caseymckinney.blogspot.com

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2011-08-17T20:26:00.002-04:00

Antonio Urdiales R.I.P.

Blur - Beetlebum (Sen Kväll Med Luuk 1997)

2011-03-21T22:39:00.000-04:00

The MAKE UP - I am Pentagon (live NPA)

2011-03-21T22:36:00.000-04:00

Контракт

2011-03-07T22:15:00.000-05:00

via Yeasayer's word...

Mogwai - How to Be a Werewolf (in Thirty Century Man)

2011-02-15T19:22:00.000-05:00

new Mogwai...yes...

The Dickies - Banana Splits

2011-02-11T11:22:00.000-05:00

Rowan's favorite new song... He's been La La La'ing the last 3 days

slade - merry christmas everybody

2010-12-20T10:01:00.000-05:00

Desire Be Desire Go - Tame Impala

2010-12-12T18:00:00.000-05:00

Sparks Make Me Happy

2010-05-12T13:14:00.002-04:00

Yep, still the number 1 song in Heaven. Other cool shit from other people the last two days I've discovered, from Eric Ohrenshall - The Cardiacs "Tarred and Feathered" and thanks Annalisa Jablonska for posting this Selfish Cunt video on DC's.

And finally maybe my favorite ditty from Dark Side of The Moon, redone by The Flaming Lips (yes this is good, and yes there was a point to doing this...and Peaches, well she belts the vocals here, was surprised when I saw her name on the album, now I know, who else could do that today? In that way?) Listen here. Still, $25 for the album? Nahhh...but I'd go see it done live:

Bobby Conn Makes Me Happy

2010-04-29T22:51:00.001-04:00

Save The Arts Protest - 2/19/10

2010-04-22T12:26:00.011-04:00

State Arts funding cut by 88% from fiscal year 2008 but GA retains its Council on the Arts and therefore our NEA status, thanks in part perhaps to a spontaneous protest http://bit.ly/9ZncWS that Robin, Rowan and I and several friends attended Monday; the following day the State Senate voted and saved our federal status, but GA's support for the arts is still shameful, and we need more activism like this.

Iceland Volcano Uke Song

2010-04-22T03:28:00.002-04:00

I gotta get practicing again. Think she has the same uke as me.

Rowan, 34 Hours old, and I (no sleep till...)

2010-04-13T23:39:00.002-04:00

Me and George Kuchar, whoo-hoo!

2010-04-13T22:54:00.027-04:00

Imagining an excuse to blog this image, late as it is - hey I just saw Pussy On A Hot Tin Roof (1961)!... no I'm just on 'Tulsa Time' or something, dunno:

Should have posted the shitload of Art Basel Miami 2009 photos that I took on our trip last year. Never did. I got press passes for all the events and then treated it more like a relaxed buying opportunity, though I had no money (still used to that leveraged buying - oh so 2006 - isn’t that what credit cards do? Allow us peons a glint at similar beyond our means opportunities in the big Capitalism game as the big brokerage houses, like Hank Paulson’s Goldman 'Slacks' wields? although we don’t get bailed out and then allowed to pay back loans at no interest?... Yeah that's about right.

But I did have a lot of interest in the art this year. Though this intentionally outsisde/inside piece below may have been the smartest - William Powhida’s “Hooverville.” Yes look for Goldbug there along with Jerry Saltz and the corpse of Jerry Garcia (maybe).   

No let me go through what I got off this old drive - had lost the USB cord on a camera and finally bought a universal flash card reader at Target today for $5. FIVE BUCKS! Somewhere in this, if I’d written it smarter, is a Baldessari. Or something... JK.    

You wouldn’t want repeat viewings of this meaningless diatribe, one big excuse for wasting a journalist’s free vantage and neck hanging passes. I just felt like a toad doing all that, being a... and wanted some fresh art, maybe spend a grand for something. I’ll tell you who I would have done that on... But first just wanted to drop that proud pic with George Kuchar that happened randomly, not long after I saw New Image Art’s (they provided a nice chunk of Mall Punk) Marsea Goldberg (and old L.A. friend Nicole Livingston helping her booth.)    

Weird. I can’t even remember which fair this was, but it was the most punk rock. Next day I learned the press pass people for Basel proper have a stick way up their craws/arses. They wanted a pound of liver to get in, and in the end I showed them the worst, most goofed up, printed version of a page of our site and it worked... go figure.   

NADA on the other hand, hosted from the hotel where we stayed, was superkind, and had a great pool. Deauville was a bit out of the way from the rest of Miami's shenanigans, but nicely so; Have to say they could work on party planning (an hour wait to trade in a booze button)... but oh well, we were 'expecting' then. And I had to show some decorum.

So enjoy this one personal pic. If I get time maybe I'll add more from the now almost ancient vaults. Until then..

Bono's The Worst Investor "Ever" ('Cept Maybe Me)

2010-03-27T00:48:00.014-04:00

Just read this. And I love U2, always have, from Boy on, and Bono is a world gent, one of few, but in a moment of satirical trepidation when it came to his omnipresent amount of charity work, I penned this (literal) sonnet (had a bad habit of those for a while) on 8/12/2006 (comes out more like a limerick, appropriate in the Irish context). God bless him (looks good as the pope huh)... btw this was months prior to the South Park episode that broaches the same themes (they should owe me, ha), and again seriously I've long admired Bono, but can't we laugh/knock sometimes our idols? our darlings as Luc Sante would have it?:

Bono My Hero
by Casey McKinney

You noticed this trend lately? The Bono thing?
Bono on Bukowski, Bono on Cohen,
Bono at the Superbowl, the White House,
Bono running for World Bank President.

The other day I had to shit real bad -
kind with no time to check for paper first.
Hurried, fearing Hershey squirts - just made the
bathroom. Then spied that naked, cardboard tube.

Now what to do? Had a girl on my couch,
flipping magazines, waiting next moves, so
thought fast - what would Jesus...no...Bono do?
That famed Irish ass painted with doo-doo?

Cellphoned 911: "Dublin please?...U2?"
Then, no shit, in a jif, BONO CAME THROUGH.

Should have never touched that Palm investment Bono, but what do I know, I may be a worse investor.

Cheers, CM.

Untuned the Uke! (I want Pavement Tix)

2010-03-11T23:24:00.008-05:00

This is so bad it should be in honor of Corey Haim. And that comment is so bad I should be boiling in hell like a tasty lobster. Well I Am Uke Hell, in Pavement ticketless hell. Ordinarily, without a tater tot in tow, I would just make a road trip to NY and see them in the park this summer, but I am not paying $200 to a scalper here, hmmm...maybe I should write Matador. There should be a bad Pavement Lip Sync contest, judged by INSYNC... Anyway I could do worse. This is rather sedate and not actually playing along here (still learning the uke, but did a better version of this and Frontwards, oh well, maybe I'll post that later). My goal here is not to be a musician, it's a modern folk relation, and um.... mood documentation, or as they say "Niceene Creedence" in Psychology, the Adler School? The Box Elder School?

Tuned the Uke!

2010-03-10T21:05:00.002-05:00

Yeah here's to a long loving relationship with 4 strings. I guess.

Cats

2010-03-10T00:24:00.008-05:00

Just had a beautiful baby, and it's not quite like Marley and Me where I kinda want to get rid of a dog, (dog is fine) I'm talking two cats. I am allergic to them and I can only be a martyr in certain ways right now (Rowan you are a joy every moment, and I'm not talking of getting rid of the cats for your sake so to speak, but then again...) hmmmm...driving this cat out to, like in the video... oh I could never do that, anyone want a cat or two? Someone real sweet? Otherwise Rowan will have a bad breathing father his whole life... Ah Sebadoh, nice Barlow bass regardless. Ride a darker wave. Hello tomorrow today.

God I sound like that All In The Family woman. Nevermind. Let's go down in flames, me anyway. I'm PADI certified, I can deal, dive deep.

Note: I guess Google Buzz now preempts comments here. Anyway Christin, they gotta go as a set. 2 Cats For You (pretend that's in the soup nazi voice).

Damn You Mean Rimbaud is Out?

2010-02-03T10:27:00.009-05:00

Okay okay, so I am so unhip now I am just getting hip to the viral blog "Unhappy Hipsters." Funny, it seems though that most of the pictures come from Dwell magazine, and I know friends who were paid well to write (not shoot) for Dwell magazine. And getting paid well to write is a rare good thing. Is Dwell defunct now? I guess now that the economy has tanked, people in some of those fishbowl type condos are really gonna feel like fish (in poker terms that means "sucker"). Well of all the goofy names we have thought of for the kid, can now also cross off Rimbaud, ha, jeez, though we never considered it. It's been a Rimbaud week though. Again see creepy cool reanimated Rimbaud in a previous post below. And then see this pic (and flip through others) from Unhappy Hipsters. Again there needs to be a new term here, 'cause you use it enough and eventually it'll mean "cool" again in retrospect (think beatnik, yippie, hippie, punk). Should just say "douche" to differentiate and be done with it. Now that's cross generational.

