No, no, no, not Prince - GIFs

Prince is gone. How can death be so cruel? Rest, sweet Prince. We will miss your jams, your style, your uncanny ability to appreciate and distill those that came before you and influenced your singular sound. Such heartbreak over our lost musical geniuses in 2016.

Prince wasn't your typical once-in-a-lifetime musical genius, but a control freak extraordinaire. It was part of his aesthetic. Over the years, I would enjoy finding Prince videos on the Internet just to see how long it would take for his long lace-ruffled arm to reach out and yank them off for violating copyright. He was all-powerful—a nattily styled wizard of sound. Those videos would usually be gone from the Internet anywhere from between 40 minutes to one day after discovery.

What control he had. And he kept releasing the tunes, chug, chug, chug, like Prince's musical factory of sound, all streaming from his head 24/7. No wonder he felt competitive with the Internet. He was so musically astute, he was like a human Internet. You could hear bits of everyone from the history of R&B, pop and rock in the Prince catalog, filtered through his lively mind. He was giving it out on his terms his entire career.

Thank you, Prince. We will miss you terribly.


















I give this video two to three days to exist here. I just have to believe he can still yank it away at will.

Au Revoir, David Bowie - GIFs

David Bowie went out a champion. He buckled down and did what he always did: made some good music from his heart. Someone on one of my social-media timelines had recently posted this video of his first television appearance, performing Space Oddity, looking good in a flowery shirt and very flared trousers.




And linking to that was his Lazarus video, which I'll link to rather than embed here since it's too sad to watch today. Anyway, yesterday I thought I should watch some of the new Bowie videos. They were deemed "creepy" by the media when they first came out, so I had avoided them for a few weeks, not being in the mood for creepy Bowie. But I buckled down and gave them a listen, walking around my small office/art space, puttering, organizing things, blowing dust around, thinking: these songs are about death, particularly Bowie's death. And they're very disturbing, facing a destruction none of us personally want to contemplate.

I'm going to be 52 this year. I'm on the other side of the hill, so to speak. Death's closer to me, rather than farther, at least in theory. Bowie's dealing with all that, I thought—like he's always dealt with everything he's going through—composing it in a pop milieu. Good for him! That's brave, I thought.

And now it's today and he's gone.

But he was always brave. He came out as bisexual early in his career (it took him a little longer to gain success compared to many of his young compatriots, giving him time to take on and succeed in the nearly impossible long form of pop culture), he dressed in drag, kind of ironically but with bold, fierce irony, pointing the finger at us, pointing the finger at homophobic society.




And letting his inner alienated spacenaut out, which in turn let his young fans know it's possible to turn alienation into an art form. It helps to be supremely musically talented and photogenic, but Bowie was so busy messing with his good looks in theatrical and startling ways, that his gifts seemed beside his point. "I'm a weirdo and I'm not ashamed," was his credo. It was dark but very refreshing in the conformist U.S. I don't know how Great Britain took it all in initially—that's always been a land of creative eccentrics. But here in the U.S.A.,  my brother-in-law's otherwise "cool" middle-school teacher editorialized a news story about Bowie with, "He's a FAG!" Bowie was very liberating from that way of thinking, for a lot of us.

He also called out MTV on their racist playlist in 1983. You could say, well, any white celebrity could have done that—big deal. But the fact was, he was the only white celebrity I can recall who did. And did it well. He marched forward in a thoughtful, artistic way, always. And for such a visually minded person he was supremely musical—a modern-day genius on several levels.

A beautiful body of work. That's all we can hope to leave behind.

Not a Bowie original, but like all great singers, he made it his own. Wild is the Wind (1976).




GIFs—they've been sitting in a folder on my computer for a long time. Here you go.















Time May Change Me illustration by Helen Green.

Eagle Attacks Trump GIFs

Here they are, just in case you need them.

Watch Trump slide away, his face squished down like a tossed-aside sock puppet, his little claw-like hands dithering across the desk for all of eternity. It is proper. It is right.







Thank you Time Magazine, for releasing this video and thank you bald eagle for trying to annihilate the nasty orange rat man.

