Topics | Dangerous Minds (2024)

09.17.2014

10:47 am

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The good people at Horror Decor have a line of printed pillows that are absolutely fabulous. The square ones come in small and large and cost $14 and $20, respectively; not all pillows come in both sizes. The rectangular ones cost $16.

They have many other pillows not shown here, including Jaws, Dead Alive, The Amityville Horror, and many more.

I love that they went the extra mile and made a pillow for The Stuff, which is a movie I haven’t thought about in twenty years.

They have a lot of other great horror knickknacks, like candles, placemats, pot holders, and the like, so be sure to click around.


The Thing


Night of the Living Dead


They Live


The Exorcist


Beetlejuice


The Shining


Hostel


The Brain That Wouldn’t Die


Nosferatu


The Stuff


Poltergeist

Below, the trailer for Larry Cohen’s monster frozen yoghurt indie horror comedy, The Stuff:

via Kraftfuttermischwerk

09.17.2014

08:40 am

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What the hell is wrong with FREEDOM, man, that’s what it’s all about!

The US flag-festooned motorcycle Peter Fonda rode as “Captain America” in the landmark 1969 film Easy Rider is going up for auction next month. Via seattlepi.com:

The customized Captain America chopper Peter Fonda rode in “Easy Rider” has come to symbolize the counterculture of the 1960s. Now it’s for sale.

The auction house Profiles in History told The Associated Press that it estimates the Harley-Davidson will bring $1 million to $1.2 million at its Oct. 18 sale being held online and at its galleries in Calabasas, California.

The seller is Michael Eisenberg, a California businessman who once co-owned a Los Angeles motorcycle-themed restaurant with Fonda and “Easy Rider” co-star Dennis Hopper. Eisenberg bought it last year from Dan Haggerty, perhaps best known for his roles in the “Grizzly Adams” TV show and movies, who was in charge of keeping the custom-designed bike humming during the 1969 movie’s filming.

Four motorcycles were created for the movie, but only one is known to have survived. It was used in the climactic crash scene in which Fonda is thrown off the bike.

After the film was finished, Hopper told Haggerty to keep it. Haggerty rode it often, an experience he likened to “going out with Marilyn Monroe.” Parting with it was like having a “child finally getting married and moving away and starting a new life on their own.”

The film, of course, remains a must-see even today, as its themes of seeking fulfillment outside the system, the death of idealism, and the paradoxes of freedom resonate well beyond the social context of the late ‘60s, and its soundtrack is packed with classic songs.

Now its central symbol can be a trinket for some extravagantly overpaid fund manager dickweed with seven figures to burn on an adolescent fantasy. AMERICA f*ck YEAH!

Previously on Dangerous Minds
The Electric Cinema Acid Test: the trippiest movies ever made
A slightly bombed Dennis Hopper bemoans the fate of his feature ‘The Last Movie’

09.17.2014

08:36 am

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George and George, both lookin’ foxy

When I saw this little video of Sir George Martin giving martini-making lessons (an excerpt from his 2011 BBC profile documentary, Produced by George Martin), a few things struck me—besides, of course, his obvious foxyness, even at the age of eighty-goddamn-five.

1) A martini is made with gin. There is the (laughable and pale) variation, the “vodka martini,” but anyone ordering simply “a martini,” with no qualifiers, should expect gin. Complaints to the contrary will result in a face full of vermouth.

2) The bolder choice in mixing technique and the not-so-cliché garnish—always keep ‘em guessing, George!

3) Always—and this is pertinent—end with a dirty joke, as George does here. Stay charming! Prurient poetry, wit and wordplay can be the only difference between an insufferable drunk and an enchanting lush!

I hereby declare we rename this particular co*cktail (with the lemon rind) the “George Martini”—who’s with me?

09.16.2014

06:06 pm

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“Magick is action. Mysticism is a withdrawal from action”

If you’re a Kenneth Anger fan, be prepared to be seriously blown away by this astonishing German television documentary from 1970 that shows the master at work on Lucifer Rising. It’s fun to ponder, as you watch, what the average German must have thought about this film, which doesn’t flinch from presenting some of the most outrageous ideas and imagery ever to be broadcast to an entire (unsuspecting) nation. It’s magnificently freaky stuff.

Not only would this have been the first look the world would get of Anger’s magnum opus (which he is seen shooting Méliès-style in a tiny space) there are substantial excerpts from Fireworks, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Rabbit’s Moon, Puce Moment, and Invocation of My Demon Brother, which showed hash smoking (and co*cks!) on TV. It’s impossible to imagine something like this ever getting on television in America 44 years ago, but I don’t think the BBC would have touched something this insane at the time, either.

As filmmaker Reinhold E. Thiel admits in his voiceover, it was Anger directing himself that they got on film. As he states, Anger really wasn’t that into allowing them to film him in the first place, but when he did relent it was on his terms. Anger’s interview segments were shot as he sat behind a makeshift altar, lit in magenta and inside of the magical “war gods” circle seen at the end of the film.