Plastic Jesus (long version) - iPhone.m4v (size)

2010-01-28T16:24:00.008-05:00

In honor of Paul Newman who died a little over a year ago, September. And The Flaming Lips who covered it in brief (just burned The Soft Bulletin for a fellow man named Coyne who'd never heard them), and to David Carradine RIP too, for his part in Death Race 2000, one of the best movies ever. And to plastic Jesuses everywhere. I’ve never heard the long version of this, I don’t think. Newman doesn’t do the whole bit right? Just remember him eating all those eggs, poor thing. Now I put his dressing on Spinach salad (with eggs…his spirit lives!)

Anyway, first take and not sure why it counts like every 6th frame here. Maybe that’s for the best, but funny cause my lips don’t seem to move. Ah plastics. Maybe I’ll get some plastic ones one day. For some real lip moving action and more poetry (from Rimbaud) see previous post.

In case you are wondering, I'm not even drunk. Haven't had a sip in weeks, ha. It's nigh baby time! and I'm getting fit.

Chords as I play them are: C F C G.

And Lyrics by…? I dunno, I'll look that up:

Plastic Jesus

I don't care if it rains or freezes
As long as I've got my Plastic Jesus
Glued to the dashboard of my car,
You can buy him phosphorescent
Glows in the dark, he's Pink and Pleasant,
Take him with you when you travel far.

I don't care if it's dark or scary,
Long as I have magnetic Mary,
Ridin' on the dashboard of my car,
I feel I'm protected amply,
I've got the whole damn holy family,
Riding on the dashboard of my car.

You can buy a Sweet Madonna
Dressed in rhinestones settin' on a
Pedestal of abalone shell,
Goin' ninety, I'm not wary
'Cause I've got my Virgin Mary,
Guaranteeing I won't go to Hell.

I don't care if it bumps or jostles
Long as I got the twelve ppostles
Bolted to the dashboard of my car
Don't I have a pious mess
Such a crowd of holiness
Strung across the dashboard of my car

No, I don't care if it rains or freezes,
Long as I have my plastic Jesus,
Riding on the dashboard of my car,
But I think he'll have to go,
His magnet ruins my radio,
And if we have a wreck he'll leave a scar.

Riding through the thoroughfare, with his nose up in the air
A wreck may be ahead, but he don't mind
Trouble coming, he don't see,
he just keeps his eyes on me
And any other thing that lies behind
Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus, riding on the dashboard of my car

Though the sun shines on his back makes him peel, chip, and crack
A little patching keeps him up to par
When pedestrians try to cross I let them know whose boss
I never blow my horn or give them warning
I ride all over town, trying to run them down
And it's seldom that they live to see the morning

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus Riding on the dashboard of my car
His halo fits just right and I use it as a sight
And they'll scatter or they'll splatter near and far
When I'm in a traffic jam he don't care if I say Damn
I can let all sorts of curses roll
Plastic Jesus doesn't hear, for he has a plastic ear
The man who invented plastic saved my soul

Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus riding on the dashboard of my car
Once his robe was snowy white, now it isn't quite so bright
Stained by the smoke of my cigar
God made Christ a Holy Jew
God made Him a Christian too
Paradoxes populate my car

Joseph beams with a feigned elan
From the shaggy dash of my fur lined van
Famous cuckold in the master plan;
Naughty Mary, smug and smiling,
Jesus dainty and beguiling
Knee-deep in the piling of my van;

His message clear by night or day
My phosphorescent plastic Gay
Simpering from the dashboard of my van.

When I'm goin' fornicatin'
I got my ceramic Satan
Sinnin' on the dashboard of my Winnebago Motor Home
The women know I'm on the level
Thanks to the wild-eyed stoneware devil
Ridin' on the dashboard of my Car
Sneerin' from the dashboard of my ...
Leering from the dashboard of my van.

If I weave around at night
And the police think I'm tight,
They'll never find my bottle, though they ask;
plastic Jesus shelters me, For His head comes off, you see--
He's hollow, and I use Him for a flask.
Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car: Ride with me and have a dram,
Of the blood of the Lamb, Plastic Jesus is a holy bar.

Arthur Rimbaud "Ophélie" French Poem Animation

2010-01-28T05:31:00.004-05:00

Almost a joke, but actually good... Like as I just said on Dennis' blog, better than a wax model, or like how they want to bring the wooly mammoth back to life, but here it's in motion 2D. I wonder how many of these reanimations of the dead are out there. More from this dude here: http://www.youtube.com/user/poetryanimations

Hunting for the next Carson McCullers, etc

2010-01-05T13:00:00.021-05:00

Am on the road looking for Southern writers for Joyland.Ca, the Joyland South hub, which I am now editing (I guess you can say you are editing when you are still looking for submissions and haven't posted anything yet?). And, actually I am not on the road. And this hat I've had since I was about, what, 10 or 11?, somehow inherited from my dad when my parents split up. And maybe it makes me look country. I don't know. And that picture is from 5 years ago when I was moving to NY from San Francisco with Mike Louie. No direction bound or home, oh so Bob Dylan - actually more Ramblin' Jack Elliot, I mean I wasn't suffering any arthritis blues there, but had just gotten knocked 40 feet in the middle of the street a couple months prior by a speedy motorcycle of my...heart (head, nuts...got one of my nuts...swole up like a softball then stopped working... you don't want to hear this, but the other is hearty, working double time as I'm/we're/Robin and I are looking forward to a bouncing (are they always bouncing if healthy?) baby boy in February.

Well I hope Brian and Emily at Joyland can put up with my... um... I mean I do have that methodical Southern slowness quality, even though I've lived largely in California (slow too, in it's own respect, surfer calm) and NY (fast, real fast) since I could... But no it's good to be back in Atlanta. Am excited about a lot of southern writers I am discovering, remembering those I've known are still Southern and getting back in touch with or meeting new bloggers (God isn't HTML Giant the explosion blog of 2009? (Practical neighbor) Blake Butler alone read 106.2 books last year and made a hell of a sculpture out of them - much more constructive than any frat/hipster PBR sculptures. See pic/list here * - btw am gonna retire the word 'hipster' this decade. It's thrown around too much by journalists who I think would rather be having a beer with some cute hipster rather than doing the social commentary they've been assigned to. Hell, I try to be hip, when I'm not too busy being a geek).

Which reminds me (see that last ellipsis, I got a buttload of geeking out to do to prepare for this, mostly reading. Fanzine took a nice little break for about a week there and I can't believe we actually had about a full month last month, with all the holidays and other shenanigans.

So here's to a New Year, new decade, one I hope fraught with less deception and violence, but who knows. I'm seeing words, writers, blogs and books growing stronger, all across, not weaker, and that's, well, it's crucial. Last decade was a hefty transition in publishing, but I see good, good vibrations now and in the future (maybe you already have a jumpstart on seeing this too if you also spent last decade learning how to filter all the B.S.).

-Casey

* also notice on that link above, Butler's best of the decade and Dennis Cooper's best of 2009. Best book I read last year was Derek McCormack's The Show That Smells. Have always loved his writing, since I was turned on to him 6 or 7 years ago or so, but this was a revelation. And he's, although Canadian, officially adopted as a Southerner in my book, um.. country and western anyway, ha...

The End of The Aughts (back to) The Beginning of the Aughts

2009-11-18T21:18:00.007-05:00

The Two Thousands(1), it's too complicated to say, right? Seems people have settled on the term "the aughts." Which is fine. It's been an overall shitty ass decade if you asked me. Even before September 11th and the paranoia that subsequently, quickly, ensued over this land, all was not beginning right. A dubious election had been held, many felt stolen. A second intifada quickly began raging in Israel/Palestine. Amidst this, a band called The Strokes released an album and then re-released it with one song cut from the LP - "New York City Cops," whose chorus repeats those four words a few times and then croons (ha... crooning about cops): "They ain't too smart."

Now had NYC not been attacked on 9/11/01, and thusly had so many police officers not lost their lives, the song would have come across as yet another throwback for The Strokes' sound, which borrowed from late 70's powerpop, mixed with a Feelies angularity and speed, and a Johnny Thunderish postpunk play on the same era of downtown New York rock; but coming from uptown prep school kids with the smarts, looks, and damnit - you couldn't help but admit they were cool....aggh....ahhh, ahem. First time I saw them in San Francisco, I remember the band playing a very short, and not the greatest set (looking back on it), but the crowd went wild, ate it up. And afterwards, at the bar, of course Julian Casablancas has to walk up in his white suit, aloof, and start talking to my girlfriend, giving me this looking awry handshake dismissal. (Oooh… Well I wasn't gonna be upstaged by these kids. Nope not gonna meet them for drinks later. WTF…?

Looking back on it, he might have done me - and her - a big favor.)

(for the rest click here...)

I Wanna Job

2009-11-04T18:33:00.021-05:00

...But seriously folks, a day job? That pays 3 figures? That would be nice. I'll still do Fanzine at night. See we got this baby on the way and... God it took me forever to figure out where this clip of this goofy song came from, the song in my head. But that's why I haven't blogged in forever here, was superstitious once I found out Robin was pregnant, but 24 weeks into it, we know it's a boy, and he seems healthy from the sonograms. Baby names are maybe the next blog. And let's see if The Yanks can put away the Phillies tonight, which will make Robin's mom happy. See back in the day, before the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta, the Yankees were the team everyone saw on TV, with Mantle and Dimaggio and so on, so as much as people outside of NY like to say they hate the Yankees, there's quite a few Georgians who are rooting for them. A former New Yorker myself and always one at heart, I am too. And see I want the kid to have a baseball kind of name, worthy of the sport, like Sandy Kofax or Coco Crisp or Rolly Fingers. Baseball names are quite rock and roll. So even if he hates sports. Just something incredibly unique since we'll be up to 9 billion on the planet before too long. It's tough. Or maybe it's best to go with something very normal - a la John Jakob... so it'll be harder to google. To to be googled, or not to be googled? That is the question ("Hamnet" was already ruled out btw).

