenes.

Me and some of the Gajas in the Underage Days. Those X's sometimes wouldn't come off for days.

When I was in college, I worked for the radio station WUOG as a music staffer and DJ. My relationship with WUOG ended on a sour note, but I still have fond memories of the place and am very proud of my involvement. (Incidentally, they’re revived a classic WUOG logo and put in on t-shirts. You should get one and be awesome like me.) I was introduced to a lot of fantastic music and met some interesting people. I developed my “radio voice” and gained a little street cred for working at the radio station that played music “nobody” listens to. I even had Irish punk band The Dole play on-air for what was probably their only on-air performance. (It was over spring break and the internet stream went down, so only, like, four people heard it. I have the recording somewhere in my files.)

I’ve contemplated moving back to Athens ever since I had to move away from Charleston two years ago and felt wunderlust. I have found I am much more suited to small college towns than big cities. Taylor and I have entertained the idea for years of being roommates. We’d totally have the best apartment in town, with records constantly playing, bands crashing in our living room, and just a nice place to hang. On a whim once I scoured Craigslist and found a renovated 1920’s bungalow in Athens that fit our price range. I don’t mind telling you I was *thisclose* to packing up my car and moving right then and there. I miss the smell of the South. I miss the hillbilly bohemianism of Athens. I miss knowing the sound guy at the 40 Watt or clerk at Wuxtry Records. (Heck, I even miss the Bulldog Nation a little bit.) I miss being crammed into the Caledonia Lounge with other hardcore Hope for Agoldensummer fans and getting teary-eyed as we all sang together the end of “Laying Down the Gun”:

Instead of stopping our hearts/We play music because we’re rock stars

Anyway, I had a really nice trip down Memory Lane thanks to this relatively short conversation with Taylor. I don’t know if we’ll ever get the chance of rooming together and setting up the hippest pad in town, but a girl can still dream. I feel like Hemingway, writing about America while in Paris. Once you leave a place is sometimes how you come to really appreciate it.

Well, I think I need to make an Athens music playlist on my iTunes, pull out my dog-eared copy of Party Out of Bounds, and remember the good times.

The boy band stand out spawned an onslaught of renewed rumors its over between him and actress girlfriend Jessica Biel. Justin has been linked to other women while dating Biel, including Lindsay Lohan and Rihanna, but the breakdancing bad boy wouldn’t cop to the status of his relationship.

JT seemed happy to be solo this week while he partied hard with a group of groupies alongside wingman Trace Ayala at Manhattan’s trendy Hudson Terrace. The star was spotted partying in the VIP area with crowd of women according to a source’s anonymous tip to the New York Post’s Page Six.

While driving in Pennsylvania in their gas-guzzling SUV, a family caught up to an Amish carriage.  The owner of the carriage obviously had a sense of humor, because attached to the back of the carriage was a hand printed sign:  “Energy Efficient Vehicle: Runs on oats and grass.  Caution: Do not step in exhaust.”

That is a very funny look at a clash of cultures.  Something akin to this happens every day, though it might not be as humorous.  Our world is quickly changing.  So much so that the difference between generations is like the difference between cultures.  One generation cannot relate to, let alone speak the language of, the next generation.  Not only that, but within the emerging generations there is a ‘tribalism’ taking place that fragments them into multiple ‘mini-cultures.’

Kids from the same city today could be broken up into a ‘multi-cultural’ mix of dress, language, and behaviors, each distinct from one another: “Preppies,” “Metalheads,” “Goths,” “Geeks,” “Rappers,” “Cowboys,” “Rockers,” “Punk Rockers,” and “Jocks,” among other group names.  Notice these do not revolve around ethnic identities.  This is because these groups transcend ethnicity.

The overarching question for the church is this: How do we influence this generation?  Many within the church would like to ‘bury their heads in the sand’ and just wait until Jesus’ return.  Is that the way?  Others throw up their hands in frustration and hopelessness and pronounce our world as beyond redemption.  Is that true?  What do you think?  Do you think the Great Commission is irrelevant for today’s world?  Do you believe that the Gospel message is impotent to affect today’s generation?  Do you think that the promised power of the Holy Spirit is insufficient to confirm the Gospel’s message to today’s world?  (Now, before you answer too quickly with words, what do your actions say?)

The danger in the Church among God’s people is to always see the generation following as beyond help, to persecute the next generation for its perceived moral decline and to scofflaw the attempts of the next generation’s leaders.  History seems to indicate this pattern.  Unfortunately, a generation that has nothing to offer to the future generation often grows nostalgic.  For every generation, polished memories of the past become more important than hopeful faith for the future.

Some would like to encapsulate the Church and Christian faith within a particular time period and tell us that unless you practice your faith like a 19^th century Anabaptist, or a 4^th century orthodox, or a 1960’s or 70’s Pentecostal or Charismatic, then you’re not “genuine.”  Others want to encrust the faith within a certain church fashion or practice so that unless your church service sounds or looks liturgical, Jewish, orthodox, Southern gospel, or “Pentecostal/Charismatic” then as such your are not “genuine.”  For 2000 years, every “innovation” brought about through renewal and revival in the church has ended up becoming an untouchable “sacred cow.’

I believe none of these hold the complete solution for our future.  They may help us discover part of the answer, but they will not bring us to a conclusive solution.  Knowing our history is important to our identity and sense of historical theology.  However, neither should it prevent us from presenting the Kingdom of God and the Gospel in a relevant and effective manner.  Too often we have confused method with message.

Someone once said, “You can’t answer tomorrow’s questions with yesterday’s answers.” How true.  Nevertheless, I believe the gospel message can transcend every language barrier, every cultural and ethnic wall, every era and generation and every human question.  Truly, the Word of God is a “mighty two-edged sword.”  The important thing is to keep the answer we present the same.  The challenge is presenting it in a way that our generation and the one behind us can receive and apply to their lives.

Ice Covered Evergreen on Mountain Hike, July 2003 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

The question put before us is whether we still believe the empowerment of the Holy Spirit is here today to enable us to be witnesses of Christ to this generation and so fulfill his Great Commission.  I believe that one of the toughest challenges to this generation of believers is regaining the “missionary mindset” that attempts to translate the gospel message into the culture and language of the generation following us.  Will we attempt to encrust the gospel in a time and generational code that dies with us?  Or, will we attempt to loose the power of the timeless gospel message into the new ‘cultures’ being formed around us in the next generation?

What will a 21^st century Christian look like? What does a genuine follower of Christ look like in their daily lifestyle?  What are his or her spiritual practices on a daily and weekly basis?  How do we identify whether someone is really “growing in the Lord”?  What journey or steps should people take toward spiritual maturity?  Does the Church remain relevant with its timeless message?

One author claims the Church is in danger of becoming, “Islands of irrelevance in a sea of despair”.  Is it too late?  Are we so far gone into a post-Christian age as some claim that our generation is deaf to the Gospel and spiritually lost? I don’t think so.  When the Apostle Paul was preaching the Kingdom of God in Christ in the first century, the odds looked grim.  There have been spiritually bleak times since then in every generation and culture since.  Yet, God continues to work and call people into his family.  We are told in the Book of Revelation that at the of the end ages, all the kingdoms and cultures of this world will be the Lord’s and he will reign over them forever and ever.  So, when cultures clash, Jesus’ Kingdom culture wins!

Our job is to effectively present that Kingdom culture to the generational cultures nearest us.  We will only be able to successfully do this by:

1) Remaining positive in our actions and outlook concerning the next generation.  Or, at least act like we are on the winning side!

2)  Remaining grounded in the Gospel’s message and claims.  Our message must never change.  This also requires a vigilance about how our methods shape our message.

3) Remaining relevant to the needs and challenges of the next generation.  This means meeting real needs and not the sentimental needs we have grown comfortable in meeting but that are not relevant anymore to the actual needs and challenges around us.

In these ways, we need no look behind us with worry but look forward with hope to the coming of Christ and his Kingdom to every culture and every generation.

