Where are my many coloured semi precious plastic easter eggs?

So last month a friend of mine used his FaceBook status to ask for a copy of Peter Sarstedt’s single Frozen Orange Juice. I recognized the name and knew he sung the famous 1969 hit Where Do You Go To My Lovely, but wasn’t familiar with anything else he did and the Frozen Orange Juice sounded quite interesting. Now my download of Peter Sarstedt has finally finished and wow, what psychedelic, stoner tunes he produced back in the ’60s. With songs such as No More Lollipops, Many Coloured Semi Precious Plastic Easter Eggs, and Mary Jane, with lyrics such as “Well it’s a real good time that you get from Mary Jane”, just to name a few. What’s really great about his songs is that the music to these far-out lyrics is exactly the kind of ’60s groove tunes you would find backing up a  car chase, or entering a hip jiving beach party in the ’60s. Very cool. I recommend you check him out.

I was surprised when I found photos of him though because from his only number one hit I mentioned earlier he sounds like a French crooner

During my tangential rummaging I found this on an Australian news site. Citroen have joined forces with GQ MAgazine to create what THEY claim to be the ultimate mens accessory. A “Mens only” car. It blends British military efficiency with clean French flair and was co-designed by the company that made Winston Churchill’s suits. Um, GQ, it a Citroen!

Citroen and “mens only” don’t quite fit together if yo ask me. It’s a Citroen! They would be better of making a Citroen hand bag for grandmas. I’m still on the fence about it’s looks. I can’t stop thinking that, it’s a citroen!! “We wanted that bespoke element that comes with Savile Row,” Mark Henderson of GQ Magazine wrote. Again, Savile Row, and a French brand??? Come on guys, that’s like getting The Queen to endorse Mr Foo Chong Ching’s noodle rice down the road. They just don’t mix. It’s more like traditional English elegance mixed with French plastic.

Half Baked Hippies in Disguise to Benefit from Corporate America

Sorry for the lack of posts recently but I’ve been on Christmas break and working on some new art projects, which I’ll tell you about later.

So I was bored the other night and downloaded Dave Chappelle’s movie- Half Baked. I remember seeing this in the early 1990’s as a teenager. Now that I’m more mature, I fiound it isn’t that funny anymore. In fact it was quite uncomfortable to watch, for two reasons; 1) It was obviously modified from the original script to make it more popular with the young, conservative white audience. This is made obvious due to the casting of 3 white main characters to Dave’s one black character. And these white characters were just way too corny. It was horrible watching these guys try and act like they think white guys act when stoned. Their acting was way OTT. 2) You could see in Dave Chappelle’s face during a number of scenes that he was upset that his original screenplay had been modified to please the older, conservative white studio execs. I’m sure Dave originally intended for the four main characters to be his ghetto brothers. Now that would have been more entertaining. But really, you could see it in Dave’s face a few times reacting to the over-acting of his co-stars.

During the movie there was a few appearances by Jerry Garcia, founder and lead guitarist of the 60’s hippie band The Greatful Dead. This got me thinking about whether or not this was the real Jerry Garcia. I knew he was dead, but I had to find out if it was before or after this movie was made. And sure enough imdb.com came to the rescue. Jerry Garcia died in 1995 and the movie was made in 1996, and it wasn’t Jerry Garcia but a look-like. I never got into The Greatful Dead, but I will journey deeper into their tunes because I saw some clips of them on YouTube and his lyrics and guitar rifts are quite psychedelic.

When I was searching on Jerry Garcia I couldn’t stop thinking about Cherry Garcia, one of the flavours of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. I thought one of them was dead. I thought I saw a documentary about them and one of them died from high cholesterol. But I did a search on them and they are both alive. It turns out that I had heard one of their competitors had said the reason for Ben’s quintuple bypass was due to his excessive intake of ice cream. The brand only started to become big in America during the 1980’s despite it’s hippie image. They’ve done well though, these two jewish hippies, who were one day going to close their business rather than become part of the capitalist fat pigs of industry, to finally sell up to Unilever a few years ago.