"It's time that we grow old and do some shit..."

The Hidden

2009-06-06T19:26:00.030-04:00

Just saw Sam Raimi's brilliant Drag Me To Hell, read Dennis Cooper's painfully brilliant Ugly Man, and watched this on Netflix, The Hidden (1987) under Jack Sholder's direction.

Needless to say I am starting to get a kind of evil Cesar Romero style Joker's laugh going on this week. Oh and have been reading Flannery O'Connor and Pasolini, so been fooling around with the crazy thought that it might be a fun good idea just to go ahead and become Catholic. I mean with my Irish roots, it seems the Caseys must have gone awry somewhere.

Oh and got a good Tarot reading from Jesse Bransford last night. A Crowley Thoth version. And every card seemed to funnel seamlessly into the next with the princess of wands as the perfect axis bridging the Celtic Cross from the 1 of Cups to the Sun. I'd say the rest, but don't want to jinx myself.

Anyway, this movie, The Hidden, starring Kyle Maclaughlin, is an overlooked sci-fi cop/buddy/partner genre masterpiece. I had to look up Jack Sholder afterward to see his other credits, and found he did Nightmare on Elm Street 2, which may be, in tarot structural terms, the most important card of the series, the keystone, as it breathed new life into Freddy's tenure and ensured his further dominance of screens and the terror consciousness of teens everywhere. I love the bus scene below (compare to Sholder's other opener above):

I saw Nightmare 2 in the theater before ever seeing the original (and this is filler for the blog, not gonna get too analytical, but I could). Enjoy that first clip, wish you could see the scene in the bank that comes before. As the credits role, and the crappy titles come up over a grainy P.O.V. shot from a security cam, I thought, oh great Robin rented a crappy lo-fi movie and I was wanting to watch the big budget Frost/Nixon further down in the cue.

Then when the sawed off comes out, the buck shot starts to fly, and the ferrari screeches through LA (MacArthur Park et al) as the tapedeck is playing something sounding like Iron Maiden? (no Shok Paris was the band) - I was like yes! Big Yes, as the first version of the alien starts running over people David Carradine style (RIP...great way to go out Mr. Kung Fu btw, kudos...btw Mike isn't Death Race 2000 better than Cannonball?). After Blue Velvet and Pre-Twin Peaks this is also one of MacLaughlin's best.

Ave Maria

2009-05-28T15:42:00.030-04:00

Back in March, three months ago, when the market was about as low as it was in November of 2008 (and I mean LOW, like on the verge of a depression low), Jon Stewart brought Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money on The Daily Show and berated him and his company for quite a while.

It was an ambush, and Jim took it alright, laughed it off a bit (I like Jim Cramer in a way that's hard to explain, though I've called him our era's Rasputin before on the Fanzine blog), but when he fell back among his troops at the network (owned by GE, which is up over 100% since March 2009 to date) they were ready to fight.

I've been following all of this for a while. I lost a good bit in the market last year, mostly betting on Apple which is on the rise again. I should'a learned from my punk roots and stayed away from corporate business of any kind. But it's so enticing. I mean Joey Ramone even fell for it before he died, writing a love song to CNBC's beautiful and talented Maria Bartiromo. A strange marriage that would be, right?

I did a follow up sonnet when I heard the song on this last album (the video is some fan's mashup).

And that AOL stock, Joey it didn't do to well, sorry man (if you care from the beyond).

And the other day I about spit up my coffee when I saw this video on CNBC. It was an apotheosis level comeback to Stewart's CNBC rant. In Bartiromo's "I am CNBC" bio (shot skilfully in black and white, with all the right expressions and slow mo, and blur, and tightness when right) she mentions among all her other triumphs in life, from being a hat check girl for her father's business that a "pop song" had been written about her (hmmm, which could that be, always wondered what she thought of Joey's ode).

CNBC is damn good at arguing a bull market. And Bartiromo's ad inspires about as much hope in me as a good Obama one can. However, and I hate to be the naysayer, but I think the current rise is bunk - wait till summer vacation, which comes soon. Either all the dark pools of capital will sneak in and buy and build false hope (to prep for the big short rain come September like they did last year), or the shorts will have a field day taking the market down lower than it's been yet in a year.

Still gotta hand it to Maria. Here's that poem btw (maybe it's misogynist in tone, I apologize, didn't mean to be, that's how it came out rushed, and she admits herself her toughness; it's also now a little tweaked, had to correct one thing for certain after hearing her bio - she's from Brooklyn! Damn ye siren, I love you even more. Many masks make up a man, meaning I love Fugazi too, so sue me.

Ave Maria
by Casey McKinney

If I’d known then what assholes some art world
fiends would become, I wouldn’t have bothered.
Would’a calculated jail to Yale sans
you know what. Oh well. That, thems, there’s the breaks.
So please, recognize, apologize, grab
a seat. And stand by for parades to come.

Joey Ramone, on his deathbed white throne,
got a crush on this CNBC chick,
a Brooklyn girl, times smarter than the known
ratings. Foxes and N’s and network spit
in hair equivalent to sponges pink.

I watch her still. The Sun-In accent winks
and knows the bits that get to me. Parts those
bangs all the while. Mouths bad news with a smile.

What Are Your Favorite Things?

2009-05-27T20:05:00.010-04:00

Watch this first (new agers come up with some of the best shit sometimes, emphasis on shit, but this is sweet and bizarre and hypnotic, and uh...

Then, with "a kick in the balls..."

Then without words...

Silver Fox - Buzz Osborne - And Yes I Will Stop Procrastinating, but Hell I Have to Write Something Here Every Now And Then

2009-05-25T07:22:00.054-04:00

Alright so still procrastinating, but since today is Memorial Day and (yes I do have my grandfather to remember but) I can't do anything government related (post office, forms, bills, shit that I am oh so itching to do) and my internet is still down till tomorrow I think, I am gonna sit around mom's house another day and stop watching movies and finally get Kevin Killian's book in order. I announced about two month's ago that I was procrastinating on that, and I think I've come to a reasonable enough state of hot pocket slugdom that I can rightfully move on. Most of the procrastination involved watching everything I hadn't seen that was available instantly on Netflix, so it was related.

In that...I mean I felt this was a kindred thing to do to get into the right mindset for a book on film, especially a book by Kevin Killian on film. If you've seen his Amazon profile, it's the most obsessively prodigious output from maybe the most gifted critical phrase turner since Oscar Wilde or Walter Benjamin (though he's not so peacockish in the delivery); he can judge anything from Proust to a Potato Peeler and probably make the latter just as interesting.

Anyway, I finally decided I had done enough procrastinating myself when I got around to watching The Beach, you know that awful Leonardo di Caprio thing, where he was in that awkward boy-to-man phase after Titantic, and where he gets to do Tilda Swinton - I am kind of fascinated by Tilda Swinton currently because she's this huge star who won an Oscar for - shit what was it? Michael Clayton? I don't want to look it up - and yet took the time to do that movie about my wife's old professor Steve Kurtz pro bono, when he was a part of a terrorist witch hunt over his biologically related art.

Funny thing is also, while doing that movie, she, or rather I should say the whole film wagon procession inadvertently caused Kevin to get a parking ticket during the shoot (a scene was done in their back alley on Minna Street in San Francisco, rather than Buffalo, where the Kurtz drama went down). Killian does a funny bit on this scene in one of his Fanzine Oscars pieces. That's not going in the book though.

Speaking of which, got an email from Kurtz' partner yesterday, Lucia Sommers, and was told he's finally fully cleared of all charges. I asked her if she/they'd do a thing for Fanzine on it, maybe the tell all now that the trial is over and more can be said, but it was agreed that hitting the beach would be the best thing first. The press has so taken to this story already, it's been exhausting for them. Maybe in a bit though.

Also, finally saw Lady Sings The Blues as I stayed up all night. Kevin had written that Diana Ross should have won the Oscar for that role somewhere. Saw Matigan too, and some other Widmark films that I hadn't seen yet, a subject of one of his essays; I've really been trying to get back into film mode. Also finally saw the couple Morrissey Warhol film's I hadn't seen yet (yes it's criminal I hadn't seen them all yet, but they are just getting back in good state). There's a chapter on Warhol in Killian's Screen Tests.

Killian is an encylopedia, and I can only really know maybe a quarter of the films and stars he mentions, and I think that's good enough to do the book on, to be the editor anyway. Got other eyes to fact check too. Emily Jackson had already done an amazing job from when we were back working on things in New York together. And now, sort of ironically it seems, but more fittingly because she's so good, Emily's over at Sterling Lord's, where Ira Silverberg is an agent, Dennis Cooper's agent for one.

For a while when I had cable, all I watched were "shows" on cable, not movies for the most part. And now that I have no cable, all I watch are movies and youtube clips.

