Saturday, May 21, 2005

Somebody is paranoid, maybe ? Funny, when I search for paranoia combined with Andy's name, I get a lot of I Shot Andy Warhol links. Solanas is really way past her fifteen minutes of fame. The polemic here is in the interelations of a feminist position within a complex situation where apparent abuse may have been going on. Some people have told me that Andy more than deserved it. "He had it coming" is the phrase I heard. What do they know? I am never told.

Solanas described as
1) mad. She's a manic spitfire, has hell to raise, and is armed with the SCUM MANIFESTO. Encouraged by Warhol's queerly noncommittal attitude, Solanas is convinced he will produce her play UP YOUR ASS. This is from a B+ yahoo review.

2) Despite her desperate circumstances, there's a feisty vibrancy to Solanas. She's a game, dead-end kid who bristles with the kind of knowing toughness that can turn a pervert's solicitation into an opportunity. And when standard panhandling lines fail her, she offers her services as a scintillating conversationalist--for pay. Even when she subsequently spirals into a world dominated by paranoid delusions, her intelligence and wit shine through.

3)Studying her publishing contract with Girodias, Solanas develops the paranoid fantasy that both Girodias and Warhol are conspiring against her. Her only option is to shoot Andy Warhol, in which she thus achieves her own 15 minutes of fame.

Maybe Andy became paranoid after Solanas shot him. That's what the word was after the incident.

So I visit the Bo Derek website because Andy mentioned her. The odd thing about it is that it just has the pictures of the movie posters with very brief descriptions. here is one for 10: In this sophisticated Blake Edwards comedy that introduced Bo Derek, Dudley Moore plays a songwriter troubled by middle age who becomes obsessed with a young woman--a perfect "10"--when he sees her on her way to her wedding.

And here is one on Tarzan: The Tarzan story from Jane's point of view. Jane Parker visits her father in Africa where she joins him on an expedition. A couple of brief encounters with Tarzan establish a bond between her and Tarzan. When the expedition is captured by savages, Tarzan comes to the rescue.

The images are terrible quality, they don't even qualify for dirty style design.

J.D. Salinger be high school time, that be the word. It was required reading. I just remember the baseball glove and that's about it. The American Sport. It's about baseball I was told, and I said, oh... Baseball. Okay. I thought it was about a catcher in a Rye for real, and I kept looking for the literal meaning and thought the book was great because it was elusive. I just didn't understand it. The teacher told me that it was simply great. And I believed her, because if it was not great, then I would understand it. At this point I had the impression that great art simply was not fully understandable. I liked that, it sounded so abstract.

Let's check out the history of Birthdays. Yes. Yes, everything has a history. Here it is: Evidence of birthday observances dates back before the rise of Christianity. In pagan cultures, people feared evil spirits - especially on their birthdays. It was a common belief that evil spirits were more dangerous to a person when he or she experienced a change in their daily life, such as turning a year older.

Maybe Andy was worried about his age because of his Catholic upbringing? Check the word: With family roots in Byzantine-Slavic Catholicism, Warhol kept a homemade altar with a crucifix and well-worn prayer book beside his bed. He frequently visited Saint Vincent Ferrer's Church on Lexington Avenue.

And that whole thing on living and not wanting to eat or being concerned of eating or not eating or overeating other living things got a little out of hand. I mean when you consider plans screaming for life, we got a problem we are at the point of living off sucking air. Here is a dilemma for vegetarians and living creatures: The basis of vegetarianism, for many vegetarians, is ethical—that it cannot be right for us to kill animals for food, when it is so easy (and also more healthful) to live on plant foods or foods obtained without killing (e. g., dairy products). There is in every major spiritual tradition those who follow vegetarianism—and indeed, who interpret the highest calling of their tradition as favoring, if not mandating, a vegetarian diet. This should give pause to anyone considering the ancient traditions and the morality of killing for food. Here, Andy's proposition is obvious, I mean for vegetarians is okay to eat vegetables. I suspect this had to do with "spiritual beliefs" as the quote above makes obvious, but the plants are screaming!! They too are alive. Wassup widdat.

Remembering a previous comment I made about Andy'a asexuality, now that he is dead commentaries about his queeriness are abound: Indeed, Andy Warhol's life and work, which spanned the homophobic 1950s and the sexual liberation of the 1960s and 1970s and continued through the post-Stonewall era, play a major role in just about any significant account of twentieth-century queer history.

Ties ties ties! Andy got a lot of ties on his birthday. He must have liked them because he painted a campbell's soupcan label on one. Or maybe that was done posthumously. Not sure. It probably was, because it is kind of a bad idea. Kind of, I go back and forth on that one.

