End of the Week Fewsome Borrowed Images

From: hewhocannotbenamed blog
Young Nolan



From julia segal (at skull swap blog)
"I have posted this before…but this letter is so great…I really hope it’s not fake…because Mrs.Fenton…your husband is the coolest! (click picture to make it bigger)"



From: Gascoyne Bowman (at her Criminal Crafts Etsy store)
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6898288



From: Dallas Police Department




An older, wiser Willie expresses himself to the Man:




From: Coast2CoastAM
The great Art Bell



From: ???




From: hewhocannotbenamed blog




From: ???
The great Tav Falco

New fashion copyright bill will let big companies own public domain designs and bury young, indie designers in legal costs

http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/fashion-incubator-a-good-idea-while-it-lasted/
http://www.petitiononline.com/hr2196/petition.html
http://capwiz.com/americanapparel/issues/alert/?alertid=13284121&type=CO

Fashion-Incubator: a good idea while it lasted
Posted by Kathleen Fasanella on Jun 4, 2009 at 3:12 pm / Intellectual Property, News and Events / Trackback

Sounds dramatic doesn’t it? Bye-bye Fashion-Incubator. It was fun while it lasted. Truth be told, I have to change my business model and get into something else. Am I happy? No, not one bit. I’m a bit resentful, nearly 30 years of work in the toilet. The reason for the change is it is likely the Design Piracy Prohibition Act is going to become law. If it does, F-I is history. So whether you believe it yet or not, I won’t be around to say “I told you so” -as though I’d get any pleasure out of it anyway. Consumers and enthusiasts will also be paying the price. Consumers will spend lots more money on clothes and enthusiasts won’t have any patterns since those designs need to be registered too and there won’t be domestic fabric if all the manufacturers go under.

It is apparent people are not taking the matter of the Design Piracy Prohibition Act seriously; the detrimental effects I mentioned before when I started the petition. If this law passes, I have to remove Fashion-Incubator from the internet; there won’t be any need for it and I cannot afford a law suit if my advice enables someone to commit what will be a “crime”. None of this is new, I first brought it to your attention two years ago. If CPSIA was an amputation, the Design Piracy Prohibition Act is a beheading.

Not all large businesses support this law; the largest industry group, the venerable American Apparel and Footwear Association is likewise opposed. They’ve created an automated widget where you can automatically email your legislators. ( http://capwiz.com/americanapparel/issues/alert/?alertid=13284121&type=CO )Kevin Burke (CEO of the AAFA) says the bill’s passage is likely because legislators haven’t heard opposition from individual businesses.

First, read Kevin’s memo he sent to AAFA members. It includes the names and phone numbers of the most important people to contact, talking points and what to do. As you should have seen with the CPSIA fiasco, it’s impossible to change a law once it’s passed. It is within your hands to prevent your own pending bankruptcy.

Send emails. Sign the petition. That’s two more things you can do right now. I have over 5,000 daily visitors and I only got 300 signatures on my petition? That also makes me wonder why I do this. You know, I could see it if this were just about me but it’s not. It’s about saving yourself. I suggest you also hold your suppliers and collaborators accountable. I will have all my site sponsors and advertisers get involved. If we die, they do too. I suggest emailing this to your suppliers with the handy “email to a friend” button at the close of the entry.

[Amended 6/5/09 9:00AM, comment from Heather]

I just spoke to Eric Garduno on the House Judiciary Committee. He seemed interested in talking to me and said it is helpful to have the comments written. His e-mail is eric.garduno@mail.house.gov . I told him of our group and the large opposition and he said to please mail in your comments!

If that isn’t enough to convince you, here are some comments from small designers like you:

Elizabeth: Independent designers are everywhere and this is just a reaction by big fashion to undermine their rising popularity

Jana: Protect all of us, not just the elite!

JM: This Act is clearly in favor of multi million dollar brands, please don’t use legislation to try to squash your competition! It’s hard enough for small designers to finance production let alone have a lawyer on retainer.

Jessica: This will kill my small business and put people out of work across the U.S. Is this is a good idea, especially in this economic downturn? The CFDA is an exclusive club of celebrity designers who [produce offshore and] do not care one bit for the average American’s job or family. The president of the CFDA herself, Diane von Furstenberg, has been caught red-handed committing design piracy. This act will do NOTHING to stop a handful of ultra-wealthy celebrity designers from stealing the “little guys” ideas - but it WILL stop us “little guys” from making an honest living for our families.

Leslie: As a custom clothier, this law would not allow my clientele, who cannot find clothing that fits, to have clothing custom made for them! Costs of clothing will be out of reach for everyday people.

Charis: This is insane. How will people afford the major name brand styles? It would be impossible!

Debbie: It would be death to the clothing industry and a field day for lawyers!

