Random Image Post with Random Ramblings

I was tidying up today. Got rid of a ton of bulky clothes, file folders full of old property deeds and all sorts of this-and-that. One folder was labeled: Fancy Paper, and it was full of just that: handmade papers, containing pulp, flecks, leaves and string. It symbolized so much of what I choose to keep, give away, or toss. I kept the fancy paper, but the old tax records—they will go (in five years).

I cleaned up my digital files as well and here's some random images I came upon. I'm keeping all this, you betcha. Commentary is strictly off the top of my head. Anyone looking for images: this is what I call my "SEO stew."

Does anyone remember the 1970 Sid and Marty Krofft show The Bugaloos? It's pretty awful. These British fairy-folk and their ugly little pal, Sparky with a light-up butt, live in a Tranquility Forest, playing in their power-pop band while teaching lessons about sharing and not being afraid and tripping as hard as is humanly possible. 

A touching scene from The Bugaloos

And now the theme song will be stuck in your head for all of eternity:




Flower power to the MAX.




What else? Recently I read Lawrence Wright's dread-inducing expose, Going Clear - Scientology, Hollywood, & The Prison of Belief. Oh my God—madness, manipulation, mind control. Plus beat-downs, extortion, bullshit, and much about this entitled, unofficial spokesperson:

Gaaah!

This image, from a leaked Scientology-produced interview, is so terrifying to me—like someone possessed in a Stephen King book. Doesn't Tom Cruise look like he wants to eat you? And chew on your soul for a while, like it's a piece of soul jerky. And then afterward pick his teeth with a gold toothpick manufactured by hundreds of Scientologist children, who labored in the high desert mountains for years, panning and digging and trawling for minerals, only seeing their Sea Org-bound parents twice a year, and for only a few minutes at a time, while inexperienced minions barely watched over them, having signed billion-year contracts to...

Oh, Jesus. Just read the book. It's truly horrible what this "religion" does to its followers.



And while you're at it, see The Master, which won't admit it's about that schizophrenic-spectrum sociopath, L. Ron Hubbard, but it is.




Ahh, look at Dinosaur Jr., before they were Dinosaur Jr. They started out in 1985 as Dinosaur, but this band of old musical farts from San Francisco, called The Dinosaurs, threatened to sue these three young fellows from Massachusetts over name infringement.

So they changed their name and were thoroughly great and a big influence on grunge, a few years down the road. J Mascis played guitar like he was channeling every radio hit from the '70s into one lunatic sonic boom featuring the ultimate in blistering guitar solos. He called it psychedelic country. Good deal.

Look, the Jackson 5. I loved the Jackson 5 so much when I was a kid. They brought great musical joy into my life. Michael was so phenomenal. His dad told everyone he was eight years old when he was really eleven, just to make him seem that much more amazing, but that was unnecessary (and unethical). We could all see and hear how amazing he was. The amount of hours and yes, misery, it must have taken to get the Jackson kids to this level of professionalism cannot be underestimated. I mean, I can't get my kid to watch The Iron Giant with me, though I know he'd love it. Perhaps growing up in a tiny house in Gary, Indiana is its own motivation.

Do you know how many hours my friends and I spent doing The Robot to this song? Untold hours.



Have we reached maximum SPIROMANIA yet?

Hell yeah, Spirograph

OK, one more. Now that I've cleaned up a little around here, it's time for some light dusting and vacuuming. I like to look my best while I clean house, because then I feel at my best. And that's what counts.