Of special note is we see Anger flipping through his “Puce Women” sketchbook (he’s an excellent illustrator) of his unmade tribute to the female archetypes of Hollywood’s golden era and the architecture of movie star homes (This notebook was on display at the Anger exhibit at MOCA in Los Angeles). Anger is also seen here shooting scenes with his Lucifer, Leslie Huggins (both interior shots in Anger’s makeshift studio and among the stones at Avebury) and with the adept in the war gods circle. Oddly, we can hear what the adept is saying (“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”) whereas in the final film he just seems to be muttering something mysterious when Lucifer appears.

Anger discusses his Aleister Crowley-inspired theories of art: How he views his camera like a wand and how he casts his films, preferring to consider his actors, not human beings but as elemental spirits. In fact, he reveals that he goes so far as to use astrology when making these choices.

This is as direct an explanation of Anger’s cinemagical modus operandi as I have ever heard him articulate anywhere. It’s a must see for anyone interested in his work and showcases the Magus of cinema at the very height of his artistic powers. Fascinating.

Thank you Spencer Kansa, author of Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron

09.16.2014

05:24 pm

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Shot from ‘Pull My Daisy’

This intimate 1959 footage of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Lucien Carr and his wife Francesca (with their three sons, Simon, Caleb and Ethan), and artist Mary Frank (and her children Pablo and Andrea) is fascinating for a couple of reasons. First of all, there’s just something captivating about seeing so many legends (especially the incredibly underrated Mary Frank) in such a domestic setting. You’d expect to see them drinking at the Harmony Bar in the East Village, you just don’t picture Kerouac with a kid on his lap while they do it. It’s hardly the louche atmosphere associated with the Beats.

Secondly, if I had to guess, I’d say this footage was probably taken by The Americans photographer Robert Frank—Mary Frank’s husband. I say this partially due to Mary’s presence, and partially because the crew’s amazing short film, Pull My Daisy was made the same year, directed by Robert Frank. You can a see similar stylistic approach in the filming, but unlike Pull My Daisy, the mood is totally organic, warm and endearing.

Via The Wallbreakers

09.16.2014

01:41 pm

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In about a week residents of Chicagoland will be able to wallow in all things Bowie, as the much-acclaimed “David Bowie Is” exhibition makes its way there after its highly successful run in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, which curated it in the first place. It will be showing at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, which will be the only U.S. museum to host the show. (The MCA is so excited about the show that there’s an actual countdown ticker on that page.)

Also so excited, as the Eater blog informs us, that they have created a special David Bowie-themed food and co*cktails menu at the accompanying Puck’s Cafe, which means that you can expect a bunch of delicious creations thinly connected to various songs, albums, and movies from Bowie’s long and storied career. The “China Girl” co*cktail description has the word “jasmin” in it, for instance.



In the mid-1970s, Bowie famously lived on a milk, red pepper, and cocaine diet—it’s noticeable that none of the items below feature any of those ingredients! It’s all just a huge missed opportunity. The special menu will be available on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays only. I live in Cleveland, so I might make my way up to Chicago one of these days to check it out.

Here are the menu pages (clicking will get you a larger image):



And a text rendering of same:

Ziggy Stardust Schmaltz $13
Assortment of cheeses: drunken goat cheese, crispy parmesan reggiano,delice de bourginone, truffled cream cheese, pickled beech mushrooms, candied cashews and grilled french baguette

Thin White Duke $8
Wolfgang Puck flatbread, fontina and mozzarella cheese, confit garlic, roasted tomatoes, cracked black pepper, arugula salad

Rebel Rebel Ruffa*ge $8
Baby romaine and frisee salad, fried manchego , crispy carrot nest, balsamic vinaigrette

Modern Love $8
Smoked tofu and grapefruit salad, avocado mousse, curried rice cakes,garnished with watercress, lime and soy vinaigrette

Starman Wings $11
Boneless fried chicken, star anise and szechuan spiced,served with grilled pineapple

The Goblin Kings Favors $15
Trio of sliders;beef slider with aged cheddar and remoulade,chicken slider with bacon and onion jam, roasted tomato slider with eggplant and basil pesto

Cat People $14
Yellow fin tuna tartare, sesame chips, ponzu, deviled quail egg

Under Pressure $16
Grilled hanger steak, fingerling potato salad, charred scallions, truffle, balsamic gastrique

Golden Years $17
Seared diver scallops, crispy polenta cake, yellow tomato jam, shellfish consomme

co*cktails inspired by Bowie songs.

Starman $12
Citrus vodka, ruby red grape fruit juice, white cranberry juice,fresh lemon juice, elderflower liquor

Modern Love $10
White rum, raspberry-infused simple syrup,rose petals, sparkling wine

Rock And Roll Suicide $12
Red pop rocks, white rum, lemonade, raspberry puree, raspberry, lemon wedge

Rebel Rebel $12
Ginger sugar, honey-ginger syrup, sparkling wine, thymesprig, lemon wedge

China Girl $10
Citrus vodka, iced green tea, amoretti jasmin syrup, jasmin flower sprig

09.16.2014

12:09 pm

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As someone points out in the comments on reddit, it’s almost as if this is some new kind of female superhero archetype. A leather clad woman (you can’t see what she’s wearing in the video. I’m using my imagination here) who rides a motorcycle and schools assholes who litter.

