Buh Bye 2016

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1DJ Nu-Mark - ZODIAC TRACKS - GEMINI MIX

Seeing that I'm a Gemini, I've decided to debut my Zodiac Tracks Mix featuring Notorious B.I.G., Lady of Rage, Lauryn Hill, Paul McCartney and Pete Rock. These artists have contributed a wealth of music to us, so please share them with your family and friends!

Five Stedicam Milestones On it's 40th anniversary

Bad Brains documentary (full film)

School of Life Monday: In Praise of the Quiet Life

Quiet lives feel nowadays like lives of failure and resignation, but they may be no such thing: true ambition can lie in learning how to minimise stress and divert energy to properly important projects.

Merry Fucking Christmas :-)

Jingle Barack - SNL

SIOUXSIE SIOUX: HIGH PRIESTESS OF PUNK

from Dangerous Minds:

Noam Chomsky explains sports, irrational jingoism, submission to authority, etc.

IF YOU WANT TO SEE HOW DONALD TRUMP WILL DESTROY THE ENVIRONMENT, READ THIS LEGISLATIVE ROADMAP

from The Intercept:
by Sharon Lerner

IF YOU’VE BEEN wondering which environmental protections the incoming administration will target and how exactly they’ll try to undo them, take a look at the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s legislative agenda, “Free to Prosper.” Just a few months ago, this radical plan to dismantle environmental safeguards would have been dismissed as the wacky wish list of a conservative fringe group. But with Donald Trump headed to the White House and Myron Ebell, CEI’s director, overseeing the transition of the Environmental Protection Agency, the report, which was released last week, is a chilling preview of the attacks on environmental and health regulations that are likely to come — and a must-read for anyone trying to avert them.

Beyond laying out specific paths to destruction, CEI’s legislative roadmap helps explain the group’s twisted logic for attacking environmental laws in the first place, something that may be lost on the vast majority of Americans, who want clean air and water, accept the reality of climate change, and are not steeped in anti-governmental legal theory.

As CEI sees it, efforts to address the effects of pollution from fossil fuels on our climate are really a “war on affordable energy.” Bizarrely, the report uses a decline in global death rates due to extreme weather since the 1920s to justify the continued burning of oil and coal and its claim that carbon-based fuels “increase life expectancy.” While fossil fuels have unquestionably kept many people warm over the past century, alternative energy sources can also provide plenty of heat — and have the additional appeal of reducing the likelihood of extreme weather events.

Most disingenuously, CEI presents its efforts to do away with climate protections as stemming from a concern for the poor, since “energy costs already impose real burdens on low-income households.” In truth, the poor are disproportionately affected by climate change. And, of course, huge energy and chemical companies are the ones who stand to benefit most from the assault on climate and other environmental protections suggested in the report. Not coincidentally, many of these same powerful interests, including Exxon, Dow, Texaco, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Koch Brothers have funded CEI.

Trump has already made it pretty clear that he would like to undo the Paris Climate Agreement. CEI lays out a plan for doing so by reclassifying the agreement as a treaty requiring ratification in the Senate, which would almost certainly fail to receive the necessary two thirds vote.

CEI also calls for overturning the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which includes carbon dioxide and other pollution standards for power plants. If Congress can’t dismantle the actual Clean Power Plan rule, which the report describes as “an unlawful power grab that will increase consumer electricity prices,” the think tank suggests a plan B, defunding the EPA’s implementation of it.

Budgets may be the most direct way to paralyze environmental progress, and CEI proposes slashing a number of them. “Free to Prosper” also calls on Congress to cut off the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, an intergovernmental group that gathers and shares information on strategies for addressing greenhouse gas emissions and preparations for the impacts of climate change.

Although some environmental advocates have offered assurances that dismantling environmental laws will be difficult and time consuming, the CEI report suggests specific strategies the Trump administration might pursue, such as amending the Clean Air Act so that the EPA no longer has the ability to affect climate policy; altering the Clean Water Act so that the EPA has no power to regulate wetlands; and reforming the Endangered Species Act so that it’s harder to add threatened animals.

Generally speaking, whatever natural resource you might think of, CEI believes it doesn’t need protection. So the Waters of the U.S. Rule, which limits pollution in lakes and rivers, should be overturned; the federal government should transfer ownership of land to the states or private citizens, or at the very least make it available for “resource production”; fuel standards for cars should be allowed to expire; and Congress should push back against the Fish and Wildlife Service, which, according to CEI, is engaged in “a vast new endangered species power grab.”