Ben cohen is co-author of a business book titled How to Change the World, Make Money and Have Fun. Seems like an interesting book if you’re into business and have an entrepreneurial brain. Although it may come down to common sense at the end of the day. Which I think most business is. Ben and Jerry’s mission statement has three parts: a Social Mission, a Product Mission, and an Economic Mission. Their Social Mission describes the company’s need to operate in a way that recognizes their influence on society, and the importance of improving the quality of life all over the world. Their Product Mission states that they will always strive to make the finest quality products, working to use natural, wholesome ingredients. It also states that they will advertise business mannerisms that respect the Earth. Their Economic mission describes their promise to operate their company on a “sustainable financial basis of profitable growth, increasing value for [their] stakeholders and expanding opportunities for development and career growth for [their] employees.”^[3] “Underlying the mission of Ben & Jerry’s is the determination to seek new and creative ways of addressing all three parts, while holding a deep respect for individuals inside and outside the company and for the communities of which they are a part.”^[4]

Is this the ultimate mission statement for hippies to get around the usual template of corporate America? Is it simply rationalization from two self confessed hippies who are disguising their true deep feelings for making loads of money, without being caught out by their contemporaries?With that being said both Ben and Jerry no longer have anything to do with the day-to-day running of the business and have no responsibilities since they “sold out” to Unilever. Doesn’t mean they’ve let corporate America take over and left them to continue living their hippie lives. They must have loads of money now to do what they want. Right?

Do American Television Producers Know The Meaning Of Creativity?

So I visited my YouTube home page and went to a link of a clip from the David Letterman show, who explains what’s going on with all the late night TV show movements of Jay Leno, Conan etc. Even if we don’t get these shows in real time here we have all heard jokes and discussions slagging off NBC. This clip pretty much explains the “in” joke of American TV.

But these late night shows are just further evidence showing how conservative and unimaginable the American entertainment industry is. And keep in mind I’m talking about TV here. I’ll discuss how Hollywood screw up most things in another post. I’m only writing about this subject now because I’ve seen some clips on YouTube and now I’m on a role expressing my disappointment, because I don’t really watch TV at home.

So going back to the lack of imagination and originality that is American TV. Across 3 stations there are something like 7 “Late night with..” programs. And every single one is exactly the same. A host who opens with a very conservative comedic monologue, a house band, a desk and two seats for the guests. Then interviews, a comedy sketch thrown in, and that’s it. Really! I mean talk about lameness with a capital “L”. And the sad thing is that the rest of the world look up to the Americans thinking they are the epitome of entertainment, and how to put a show together! Are American TV viewers that brain dead to fall for the same routine over and over again, without questioning the creativity of it’s producers? An even sadder thing is, and I’ve seen a Discovery Channel documentary about this, is that these late night shows are actually scripted and rehearsed. The monologue and especially the interviews aren’t ad-lib, spur-of-the-moment conversations. The actors and host are given their lines.

And another thing I can’t get my head around is that there was this big deal about Jay Leno retiring. But I’ve recently seen him doing a new show, which is another interview/variety show, which is set-up exactly the same as the late night show he just retired from! What the….? Honestly if that’s America’s idea for starting a fresh, new career out of retirement then god help their entertainment industry.

Don’t get me started on Conan O’Brien. How he ended up on TV in the first place is bewildering. Doesn’t anyone else find his big 1980’s style hair, his large forehead (or 5.5-head) and those nasty looking beady eyes totally off-putting? I saw some of Jimmy Kimble aswell. Does that guy ever smile, laugh, express positive emotions through his face? He’s so dry and monotone. Twat!

Luckily for me there was another clip on the right panel that allowed me to go off on a tangent. Check out this lovely young lady below. I’m not too sure what she talks about, or even is she actually speaks, but damn fine to watch. Something about Japan or jugs, or something. I think she has a name aswell.

Not much to say about this one below. Just some humour after my earlier ramble.

