A very Mötley Twö

Gzerod Von Staaf

Gzerod Von Staaf has this to say: Too Metal for Motley Crue: my new Willie Nelson-look-alike friend and I both deemed “unacceptable” for a “metal” show. Note our “dangerous and inappropriate” necklaces. I am done with this city.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that’s what you get for trying to be edgy in placid Victoria, BC. Gzerod Von Staaf (possibly the most metal name I’ve ever heard) is, to no-one’s surprise, the frontman of a band, Staaf Only. His commitment to the heavy metal lifestyle and look is clear from the eyeliner-and-yes-metal-heavy photos on his Facebook page. His popularity is clear from the several thousand Likes he’s collected. He was probably as excited as any fellow musician in the field to have tickets to the Mötley Crue concert in town, and regalia’d himself out appropriately, as you can see in the above instagram. We shall say nothing about instagram not being metal, for we are not a hardass.

Unlike, apparently, the security guard at Save On Foods Memorial Centre (“Memorial?” is it bankrupt or something?). Here is what happened, from a couple of posts on the Motley Crue Facebook page”

Renee LaFortune said, “The rent-a-cops security at Save-on-foods arena in Victoria, BC, would not admit Gzerod Von Staaf to the concert tonight. Not cool.” and garnished it with footage of a truly impressive guitar solo, for bonus cred.

Then on my friend Jodie’s wall, she elaborated on what had happened.

  • It wasn’t the band, nor the arena (or so they tell me), it was a contracted security firm, hired by the arena.
  • Renee LaFortune The ticket money was NOT refunded. Complaints have been filed all over the place.
  • Renee LaFortune note: the above photo was taken outside the arena. The two people (Gzerod and the Willie Nelson look-alike) were denied admittance.

Stephanie Landucci, Von Staaf‘s girlfriend was also apparently denied admittance to the show for dress-code-related reasons, which left her plenty of time to post about it on Facebook and challenge the Crue directly.

Tonight, my boyfriend and I were denied admittance to the Victoria, B.C. concert, based on the fact that he was wearing several chain necklaces. Moments before this occurred, a group of Ed Hardy clad, gold chain sporting coke heads were ushered in with no problem at all.

My boyfriend is a conscientious, law-abiding non-drinker, as well as amazing musician and great admirer of the Crue, yet these partially-literate fucktards, who are the most likely to cause harm, undue violence, drink and drive, and ultimately date rape some girl they meet at the show, are welcomed and encouraged to get drunk. Where is the justice, Crue?

Indeed. If it can’t keep Ed Hardy-wearing douchenozzles out of your show, what the hell kind of dress code is that? Related: I was not there, so I don’t know, but by any chance were the band sporting metal?

Best comment of the night goes to Greg Bulmash: “Motley Crue’s idea of “metal” these days is the iron supplements their nurses give them with their morning porridge.”

Ah Pook is here

William S Burroughs is on target!

William S Burroughs is on target!

Who knows why founding Beat poet and professional reprobate William S. Burroughs chose to fixate on the minor Mayan death god Ah Puch (which he spelled “Ah Pook” probably because it sounds like a dirty phrase in his native Midwestern dialect), but once he did, Ah Pook was resurrected from his sojourn in Limbo and elevated to the Pantheon of immortals, thanks to this bizarre prose poem, now immortalized as an unforgettable, gruesome, beautiful, award-winning animated film.

Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves. Ah Pook is here.

AH POOK IS HERE – This 1994 stop-frame interpretation of recordings by the late William S. Burroughs, was crafted around a selection of tracks from the album “Dead City Radio” produced by Hal Willner & Nelson Lyon – and featuring music by John Cale.

AH POOK received Ten international film awards, was archived in the Goethe institute, and was part of the Burroughs retrospective PORTS OF ENTRY. AH POOK was also voted ‘BEST OF THE BEST’ at the 2010 Stuttgart International Trickfilm festival.