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

Could someone please explain to me why this fiasco is anyone’s business besides the Woods family? I am so tired of musicians, actors, and athletes being thrown into and kept in the spotlight because of highly personal situations. Unless the couple deliberately pushes the issue into the media, everyone should respect privacy when the situation crosses a line.
When it involves the family, particularly spouses and children, or a physical or mental illness, drug rehabilitation, and so on, why can’t we just mind our own damned business? If you do not care about Tiger, give a shit about his wife.
These women who cream at the idea of bagging an athlete just because he’s famous are pathetic. It’s not that they like the person, or feel a connection with him. I don’t care if they screw him for five minutes or “31 months” — (gee, honey, two and a half years wasn’t good enough? Do you have a log with the days, hours, minutes, and seconds as well, you pathetic loser?)
If you’re a groupie who just wants to bag a famous person, learn to keep your mouth shut, and learn how to refrain from using technology and leaving a whore trail. There’s no reason for someone to get hurt because you and your latest trophy are careless morons.
If you genuinely care about the guy (or woman) and your relationship or fling goes beyond the simple fact that he or she is famous, rich, or desired by many others, then it should never occur to you, no matter what happens now or in the future, to release cell phone messages, texts, or intimate details of your time together. Why do that? Revenge? To get your fifteen minutes of fame? Ooooh, congratulations — you were in the right place at the right time to *have sex with someone with name recognition*. Aren’t you so special? The equipment doesn’t work any better or worse just because it belongs to someone famous.

Hey, ladies, go out there and try to meet a famous dude once or twice, and if anyone accuses you of anything unsavory, just think how awesome things could get if you deny anything unsavory, but then hire a high-powered lawyer and schedule a press conference to discuss your insignificant part in the life of the icon in question.
Sounds like someone with some serious self-esteem issues, who needs to attach herself to a famous person to give value to her life. Stupid bitch!
If you admire someone, if you are fascinated by someone, if you respect someone, and most especially if you love, or believe you love someone, and you and that person are indulging in what many would perceive to be unethical behavior — if your said indulgence would cause serious harm to another, as well as harm to the reputation of one or both of you, keep your trap shut, learn how to communicate in person, not through texts and messages, and be smart when you cannot do so. Otherwise, you get what you both deserve, while a spouse, significant other, family members, friends, and others are sucked into a hell and public scrutiny they *do not* deserve.
We’re sending more Americans to Afghanistan. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn’t want women working for defense contractors overseas to have the right to bring charges when they are raped or sexually harassed by coworkers. People’s homes are being foreclosed. So many significant issues surround us, and should garner our attention. Yet, what bullshit splashes across the headlines and has everyone talking at the office, on the subway, on the talk shows? Grow the hell up, already! I’m done with this crap . . .

Ça y est, Twilight II est arrivé. Je ne sais pas quel titre a bien pu lui être donné, et je ne connais pas la date exacte de sortie. C’est uniquement lorsque j’ai vu les insipides groupies d’Harry Potter sautiller dans la classe en gloussant tout en agitant leurs bracelets Mr. Jack “Edwaaaaard il est trop bbbbeeaaaaau”. Je pensais avoir un peu de tranquillité, c’est reparti pour trois mois de non culture. J’avais essayé de voir le premier, au ciné. Jamais je n’ai autant regretté d’avoir payé une place de ciné. Ah si, pour un film d’Eric et Ramzy, mais là je crois qu’on avait touché le fond en matière de cinématographie. Bref, la seule chose qu’il me reste du 1er est la scène de baseball, absolument à chier, j’ai juste trouvé ça cool qu’il y ai du Muse, et 15 Step de Radiohead dans le générique de fin, il me semble. Revenons donc au dindons de ma classe. Assises derrière moi, j’ai eu le droit à un superbe rewind du premier volet. Chaque millimètre carré de chaque image analysé par leur brillant esprit.

Par dépit et curiosité je me retourne: “C’est votre film préféré?” en m’efforçant de rester neutre afin d’éviter tout caillassage compulsif d’ici Noyel. “- Non moi c’est la série des Harry Potter, Drago il est trop beau, je crois que je suis amoureuse de lui !” “- Alice in Wonderland [Nldr: A l'anglais, ça fait plus staïïïly rebelz] !” “- L’étrange noël de Mr. Jack !” Okay soit. Sur le coup je me suis marrée je me suis remise face au tableau en me disant “Ridicule ma génération, c’est quoi cette sous-culture, bla bla. Et cette manie d’aimer n’importe quel artiste, si tant est qu’il soit artiste, et de vouer un culte à quelque chose de ce genre…” Et subitement, je me suis sentie seule. J’ai réalisé que j’étais exactement comme elles, avec des références différentes, mais tout aussi ridicule.

Lundi je crois, j’étais en train de me rouler une clope à la pause quand une nana que je ne connaissais pas est venue me demander du feu. Suite à ça, je les ai écouté parler à côté. C’était une histoire de politique, de réforme, ce qui me renvoie à ma triste réalité: au lycée on parle soit des cours, soit de la politique, soit on putasse en cours de sport en regardant les autres qui en chient. C’est une histoire d’habitude. Et à force, eh bien je m’ennuie. Encore aujourd’hui j’ai eu endurer les tristes revendications de mes fréquentations d’ado rebelle chevelu. Je sais je sais, j’ai qu’a mieux choisir mes compagnons de lycée, mais je fais ce que je peux avec ma sociabilité en carton. Donc, encore ce midi, je disais, ils ont parlé de la nouvelle réforme. D’après ce que j’ai compris il y a un communiqué de presse mais pas de réforme clairement écrite. C’est vrai que ça fait un peu mal au cœur tout ce qu’il va se passer, mais moi je laisse tomber. Je dois être une stupide égoïste capitaliste nihiliste, mais putain qu’est-ce que je m’en tape de votre branlette sociale les gens là. Arrêtez de croire qu’en gueulant que vous êtes des lycéens en colère et en pétant des rétros vous allez changer quoi que ce soit? Ça fait un moment qu’on n’attend plus l’avis des personnes visées par les lois, sauf s’il y a une prise d’otage ou des suicides. Et aucun des deux ne me tente particulièrement pour l’instant.

Vous me cassez clairement les couilles à vouloir être proche du peuple et engagés. Je suis peut-être une sale fille à papa mais sachez que la moitié du monde crève sous les bombes et ce n’est pas parce qu’on va vous virer deux heures de français ou augmenter le prix de tabac qu’on a quoi que ce soit à dire. Alors soit on ouvre sa gueule efficacement pour tout, soit on la ferme. Ya pas de compromis dans l’engagement spirituel, intellectuel et corporel. C’est tout ou rien. Soit vous êtes pour, soit vous êtes contre, mais l’hésitation c’est déjà le début de la fin.

Alors oui c’est ça, moi je m’en fout, j’en ai rien à battre, je m’en branle, je m’en fiche, I don’t care, ça ne me fait rien, peu importe, rien à foutre. Parce qu’au fond, vous ne vous foulez pas trop à marcher dans la rue en agitant un drapeau rouge. Mais qui de vous, osera se tirer une balle pour les autres? Personne. Qui de vous osera menacer quelqu’un pour les autres? Personne. Qui de vous n’a, ne serait-ce qu’un peu d’estime pour les autres? Personne. Pour la plupart, cela se tassera avec le temps, et on apprendra à vivre comme un grand dans un monde de grands. Ça m’est égal qu’on me reproche mes idées plus ou moins politiques, mais il vaut mieux être seul dans ses convictions, que mal accompagné. Je vous laisse méditer, c’était mon premier coup de gueule expérimental cette année scolaire.

Chris O’Dell no fue famosa ni siquiera Casi famosa…pero estuvo ahi!

Ella estuvo en el estudio cuando los Beatles grabaron el Album Blanco, Abbey Road y Let it be, incluso canto en el coro de “Hey Jude”.

Tambien estuvo sentada en la mesa cuando George Harrison le dijo a Ringo Starr: “Sabes una cosa Ringo? Estoy enamorado de tu mujer” a lo que Ringo le contesto: “Y bueno mejor vos a alguien que no conocemos!”

Ademas fue la mujer que tipio la cancion perteneciente a Harrison “All things must pass”.Vivio junto a George y Pattie Boyd en Friar Park. Se enamoro profundamente de Eric Clapton y sin saberlo quedo envuelta en la famosa historia de amor entre Eric y Pattie.

Es la musa de la cancion de Leon Russell titulada “Pisces Apple Lady”, ademas de salir con Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan entre otros.

