Kacy & Clayton Play The Mercury Lounge

Kacy & Clayton build the moment to stay in, look around and wonder what the hell else there could be.Kacy Anderson’s voice offers an assurance, belonging in this moment and no other. Clayton Linthicum’s guitar fills. The Saskatchewan duo, second cousins, are making music, their music, on the small stage for now – just 50 or so people in the audience at The Mercury Lounge in New York City. That won’t last for long.

Jerry & Bobby & Everything of That

I’m trying to figure out this moment, like a glimpse from the ridge, the sun just right, the river and valley streaming out, where the getting to where is gotten to and there might be nothing more. Jerry & Bobby & Everything of ThatIt’s the end of the first set opener – Sugar Magnolia for The Closing of Winterland on New Year’s Eve 1978. Bobby is raring to go, strumming and, well, bobbing, while Jerry watches, amused by these simple chords that we are all ready to jump and die for.Jerry & Bobby & Everything of ThatAnd they go on, Bobby strumming and bobbing, Jerry beatific, Donna unwittingly caught in the whirligig of this remarkable everything thing.Jerry & Bobby & Everything of ThatAnd because it’s recorded, I watch it again and again and come to the realization that a simple thing is not that at all.Jerry & Bobby & Everything of That

Utopia: No Place Like There

Utopia: No Place Like There.

a. Derived from the Greek, meaning no place or not on a map, the word was re-purposed by Sir Tomas More 500 years ago to mean paradise.

Utopia: No Place Like Thereb. Modern-day Utopian stories are usually revealed to Dystopian: Forbidden Planet, Logan’s Run,The Truman Show, The Beach, and Pleasantville,Utopia: No Place Like There

Corinne Reveals Business: Trump Voodoo Dolls

President Trump’s Appointee for Secretary of Education, Corinne, tries to stay on point: “You are rude. You don’t say hi to anyone.You have a skank look on your face. You’re just not nice. It’s just weird and uncomfortable. I know how to get to people like (you). What does that say about your emotional intelligence, bitch?”Corinne Reveals Business: Trump Voodoo Dolls“I’m nice until you cross me,” she admits. And for anyone who does that? “How do you make a voodoo doll for one person?”
Corinne Reveals Business: Trump Voodoo Dolls

Funnily enough, they are conveniently available here: Donald Trump Voodoo Doll

Screenplay: “Nogo, The Anti-Trump”

The film opens with an extreme close-up of a black man, Nogo, driving at night on a deserted road. Screenplay Nogo, The Anti-TrumpThe camera pulls back to reveal Nogo being followed by a full-size pickup truck, its high beams bearing down. Nogo is forced off the road. The driver and passengers, each bearing arms, lean out of the truck as Nogo leaps out, tire iron in hand.The Anti-Trump“Tolerance! You got that?” He smashes out a headlight and then the other as the driver raises a shotgun.Screenplay Nogo The Anti-Trump Nogo stares back, defiant. “You better have more than that.”

Black out, gun shots. Opening credits roll. Screenplay: "Nogo, The Anti-Trump"

Yes, just think Django Unchained meets Punch Drunk Love meets Easy Rider.

Canada’s Soul: St. John’s to Port Aux Basques

After three days at Will’s house in St. John’s, I began to hitchhike back west.

June 14, Ride One: St. John’s to Kelce Groose Turnoff (Brown Rabbit) Old and young guy, dog hair all over the back seat.

Ride Four: Argentia Turnoff to Marystown Turnoff (Red LTD) Scottish guy, still wild, music just as wild, “Watch yourself down there. It’s back woodsy.”

Ride Nine: Frenchman’s Turnoff to Fortune (Red Schneider truck) “LSD is shit.”

With the ferry service to the French island of St. Pierre Miquelon cancelled, I hoped for a ride on a trawler, the Marguerite, and stayed overnight in a cheap motel and watched Butterflies Are Free. Canada's Soul: St. John's to Port Aux BasquesThe Marguerite left without me. I hitchhiked back up the peninsula and then across Newfoundland.

Ride One: Fortune to Grand Banks (Turquoise Ford) Wanted to do something for me…”If I wasn’t married.”

Ride Five: Trans Canada Highway Turnoff to Cornerbrook (Old blue car) Eldery lady spoke of mongoloid mentally retarded boy; offered me a little red bible.

Ride Six: Cornerbrook to Stephenville (Old green car with no back seat) Doug drove (getting married in two weeks) with Pat (intense, speed user) and Brian (hard drinker) in the front seat; all moose and salmon poachers, each been to jail a few times, went to the dump looking for bears; drank four beers by the time they dropped me off at the ferry.Canada's Soul: St. John's to Port Aux Basques

Blitzer & Co: Heads Must Go

They talk. And talk. And talk. And they don’t say anything. They just talk. Blitzer & Co: Heads Must GoAnd talk some more. That’s it. They don’t say anything real. They are wrong. They are right. They are in between. They just go one talking. And talking.Blitzer & Co: Heads Must GoCan’t they be removed? Or at least replaced? Maybe Trump could fire them.

Blitzer & Co: Heads Must GoAt least he could get that one thing right.

Not Okay. Not in the Least.

No, I’m not okay. I’m not. I keep thinking that I am, or that I will be, but I’m not. I’m not.

I’m sitting here, typing these words, thinking that this might help, but it doesn’t. I can’t pretend that this is an alternate universe or that I can find a rewind button. This is where we are. This is it. Not Okay. Not in the Least.This man was elected. 60,000 million people did that. There is no sense to it, no way to frame it, no story to be told, no moral, no aspiration. Justifications and rationalizations are worth shit. It’s only a question of what happens next, who will be targeted, sacrificed, and then the next group after that, until this zeitgeist – or whatever the hell you call the communal will to send us all straight to hell is called – ends. Not Okay. Not in the Least.Until then, I’m not okay. Not in the least.

Ice Friday: Lightfoot’s “The Watchman’s Gone”

Gordon Lightfoot, Canada’s singer-songwriter laureate, conveys the weight of mortality in a few lines from The Watchman’s Gone:
There’s a train down at the station
It’s come to carry my bones awayIce Friday: Lightfoot's "The Watchman's Gone"
If I wait for the right moment
You can bet I’ll climb aboard unseen
I’ve done it before
I know I can do it in my sleep

Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers is known for its neorealism, cinema verite as they say, images so real that we have to be told they’re not.

BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Its strength, however, lies not only in its images.

Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers

But in its development of a central theme: our inherent inhumanity to one another.

Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers

The chaos of knowing that.
Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers

And that it will never change.Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers