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.
I've never tried karaoke. I don't drink much and the thought of getting in front of a barroom full of people and singing while sober is completely terrifying to me. But that doesn't mean I'm not inspired by the idea of karaoke, particularly during this election year when anything goes and probably will. GOP karaoke - it makes about as much sense as anything we've seen on the U.S. political stage thus far.
With apologies to the great Pointer Sisters, here is Trump (Vote for Trump) sung to the tune of Jump (For My Love). This version wrote itself, or rather was written in his own words, so as you sing, you ARE Donald Trump. Doesn't that sound immersive? I hope that by the time you reach the bridge, you realize how completely insane you sound and come to your senses, but if not, at least someone might buy you a round at the bar. Or kick you out. We're so divided these days.
Here you go, with an instrumental to sing along to:
Trump (Vote For Trump)
I will
build a great wall
And nobody
builds walls
better than me
I’ll build them
very inexpensively
I will build a great wall
on our southern border
Oh baby!
They’re bringing drugs
They’re bringing crime
They’re rapists and some I assume are good people
And I’ll make Mexico pay
For that wall, wall, wall!
So vote
For Donald Trump
Vote me in!
I’m very rich
Vote!
If Ivanka weren’t my daughter
Perhaps I’d be dating her
Vote, vote for Donald Trump
Vote!
My fingers are long and beautiful
Vote me in!
As are various other parts of my body
Vote!
If Ivanka weren’t my daughter
Perhaps I’d be dating her
Vote, vote for Donald Trump
The point is
I can never be too greedy
My IQ is one of the highest
Don’t feel so stupid or insecure
It’s not your fault
Oh baby!
Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture
Of Melania from a shoot in his ad
Be careful Lyin’ Ted
Or I will spill the beans on your wife!
So vote
For Donald Trump
Vote me in!
I’m very rich!
Vote!
If Ivanka weren’t my daughter
Perhaps I’d be dating her
Vote, vote for Donald Trump!
Vote!
My fingers are long and beautiful
As are various other parts of my body
Vote!
If Ivanka weren’t my daughter
Perhaps I’d be dating her
Vote, vote for Donald Trump
[bridge]:
Look at those hands
Are they small hands?
And Rubio referred to my hands
'If they’re small, something else must be small'
I guarantee you
There’s no problem
I guarantee!
Vote!
Vote me in!
If Ivanka weren’t my daughter
Perhaps I’d be dating her
Vote, vote for Donald Trump!
My fingers are long and beautiful
As are various other parts of my body
Vote me in!
I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody
and I wouldn't lose voters
Vote!
C’mon vote me in!
I need it!
Gimme Gimme!
Vote!
Vote me in!
Vote, vote for Donald Trump!
Let's not forget Ted Cruz. Or better yet, let's. *Groan,* that guy. I guess he should get a karaoke song too, but what a loser. The GOP deserves these terrible campaign songs.
Here's Ted Cruz, sung to the late, great Donna Summer's Bad Girls. I'll always love ya, Donna, and I apologize.
Ted Cruz
Toot toot
Hey, beep beep
Ted Cruz
Talk about a bad choice
Ted Cruz
What a bad, bad choice, yeah
Won’t vote for the violence against women act
Won’t support gay marriage
Even though Supreme Court ruled gay marriage is a right
States rights excuse for bigotry
Somehow worse than Trump
Is this the best
We can do?
These GOP front runners
Are full of poo
Ted Cruz
Talk about the bad choice
Ted Cruz
What a bad, bad choice, yeah
Won’t protect the environment
Doesn’t think climate change is a thing to fight
Yes to guns, no on universal health
Restrict a woman’s right to choose
Is this the best
We can do?
These GOP front runners
Are full of poooooooo
Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz
You’re such a shitty bad choice
beep beep, uh-huh
Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz
You’re such a shitty bad choice
Common Core is on your shit list
But your state textbooks are full of shit
You think you can bomb ISIS into the stone age
But that’s not how bombs work
Toot toot
Hey, beep beep
Hey Ted Cruz! Did you shut Congress down?
Ted Cruz! ‘Cause you didn’t get your way?
You can’t tantrum us back to the stone age
Planned Parenthood is here to stay
Hey Ted Cruz!