Fue asistente personal de los Rolling Stones en el mal afamado tour del ‘72, en cual Keith Richards y Mick Jagger fueron encarcelados por posesion de drogas.

Tambien es “the woman down the hall” en la cancion de Joni Mitchell “Coyote”, que habla del triangulo amoroso entre ellas y Bob Dylan durante el Rolling Thunder Revue tour.

Ella es la misteriosa mujer que aparece en la parte de atras del album “Exile on Main Street” de los Rolling Stones. Y la cancion Miss O’Dell de George Harrison es sobre ella.

Miss O’Dell es la mujer que ha vivido el sueño de millones! Ser parte del circulo de las realezas del rock.

En su libro cuenta anecdotas intimas, fotografias personales, se podria decir que es un backstage pass a la vida de estos musicos en el momento mas soñado de la historia del rock.

Llego a los 20 a probar suerte en Hollywood, donde empezo a trabajar para la London’s Apple Studio. Fue su amigo Derek Taylor, que trabajaba en ese momento como publicista de los Beatles, quien le insistio a Chris de unirse a esta movida.

Rapidamente consiguio el trabajo de asistente de los Beatles, les traia el almuerzo, atendia los telefonos, llevaba a la gente al aeropuerto…antes de convertirse en un habitue del estudio. Incluso fue anfitriona de los Angeles del Infierno, cuando estos visitaron la Apple, ademas de hacer un viaje de Acido con tres de los motokeros.

Pero fue con George Harrison la conexion inmediata.

“El era muy abierto” recuerda ella sobre Harrison “los dos eramos de piscis, nos gustaba divertirnos y reirnos. Tambien hubo un coqueteo, que fue lo que nos unio mas”

Pero cuando Harrison quiso algo mas que solo sostenerle la mano, O’Dell lo rechazo.

“Deja de hacer eso, George!” le dije mientras lo miraba como si estuviera retando a un niño pequeño-recuerda Chris en su libro.

Ella y Harrison nunca tuvieron mas que una relacion de amistad. Y el resultado fue la cancion que George escrbio para ella, “Miss O’Dell”

“Te puedo decir que nada nuevo ha pasado desde la ultima vez que te vi/ ¿No me llamaras, Miss O’Dell?…” y la cancion sigue comentando momentos y pensamientos hacia ella.

Harrison la invito a vivir con el y su mujer, en ese momento, Pattie Boyd en su mansion de 120 habitaciones, Friar Park, en Inglaterra.  Para ese entonces la desconfianza de Pattie hacia O’Dell habia desaparecido y se habian vuelto muy buenas amigas. Con el tiempo Chris O’Dell se convirtio en la perfecta excusa de Eric Clapton para frecuentar Friar Park, dejando asi a Chris en el medio del amorio de Pattie y Eric.

Pattie no era la unica que jugaba a dos puntas, recuerda Chris, que  fue testigo de la declaracion de Harrison que admitia haber tenido sexo con la mujer de Ringo. Luego de la separacion, Ringo corrio a los brazos de Chris que recuerda haber tenido los tres meses mas sexies con Starr.

Pero sin lugar a dudas el momento mas erotico del libro es cuando cuenta uno de sus encuentros amorosos con Dylan en la habitacion de un Howard Johnson de Maine.

“Sentia el aliento de Bob en mi cuello, su pelo sobre mi mejilla, y sus labios rozaban suavemente mi oreja” escribio en el libro.

“Que bien hueles” Bob le suspiro al oido.

Quien luego haria su jugada final diciendo:”¿Queres venir a mi habitacion?Tengo algunos cigarrillos alli!”

Es un libro dificil de resistir con una biografia digna de una groupie.

O’Dell y George Harrison

O’Dell y Keith Richards

O’Dell y Maureen Cox, la mujer de Ringo Starr.

O´Dell y Mick Jagger

O’Dell y Ringo Starr

This video was produced by the talented folks at NewLeftMedia. They catch up with Sarah Palin fans standing outside of Borders Books & Music in Columbus, OH. The reporters asks them why they like Sarah Palin, how they feel about her policies, and what they think about the country under President Obama. Lets just say the interviews are very interesting….and that these fans have the Fox News soundbites down cold.

Robin Williams Takes On Sarah Palin

“Gosto de verificar pessoalmente tudo que é enviado à imprensa. Sabe, esse pessoal gosta muito de inventar boatos. Nunca envolvi minha esposa numa orgia com groupies, isso foi terrível.”

Jon Bon Jovi

A Review

Famous Groupies Of The Sixties Series

Faithfull: An Autobiography

by

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull

Review by R.E. Prindle

Season Of The Witch

All night, all day, Marianne

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

Even little children love Marianne,

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

-Terry Gilkyson And The Easy Riders

     Technically Marianne Faithfull wasn’t a groupie.  Her early years resembled one but in her later years she was sought after as a conquest by men of the groupie mentality.  I’m sure as everyone knows Marianne Faithfull began her career as a very successful pop singer.  Produced originally by Andrew Loog Oldham she was among the first of the new breed of Rock singers, as opposed to Rock n’ Roll.  She belongs to the new rather than the old school.

     Her first song was As Tears Go By.  Single and album were very successful, more or less establishing her reputation for all time- or at least until the generation passes away.

     My first knowledge of  Marianne Faithful was when the strains of As Tears Go By wafted into my study window.  They continued to waft all day long for weeks.  The girl in the apartment next door was fixated on the song.  A little fat girl.    So after the 7000th rendition  of As Tears Go By I had my first nervous breakdown.  Marianne Faithfull was a sour taste.

Mick Jagger

 Then as far as I’m concerned she dropped out of the pop scene.

     Her auto was first published in 1994, I just read the paperback the other day so the book is probably old hat to most of you but as I didn’t find any real reviews on the internet I decided to give it a try.  I don’t see any reason to do the whole book so I’ll concentrate on the three Bob Dylan incidents, aspects of her relationship with Mick Jagger and Donald Cammell and his movie, Performance.  The book is highly readable and entertaining until after her divorce form Jagger about two thirds of the way through the book when she falls into a drug stupor.  At that point it is necessary to avoid falling into Marianne’s own depression.  Too late for her to get over it now.

     Her career began when she was selected for her looks by Andrew Loog Oldham, producer of the Stones, who saw her at a party.  Asked if she could sing she said yes.  Next, there she was behind a microphone lisping As Tears Go By.  Thus she was an established big pop singer when she first met Dylan and later came under the thumb of Mick Jagger.  She brought something to the table, she didn’t come empty handed.  She was an equal.  To be treated as an appendage enraged her probably contributing to her drug addiction

     She met Dylan during his ‘65 tour.  You can see her sitting in the corner in the movie Don’t Look Back.  She has some trenchant comments to make of the various prticipants in the Savoy Hotel debacle.  She’s very intelligent.  She was a young girl at the time, Dylan being five years older.  She was in awe of Dylan who she considered the hippest god on the planet.

     Dylan is supposed to be a master seducer.  It wasn’t that Marianne wasn’t ready and willing, she was.  In her mocking portrayal of the scene Dylan rather than complimenting her beauty and talent made an attempt to overawe she who was already overawed with his own wizardry.  In the process the seduction fell through.  Mazrianne skipped merrily away.

     Now, this is a girl who a year or two younger , while on tour with a review including Roy Orbison responded to him when he knocked on her door and said:  Hi.  I’m Roy Orbison.  I’m in room 602.  And Marianne skipped on down the hall.  How could Dylan have missed? 

     Later in the book, the year was 1979 when Dylan was going though his Jesus years, while Marianne had entered clinical depression doing heroin and sitting on her wall like Humpty-Dumpty all day, every day, Dylan arrived for another tour.   His dealer was a friend of Marianne’s and he asked if she knew where Marianne was.  Oh yes.  Demelza, the heroin dealer got Marianne to come over.  Dylan and Marianne’s second verse was worse than the first.  By this time depressed, enraged and seeking vengeance against the men in her life Marianne was far from compliant.  She had recently released Broken English, I’ve never heard the record so I can’t comment on the lyrics, so she mocked the Wise One by asking him if he understood her lyrics.  He couldn’t explain hers any better than she could his.  A little drip on the name of Bob, a little triumph for Marianne.  Dylan went away unfulfilled again.

