RIP Bert Jansch
“I’m not one for showing off. But I guess my guitar-playing sticks out.”
-Bert Jansch
1943-2011
Rest in peace, Bert Jansch. I have loved your music ever since I discovered your 1965 self-titled debut record in Twisted Village’s legendary Cambridge basement store. I have since collected several others, and I will cherish them forever. You were better than Nick Drake.
and Donovan loved you maybe most of all.
there are two of them!
For those skeptical as to the veracity of my claim as to his superior musical sens-abilities, here’s Fahey’s version for comparison. By no means a bad recording, just not as good as Bert Jansch’s masterpiece.
To be fair, I believe he did record a better version of the song at some point, though I’m too lazy to go digging through my records to verify this, but I have done extensive surveys with that version, and the vote is unanimous…after playing the two songs back to back, Bert’s version kills it.
Anyways, enough with that shit, right? Here’s another amazing song by Bert.
He was also a founding member of the band Pentangle.
Black Waterside
Blues Run the Game
Bert Jansch play’s “Angie”
And that’s how you play a guitar.
BANNED FROM FACEBOOK
I was banned from facebook for posting this picture of myself around age 3 which i recently found in my family’s archives. My father was at the time an active amateur photographer with a sense of humor as is made very clear by this image: my posture clearly reflecting my shyness about my nudity, yet I evidently do not yet have the self-awareness required to stop playing with my penis for the camera. When I posted this image on facebook, it did indeed occur to me that it might be an issue: there is a long history of irrational censorship of images of nude children(see Jock Sturges, Ron Oliver, Sally Mann), in which all depictions of underage nudity are lumped together into the sleaze bucket, and the internet has been a war zone with respect to censorship and all kinds of imagery deemed too indecent for public consumption since it became an accessible means for sharing photos in the late 80s/early 90s. It is impossible for me to ignore the site and moment at which this particular censoring has occurred, for I have recently been made aware of a “story” seeping into mainstream media outlets regarding the dissemination of risque, semi-nude, nude and occasionally lewd photographs of underage subjects on anonymous image boards on the internet. It is true that this is somewhat a growing trend, but having grown up during the internet boom, I became aware of the practice in unspeakably seedy AOL chatrooms at an early age. These photos are generally first distributed by the author/subject of the photograph via instant message, facebook, photobucket, a text message(sexting), email, and then shared and re-shared by the growing number of recipients, or in some cases directly to the audience at large, that is, to an anonymous image board, with countless numbers of drooling voyeurs “fapping” away to whatever underage indiscretion strikes at their dark soul. I recently heard a discussion of the matter on NPR. In a few cases, I gather, the initial posters, that is teenaged boys and girls who have photographed themselves nude and shared it with their friends, have been charged criminally. A number of good points were touched on, which I wish to reflect upon here. 1) This is not a criminal matter! As of yet, there is no legal distinction between a teenager posting a nude picture of him or herself and a pedophile doing so. This is insane, for a number of obvious reasons. 2) Kids have been allowed, and even encouraged to engage in similar activities on social networking sites for years. It is the parameters of the medium of the text message, or private chat room that allows for them to make the next logical step of sharing nude self portraits. The language of myspace prepares them for it perfectly. and 3) the media’s obsession with this “phenomenon” and the hysteria it seems to inspire in parents and society at large speaks VOLUMES about our obsession with teen sexuality and our desires to insert ourselves into the drama, albeit under the guise of one motivated by protective and/or moralistic intentions. Before one classifies an image pornographic, one needs to look in the mirror and ask oneself why they might categorize it as such. With that, I’d like to apologize to whichever facebook employee found my photo and banned me for it. “Sorry if I gave you a boner.”
Woman Bludgeoned By Sando in Florida
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – A man faces a domestic battery charge after allegedly hitting his girlfriend with a sandwich as she was driving on Interstate 95 on Friday. Police said the 19-year-old man became angry and hit the woman in the arm and face with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off.
The victim nearly lost control of the car because she couldn’t see the road and the man then allegedly ripped off the rear-view mirror and used it to shatter the windshield.
The man was freed on $7,500 bail.
Bitch must have had it coming for the dude to give up his sando.
Wanna get laid? Join an Iraqi cult!