Which brings me to the clip above. I had joked with (well not really joked with but said to) artist Thaddeus Strode a while back something like - why opine the death of Kurt Cobain? We still have the Melvins. And what a great silver fox and metal statesman Buzz Osborne has become. That hair, you could see it gradually coming. I mean J Mascis is ghost white now, but Osborne is sort of salt and pepper, mostly salt now, and has like a Bride of Frankenstein thing going on, that great James Whale movie that could be another topic for Killian. Anyway, I should get off my mom's computer. It's hard though. I'm hooked to all this immediacy now. I even have Dennis Cooper's Ugly Man ready to go on my Kindle app for Iphone* that will release digitally on the 26th as he reads in Bryant Park in New York.

Am so jealous. As a recent transplant from New York I'd love to lie out on a late May day in that great park and hear new words put together by one of my other favorite wordsmiths. Ah but I have responsibilities here. Family stuff, etc. Maybe I can sneak off, it's a haul though.

Well that's a blog, right? Ciao. Ms. Ross is crying again as Lady Day on a repeat, and the birds are chirping. So I should either shit or get off the pot as far as sleep goes, then edit.

-CM

*free actually, whereas an actual Kindle is $360. You can get one story at a time or the whole book for $9.99. I'm stoked to sneak read some Cooper when I'm out and bored somewhere, or waiting on someone who's in the bathroom or out smoking (hint Robin). Digitizing books does scare me a bit, but having books in your pocket (and fully there, not crumpled up, messing up your seat) does have its advantages.

P.S. - typing on an unfamiliar laptop with no sleep... I need my own editor. If you read this before 11: am EST, try it again. Think all the fixes are in now, jeez...ha.

Au Bonheur des Dames & The Groovies Give Tchaikovsky the News

2009-05-23T23:32:00.018-04:00

Searchin for some Flamin' Groovies and found something just as fine, Au Bonheur des Dames. Very - could give a fuck - kind of John Waters' amped up dancing. What's this French group's connection to the Groovies? I don't know, that's just how the search engine crumbles sometimes, in good ways. Then in color they kind of have some pre-Ziggy Stardust space concerns, well a couple members seem to (that drummer's hat?), then the rest have a little Sha Na Na going on, but with great eyelashes and an Andy Kaufman Elvis wiggle dance as you'll see in this next one, crazy:

And here's The Famin' Groovies themseleves, rollin' over Beethoven, radness:

Ahhh....we'll slow death and shake some action some other day.

Bad Pennies and Pigs

2009-05-21T18:13:00.049-04:00

"Bad Penny." This song has always made/makes me happy. Was thinking about it and the song "Cables" from Steve Albini's first band, Big Black. I guess after I saw this pretty horrifying thing on Mark Gluth's blog today, a video that did not make me happy. Reminiscent of some of the beheadings I've seen from Iraq. Although I stopped before I got to the killing part (in the pig video, if there is one), the loading of the little beasts into bulldozers and trucks was awful enough. The men stepping over them adroitly, while the swines wriggled as do a Styrofoam cup full of nightcrawlers.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a pig. My grandfather had a pig yard that he kept, kind of for fun I guess (he was primarily a gin and grain elevator operator). His pigs/hogs would slop around in the mud to cool off from the south GA sun. There was a transistor radio that hung from a telephone pole hooked into a power line that ran continuously and played country music. 24/7. 365. All trebly in register. I think country music should be like that, all steel peddle, violins and treble. T-Daddy (my grandpa) said the pigs liked it. And I loved to watch them. Would sit out there for hours if he'd let me. I wrote a poem that included him and the pigs a few years ago (see below). T-daddy was one of the most peaceful men I ever knew (as far as I know), and loved animals. I guess those pigs eventually got slaughtered, but I never was made aware of that part of the process, and I am sure he had little to do with it. He just liked to keep them. 'Course Ludy did cook everything in bacon grease though...the fried cornbread, etc, which was darn good, even greased the eggs for breakfast (instead of butter), so hmmm. I dunno, guess I'm a pig at heart as you'll see.

Out Yonder With T-Daddy
by Casey McKinney

In real duels there are always seconds.
Just too easy to get lost in Arabi.
Who likes to be called Nate? Nathans I guess,
hope. In any case, Ring Lardner could be
Nate West's first second. Or perhaps Mencken's...
A stucco glazier/ footing framer/
or engineer sighting planes below the
gnat line. Drunk and on speed, trucker crosses
by the hog waller, the AM radio
high on the telephone pole, perpetual
power, never-ending heat, must spray water,
and pigs are smart, smart enough not to care.
Your Cadillac is more fucked up than a pig's
crust today. Country music, they have taste.

Sounds like a mean poem in context of that set up, but it ain't, just a combo of things. Memories of years apart all spliced together, and like all selfish, S.O.B. writers, it's all about me.

And so yeah one Halloween I finally got a pink pig outfit and I wore it for a few too many years sort of in secret. Till it was too small for me. Rode upon the crotch. Kept it in a bag in a closet (yes I was a closeted pink pig... go figure... like anyone isn't?). I also liked to put on a puffy one piece ski outfit and lie on the floor and sleep like I was in a sleeping bag. I'd hold my breath for 3 minutes at a time. Confined spaces are good (for kink).

Funny, cause now I can hardly breathe.

So Big Black and "Cables" .... not sure what the lyrics were exactly, but I always thought it was about working in a slaughterhouse (it's a perfect driving song). A Tobe Hooper nightmare played out with some Cormac McCarthy "No Country" pneumatic instrument of death.

So Mark btw, if you ever happen on this, I tried to be vegan or at least vegetarian my junior year of high school, and I guess always ate the wrong things, ended up with a quarter size hole in my belly, or duodenum, an ulcer for all the cheese and hummus and cucumbers I downed. My acids were all messed up, craving meat I guess or rejecting the surplus of dairy. And so now seeing what you posted makes me pretty ill feeling. Swine flu in Egypt huh? Shit, I need to figure out how to eat right. I'm getting to that age where I put a pound or two on a year. Anyway, I commend thee, for your habits, regardless of what I do futurewise. But maybe I should seek some advice. Am open to anything as long as my ulcer stays shut.

What's worse in thinking about all this is that my little dog at my feet reminds me of a pig too. Probably not even as smart as one, but he's my child and his hair stands up on his back like a little mohawk or a razorback's mane? What do you call that on a razorback? I'll call it a mane.

Is this what blogging is about? I'm just learning. The future, it seems, is free. I mean what's private and what's for sale? (Maybe it's best to just tell all in a blog so you can get down to the business of actually writing fiction... and that's what I need to do right now, especially being back home).

Well, looking forward to purchasing one thing for sure, Mark Gluth's forthcoming book with Dennis Cooper on Little House On The Bowery. So much stuff coming out soon, I'll either be a writing fool, writing about it all, or else I'll have to go hide in the mud!

Oh no I've been attacked by a Japanese Horror

2009-05-11T02:01:00.061-04:00

...film or else have gone halfway Black Metal. There's still my lingering punk/preppy bit going on though, peeping through the loose photoshop...cough...I mean the bleak tendrils and shrill ectoplasm of the dead in this pic below. Ha.... Heh.... Ever noticed the difference between 'ha' and 'heh' when IM chatting? Big difference it seems. Well this image somehow freaked Robin out (I think maybe she didn't have her contacts in) so I thought it was worth posting (when all else fails, you always have yourself as a subject. Boredom produces vanity at 2 am).

But no....utilty! this blog will be useful damnit, and therefore for the best of black and death metal see Andee on the Aquarius records site, or Brandon Stosuy's picks on Stereogum, his long standing column on pitchfork - Show No Mercy - or his new monthly concert sessions he organizes, also called Show No Mercy (see the myspace link for dates and lineups).

that's Brandon and I at Coachella right after we found him, thought he might skip after just hitting SXSW, so a very nice surprise.

Or you can always go to anus.com (ha and heh and just when you thought Anal Cunt had a monopoly on the Oily-O moniker in metal...hey, speaking of which, that's another old metal band long defunct I have some ties to, and I really wish I'd caught the O's old guitarist Dan Beynart's Pastor of Muppets - a Metallica cover band - last week). While looking up P.O.M. on the web I found some more fun, not Pastor of Muppets as I know them, but a DIY video of the same name by a rambunctious kid on youtube.

Below is a video of the real Pastor of Muppets in all their glory. P.O.M. reigns from Athens GA, and Athens makes me nervous. I was once banned from that college town for a year for a little bar brawl BS with a steroid amped redneck bouncer, overdoing his job. It all ended after I kicked a cop (on accident I swear...people please don't sneak up behind someone in the middle of a fight) and then got the Rodney King treatment in return. "Now you done it" was the last thing I heard before the nightsticks of the three - ain't seen enough action lately - bicycle cops went crazy on my back and ribs and the stun guns came out.

Stun gun marks look like a vampire or viper bite.

Come to think of it now, kind of reminds me of that Dead Kennedy's song "Night of The Living Rednecks"- a classic, didn't realize it was on youtube. Watch:

And whoops now watch P.O.M. before I ramble on longer.

God I hate I missed the Muppets. It's a rare thing and Dan is the man, no shizzle. Did I just say that? Shizzle? It's late.

But before signing off, just to give flipsides, the yangs to the yins their due, for the best preppy punk rocker ever, see Mr. Malkmus. I have a huge Pavement Stephen Malkmus playlist on youtube. Sit back and enjoy if you can set a spell. As far as the Japanese horror flicks, well that's another story.