     Oop, there is a third meeting.  Marianne now beyond depression walking down railway ties none of us will ever be able to see.   She overdosed on heroin, staggered and fell breaking her jaw.  Complications arose requiring serious surgery.  Pins were put in her jaw along with some contraption to hold the two parts together that apparently went

Keith Richards

through her cheek sticking out like a water spigot.  Had to sleep on one side.

     While Dylan was playing in Boston she presented herself backstage in this grotesque appearance.  Too weird for Dylan.  Three strikes and he was out.  Never spoke to him again, she says.  (To 1994 when the book went to press.

     After the first meeting Marianne hooked up with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones for whom we have to thank for As Tears Go By.

     In late 1966 the great Donovan included a song on Sunshine Superman called Season Of The Witch.  The song epitomized the era.  At the time the song made little sense to me but in reading Faithfull it all began to fall into place.  While the sixties were terrific they were also horrific.  Today the horrific impressions dominate my mind.  All standards, all morality disintegrated before our eyes.  It was the end of the world as it dissolved into stange and perplexing LSD fantasy.  Hell, I never even took LSD and I think I know the feeling perfectly.  I’m still getting flashbacks.

     Nothing was real, it was all an illusion.  You could turn yourself inside out right before everyone’s eyes and get no reaction.  Hey, everyone was living through their own movie.  Marianne captures this feeling perfectly in 300 pages but so did Donovan in three verses:

When I look out my window

Many sights to see.

When I look in my window

So many different people to be

That it’s strange, so strange,

Must be the season of the witch,

Must be the season of the witch.

     Marianne’s succession of people to be began in childhood.  She as well as all these musicians, singers and dancers came from humble backgrounds with low expectations  but grand hopes and dreams.  Picked for the size of her bust to be a rock star, piles of money were thrown at her.  Inevitably dissociation occurred as the possiblity to be anyone appeared possible only to be held back by that humble past of low expectations.  how to behave in these new circumstances, not so easy, not so easy.

The rabbits are running in the ditch

Beatniks are out to make it rich.

Sang Donovan.  Standards and barriers were down, libertines crawled out of the woodwork nd there stood Mick and Keith, two libertine beatniks who could actually wallow in money.

     Mick took a fancy to Marianne and moved her in.  Married in heart if not in law, but she was to lose her independence.   There was Swinging London or the tail end of it and swinging is what Mick and Marianne did.  However Marianne did not come to Mick as a nameless groupie.  She was a somebody that the fans admired and wanted to get close to also.  Marianne Faithfull, all in capitals.  All that was submerged into the personality of Mick Jagger.  At first her own money was coming in allowing her independence but as her catalog grew old her money had to come from Mick.  Her lost independence  made it impossible to function as a wife and expect a joint account where she didn’t have to ask for money, it was hers by right.  A conflict and contest arose.

When I look over my shoulder

What do you think I see?

Some other cat looking over

His shoulder at me.

And he’s strange, sure he’s strange.

Oh no, must be the season of the witch.

     And the witching got serious.  All kinds of users, abusers and losers followed the libertines out of the woodwork, masters of manipulation they knew how to easily hypnotize whacked out marijuana smokers, cokeheads and general druggies to get them to do various things, sex things, criminal acts, whatever to gratify their evil schemes.  People did things they never thought they would do and fortunately some or a lot them couldn’t remember doing them.  Such a character was waiting in the ether to snare Mick and Marianne.  The movies, ah, the movies, what a way to snare unwary souls.  Everyone wants to be a movie star.

     Donald Cammell, one such, had his nose to the wind and the wind brought the sexual antics of Mick and Marianne wafting his way.  Truly, it was the season of  the witch.

     Cammell had a novie he wanted to make;  Mick and Marianne and assorted friends were just the libertines to bring Performance to life.  Oh no, oh no, must be, must be the season of the witch.

     According to Marianne, Cammell replicated the sex scene the set had had as though he had been there. Uncanny?  Maybe or maybe it was such a far out thing participants talked and word got around and Cammell’s imagination was inflamed.

     According to Marianne the filming brought disaster into  the actor’s lives.  Cammell, the manipulator escaped, of course, as his kind always does.  The pleasure was all his, you may be sure.

     The filmwas a turning point in the relationship of Marianne and Mick.  Perhaps the film stirred memories of when she had been The  Marianne Faithfull, since submergeed into Mick’s identity.  She had been unable to adjust to the new circumstances.  Pentulantly she just walked away.  Immersed in drugs the downslide slow and pleasant became precipitous until she could be found sitting on her wall of the bombed out building not rebuilt as yet.

     Could it be that the remaining wall of that Marianne Faithfull of low expectations was bombed out by the force of a success undreamt of in her pleasant teenage dreaming?  Was that the fascination that kept her glued to the wall in pleasant heroin dreams?  Would Humpty Dumpty fall into the abyss or not?

     This was now the seventies.  Hard realities existed on every side.  It was’t fun anymore either.  The actual season of the witch had passed over.  This was hell.

     After Marianne left Mick drugs are the topic of her converstation.  What is more boring than a junkie talking drugs.  Shoot up and shut up.  Who wants to hear?

     But she did regain her identity,  she had shed Marianne of the little m and was Marianne Faithfull again.  Men sought her out.  Producers came around again, there was still money in that drug wracked carcassof Marianne.

When she walks along the shore,

People pause to greet,

While little birds fly round her,

Little fish come to her feet…Marianne.

     Somehow from that drug drenched state Marianne was able to cobble together enough strength and concentration to begin doing a Mick and Keith.  Maybe her time had not been wasted by the proximity to Mick and Keith.  While still with Mick she had written Siser Morphine, later recorded by the Stones.  She got no writing credit because of old contractual problems with discarded agents but she did receive a third of the royalities which were considerable. 

     And now she began to string words together to make songs.  The stuff was nothing I would ever listen to.  I mean, choice lyrics like ‘Every time I see your dick I imagine her cunt in my bed.’  Maybe that’s  why Dylan couldn’t understand the lyics.  I’m not going to try.  It worked for Marianne though.  Today she’s proudly known as the Edith Piaf of her generation.  I’m happy for her that things worked out for her after a fashion.  Her smile still photographs well but I’m not going to buy her records, CDs, whatever they’re called nowadays.  Time has gone by and I can’t get As Tears Go By out of my head. I’ll carry that tune to my grave.

All night, all day, Marianne,

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

Even little children love Marianne,

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

Bob Dylan

A few years back, when I was living in So Cal, I went to one of the cd blow-outs at Aron’s Records (which has since closed down). It was a fantastic morning rummaging through hundreds of cd’s I’ve never heard of. They weren’t organized in any real fashion except by price. Usually, I just grabbed whatever had an interesting cover design. Among these cd’s, on sale for a quarter, was Pimpadelic “Southern Devils”.  I bought it solely based on the fact that they were from Fort Worth, TX. I knew nothing else about them.

I ripped off the plastic and popped the cd in the car stereo. As trashy, southern rock music burst from the speakers, I fell in love. It was everything I was looking for in music. Pimpadelic.

I played Pimpadelic at every party and during every Vegas trip I made. I made friends with a couple of the band members through myspace, particularly the drummer at the time Belly Ray Vyrus. When I decided to move back to Texas, I went to my first Pimpadelic show. From then on, I was part of the Pimpadelic family.

Don’t you dare call me a groupie. I have driven these guys around, helped unload their equipment before shows and partied with them. I am one of the girls at the stage taking pictures and shoving away anyone who tries to steal one of my girls’ spots at my side. I love the fans. They’re all pretty nutty in different ways but come together because of it.

The rock-n-roll lifestyle is rough. Before the show it’s backstage to take a couple Jager shots (they’re sponsored by Jagermeister). After the show it’s back to the hotel for boozing and waking up to Easy Jesus stumbling around talking to himself.  It’s not quite the lifestyle I want to dive into completely. I have to step back, take a break and remember what made me fall in love with Pimpadelic. The music.

You can find Pimpadelic and Easy Jesus Coe music on iTunes and myspace.

Pimpadelic: http://www.myspace.com/pimpadelic

Easy Jesus Coe: http://www.myspace.com/easyjesuscoe

Honky Tonk Zeros (country side project): http://www.myspace.com/honkytonkzeros

"Belly Ray" and I

"Lo C Vaughn"

Me and Easy Jesus Coe

Javier (former bassist), Amber, Mandy and I

Me n the Pimp girls

Stephanie, me and Candi... much love

In the bar manager's office before the show in Terrell, TX.

