23 years ago...

I have wanted to start taking more photos again recently but keep forgetting to take the camera with me when I go out anywhere. I Poached this pic of NK off the Thrasher site. Just 'cause it's a good pic... from 1985!

CHUCK D, RFH LONDON, OCT 10th 2008

Ok, so here's the footage from the Chuck D lecture. There are a couple of gaps where I had to hide the camera - and I didn't have a tripod so some is a bit shaky, but hey, I don't think there's any footage of it anywhere else.
Also, I cut out a LOT of the audience Q&A, as it d-r-a-g-g-e-d on a bit. Enjoy.

UPDATE: FILE IS CORRUPT - WILL BE BACK UP ON HERE SHORTLY.

Lucky old angels, lucky old heaven...

Mr Charles Ridenhour

Off to Southbank to hear this fella do a talk on the history of P.E tomorrow evening: The ticket says ‘from 7.30pm’ with no end time, as apparently Mr Ridenhour can talk for a while – which is a good thing in my book. Going to try and sneak the DV cam in, so there’ll hopefully be some footage up by Monday.

Bill Melendez R.I.P

Bill Melendez, the voice of Snoopy, who animated everybody from Mickey Mouse and Bambi to Bugs Bunny and Charlie Brown, passed away Tuesday at age 91. His other work included such classics as: Wabbit Twouble, What Makes Daffy Duck, What’s Up, Doc, Gerald McBoing Boing, and A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Click the title for the full article from AintitCool.

It's European Bat Weekend! (but of course you knew that...)

o.k, so I didn't know European Bat Weekend Existed, but now I do. And bats:(awww)

Eat these things: (AAARGH!)

...and therefore qualify for space on the blog.

A history of surgery

This is Howard Dully at 12 years of age. In December 1960, he became one of the youngest recipients of the transorbital or "ice-pick" lobotomy. This was a treatment for what they considered 'mental illness' and was performed by neurologist Walter Freeman.

Howard was on the first in a BBC series called A History of Surgery, last night and is the only living recipient of this type of treatment - he's now a bus driver and lives a normal life. His stepmother ordered him to have the treatment to 'calm him down and make him behave'. It didn't work as - ironically - his young brain managed to compensate for the lost tissue and he's still a pretty normal guy.

I posted this for some perspective on how hard you think your life can be, and how some people deal with the things that happen to them. Amazing.

Everything burns

So I wasn’t prepared for this at all. I mean I had read some reviews and the general consensus was along the lines of: ‘We don’t want to build up expectations, BUT it’s the best thing ever.’

Basically, it’s so good, on so many levels I won’t even bother to explain it here. Just go and see it. And yes – everyone is good, Bale, Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine… but Heath Ledger pretty much owns this film.

More mags

The depths of my wardrobe just keep on giving. Here’s what I'm pretty sure is the first issue of R.A.D, from 21 YEARS AGO!! (note the BMX Action Bike logo still in the corner):

And finally, one of my Favourite Transworld covers ever:

 

Cement Fun

Apart from unsuccessfully navigating the holes, I had a pretty good day at Stockwell last week. Then in a moment of great coincidence - while clearing out even more drawers - found this little beauty:

Shane Obrien and Jason Jessee at Brixton Beach.

Heres the cover (feat: the 'heaviest guy at the park'):

Also dug this up: Classic Rbt Williams:

 

‘This means something… this is important…’

Grunting fish have helped scientists to date the origins of vocal sounds to about 400million years ago. US researchers have found that the area of a fish's brain that drives vocalisation is extremely primitive. Writing in the journal Science, they say it suggests that the ability to communicate through sound emerged very early in the evolution of vertebrates.

The closely related toadfish and midshipman fish are nocturnal, living along the north-west coast of the US and Canada. Professor Bass said: "They make different kinds of sounds in different social contexts. Just as birds will use one call to attract a mate and another call to scare a rival off, the fish do exactly the same thing." A deep hum lures females to a male's nest; a sharp grunt is used to defend territory.

To investigate the origins of vocalisation, the team looked at the area of the fish's brain that was responsible for controlling the pitch and duration of the calls, which is known as vocal patterning.
Professor Bass told BBC News: "We identified where this pattern generator developed in the brains of these fishes, and then we looked at where it was in frogs, birds and primates."
The team discovered that the neural networks for vocalization were all situated in the same region.

"We stood back and said: 'Oh my god, this is all in the same place'. "It was astonishing how similar it was."

The team compared this information with the evolutionary "family tree" for vertebrates. Because the evolution of the fish can be traced back further than that of amphibians, birds and primates, the team was able to deduce when the ability to vocalise came about: "You could see that was a very ancient part of the nervous system shared by all vertebrates.
"We came to the conclusion that it must have evolved early in time before these different groups emerged from the evolutionary family tree - around the time when bony fishes evolved about 400 million years ago." Click title for link to BBC article.

 

It has just been discovered that SYZURRRP – is Latin for ‘Stop making records’.

So, TIME magazine have compared Lil Wayne to Bob Dylan. Yes you read that right – TIME magazine.

