Robert Williams: Peripheral Bogies, 'Mr. Bitchin'', and a quickie lowbrow thumbnail sketch.

(NOTE: Some images in this friendly post may not be kid-friendly or workplace-friendly, or friendly to certain sensitive individuals.)

I believe the discussion my friends and I were having had wandered onto a topic that included altered states of consciousness, the uniqueness of any individual's perception of reality, fatigued delusions, peripheral vision, inner demons and 'monsters of The Id'. Yes, of course, it's all typical coffee klatsch fare. Along that path, I flashed on the works of Robert Williams, and the image below...

'Peripheral Bogies', acrylic on watercolor paper, 1975 (color)

"This rather strange painting reveals an hysterical woman looking into a mirror which she is holding while being plagued by creatures in her peripheral vision. The double ring vignette around the scene represents the picture as seen by her."

'Peripheral Bogies', 1975 (b&w) (via GoogleBooks)

In describing the image to my friends, I took a brief pass at contextualizing Williams' works for them. This post picks up on that thread. A brief introduction, a jumping-off point to discover more. 

(from wikipedia) 

"Robt. Williams (born March 2, 1943), is an American painter, cartoonist, and founder of Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine." 

His own work and Juxtapoz Magazine contributed to the origin of the term 'Lowbrow Art' and its proliferation as an art movement.

Certainly my first exposure to the world of Williams was as a kid in the 1960s and early '70s, glimpsing contraband issues of Zap Comix, where his artwork appeared alongside that of fellow Underground cartoonists Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson and others. That and seeing his cool Hot Rod art in ads in car culture magazines, during his stint working in the 'Big Daddy' Roth studio.

The Underground Comix and illustrations of the 1960s gave way to more painterly pursuits in the 1970s, '80s and beyond, beyond. Gallery shows, album covers, monographs and book collections...

My strongest recommendation: If you find an opportunity to see any of Robert Williams paintings in person, do it. In small reproductions, we can appreciate the composition, fine line detail, vivid color - - and certainly the vibe, but when you see the full-size work in front of you and can see the loose-but-controlled expressiveness of the brush strokes, you realize you're seeing something else entirely. Do it!

'Appetite For Destruction', 1978.
The banned 'rapey' cover from
Guns N' Roses 1987 debut LP.

Queen Califia, Namesake of California, 2018

Purple As An Inexplicable Color

See ALSO: You can learn more by watching the 2010 documentary"Robert Williams Mr. Bitchin'", currently streaming at YouTube, and elsewhere around the interwebs.

Robert Williams "Mr. Bitchin'" (full documentary) - YouTube (2013, 99 mins.)

Follow links to more…

- Official Website

- ACID HEAD: The Conceptual Realism Of Robert Williams 

- YouTube (2011, 49 mins.)

- Some other Robert Williams / Juxtapoz video links at YouTube

Follow links to more…

- Official Website

- ACID HEAD: The Conceptual Realism Of Robert Williams - YouTube (2011, 49 mins.)

John Prine Is In His Heaven

John Prine hit the road yesterday.

During the news of his hospitalization, there was a moment when he stabilized. I know I felt like maybe he could recover and one day resume his career, as he had heroically done a few times in the past, after bouts with cancer. But he succumbed to complications from COVID-19 and passed on April 7th, in Nashville. He was 73.

(Links to:)

- An obituary at Rolling Stone.

- A John Prine tribute at Esquire.com

So now we can wish him bon voyage, and stop worrying about his health. 

Prine himself worked to set our minds at ease on that score. 

Having had ample opportunity to face his own mortality, that wily John Prine had already crafted his plan. He shared it with us in his song 'When I Get To Heaven'...

➚ Via YouTube, John Prine performing 'When I Get To Heaven', from an episode of Austin City Limits that premiered  in October of 2018.

The studio version of the song was released on his final album, 'The Tree of Forgiveness' in April of 2018.

Thanks for sharing, John!
Thanks for all the music and light.
I know I'll miss knowing you're around, but I'm happy to know that you're out there enjoying yourself.






All of us are given the opportunity to build our own versions of heaven.
Whatever heaven each of us chooses.
We don't have to wait until our deaths to start enjoying it.
Have you started building yours? Look again.
Maybe you have and didn't realize - -?

"When I Get To Heaven"

When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand

Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand

Then I'm gonna get a guitar and start a rock-n-roll band

Check into a swell hotel, ain't the afterlife grand?

And then I'm gonna get a cocktail: vodka and ginger ale

Yeah, I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long

I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl

'Cause this old man is goin' to town

Then as God as my witness, I'm gettin' back into show business

I'm gonna open up a nightclub called "The Tree of Forgiveness"

And forgive everybody ever done me any harm

Well, I might even invite a few choice critics, those syph'litic parasitics

Buy 'em a pint of Smithwick's and smother 'em with my charm

'Cause then I'm gonna get a cocktail: vodka and ginger ale

Yeah I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long

I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl

Yeah this old man is goin' to town

Yeah when I get to heaven, I'm gonna take that wristwatch off my arm

What are you gonna do with time after you've bought the farm?