Pamela: I’m fortunate, I can sew. But if this law passes, I might have to make my own patterns, too. And if it’s more difficult to get affordable designs (including patterns), even more fabric stores will close –so where will I get fabric to sew with? This is a bad law.

Charli: Once again, Big Business killing the Small.

Esther: If this bill is passed it will only be beneficial to the bootlegging big wigs who proposed it!

Lisa: As an independent knitwear designer, I’ve already had 4 of my designs ’stolen’ and I have no way to prove it. Also, a number of times, I have seen designs that look just like mine when I KNOW I created something myself and there’s no way someone else could have seen it! The design process is too serendipitous to be ‘quantifiable’ Please don’t pass this bill.

Read Kevin’s memo. Send emails. Sign the petition. If this law passes, I will have to remove this site from the internet. I can’t afford the liability. And just so you know, I detest, loathe, publishing entries like this. My site traffic drops quite a bit because no one wants to read bad news. At this point, I have nothing to lose. So my site traffic drops for a week, that’s better than forever.

(PLEASE CLICK ON ORIGINAL BLOGPOST FOR LINKS & COMMENTS)

Eat, Drink, Think, Change - NYT's KIM SEVERSON on "Food, Inc."

(FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES - Saturday, June 6, 2009 )
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/movies/07seve.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3

FILM
Eat, Drink, Think, Change

Is the food party over? Left, fans of Burger King in the new documentary “Food, Inc.”. The sumptuous banquet depicted in the 1987 film “Babette’s Feast”.

By KIM SEVERSON
Published: June 3, 2009

MOVIES about food used to make you want to eat.

Morgan Spurlock on the road to obesity in “ Super Size Me” (2004).
The decade that spanned the mid-1980s to mid-1990s was particularly fruitful. It took heroic resolve to walk out of the Japanese spaghetti western “Tampopo” and not head directly to a ramen bar.

Cooks spent entire months trying to recreate “Babette’s Feast” and dreamed of rolling out pasta with Stanley Tucci in “Big Night.”

By the time Ang Lee’s “Eat Drink Man Woman” came out in 1994, moviegoers had come to expect food films filled with glistening dumplings, magical dessert and technically perfect kitchen scenes.

But that was then, before Wal-Mart started selling organic food and Michelle Obama planted a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. Before E. coli was a constant in the food supply, before politicians tried to tax soda and before anyone gave much thought to the living conditions of chickens.

Into this world comes “Food, Inc.,” a documentary on the state of the nation’s food system that opens in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on Friday.

“Food, Inc.” is part of a new generation of food films that drip with politics, not sauces. It’s eat-your-peas cinema that could make viewers not want to eat anything at all.

“All we have are these little canisters of film, and we’re launching them at a fortress,” said Severine von Tscharner Fleming, a filmmaker and farmer who is finishing a documentary on the young agrarian movement called “The Greenhorns.”

In 2004 Morgan Spurlock took a mini-Michael Moore approach with “Super Size Me,” a documentary that showed what happens when a man eats nothing but fast food for a month. (His waistline ends up looking a little more like Mr. Moore’s, and his sex life takes a dive.)

There has even been a feature film. In 2006 the nonfiction book “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser became a narrative (starring Greg Kinnear) about the restaurant industry, obesity and meat-packing labor exploitation.

Mr. Schlosser is a producer of, and a character in, “Food, Inc.,” in which the director Robert Kenner takes a sprawling look at the perils of Big Food. The film is being promoted as an exposé of “the highly mechanized underbelly” of the seemingly benign food people eat every day.

“Food, Inc.” begins with images of a bright, bulging American supermarket, and then moves to the jammed chicken houses, grim meat-cutting rooms and chemical-laced cornfields where much of the American diet comes from. Along the way Mr. Kenner attempts to expose the hidden costs of a system in which fast-food hamburgers cost $1 and soda is cheaper than milk.

“The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than the previous 10,000,” Michael Pollan says as the film opens. Mr. Pollan, an author and occasional contributor to The New York Times Magazine, is the spiritual guide for the film and serves as its narrator. “A lot of it is hard to watch,” he conceded, “but I think people are ready to take a good, unflinching look at how their food is produced.”

Mr. Kenner, who has previously tackled subjects like war and endangered species in a series of television documentaries, didn’t know much about food when he embarked on “Food, Inc.” about six years ago. But after warnings from lawyers, stonewalling from food companies and months on the ground in farm fields, grocery stores and Congressional offices, he became a hard-core campaigner for better food.

“It’s almost like a horror film, like ‘Invasion of the Food Snatchers,’ ” Mr. Kenner said.

Much of the film takes direct aim at the usual suspects — big meat packing companies, Monsanto, the federal Agriculture Department. But Mr. Kenner also offers a sympathetic study of people whose lives have been hurt both from producing food on such a mass scale and eating the results.

