My 1,000 titles...

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Harlan County USA

I finally watched this impressive documentary last night about the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Most impressive. You really get a feel for the toil, struggles and utter despair and poverty these people were going through.

Eastovers refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA.

These people had nothing but the will to fight for what they deserved. Nowadays unions have got out of hand and made people lazier than shit, but in the coal miner's case, there was a very valid and necessary reason for the union.

Just to give you an example of the harsh realities these people faced on a daily basis during the strike. A man crouches and pokes at what first appears to be a wad of chewed-up pink bubble gum on the ground. "That's what a scab will do to ya, by God," he says. That pink wad is brain tissue from a striker shot in the head by a strikebreaker.

It's hard to believe that some 40 years after the Depression, there were parts of Appalachia that were hardly better off than they were in the 1930s. Archival footage and traditional labor songs through the film are weaved together very well to give you the historical perspective to the strike against Eastover Mining Company.

The film goes a step further and gives the viewer a hard look at the living conditions, health issues, and extreme poverty faced by Harlan's residents, as well as the daily reality of the human toll that goes along with the mining industry.
The bitter confrontations between Eastover's slimy security fucks and the unionizers are particularly tense, with the threat of violence ready to explode at any moment.

The story about the man and the mules is something I'll never ever forget. The mules were valued more than a human. Reason? They had to pay a lot of money for mules, but they could always find another human.

Anyway, don't ever become a coal miner, it doesn't look like an appealing career choice after seeing this film.

Oh yeah, I have to mention the music. It's amazing. Just people singing real, genuine heartfelt cola miners songs, it's beautiful stuff.

Miles Davis: Live at the Cellar Door

Finally these legendary sessions are properly released. Some of the material from this set was editied and released as Live-Evil, so if you have that, great, but you should not hesitate if you're on the fence. This isn't just extended takes of the Live-Evil material. Actually, for all the hype these sessions have generated over the years, I didn't expect it to be this good. But it is. This is truly the missing gap that bridges Bitches Brew and the later Dark Magus period bands.

Keith Jerret is at this best here, you can really hear him stretch on this set. Too bad he never went more in the fusion direction. Jack DeJohnette and Michael Henderson provide the bones in bad ass fashion, Michael Henderson's bass sounds a lot better than on Live Evil. The mix is great, this is definitely one of the best sounding live recordings I've ever heard.

Chick Corea cooks with some of his best fusion playing ever hinting at what was to come later with Return to Forever. Miles brought the best out in Corea. Even Airto, while sometimes in the background, comes up with some interesting shakes and squeaks accenting the music very well, never attracting too much attention. Gary Bartz snaks in and out of the music with some great solos.

John McLaughlin is not on the whole box, he just popped in on the last night so two of the Saturday night sets are presented on this set. The material is pretty much the same, but McLaughlin adds a darker edge to the overall sound.

I'd say the stand-out discs are 2, 3 and 6. Anyway, if you're a Miles freak, of course you must own this. It's one of the best representations that successfully bridges jazz, rock and fusion. To all you idiots that says Miles was "done" and/or "sold out" when he turned electric, you should listen to this. Those of you who want to play it safe, go for Birth of the Cool or Kind of Blue. This is Miles at this peak.

ATARI

Y'all remember ATARI don't you? Ahhhh, I have fine memories of nostalgic bliss thinking about those old Atari games. I had the very first one, the 2600 Stella, it came with the game "Combat" which sucked balls, but when my brother and I got it for Christmas that year (I think it was 1984) we got 4 games with it, PAC-MAN, SPACE INVADERS, MISSILE COMMAND and YAR'S REVENGE. Before we got one, I used to spend so many hours at my friend's place, his parents thought I had moved in.

For the next week after we got our beloved Atari, my brother and I barely left our room except to eat or get a soda from downstairs. We were glued to the set, always trying to top our last score. I especially liked YAR'S REVENGE. A week or so later, we went to Maine, and picked up a few more games, I think BERZERK, Q-BERT and DONKEY KONG. So we played the shit out of those games.


I guess after a couple months the novelty of it wore off, or maybe I just got Repetitive Stress Injury and had to quit for awhile, but that was the only video game console I ever owned, and it's still at my house in the attic someplace with all the games, I think I have about 30 or so games. I'm not even sure if it still works, but I may dig it our next time I go home.

