By Mark | January 12, 2016
There was no way that David Bowie wasn’t going to be famous. His will was too strong. As childhood friends of his have said, he was already preparing for fame at nine, aggressively moving between fads, attempting to catch the right one at the right time in order to propel him toward celebrity. He was […]
Posted in Art and Culture, Uncategorized | Also tagged another famous person has died, Apollo 11, Arnold Corns, Brian Epstein, celebrity, David Bowie, David Bowie Wants Idea, determination, fads, fame, Jeff Starship, Longwater, Lou Reed, Lour Reed, Love You till Tuesday, Madona, Major Tom, Moonage Daydream, rural pop, Sniper, sociopaths, space, Space Oddity, The Ostrich, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-haired Men, Timothy Monger, trends, Ziggy Stardust |
Today, thanks to Facebook, I discovered that two of the most influential men in my life share the same birthday. Both Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little) and Joey Ramone (born Jeffrey Ross Hyman) started their journeys on May 19, and, in their honor, not only am I drinking a beer right now to their memories, […]
I have very few regrets in life. One of the biggest is not pursuing an interview with writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert more aggressively. (He finds himself in the distinguished company on Don Knotts and Joey Ramone in that regard.) If you haven’t heard, Ebert passed away today at […]
Posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life, Other, Uncategorized | Also tagged 1950s, 1983, another famous person has died, atheism, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Bob and Ray, Buck Coulson, cancer, Death, Don Knotts, famous people who published zines, fandom, Gene Siskel, Harlan Ellison, Harvey Kurtzman, Humanism, Juanita Coulson, Kate Moss, Kurt Vonnegut, legacies, Lenny Bruce, life after death, memes, MidWestCon, Mort Sahl, on facing death, people who we know from television, religion, Richard Dawkins, Roger Ebert, Russ Meyer, science fiction, self-publishing, Sex Pistols, so it goes, Stan Freberg, Star Wars, Stymie, Xero, Yandro, zine pioneers, zines |
Last night, I listened to Marc Maron’s interview with Andy Kaufman’s old writing partner, Bob Zmuda. My sense is that Maron… who has a brilliant podcast, by the way… found the experience somewhat frustrating, as Zmuda insisted on being evasive about a few things, like the circumstances surrounding Andy’s death, and the question as to […]
Posted in Art and Culture, Crimewave USA, Uncategorized | Also tagged Abraham Lincoln, Andy Kaufman, Andy Kaufman Revealed, Andy Warhol, Ben Franklin, Bessie Smith, Billy Wilder, Bob Zmuda, brilliant comedy, Buckminster Fuller, Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin, Charlie Chaplin, comedy, FDR, gaffer's tape, George Harrison, Gregory Peck, Harriet Tubman, Houdini, J.D. Salinger, Jack Benny, Katherine Hepburn, Kurt Vonnegut, Leonardo Da Vinci, Malcolm X, Marc Maron, Mark Twain, Martin Luther King Jr., Myrna Loy, Nicola Tesla, Norman Wexler, Patrick McGoohan, Peter Falk, Robert Kennedy, Stanley Kubrick, tape, taping down penises, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Pynchon, Tim Carey, Tony Clifton, Woody Allen, Woody Guthrie, wrestling, wrestling women |
By Mark | September 14, 2010
I’m waiting for Clementine to fall asleep, drinking a well-deserved beer, and skipping around the internet, looking for archival footage from the early days of CBGBs. And, in the process, I happened across this segment from the 1995 PBS documentary entitled Rock and Roll. I think I saw it when it was first broadcast, but […]
Posted in Art and Culture | Also tagged Blondie, CBGB, Chris Franz, David Byrne, Debbie Harry, DIY, do it yourself, Hilly Kristal, Johnny Ramone, Patti Smith, punk, punk rock, Ramones, Rock and Roll, Talking Heads, television, Tina Wymouth, Tom Verlaine |