“I think what’s important here was connecting all these little pieces,” he said. “Individually they didn’t seem so insidious.”

In a section that shows how modern, mass-produced chickens have been bred to grow to market size in half the time, a woman under contract with Perdue speaks out about the physical toll such rapid growth takes on the chickens and the stifling conditions in which they live.

She also explains the financial stranglehold large chicken companies have on growers. She ends up losing her contract because she refuses to enclose her chicken houses completely.

Viewers who haven’t thought much about how all that food in the grocery store got to be there will likely find it hard to toss a few packages of pork chops and some Froot Loops in the cart and call it a day. Some viewers will undoubtedly look away during the meat cutting and processing scenes. For parents the eye-averting moment will come during repeated slow-motion scenes of a 2-year-old’s last vacation. His mother, now a food-safety advocate, explains in a tearful voice-over the gruesome details of his death after he ate hamburger tainted with E. coli.

For people steeped in food politics the most revealing scenes are the least graphic. Monsanto goes after an elderly man whose life has been devoted to the practice of cleaning seeds so farmers can replant crops. The chemical company, which has patented herbicide-resistant soybeans and corn, says he is helping farmers plant Monsanto seeds illegally.

The man is forced in a deposition to expose longtime friends and clients who are suspected of using the seeds illegally. He eventually gives up the legal fight when he runs out of money. Monsanto recently posted a Web page (monsanto.com/foodinc) devoted to countering the film’s version of events.

Mr. Kenner also visits a poor family with a diabetic father. During their trip to a grocery store it’s easy to see why they pass on broccoli in favor of fast-food hamburgers, which fill bellies longer and cheaper.

“Food, Inc.” has the endorsement of all kinds of people in what some call “the good food movement.” Alice Waters is a champion, and so is Martha Stewart. She has been arranging screenings for her staff and tweeting about the film: “See the film then tell me organic is too expensive for you and your family. It is so upsetting that good food is hard to find.”

A screening that Mr. Pollan described as uncomfortable was even arranged for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

Much of the buzz has been ginned up by an impressive full-court media campaign, which is spinning the movie as hard as a food company promoting a new product.

To coincide with the opening the lids of millions of containers of Stonyfield Farm yogurt have been turned into “Food, Inc.” ads, thanks in large part to the company’s chairman, Gary Hirshberg. One segment of the film is dedicated to his efforts to produce organic food on a mass scale.

The documentary even has its own companion book, which is more than 300 pages long and filled with essays about global warming, hunger and pesticides along with tips on how to talk to a farmer and improve school lunch.

Because “Food, Inc.” was produced by Participant Media (among others), the company that backed “An Inconvenient Truth,” comparisons are inevitable. But there’s a big difference. After watching Al Gore explain the horrors of climate change, moviegoers can turn off a few lights, think about a Prius and call it a day. People who leave “Food, Inc.” still have to eat.

And the filmmakers know that. At the end of the film a series of suggestions run across the screen. Plant a garden. Cook a meal for the family. Contact Congress.

“I want people to feel like they can do something,” said Naomi Starkman, a Northern California media consultant and aspiring farmer who helped create the messages. “You make a choice three times a day on what you want to eat. That is power.”

Angie Mason's Art'Chives... It's a Drawing Day Celebration!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3610/3599874142_e4c6bbd349_o.jpg

A look at the Art'Chives... It's a Drawing Day Celebration!
by Angie Mason



(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

FATHERS NAME IS DAD by FIRE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byCv2ojpsPk

FATHERS NAME IS DAD by FIRE.



A track by FIRE from 1968.

American Farmer Suicides

(FROM La Vida Locavore)
http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/1829/american-farmer-suicides

American Farmer Suicides
by: Jill Richardson
Fri Jun 05, 2009 at 15:17:40 PM PDT

We've talked at length about Indian farmer suicides, but now things are so bad (particularly in dairy) that it's happening here at home. Not on the same scale as in India, but the very fact that farmers are killing themselves is cause for concern. I first heard of this a week or so ago, but the family involved in that first farmer suicide wasn't talking to the media so I had nothing report. Now (thankfully) a few major publications have covered the topic.
According to the Denver Post fourteen Colorado farmers and ranchers killed themselves in 2008 - double the number of farmer suicides in 2004. And a national crisis hotline network for agricultural workers saw a 20% spike in calls this May compared with May 2008. As noted above, the problem is particularly severe in dairy:

"The increase in calls really started with the change in dairy prices, as they fell last fall," said Mike Rosmann, a clinical psychologist and farmer who heads the Iowa-based Sowing the Seeds of Hope help line serving farmers in seven Midwestern states. "We're starting to see the stress mount. It's a nationwide problem."
The article goes on to say that rural Americans have less access to health insurance and counseling services than those who live in cities. The LA Times also covered the issue, as California is now the nation's #1 dairy state and two CA dairy farmers have killed themselves in the past six months:

Through much of last year, the average milk price hovered around $17 per 100 pounds -- although consumers purchase milk by the gallon, the industry measures by pounds. The bottom fell out of the market when the economy tanked last fall. Prices now hover around $10, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Farmers generally need at least $16, and often more, per 100 pounds to break even, depending on their debt, feed requirements and other factors.
Unfortunately, the Times does not adequately cover the cause of the dairy crisis, which it attributes to a simple matter of oversupply. I recommend reading the statement by Iowa dairy farmer Francis Thicke for a deeper understanding of factors contributing to the crisis.


American Farmer Suicides | 1 comments
Yet another reason (0.00 / 0)
these giants have to be broken up.
These two industry giants, Dean Foods and DFA, work together and have marketing agreements for purchase of raw milk from farmers (DFA) and processing and wholesaling of dairy products (Dean) all across the U.S.
Another reason we're in the mess we're in now. "Too Big To Fail" got us in the financial mess and these monopolies are devastating our agriculture.

It's long past time for the Justice Department to get their Antitrust units up to full speed.

"Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."
by: Anonymous Bosch @ Fri Jun 05, 2009 at 21:45:39 PM CDT
American Farmer Suicides | 1 comments

(CLICK ON ORIGINAL POSTING TO CHECK OUT THE LINKS)

Remembering Eric Emerson - The Life & Times of a Magic Tramp

(FROM This Ain't The Summer Of Love BLOG)
http://thisaintthesummeroflove.blogspot.com/2009/05/052875-34-years-ago-today-in-new-york.html

THIS AIN'T THE SUMMER OF LOVE
ROCK & ROLL - NEW YORK CITY - MINNEAPOLIS - WHATEVER
TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2009

05/28/75: 34 Years Ago Today in New York City - Remembering Eric Emerson - The Life & Times of a Magic Tramp
by NYCDreamin
Flyer for a November 1972 Magic Tramps engagement at the Mercer Arts Center. Eric Emerson is third from Left.
(Image via: Magic Tramps.com - Used with permision)

A note from NYCDreamin...

Warhol Superstar and Magic Tramps vocalist Eric Emerson passed away 34 years ago today in his beloved New York City. All these years later his death is still shrouded in a cloak of mystery and secrecy. My goal with this post is not to unravel the tale of his death, but instead to celebrate in rememberance of his life and all-too-short career, and to maybe expose the story to some of those who may have not read about it previously. It is a story of New York City and of Rock and Roll legend...two of my favorite things and for most of you who read this, two of yours as well.

Early & Personal Life
Eric Emerson was born in 1945 (exact date N/A) in New Jersey. Information concerning his childhood is scarce. He was born to John and Margaret Emerson, his father a construction worker by trade. He grew up in Hoboken, NJ and was trained in Ballet dance at an early age. It was through his love of dance that he came to frequent a small Lower East Side NYC club called The Dom, where he was spotted one night in April 1966 by the club's then-new owner, Andy Warhol, who was always keeping an eye out for interesting and beautiful people to put in his movies. Warhol essentially took the unknown long-haired kid from Jersey and made him a "Superstar" by casting him in several of his underground art-films.

Excerpt from:
"Black Jeans To Go Dancing At The Movies"
by Marilyn Bender
New York Times - 04/11/66
[Eric] Emerson, who identified himself as 22 years old, a dressmaker and a hairdresser, was in black Levi's, a gray and white shirt, no tie, but a black t-shirt underneath. His blonde hair tumbled to his shoulders in a pageboy coiffure. His wife, Chris, 18, was in a low-belted, pleated dress and had her blonde hair cut in a Dutch bob. "Someone has to have long hair in this family and he didn't want to cut his," she explained.

Early & Personal Life (Continued)
At the time, Eric was living at 436 East 9th Street with his young wife Chris with whom he had his first child, a daughter named Erica, who was born in 1967. Eric had met Chris in Los Angeles and it was love at first sight. The two of them drove to Las Vegas the same night they met and were immediately married.

Eric also fathered anothe child with Stillettoes founding member/vocalist Elda Gentile, naming their son, who was born in 1970, Branch Emerson.

His youngest child, born to Warhol movie actress Jane Forth sometime around 1970, was given the name Emerson Forth.

Jane Forth (Warhol Superstar/Actress/Model) on Eric Emerson
[Eric] knew everybody. There was not a day that you'd go out with him without meeting at least 20 people he knew.