Anyway, I’m not a huge fan of Wayne or that whole steez, and not too schooled in that area of Hip Hop , as it holds no interest for me. But, even I know well enough that those 2 names shouldn’t be in the same sentence. Was Eminem the Hip Hop Woody Guthrie? No.

The reason I think they shouldn't over-emphasise the greatness of ‘Tha Carter’ is that these retard little gangsta wannabes already know more about Wayne than about Dylan, or even Hendrix. They'll know more about his whole crew, mix tapes, rhymes, and life stories of those rappers – than about Tommie Smith or John Carlos, Miles Davis or Donald Byrd.

These children have yet to realise that, as has been said before, ‘The world is not your block. The world is bigger than your block.’ Get on a bus – get on a train and go see what the world is about before you form an opinion, or start talking with such certainty about your bitch-ass 15 year old ‘life’.

Jon Theodore + ZDLR = Can only be good

Whimper / bang...

To quote Stephen Hawking: ‘Some have asked if turning on the LHC could produce some disastrous, unexpected result. Indeed, some theories of spacetime suggest the particle collisions might create mini black holes. If that happened, I have proposed that these black holes would radiate particles and disappear. If we saw this at the LHC, it would open up a new area of physics, and I might even win a Nobel prize. But I'm not holding my breath.’

Excellent. Too many people on the bloody planet anyway. And if it all goes wrong, at least I won’t have to worry about paying my credit card off…

George Carlin. 1937-2008

 god dammit…

Seriously what’s going on? I didn’t even post up Stan Winston’s passing on here, as I thought it would be one too many… Is 2008 the Chinese year of ‘every cool person dying’ or something? Like me, Carlin was a huge Robert Anton Wilson fan,

NK

If anyone else did a method out of a curb cut, it would look ridiculous

Didn't it rain...

 

Sunny outside so I thought I'd post this up. I hope that when I'm an old lady, and I get a horse drawn carriage to the train station, I can sling an electric guitar over my shoulder and sing some super-bad gospel... Sister Rosetta kicks ass.

'because I'm C Brown - class clown'

Bo Diddley

I'm not going to be Obituary boy and post every time someone I like dies - but - if it wasn't for Bo Diddley, alongside Little Richard and Chuck Berry - you wouldn't be listening to 80% of the music you have on your I-Pod right now. So recognise.   Dec 30, 1928 – Jun 2, 2008

Get Orf My Land!

How can you tell if you’re not welcome somehwere? Hint: If you’re in a helicopter and dudes are trying to warn you off with a BOW AND ARROW, it’s safe to assume that:

A. They don’t want you there, and
B: They have no idea what the fuck a helicopter is.
Ergo –
C: Want to be left alone.

Unfortunately, I get the feeling this won’t be the case. And now these tribesmen who have up until now lead pretty normal lives in the middle of the rainforest – will be praying to whichever god they believe in, to protect them from the ‘flying metal demon’ that haunts their dreams.
Score yet another point for whitey!

R.I.P Camu Tao

Just posted at definitive Jux:

Today, at around 2pm, our dear friend, family member and musical collaborator Tero “CAMU TAO” Smith passed away in his home town of Columbus, Ohio. Tero had been quietly fighting for his life for the last year and a half after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

To those who knew Tero, he was an almost uncategorizable force of nature. Wild, hilarious, proud, loving, tough, outspoken, spontaneous and brilliant. He wore his heart on his sleeve and he dripped creativity, leaving inspiration and awe in the hearts and minds of anyone who was fortunate enough to see him work.

Art pt5

There’s not a great deal about Paul Laffoley that I could communicate to you in a way that would make any sense, except that he is a 68 year old artist / architect. Really, I couldn’t explain it any more deeply right now.
I’m lucky enough to own a rare book of his called The Phenomenology of Revelation, which documents his work pretty concisely.

Billy Childish

 Click the title for a link to a good Podcast featuring Billy Childish. 

If you don't know who Billy is, then just click the link anyway, listen and learn something for gods sake...

From the LA downhill to Capitol Hill

And speaking of radical, the top pic is a of Corey Webster - sorry - Josh Brolin from un upcoming George W Bush biopic from Oliver Stone. The other pic is Corey - sorry - Josh in 'maybe the best skateboard movie ever', Thrashin'. Funny how things change... well... not really funny but - oh whatever. I'm off to buy a bowling pin for my dining table.

Hot + Hot = radical!

This pic was in a few newspapers but as far as I'm concerned should have been front page. It's not from Close Encounters, but is the volcanic explosion in Chile. Volcanic ash rising up and as far as I understand, being hit by lighting from a massvie passing storm. I'm sure there's a scientific term for this (which I will look up shortly) but for now we'll go with my brothers succinct description of 'the coolest photo ever...'

Sweet 16 / 2

Sweet 16

Got this book for my birthday - highly recommend it.

You don't have this

...and most who have seen it would say you don't want it either.

Back in the 70's we invented these things called 'VCR's' that played 'tapes'. 

This is truly awful - actually, it's surreal. Though there are some good bits...

Coffee, Donuts and noodles (oh my)

It's amazing what you can get if you just ask...

Albert Hofmann: 1906 - 2008

Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD, who accidentally ingested some 

and then found out what it was really for, died today.