Blog Archives
Rod Serling: In the Zone
“My diet consisted chiefly of black coffee and fingernails.” This is how Rod Serling described his days as a young, struggling writer before his big break came when he sold his first teleplay. In the mid-50′s, television was considered to be the “orphan stepchild of radio” according to this PBS American Masters episode illuminating Serling’s [...]
Opium: A History
Tracing the roots of the opium poppy all the way back to its likely origins in Mesopotamia in 4000 BC, this episode of Addicted to Pleasure takes a look at the plant, it’s pharmaceutical derivatives and society’s ambivalent relationship with the substance. In its pure form, the milky sap of an opium poppy has been [...]
George Carlin: Still Kickin’
Surfing the web last week, researching the history of Syria and the country’s recent civil war in anticipation of what looked like and inevitable and soon-to-come missile strike on the country by the U.S., I discovered this treasure: A great little YouTube compilation of nearly all of comedian George Carlin’s searingly satirical bits on the [...]
Pasolini: The Rebel
The film Salò is set in Fascist-occupied Italy in 1944. It tells the story of what happens when a Duke, a Bishop, a Magistrate and a President take 18 adolescent boys and girls captive and travel to a remote palace. What follows is one of the most extreme sociopolitical criticisms ever committed to film. Based [...]
Peter Watkins’ Unreal Realities
British filmmaker Peter Watkins is a docudrama pioneer who has combined documentary and dramatic cinematic techniques to deconstruct historic events and cultural trends. A pacifist and a radical, Watkins’ best work examines media in general and film in particular to ask questions about the relationships between media and audiences. A powerful and provocative filmmaker, Watkins’ [...]
Grounded: Censoring Space
When we talk about travelling to the stars, we often talk in terms of technological development and pushing past the current limits bounding the horizons of space science. However, one thing a space-bound race will always have a hard time hurdling are the strictures on their own understanding of themselves and their culture. Terrestrial earthlings [...]
Living Together
In keeping with my recent posts about the 1960′s and the San Francisco Diggers in particular, I wanted to finish off with the last chapter in their story. After bringing their brand of world-remaking to the Haight, the Digggers joined with a number of other groups to drop out in a big way. Together, they [...]
Dig The Diggers
Adding to my recent posts about San Francisco in the 1960′s, I think it’s important to look at the hippies themselves — who were all these long-haired freaks? The question matters for anyone interested in understanding where more recent counter-cultural movements have come from, and it’s one that reveals surprising answers, offering deep, novel veins [...]
Joe Nolan’s Paradise
Here is the premiere of the new video for my song “Paradise.” Conceived, directed and edited from public domain footage found at Archive.org, “Paradise” combines images of San Francisco in 1941 with shots from the city captured in 1968 during that era’s counter-cultural revolution. The video takes the song’s declarative chorus as a jumping-off point [...]
Back in Black: Agnes Varda’s Panthers
The French filmmaker Agnes Varda’s candid camera work, and the natural performances and settings in her narrative films and documentaries influenced no less than Jean-Luc Godard. As a result, Varda is considered to be one of the key influences in the development of the French New Wave. In 1968, Varda traveled to America to shoot [...]
