Frozen Moments
“Don't ever lean your whole weight on happiness, Jimmy. You fall too hard too hard when it gives away”― Chester Himes
I was totally shocked…am in shock…upon reading of the passing of photographer and friend Peter Ellenby this week at 53 years young. While I have not seen him in a while….I mostly ran into him at shows, at friends parties before he moved to Oregon…he and I had many run-ins together, watching the “noisepop” scene of alternative 90s flourish around us. Peter was to indie pop what Charles Peterson was to Grunge, what Bill Steber is to Hill Country Blues: the chronicler, the artist who was there to visually record a scene, a culture, he was deeply a part of.
Peter Ellenby’s photos are easy to pick out, with their vibrant colors and ultra-clear foci, the movement they project from the still canvas of the photograph (yes, he worked with black and white a hell of a lot too…but in the color: that is where my favorite pics lie). Whether it be the Flaming Lips, The Automator, Creeper Lagoon, Rogue Wave, Oranger, The Muffs…Ellenby brought the sensibility of the scene to life (a great overview can be found in a book dedicated to his work, Every Day Is Saturday).
And besides that, he was a major Giants fan…something we had very much in common.
Music eras that are remembered more often than not have a person snapping shots of the bands, with a body of work defining who was in the scene…what they were doing, what they fashioned while they were doing it. Peter Ellenby’s contribution to the tapestry that makes up the story of modern music is large, and it is a tragedy that it has come to a halt so early.
It would have been Peter’s birthday today. Sending wishes of healing to his family.
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I had a life changing conversation with Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs at UC Berkeley in the 1980s, one I doubt they would remember but was deeply meaningful to me. I will get into it at another time, but just to say: I am a big fan of both of them and follow Ken Babbs on social media. He recently posted this intriguing excerpt from an interview he did in 2016:
The Pranksters were coming down from a trip once time and we were still high. The conversation came up in the morning when we were all lying on the floor, “Where do you think you go?” Neal Cassady said, “As a lapsed Catholic, I have to hope I’m still on ‘the Catholic line.’” George Walker said, “I don’t know; that’s a bag I’ve never been in.” Kesey said, “The Baptists believe we’re all going to meet again, so I’m into that.” We asked Ginsberg, “What’s the Buddhist take?” He replied, “There’s a chicken on the side of the road and he looked over at the other side and there’s another chicken. The chicken said, ‘How do I get to the other side?’ The other chicken said, ‘You’re already on the other side.’”
Kesey had gotten this job at the mental hospital (VA) in Menlo Park. He was observing these people in the wards and he was writing sketches about that. My sketches were mostly about things that I got involved in San Francisco at spoken word gatherings. Getting up and talking and documenting the reactions of the people. I was pretty square in that respect at that time. I hadn’t taken LSD yet. Kesey did in those experiments he got involved with at the hospital. He was already getting psychedelicized.
Neal Cassady was a motormouth speed rapper. He always had a point and a story to tell. Jazz is an old form, and Cassady talked about that a lot. He said he was “caught in an old dead form.”
In 1964 when Cassady came on to drive the bus, we were taping everything. We were able to do this really well, because by then we had also got movie cameras. We weren’t just taping but we were filming it as well.
At the time we thought we were going to make a movie. We were driving around in America, stopping at hole-in-the-wall places. It was all two-lane highways then. We’d mingle with the people and play our instruments. The Merry Band of Pranksters music was non-verbal communication. We would get it on with these people; it was always a wonderful scene. We’d film-tape it all and drive off. All the people would be waving and shouting. That would be a scene in the movie. Other scenes would be what happened on the bus when we were traveling. When we got done, we’d put it all together and put it out on the big screen. It would be a new kind of movie that would have never been seen before. Kind of a half fiction, half real mocku/documentary orange juice laced with LSD.
The big influence on us that you can’t dismiss was the psychedelics. You are able to go out of and back into regular time. You deal with the past, present, and future all happening at once: eternalism. You put it in an order, so people can understand it.