Early (Film) Career
Eric began to frequent Andy Warhol's famed art gallery/movie studio, "The Factory", and soon made his film debut in Warhol's 1966 classic "Chelsea Girls," which debuted in New York City on 09/15/66. Also in September of 1966, Eric travelled with Warhol's "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" tour and caused a ruckus by stealing a painting from a museum in Provincetown, MA. He told someone that he did it, "just to see if I could get away with it." The painting was eventually returned to the museum through the efforts of Paul Morrissey, who intervened on Eric's behalf in order to keep the museum from pressing charges against Eric.

Eric was also featured in a few other Warhol films in subsequent years: 1968's "Lonesome Cowboys", "Andy Makes A Movie" and "San Diego Surf (more details on that movie HERE)", 1969's "The Mind Blowers" directed by Harlan Renvok, and his final film appearance in Warhol's "Heat", which premiered in New York City on 10/05/72.

Early & Personal Life (Continued)
Eric was an open bi-sexual and had relationships with many of the Warhol Factory regulars. He was quoted in one interview, saying this: "I got really attatched to my wife, and when she went out free-loving the way I did, I got crazy and went through a heavy gay-scene for a while." Once, when his father accused him of "being a little sweet," Eric responded that, "What [my father] don't understand is that my generation can swing both ways."

On July 21, 1969, Eric was supposed to "marry" another of the Warhol Stars, the famed drag-queen, playwright and actor/actress Jackie Curtis. When Eric didn't show up for the ceremony that was to take place at Max's Kansas City, Jackie quickly made other arrangements and "married" a guy named Stuart, the Maitre D' at Max's. The wedding was covered in the Village Voice and was attended by many of the Max's regulars. Trans-rocker Jayne County (in her book "Man Enough to be a Woman") remembers the afternoon this way: "Leee [Black Childers] was invited to Jackie's wedding...and he tried to talk me into going, but I didn't want to go for some reason. I don't know why, and I kicked myself for it afterwards. Leee was there with his camera and he came back with all these fabulous pictures of all the New York Underground, people like Larry Ray, the founder of the drag-ballet Trockadero, in his ballet outfit, Ruby Lynn Reyner, Penny Arcade, Andrea Whips Warhol...Leee described it to me as something totally beyond hippy and gay, something totally new. He was so excited. It was the same day the [first] astronauts landed on the moon."

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, CA...
While Eric was busy with his film-work and hanging out with all the other Warhol Superstars and other weirdos who made up the scene at Max's Kansas City in New York, a group of musicians known as "Messiah" were making a name for themselves at a place called "The Temple of the Rainbow" in Los Angeles, CA. Messiah were an experimental three-piece group comprised of members Lary Chaplan (violin), Young Blood X. (guitar), and Sesu Coleman (drums). They were basically the house-band at the Temple of the Rainbow, and after a few years doing this gig, they decided they needed to write actual songs and hire a vocalist if they ever wanted to score the ever-elusive record contract. Guitarist Young Blood mentioned to the others that he knew just the right guy for the position of vocalist with their group, a guy he had met from New York named Eric Emerson. The band flew Emerson out to Los Angeles. Sesu remembers, "Eric fit [the group] like a glove. Now we were complete - a band with a singer and songs - the ultimate theatre. We attimes played in funky blues bars as a blues band...we called ourselves "The Magic Tramps."

After a serious earthquake rocked Los Angeles in February of 1971, the group had a meeting and decided to pack their bags and head for the East Coast. They were soon on their way to New York, where they were to become one of the pioneering and most important but overlooked bands of the then-budding "Glam-Rock" scene that was about to develop in Fun City. The fun began immediately upon their arrival in New York. Sesu Coleman remembers the night they arrived in New York: "As we opened the van doors [on First Avenue] in the East Village, [we said,] 'We're home!' Sirens were ringing [up and down the block] due to a fire in the building we were going in to. We're taking armfulls of stuff [up the stairs] - firemen are running up and down and in and out. [We're] passing each other like, 'it's no big deal - it's cool - it's New York. Don't drop anything, keep moving."

Elda Gentile (Founding Member of Stillettos/Singer/Songwriter/Author)
It was ten at night. Fire engines wailed outside of the apartment house and [I] leaned out the window to make sure they had the fire in the bar below under control. That is when [I] saw the van pull up in front of the building. A short guy with bright red curly hair down hi back got out of the passenger seat and opened the rear doors to the van. Nothing happened for a minute or so and then [I] saw Eric emerge from the van. The firemen had pretty much completed their task and they stood looking into the van as the dog and another long-haired guy popped out of the back. [I] flew down the stairs [with Eric's child] in my arms. They made it. Eric Emerson and the Magic Tramps were home.

Jane Forth (Warhol Superstar/Actress/Model)
[The Magic Tramps were] the original glitter-rock group. But [Eric] never got credit for originating glitter-rock...the original ones never get the credit. He was over-creative, he couldn't be accepted in his time.