Then I flew to this link because with a title this this and the fact that it’s on YouTube must bring out the curiosity in you. Do you believe her? Does she have to carry some tax card around with her just in case she gets pulled up by the cops and she needs to prove that she’s registered and pays tax on her milk money?

A Tribute to John Cazale

What is it called when you have thought about something one day and then later that week the same subject that you were thinking of  reappears somewhere else, making you realise that you thought about that earlier. It’s not deja vue, because that’s just in the mind. This actually happened to me this week. Last weekend I was downloading the movie Dog Day Afternoon, and I just thought about Pacino’s co-star, John Cazale, and remembered reading about him on IMDB some time ago and discovering he died in 1978 of lung cancer. This morning I was using my guests bathroom (as my main one is being painted), and found that my last guest had left a copy of the latest British GQ magazine (Simon Cowell front cover). So I took it downstairs to read it, only to stumble across a story about non other, John Cazale. Wow, I thought, I was just thinking about him earlier in the week. Freaky. It was a sign though. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.

Anyway, the story was about the short, but ultra successful film career that is being paid tribute in a soon-to-be released documentary about Cazale titled, I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale. Most people know him best as Fredo in the Godfather movies. But what is so special about this guy? He only made 5 movies in his short career, all supporting roles which added up to a little over an hour. But his skill at being a character actor, mostly sad, troubled characters, made him the envy of his peers and the ultimate for most directors. His friends and co-actors such as Pacino, DeNiro and Streep all say they learnt more about acting from Cazale than anybody else. Sure he only made 5 movies, but everyone of those movies were nominated for Best Picture Oscars, and each of them is considered the finest, most important films of all time- The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974), The Godfather Part II (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and The Deer Hunter (1978). They also hauled over 40 Oscar nominations in total. He didn’t really have the beauty or demeanor worthy of being a leading man, but apparently he still dated some of the most beautiful women in the world. The guy just had it. His girlfriend for the rest of his life was Meryl Streep who was at his bedside during his final moments. I will be scanning the QC article and posting it for those who can’t get a copy.

Speaking about character actors and/or bit players, there a few more actors that we see in just about every film. We know their faces, we recognize that they’ve been in other big films, but they don’t have major parts and we don’t know their names. I’ll mention a few here then you can add more as you wish and I’ll make a list in my Movies page. I like to call this segment: Hey, It’s THAT Guy!

The most famous one (for me anyway) is James Rebhorn.

Then there’s Clint Howard. Usually in all his brother Ron’s movies.

Vincent Schiavelli

Jeffrey Jones

R. Lee Emrey

Fred Thompson                                                                                                                                         Paul Gleason

Old Dogs & Showing Your Knob On Film

So last night I went to the cinema to see Old Dogs. There was nothing else on as all the new releases are coming out from the 7th and I thought since it stared Robyn Williams and John Travolta it had a lot of potential to be quite a funny feel good movie. First mistake. I also didn’t notice, when checking out the show times, that it was a Disney movie. Second mistake. The film was actually edited quite badly as there were a number of cuts that seemed out of place during some funny parts. The story was quite rushed from the start, not spending enough time to establish the characters, which made it a little bewildering at times. Nonetheless there were 2 or 3 funny parts with the golf course and picnic scene lasting 5-10 which was very funny. It was a kids movie and I suggest waiting for download or your next trip to Thailand when you purchase DVDs for 10 cents. One thing that struck us was how old Robyn Williams looked. We were debating if he was in his mid or late 60’s, because both his and John’s character’s were portrayed as being the same age but there’s no way that could be true in real life. So I visited my friend IMDB once again and discovered Robyn is 58 and John is 55. Maybe that’s what all the cocaine does to you, Robyn. incidentally Robyn Williams has won the most Golden Globes than any other actor. In the history of the world.

The movie also stared Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston and his daughter Ella Bleu. We were wondering if the movie was made before or after the death of his son, who my friend thought we passed away around the start of 2009, but I thought he died just a few months ago. It turns out he died Jan 2nd. The film was actually shot before his son’s death and released in December 2009. Bernie Mac was also in the film which turned out to be his last.