This also frees you in the same way as beating the lag. The two things together really became our thing that we contributed to and were part of in the 60s. It continues to exist today, even more so in music and spoken word, poetry slams, etc.
JULY 1972: MOTT THE HOOPLE RELEASES "ALL THE YOUNG DUDES"
I have always loved this story: great band hits hard times and splits up, legend swoops in to help. David Bowie not only saved Mott The Hoople, he gave us All The Young Dudes, a classic rock song 50 years ago with glitter and glam that is still soooo sweet when it comes on the radio with that iconic intro guitar by the underrated Mick Ralphs…practically regal.
Television man is crazy saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks
Oh, Man, I need TV when I've got T.Rex?
The 50 Greatest Fictional Deaths of All Time
Reading this list flooded my mind with some pretty sad memories linked to these deaths, but also…as these lists tend to do…reminded me of fictional deaths that were not there. In Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, parents Judes and Sue come home to find that their son Little Father Time had hung his two siblings and then himself: that death shocked me…still shocks me. Victor Hugo loaded Les Miserables with “great” deaths, but probably none more memorable as antagonist Inspector Javert realizing that his view on evil and justice might have been wrong and throws himself in the river. How about Jack London’s Martin Eden who jumps into the ocean and swims into the water until he ceases to be (similar to the James Mason’s Norman Maine in the Star Is Born). Oh…how about Old Yeller! Do you have a greatest death that did not make the list? Throw it in the comments section.
The Magnificent Ambersons at 80: Orson Welles’ powerful but cursed drama
Just last evening my Mom and I were remembering sitting at Hamburger Hamlet in Palm Springs when Joseph Cotton walked by us wearing a Camel Hair long coat. He was so damn debonair that even though I had no idea who he was at 9 years old, his appearance…his star power…stayed with me and I immediately recognized him when I saw him in Ambersons years later. Today is the birthday the film’s writer Booth Tarkington, and we celebrate him…his film released 80 years ago…and the flawed final product that hit the theaters. Flawed, but still so good and devastating. Orson Welles always claimed the films original ending was darker, better than what ended up in the screen…and the screen version is pretty damn dark (Major Amberson’s final scene is a must-watch, a greatest death along with Isabel Minafer’s). What a great film.
Kraftwerk’s Karl Bartos: ‘We were overwhelmed by technology’
Be warned….the Financial Times only allows you to read one article a month…so read it in one sitting….but totally worth it. I don’t remember hearing from Bartos before, discussing his stint at Kraftwerk. Loved his stories.
Voyager on steroids.’ Mission would probe mysterious region beyond our Solar System
“The only way to see what our fishbowl looks like is to be outside looking in,” McNutt says. “We need to get modern instruments out there,” adds Lennard Fisk, a space physicist at the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor. “In that sense, Interstellar Probe would be revolutionary.”
Halley's Comet
By Stanley Kunitz
Miss Murphy in first grade
wrote its name in chalk
across the board and told us
it was roaring down the stormtracks
of the Milky Way at frightful speed
and if it wandered off its course
and smashed into the earth
there'd be no school tomorrow.
A red-bearded preacher from the hills
with a wild look in his eyes
stood in the public square
at the playground's edge
proclaiming he was sent by God
to save every one of us,
even the little children.
"Repent, ye sinners!" he shouted,
waving his hand-lettered sign.
At supper I felt sad to think
that it was probably
the last meal I'd share
with my mother and my sisters;
but I felt excited too
and scarcely touched my plate.
So mother scolded me
and sent me early to my room.
The whole family's asleep
except for me. They never heard me steal
into the stairwell hall and climb
the ladder to the fresh night air.
Look for me, Father, on the roof
of the red brick building
at the foot of Green Street --
that's where we live, you know, on the top floor.
I'm the boy in the white flannel gown
sprawled on this coarse gravel bed
searching the starry sky,
waiting for the world to end.