Eric Emerson and the Magic Tramps
"...And now, I'd like you to take a walk on the wild side with me, Eric Emerson, and my outlaw band - let's take a trip..." - Eric Emerson

Sesu Coleman (Drums - Magic Tramps)
Upon [our] arrival [in New York City], Mickey Ruskin (owner of the infamous Max's Kansas City) said we could showcase there and gave us the keys to the upstairs room. Max's was the first gig we played in NYC. The entire [Warhol Factory] entourage was there. I recall Paul Morrisey, Andy's film assistant told us, "Rock and Roll will never fly in New York City - Cabaret is the way!" So we created two shows - one rock and roll and one cabaret. Our first few gigs were played under the name Messiah, a few gigs under the name Star Theatre. We later returned as the house-band at Max's after a...fire upstairs [there] in which we lost some equipment. Keep in mind that there was not an established rock and roll scene in New York at this time. This was the era AFTER the Velvet Underground and BEFORE the New York Dolls, Kiss, Blondie, Ramones, etc.

We [also] helped open a revamped off-Broadway theatre [complex] called the Mercer Arts Center in the West Village. We soon became the house-band at the Mercer [as well] and the Dolls got their start there opening for the Tramps. Ironically, we helped open [the place], developed a huge music scene there, and were rehearsing there when it collapsed.

Note from NYCDreamin...
You can read MUCH MORE about the scene at the Mercer Arts Center and it's August 03, 1973 demise in the history I wrote on the place last fall. Click HERE to begin your history lesson.

Sesu Coleman (Continued)
Our shows were very colorful, theatrical, original conceptually and musically. I think we were a bit misunderstood as we actually played original music with different time signatures, melodic choruses, lyrics and stories. We always viewed our shows as an experience for one and all. Everyone was made-up and dressed-up - clothes pins on their nipples, goldfish in their platform boots, anything went. That glam period was about show-and-tell, with audience participation. We had visuals, lights, colors, sometimes dry-ice for effect. We also brought various performers up on the stage to add variety. We tried to make the stage an environment and the music interesting enough to have the audience relate to the message. It was a fun an positive experience.

*Read a 12/09/71 Village Voice review of a typical Magic Tramps concert performance at Max's Kansas City HERE.

Jackie Curtis' "Vain Victory - Vissicitude of the Damned"
On May 26, 1971, Jackie Curtis' off-off-Broadway theatrical production "Vain Victory - Vissicitudes of the Damned" made it's debut at LaMama Theatre in NYC. Featured in the cast was Tramps' vocalist Eric Emerson. The production featured music written by the Magic Tramps and Lou Reed. The play ran for a brief time at LaMama and then moved over to the W.P.A. at 333 Bowery where it ran throughout the summer of 1971.

*Video of Eric Performing a few musical selections (along with Tramps' bandmate Lary Chaplan on violin and drummer Sesu Coleman playing precussion behind the stage) in a production of Jackie Curtis' "Vain Victory" has just recently been posted on Youtube by author/Jackie Curtis Biographer (and nephew) Craig Highberger. You can view this historic video by clicking HERE.

Magic Tramps open "Hilly's On The Bowery" a.k.a. "CBGB"
The Magic Tramps were also the first ROCK act to ever play at a place known as "Hilly's On The Bowery." You may know the place by it's later name, the legendary C.B.G.B. They debuted at Hilly's on October 19th, 1972 (see a flyer for the show HERE) on a small stage which they themselves helped to construct. You can read more about this seminal night of rock history HERE. Prior to the Tramps, the only records I've been able to uncover of any music performed at Hilly's was by a group called the "Bowery Chamber Music Society."

An additional authors sidenote of interest on C.B.G.B./Hilly's: I asked Sesu if he'd ever seen Hilly Kristal perform as a solo artist when his club was still in it's infantcy as old concert listings in the New York Times from the July/August 1973 time-frame indicate. Sesu replied that he - "had not seen Hilly perform as an artist, but - I met Hilly with Eric."

*To hear audio recordings of Eric singing vocals with the Magic Tramps, please visit CDBaby.com and order a copy of the Magic Tramps CD "Kickin' Up Moonlight Dust", released in 2005. The CD features some pre-Emerson recordings of the band when they were known as Messiah, a few live Tramps tracks featuring Eric on vocals, and a few post-Emerson tracks with their second vocalist Jay Mala. To date, these are the only officially released Magic Tramps recordings. They were recorded between the years 1970 and 1975. Tramps drummer Sesu Coleman is in posession of more recorded aterial which he plans to release at some point in the future.

