Young Soul Rebel

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

youngsoulrebel: You know, I saw him shirtless in _Rebel Without a Cause_, but James Dean really wasn't that muscular:

OgdruJahad333: True. At least until people who learned to draw from looking at Tom of Finland started drawing him.
youngsoulrebel: LOL

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

youngsoulrebel: You know, I saw him shirtless in _Rebel Without a Cause_, but James Dean really wasn't that muscular:

OgdruJahad333: True. At least until people who learned to draw from looking at Tom of Finland started drawing him.
youngsoulrebel: LOL

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

"Dadaists were the original hipsters, I get it, they hated anything cool and stopped doing it after it became cool. the end." -Sarah C.

"I used to press dreams between pages like moths, like flowers. Lately they flutter in through my ear and, tired, out again through my mouth." -Alejandra R.

"Just had TV license inspector round. Was obviously confused by the fact that the reason I don't have a license is because I don't have a TV. 'So what do you do for entertainment?' ... 'well, arcane things mostly, like talking to other human beings, reading, listening to music, writing, and using my imagination.' '...oh right, just sign here then please (you freak)'." -David W.

"Diana F. smells like tacos and a ruben, depending on where you sniff. Yes, she has a hard time not wearing her food. Shaddup." -Diana F.

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

a short documentary film by a seventeen-year-old African American student.

---

Completely different, but similar note story:

When I was a little kid, I was well aware that my mother abhorred racism, to the point that I recall her chewing out her own father on at least one occasion, and punching one of the neighbour women who made some comment at the K-Mart about how she had to move out "cos the neighbourhood's getting overrun with niggers". My mother, to put it bluntly, had her moments of being awesome.

That said, my father's attitude about it was more nonchalant. He had Black friends, he had Mexican friends -- the man still said "nigger" and "Spic" like my friends and I say "dumbass". For my father, it seems like it was one of those quirks of being the age he was and coming from Detroit at the time that he did — he probably didn't see it as anything worse than calling somebody a "dumbass", even though somebody who actually took more than two seconds to think about what they were saying would recognise it as a racist thing to say. In short, for somebody who was kind of racist, my father wasn't really that bad — one can say "oh, well, racism is racism" but that's only part of it. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not here to make excuses for my father or say he was a swell guy, in fact, I'm the last person alive who'd say that. But racism is definitely a measurable characteristic in many people, and it can be said, without a doubt, that my father, whi
le obviously more racist than my mother or myself, is also definitely less racist than my younger sister, who (though I haven't seen her in years to verify this), I have it on good authority has been arrested for her recent Klan involvement, which she likely married into (and thus have a very good reason not to track her down to verify this for myself).

Which brings me to Al Jolson.

I know, you may be thinking "well, Ruadhan, what does your father, an Ultach-Amerikan factory worker, have in common with a Jewish-Amerikan vaudevillian?" That's a good question.

Well, in addition to the fact that my father raised me on the old Vaudeville men like George Burns & Gracie Allen (who was a Vaudeville woman), the Marx Brothers, Jolson, and countless others I'm brain-farting on, I'm also a silent film buff. Serious, I can watch the hell out of those things, never get bored, never bitch that I can't fold my laundry while the film is going — I can make a whole day and night out of watching this shit for hours, giving them my undivided attention and only getting up to pass waste or (maybe, if i remember to) eat. I have a lot fewer on DVD than I wish I did, cos these are seriously some of the best films I've ever seen. I've even sat through the silent, three-hours-long 1927 epic Napoleon. There are very few films made after 1980 that I seriously enjoy, and only a handful made after 1970 that I list as favourites. As my room-mate can tell you, if you want to rent me a "popcorn film", grab something made before 1943, preferably
before 1938. The only exceptions I generally make are for Art Films, but those aren't "popcorn films" — those are films you have to actually think about. Colour processing ruined filmmaking, and I worship the ground Guy Maddin walks on.

But I digress....

So, I rented The Jazz Singer a couple of weeks back, and Liberty Street Video has the three-disc set. What really sold me on this three-disc set was the disc full of Vitaphone shorts from 1927-1929 — serious, I think these are some of the most amazing short films in the world. So, i logged on to Amazon.com to add this to my wish-list and, like a dumbass, I read the customer reviews.

I don't know about any of you, but i think that the idea of customer reviews on amazon.com is the worst thing to happen to the experience of buying a film. On one hand, I'd really like to approve of this idea, cos it's nice to see WHY some people gave a film five stars or one star. On the other hand, every idiot alive has the opportunity to "leave his two cents", and say any bullshit he wants to.