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.

Showgirls Animated Gifs Will Class Up Your Joint

I've waited a long time to unleash this post upon the world. But I think it's time. Call it a feeling in the gut, one that's by turns nerve-wracking and nausea-inducing. That's why I waited. But the time is upon us. I'm working on a screenplay and Showgirls is an inspiration—of what not to do. Ever.

Perhaps you've seen Showgirls and thought to yourself, GOOD GOD, THIS IS A ONE-HUNDRED-PERCENT BAD MOVIE. It is. But having worked on films in all facets of production, I know something you might not. It's a lot of work to make a feature-length film. But you might not know how much work it takes to make a movie this bad. It doesn't just happen, like a climate-change-induced hurricane disaster.

Every facet of the film must be wrong, or off. The combination of drugs and alcohol-fueled "creativity" must be just so. It takes experimentation to get that correct—like all chemical outcomes. The script must be coherent enough so that future generations recognize what's supposed to be happening, even if none of it makes sense. The dialogue must be ridiculous but never dull. The stars must be mis-directed and suitably fame-hungry for maximum scenery chewing. The set design must be eye-popping but somewhat thrown together, as if by a high-school-musical stage crew, coming down from cheap crank. The editing must be pedestrian, never calling attention to itself, like a forgotten episode of Starsky and Hutch. Most importantly, the director must have complete conviction in his vision, no matter how inane.

Showgirls has all that and more: Vulgarity on parade! Bad vibes! Sexuality as grotesque spectacle! What's not to like? Thanks to all the gif-makers out there in Internet-land.

Let's do this!




Whee!








Classic meet-cute!




Romance!








Frustration!




Intrigue!






Artistry!




Corruption!




Kyle MacLachlan's butt!




Retribution!






Personal growth.




Realizing the dream!




And finally, a learning experience.

Animated Cat GIFs Because I Like Attention

The Internet and cats—an endless love affair! Posting these animated cat gifs will put me on the path of winning worldwide popularity and soon my future as an international tastemaker will be assured. I'd much rather focus on that than admit that I've gathered these gifs and am profiting from them here, even though I had nothing to do with their creation. It's not about creation, but aggregation. And branding. And SEO. And diagonal venture-market-Web 2.0-building. And cute widdle whiskers.

Business Cat - this reminds me of a dream I had where my cat got a job at Walgreen's, but every time customers asked him questions, he just sat, staring and blinking at them from behind the counter.



Have you ever had an imperfect customer-service interaction? Perhaps this is why:



A cat gambling addiction is a serious matter. But oh so cute.



Cat space jump is good for yet another WTF moment.



Cat with rats peaceable kingdom gif.



Maru is probably the most famous cat on the Internet and with good reason. He's the Cary Grant of cats.



This dumb pre-Internet guy I once semi-dated claimed that cats were incapable of having facial expressions. How Wrong He Was.






Oh, cats. Don't ever change!






Thank you, Internet.

Dance GIFS Are Especially Animated

Dance GIF Thursday—I just made that up. It's not a constant thing. It's just for today. But Dance GIF Thursday will always live on in our hearts, minds, and nervous systems. Now here are some hand-picked dance GIFs for you and yours.

Start us off, Hugh Jackman, ultimate song and dance man.




What if the dance scene from Pulp Fiction had a 90s-rave mashup feel to it? This answers the question that no one thought to ask.




This day-glo dinosaur needs to dance. Who would stand in its way?




Pete Campbell does a wicked little dance of selfish glee. Always loathsome yet pitiful, and sometimes delightfully so on Mad Men.




Why mow the lawn when you can dance-mow the lawn instead?




Advertising blow-up man interpretive dance. We love you, modern age.




Bill Haverchuck doin' his thing in Freaks and Geeks.




Racoons—they only dance at night.




Go, Ava Gardner, go!




Paul Rudd always makes a grand dance entrance.




Eddie Izzard and Craig Ferguson GET DOWN.




And into the fairy dawn...



As is usually is the case with animated GIFs, it's hard to give credit where credit's due. If you made any of these—way to be! Send me a line and I'll give you a credit.