Jayne County at Manuel's

2009-05-09T11:51:00.037-04:00

Didn't know what to expect on this one, figured it would be NY Dollish, but without the exercise budget and trouser varmits of Buster Poindexter.

Anyway, thanks to Barbara for the invite. The show was great if very brief. I think they only have like 10 songs anyway, and the best may be "Max's Kansas City" which is one of those sure fire hits, you know like the ones that mention every city in the U.S.? (good marketing tool, which The Beach Boys and Chubby Checker seemed to kickstart in a decent/innocent way, but I always think of that 80's crap like Huey Lewis' "Heart of the City" or that Starship song that stoops further...what's its name "Heart of the City - Part Deux?") - instead in "Max's" JC mentions every punk band in the NY scene circa 1977-78.

Last night though, there seemed to be a twist on the lyrics, or maybe I wasn't hearing it right, but Jayne seemed to be dissing the city of NY, its Dolls and Ramones. But hey she's been taking care of her sick mother in Dallas, GA for a while. The pent up angst must have came through, as she writhed on the floor, asking "If you don't want to fuck me, fuck off" with some extra zeal. I felt like a "cold turd" (part of the lyrics) for not knowing this icon prior. I remember (kinda) when it was Wayne County. Guess this is the name post op.

Well... anyway, good to know she's in GA. Meet more and more kindred weirdos by and by. This shot was snapped by the bar on the iPhone. Some better ones were posed for but didn't come through in the light.

Oh Lindsay

2009-04-14T12:56:00.002-04:00

Lindsay Lohan's eHarmony Profile from Lindsay Lohan

So what if I'm crass and viral about this one, let's help Lindsay get more G-clicks. Well check Fanzine's Blog for the whole post (it's brief). This post just bridges the personal and professional, hence the repetition.

Happy Day After Easter

2009-04-13T23:43:00.018-04:00

This is a little old thing I made for no one in particular 'cept maybe Buck Owens (R.I.P.) and uh...I don't know, um, Nostradamus and now, in hindsight, was prescient of Glenn Beck (how do you do the vampire laugh phonetically?). Just your typical history channel thing (you know the apocalypse...a breather from simply Hitler all day*) on speed 14 x or something. It actually screened at Monkey Town once. That was a coup. Not exactly a digestif, but lazily non-jarring too. Laziest editing one can imagine, but I like that. Actual film editing is sometimes too slow for me.

*see DeLillo on that

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T16:34:00.012-04:00

What better way to ring in Easter but with a monk (Stephen O'Malley of Sunn 0)))) playing Gregorian guitar drone at volume 11. If this seems tasteless and you're extra bored check out the Fanzine Easter post with the John Waters egg I whipped up kinda groggy before my own eggs and coffee.

Bonus: a funny Sun O))))) clip (not official I imagine).

Nick Zedd

2009-04-11T23:04:00.016-04:00

I Remember Nick Zedd as being one of the best, most succinct (and most eloquent because of said succinctness perhaps) reps of the old downtown New York scene at Brandon Stosuy's launch of Up Is Up, But So Is Down at NYU's Fales Library. Last night we watched some Richard Kern films and a Nick Zedd at Whitespace, the last in a series of underground films before curator Brad Lapin leaves for Italy for a couple of months. I wish I could find the flick that we watched of Zedd's on youtube, it's one his best (according to Lapin, "the best"), of him getting roughed up by the cops over some trumped up charges. Getting lambasted and flogged while standing on a table. Get on the table! Get off the table! I will figure it out soon, but I am pretty sure Chuck Palahniuk stole the scene for the end of his book, now film, now DVD, Choke...well maybe.

We were late this time to the screening because of a sudden heavy squall (tornaodoes reported in the area...aghh! - Glenn Beck would have been proud of the meteorological hysteria - but hey I know people who have had their houses ripped apart in Cabbage Town).

Anyway, here's another by Zedd. I hope to write more on all of this at some point. In the meantime, enjoy this one.

Love Without Lies

2009-04-10T12:05:00.005-04:00

This video by the U.K.'s Comet Gain makes me happy. After seeing this, and Dennis' post today on the Italian theater maestro Romeo Castelluci I am wishing I was in Europe right now, pretty much anywhere. Hope to get out there late May. Paris and Berlin.

Answer Before Question

2009-04-09T14:53:00.009-04:00

Still testing video for this blog, wanted to try out the iSight option. Or else just embarrassing myself for kicks this morning. OR... in case no one believes I am actually from the South and am back there currently (yes with a Yanks hat on, and believe me not a safe idea in the land of the Tomahawk chop - the one annoying thing about the Braves), thought I'd share my best attempt at some twang.

Actually was listening to a great Lou Reed "Sister Ray/Some Kind of Love " jam and strummin' along to that before I got to doing Kitty Wells. Been so used to hearing the Ray Price version that kind of combines the original Hank Thompson version of "The Wild Side of Life" and Kitty's answer to it. I played Kitty's answer first (as Robin complained just a sec ago "while backlit" though oddly she didn't mind my singing for a change), then the original tune by Thompson after.

I think Derek McCormack's The Show That Smells maybe got me going, with its cast of haute designers, a gay vampire, and of course country pioneers Jimmie Rogers and the Carter Sisters. I am currently procrastinating writing more on it on Fanzine, also Procrastinating wrapping up a final edit on Kevin Killian's book and going over the designs, and putting up a couple of new pieces on Fanzine including Ben Bush's awesome piece on hip hop artist Busdriver. This is often what I do when I procrastinate, strum the guitar, look up tabs and annoy Robin!

It's sunny today and she is planting tomatoes in the backyard. She's been germinating the seeds for a couple of weeks now and they are ready to hit the ground. The cats are happy with the sun, especially since Scratch is on a tether and can't bug their respective reposes. Well... back to something for now, probably Ben first.

Awe What's My Horoscope Again?

2009-04-08T20:17:00.011-04:00

Was supposed to be doing something yesterday, according to the stars, but pretty sure it didn't include being snippy/bossy with Robin (ahhh domestic bliss can sometimes get cranky with our mutual protests over chores). So I get this above in my mailbox this morning. Message heard loud and clear, love ya' honey! Well least we didn't get attacked by pirates today (on a boat), just consider it!

p.s. that was pretty Kids In The Hall Mr. Rogen

p.s.s. this is partially a test of blogger after not using it for a couple of years. Gotta figure out how to resize the vids or the text columns because videos have gotten wider since days of old (2 years ago).

p.s.s. it's a relief to have a forum to be an idiot

p.s.s.s. Oh wait this is the Incredibad people who did the Dick In A Box thing, man I am so out of the loop, so nevermind first p.s.

Next Month Mastodon

2009-04-07T20:16:00.007-04:00

Mastodon: Divinations - New Video

Grant they aren't in Atlanta till next month! At Center Stage. Aggh, but check this video. They are in Coachella on April 18th. Should make a Gonzo run for Palm Springs and clear a red sea worthy path 'tween all the dirty hippies (j/k...still have horrors of the first - or was it second year's? - heat at Coachella) to see the mighty Mastodon. They should make the fronds dance all the way back at 29 Palms.

Love the abominable snowman here, something called "Brent" as in guitarist/singer Brent Hind (reminds me of the one from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, the one that joins forces with the little dentist elf). Lifted this from this site, anyway, yeah not next week, but next month, but "Crack the Skye" does rule. I'd dare say even try jogging to it...ha.

Been a While Again

2009-04-06T10:24:00.013-04:00

Haven't posted anything here since, well, since I got married I guess. I took it down for a particular reason, well I didn't want anything up for a bit if that makes sense. In the meantime have still been hard editing FANZINE (http://www.thefanzine.com). And also been taking care of a lot of the blogs there too (http://www.thefanzine.com/blog). But figure, while I am now back in the saddle of blogging, can use this page for personal stuff and The Fanzine's blog for everything else. And since the embrace of Facebook etc, have pretty much given up on the idea of privacy. So here we go, blog reopened, now I gotta go back and clean up old dead web stuff like 3DM when I get a chance. Got some work to do getting this thing in shape too, new links, etc. Change that damn "Toot Tweet" title too. That was some saying of my grandpa's he'd come back from WWII with. He'd learned two phrases in French, and I will spell them the way he thought them, Come See Come Saw (Comme Si Comme Ca) and Toot Tweet (Toute de Suite), the latter just means quickly (also see "Like This and Like That" post below). Maybe I was missing Mickey Rourke too. Just saw Angel Heart again, reminded of it after his comeback flick The Wrestler. And well was surprised to hear the name Toots Sweet in it. Why that rang in my unconscious I have no idea, but think maybe that's how I got that title, some combo of the two. Lame whatever.

Anyways, tired of posting everything just to facebook, personal photos and so on, and so alas, back to the old blogger blog. Will take some editing before Bear Mountain Poetry (also an inside joke name, and no has nothing to do with the Black Mountain thing) gets opened again, but that should maybe as well. Or hell maybe should start a new thing. Alright, -CM

Just Married

2007-04-10T18:58:00.002-04:00

That's Robin and I at The Palm. Place I hadn't been since a kid. Try the chopped salad with anchovies. Mmmmm....

