Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

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.

Great music in the works as Dweezil Zappa prepares to launch the ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA tour with many band members from original Frank Zappa touring bands. I’ve got my tickets for the San Francisco show at The Warfield.  The Frank Zappa pages on this web site have photos of some of the guys who will be on this new tour.
Here is a reallly cool frappr map of some online Zappa fans.

This is a visual supplement to The New Yorker article which describes without pictures this famous LP album cover and its positive marketing factor in Herb Alpert’s success as a recording artist. Above is the original version, shaving cream on the body of the beautiful Dolores. Below is the new version of the album, with the new Dolores, Bree Condon. As with most things, I like the original better, not that I would turn down a little taste of Bree. More about Herb Alpert albums.

This creep didn’t just step down, he wimpered, fell to his knees, bent over and is crawling away from Congress into a spider hole of darkness. Expect the Tom zombie to resurface in D.C. as a K Street lobbyist where the blood sucker’s pockets will be lined with fresh cash from unwitting Sunday morning collection plates.

Last week Andy Card, this week DeLay, next week Rumsfeld? We can only hope.

Today’s SF Chronicle is running an article about the growth and diversity of Internet video content. They include a list, and here are some of the hyperlinks to the sites. See the democratization of television on the march.

• YouTube – looks like flickr for videos
• Current TV – an ambitious user created video content network offering payment for your uploaded video projects.
• vMix – videos submitted and ranked from around the world
• vidiLife – yet another way to share videos with your friends
• Ourmedia – this one appears to have a socially conscious edge
• Break.com – kind of sleazy and commercial brand of site
• FireAnt – pioneering videoblogging
• Veoh – invitation to submit your videos. Clips from copyrighted films such as Coppola’s Dementia 13.
• GorillaMask.net – slick, sexy, commercial regurgitation of primarily professional mass media
• Grouper – a place to upload and share your videos from
• GUBA – enables images and video through good old Usenet
• Podzinger – an index of audio and video for podcasting

Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Animation Festival has been at it for 20 years now. Animators can go where the camera of the mind takes them, and these independent animators go to some crazy, sick and twisted places. See their online galleries of really crude, rude cartoons.

Here is video and coverage of Senator Russ Feingold‘s refreshingly clear stance on his proposal to censure President Bush.

Perhaps Americans’ vast knowledge of The Simpsons and American Idol trivia over their own Constitutional rights, has clouded our memory of Amendment 1 of the Bill of Rights which includes our right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

So America needs a Simpsons show where Bart recites parts of the Constitution and Russ Feingold makes an appearance. Go man, go!