Now, I'm not giving Jolson's habit of performing in Blackface a pass on account of Jolson being one of vaudeville's greatest recorded tenors. Performing in Blackface, with rare exception (like making an artistic commentary on racism, or say, portraying an historical character who performed in such) is racist -- but like the intro page to The Jazz Singer booklet said, to ignore or bury Jolson's recorded Blackface performances is like pretending that they never happened. Looking at this in 2009, I see the gratuitous Blackface as trite, even for 1928, but really, to place The Jazz Singer on the same level as Birth of a Nation is intellectual dishonesty to the point of being a smear campaign.

And, despite his quirk of performing in Blackface, Jolson was amazingly anti-racist, especially for the 1920s. He practically helped jettison Cab Calloway into mainstream stardom. His funeral had an overwhelming attendance of Black entertainers, all of whom praised Jolson's de-segregation efforts in the film industry. Now, his efforts doesn't make the fact that Jolson performed in Blackface go away — but I think that his efforts to de-segregate the budding film industry, as well as other anti-racist efforts, shouldn't be overshadowed by a performance quirk that, through the times he did it, was, at worst, in poor taste when juxtaposed with his overall attitudes. Granted, Jolson's career shouldn't overshadow the careers of those Black performers he helped out, but at no point does moving forward necessitate dwelling on details when Jolson had a way with "big picture" sort of ef
forts.

And speaking of The Jazz Singer, that reminds me of this old (Black) blues guy I met briefly at the welfare hotel in Gary i briefly lived at. This guy, apparently, knew my father. It went like this:

"McElroy, huh? Where you from?"

"Originally? Toledo. My father's from Detroit, though."

"You know this little skinny guy, bout my age -but I'm better lookin'- named Ray?"

"Yeah, that was my father."

"Oh, really? You said 'was'? What happened? Who'd he mouth off to?"

"Oh, that? He had a brain aneurysm."

"Yeah, like I said, who'd he mouth off to? Oh, he was a good guy, boy just had a mouth on him -- you're his kid, you should know."

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

So, I was too distracted by the actual performances to take photos, but here's a quick re-cap of last night.

First off, the website said "doors at 8pm", so Scott and I made sure to be there on time, but according to somebody, one of the acts semi-cancelled, so they opened at nine-thirty, meaning Scott and I were hanging out outside the bar for an hour and a half, cos we had no idea what was going on. Then Scott got carded and I didn't. Gee, thanks. Scott insists he wasn't asked for his ID; I, of course, have my suspicions. I guess when you come in wearing a Lords of the New Church t-shirt, people just assume that you're old. I imagine the thought process of the door whore was something like "well, he looks fifteen and is shorter than Prince, but I guess he just ages really slow, cos there's no way you can be under 40 and know who Stiv Bators is".

Then the first act when on. I have no idea who this guy was, but he was pretty good and his band cancelled on him, but he felt obligated to go on with just him and his guitar. He threw in a couple of Lou Reed / Velvet Underground songs, and this made me happy. Then there was another band, and I have no idea who these guys were, but I think I spent most of their set smoking cos every time i tried to say something to Joe, I choked.

Then The Amino Acids. This now makes the fourth time I've seen them live. I can describe their music as "theremin-heavy Subgenius surf-punk", but their shows kind of go in the direction of "well, see, they play their music, and they wear these identical featureless masks, and they're kind of insane, and the theremin guy doesn't actually stay on-stage, cos he's running around in the audience...." As far as the Subgenius community goes, they're kind of like the heirs to DEVO, but when I say that, I mean like mid-1970s DEVO that intentionally and simultaneously pissed-off and confused their audiences.

Then enter The Bassturd. This is another performer that defies standard descriptives. As he was setting up, Scott turned to me and said "I have no idea what he plans on doing, but i can tell it's going to be cool". He set up a card table wrapped in strings of lights, and with various light-up toys on top, one of which was one of those little "message LED fans" that marquee'd "THE BASSTURD", and some electronic gizmoes that he selected mostly-programmed music with, but I think there was some live work in there. He then had the house cut the lights and turned everything on, including himself wearing all sorts of LED-light contraptions. Some of his songs were raps, some of them sounded like a cross between early DEVO and Pretty Hate Machine-era Nine Inch Nails and included a cover of "Blockhead".

Joe's set was mostly Dead Milkmen tracks, but just him and an acoustic guitar and harmonica. I pretty much knew the words to everything. I gave him a copy of New Dance, and he gave me a copy of Live From the Studio (his new album). I can't really think of why I was so shy around him, but she's only around two inches taller than me, so I don't know, I think that might have had something, cos I expect everybody to be more obviously taller than me, so it was a little disorienting. he seemed very sweet and kind of shy compared to most of the other musicians I've met.

