Thx 138

Without wood, there'd be no America. No ships to bring the pilgrims across the ocean. No log cabins, no schoolhouses, no churches, no covered wagons, no railroad ties, no cigar store Indians, no nothin'.
Tonight I'm driving down to San Diego to go kick it with the X-Ray Cat for the weekend. I'll try to swing some documents thisa way, but don't count on fate.

Oration On Tha Dignity of 23

A new form of human being announces itself: dynamic, creative, multidimensional, protean, unfinished, self-defining and self-creating, infinitely aspiring, set apart from the whole, overseeing the rest of the world with unique sovereignty, centrally poised in the last moments of the old cosmology to bring forth and enter into the new.
-from Tarnas' Cosmos and Psyche on twenty-three year old Pico della Mirandola's 1486 Oration on the Dignity of Man

"Neither a fixed abode nor a form that is thine alone nor any function peculiar to thyself have we given thee, Adam, to the end that according to thy longing and according to thy judgment thou mayest have and possess what abode, what form, and what functions thou thyself shalt desire. The nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of laws prescribed by Us. Thou, constrained by no limits, in accordance with thine own free will, in whose hand We have placed thee, shalt ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature. We have set thee at the world's center that thou mayest from thence more easily observe whatever is in the world. We have made thee neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with honor, as though the maker and molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer."
Here's Korine's preferred shape at the same age:
yesterday was jodie foster and larry king's birthday too, here they are:

Young Til I Die

Do you believe in reincarnation? Well I entertain the thought like I entertain most others, and I figure if I am a reincarnated person it was most likely some Ozarkian grandmother with a whole heapful children's songs and a scratchy, cocklely voice. Ever since I can remember Sunday School songs, Bluegrass, and general old-timey Americana folk music has resonated with me real hard. Something in the way they sing just hits that absolute center of my soul, hard to put into english...I also like the stories, I love the way they blend super adult-themed stories but color them with frogs with mice for uncles or rings of rosies and pockets full of posies. "There was an old woman who swallowed a fly" was a favorite as a kid, and the story of Don Gato has always sparked my imagination....

This all brings me to an album I just found called "Old Mother Hippletoe" which is a collection of children's songs and the ilk, all recorded back in the day by children's choirs, and real-deal share-croppin', god-fearin', butter-churnin', chitlin' cleanin' salt-of-the-earth type of folks. It has Little Rooster as performed by Almeda Riddle if you needed any more indication of what you are in for. Anyways this little ditty right here is just about as definitive on the subject of Children's Folk Songs as I've ever seen and I must once again praise Times Ain't Like They Used To Be for turning me onto some shit that my soul needed for sure.
Gather Round

Robin Hood and the Peddler, Old Granpaw Yet, Go To Sleep Little Baby, and Mister Rabbit are some of my favorite tracks so far...

and if you've never heard the tragic tale of Senor Don Gato...

Breaking Thine Law

Dream Deceivers (1990)

This is a really great KNPB-produced PBS documentary about a teen suicide pact made over Judas Priest in Reno in 1985 with one of the two kids, James Vance, unfortunately surviving a twelve-gauge blast to his head and the following absurd and frivolous lawsuit over supposed subliminal messages in the music. This happened in the suburban neighborhood we nicknamed America, where our old band practiced, where Jake and Ryan were jumped and stabbed a minute back, and where Miles and the Lundahls live. Perhaps a hex was cast on olde Black Forest Lane. This story is nearly as outrageous as a Reno 911 plotline, but as if shot from the other side of the law; the disaffected and alienated teenagers in Reagan America. Look out for what happens in a town preoccupied in the tourist and adult industry, a county with the highest heavy drinking rate in the nation, and within a state last in education and concerned with gambling on the future of Nevada. Is it clear yet why all of the bands here sound like Nirvana or Pantera?

Also worth noting:
-The influence of this movie for Harmony Korine on Gummo. He's mentioned it as a favorite, and his dad was a filmmaker for PBS in Nashville.
-Vance's lawyers office is shown, and is now a Church of Christ right across the street from us on Sinclair, very arguably an 'infamous' epicenter of metal, punk, and skateboarding in Reno.
-The kid playing guitar in the window sill and the metal fans at Frederic de LongChamps' beautifully designed Washoe County Courthouse as Priest rolls up. Dope.

Dream Deceivers

Armadillo Cowboys

Two (slightly autistic?)teenagers with a rudimentary understanding of their instruments belt out cutesy-wutesy songs influenced by; Freddy Got Fingered, Harmony Korine, and The Snooty Phalanges. How could you not be sold?

Gravy All Over Him

She Sang That Old-Time Religion

Almeda James Riddle
Super emotional and personal a-Capella hymns and things. It's this kind of stuff that makes you hate the Faith Hill's and Tricia Yearwood's of the world. I have a real soft-spot for this kind of stuff. It's really raw and visceral, I guess. I don't know how true it is, but I feel that these kinds of songs have more power than the ones getting churned out nowadays. But then again, that sounds like something someone would say nowadays.

How Firm A Foundation

This record was originally posted by this badass blog.