It’s pretty hardcore what she does. I wouldn’t recommend doing this in real life although I wish more people would.

Next we need a superhero who f*cks with assholes who text and drive. Your Facebook update can wait, moron. You know who you are.

via reddit

09.16.2014

11:25 am

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Being an aging rockstar is bad enough, but there are always the “oldies” package tours that play state fairs and casinos. Ever wonder what happened to your favorite 80s cartoon characters once the cartoon work dried up? Animator Steve Cutts gives you a bleak look into the current lives of Roger and Jessica Rabbit, He-Man, The Thunder Cats, ALF, Garfield, The Smurfs and so on. It ain’t pretty.

He-Man’s life is pretty rockin’, tho. He seems to have been smart with his money, something that cannot be said of most cartoon characters. I saw Underdog in a Starbucks recently, he looked like sh*t. Hasn’t worked steadily since 1967. I overheard him bitching about how Lorne Michaels had ruined his career…

via Laughing Squid

09.16.2014

09:17 am

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In 1982, an up-and-coming dark dance-pop band from Chicago called Ministry made its first video. The band would later go on to great fame and influence for pioneering a hybrid of industrial dance and thrashy heavy metal, but at the time of that first video shoot, they were straightforward synth-pop Anglophiles, in a career phase the band’s leader Alain (later just Al) Jourgensen would soon disown. Ministry’s evolving sounds and broken fan base were discussed at some length in this Dangerous Minds post last year, so we’ll rehash none of that here, except to say that if you’re among the many who consider the band’s early years to be artistically fallow, there’s some music at that link that may change your mind.


The early years certainly weren’t cosmetically fallow.

But back to that first video: the song was called “Same Old Madness.” It’s typical for a band’s first (or second, or ANY) video to accompany a single, but “Same Old Madness” was never released in any form. In fact, it’s seeing its first-ever appearance on physical media TODAY. Thirty-two years after the video was shot, “Same Old Madness” is finally seeing daylight as part of Cleopatra Records’ expanded reissue of Ministry’s Twelve Inch Singles 1981-1984 collection, which contains more than double the material of the original 1987 version on Wax Trax.

But there’s a wrinkle—one could justifiably argue that the song in the video has STILL never been released, as the song appearing on the expanded comp has significant variations from the one in the video. I searched for a version I could embed in this post to no avail, but the collection appeared on iTunes in advance of the physical release, and the preview of the song there has all the differences on display. It’s also on Spotify in its entirety, unsurprisingly. If you compare it to the video below, you’ll note that it has some jangly guitar added to the background of the chorus, and that the vocals are just insanely tarted up. In an effort to sort out why there were multiple recorded versions in circulation for a song the band never even saw fit to put out, I asked the band’s original keyboardist, Rob Roberts, for some history.

The session details involve working with Iain Burgess at, I think, Chicago Recording Company. And that version is the one featured in the video. The version with guitar and big vox FX added was kind of a rarity. I’m surprised to see it surface on this new release, to be honest. It’s the same basic tracks as the video version, but the guitar and FX and editing were added in Boston. It sure sounds like the same kind of editing that’s in “A Walk In the Park” and even the “Work for Love” dub/dance edits. The overdubs, arrangement and editing that appears on the Cleopatra release had zero input from Al or anyone else in the band. Al didn’t even play the guitar overdub. It was worked up by the crew back at SynchroSound in Boston with Ian Taylor behind the board. Neither my source nor I can remember exactly who played guitar, but it was either Walter Turbitt [Groove Brothers] or Elliot Easton [The Cars].

Those of you who take an interest in Ministry’s early years might enjoy Roberts’ extensive, thoughtful and informative Q&A on prongs.org. And that being said, I’ll not keep you from that early video any longer.

09.16.2014

09:03 am

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As Lemmy will tell you himself, those facial bumps are not warts they’re moles. He did have warts once, on his hands, nineteen of them with one going round his finger like a snake. But they all disappeared, one night, after he had a bath though his hands never went in the water. Or, so he claims.

Lemmy’s moles are famous. They even have their own Facebook page, with an ambition to “conquer every woman who gaze upon them.” Who knew they could be such aphrodisiacs?

They have also been the focus of much speculation from music journalists, who seem unable to resist asking why the LA-based legend has never had plastic surgery to have them removed? Usually, Lemmy just points to his mutton-chopped face and says:

What can you make out of this? What are you going to do? I think I look all right for my age, anyway.

Apart from being conversational ice-breakers, Lemmy’s moles have recently inspired one fan to make this little animation of Lemmy’s mole performing “Ace of Spades.”