Tag Archives: alcoholism

90 Hours in New Orleans: The Monkey Power Trio’s Twenty-Fifth Day as a Band

By Mark | December 8, 2019

[above: We were staying right on a trolley line, and the buzzing of the overhead power lines was incessant. I doubt that it’ll make a record, as we had better songs this time out, but this fact gave rise to our loudest endeavor of the session, a number called Stray Voltage.] The weekend of November […]

Posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life, Monkey Power Trio | Also tagged alcohol, All My Life, Andrew Huang, Andy Calder, Anne Shapiro, Atlanta, Baby Wolf, Bacchanal, Balls Deep in the Gumbo, baseball, binge drinking, biscuits, bullying, cancer, cemeteries, cigar box guitar, Cochon, colon cancer, colonoscopy, Crazy Rich Asians, crumhorn, dashing older men, Donald Trump, Eddie Rispone, film production, First of October, FOX News, Frico Chicho, grits, gumbo, Harry Shum Jr., health scare, hoes for sale, Jacques Imo's, James Brown, Jazz, John Bel Edwards, Live Oak Cafe, Louisiana, lung cancer, Mark's bad back, Melba’s, Mike Bell, Miss Linda “The Ya-Ka-Mein Lady” Green, Monkey Power Trio, Museum of Death, necks, New Orleans, Nigel Witherbottom, polyps, PSA, Rebirth Brass Band, Remus, Rob Scallon, Rome, Romulus, saliva, shrimp and crab meat dressing, Stray Voltage, talk box, Tremé Creole Gumbo Festival, Tulane, Universal Studios, Vasco Spermo, WTUL, YouTubers | 9 Comments

Joan Crawford’s last film, Trog

By Mark | September 3, 2019

As I’ve mentioned on this site before, I’m a fan of Joan Crawford’s, and I’m slowly making my way through her entire body of work. Tonight, I know I should probably be reading up on the the increasingly interesting fight over Brexit in England, but I’m thinking instead of watching Crawford’s last film, 1970’s Trog, […]

Posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life | Also tagged 1925, 1970, anthropology, Berserk, Boris Johnson, Brexit, caveman, Herman Cohen, Joan Crawford, Lucille LeSueur, MGM, missing link, Pepsi-Cola, screen test, Trog, troglodyte, vodka | 20 Comments

Leaving the command of the USS Enterprise and promptly dying: The Jeffrey Hunter story

By Mark | September 11, 2016

There’s important stuff that I should be writing about tonight, stuff that I know would earn a lot of “likes” on social media and give rise to some good, meaningful conversation, but, since re-watching the first few episodes of Start Trek the other night with the kids, I’ve gone down a bit of a rabbit […]

Posted in Ann Arbor, Art and Culture, Uncategorized | Also tagged acting, another famous person has died, b-movies, Christopher Pike, crazy people, creative negotiations, curses, Gene Roddenberry, Grace Lee Whitney, James T. Kirk, Jeffrey Hunter, Jesus, Joan 'Dusty' Bartlett, King of Kings, Laurel Goodwin, models, OCD, Spain, Start Trek, television, The Cage, The Longest Day, what if, Yeoman Janice Rand | 15 Comments

The Untold History of Zines…. Robert Helms on Guinea Pig Zero

By Mark | February 23, 2014

In an attempt to better document the American underground press, or at least the sharp, rusty sliver of it that infected me 20-some years ago, I’ve given myself the task of interviewing all of the zine folks that I respected back in the day, during the period which many of us still consider to be […]

Posted in Art and Culture, Special Projects, Uncategorized | Also tagged Abbott Labs, abortion, Agent 355, Alexis Buss, Alexis St. Martin, Alison Lewis, Ameoterone, American revolution, Anarchism and the Black Revolution, anarchists, anarchy, atheist, Auschwitz, Betsy Ross, Big Cheese, bioethics, bossicide, Brew Squat, Bruce Orr, cats, Centereach, cheese, cheese money, chocolate, clinical trials, death penalty, digestion, Dishwasher, documentary film, Donald McCabe, Donno Layton, drug development, Edgar Allan Poe, Eva Mozes Kor, experiments, France, Free Voice, freethinker, fuck, gene therapy, Guinea Pig Zero, Harper’s, health care, Hershey’s Kisses, human guinea pig, human test subjects, Indianapolis, International Workers of the World, IWW, James Bond, Jeff Kelly, Jesse Gelsinger, Johnson Space Center, Jonestown, Josef Mengele, Keffo, Kenosha, Kinko's, labor law, Lehigh Valley, liver, Long Island, lying, Mackinac Island, medical experimentation, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Nazis, Neptune, New Jersey, New York Times Magazine, Off Label, ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency, patient zero, Paul Gelsinger, Pennsylvania, Pete Jordan, pharmacokinetics, Phil Buchanan, Philadelphia, placebos, printing, Prozac, psych drugs, Randall Phillip, Ritalin, Robert Helms, scams, secret agents, sleep deprivation, SmithKline Beecham, squats, stomach, syphilis, Temp Slave, The Age of Reason, The Untold History of Zines, This American Life, Thomas Paine, Tuskegee syphilis experiment, twins, underground press, union organizing, unions, University of Pennsylvania, vasovagal syncope, William Beaumont, Wisconsin, Wobblies, Wooden Shoe Books, workplace violence, Wyeth-Ayerst, zines | 13 Comments

Pencil Paparazzi: a winking Melissa Gilbert at Ann Arbor’s Gandy Dancer

By Mark | December 20, 2013

I’ve got another entry for our ever-growing Pencil Paparazzi file. This one comes from a young man in Ann Arbor by the name of Bryant. Accompanying his drawing of former Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert, was the following note: “Melissa Gilbert winked at me at the Gandy Dancer. Or maybe she was […]