Easy Jesus Coe and Mack Davis

Easy Jesus Coe on stage

Omdat ik u graag direct van de illusie af help dat er misschien toch een schrijfster in Quirk schuilt die u met sfeervolle stukjes kan overladen, vandaag maar weer een stukje dat wat meer met de werkelijke aard van Quirk te maken heeft. Quirk is namelijk stiekem best een nerd. En iemand die graag in de derde persoon over zichzelf schrijft, blijkbaar. Overigens is nerd trouwens niet de juiste term. De juiste term is Ontzettend Stoer Wijf natuurlijk. Dat vinden de jongens tenminste. De jongens die van spelletjes houden. Er zijn namelijk niet veel meisjes die van gamen houden. Maar Quirk is wel zo’n meisje. Dat kan iedereen die ooit in haar huis is geweest beamen. Vooral van de serie Guitar Hero / Singstar / Rockband is Quirk wel fan, zoals ze eerder schreef. En wat stond er gisteren eindelijk in de winkel? New toys!!

Waar je bij Singstar kunt doen alsof je een topzangeres bent en je je bij Rockband en Guitar Hero een ware rockster kunt wanen op zang, gitaar, bas én drums, kun je je bij Dj Hero dus als – u raadt het al – dj uitleven. Plaatjes mixen, scratchen, tunen, het kan allemaal! Quirk kan niet wachten om het uit te proberen. Kunt u wel geloven dat ze dit spel nu dus al twee dagen in huis heeft en nog geen tijd heeft gehad het te spelen?? The agony.. En dan neemt ze natuurlijk ook niet de simpele basis-editie hè. Neu. Da’s te min voor Quirk. Die wil van alles het beste van het beste. Behalve waar het op mannen aankomt. Daar zoekt ze dan toch vaak de wat mindere exemplaren op. Dus Quirk heeft de luxe editie. Met flightcase!

En mensen, wat er dan tevoorschijn komt als die flightcase open gaat! Dat is toch prachtig??

Zucht.. Ja. Dat begrijpt u niet hè? Dat is dan toch een kant van Quirk die u een stuk minder aanstaat zeker? Dat geeft niet. Want bij deze waant Quirk zich een top-dj. Dus binnen de kortste keren liggen de groupies vast aan haar voeten.

Zij die mixen en scratchen gaan groeten u!

Nada pode ser melhor que ser jovem. Lembrar das manhãs que brincava de pega-pega, esconde-esconde, olhar pra frente e fazer planos às vezes tão mirabolantes. Ser jovem é ter uma vida nas mãos.

Nós jovens, há muito tempo éramos vistos como rebeldes, inconsequentes, irresponsáveis, porém essa não é a realidade. Hoje pesquisas comprovam que os jovens possuem ideias e amplas noções sobre o mundo e seu papel no mesmo. Os adolescentes são hoje vistos como o futuro próspero da nação. Mas na verdade quero mesmo é retratar como a adolescência é bela.

Viver em grupos…Viver em grupos é característico ao extremo de uma juventude. A busca por uma “turminha” é na verdade a busca por uma personalidade que os façam de alguma maneira “diferentes”.  E é assim que então se formam as tribos – pessoas (jovens) que vestem às mesmas roupas, ouvem às mesmas músicas, frequentam o mesmos lugares e acham que pensam da mesma forma. A leitura de um estilo é sempre muito particular na formação de uma tribo. Há os que lêem de roupas pretas ao som de Sepultura, há os que lêem de abadá ao som de Chiclete com Banana, ou ainda aqueles que de mãos dadas louvam a Deus.

Nada contra tribos, mas é importante que a ” tribo” ajude você a crescer e a ver a vida como ela é sem fantasias, caso contrário, sua tribo é uma perca total de tempo. Hoje podemos nos relacionar sem sair de casa, basta acessar a internet pra conhecer uma porção de gente pra fazer barulho com você, pessoas com a sua cara.

Lembro que na minha escola tinha umas garotinhas apaixonadas pelo Hanson, eram todas todas todas  iguais, patricinhas, magrinhas e de fruzinho nos cabelos, acessórios sempre cor-de-rosa combinando com os All Star’s. Elas tinham pastas lotadas de recortes sobre os três irmãos e sabiam cantar todas as músicas. E nós que não éramos como elas, as chamavam de ”Hansoletes” .  até que um dia o grupo de não lembro quantas  meninas apareceu no colégio com camisetas cor-de-rosa com a mensagem:

“Hansoletes
Esta é a nossa tribo
E nosso pajé é loiro cabeludo”

Elas fizeram sua marca, ganhando um espaço único. E é isso aí. Fazer parte de uma tribo é fazer o que gosta, com pessoas que também gostam, é sair da homogeneidade do mundo para assumir uma identidade, enfim…  defender um ideal.

“i just had a epipahany ,i need to go to tiffanys ,fendi on my slippers
and my cookies always slippery” #quote- Nicki Minaj

November is the time of the year where buzz starts to pay off. In the NFL, players start 2 and 3 game road trips miles away from spouses. In the NBA the season tips off with re-newed exhuberance to become the latest punching bag of the Lakers. While publically spouses act as if they are not concerned, we all see the sudden change of tone (avatars, tweets, social life, etc)…gotta remind them what they are leaving behind, right?

In the NFL…Michael Crabtree made his debut with the 49ers. On twitter a month ago, if you saw my “it ain’t trickin if you got it’ rant, you know how I feel about his ‘contract holdout’. However, to #quote Jay-Z “Men Lie, Women Lie, numbers dont’ and Crabt trre production in numbers equated to this: (graded at 5 receptions per game, only off of NFL contract at 3.1 million a year) $62,000 a game or $12,400 a catch, talk about #flexin.

Meanwhile I saw this picture in Hollywood on my way to groupie laden ‘Runyon Canyon’ last week . I PAUSE and think to myself, this is what California is all about. Hollwood is now sautrated with people getting millions and garnering influence from being on reality shows and reforming as an NFL babymama; to having your swagger sign, seal, and deliver a $19 million NFL Deal, with $9 million from Subway, and $20 Million from Team Jordan just to boot; and agents and a show company making even more millions off of profyling the best athelete in the world in the middle of Hollywood, where a good percentage of the people who see it, probably are more concerned with googling his name with Wendy Williams. or asking their local high profile non-graduated stepping black group “whats the T”. I digress, but yall know im right.

Meanwhile I leave you with this because this is what I think of the competition:

…just think of that, while running Waka Flaka’s diss to Shaq through your head:

Catch me on:
twitter: www.twitter.com/MyImageisKlutch
youtube: www.youtube.com/MyImageisKlutch

“Os anos 80 foram muito melhores. Não existia essa tal de internet, as groupies eram mais safadas e o Richie Sambora ainda se punha em seu lugar.”

Jon Bon Jovi

William Miller, Stillwater, and the Band-Aids, on the road; image courtesy of redriverautographs.wordpress.com

All right, folks. I’m home with the sniffles, so let’s roll up our sleeves for this one. I recently re-watched my VHS copy and am ready to get into it. At length. Double-album style. Watching the movie on video means I didn’t listen to any DVD commentaries to formulate my thoughts. And while I have seen the Untitled version, my opinions will mostly be generated from the theatrical release version. Keep this in mind reading on, but feel free to mix it up in the comments section. 

Now, this is a movie that pushes and pulls me like few other. As I’ve grown older, depending on how I felt when I watched it, I waft somewhere between charitable introspection and vitriolic rejection, one time even going so far as drunkenly telling a friend who likes this movie to shut up (sorry, Leigh!).

I wasn’t always this way. When it first came out during my senior year of high school, I looooooooved it. I saw it with my best friend Jamie and a boy I would later regret dating. Jamie was the editor of the school newspaper. I made my extracurricular committment to choir, but wished I had room in my class schedule to write for The Clarion. I wanted to be William Miller, the fifteen-year-old journalist protagonist who fills in for director Cameron Crowe and his own (idealized?) experiences as a writer. Figuring I could catch up in college, I set my sights on UT’s journalism school. By graduation, I assumed I’d be working as a rock critic in New York City, perhaps following bands like Stillwater, the fictitious classic rock band based on The Allman Brothers Band that breaks (then promises to make) Miller’s career.