Bright Paper Werewolves

2006-11-16T06:58:00.003-05:00

Here's an old - man I can't believe I wrote this thing! - story I just looked at again today. It was first printed in Trinie Dalton's zine Werewolf Express, which is mentioned here in Printed Matter and, and also (and this is a quite posthumous note to this blog entry) shows up in the excellently edited book Mythtym, also the organizational product of Trinie Dalton, was an honor.

Dear Sir Isaac Asimov:

One morning, sometime ago, I awoke around 3 a.m. to some nagging thoughts. I’d been trying to come up with a topic for a friend's werewolf zine and decided it a bit boring to discuss personal experience since I am afflicted with this problem myself. Yes, strange as it may sound, I am a werewolf. Not a Wolfman Jack kind of guy or a Glen Danzig, someone who models their look after the wolf (Glen Danzig, FYI - punk idol crooner and a big fan of the comic book hero Wolverine who sports his same wolfish sideburns). Nor am I a crazed political figure like Hitler who loved all things wolf related - wolfhounds, his picturesque Alpine Wolf’s Lair, the VW Wolfsburg edition (well, Hitler wasn’t around to see that model but he did start the company). I am also not running for a job at the World Bank.

No, there is nothing metaphorical or romantic about my condition and I try to keep it to myself, but the challenge of writing this piece was driving me nuts for two reasons: A) I don’t want to reveal too much about my situation (obviously) and B) it’s just so played out. Hollywood has done a good job of gathering all of the old folk tales which for the most part are true. Silver bullets work, and the moon has always been the bane of my existence - that regular monthly cycle, not unlike a woman’s menstrual cycle. Which brings me to my point. I had never really made that connection before. You would think that living with a woman for five years as I have that it would have crossed my mind.

Maybe it was the deadline, coupled with coincidence, that finally sparked the thought - what with my girlfriend on her, as they say, “moon,” and me being a bit sex starved, therefore crazy. So I got up quietly, went to my laptop in the other room, and Googled the string “werewolf” + “menstrual cycle,” and there was a link to your beautifully written essay “Moonshine.” It was the second link on a search that revealed 1,290 hits! Aren’t you proud to know this? Even 13 years after your death, you are still relevant.

In “Moonshine” you analyzed all the ways that the moon could scientifically have an effect on a person, yet nothing was mentioned about a woman’s menstrual cycle. But Google cannot lie, and I noticed the mention was in your addendum. It was a response to the pile of hate mail you’d received from feminist readers appalled by your exclusion of the topic. I fully respect your omission and am almost swayed by your argument that it is merely coincidence that women typically have their periods in concordance with the moon’s 29 and 1/2 day cycle. True, no other mammal is in the same boat. But even though an individual woman’s cycle can vary time-wise, if you took the mean of most women’s cycles you would get a similar result. I am no scientist, but this is a bit odd. And having long been in therapy, spending numerous hours trying to “cure” myself of shapeshifting and the need to hunt for the flesh of sheep, dogs, and God help me, humans, I am not sure of anything anymore. But I think it’s more than coincidence. It may be a significant key to the mystery of why humans as a species have dominated the earth. It is a key perhaps more relevant than the development of the opposable thumb.

Just to clarify, even though, as a member of the undead, I am capable of contacting you via our system of ethereal snail mail, you must not expect any kind of greater knowledge from me than an average living human. Surely you have met many buffoons in the other dimension. Dead or not, we gather nothing more in the afterlife than a person would on his own merits whilst living. My situation is a bit different because I am half there and half not. But I have had my share of glimpses into your present world to know what’s up. And I am bummed for you that there is in fact no God to discuss all of your work with. I know you were looking forward to the possibility of some creator/self chitchat. But that’s beside the point.

You discussed the moon’s potential influence on humanity going back to the days of lunar calendars, the beginning of agrarian civilization, knowing when to plant and reap, the additional asset of the moon as luminary navigational guide. Then you addressed the most likely scientific influence, the tides. You claim that even though man’s body, like the body of the earth, is made up of mostly water, the moon’s gravitational effect can have no significant influence on our (their? I am mostly human…) beings, except as some kind of collective (Jungian?) unconscious force, some latency in our DNA as we evolved from wormy shore dwellers dependent on an automatic knowledge of the tides to know when to lay our eggs in the sand. Yes, humans do still have a tailbone, and fetuses as they develop in the womb begin as veritable worms. I am down with all of this.

However, as someone who has spent time in psychoanalysis, I always catch omissions. And your omission made me think of that Borges poem from Dream Tigers, “The Moon.” It begins by talking about a scientist who attempted to write a single book that catalogued all the mysteries of the universe. But when the author finished: “He lifted up his eyes and saw a burnished/ Disc in the air and realized, stunned,/ That somehow he had forgotten the moon.” Of course poets, in their own particular lunacy, never forget the moon. And neither have you, but you did avoid menstruation. Why? There is another theory on my condition dating back to the middle ages that you did not address, though I guess for your purposes lycanthropy was just a springboard for your larger topic. But I want to get into it.

It has been postulated by those not in the know that werewolves were merely people who were poisoned by the rye grain bacteria ergot. Ergot, a lethal compound in high doses, produces psychedelic hallucinations in lower doses. It’s what LSD was originally derived from. The compound also produces physical changes in humans that could make one appear wolfish. The mouth turns a bloody red color. Repeated ingestion can cause hair to grow in places it normally would not. And it can make people act extremely violent.

I don’t know if you know this, but werewolves are not conscious of being so from birth. It is something that develops after a particular trauma during life’s development. I figured this out from my therapist. It’s hard to find a good therapist who will actually discuss this topic, and even then, they have to go home, do their research, and figure out some helpful way of discussing something they can’t realistically believe in. Fortunately, since its inception, psychoanalysis has been closely aligned with lycanthropy (those whacky late Victorians!). Seems every post-noble Tom, Dick and Harry with the resources to pay for treatment believed they could shapeshift, become capable of horrific deeds, when these men (women in psychoanalysis were typically just sexually unsatisfied) were probably just feeling guilty about the fact that they were rich, lazy, assholes; thus was born the term lycanthropy to explain this misguided belief. I still use it, to describe an actual condition. Kind of like the ring that it has. Rolls off the tongue nicely.

But I’m digressing again, and so back to ergot, which plays a significant role in why I am writing you today. Since your passing, there has been much research into alternative treatments for drug addiction using psychoactives. The rootbark of the West African plant Tabernanth iboga, from which the drug Ibogaine is derived, and Yage, a South American elixir that William S. Burroughs tried as a cure for heroin addiction, have both had remarkable, though rarely publicized, recent success. Also, as you are probably familiar, LSD was once considered another likely treatment for chemical addiction, one that was actually sponsored by government research (ah, thank you Cold War). And since the popularity of Ecstasy in the 90’s, several prominent psychiatrists have treated their addicted patients with guided MDMA-induced hypnosis. Addicts have traveled the globe in search of shamans and doctors to administer these radical forms of treatment. I see lycanthropy as a form of addictive behavior, behavior that seems, on the surface, a matter of will power. If I am capable of rationalizing all of this now in this letter, then it is reasonable to believe that that same rational self must exist as a kernel in the core of my being, as a latent superego capable of curbing my murderous instincts, even while I am in the wolf state.

But it’s not that easy. The brain gets wired a certain way and it takes some mechanical tinkering to fix it - what amounts to a kind of reversal, a mirroring effect. There are synapses firing on and off like circuit switches. Sometimes, the fuses need to be flipped back on. In psychoanalysis, the therapist acts as this mirror conduit, typically just repeating back to the patient what he describes. Eventually, the patient can hear his own patterns and learn what needs fixing. This method emulates, in traditional magik, mirror rituals used to redirect psychic aberrations. Of course, such has always been demonized as a mark of the occult (think of the hubbub over secret reversed messages in rock records, “Paul is dead,” etc.)

You touched on this in your essay, when you observed the difference between sunlight and moonshine; one is actual light energy, while the other is merely a reflection of that light. And if reflections are evil, in the Socratic cave sense then…

As snake venom is used to resuscitate a snakebite victim, I thought that perhaps if I took a dose of ergot I could reverse my own condition. It would also be a learning experience to see why so many others in the past were accused of falling prey to the very real condition I suffer from. As the molecules in ergot resemble LSD, perhaps the chemical makeup of these poor sods, while tripping out over bad bread, would resemble my own physiology when I am under the moon’s control. Hell, anything is worth a try.

So, for the past two weeks I have been taking homemade ergot on a regular basis and have been tripping my balls off. I even quit my job and started making art again. I began working non-stop on this elaborate mobile sculpture that simulates the workings of the solar system, with a central light system of candles made from lamb’s fat and revolving mirrors symbolizing the more prominent, elliptically bound orbs, planets, and of course the moon (the whole structure could best be described as an amateurish Evan Holloway piece). I began to feel like a Terrance McKenna poster child from the early days of the mushroom cults, even sensing a ghost limb sprouting from my tailbone. Silly, but it reminded me of Johnny Depp’s reptilian appendage in his depiction of Hunter Thompson (RIP) in the film Fear and Loathing (how is Hunter faring in the netherworld, BTW?).