You’re Snidely Whiplash without the charm
A cartoon villain with cartoon ways
Hey Ted Cruz!
Can’t even beat Trump!
Good luck with that!
Ted Cruz
Talk about a bad choice
Ted Cruz
What a bad, bad choice
I'm working on some GOP karaoke—a sort of panicked sing-along project. What better way to absorb complete chaos-in-the-making but with a song?
Meanwhile, here's some She Mob from the last album, "Right in the Head."Mas o Menos is about a real person who had real impact on my real feelings. It's keeping it really real.
The Poseidon Adventure was in my Netflix queue for unknowable reasons and when it showed up, I asked myself am I seriously going to spend two hours of my precious time on earth watching this Irwin Allen production? The answer, of course, is yes, a thousand times yes.
For those who missed it or its Mad Magazine parody (how I initially absorbed its insanity), The Poseidon Adventure was ground zero for the genre known as the disaster epic. This is the genre that gave us Earthquake, burying Los Angeles in rubble, The Towering Inferno, about a towering inferno, Airport 1975, so fabulously parodied in Airport!, and perhaps the most beloved of all, Poseidon, the cruise ship tipped upside down by a rogue wave.
I'm guessing these movies were cathartic for an angry and traumatized public, who had survived the idealism and violence of the late 60s only to face a decade of rampant inflation,
the ongoing tragedy of the Vietnam War and the criminal-President that was
Richard Nixon. It was the perfect environment for mayhem, chaos and
against-all-odds survival. Where a star-studded cast, featuring anyone from Paul Newman to Linda Blair to O.J. Simpson and everyone in between were pitted against brutal destruction for the length of two hours, getting sweatier and dirtier and more ground down in the process. These films also pushed some VFX boundaries. Who could forget the magic of Earthquake in Sensurround—the dawn of the age of subwoofers, which have dominated our movie-theater sound experiences ever since?
The Poseidon Adventure is special because it's a metaphor. Yes, that's right, a metaphor for the current GOP election cycle unfolding before our eyes. It's almost too real, as if the GOP is actually turning upside down and falling through its own Tiffany-glass ceiling, right into the laps of the MSNBC news team who can't stop giggling about it. And who or what is this rogue wave that has upset the ship? You know the answer. Let's examine the GOP figurative death toll, Poseidon Adventure style. That's (junk) entertainment!
And now:
The GOP Poseidon Adventure
Starring Gene Hackman as Ted Cruz.
Red Buttons as Martin Kasich.
This kid as Marco Rubio.
That's Eric Shea, ubiquitous 70s' kid actor
And featuring Ernest Borgnine as Chris Christie.
Stella Stevens as Carly Fiorina.
This guy as Jeb Bush.
Waiting in the wings, Roddy McDowall as Rand Paul.
Leslie Nielsen as Mitt "Too Little Too Late" Romney.
And no one as Ben Carson because #PoseidonAdventureSoWhite
While Sanders and Clinton bide their time, watching the carnage unfold...
...and the liberal media sharpens their pencils in anticipation...
Relax, liberal media—we're just getting started.
The Grand Old Party's been pandering to the lowest common denominator for so long, they didn't see the an apocalypse of their own making on the horizon.
After years of paranoid storytime on Fox News and rabble-rousing tea-party histrionics, a rogue wave suddenly unleashes itself on the unsuspecting GOP Poseidon, en route to the White House.
The crew reacts by staring balefully into the near distance while tilting so far to the right it can never regain any semblance of balance.
"Hard left!" cries the Captain, but it's much too late
Now up is down and down is up and their only hope is for Ted Cruz to climb the Christmas tree ladder to salvation.
Alas, the Republican multitude is swallowed by the symbolic embodiment of hatred, paranoia and ignorance. No, not Satan—TRUMP.
Kasich beseeches Christie to form a coalition to oust their popular rival, but Christie has other ideas...
While Cruz forges on, for what? He says less government, but a little more regulation might have kept the ship from plowing into a tidal wave. It's all speculation at this point.
Hoping to split some votes, they invite Rubio along for the ride.
While Christie's would-be power alliance predictably backfires.
"Oh deary me!" cries Kasich. "And I courted the anti-abortion contingent so diligently too! All for naught."