My hope of being a rock journalist was officially dashed the second time I was not hired as a writer for The Daily Texan’s entertainment section. After this rejection, 19-year-old me reasoned that these fat cats were shills for the man with terrible taste in music. I might have even phrased it that way at the time. From here, I officially cast my lot with college radio.

It’s important to bring up music journalism, not only to burn on it out of bitter feelings of rejection. When this movie originally came out, it was a dangerous time for print publications like Rolling Stone and Spin, much like the early 70s was a dangerous time for rock music. 1973, the year this movie takes place, was a harbinger of the bloated, corporate, cool-hunting enterprise the mainstream music industry would become. By 2000, it had completely transformed into a deregulated, conglomerate behemoth, peddling a handful of marketable, palatable, and safe talent that could sell ancillary products and jack up the retail prices on those ancillary products, which the compact disc had become. Music listeners, irritated by ever-higher CD prices, began downloading illegally in earnest. Sometimes they were met with arrests and lawsuits. Sometimes those lawsuits were filed by the popular musicians they idolized. As a result of these actions, and some truly stupid strategies the music industry has used to push units, people are more incredulous of the music industry than ever.

It’s important to bring in the Internet and the ubiquity of digital technology too, as online communication affected print journalism. Throughout the 2000s, publications scrambled to keep up circulation and readership. Some were bought and sold to other conglomerates. Some turned from monthlies to quarterlies. Some drastically changed their content and marketing campaigns (the saddest one for me was Spin, a high school favorite that was Rolling Stone’s cool, younger sibling; by the time I entered graduate school, it packaged itself as the hipster version of Us and lagged behind e-zines like Pitchfork and Tiny Mix Tapes in its coverage of new music). Some shilled out to reality TV (looking at you, Rolling Stone). Some simply folded.

Along with publications, staffs shrunk due to budget cuts. Some folks survived the fall-out. Rob Sheffield came into the field from the academy and penned a touching memoir. Eric Weisbard became part of the academy, currently an American Studies professor at the University of Alabama. Some folks, like Sarah Lewitinn and Chuck Klosterman, became cults of personality. But others didn’t fare as well. Sia Michel lost her position as Spin’s editor-and-chief, though was hired on to be The New York Times‘ pop music editor. At some places, an entertainment staff was whittled down to one person, if there was a department at all.

Sarah Lewitinn, aka Ultragrrrl; image courtesy of daylife.com

With the implosion of print-based music journalism came the advent of e-zines like Pitchfork and, of course, blogs. These folks, for good or for bad, may shape what criticism will look like in this century. I, for one, do see some good to blog culture (barring, you know, my recent public involvement with it). The principle assets I have found with it are its immediacy and DIY ethic. I couldn’t get a staff position at the Texan. I wasn’t financially able to take an internship. In short, traditional modes of ascension in the field weren’t available to me or many others. But blogging allows (some) writers to continue researching, hone their craft, and figure out just why they’re so interested in their subject of analysis.

Of course, there are hazards to blogging. Our collective attention span for new sounds has diminished. Furthermore, a considerable amount of misinformation gets reported. However, while I’m tempted to attribute this to a lack of fluency with journalistic principles of investigating, reporting, and fact-checking, I don’t know if it’s that simple. I’d hasten to point out that blogging and traditional journalism are both vulnerable to errors, unfair coverage, unequal time, and other ethical issues in the wake of the 24-hour news cycle.

In short, I watch this movie and think three things: 1) I don’t know if William Miller would be a journalist today, as the publications he would want to work at might not be able to hire him, 2) I do think he’d be a blogger, as the fan-critic and musician-journalist binaries in media culture have been considerably blurred since the early 70s, and 3) while this movie seems quaint in its depiction of a just-booming American music industry, it still seems completely relevant, maybe even more so than when the movie was originally released. 

So, you would think based on all of this fodder, I’d love this movie. But it’s not so simple and the movie itself is only partly at fault. A major issue I have with the movie isn’t so much to do with its gender politics as it is with the gender politics of its fanboys. I have heard too many fanboys talk about this movie with fervor, as if God touched Cameron Crowe’s camera. They’ll regale folks with abstruse bits of commentary from the Untitled version and quiz people on what songs like Stillwater’s “Love Thing” and “Fever Dog” are really about (I think love and kicking addiction, respectively). They are often humorless, especially if you point out any similarities they might have to Vic Munoz, the movie’s Led Zeppelin devotee. Oh, and they always love Led Zeppelin. Always.

But Alyx. Smelly zealot fanboys shouldn’t keep you from liking a movie, you say. The movie has a lot of good things going for it, you add. There’s even a lot of interesting female characters walking around, being smart and human and brave, you note. You might even say they’re more interesting than altruistic protagonist William Miller, you whisper emphatically. Fair points all. So, let’s do what Mary Kearney did when I watched this movie in her gender and rock undergrad class and run through the women and girls we meet in Miller’s coming-of-age story. Note that many of them are autonomous beings, free agents on the road:

1. The Band-Aids, especially one Penny Lane (played by Kate Hudson in what many argue is her only credible screen performance). They are not groupies and consider themselves fans who are autonomous, exercise sexual agency, and are not disposable, though some musicians have trouble seeing them the way they see themselves.

1A. While Penny Lane is clearly the Band-Aid leader, I’ve always loved Sapphire (played by Fairuza Balk). Label it blonde antipathy or brunette solidarity, but it’s hard not to love this rough, mischievous, funny, and wise lady. Can you imagine the stories she could tell? She intimates with William’s mother about his travels on the road and how she should be proud of her son from a hotel phone. She’s responsible for orchestrating the orgy that takes William’s (who she calls “Opie“) virginity. She’s also the one who delivers the hard truth about Penny and William to guitarist Russell Hammond. And she’s the one who insists that younger groupies take birth control, appreciate the music, and quit eating all the steak at crafts’ services.

Sapphire is epic; image courtesy of fairuza.com

2. Alice Wisdom, a deejay whose playlist Lester Bangs rudely rejects. Now I don’t like The Doors either, Lester, but that doesn’t mean you should shout over her opinions and discredit her taste in music. Unless you’re actually discrediting the radio station’s taste in music, in which case the deejay’s role becomes even more compromised. And this woman is already compromised by having the regulatory whiskey-throated voice that all female deejays seem required to have or emulate.
3. High school girls running for gym class. Stillwater bassist Larry Fellows perks up at the view from the tour bus; Penny Lane gives them the finger, glad that she’s playing hooky. That she’s not them.
4. Fans. Some of whom are Band-Aids or groupies, most of whom are regular girls and women with jobs and parents.
5. Band wives and girlfriends. They were there before the band got signed, are not often there for the shenanigans on the road, and probably won’t be there after the break-ups and divorces. 
6. A particularly shrill feminist stereotype of a Rolling Stone journalist billed as Alison the Fact Checker. Sadly, she probably has to be in order to be heard in staff meetings. Plus, wouldn’t you be pissy if you were trying to forge a career, were all-too-cognizant of sexism and misogyny, but also loved writing about popular music? This is a question I’ve always wanted to ask Ann Powers, Dream Hampton, and Lorraine Ali.

"How do you do it, Dream Hampton?"; image courtesy of thestartingfive.net

7. A singer-songwriter jamming with another singer-songwriter who appear to be modeled after Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons. William sees them playing in a hotel room during his first visit at the Riot House.
8. William’s big sister, Anita. She has a turbulent relationship with her mother and leaves home to become a flight attendant, leaving her kid brother a haul of amazing records, including Joni Mitchell’s Blue. She even gives him some good advice about how to listen to The Who’s Tommy that seems to have a lasting impression.
9. And, of course, William’s awesome, anti-establishment, overprotective mother Elaine, who is a college professor in San Diego. She is also the family matriarch, and probably was even before her husband died. Besides Lester, Ms. Miller is one of the few rebels. They both hold the distinction of being the only people who recognizes that rock culture, and its attendant cheap thrills and promises, is just another corporate enterprise.