Magic Tramps (Continued)
Mid 1973: Eric Emerson Leaves The Magic Tramps

Sesu Coleman: "Eric wanted to continue exploring theatre and show soncepts. He continued to work under a host of names - mostly solo efforts, working with other musicians and ocassionaly with Tramps roadie-and-sometimes member of the band Chris Stein, who would later go on to co-found Blondie. Eric also used a stage name we had performed under for a while called "Star Theatre", but he never played again under the name "Magic Tramps." Some people get confused because the Tramps [continued on with a new vocalist] and Eric went solo. [People who went to see Eric] thought they were seeing the Magic Tramps while in actual fact, by then, the Tramps were a totally different band with new members and new material. They were seeing Eric in various projects that unfortunately never took off. He was too much of an artist and individual. He never found that commercial musical groove that allowed him to be himself. After Eric left the Tramps, Lary, Young Blood and I did assist him on solo projects with other musicians, but never as the Magic Tramps. In August 1974, [we] got together with Eric at Barbara Winter's loft in New York City with a bass player named Walter ("Alter Ego") Greenberg to put together a theatrical show called "Star Theatre." It was our last effort together.

05/28/75 - Eric Emerson Dies In New York City
Early on the morning of Wednesday May 28th, 1975, Eric Emerson's body was found lying next to his bicycle on the West Side of New York City. He was 31 years old at the time of his death. The cause of his death is officially listed as a hit and run and no one was ever charged or arrested in connection with his death. NYPD said the time of the accident was around 3:00pm, shortly after Eric had returned home from a party at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

A weekend long wake was held in his memory and he was buried in Wharton, NJ.

You can see a few photos (taken by celebrated photographer Allan Tannenbaum) from the wake over at SohoWeeklyNews.com.

Shortly after his death, rumors began to circulate that Eric had not been the victim of a hit-and-run driver, but had in fact died of a heroin overdose in the apartment of his then-lover Barbara Winter, ex-wife of guitar great Edgar Winter, and his body had been dumped with his bicycle in attempt to cover up the true facts and location of his death. These rumors have never been substantiated, nor have they been disproven. The NYPD's citing of a 3:00pm time of death and the fact that his body was not discovered until early the following morning certainly suggest some kind of discrepancy in the "official" story.

Andy Warhol on the Death of Eric Emerson
Some of those kids who were so special to us, who made our 60's scene what it was, died young in the 70's. They found Eric Emerson early one morning in the middle of Hudson Street. Officially, he was labled a hit-and-run victim but we heard rumors that he'd overdosed and just been dumped there - in any case, the bicycle he [supposedly] been riding was intact.

Gerard Malanga (Warhol Superstar/Associate)
It's been said somewhere that the good die young - and this is as true now as when looking back at Eric's sudden and unexpected demise, a void is left in the wake of his absence. We can only speculate at the artist he would [have] become. He was a mercurial free-spirit. For me, his enthusiasm was contagious - his encouragement sublime. He was almost selfless in this instance. Whatever the engagement, whether it was crafting leather goods, stitching fabric or writing a poem, he was in the moment of creation and of the moment as well. Eric's legacy remains a constant wonder. He was a friend for all time.

Bandmate Sesu Coleman Remembers Eric Emerson
Eric Emerson - a book unto himself. Eric was a kind and loving person - a party waiting to happen. He was sensitive, non-confrontational and not at all a negative person. Creative, fun, misunderstood. Colorful, magnetic and magical. Life was his stage. Mickey Ruskin - the owner of Max's Kansas City, thought the world of him as did Lou Reed and almost everone who knew him.

MISCELLANEOUS
*The song "Tattoo Vampire", written by Albert Bouchard and Helen "Wheels" Robbins, which appears on Blue Oyster Cult's 1976 album "Agents of Fortune" was written about an experience "Wheels" had had at some point with the tattooed Eric Emerson.

*The song "Eric's Trip", written and recorded by Sonic Youth, which appears on their 1988 album "Daydream Nation" is another song about/in rememberance of Eric Emerson.

SOURCE MATERIALS/FURTHER READING

*Private Interviews (2007 - 2009) between the Author and Magic Tramps drummer and founding member Sesu Coleman.

BOOKS/MAGAZINES/PERIODICALS
"Elda Rose: Adventures in the New York Underground" by Elda Gentile (1994)
"Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties" by Steven Watson (2003)
"Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries 1971 - 1973" by Jim Carroll (1987)
"Glam! Bowie, Bolan and the Glitter Rock Revolution" by Barney Hoskyns (1998)
"High On Rebellion: Inside the Underground at Max's Kansas City" by Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin (1998)
"Man Enough To Be a Woman" by Jayne County (1995)
New York Post - "He Brought Glitter to Rock Music" (06/04/75)
"Pretty Vacant: A History of U.K. Punk" by Philip Strongman
SoHo Weekly News - "In Memoriam: Eric Emerson" (06/05/75)


ON THE WEB

The by far best place to read more about Eric Emerson is at Sesu Coleman's amazing http://www.magictramps.com/ - the most complete source of information concerning Eric and his outlaw band in the entire universe...