And then I'm gonna go find my mom and dad, and good old brother Doug

Well I bet him and cousin Jackie are still cuttin' up a rug

I wanna see all my mama's sisters, 'cause that's where all the love starts

I miss 'em all like crazy, bless their little hearts

And I always will remember these words my daddy said

He said, "Buddy, when you're dead, you're a dead pecker-head"

I hope to prove him wrong... that is, when I get to heaven

'Cause I'm gonna have a cocktail: vodka and ginger ale

Yeah I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long

I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl

Yeah this old man is goin' to town

Yeah this old man is goin' to town

Source: AZLyrics
Songwriters: John E. Prine
When I Get to Heaven lyrics © Downtown Music Publishing

It's time to raise the Maypole!

Tra-La, It's May! That Lusty Month of May!

May 1st has long signified many and diverse traditional celebrations all over the world.

The day has always put me in mind of Camelot's Julie Andrews, and in recent years Seattle's
Jason Webley - - but this year I've been pointed in the direction of Brooklyn's
Jonathan Coulton and a brilliant song from his 2003 album,
Space Monkey.

Many thanks to
my dear friend Oon
for turning me on
to "JoCo", this song, and the video below.

This song contains some strong and
charming language that may be NSFW.

Reasons To Be Cheerful: A triumphant return for The Castro Theatre's NOIR CITY Film Festival

As I write this it's after midnight in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and I'm still buzzing from the superb double-feature I caught earlier this evening in the City at the historic Castro Theatre on the second night of NOIR CITY, The 8th Annual
San Francisco Film Noir Festival.

I'm hoping to get back over once or twice this next week to catch more of the festival before it's gone for another year...

Kicking off tonight's program was the impressive short embedded below, which intercuts clips from a few dozen classic Noir films, synched perfectly with Massive Attack's 'Angel' used as background score.

It was a huge crowd-pleaser for the packed house of Film Noir fanatics at The Castro...



'The Endless Night: a Valentine to Film Noir' was assembled by Serena Bramble, a 20-year-old studying psychology at Santa Rose Junior College.

Click here to read more about Ms. Bramble, the festival and its highlights.

Follow the video to its posting at YouTube, for notations listing all the films used as source material.

A World Without Lou Jacobi?!? (1913 - 2009)

Another obit.

Actor Lou Jacobi has left this world, at age 95.

That's a good long run.

- Follow link to his obituary from The New York Times.

Five decades spent in showbiz.
Numerous appearances on stage, screen, TV - - and I'll wager that there is not one production among them that was not greatly improved by his presence.

Even just the sound of his distinctive voice - - I have fond memories of hearing him in the ensemble cast of some of Booker & Foster's silly comedy albums, like 'When You're In Love, The Whole World Is Jewish', or in the role of band leader Al Tijuana. ▶

- Click over to the 'Tijuana Brass Sound' box set post at WFMU's Beware of The Blog and you'll find numerous Al Tijuana cuts sprinkled throughout the available mp3s.

(At the very least, take a listen to the adaptation of
'Peter Gunn'.)

So:
A World Without Lou Jacobi In It?

Impossible to contemplate.

No thank you, I reject the notion.

His listing at IMDb tells me that it has been fifteen years since Lou Jacobi's last film credit, but I've enjoyed watching him on several occasions during that time.

I also see in that long list at IMDb that there are still many of his performances waiting for me in films I've not yet seen.

Thank you for everything Mr. Jacobi, I look forward to seeing you again soon.

- A YouTube clip embedded below: ▼

From 1971, a juicy Jacobi scene from Jules Feiffer's 'Little Murders', directed by Alan Arkin.

Jacobi plays the judge, reacting to news from engaged couple Marcia Rodd & Elliott Gould that they plan to omit God from their wedding vows...

Time out from the muppets: Young Jim Henson's 'Tick-Tock Sick' (1960) and Time Piece (1965)

As a young man, puppeteer
Jim Henson was bursting with creative ideas and wasted no time in making things happen.

In the mid-1950s, he was making puppets for children's television before he was out of high school.

He created his first muppet TV show, Sam and Friends, during his freshman year of college.
The five-minute program aired daily, and ran for six years.

Simultaneously, Henson's muppets were making other TV appearances on variety shows and in assorted commercials.

But it wasn't all about muppets all the time...

When Henson graduated from college in 1960, he was married, had a new-born daughter, and had been working in TV and advertising for several years. He was 23.

That same year, Jim Henson released an odd, jazzy little 45 single.
On the A-side, 'Tick-Tock Sick', he complains of being 'bugged' by the relentless ticking of the clock.

Listen to:
Jim Henson - Tick-Tock Sick
(Signature Records 45, 1960)
(click for audio)

(label image via Muppet Wiki)




On the flipside...