Speaking about Travolta, it was interesting to read that he was threatening to quit Saturday Night Fever if his idea of filming his strut down the sidewalk for the opening sequence wasn’t going to be used. They also had to film most of the movie in the hours of 3-6am because the streets used for scenes would be packed with hundreds of screaming girls. His first marriage to Kelly Preston was declared illegal because they were married by a Scientologist minister.

When I got home from the cinema last night I watched the latest Family Guy episode which was a piss-take of The Empire Strikes back, called- Something Something Dark Side. As you can see from the above clip, Yoda tells us something very interesting about the movie Teenwolf. Of course I just had to YouTube this after I finished watching Family Guy, and sure enough there were plenty of posts showing this. Instead of explaining it I’ve posted the clip here.

This reminded me of another movie goof I stumbled upon last week. This one is from the movie Back To The Future 3. Watch the clip below and you can see the blonde kid (Verne) gesturing to his penis. This kid must have been around 7-10 years old. What a little champ. He needs to be congratulated for such a risky move that totally owned that scene. Unfortunately for him he had only one other appearance on TV and has done a few old Pepsi commercials in the early nineties, but nothing else since. That probably makes him eligible to be on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! But more about that cesspool of scum and indecency on my other page of Thoughts and Opinions.

Is the new Burj Khalifa the 21st century Tower of Bable or just a Cuckoo’s Nest?

So a friend of mine has a blog here on wordpress and on his banner I noticed a painting of an ancient tower. I immediately thought if that was the Tower of Bable from the Bible, so I wikied it and sure enough the exact same image was there. I remember bits and pieces of this story from Sunday school days and it was interesting to read up on this tower and how the story of the tower represents the origins of nations, languages and Babylon (the centre of scientific and cultural advancement in the Middle East). The tower was to have “it’s top to the Heavens” and be home to a united nations speaking a single language. But God didn’t like this and saw it as an idol for man and man’s desire for pride, so he he came and crushed the Tower and scattered the people all over the earth to start new nations and languages. He was pretty pissed off that king Nimrod wanted to make a name for himself and bring in many people from other parts of the earth and control humanity. I had to search “Nimrod” aswell because I thought that name is used as an insult when we were kids- “You stupid Nimrod”- But couldn’t find anything to back this up. If you know what I’m talking about or where I’m going wrong with that please let me know. I’ve just heard this, or something that sounds like that, before somewhere.

And yesterday when I was reading about the opening of the World’s tallest tower in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, and looking at the amazing photos of the celebrations I couldn’t help think that the images of the tower presiding over the Middle Eastern town looked very familiar to The Tower of Bable. And considering the economic state of Dubai and the fact that the developer of this building- Emaar Properties- is going bankrupt and it’s share price plumeting from $70 odd to $1.20, and also how the tower was built to attract many residents, hotels, companies etc, made me think that this is maybe the 21st Century Tower of Bable. Which we know was “a sin” in God’s eyes and as a result it was destroyed. What do you think conspriacy theorists? Do you think this tower will stand for long?

And now for something completely different, as Monty Python would say. I got home from a friend’s birthday dinner last night absolutely bloated from the 7 course meal and copious amounts of fine wine, armagnac, and champagne and discovered that my download of the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest had finished. What better way to end the night with my laptop and my friend Mary Jane. During the scene when Nicholson arrives at the “Nest” and is interviewed by the Head, it is mentioned that Jack’s character is 38 years old. Damn, this got me wondering if Jack was really 38 when filming this movie in 1976. He looked quite good but that would mean he is 71 years old. Is he really that old? So I turned to my good friend IMDB.com , and sure enough he is 72 years old! Born in 1937, it’s kind of hard to believe, but I suppose that’s because we really only ever see him in movies from the 70’s to 90’s and not in real life. He’s won 3 Oscars and can you tell me what he won these for?