Ronald Reagan became president. I remember waking up and hearing "Reagan is president." And everyone was talking about the fact that he was a former actor, rather, the media portrayed him as an active actor. And I thought, "he does not look like an actor, he looks like a politician." Then again, good actors could play any part. Reagan had previously played the part of the Governor of California quite successfully. As it's well known, we now have another actor acting as governor. Arnold the Governator. Right after the 2004 elections people speculated that Arnold might switch parties (become a democrat) to run for the presidency, but the radio DJs kept saying that this is not possible because all those running for the presidency have to have been born in the U.S., and others speculated that they might change the constitution. And so on. and so on.

The divorce thing is odd. I also had heard that presidents need to have a stable and impeccable marital status, but this is quite ironic because in other countries political figures always have multiple mistresses and have had scandalous marital relationships. Divorce issues may still be scandalous in the U.S.--what might be even more scandalous is if the president gets a divorce while being in office or even after his presidency. The man closest to this was Bill Clinton, who somehow survived the Lewinsky scandal. What a mess. And Hillary definitely came on top. She is the strongest woman on the democratic side. And the party is considered the weakest ever in its history.

One thing all presidents have the license to share is egotism. I mean, they all share the potential to have an "ism" after their administrations come to an end. Here are just a few (in no particular order): Reaganism, Bushim, Clintonism, Carterism, Nixonism, and of course, Kennedyism. did anyone say "author function"?

Stallone be cut-up, cut-up be the man. Here is the man brand spanking naked. And then the Victorians came with their good taste. I once heard Stallone got started in the porn industry. Rumour was that the movie was titled The Italian Stallion, but now I have learned it was called Party at Kitty and Stud's. True it appears. and then I Google google away and I find that now also Cameron Diaz got started with a porn, a soft one at that.

But the other day I saw the new reality TV show the Contender. Where Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard have come together to organize a series of fights between amateur fighters who want to turn pro. The show is amazing in that it's reality TV mixed in with the clicheish close-up editing of fights, with special effects and everything we know from the Rocky movies; hmphhh!! Pow! I was on the floor with mixed feelings to see how supposed spontaneous moments have been carefully scripted into scenes that appear to be from an everyday event. Spectacular, no doubt. It is quite a spectacle. A Spectacle.

Gold Records on the wall. I guess you could have a lot of them. Blondie went gold in different places around the world. Perhaps each of the records represented a region, just a speculative word: "In 1979 BLONDIE had their first #1 US hit with "Heart Of Glass" which also sold over a million copies in the UK. The album sold over 20 million copies worldwide. The fourth single from Parallel Lines, "Sunday Girl" also hit #1 in the UK. In September 1979 the band's fourth album "Eat To The Beat" was released, along with the first ever album length video. Before the year's end BLONDIE had continued their chart presence in the UK with the #2 hit "Dreaming.""

The first rap I ever heard was a lyrical segment in the middle of Blondie's "Rapture." I did not know it was rap at the time. Shortly after I heard The Message by Grand Master Flash. And it was the first song in English I memorized. I could not pronounce all the words, but there was something about the rhyme that made it easy for me to remember it. Did not know what a ghetto was, and then when in High School my art teacher named one of my paintings "ghetto night" because it had urban buildings juxtaposed with figures that appear to be running nowhere. When I found out what "ghetto" meant, I got upset because I never related the imagery to such a word. Later on in life I wondered why it bothered me so much and I came to the conclusion that the teacher imposed a specific view on my work, which I did not intend at all. I did not disagree with the concept, only the "ghetto" was never a ghetto to me, as such a concept was foreign, mainly because I was a foreigner in the U.S. at that point, still--did not quite identify with the culture.