The Atari 2600 was technically superior to most of the other game systems when it was released. The other big boys at the time, Intellivision and Colecovision had considerably better graphic systems but the Atari 2600 remained the most popular for gamers and climbed to the top and stayed there for most of its existence.

But the Atari 2600's huge popularity became its downfall with too many cartridges flooding the market with too many of them lacking in game play and in graphics. What followed was a huge fallout in the industry which saw almost all small start ups disappear and brought company's like Mattel's Intellivision division, Coleco and any others to their knees and into dusty memories. Atari managed to remain but stayed in the shadows for years.

I just learned that Atari is still around and going strong. For those nostalgic freaks like me, they've released the Atari Flashback 1 and 2, which are only $19.95 and $29.95 respectively, check Atari's site for more info on both of the consoles. You can also buy a CD-ROM with 80 games for PC with all the classic 2600 games, but you can't get it for Mac of course. You can also play a few of the old classic games online if you go to their site.

Another site of interest is the ATARI MUSEUM, which has lotsa info about all the different consoles, pics, and links for all you ATARI enthusiasts out there.

I have rarely been interested in any other game consoles since the Atari 2600. The simplicity of the games themselves, the low 8-bit crappy graphics, the low 8-bit crappy sound, the primitive-looking joystick were all part of the magic that drew me in. The graphics and sound these days are obviously spectacular, but if I have to spend hours (or days) learning a game, I'm just not interested. These days you have to read a fucking 500 page manual on how to play a game. Not for me. I just want to shoot some aliens and save the planet! Sony Playstation??? Baahhh!!! You can have it.

The only video games I have on my computer right now are clone versions of FROGGER, SPACE INVADERS, TETRIS and PAC MAN. I play them from time to time, but I find that if I start playing, I can't stop. As a result I don't get anything else done. I was turned off video games completely for a time because I would visit friends sometimes back in NB to shoot the shit, but all they did the entire time was play fucking video games and completely ignore me which REALLY pisses me off. Video games (and TV) have DESTROYED communication. Sometimes is OK, but if a friend comes over to visit, TURN THE FUCKING THING OFF DUDES!!!

BE COOL.

OK, Tsuyoshi is one of my students and he frequently shows up at my house adorning this T-shirt with the "Cool" logo with the lightning bolt above it.

OK, Tsuyoshi, what the fuck is "cool" about lightning? What if your ass got blasted with a bolt of lightning, would that be "cool"? I don't think so. There ain't nothing cool about lightning.

Anyway, I'm just razzing you Tsuyoshi, I don't really care that much about the shirt, it's just another example of the retarded and meaningless English slogans you see in Japan. I don't know why this one strikes me as so damn funny, but it does.

I just get a mental picture of a guy walking down the street with a Coke in his hand, backwards hat, wearing this shirt, then suddenly, it clouds over, and starts thundering and lightning, then ZZZZ Z ZZ Z Z Z Z, he gets blasted by lightning, then it cuts to the logo, "COOL". What's the product? Don't know. I guess it's trying to sell the American dream. At least they spelled it right, not "Kool" or something like that...

Back from OBON Holidays

Just got back from OBON Holiday in Okayama at my wife's house. Nothing too exciting as usual. Didn't do shit actually, except play with my sister-in-law's kid in the kiddy pool, she's quite a funny kid.

It was too fuckin' hot to do anything else really. This summer in Kansai is record breaking, hasn't been this damn hot since 1960 or so. It's been a hot year everywhere I think. At least I don't have that damn heat rash this summer. Anyway, we all just ate, slept, drank, etc etc., showed wedding photos to various relatives, which got pretty tiresome after awhile , considering we had about 3,000 pictures between her parents and us. That's not even including the actual wedding photos, which we're still waiting to get back. Arrrggghhh!!!

OBON week. What's the point? Everyone takes the same damn holidays in Japan. As a result, it's always busy, almost impossible to get tickets for the Shinkansen unless you reserve them at least a month in advance, people everywhere, traffic jams, stress, anger, extreme heat and humidity and more stress. Spending money on all this crap and souvenirs for dead relatives so that their spirit will come back and visit.