According to the L.A. Times today an Iraqi cult known as Heaven’s Army is trying to wreak chaos all over Iraq. The goal is to cause a rapture-esque event where the saint Imam Mahdi, a descendant of Muhammad, will come down to earth and throw a party. But they need as many suicide bombers as possible and unlike oil they are not a renewable resource. So they need lots of dudes and lots of bitches, mostly bitches to hump all the dudes and keep them stoked on blowing shit up. Abu Jassem said he could join and would get cash-money, but he had to let the other dudes sleep with his wife, daughter and sister. A foursome sprinkled with the zest of incest, no less. Hell yeah. And a woman named Iman was approached by a friend who said, “Listen girl, you want Imam Mahdi to come back? Then you should hump my husband.” Swingers! If your sex life is not up to code then join Heaven’s Army. Sounds heavenly humptastic to me!
post-it notes from the prodigal son
performance art odd rap and joke punk at 152 ludlow
Also, for those who like their minds fucked…
Check out BLOTTED SCIENCE. Ron Jarzombek from Spastic Ink on guitar, Alex Webster from Cannibal Corpse on bass, and Mike Zeleny from Behold… The Arctopus! on drums. I should go into a brief history of each member for those who don’t know, but trust me. They’re like the Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears, and Li-Lo of extreme technical prowess. They fuck everyone (up).
Art is Dead Death.
So we all know contemporary art is boring. At least we all know that thats how most people feel about it. In addition to boring, other adjectives commonly used to describe the segment of cultural output are pretentious, masturbatory, self-serving, narcissistic, and, today’s key word: offensive. Art’s been pissing people off for centuries, and that is a big reason why I like it. People in general annoy the crap out of me, and even though art’s a limp-dick kind of gun, society just hates being conceptually tea-bagged by weirdo art-fags, while, for me, few other events can evoke the same feelings of bliss & joy from the depths of my depravity.
So recently we’ve been hearing a lot about that guy who starves dogs to death while socialites stand around watching, drinking wine and eating cheese. This seemed to piss people off pretty good, as it seemed i could not log on to myspace or Aim for several days without some horrified dog-lover forwarding me the story…and then came the petitions: “Stop this dog murderer before he strikes again!”
Spare me. Ain’t no myspace petition (more…)
weekly plugs
I have decided to star suggesting good things in NYC. Because unlike LA we can get as drunk as we want and go to as many things as possible cause’ we ain’t got no cars. 
Danny-boy still has some paintings up at Arts Tropical in Greenpoint. Barnaby Whitfield has a show opening tomorrow night, but I am more interested in the show he curated in the back “WARM, RED, SALT AND WET” at 31 Grand Gallery (located where its name suggests).
There is a closing reception at Brooklyn Fire Proof, for the “Mixed Emotions” show curated by Sophia Dixon on Friday?
Then later on Friday night, if you enjoy fun, and welcome the the end of winter and the departure of its abysmal icy cool breathe (mint mojito) make sure you make it to the Redemption Center, because Bobo and Dj Wastes Muny playing together is basically like sharks communicating with luminescent skin, (see below).
Deserted Toon Town
Even though a lot of things have been said about me, and some of the worst things really have been proven, I think you all should remember something. If you could just see past that, see a sort of funny place where we fit just right, like a clowny-clown town, where things’d go just how they’re gonna go, and a slippery street, on a tilt, and everything in the town’s gonna slide where it wants to, and some of the people that live there have a little meeting and they say: “well there it is, proof, this town’s goin in a way I like or that I dont like.” well-l-l-l I’d be that other guy that stands up, says “yeah, they’re right, ‘cept if it’s gonna go that way, lets fight fire with fire, lets slide so often down the streets of this town, that we weigh it back down, crush that tilt that’s been wedged in there, let’s grease up, go faster!” EVERYBODY WOULD AGREE!….. THEN after some time goes by, the folks that brought up the point in the first place would start to say “Hey this phun is getting boring, the tilt we were on isn’t there any more, and w’ere all still covered in gunk slippin’ and slidin’ all over the place, just stop all this clowning around! there’s no call for it anymore! Let’s just bury all this clowning we’ve done, dig a ditch outside of town!” Then I wouldn’t really be able to say anything about it ’cause the tide would’ve turned back around , and some more time would pass with everything just going fine for everybody…but the more serious and fine everybody got, the more the memory of the slick sliding days would come back, and then it’d be a story I’d just tell to my kids, and then there kids, and then one day they’d wanna find all that clowny gunk and phun they’d burried, and that’s the day when you’d come back to my kind, that’s the day when I’d be able to defend myself to all of you.
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