Anita and Elaine Miller clashing, with young William Miller looking on; image courtesy of rlslog.net

Now, now. The dudes are interesting too, you might say. And masculinity is a discursive minefield here. So let’s walk through it. Let’s make like the movie and use William Miller to do this.
1. Miller himself is a soft-eyed, feminine boy played by then-unknown Patrick Fugit. He is hopelessly in love with Penny, a girl who may be his age but is out of his depth and hopelessly in love with someone else.

William Miller and his quest for truth; image courtesy of blog.lib.umn.edu

2. Billy Crudup’s Russell Hammond is the talented, aloof, and cowardly lead guitarist for Stillwater. He’s technically better than his bandmates, and is quick to hover it over them. He takes William under his wing because he’s a fan, only to dismiss him when Bob Dylan makes an appearance at Max’s Kansas City. He also nearly ruins William’s journalistic integrity when his own credibility is on the line. He’s also in love with Penny, but more in love with becoming a rock star. He’s not so in love with his wife, Leslie. He loves himself more than anyone, and hates himself for it.
3. Stillwater lead singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee) feels differently toward Leslie. He also has considerable animosity toward Hammond, whose emergent fame and skill is threatening to eclipse him and the rest of the band.
4. Bassist Larry Fellows and drummer Ed Vallencourt round out the band. Fellows (played by singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek, who I named my cat after) seems only interested in barbeque and high school girls. Vallencourt (played by John Fedevich) is silent through most of the movie, until he announces that he’s gay during a traumatic airplane ride.
5. Dick Roswell (Noah Taylor) and Dennis Hope (Jimmy Fallon) manage the band. Fellows has been with them for most of their career. Hope convinces the band to cash in and sell out, most symbolically by trading their bus for a jet. They will regret this decision.
6. Jann Wenner and Ben Fong-Torres, Rolling Stone’s respective editor-and-chief and senior editor, who serve as William’s bosses. Note the Wenner is gay, though at this time in his career, he was married to a woman named Jane. They would go on to have three children before divorcing in 1995. I haven’t read anything on Wenner, but am fascinated to learn how he negotiated all of this. Note also that Fong-Torres is Chinese American and one of the few people of color in both the movie and perhaps the emerging mainstream rock music industry. Note also the “Torres” surname, which his father adopted, dropping “Fong,” in order to pose as a Mexican in order to be granted U.S. citizenship while Chester Arthur’s Chinese Exclusion Act was still on the books. The family later kept both surnames.

Stillwater, on the cover of Rolling Stone; image courtesy of jeffdurling.com

But William doesn’t really have much in common with Stillwater. He wants to be them, but is in actual fact a music geek. Two like-minded male characters empathize, and share a relationship that is at once classically masculine in its indexical organization of rock’s ephemera and, at the same time, feminine in their romantic, homoerotic obsessive fandom.
1. Lester Bangs, William’s mentor, played by the formidable Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is one of the main reasons I’ll be seeing Pirate Radio. Reportedly, his scenes were filmed while he had the flu. Bangs hates what rock journalism has become.

Lester Bangs imparting life lessons to William Miller; image courtesy of playground.chronicleblogs.com

2. Vic Munoz, played by longtime Apatow mainstay Jay Baruchel. He’s the Zeppelin fan who follows the band everywhere, clutches a marker frontman Robert Plant once held, and wears his “Have you seen the bridge?” t-shirt at all times.

I should point out, however, that the girls index too. Penny Lane may not want William to take notes during Stillwater concerts, but that doesn’t mean that she, her peers, or William’s sister Anita, can’t rattle off band line-ups, industry players, and song lyrics.  

And lest we forget that William actually forges strong relationships with his sister, his mother, and the Band-Aids. While Sapphire, Polexia, and the gang seduce William, they also believe in him, intimate secrets with him, and provide him support, though they sometimes treat him as a minion and less as an equal.

I should also point out, since I opined that Miller doesn’t have much in common with Stillwater, that he does have an interesting relationship with Hammond nonetheless. Miller, a kid brother with an older sister, doesn’t seem to have any male friends or role models before he takes Bangs’s assignment to cover Black Sabbath for Creem, a band for whom Stillwater is opening and launches Miller’s almost-too-good-to-be-true feature assignment for Rolling Stone.

I wouldn’t necessarily categorize Hammond as a friend or role model. Perhaps he’s better suited for an older brother position. At first, Miller looks up to Hammond, calling his guitar-playing “incendiary” and trying (largely in vain) to emulate his slingin’, ’stached bravado. But, despite a Band-Aid orgy (controlled by the women who believe that “Opie must die”), Miller clearly doesn’t have that kind of swagger. He also doesn’t seem to want it, seeing Hammond’s cowardice beneath it. He also recognizes the irony of such inauthentic displays of machismo and ego in a form supposedly as authentic, romantic, and pure as rock is supposed to be, and is quickly unbecoming. Perhaps he also notices the rigid gender roles and chauvinism that inform the supposed gains of free love and the sexual revolution. This hypocrisy, along with the band’s quick rejection of real fans for industry success and the promise of rock mythology, make Miller able to put Hammond and his band mates in their place during the climactic plane scene. His honesty and integrity also earns him their trust, especially Hammond’s, who finally grants him a real interview at the end of the movie.

As an aside, if Hammond is Miller’s imperfect older brother, he steps right into the role by sassing Ms. Miller when he first talks to her on the phone, immediately snapping into a “yes ma’am, no ma’am” routine when she admonishes his behavior and values.

Miller’s character also wins the respect of Penny Lane, even when she’s ignoring the icky realities of seeing yourself as a fan but being treated as a groupie, as disposable as a real Band-Aid.

Note that it doesn’t win Lane’s affections, at least not physically. She may be too hard for or scared of Miller’s feelings (which are announced, unfortunately, in a scene where Miller kisses Lane, who just overdosed on Quaaludes). She may not be ready for rejecting her own rock star mythology in order to be truly intimate with someone (though she suggests she might when she tells Miller that she came into this world as one Lady Goodman). Maybe doing so would make her the typical teen she (and William’s mother) see little value in becoming. Maybe not consummating this relationship suggests they have no interest in typical interactions with one another.

Yet Miller’s and Lane’s relationship, which seems built on male fantasy, is an issue I have with this movie. I don’t get what the fuss is about, frankly. I understand that Lane is pretty, savvy, and well-traveled, but don’t understand why Miller has such a crush on her, primarily because I don’t understand how loving a band’s music leads you toward doing their ironing backstage while the boy you love in the band can’t be bothered to love you back. More importantly, I don’t know who she really is. Maybe the self-mythology is part of what prevents me (and certainly Miller) from getting close. Maybe the challenge of trying to find out who the real Penny Lane is warrants enough of a fascinating exercise for Miller. And maybe it isn’t any of our business who Lane really is. But I sort of wonder if she’s perfectly matched with Hammond, a man who wants desperately to be the myth he’s created for himself. Maybe this suggests that both of them have something in common with Don Draper. Here’s one scene where I think Lane, alone after a concert, drops the masquerade (note that the scene follows Stillwater’s treacherous meeting with super-manager Hope).

Admittedly, perhaps my problem resides in Kate Hudson’s performance. Perhaps I want her not to channel her mother, herself a manic pixie dream girl of this era, so much. Perhaps I’m projecting Goldie Hawn’s presence and ignoring how Hudson is making this role her own. I do think Hudson does a good job balancing Lane’s contrasts and contradictions, perhaps a better job than Kirsten Dunst (who almost got this role, but was cast in Crowe’s Elizabethtown instead) would.

And I do think I’m being unfair in my dismissal of Kate Hudson and Penny Lane. Because I think my real problem, as it usually is with Crowe’s movies, is the director’s unfortunate habit of crutching on the magic of pop music. Admittedly, this might be a hard habit for a music geek director to break, but it has kept me from enjoying his other movies (including, yes, Say Anything). And it’s probably contradictory for a music fan not to like pop music playing such a pronounced role in Crowe’s work. To me, however, Crowe’s use of pop music suggests the necessity of delicate application. Because I hate how he uses Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” in one of the movie’s big reconciliatory moments, as its obvious that he is making the case for how pop music’s universality heals all psychic wounds. When Lane tells Miller that he is home, all I can think is “fucking duh.”