All in all, it was a great show, even it the bill seemed a little schizophrenic. The door guy even encouraged me to take the poster and I picked up a copy of the limited-to-500 copies of The Amino Acids' Humanity Will Fall Like Pins on green vinyl.

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

So, I've updated the theme I've got here, but am still working on other parts of the blog, so things may not be fully nominal for a while. I like the way that things are currently looking, but I may re-green the theme.

For those of you who don't have it yet, Simple Man, my first novel, is back in print after three months. I was having problems with my Lulu account and things that their tech people refused to even acknowledge — but on the good side, moving it here automatically put it up on Amazon.com.

If you bought a copy at my book signing at Direct Hits last month, you may have noticed that there was a card at the epigraph promising you a copy of Simple Man for only ten dollars. Just PayPal me at the address on the card (be sure to include your address or whether or not you can pick it up from me in-town) and I'll get you your book, if you want it.

In other news, I still have a few copies of New Dance to sell, so if you want one, message me.

I'm also going to be updating sexyhobbitsuperstar.com soon and picking up my arse to update the ModCast (which I should have done last week, but whatever)

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

Well, I'm writing it off as one because, all things considered, it pretty much was.

On the good side, I have at least five copies of New Dance left, if anybody wants one signed and with the little book signing gift I spent time constructing. I'd really like to sell these in the next week, cos I need a new pair of boots.

$15 if you live in Ann Arbor or Ypslanti and i can take it to you on the bus (or you can come pick it up)

$20 elsewhere in the U$ (for shipping costs)

$25 airmail (that's only £15.37)

Signed and dedicated on request.

signed or not

signed $15.00 unsigned $15.00

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

Well, I'm writing it off as one because, all things considered, it pretty much was.

On the good side, I have at least five copies of
New Dance
left, if anybody wants one signed and with the little book signing gift I spent time constructing. I'd really like to sell these in the next week, cos I need a new pair of boots.

$15 if you live in Ann Arbor or Ypslanti and i can take it to you on the bus (or you can come pick it up)

$20 elsewhere in the U$ (for shipping costs)

$25 airmail (that's only £15.37)

Signed and dedicated on request.

Originally published at Pump It Up! a Revival ModCast. You can comment here or there.

OK, yes, I know I was going to post this yesterday, but eh, shit comes up. Actually, yesterday, I spent most of the day stressing out and goofing off to try and relieve some stress, and I didn't even give the cats their wet food, cos that was just one more stressor in my life, and as much as i love doing this, so is this podcast.

Why so stressed? Because I'm having a book signing for my second novel (the first in what I'm calling "The Mod Stories"), and I'm just anticipating nothing going right. Why? It so rarely does. I mean, already, I can tell I'm in for a real doozy, cos only today, did Lindsay tell me that my name has been added to the poster 9and this event has been secured since January, and was supposed to happen in July, but hey, last minute scheduling conflicts are like the Father Dougal to my Father Ted).

That said, if you're stuck in or (gods forbid) plan to be in the Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti, Michigan (U$A), area this Thursday, 27 August 2009, then come down to (or rather up to) The Heidelberg Club Above for Direct Hits, the area's only Mod / Trad Skin / Retro night — in fact, it's the only one I know of until you get to either Chicago or New York City. This month, the Big Event is "Bomb Pop Boutique" and will feature a gallery of local artists, a mini fashion show from The GetUp Vintage Clothing on State Street in Ann Arbor, and yours truly, hawking his second novel and selling his top-quality crap. All copies of the novel will come with a CD-R of next week's Modcast (most of which I consider to be "themes" for various characters), a set of buttons for the novel, and a hand-written coupon for $4 off my first novel (e-mail me for details).

[display_podcast]

2009-08-25
The Tabe-beatles - All's Right With the World
Nouvelle Vague - Come On Eileen
Brian Auger Trinity - In & Out
Mari Wilson - Beat the Beat
Prince - I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
The Singles - The Most Beautiful Girl
B-52s - Strobe Light
Art Brut - Direct Hit
The Chesterfield Kings - Outside Chance
Revillos - Voodoo
The Love Me Nots - Dark City
Van Morrison - Ro Ro Rosey
The Jam - English Rose
Style Council - Long Hot Summer (Club Mix)

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

Fnord!

Music used with no permission whatsoever, but I once interviewed Rodney Anonymous for a 'zine, so that's, like, well, not really anything, really....