If Congress follows the “Freedom to Prosper” blueprint, it will also roll back restrictions on toxic chemicals. The group suggests eliminating funding for what it calls “activist research,” which includes the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences study of the endocrine disruptor BPA, and for “Safer Choice,” through which EPA helps companies eliminate toxic chemicals from their products. Another CEI target is IRIS, the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System, which identifies hazardous environmental chemicals, such as formaldehyde, styrene, and TCE. IRIS has proven particularly troublesome to industry because it targets widely used chemicals and, as the report notes, drives clean air and drinking water regulations.

Most people want government to keep them safe from such dangers. But CEI seems to have no compunction about eliminating efforts designed to protect health, even when they’re aimed at babies, such as the government’s efforts to restrict dangerous chemicals called phthalates from kids’ products. Although the Consumer Products Safety Commission has been working on such a ban for years, the report recommends conducting oversight hearings that would slow the process further. It’s worth noting that Exxon Mobil, which has funded CEI — and whose CEO is now poised to become Trump’s secretary of state — manufactures phthalates and opposes the ban.

That conflict of interest is just one of many. “This is standard CEI — hysteria, nonsense, and dishonesty to promote the most extreme pro-chemical manufacturer agenda,” said Daniel Rosenberg, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “These people are not relevant players, they’re at the margins,” he added. “Or at least they used to be.”

fuuuuuck

School of Life Monday: How To Cope With Snobbery

The existence of snobbery explains why we work so hard and are so worried about our reputations. We are all terrified of humiliation and disrespect.

Beastie Boys Late Night Infomercial circa 1998

from Dangerous Minds:

Ad-Rock as John, the over enthusiastic audience member at a juice extractor demonstration.

I was up late one San Fernando valley evening in 1998, channel surfing through cable television when I happened upon a very bizarre infomercial advertising a product called “Sure Shine.” It caught my attention and I immediately stopped flipping: the commercial boasted that this multi-use product could wash your hair, polish your car, clean your kitchen counter, AND be used in the bedroom, as a spermicide. The number to call on the screen was 1-888-711-BSTE. This had to be some kind of hoax! It wasn’t exactly a hoax, rather, an ingenious marketing tactic used to promote the Beastie Boys highly anticipated Hello Nasty album on the hip hop groups’ own record label Grand Royal. 

Calling the 1-888 number that flashed on the screen throughout the half-hour parody led viewers to where they could pre-order Hello Nasty and have it delivered to their doorstep on July 14, the ad also included the URL for Grand Royal’s newly launched website. The low-budget infomercial was directed by none other than Tamra Davis, wife of Beastie Boy Mike D, whose impressive credits include music videos for N.W.A., Sonic Youth, as well as major Hollywood studio films like CB4 and Billy Madison. It ran for several weeks on cable stations in Northern New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Manhattan, N.Y., Cleveland, Portland, Philadelphia, Houston, and Washington, D.C.


A disclaimer scrolled over the fake products that read “If you order NOW, you will not receive any car care products, but you can order the record, CD, or cassette of the new Beastie Boys album ‘Hello Nasty’”

This incredibly amusing advertising concept starred the Beastie Boys themselves: Mike D (a.k.a. Mike Diamond), MCA (a.k.a. Adam Yauch) Ad-Rock (a.k.a. Adam Horovitz), who, in the name of sketch comedy, slapped on fake wigs, phony moustaches, ponytails, and took on various roles to sell fake get-rich-quick scams, psychic hotlines, and even a food processor that played beats from Hello Nasty. The Beasties comedy chops hold up strong, with a parody style well ahead of its time pre-dating Adult Swim, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and so many others who a decade later would become popular parodying public-access television with bizarre faux-infomercials in a very similar fashion.

Director Tamra Davis spoke with me about how using a Home Shopping Network style approach to sell Hello Nasty came about: “Ian Rodgers (Grand Royal’s president of new media) was working with the Beasties on how to direct sell and market using the internet. This was all super new and I definitely remember us all thinking about how crazy it would be if you were at home watching TV in the middle of the night and this came on. We thought it would be hilarious.” This wasn’t Ian Rodgers’ first innovative approach to marketing in new media. After he wowed the Beastie Boys by giving a demonstration of the internet in 1994 (they hadn’t heard of it yet!) he created an (unreleased) CD-ROM entitled Don’t Mosh in the Ramen Shop, and in 1998 became one of the very first people to use MP3 technology to upload live recordings to the net while on the road with the group during the Hello Nasty tour.

