Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

The Medical Illustrations CD-ROM which I had worked on for 6 months last year has recently been published by Purestock, a division of SuperStock. The CD-ROM contains 200 images that were rendered in 3-D using Maya software. The high resolution still images are based in part on previous 3-D bio-medical animation.

Perhaps long ago adoring fans of great violin or piano players performed mimicries of their heroes, but today we have The US Air Guitar Championships. In my recollection, this rock peculiarity was popularized by Joe Cocker seen above in the first of many of my rock concert photographs. Fortunately Cocker’s primary talent is singing, but in his early days his convulsive spasmodic reactions to his band’s music (Leon Russell on real guitar and piano) added to the entertainment. To be just an air guitarist is to build a profession out of pretending, kind of like some folks we all know in Washington DC who professed they knew about fatally dangerous WMDs in Iraq.

Listener sponsored radio is one of the few mass media outlets remaining that resembles democracy in America. Corporate advertising driven TV, radio and newspapers are full of fluff and omissions and are products of professional entertainers, posers and profiteers. Let us not forget our basic freedoms of speech and the press, unless we lose them.

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to a number of outstanding public radio stations that are frequently in need of support, listed below. Please do what you can, and preserve human sanity. Thank you.

KPFA 94.1 FM: Founded in 1949 by Lewis Hill, a pacifist, poet, and journalist, KPFA was the first community supported radio station in the USA. Much of KPFA’s programming is local, original and eclectic, with a well produced mix of news and in depth public affairs, an ongoing drama, literature and performance series, interviews, and reviews. My personal favorite programs are Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, Sunday Salon with Larry Bensky, and Flashpoints with Dennis BernStein.

KQED Public Radio: NPR and local programming, such as Forum with Michael Krasny.

KCSM The Bay Area’s Jazz Station. KCSM Jazz 91 FM houses one of the USA’s largest collections of jazz recordings, and plays a wide variety of commercially uninterupted jazz music. This station is a great treasure with a lot of heart and soul.

KXPR 90.9 FM is part of Sacramento’s Capital Public Radio and plays a steady stream of fine classical music.

Just received my copies of a newly released CD, Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band Amsterdam 80. This is an extremely clear 74 minute recording of Don Van Vliet and his band performing live at The Paradiso in Amsterdam on November 1st 1980. The CD album jacket includes 6 color photos I shot of a Beefheart show from the same tour in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on December 10, 1980. For more details about that fateful December show, looky here.

The CD jacket also includes some fine shots of Don by photographer Deborah Feingold. As the man says, This could be the best batch yet.

A recent SF Chronicle article highlighting New Orleans paino great James Booker led to my contacting Bill Roberts, who took part in the Maple Leaf Bar’s weekly Sunday afternoon poetry readings along with Everette Maddox. Bill recalled Booker playing there frequently, and related a story.

While waitering at Commander’s Palace Bill worked a party for the upper crust of New Orleans society: bankers, judges, and business owners. They made a special request for James Booker to play at the party, and Bill describes what happened…

The piano keys under the spell of James Booker had unleashed such powerful, raw blues on the psyches of the elite of New Orleans, members of the old line secret Krewes (Rex, Comus and Momus) of Mardi Gras, that it decimated their sense of decorum.

James Booker was oblivious and indifferent to their transformation. He just kept pounding away on the keys, and would not free the ladies and gents from his enchanting grip.

The place went crazy. They were dancing wildly and bumping into each other. They became unravelled, they came apart under the influence of Booker’s playing. A judge was even dancing around in his official robes.

When the party was over I found the judge’s robe on the floor. I didn’t know what to do, so I brought it home, and then brought it back to Commander’s the next time I worked there. They almost fired me over it.

Mayor Landrieu was still in office, the last white Mayor of New Orleans.  Maybe the event portended the seismic shift in political  power in the Big Easy.

If one subscribes to the belief held by the Black Clergy of the Mississippi delta during the 1920’s,30’s and 40’s, that Blues was the Devil’s music; then truly I declare that it was Mephistofiles himself playing that night to Dr. Faust.

Neil Young is prolific indeed, writing and recording LIVING WITH WAR, a ‘metal folk protest’ album in 9 days. Nothing stirs up the creative juices like righteous anger over an unjust war. The Neil Young fan news site, Thrasherswheat.org has all the details, including outside opinions on his new album, including a song, “Impeach The President”. Thrilling, blood boiling stuff from a man who is fully alive, ringing that bell of freedom with musical hammers of justice.

Earlier this year I was contacted by Sony BMG Music’s London office in a request to use one my photographs of Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart found on this web site. I was curious about how they were going to use this photo for a CD, since I don’t consider it as one of my best. It was a surprise to see the result (below) when it was recently released. The fisheye lens motif is an echo from the original Safe As Milk album cover.

Captain Beefheart apparently has a faithful following in Great Britain, since this is the third British Beefheart album cover publishing one of my photos. A fourth is due to come out later this Spring.

Part of the fun of this has been getting back in touch with my friends who are in this 1980 photo, Jeff and Mike DeMark. We went to that show toether, and they’ve written their recollections of the Beefheart performance and lounging around with him in the hallway of his hotel after the show when the photo was taken. Click here to begin reading about the strange evolution of this CD cover.

The howling idiot wind of the Republican noise machine is in danger of drowning itself out. With so many lies and explanations for poor intelligence swirling around, how’s a hysterical shrieking banshee to distinguish herself and make a living here? You produce a provocative title such as Ann Coulter’s upchucking, I mean upcoming, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Holy Cow, are we back on the first grade playground again? I had been musing that some creative events might be planned for 6-6-6 day, but the June 6th release of a template for condemning millions of souls was beyond my sweet little imagination. She really must be nuts.

To cast out the demons from Ms. Coulter’s troubled mind, I recommend religious scholar Garry Willis’s book, What Jesus Meant. On a recent radio interview Willis placed Jesus above politics and systems of justice. He quotes Jesus as saying, “What you do to the least of these, you do to me.” This should be enough warning to the intolerant, holier than thou, would-be Christians.

But listen up people, when a Conservative says it’s true, it’s just true. Believe it, or else you have no faith and are Godless.