The Guardian review:
“Phillip Hunt’s gorgeous, grisly animation mates William Burroughs’s gravelly narration of Ah Pook The Destroyer’s death-dealing parable with music by John Cale at his creepiest. Hunt’s deliberate and disgusting illustrations of Burrough’s monsters of the mind are a revelation; delicately articulated puppets riddled with revolting detail. Turn down the lights, get out the headphones, and give yourself over to The Master’s ghastly visions and sonorous warnings (“The world cannot be controlled, except by accident”) for six gut-churning minutes.”
-Kate Stables / The Guardian

Director Philip Hunt
Producer Eddel Beck
Music Hal Wilner & John Cale
Produced at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg
Distributor BFI & The British Council

PS (still reading? eh?)

You might like the following story ( spoiler alert!):
The final scene of the film is an unbroken take wherein Pook puts the gun in his mouth and we pull back until we hear a gunshot and see a red flash, cutting back into the stars… and the spirit of Pook intoning ‘falling in Love again’ among the Heavens…
The original intention was to pull the camera all the way back a good respectful distance and show Pook’s body flinch backward etc.. But we had a small problem while shooting. Now, back in the day (‘94) we did this part on film and in-camera without video assist etc. and the entire sequence was one continuous camera track made frame by frame …all adjusted incrementally by hand.
When we were nearing the end of the shot we realised the focus had messed up & we were shooting blur. We had no way of knowing how long we had been shooting blur either.. The simple shot had taken us all day to shoot due to the awkward nature of the set up and we despondently wrapped for the day and sent the film off for processing ( a 2 day turnaround due to the location we shot in at that time). Now, the films audio was pre edited, the master mix already had the gunshot set as part of the audio track. So, after 2 days we got the processed rushes back & synched them up to the audio and played out to see how much of the animation had been captured before the accidental focus pull screwed it all up…
By some bizarre co-incidence.. The moment of blur synched up EXACTLY with the gunshot.. And so that’s how we left it.
Still freaks me out even now…

Bee Artistic

Aganetha Dyck

Aganetha Dyck

Tired of those hideous Capidomonte figurines your wicked fairy godmother gave you as a vindictive wedding present? Well, we’ve got a solution for you: turn them into avant-garde art the Aganetha Dyck way!

Dyck is a Canadian artist who takes ordinary items like, say, loathesomely twee statuary, puts them in beehives, and lets the bees do their magic, turning the sows ears into veritable silk purses of post-postmodernism. Oh, like you were using them anyway: with this project, you can probably get some kind of farming grant for the bees, plus think of the millions you can make with one sweep through a flea market and a couple of months of waiting!

Don’t say I never did nuthin’ for ya!

Cypherpoetry

Cypherpunks captured

Cypherpunks captured

Cypherpunks are a movement, a couple of episodes of Julian Assange’s television show, and a new book which I am going to review for Slate. They are, as well, poets (who don’t know it; or didn’t, until they read this post right here).

I know it only because I took their Manifesto (and y’all will recall how fond I am of Manifestii) and ran it through the Haiku Finder (and y’all will recall how fond I am of the Haiku Finder). And these were the surprisingly evocative result:

– it needs rewriting,
but for historical sake
I’ve left it unchanged.

+ Why is this so?
Why have these dominated?
What else is needed?

How this is achieve
is what most of the features
here are all about.

Tort law, threats of grant
or contract removal, all
are limiting speech.

– Statements from senior
intelligence officials
reflect this concern.

Niches will be filled.
12.3.4. The deep nature of money
is unclear to me.

12.15. Outlawing of Cash
12.15.1. “What are the motivations
for outlawing cash?

Perforce, people will
engage in contracts only
voluntarily.

– (For those of you who
think such bypasses of laws
are immoral, tough.

With liquid markets
for liquidations, things may
change dramatically.

Dealing with Such Things:
+ never link physical
ID with pseudonyms!

from records that were
public and that I am now
selling access to?

But pretty clearly
some amazing new structures
will be built this way.

“What role, if any,
will MUDs, MOOs, and Virtual
Realities play?

That, my friends, is a question I ask myself every day. And then I google to find out what it means.

How to Handle Children: by Superman and Batman

Batman vs Superman

Batman vs Superman

Just what it says on the tin: an instructive video on how to handle children, with iconic American superheroes demonstrating two different options.

Guess which one I am?