But at the same time, I usually do enjoy it in some weird sort of way. Christ, I must be getting more used to this culture than I think.

The most enjoyable part of the trip this time was hanging out a bit with my wife's grandfather's brother, who does traditional style calligraphy called "shodo" or "shuuji". I got a lesson from him on how to write the 3 different popular styles which are "kaisho", "gyosho" and "sosho" which you can see examples of if you hit the previous link. Watching him made it look easy as piss, but when you actually take a stab at it yourself, you realize it takes years of skill to do it properly...

Shit Summer

This summer, it's so goddamn hot here in Japan, that you could fry an egg on the road. This is the hottest summer I can remember here so far. I just want to jump in a bathtub full of ice cubes. When you turn on the cold water faucet, you get water that's warm as piss. You whining bastards in Canada complaining about the heat should come here for a summer if you think it's hot there.

The 1st year I was here, I got heat rash so bad in my sac area that I could hardly walk without discomfort. It was not pretty. The smell was none too neat either if you know what I mean.

I really truly hate summer. The heat, the extreme humidity, the dust, the shitty mood everyone's in, the stench of stinky rotten bodies on the subway, the smell of rotten fruit, having to shower 3 times a day, crotch rot, I hate it all.

About the only thing good about living here in the summer is cracking open a nice ice cold beer (which only stays ice cold for about 5 minutes) and the sound of the various species of cicada, called "semi" in Japanese.

The ones we got here in Osaka are the loud fuckers though and I don't like them too much. Their my least favorite. They start their mating ritual about 5 in the morning and all you can hear from 5 until about noon is the pure cacophony of their mating call. Just one of these little bugs makes a noise loud enough to make you damn near deaf if you were to put it right up to your ear. Now imagine thousands of these things making the same noise, it's louder than being at the runway of an airport.

But I like the sounds of the cicadas in the local areas in the countryside. I can't really say which kind they are, there are so many different ones. Go to THIS PAGE to hear mp3 samples of the different species, this is a pretty comprehensive and interesting page that has all the different cicada's that I've heard in Japan. Also has a few of the ones you hear in Korea.

WORLD TRADE CENTRE - THE MOVIE!!!!!

I just heard about this movie yesterday from on of my students. I don't really keep up-to-date on the latest Hollywood garbage. All I know is I just watched the trailer for it today, and know that I absolutely don't need to see the movie, because I already know it sucks. Nicolas Cage is in it and a bunch of other buttmuchers. So what? Even Nicolas Cage couldn't save this piece of crap.

Why was this movie made? To make us weep even more for the victims of September 11th? Boo Hoo. September 11th was nothing. Look at past wars, tragedies, the Holocaust, The Rape of Nanking, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, what's going on now with the Israeli conflict, etc etc etc. The U.S. really wants us to remember this terrible tragedy, to imprint it in our minds. Watch it in the theatres, buy it when it comes out on DVD. Cry at home in front of your TV sets like the lambs that you are.

The U.S. was asking for it when they got attacked, and they're still asking for it, more like BEGGING for it and it's all due to Mr. Bush's actions in his term as president. No, I don't think those people deserved to die. Of course not. They WERE victims. Not so much of a terrorist attack but victims of the presidents' stupidity and ignorance. Just like all the people who died in Iraq who have been used for Bush's cause.

This movie is meaningless trash and anybody who feels sympathetic at the false pretentiousness displayed in this movie should go back and study some fucking history. I've heard enough about September 11th. Let it rest for Chrissakes.

The REAL modern tragedy here is that Bush is still President and YOU, my not-so-fellow Americans, voted him in! THE JOKE'S ON YOU!!!

Push the button!!!......... Go on, I know you want to..........

PUSH IT!!!!!

Some more dumb cat desktops

If you search back to the April Archives of my blog, you can find a post titled " Stupid Animal Desktops for Kelly Churko (and anyone else who finds them amusing)". Well, you see that fat cat staring into space? This is the same one above. This cat lives around Karafuri Street here in Osaka where I buy my groceries and drugs and shit.

Whenever I see that cat, it makes me laugh. He's lost a bit of weight since last time, but he's still fat! I pet him once and he was all over me, meowing like a motherfucker, rolling around. He'll walk about 1 foot, then fall down cause he's too lazy to walk, then roll around some more. I have take a video next time.