Here are the lyrics of Blondie's Rapture:
Toe to toe dancing very close
Body breathing almost comatose
Wall to wall people hypnotized
And they're stepping lightly
Hang each night in rapture
Back to back sacroiliac
Spineless movement and a wild attack
Face to face sightless solitude
And it's finger popping
Twenty four hour shopping in rapture
Fab Five Freddy told me everybody's fly
DJ spinning I said "My My"
Flash is fast Flash is cool
Francois c'est pas flashe non due
And you don't stop sure shot
Go out to the parking lot
And you get in your car and drive real far
And you drive all night and then you see a light
And it comes right down and it lands on the ground
And out comes the man from Mars
And you try to run but he's got a gun
And he shoots you dead and he eats your head
And then you're in the man from Mars
You go out at night eating cars
You eat Cadillacs Lincolns too
Mercurys and Subaru
And you don't stop
You keep on eating cars
Then when there's no more cars you go out at night
And eat up bars where the people meet
Face to face
Dance cheek to cheek
One to one
Man to man
Dance toe to toe
Don't move too slow 'cause the man from Mars is through with cars
He's eating bars
Yeah wall to wall
Door to door
Hall to hall
He's gonna eat 'em all
Rapture
Be pure
Take a tour through the sewer
Don't strain your brain
Paint a train
You'll be singing in the rain
Said don't stop to the punk rock
Well now you see what you wanna be
Just have your party on TV
Cause the man from Mars won't eat up bars where the TV's on
And now he's gone back up to space where he won't have a hassle with
the human race
And you hip hop
And you don't stop
Just blast off sure shot
Because the man from Mars stopped eating cars
And eating bars
And now he only eats guitars
Get up!


Here are the lyrics of The Message by Grand Master Flash:

Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care
I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkie's in the alley with a baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far
Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car

Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to loose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Standing on the front stoop, hangin' out the window
Watching all the cars go by, roaring as the breezes blow
Crazy lady, livin' in a bag
Eating out of garbage piles, used to be a fag-hag
Search and test a tango, skips the life and then go
To search a prince to see the last of senses
Down at the peepshow, watching all the creeps
So she can tell the stories to the girls back home
She went to the city and got so so so ditty
She had to get a pimp, she couldn't make it on her own

Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to loose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

My brother's doing fast on my mother's T.V.
Says she watches to much, is just not healthy
All my children in the daytime, Dallas at night
Can't even see the game or the Sugar Ray fight
Bill collectors they ring my phone
And scare my wife when I'm not home
Got a bum education, double-digit inflation
Can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station
Me on King Kong standin' on my back
Can't stop to turn around, broke my sacroiliac
Midrange, migrained, cancered membrane
Sometimes I think I'm going insane, I swear I might hijack a plane!



Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to loose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

My son said daddy I don't wanna go to school
Cause the teacher's a jerk, he must think I'm a fool
And all the kids smoke reefer, I think it'd be cheaper
If I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper
I dance to the beat, shuffle my feet
Wear a shirt and tie and run with the creeps
Cause it's all about money, ain't a damn thing funny
You got to have a con in this land of milk and honey
They push that girl in front of a train
Took her to a doctor, sowed the arm on again
Stabbed that man, right in his heart
Gave him a transplant for a brand new start
I can't walk through the park, cause it's crazy after the dark
Keep my hand on the gun, cause they got me on the run
I feel like an outlaw, broke my last fast jaw
Hear them say you want some more, livin' on a seasaw

Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to loose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

A child was born, wih no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
Got a smile on you with these burning tooth
Cause only god knows what you go through
You grow in the ghetto, living second rate
And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate
The places you play and where you stay
Looks like one great big alley way
You'll admire all the numberbook takers
Dogpitchers, pushers and the big money makers
Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens
And you wanna grow up to be just like them
Smuygglers, scrambles, burglars, gamblers
Pickpockets, peddlers and even pan-handlers
You say I'm cool, I'm no fool
But then you wind up dropping out of highschool
Now you're unemployed, all null 'n' void
Walking around like you're pretty boy Floyd
Turned stickup kid, look what you done did
Got send up for a eight year bid
Now your man hood is took and you're a Maytag
Spend the next two years as an undercover fag
Being used and abused, and served like hell
Till one day you was find hung dead in a cell
It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth
But now your eyes sing the sad sad song
Of how you lived so fast and died so young

Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to loose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Andy is still on his diet. He was always thin. I always thought he looked like a stick because that was the way he was. He certainly worked hard to get that image. I like this cartoon. Check this, not sure if it is a doll or a person dressed up as a doll. Wow, even after his death, in 2000 he made 8 million dollars! The source is Forbes, so it must be true...

Paloma Picasso has always intrigued me. I try to like her, but it's hard to like someone who when googled all one gets is perfume, perfume, perfume, perfume, perfume, perfume, perfume, perfume. I mean her own personal website does not even come up first when she's googled. Whassup widat! She's got to get on top of her rankings.

I can hear my buddy with whom I had dinner the other night say, "It does not matter, she is Paloma Picasso. She's got money! She is Picasso's daughter, she can do whatever she wants." And then I can hear my other friend say, "Well, why do you dislike her so much? Is it because of her father's name? She is a successful business woman." Ahhh! there we agree. The culture industry.