While I feel like the movie’s score adds to the treacle (especially during the scene when Miller runs with Lane’s departing plane), I do admire Cameron Crowe’s ongoing collaborations with wife and Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson. We’d do well to remember Wilson’s rock legend status, score work, and Crowe’s relationship with Wilson when making sexist assumptions about Sofia Coppola’s relationship with Phoenix’s Thomas Mars, who is working on her next movie, Somewhere. We might also like to keep it in mind when thinking about Karen O’s involvement in ex-boyfriend Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are.

Going back to Crowe’s unfortunate flirtations with the obvious for my closing remarks, he does make a few other points in this movie in highlighter yellow that I love anyway. So much so that I’ve shaped my life around them. In the interest of full disclosure, I will share them now, suggesting that sometimes flirtations with the obvious are essential and humane.

1) The introductory scene between Bangs and Miller, when Bangs talks about staying up all night, writing about music. Whether or not he was high on cough syrup and speed or the tomes he devoted to The Faces or John Coltrane were dribble didn’t matter. The objective, as William knows well, is ”just to fuckin’ write.” It’s an objective I know well too. It’s a key reason why I put this blog together in the first place, and I’m certainly not alone.
2) Lane has a great line as well, one that has stayed with me as I age. I’m a firm believer in the advice she gives Miller when she drives them to the Riot House: ”if you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit your friends.” The comfort I have found in record stores cannot be overstated, and I only hope that, as I get older, at least a few of them don’t get completely mowed down to make way for more lucrative businesses. I might have to stay in a city that shares kinship with Austin to assure this, but I think it’s worth it. I’d rather live in a city that appreciates the cultural and communal value of record stores over a city that only sees value in their market returns.  

After all this, I believe Almost Famous to be an interesting and challenging movie at times marred by its idealism, sentimentality, and emphasis on one very lucky boy’s experience following around a band and writing down what happened. Thus, it’s a movie I keep coming back to, even if I don’t feel the need to replace the tape.

Today was a good day aşa că voi scrie miticul post despre la fel de mitica lansare de carte a volumui de poezie Jamais vu sau la prima bere cu tata din 25 septembrie.

Ziua respectivă poate fi catalogată ca fiind atotcuprinzătoare din perspectiva în care am trecut printr-o sumedenie de stări in timp record. Noaptea precedentă zilei de lansare era cât se poate de lipsită de somn. Scenarii din cele mai ridicole mi se înfiripau în scăfârlie cu o subtilitate de spion.

În unele din ele reuşeam să ma fac de râs spunând ceva total aiurea sau bâlbâindu-mă pana la un paroxism şi cauzam găuri negre de la repetarea în mod constant a aceleaşi consoane. În altele întârziam câteva minute şi toată lumea îşi îndrepta atenţia mea şi eu, un intrus la propria lansare mă aşezam undeva în fundul sălii sau, mai rău, eram dat afară din sală. Sau chiar nu ajungeam de loc în unele instanţe: şoseaua se surpa mergând oarecum liniştit spre primărie, avioane se prăbuşeau fix în calea mea sau meteoriţi îşi plantau craterele exact pe traseul meu. Din fericire pentru mine (şi restul umanităţii), nici unul din visurile paranoice nu au avut şansa de a se adeveri.

Dimineaţa am trecut pe la hyper-market cu Mălă, his mom şi Cretzu unde ne-am întrecut în cărucioare şi priviri furişate după diverse creaturi ce ne încântau globurile oculare. Produse de panificaţie dispăreau în mod misterios de pe raioane şi aroma de baclava trona peste papilele noastre gustative. Bananele nu sunt o armă. Punct.

Pe urmă, foarte agitat şi fâstâcit şi hiperactiv am trecut pe la teatru de unde am reuşit să procur  costumaţia pentru mica supriză ce avea să aibă loc în timpul lansării de la Primărie. Am pierdut pe urmă puţin vremea discutând cu Cretzu despre lansare şi diverse dume ce ne treceau prin cap. Iar eu aveam nevoie de o costumaţie mai distinsă pentru evenimentul ce urma a avea loc.

Două apeluri şi câteva minute mai târziu am clarificat problema costumului. Mi-am asumat noua deghizare în scurt timp(spun asta pentru ca ma simt deseori incomfortabil purtând sacou si pantofi fancy)  şi m-am prezentat în încăperea ce avea să găzduiască cine-ştie-câţi oameni în mai puţin de oră. Era imensă, sunt convins că şi acuma este la fel, dar în momentele respective mi se părea cât o arcă, gata să inghită în ea populaţia lumii. Cei din jur poate nu îşi dădeau seama dar pupilele mele pulsau odată cu pieptul meu şi eram absolut convins că va ieşi un fiasco total.

Paginile dezrădăcinate îşi aruncau hârtia peste masa în timp ce se înmulţeau şi volumaşul scăpa de o pagină, al cărui conţinut este de-o natură secretă. Primi invitaţi mai răsăriţi se ivesc la intrarea în sală neştiind ce urma să se întâmple. Eu le împărtăşeam starea probabil la puterea a 10-a. Îi salut politicos, le spun să se aşeze unde vor şi încep să mă ţin ocupat blocând mental venirea orei 17:00 cât de mult puteam şi Momentul.Lucru care, devenea tot mai greu de făcut odată cu torentele de oameni ce se revărsau în încăpătoarea sală.

Foşti colegi, foşti profesori, actuali profesori, actuali colegi, prieteni, cunoştinţe, vagi cunoştinţe, străini se aşezau unul câte unul pe scaune. Şi broboanele de transpiraţie practicau diviziunea asexuată pe frunţile celor 4 scriitori. Jamais vu pe bune.

Apar şi starurile lansării, care aveau sarcina de ai prezenta pe cei 4 scriitoraşi. Momentul galopa spre realitatea imediată şi în cateva clipe se aşează toţi 7 VIPs : Dorel Tifor, fost director al Colegiului E. Gojdu bună bucată de vreme, Mihai Vierul poet extraordinaire şi domnul Marius Miheţ, lector universitar la Facultatea de litere din Oradea(pe care, s-ar părea ca o atendez şi moi) şi cei 4 fericiţi: Andrei Pintea, Adrian Mălăieş-Popescu, Dumitru Vlad şi Alex Drăgan.

Începe dl. Tifor un discurs despre club, Mălă care-şi lansa pletele in spatele lui în slow mo pe coridoare ,eu devin brusc eminescian în timpul discursului şi actul nostru creator devine un posibil standard pentru viitoare generaţii. Lumea aplaudă. Eu mă jucam cu butonul de la microfon cu spor. Pe urmă Marius Miheţ ţine un discurs free-style despre poezie ignorând multiplele puncte şi subpuncte notate chiar de el însuşi după lecturarea volumaşului cu pricina.Dă vina pe emoţiile care ni le împărtăşea într-o oarecare măsură. Lumea aplaudă. Next up, Mihai Vierul spunea sălii întregi despre livrescul inevitabil şi despre poezia noastră care totuşi reuşea în mare măsură să îşi facă treabă fără el. Aplauze.

Pe urmă cei 4 au dat şi ei un mic discurs despre…mai bine zis 3, Cretzu a prins trac şi s-a sustras activităţii cu o subtilitatea desăvârşită, despre club, poezie şi volum. Personal încercam să nu transform mica mea cuvântare într-un solilocviu, cum îmi stă în obicei când sunt destul de emoţionat.  Aplauze x 4. Fără întrebări.

Se citesc câteva poezii de cei 4. Fiecare citea una aparţinând altuia. În timpul citirii lui Cretzu un domn îmbrăcat oarecum anacronic răsare cu o pălărie şi mantie rugând lumea să închidă celularele. Secundă. Aplauze înzecite.

Şi pe urmă, semnat de cărţi. Nici nu ştiu cât timp a trecut în timp ce semnam cărţi pe bandă dar totuşi în format unicat, puteau fi minute, putea fi ore, nu-mi amintesc. Oamenii se împart strategic între cei 4 şi cerneala şi pasta de pix plana în voie.

La sfârşitul ambuscadei cu volume, cei 4, sleiţi de puteri şi obosiţi se îndreaptă spre masa de bunătăţiuri ce fusese prădata de proaspeţii posesori de poezie. Trecu şi Momentul şi eu eram încă întreg. Mală dispare în stil german, iar ceilalţi 3 crai bagă un bairam prin fum şi decoruri portocalii pe lângă vulturi negri.