Bill Hicks Being Murdered Long After He Died

Earlier this month I listened to Jay Weidner support the claim that Bill Hicks is now a deep cover Alex Jones. This is a good reason not to trust his information any more but it may be the case he is under pressure to be a disinformation agent. He is still not trustworthy or reliable. but we can enjoy his earlier work where he spoke up on important things.

Mondo Hollywood

Hard to believe that the United States did cultural commentary and intelligent satire as good as anywhere around the world when this was made. What happened? Maybe it became obsessed by the veneer thin  pursuits of Celebrity and fame. The woman breast feeding the rather large infant went on to marry Frank Zappa who also appears in this documentary in a separate scene.

The film starts with the legend:

"All persons and events depicted herein are real. Any similarity to fictitious persons or events is purely coincidental."

The film presents a series of vignettes of the more extreme aspects of life in Hollywood - and Los Angeles as a whole - of the period, focussing on "the Hollywood the public does not know".^[2] Personalities who appear in the movie include proto-hippie Gypsy Boots, stripper Jennie Lee, S&H Green Stamps heir Lewis Beach Marvin III, celebrity hair stylist Jay Sebring (later murdered by the Manson gang), psychedelic pioneer Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass), singer Bobby Jameson(with his then-girlfriend Gail Sloatman), housekeeper Estella Scott, actors Margaretta Ramsey, Theodore Charach and Valerie Porter, fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, artistVito Paulekas, surfer Dale Davis, skydiver Jim Arender, and beautician Sheryl Carson. Each personality provides a narrative for their own scenes. The film also shows various social and political gatherings, including an anti-communist crusade, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, a visit to Universal Studios by Princess Margaret, the aftermath of the Watts riots, a UCLA peace rally, and a children's fashion show. Other individuals shown briefly in the movie included Frank Zappa, Sonny and Cher, Bobby Beausoleil,Alfred Hitchcock, Brigitte Bardot, Jayne Mansfield, Ronald Reagan and severaltranssexuals.^[3][4]

[edit]Production

Robert Carl Cohen (b.1930), who had previously made Inside Red China (1957), Inside East Germany (1959), Committee on Un-American Activities (1962), and Inside Castro's Cuba (1963),^[5] was producer, director, photographer and editor of the film. The music director was Mike Curb, and the soundtrack featured songs by Davie Allan and the Arrows, and others.^[3]

[edit]Reception

The film was promoted as "starring Jayne Mansfield", who had recently died, even though she only appears in it very fleetingly. It was first shown at the Mannheim Film Festival in 1967, and was then scheduled to be shown at the Avignon Festival. However, the French government banned it from being shown, stating:^[6]

"This film, in the opinion of certain experts of the Commission [of Control], presents an apology for a certain number of perversities, including drugs and homosexuality, and constitutes a danger to the mental health of the public by its visual aggressivity and the psychology of its editing. The Commission proposes, therefore, its total interdiction."

The ban was later lifted. In 1978, when Mike Curb was running for election as lieutenant governor of California, his opponent, the incumbent Mervyn M. Dymally, claimed that the film was "pornographic" and that Curb "sang falsetto in a bath tub scene with two lesbians." Curb at first denied singing in the film, but then admitted it.^[7] He won the election.

The film was later described as a "cult classic... [which] captures the underside of Hollywood by documenting a moment in time... when an inquisitive trust in the unknown was paramount, hope for the future was tangible and life was worth living on the fringe."^[4] A re-edited and expanded "director's cut" version was premiered at the Moondance Film Festival on 10 June 2006.^[4]

[edit]References

1. ^ ^a b Peter Cowie, Derek Elley, World Filmography 1967, p.593
2. ^ Review from Variety magazine, 31 July 1967
3. ^ ^a b Mondo Hollywood at IMDb
4. ^ ^a b c Review by Hammond Guthrie at Empty Mirror
5. ^ Robert Carl Cohen: Filmography
6. ^ Text of letter from French Ministry of Information, 1968
7. ^ Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Poor Rating for Curb-Dymally Comedy, October 2, 1978

[edit]External links

• Mondo Hollywood at the Internet Movie Database

Frank Zappa - Biography Documentary

It's not a British documentary so it's not brilliant, as that's a genre the Brits are superior at producing. But it is OK and puts together an interview that is otherwise broken up into clips on Youtube. It was Dangerous Minds who put me onto Zappa but since I have been blocked for from leaving comments there I'll let you use a search engine instead of doing the courtesy of leaving a link.

Zappa was extraordinarily intelligent. He didn't indulge in drugs or drink and had very high standards from an unusually large musical entourage who all read music as well as classical musicians. In many respects I see Frank Zappa as the most serious contemporary musician of the 20th century and I'm looking forward to working my way through his enormous output till well into my old age. But it's worth pointing out one more time, that the man saw completely through the charade that is painted on the walls and presented as reality to the petit bourgeois consumer classes.

With his long hair and pointed beard he could have slipped into easily into a waistcoat and ruffled shirt and passed as a Viennese mad genius conductor. Secretly I think he knew this.

The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing - Frank Zappa

Some take the bible
For what it's worth
When it says that the meek
Shall inherit the Earth
Well, I heard that some sheik
Has bought New Jersey last week
'n you suckers ain't gettin' nothin'

Is Hare Rama really wrong
If you wander around
With a napkin on
With a bell on a stick
An' your hair is all gone...
(The geek shall inherit nothin')

You say yer life's a bum deal
'N yer up against the wall...
Well, people, you ain't even got no
Deal at all
'Cause what they do
In Washington
They just takes care
of NUMBER ONE
An' NUMBER ONE ain't YOU
You ain't even NUMBER TWO

Those Jesus Freaks
Well, they're friendly but
The shit they believe
Has got their minds all shut
An' they don't even care
When the church takes a cut
Ain't it bleak when you got so much nothin'
(So whaddya do)
Eat that pork
Eat that ham
Laugh till ya choke
On Billy Graham
Moses, Aaron 'n Abraham...
They're all a waste of time
'n it's yer ass that's on the line
(IT'S YER ASS THAT'S ON THE LINE)

Do what you wanna
Do what you will
Just don't mess up
Your neighbor's thrill
'N when you pay the bill
Kindly leave a little tip
And help the next poor sucker
On his one way trip. . .
SOME TAKE THE BIBLE. . .
(Aw gimme a half a dozen for the hotel room!)

Frank Zappa: Live At The Roxy - Los Angeles

Very good on a tropical Sunday Morning. Pick another mango off the tree. You know how it is.

How Great Thou Art

This work filmed in New York reminds me of a conversation I heard repeated recently between an American and a Pakistani sometime in the late 60's or early 70's I guess. The American, squashed in the back of the pedal powered cab  listened as the Pakistani driver said.

"You see, we here in Pakistan understand the problem. Progress he exclaimed! Progress is the problem".

It sounded funnier in audio but it touches on a some thoughts I've had recently and which I've no answer for. However this is the second piece of art in a week which gives me permission to hope that maybe our artists are emerging from an understandable but frustrating inertia of everything goes, compounded by never quite leaving when its time was up.

Too early to call but this work is not inconsequential is it?

The flip side of the progress coin is a dawn shot of New York that someone tweeted the other day, and which left me in no doubt of the city's prowess as the definitive skyline of progress. 

It's this that awes me about New York. On weird days the abstract creativity of Wall Street spits in my gravity cautioning face. But for the record. I'm anti gravity. 

Sort of.