Fiorina's advice to her cohorts: "See ya in the funny papers, boys!" and she's gone.
While Christie roasts in a hell of his own making...
Rubio asks "Wha- happen'?"
And an almost universally despised Cruz is left hanging.
The stunned, demoralized, hysterical and weeping right-wing can only hope there's a new dawn for the Grand Old Party.
I really don't know what I'm doing. That's art. I've never had any supreme confidence in my art abilities. I only know it's been a constant state of pleasure (and sometimes frustration) since I was able to hold a pencil upright. I'm taking an online class with Carla Sonheim to get some structure to my artwork and so far simply drawing or painting (or sanding or basically making a mess) every day has been an education in seeing objects with clarity and focus. I hope brain synapses are occurring!
Perhaps art is the ultimate god-like move: creating something from nothing. And like the star-nosed mole, it doesn't always have to be pretty or even make a lot of sense.
Some strange combinations of materials produced these images.
This little bear lives on my desk - drawn with my non-dominant (left) hand
Capybara drawn with left hand - try drawing with your "wrong" hand - it's fun and isn't supposed to look "right"
Minimalist frogs
Minimalist dodo - I love dodos - who doesn't?
A newt with jazz hands that I drew from memory with my eyes closed
An anteater drawn with eyes closed - a real day-brightener
A puffin birthday card - screw you, Hallmark
Drawn blind while looking at Velvet Underground photos (blind contour) - really captures a time and place, don't you think?
A flightless and wingless moa, extinct around 1600 - wish moas were still around
This is Claude the alligator from the SF Academy of Science
This is based on a drawing Jackson made of his bike at age 5
This is my first house in San Francisco - it's supposed to be childlike, and yeah, it is
This is another Moa - it's goofy because...art
Who doesn't respect a fish on stilts? Edward Lear drew this Fizzgiggious Fish more than a century ago
These are beginning exercises to get the class drawing without a lot of technical anxiety or perfectionism (good thing). Like when you're a kid with a box of crayons and some scrap paper. That mindset is a good starting place for all artistic play, which will hopefully lead to more thought-out ideas and a substantial body of work. Why is that important? Maybe it isn't important, but what are we supposed to do—watch reality TV until we drop dead? Probably art is a better use of our time and resources. I suspect.
David Bowie, known for many a fine grand entrance, is gone. We mourn. He leaves behind a huge artistic legacy, including his many fashion looks, imitable but never to pack the punch of their initial impact on our senses. Someone dressed as David Bowie will always be someone dressed as David Bowie and nothing more. Maybe that's why so few celebrity-types have attempted it. They're all busy trying to fly their own freak flag and good luck with that.
Still, let's enjoy some celebrity David Bowie cosplay. This was going to be a tossed-off post while I figure out what I really want to write about. It's become more of a David Bowie fashion rabbit hole and I'm just not prepared to go there. It would take years to properly write about Bowie's world of characters and the clothes they wore and the people he collaborated with to achieve those goals. This is not that post.
Cherie Currie as Bowie - from her revised 2010 biography Neon Angel, written with Tony O'Neill
Currie related to Bowie as a power symbol after she experienced a traumatic incident as a young teen.
She dressed as him again in 2000.
Currie pays tribute.
Kate Moss, who was Bowie's friend, wore his actual Ziggy Stardust bunny-rabbit playsuit to collect his 2014 Brit Award as best male singer. She looks great. But she could make a frock made of dish rags look stunning. Best to leave this look to the professionals.
Who wouldn't want to sport this summery ensemble poolside?
Jessica Lange, channeling Marlene Dietrich via David Bowie on American Horror Story Freak Show.
And finally here's Lady Gaga Exposed's channel's SUPER-INTENSE look at everyone Lady Gaga's ever copied (or paid homage to, depending on your reading of her multiple ch-ch-ch-changes), including Bowie, but just about everyone else on the planet as well. This took a lot of research and features one INTENSE techno track, so give it up, for "Lady Gaga Copies/EXPOSED/Grammys 2010."
And if you'd rather listen to something else while watching Lady Gaga copy or pay homage to everyone who's ever existed, here's an alternative soundtrack to play. Don't say I never gave you options.