ALSO:
IMDB.com (Internet Movie Database - Eric Emerson)
Myspace.com/MoonlightDustProductions
Myspace.com/MagicTramps
PunkGlobe.com/MagicTrampsInterview
http://www.thisaintthesummeroflove.blogspot.com/ (search: Eric Emerson/Magic Tramps)
WarholStars.org
Wikipedia.org/Eric Emerson

(PLEASE VIEW ORIGINAL BLOGPOST FOR WORKABLE LINKS)

Underground Classics - The Transformation of Comics into Comix

(FROM BOINGBOING)
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/05/underground-classics.html

Underground Classics - The Transformation of Comics into Comix
POSTED BY MARK FRAUENFELDER, JUNE 5, 2009 4:10 PM


I get about three or four review books in the mail every day. Very few interest me, but once in a great while I get a gem of a book, and Underground Classics - The Transformation of Comics into Comix is one of them.

There have been a few histories of underground comics as of late, but this is the first one to really focus on the artwork of underground comics, as opposed to their cultural significance, which most histories cover. That's not to say the book doesn't look at the era in which these comics were made -- it does, but it's first an foremost an art book.

Most of the pages are devoted to high quality scans of original art by all the usual suspects -- R. Crumb, Rand Holmes, Vaughn Bode, Robert Williams, William Stout, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton, Trina Robbins, Jay Kinney, and the rest.I love seeing the zip-a-tone, blue lines, and white-out that you don't get to see in the printed comics. I have a lot of the comics this art came from, and it's a treat to see it presented with such great attention to detail. Each illustration is accompanied by enlightening commentary.

The book is edited by Denis Kitchen and James Danky, co-curators of the exhibition of underground comics at the Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisonsin-Madison that this book is based on.

The book includes essays by Paul Buhle, Trina Robins, Jay Lynch, and Patrick Rosenkranz (who wrote a great history of underground comics called Rebel Visions).

(Also -- the Crumb illo on the cover is from Snarf #6 [1975]. The guy in the car would be very welcome at Maker Faire!)

Underground Classics - The Transformation of Comics into Comix

posted in: ART , COMICS

More News on Sizable Johnsons

(FROM LIFE AT THE D & A DOG RANCH BLOG)

http://dadogranch.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-news-on-sizable-johnsons.html

LIFE AT THE D & A DOG RANCH
MUSINGS FROM A SOUTH AUSTIN MALCONTENT WHO LIVES WITH THE DOGS (MOBY AND LUNA) WHO HAVE CHOSEN HIM TO HANG OUT WITH.

More News on Sizable Johnsons

Ok, got an email from my good friend Dr. Bruce who wanted to make sure that I knew Milton Berle also had a propensity for whipping out his elongated third leg at a moments notice. My brain being a font for useless knowledge, I of course already knew this and figured everyone else already did as well.
However the other fellow he mentioned raised my radar and really made me happy.

FORREST TUCKER!!!!! Yes, that Forrest Tucker of F Troop fame. He is reported to have a large joint as well that he was more than proud to show off.

Here is a little info from Mamie Van Doren:

Hollywood sexpot of the 50's and 60's Mamie Van Doren talks about Forrest Tucker, and others on her website - click Bedtime Stories. No pics tho. Here's what she said about Mr Tucker.

My old friend, the late Forrest Tucker was rumored to have one of the biggest cocks in Hollywood. He was a tall, good-looking guy with blond hair and a great tan even in his mid-sixties, and it wouldn't have been surprising. Forrest and I were in a show back in the mid-1980's, and after a performance one night we took a limo to a Polynesian restaurant for drinks and dinner. On the ride to the restaurant, I asked him if all the rumors were true and he told me the following story.

Forrest and another actor were drinking at Slapsy Maxy's, a famous Hollywood watering hole back in the 1940's owned by the prizefighter, Slapsy Maxy Rosenblum. On this evening everyone got pretty well oiled and there was considerable bragging about sexual exploits. It finally got down to the size of their penises. The argument got more and more serious, and by closing time, money started getting thrown on the bar and a sizable bet was made. Slapsy rummaged around under the bar and came up with a ruler, and the contestants unzipped to settle the matter then and there.

"I pulled mine out, Mamie," Forrest told me while the limo driver strained to hear from the front seat, Aand it was between eleven and twelve. I thought I had the bet won! Then this guy who could not have been more than five feet three or four hauled his out..."
He paused for effect. "And? And?" I asked.

"And it hung over the end!"

"Who was it, Forrest?" I asked.

He grinned. "Never underestimate those short guys. It was George Raft."