And so, when the full moon came again, nothing happened. No hair, no fangs, no claws. No urge for blood. But I had also lost my sexual appetite. Typically, while my girlfriend was on her period, I would get especially horny and expectant. She knew this and would always deny me until the last trickle of blood stopped flowing, purposefully stoking my chi or whatever for her own selfish purposes. But post-experiment, with her “Wolfie” gone, she was sexually ravenous, and frankly, quite pissed. Every day she’d come home from work and immediately change into something sexy. Plant her self down in the midst of my creation as I sat there unfazed. She’d start fucking with the mirrors, trying to get my attention. Said it was hot to be able to see each other in reflection only. I’d catch a glimpse of her panties pulled to the side, her hand rubbing all around her clit, tugging at her swollen labia. Pink lace and tendrils of pubic hair…

I don’t know what happened, but one day, for the first time in my life, I killed while conscious of doing so. And I enjoyed it. Felt no remorse whatsoever. And that’s when I came to my understanding.

For so long in history, women have dominated us. They were the first high priestesses, having been granted this special power by their cyclical connection with the moon, that moon which forever hangs over us like an Orwellian teleprompter - Diana, the hunter - man hunters is what they are. Like a bad gay disco song. Is this making any sense? Maybe this werewolf bullshit is simply what we men do out of jealousy. As Shakespeare once said, all men can do, to overcome death, is make art or babies. Since we only have a nominal hand in the latter, then I am back to art. Art and psychedelics. And murder. Murder as art as De Quincy once explained. Conscious murder. That’s the key. It’s part of who we are. And we shouldn’t repress it. I’m not cured. As they say in AA, once a _______always a_______.

Sorry, but doesn’t it suck, the impotence of being dead? You can’t rat on me. I feel so good today, and I wanted to thank you for your essay, which has so inspired me.

Here’s to the end of impotence!

Cheers,
Steve

Like This And Like That

2006-11-15T00:48:00.001-05:00

I normally just put poems on Bear Mountain. But worked a long time on this one so...

Like This And Like That
by Casey McKinney

"Come see, come saw, toot tweet" to the brothels.
It's Paris in June - Dub-Dub-Two. No need
for big phrases when haggling hookers.
Yet one thing's still unfathomable -
Bernard, old Resistance fighter, better
known for his steak au poivre and a mustache
damn enviable - gone before cocktails.
Like all good chefs, he'd gab till you ordered
more wine, listen patiently to the same
old lines 'bout Cherborg's steeple, hedgerows of
ripped people, machine gun nests and football
bets - stalled, cool as the grass, till better times.
So strange, at his age. Shit still scares me... AIDS.
Prefer your helmet in bed? Or with lime?

Chan Marshall (Cat Power) interview

2006-11-13T19:38:00.001-05:00

Helped my friend Brandon on this one, who was facilitating a conversation between Chan and SNL's Fred Armisen for Pitchfork. I was supposed to be the sound guy, but forgot the minidisk mic, had a small memory card in a little video camera, and didn't bring cassette tapes for the 3rd recording back up plan, an old Radioshack cassette (big cassettes) recorder. So we had to send Conan O'Brien's handler out to procur some. She showed up just in time (thank god) with 10, no charge. Thank you NBC! Anyway, the whole thing was incredibly charming. Collapsed into nap time for hours afterwards, I was so worn out from pining.

The next day I wrote a sonnet for Chan

For A Cat
by Casey McKinney

Let's see if I can do this right for once,
and not lose cool, act a psycho or dunce;
just pen a few words from a fan sidelined,
also an artist reared in Southern pines.

What's to say? (Hey, glimpsed your panties today.)
Even if sober, we still can't miss parties.
That's kinda what drives me (ain't the skivvies
but the spirit). An attitude that says:

Fuck it, made it (with the cute new roadie).
Tomorrow I'll spurn ten Saudi princes,
drink up the city's best mini-fridges,
and sketch sparse blues for past boy-bitches.

John preached of birth from The Word black and terse.
But your breath mines tears, damns fear, inspires verse.

UP IS UP BUT SO IS DOWN is out

2006-10-27T04:21:00.001-04:00

Click picture (which I just noticed after years I wrote it wrong, supposed to say Up is Up But So Is Down) above for some pictures of the release party. My friend Brandon Stosuy outdid himself compiling this collection of New York Dowtown Literature circa 1972 -1992. Nick Zedd stole the show at NYU's Bobst Library Thursday.

2006-07-14T05:53:00.000-04:00

My blog relly sucks...but been writing lots of poetry lately - here!

Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

2006-04-04T18:38:00.000-04:00

Yes With Thetan Power!" For more of Tomcat's recent hijinx (Tomcat?) see
here."

2006-02-02T00:09:00.000-05:00

This is turning into Iraq week for posts. My friend Erich just forwarded this email from a friend who says: "A colleague's husband in an undisclosed location in Iraq. This is just too good. She sent it to the Dio fan club. Awesome:...The Dio fan club said 'God Bless Our Troops'! Hahah. Too bad they didn't just send me free tickets or a CD :)" -Lena

Moon & Moon, Jan 29th 2006

2006-01-30T10:37:00.000-05:00

Until last night I had never seen Devendra Banhart, and I still haven’t heard him sing.

But that’s okay. Got an email around 9pm last night from my friend Brandon saying that Moon & Moon was gonna play an unannounced show at midnight in the neighborhood. Moon & Moon (M&M? hmmm...can Marshall Mathers sue?) are the melding of Philly’s An Albatross, led by bassist Jay Hudak (who looks a heck of a lot like Banhart, only smaller, and a little less hairy) and Devendra on lead guitar adding rambling electric blues riffs . The lead singer plays trumpet and flute and when he is not sounding like Captain Beefheart does some of the least annoying Jim Morrison phrasings I've heard since Iggy Pop on some of his slower numbers. There were belly dancers and refined hippies amongst the crowd, pot in the air. Apparently they have been rehearsing here in New York for a month and the work has paid off.

Photos: Kryzmatic 3 show circa 1999?

2006-01-28T12:33:00.000-05:00

Here are more random archive pics, going for funny today with the Kryzmatic 3 in Atlanta (did I spell that right?) Just found out that one of the Ryan's (I think singer Ryan) joined the army and is probably off to Iraq by now. That's Ryan, Ryan, Mitch on drums, and a couple of fans.

The K3 were one of those great, short lived Atlanta bands that were too good for the rest of the country. Metal, proggy, circus, hip hop for baseball fans and then some.

The Ryans were brothers, and I played poker with them for a bit. Being brothers, whenever one of them left the room, the other would steal chips. You could clean house if stayed sober enough. Good luck Ryan, if you do get sent off, you crazy mf.

Y2K Photo

2006-01-27T21:06:00.000-05:00

Here's a funny stand-alone. Circa December 31, 1999. I couldn't figure out how to spell millennium, so I wrote it twice on my hand. Then I went downstairs on a mission to the basement to find A1 Steak Sauce. My mom had stockpiled, of all things, A1 Steak Sauce, in preparation for doomsday. I dropped the first bottle I grabbed. Cut my hand trying to clean it up. And thus...a Y2K disaster.

Ghost Stories Photos

2006-01-27T18:25:00.001-05:00

Some more old photos. Going to try and put up lots since I don't really have anywhere else I am putting these days. So no particular order. This is from the Sue De Beer/Ghost Stories Show show from summer 2001. Favorite pic? Matt Greene drinking beer from a sock the day after on the beach.

Old Band Photos

2006-01-27T11:19:00.000-05:00

Jesse Bransford just sent these 2 over. The old high school band days from Atlanta. Top is Dan on guitar, Tim on drums, um, yes that's me with a silly hat on and a mic, and Jesse on bass. Below is the rhythm section again. As Tim would say, "turdles!"

Photos of old L.A.

2006-01-27T10:21:00.004-05:00

Got in touch with an old friend recently, Zoey Mondt, while doing a bit of internet browsing on Matthew Ronay, to find that she has been writing for Frieze and other places. I lost all of my photos from that period in Los Angeles, pretty much lost everything I owned by the mid 90's (I'll save that for another blog). But here are some photos Zoey sent last night of the people from that era. It's weird to see now. We were so young! The one of me is actually in Atlanta - in my old room, with the old walls I painted - after I had to split LA abruptly after the first year there.

So yeah, first pic is me at 19. Then Mark Ewart, Zoey, and Carol Vena-Mondt. Then Bob Flanagen (RIP). Next is Dennis Cooper. And finally Mitchell.

Looking forward to finding more, if anyone has any, and wants to send, I'll post.

Potions Made By Children Video

2006-01-25T14:52:00.000-05:00

My Friend Richard's band! See more at www.potionsmadebychildren.com

Bret Easton Ellis does "an awfully good impression" of himself

2006-01-25T11:35:00.000-05:00

video interview on Deadline

Van Damme gets down

2006-01-15T12:23:00.000-05:00

2006-01-10T04:14:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Dennis Cooper!

2006-01-10T03:45:00.000-05:00

Jesse, Lorenzo, Seth, and Adam on Jesse's birthday 2005

Lincoln Hat

2005-09-28T23:10:00.000-04:00

Yeah I bought this hat in New York on the street by the guy who was painting them. For some reason I was drawn to Lincoln. He told me that he'd give me that one half off, because he liked that I liked it.

In any case it's been terrible bad luck.

Lesson: Don't buy hats profiling the images of people who have been shot in the head. It'll get you run over by motorcycles.