Listen to:
Jim Henson -
The Countryside
(Signature Records 45, 1960)
(click for audio)

Regarding this 45 and a recurring motif of 'racing time' in Henson's work, Karen Falk, historian and head archivist for The Jim Henson Company said:
"Jim Henson accomplished an amazing amount in his life, but given the large number of files on unrealized projects that are in the archives, he clearly didn't have enough time to do all that he wanted to do. And 'Tick-Tock Sick' tells us that he was already feeling the crunch just six years into his career."

As the 1960's progressed, amidst increasing exposure of The Muppets, Henson also began working with experimental film.

'Time Piece' was a short film that Henson wrote, produced, directed and starred in. He began production in 1964 and took about a year to finish, working on it in between TV projects.

It premiered at New York's Museum of Modern Art in May of 1965, traveled the film festival circuit, and was nominated for a Best Live Action Short Subject Oscar in 1966.

Incorporating animation, reverse motion, rapid edits and a rhythmic, percussive soundtrack by
Don Sebesky, 'Time Piece' continues some of the theme explored by 'Tick-Tock Sick' a few years earlier.

Below, ▼ view 'Time Piece'...



- This post is a companion piece to one posted at Video Cabinet in Limbo, also regarding Jim Henson's muppetless productions.
Follow link to: Richard Schaal in Jim Henson's teleplay, 'The Cube' (1969)

See also:
Circa 1965, Henson made two Muppets, Inc. industrial promo films pitching to Wilson's Meats, an advertising account, filmed in a tongue-in-cheek, mock-documentary style.
Follow links to:
- Wilson's Meats #1
- Wilson's Meats #2

'San Francisco Guys & Girls' b/w 'Mommy, Daddy Jog With Me' (1980)

Curious and kitschy old 45's like this one are pretty much the epitome of the Thrift Store Find - - the sort of 'vanity project' record originally intended to be given as a gift or maybe a give-away 'premium'.

You might find it further down the road at a garage sale, but when it was new you probably never saw it at your local music emporium or heard it on your radio.

This 1980 single celebrates the city of
San Francisco in two similar songs that capitalized on that era's surge in the popularity of jogging, in the wake of efforts by running guru/author Jim Fixx and other fitness advocates of the time.

It sounds like it was recorded just for fun by non-professional musicians.

A bit of googling regarding the principal artists supports this theory, revealing very little to suggest that they stuck with the performing end of the music industry.

It appears that the Passantino family has a rich San Franciscan background, and that Regina's daughter Angelica has worked a bit in art history and acting in more recent years.
Since his performance on one side of this record, Konrad Dryden has distinguished himself as a classical music historian and author.













Listen to:
Konrad Dryden - San Francisco Guys & Girls
(Golden gate Records 45, 1980)
(click for audio)













Listen to:
Angelica Passantino -
Mommy, Daddy Jog With Me
(Golden gate Records 45, 1980)
(click for audio)


See also:
- Though you'll still see plenty of joggers in the vicinity of San Francisco's Marina Green, Crissy Field and its Presidio district, this record brings to mind the days when it was still a 'craze', and also the beginnings of the 'Parcourse' fitness trails, some of which appeared first in San Francisco and nearby cities.

- That 'newness' of jogging might for a few in turn conjure up a scene from Albert Brooks' cynical 1981 comedy 'Modern Romance'.
Click over to YouTube to watch the running store scene, in which Bob Einstein (a.k.a.
'Super Dave Osborne' and Brooks' real-life older brother) outfits Brooks with all the 'serious' equipment he'll need to 'start a new life'.

This week's Double Bummer; Ricardo's gone, McGoohan too.

It's sad to have lost two charismatic fan-favorite actors this week.

It's sad and it's a shame that it's been their fate to have news of their passings lumped together more often than not, but that seems to be the way these things always go.

You can also be pretty sure that the headline in each of their obituaries will more often than not attempt to 'sum up' a long career with a catch-phrase or reference to just one of many roles they played in long and varied careers. Another shame.

The good news is that both of these actors leave behind ample evidence of a body of work that we all can enjoy for years to come. There's still much to revisit and to discover.

Thank you gentlemen, each of you, for a job well done.



















Ricardo Montalbán, 1920 - 2009.

- An obituary. (follow links)



















































- Ricardo sings!
Click over to YouTube for a 'tribute' video that includes Mr. Montalbán performing
'Chihuahua Choo Choo' as its soundtrack.

Originally the song had been featured in a 1955 stage revue, 'That's Life'.
It was written by the Oscar-winning songwriting team of composer Jay Livingston and
lyricist Ray Evans, whose credits included 'Mona Lisa', 'Buttons And Bows', 'Silver Bells', 'Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)', and others.
Ricardo's recording first appeared on a 1957 LP, 'Premiere: The Top Motion Picture Stars of Hollywood Make Their Record Debut', arranged by Bob Thompson.



















Patrick McGoohan, 1928 - 2009.

- An obituary (follow links)































- Follow link to YouTube for a film trailer to the 1962 drama 'All Night Long', an 'Othello' update featuring
Patrick McGoohan as a scheming
Jazz drummer...