I should start making greeting cards of this shit.

Portrait of a madman

One of my students at the kids school I work drew this portrait of me. Pretty good considering he's only 4. It's a pretty good likeness of me I think. That's pretty much what I look like most of the time. Like a got mashed up in a blender.

Well, it's good to know I have ONE fan in this world anyway. Thanks Takumi!!!

MONKEY SHINES (1988)

OVERLOOKED HORROR FILMS PART 9

PLOT SUMMARY (from imdb.com): When Allan becomes a quadriplegic he loses all hope for living until he meets Ella - a monkey trained to fetch and carry for him around the house, obeying him in all things. But Ella is part of another experiment, and when she starts responding to Allan's underlying rage and frustration she has the ability to carry our her master's darkest wishes.

This is a not so well known film by well known and respected director, George Romero (Night of the living dead, Dawn of the dead, Creepshow), who needs no introduction for most people, especially for horror fans.

Anyway, I think this is great film and it deserves more attention. I actually like it more than his zombie flicks. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of zombie films except for Re-Animator and Brain Dead which I'm going to be writing about soon on this blog. I'm into more of psychological horror films.

This movie is really tense and the death scenes are great, I couldn't wait for some of the characters to get what's coming to them. The sadistic, lazy nurse, the jealous mother, the cheating ex-girlfriend, and the vindictive doctor. One reviewer on imdb said this: " Take Kathy Bates from Misery and make her every character."

By the middle of the movie, you're rooting for this little monkey just to to lose it and lay everyone out. Isn't it every crippled man's dream to have a killer monkey around to help him? The concept of the pet protecting his master (even if it means killing everything in it's path) has been attempted before but it only seems to work to suspenseful effect in this movie and a handful few movies. Another movie I'm reminded of is "Phenomena" where the antomologist has a pet monkey that kills for his master. I'm also gonna review that film soon.

I think the film succeeds in giving the audience a few genuine scares and has a general overall creepiness and atmosphere of despair to it. The only pisser is that some of the characters that clearly deserve to die don't, especially the nurse and Stephen Root. Other than that, I got no complaints.

Shine on you crazy monkey...

SPAMMERS PISS OFF!!!

Just to let all of you know, if you post a comment on the blog, you now have to use "word verification". Reason is because I've been getting spammed big time lately and I want to avoid getting the shit dumped on me.

What "word verification" does is prevent automated systems from adding comments to the blog, since it takes a human being to read the word and pass this step. If you've ever received a comment that looked like an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site, then you've encountered comment spam. A lot of this is done automatically by software which can't pass the word verification, so enabling this option is a good way to prevent many such unwanted comments.

Anyway, I know it's a pain in the ass to take 5 seconds out of your life to type an extra word, but I'm sorry, it has to be done.

So eat shit you worthless pricks!!!

CD's that should be in print

Here is a small list of albums that are, to my knowledge, out of print, but rivhly deserve to stay in print. This is not everything that I think should be in print, it's just the stuff that comes to mind right at the moment. I'll add to it when I think of more so the list will probably grow. If you have any that think should be added, please post them and I'll add them to the list if I think they're worthy...

POWERTOOLS - Strange Meeting
PAINKILLER - Rituals: Live in Japan
STEPPENWOLF - Slow Flux
BIBLE LAUNCHER (Ron Anderson)
ALICE COOPER - Easy Action
NEIL YOUNG - Time Fades Away
FUSHITSUSHA - Purple Trap
FUSHITSUSHA - A Death Never to be Complete
FUSHITSUSHA - The Time is Nigh
FUSHITSUSHA - A Little Longer Thus
FUSHITSUSHA - The Wisdom Prepared
SABBAT - History of a time to come
SABBAT - Dreamweaver
DIAMANDA GALAS - Metalanguage
MORTON FELDMAN - For Philip Guston (Hat Art version)
MORTON FELDMAN - For Christian Wolff (Hat Art version)
HANATARASH 1, 2, 3
JULIUS HEMPHILL - Dogon AD
everything BOREDOMS-related that's OOP
(the list is too long to sort out!)
CAROLINER - I hope everything gets a CD re-issue at some point