The late-night infomercial was incredibly effective, with phone lines lighting up and pre-orders filing in whenever and wherever it aired. A Grand Royal telephone operator explained that a few viewers called in just to ask if the ad was real or not. “Some people have been like ‘Are you just going to go out and charge up my credit card?’ And I’ve just been telling them, ‘No, this is legit.’” Greg Pond, a cable programming coordinator at TCI San Francisco said, “This isn’t the first time that our cable systems local-access channels have been used to promote a well-known group of musicians. We aired half-hour spots for Tricky and Pulp, but those were just videos and information about the artists. They were nothing like the infomercial the Beastie Boys produced.”

Beastie Boys fans will be thrilled to see Ad-Rock as John, the over enthusiastic audience member in a juice extractor demonstration. Mike D as exercise guru Jack Freeweather in the “8 Minute Workout” that promises amazing results. “Whatever you’ve been doing in the past, you’ve been doing it wrong. Let Jack make it right.” Mike D returns later as thick-accented “Miklious Toukas” of CEO GR International. In my favorite segment, MCA plays a get-rich-quick character named Bill Swenson, a.k.a. “The Money Man.” A perfectly straight-faced MCA wearing thick, dark-rimmed glasses and a pink sweater around his neck expresses: “Money makes you feel good, money is so underestimated in our society, money is the thing that everyone needs to feel great and be who they are.” Tamra explains there was never a script for the infomercial, “We had all the ideas of the characters and what would happen but it was all improvised as far as what they said or what the guests would say. Some things they did were such inside jokes that if only five of us got it, it was worth it.”


MCA as Bill Swenson, a.k.a. “The Money Man.”


Mike D as thick-accented “Mikilous Toukas” of CEO GR International.

Extras casting helped fill out the traditional studio audience when they taped the ad in New York City, as well as friends, family, fellow Grand Royal labelmates, and even some real people like the Beasties stylist Tara Chaney and Tamra and Mike D’s doorman Joe. E.Z. Mike (a.k.a. Michael Simpson) from the Dust Brothers can be seen in the crowd applauding next to none other than record producer and studio engineer legend Mario Caldato Jr. Any Beastie Boys fan knows him as Mario C. by his frequent shout-outs in lyrics such as “That’s a record ‘cause of Mario” on the song “Root Down” and “Mario C likes to keep it clean!” on “Intergalactic.” Matthew Horovitz (Ad-Rock’s brother) plays Kenny Star of “Hollywood Psychics,” and Ad-Rock’s best friend from elementary school, working actress Nadia Dajani, plays Peg of “The Juice Ladies.” Actor Russell Steinberg (son-in-law of Diane von Fürstenberg) and DJ Frankie Inglese appear as Mike Lathers and Graham Noodledish of “Fantastic Finds,” showing off a miracle cleaning product that can only be applied using a compact disc.


(left to right) Mario C., Ad-Rock, and E.Z. Mike as studio audience members.


Mike Lathers (Russell Steinberg) and Graham Noodledish (DJ Frankie Inglese) of “Fantastic Finds.”

The brilliant Hello Nasty infomercial was unfortunately left out of the Beastie Boys Criterion Edition Video Anthology, however, it can be seen in its entirety on YouTube in three parts. In 2009 Tamra wrote a cookbook titled Make Me Something Good to Eat and also hosted a cooking show called the Tamra Davis Cooking Show, inspired by cooking meals at home for their two children, Skyler and Davis. She recently directed an episode of BBC America’s Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency starring Elijah Wood as well as Netflix’s upcoming original comedy series Santa Clarita Diet starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant.