I'm a bad blogger

2005-06-19T17:27:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I admit, I'm not taking my blog very seriously. Since I have signed on to this thing, I've seen many exceptionally cool blogs spring up, friend's and family member's blogs in particular - Dennis Cooper's and my uncle's for starters. Both are very nice, fun, informative and regularly updated. There's Quilliam's (the Baltimore Bard) over at The Society of Little Teapots. And Mitchell's (AKA Wilbur)...what the hell is your address again?

In any case, there will be more stuff from yours truly soon in another venue as I am embarking on a new online general culture magazine venture over at www.thefanzine.com. Won't be up until July 20th. But will feature many good writers and artists. So check in there soon...Argghh. Or is that Garrr... Feeling very much like a well worn pirate today.

Cheers,
Casey

Raymond Pettibon Making A Movie With Frances

2004-07-26T23:06:00.002-04:00

more archive photos...

Raymond is Jack Kerouac, Frances plays his gal. The shoot was on 7/31/2002

Casting: Pettibon spots Ms. Weiss in the parking lot of his gallery at Regen Projects, West Hollywood, and signs her up.

Pettibon doing some last minute script tweaking at his studio (apartment?) in Long Beach.

One of the artist's influences/subjects, Henry James.

reading the script...

"so this is my beatnik costume...when do we start shooting...?"

setting up the shoot...

Raymond's place is pretty messy. You could rationalize and call it wabi-sabi, but we tend to tiptoe around drawings that are worth fortunes. Doesn't seem to faze him, drives me nuts...

But at least this shows the way he creates. He's like a machine, churning work out. Finishes one piece, tosses it aside, grabs more paper and keeps going. It's rather stunning, to me anyway.

...another future masterpiece the public hadn't glimpsed yet - Elvis, in bedouin garb, from one of the King's movies, apparently his last...

...the Usual Suspects - some of Pettibon's favorite subjects - comics and baseball, also there piled on the ground...

Just about prepped to roll...

I also wrote this poem* about Raymond, which is partially about a time when I was a young man (19). A friend I knew had met and been hanging out with him, was indulging in some mutual bad things (that I was also doing), and there was this particular scare going around then involving a particular bad thing that was leaving people paralyzed. I have loved Pettibon's art for ages, even before I knew who he was (his punk album covers and flyers were the intro). His work has exponentially evolved over the years I've been familiar with it, and I continue to be in awe, whatever the context (from Black Flag albums to international biennials).

*Raymond
by Casey McKinney

First time I heard your name spoke familiar,
a friend had met you, said you were dying -
got a bad bang, bag, stuff they talked about,
whatever... Might have been BS - tactic
to scare me, but there was the news, seen it.

Art was then far off, it prettied albums,
and that was your start - brother's band covers -
Black Flag. Accepted at UCLA
at sixteen - economics wiz - too smart,
still are, can't take care of yourself (beach bum
mama's boy). Evil dogs attack dealers.
Probably deserve that, they do. Vavoom!!!

If I had just grabbed paper handfuls that
day at your place, could retire. Cocktails, beach...

Also had the privilege to interview the artist for the book Inside Magazines around the same time he shot this film with Frances.

REVIEW: Michel Houellebecq's "The Elementary Particles"

2001-01-10T16:00:00.001-05:00

The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
by Casey McKinney
Bookforum, Winter 2001

In the European Media, Michel Houellebecq is ubiquitous. France’s biggest literary sensation in decades. Biggest stink to hit Gaul since McDonald’s. And with the recent English translation of his sophomore novel Les Particules Élémentaires (1998), one can only wonder if the controversial writer will cause as much critical havoc here in the states.

I’m not really sure what I can add to what has already been said about the myth of the man. If you want a pretty thorough generalization in English, I suggest (if you haven’t already read it) going to the library and checking out the Sept. 10th article in the New York Times Magazine, “Le Provocateur,” by the brave journalist Emily Eakin, who managed to spend a whole weekend in close quarters with the sex obsessed, self-exiled misanthrope without being molested. There you will find the portrait of a tortured individual, a misspent seed of the “sexually liberated” sixties, freely and drunkenly wallowing in stardom, unabashedly saying all sorts of inappropriate things, as though he’d taken interview lessons from John Rocker. When confronted about such behavior, Houellebecq replies serenely, “What I write is the truth.”

With that aside, if you want to know about the book, I say read the book. And why, my dear sensitive, liberal reader, after knowing all of this about this horrid man would you want to bother? To that the only thing I can say is for the same reason people ever bothered to read other similarly horrid people (and great writers) as Céline, De Sade, Baudelaire or Nietzsche. Yes, Houellebecq is an unlikely literary hero. He is as existentially bothered as Sartre or Camus ever were (and for more palpable reasons). As scathing in his satirical salvos as some of his country’s greatest—Voltaire, Rabelais, Montaigne (ok I’m feeling queasy again…). But what is most remarkable and laudable in his work is precisely what gets him into trouble when he speaks—and that is his naked confusion, his open contradictions (he’s not really a racist, a sexist or a homophobe—at least I don’t think so). What typically would be indicative of an impetuous dilettante in other writers, with Houellebecq, this confusion just seems to mirror the fractured, isolated, information riddled perspective of contemporary man. And who’s to blame for that condition? The usual culprit of course—that darned elusive, homogenous middling bourgeoisie, that’s who. No surprises there. What is surprising is that, more than most writers today, Houellebecq understands who this spectre really is (hint: once had long hair, beads, that sort of thing, now drive SUV’s, cell phones…), and because of this awareness, he, again unlike most writers, through his audacious attacks, actually has a chance in hell of revivifying some semblance of an avant garde.

Instead of rallying against the obvious oppressors of freedom, like yet another Frenchman of yore, the chary de Toqueville, Houellebecq charges that it is precisely our rampant, undirected freedom in Western society that has gotten us into trouble. He targets the ghosts of the ’68 Paris riots. The psuedo-rebellion that dissipated as soon as the summer holidays arrived. What in its nascent stages seemed so promising about the 60’s—free love, expanded consciousness, utopian dreams, the overthrow of an older generation bent on war, soon spiraled into New Age intellectual vapidity, STDs, and rehab. And now, today, in the wake of the deciphered genome and dot com capitalism, it is especially worrisome that after all this time and searching, spiritually we still haven’t figured anything out.

Equally adept in his knowledge of the writings of such disparate thinkers as Huxley, Kant, Foucault, Lacan, Comt, etc, as he is with the physics of Heisenberg, Aspect, and Bohr, as he is with all aspects of pop culture, Houellebecq throws everything that he knows into a cauldron, gives it all a good stir and leaves the results to a kind of implosive and effacing alchemy, that instead of producing the typically desired stone, serves to erase the desire for the stone altogether.

The tortuous plot follows the lives of two brothers, the sons of a hippie mother and different biological fathers. Too much of a burden on their parents’ pursuit of personal freedom, both are abandoned as toddlers to be raised by separate grandmothers. Neither are cognizant of each other’s existence until late in their teens. Bruno, the eldest by two years, is raised by his maternal grandmother in Algeria from the age of two until six. From there he is sent to a boarding school in Paris were he is frequently raped and tortured by the older boys. Distressed over his physical shortcomings—he’s fat, has a short dick (why he hates black men), is prematurely balding, he comes to take a social-Darwinist view of the world, a world in which he feels he obviously wasn’t meant to succeed in, though he doesn’t stop from trying. As he matures, he decides to become a writer and becomes increasingly obsessed with sex. He frequents nudist camps and swingers clubs and finally meets a woman just as jaded as he is, an anti-feminist, who seems to love him for who he is. They continue to have lots of sex, frequenting the swingers clubs until an accident at one of the clubs (she has a degenerative spinal condition) during a kind of frenzied “sandwich” leaves her paralyzed from the waist down. Shortly afterwards, lapsing into a temporary period of self-loathing and suicidal thoughts, he leaves her in her apartment for a couple of days to fend for herself. When he finally returns, he finds that she has managed to kill herself. He ends up checking himself into a psychiatric hospital.

The other brother, Michel, has no interest in sex. He grows up fascinated by science, eventually settling on biophysics as a career. He ignores the one woman who loves him for over twenty five years, then finally gives in and agrees to try and have a child with her. After a miscarriage and subsequent hysterectomy, pained by what she couldn’t deliver to him, she also kills herself. The incident stirs him to return to work, ending a year long sabbatical. He moves to Ireland, comes up with the blueprint for a hermaphroditic society of identical clones to replace humans, along with a pseudo-religion to promote the cause, and then apparently kills himself as well. At the end of the novel, we find that the entire narrative was written by one such clone and that the human race has already been replaced (which happily seems to explain some of the overly-didactic sequences and awkward shifts in narrative that characterize the novel).

Ok, so the plot is difficult to summarize. And broken down like that, it does seem rather ridiculous. But then, never mind the frame. The devil is in the details. Somewhere along the way, Houellebecq manages to make a rather convincing argument that humanity should stop once and for all the pointless endeavors of philosophy and religion—of trying locate and understand the elusive, singular kernel of human consciousness, the individual soul, and that we should look forward to the time when we might trade our bodies in to science, eliminate sexual competition, do the whole hermaphrodite clone thing, let everybody have an entire epidermis of clitorises and fuck constantly—and not out of any silly subconscious procreative desire, but in the Kantian spirit of “good will,” living happily and rationally ever after. Um, so, yeah, ok. Without further looking like an idiot and an acolyte, I can only say groovy dude.