I noticed he’s in an untitled James L. Brooks movie which is in post production, due for release this year, so that sounds like a great film. Can’t go wrong with James L. Brooks, writer and producer of The Simpsons, Taxi TV series, Bottle Rocket, As Good As It Gets, Big, Broadcast News, Tracey Ullman Show, Terms of Endearment and I could go oon. He is among an elite group of 7 Directors who have won best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (Original/Adapted) for the same film. In 1984 he won all three for Terms of Endearment (1983). The other directors are Leo McCarey (for Going My Way (1944)), Billy Wilder (for The Apartment (1960)), Francis Ford Coppola (for The Godfather: Part II (1974)), Peter Jackson (for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003)) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (the brothers co-produced, co-directed and co-wrote No Country for Old Men (2007) with each other). Brooks is the only one to do so with his directorial debut and the only one to do so without collaborators in any of the three categories.Will be interesting to see what this 2010 release will be like.

Is she an easy lover?/Don’t you want somebody to love?

I watched an old (1997) Michael Douglas movie last night- The Game. I was introducing it to a friend for the first. Great movie with some big twists at the end. The kind of movie you can’t tell anyone about because you’ll ruin it. Anyway during the credits a song was playing who I thought sounded like Jefferson Airplane. Some freaky great lyrics that were really captivating my friend and I especially in the “state” we were in at the time. Quite a fitting song. Singing about magic mushrooms and hallucinatory Alice In Wonderland, it was really groovy, if you know what I mean. So eagerly waiting for the song credits to come up we discovered the song was non other than “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane. This got me into YouTube mode because I knew a few other Jefferson Airplane songs and knew they were a psychedelic band from the ’60s. So before playing “(Don’t you want) Somebody To Love” we played the white rabbit clip over and over.

While of course I wikipedia’d (?) Grace Slick who was the singer with JA and wrote those songs. Apparently she was invited to the White House for a function while Nixon was in power. But she was stopped at security because they found out she was on the FBI black list and worried that she would try and slip some LCD into Nixon’s coffee!!! To wit she doesn’t deny.

I then made a tangent to Jefferson Airplane on wiki because I knew that the famous 1985 songs “We built this city on Rock n Roll” and “Sara”, and 1987’s “Nothing’s gonna stop us now” were performed by a Starship. And low and behold the 1980’s group Starship derived from Jefferson Starship which changed from Jefferson Airplane. Lot’s of break-ups and rights stealing and lawyers plagued them over the next 20-odd years. “We Built This City” coincidentally was written by Bernie Taupin, who as you know wrote all of Elton Johns songs.

For some reason I woke up this morning with the Phil Collins song “She’s an easy lover” in my head. Well to be honest with you it’s been running through my head for a few days. I think it has a catchy beat to it, and I could remember the video clip from the ’80s, and that it was a duet with a black singer. I couldn’t remember who the other singer was so I YouTubed it and there it was, the whole video clip. The other singer was Phil Bailey, who is the lead singer of Earth Wind and Fire. He was also in the movie Full Metal Jacket.

Which was a freaky coincidence because I only just saw Earth Wind and Fire in concert here in Singapore about 3 weeks ago! They rocked the place. Not a single person was sitting down. And all 3 original members were jumping and dancing around non-stop. A very good effort considering they’re in their 60’s now.

Hello world!

Tangential: Adj. 1. Of, relating to, or of the nature of a tangent. 2. Acting along a tangent. also: of little relevance

Rummage: verb. 1. To engage in an indirect or haphazard search. 2. To make a thorough search or investigation.

We’ve all done it- start to look on YouTube or Wikipedia and other sites with one purpose- then only to find ourselves going off on a tangent and searching and finding clips and stories from society, culture, arts etc that make or memories go wild, and our trivial knowledge bloom. I plan to record all my daily internet tangent rummaging in the hope you will find it entertaining and also jog your memories and take you back in time and also enlighten you with many trivial discoveries such as; Did you know this actor was actually a back up singer on this album?