Bobby Piercy never before seen photograph from 1977 on my Instagram

BOBBY PIERCY the Legend, slaloming at a park in SanDiego late 1977 or early 1978, with his dog Sonny... according to best research among friends both Bobby and Sonny have long since passed (RIP). BP was a professional snow skier who brought his parallel stance and hip shaking to the cones with a vengeance. His natural abilities were pretty incredible, he even skated vertical and Surfed more than he skated or Snow skied. As a teen ager he'd fly me down to San Diego for the weekend to make photos down there, i was too young to drive so the cab to LAX would cost around 20 bucks and my plane ticket was usually less than TEN dollars, just incredible when you think about it (one or two of my ticket receipts is in the collage in the MY RULES book). Bobby would give me $100 at the end of the weekend to pay for the cabs, airplanes, film and developing. The only time i ever tried surfing was with Bobby, Jay Adams and Warren Bolster (all legends all gone). Ask anyone who knew him and you'll hear great stories, he was well loved by all, not to mention a true player with the ladies. Jus' sayin'. #STYLE #PointLoma #SanDiego #Player #PlayBoy #Racer #slalom #PARTY #ArrowSkateboards #unpublished #YouveNeverSeenThisOneBefore #Traknology #skateboarding #surfer #skier #TurnerSummerSki #BadAss #Pimp please feel free to chime in and let me know where in san diego this is, and have a good weekend ✌🏽p.s. electors use your brains and follow the advice of the founding fathers, vote your conscious. #Dump

A photo posted by glen E. friedman Ⓥ (@glenefriedman) on Dec 16, 2016 at 1:39pm PST

HR - 'Finding Joseph I' - The Documentary

Tonight I went to a screening of the film "Finding Joseph I" It was much better than I expected, also much more emotional for me to see, and especially to see Joseph answer some questions after the screening. The same guy that i remember with so much charisma and character became a shell of himself and even less over the years, now seems to be in some form of control over his diagnosed schizophrenia, just slightly, it's heavy duty.

I can highly recommend the film, except there were more than a few people who didn't need to be in the film for their observations and knucklehead opinions, but it was a journey and if you have seen HR back in the late 70's or early 80's as I had, and then witnessed the deterioration or absolute unpredictability from the late 80's onward, this gives you the deeper window of sorts you were hoping for. Some really interesting family history in the early part of the film as well. (I never knew he and Earl rode skateboards in the 60's!)



go here for more info: http://hrdocumentary.com

from the website:

HR "Finding Joseph I" is a feature documentary currently in production, chronicling the eccentric life and struggles of punk rock reggae singer, Paul "HR" Hudson, a.k.a. Joseph I. The charismatic frontman's energetic and explosive live performances helped pioneer hardcore punk rock with the Bad Brains, one of the most influential bands to rise out of the 1980's. HR's heavy devotion to the Rastafarian faith guided him in a spiritual direction leaving the band several times to explore his love for reggae music as the solo artist, HR Human Rights. Over the years, the Bad Brains have reunited several times only to struggle with the unpredictable singer. HR's increasingly strange and abnormal behavior has left many convinced that he his suffering from psychological troubles while others believe he is still living out his journey as one of the greatest frontmen in rock and roll history!

This documentary will feature interviews with musicians and peers HR has worked with and influenced as they share their stories and first hand experiences. Most importantly we will hear from HR himself about his life, philosophies, and career while seeing him continue to write, record, and perform, spreading his passionate message of universal peace and love.

great DEVO interview circa 1981

from Dangerous Minds

The entire interview, uncut, is amazing red meat for serious DEVOtees—it’s over 40 minutes of the band discussing their motivations, the devolution idea, newly-nascent Reaganism, the concept behind the New Traditionalists LP, public responses to their work and their image, rock ’n’ roll culture, all the obsessions shared between DEVO and its fans to which the band gave voice. It’s worth it for the Jerry Casale quote “Art bands are in love with their own poopoo” alone.

Here's my favorite photos of Alva I made on FILM Last month, back from the lab today...

TONY ALVA a few weeks ago i made some photographs with T.A. over at Pier 62, i finished the roll of film down in the Union Square subway station over the weekend (see my blog) and just got it back from the lab this morning. Couldn't wait to share it here with y'all. 35mm FILM with a 17mm lens - no tricks, no reflectors, no flashes, no crop. yes composition, yes style, yes character, yes available light, yes natural flare, yes art, yes fun! … how grown men work together who have been working together for 40+ years... #punks #OldAsFuckAndStillKickingAss #Skateboarding #Life #Brothers #Growth #planet #environment #inspiration #integrity #FuckYouHeroes #MyRules #19762016 #vertical #coping

A photo posted by glen E. friedman Ⓥ (@glenefriedman) on Dec 13, 2016 at 9:51am PST

Crime of the Big Leagues great 10 minute doc.

A mini-doc about the late Lester Rodney, the unsung hero that helped desegregate Major League Baseball.

Crime of the Big Leagues from Tomorrow Media on Vimeo.

School of Life Monday: Literature - George Orwell

George Orwell is the most famous English language writer of the 20th century, the author of Animal Farm and 1984. What was he trying to tell us and what is his genius?



MY FAVORITE,

GEF