Tales of True Adventure for Rugged Men Not Unlike Yourself
Just the thing for a late afternoon distraction …
Forensic scientist Thiago Piwowarczyk and art historian Jeffrey Taylor PhD examine a purported Jackson Pollock painting and use their expertise to determine if the painting is legitimate or a forgery.
Anybody ever heard this?
Willy Wonka is usually a very pleasant (albeit eccentric) chocolate tycoon. But when Charlie Bucket and Grandpa Joe steal the fizzy lifting drinks, he succumbs to a maniacal fit of rage and informs them that they get NOTHING!
Come To Sunny Prestatyn
Laughed the girl on the poster,
Kneeling up on the sand
In tautened white satin.
Behind her, a hunk of coast, a
Hotel with palms
Seemed to expand from her thighs and
Spread breast-lifting arms.
She was slapped up one day in March.
A couple of weeks, and her face
Was snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed;
Huge tits and a fissured crotch
Were scored well in, and the space
Between her legs held scrawls
That set her fairly astride
A tuberous cock and balls
Autographed Titch Thomas, while
Someone had used a knife
Or something to stab right through
The moustached lips of her smile.
She was too good for this life.
Very soon, a great transverse tear
Left only a hand and some blue.
Now Fight Cancer is there.
I’ve never attended Record Store Day, but many of these guys can be seen anytime. The very last one is my favorite.
If you bastards listen to podcasts, you MUST add this one to your list. Absolutely riveting.
Debra Newell is a successful interior designer. She meets John Meehan, a handsome man who seems to check all the boxes: attentive, available, just back from a year in Iraq with Doctors Without Borders. But her family doesn’t like John, and they get entangled in an increasingly complex web of love, deception, forgiveness, denial, and ultimately, survival. Reported and hosted by Christopher Goffard from the L.A. Times.
Check it out here.
Fascinating article in Popular Mechanics …
A Liverpudlian mechanic bought the trademark, IP and leftover parts, moved to Texas, and hopes to manufacture about 300 vehicles a year.
I guess you could say he’s going … BACK TO THE FUTURE.
Here are the Stones at Hyde Park in 1969 playing a cover of “I’m Yours and I’m Hers” that is horrendously sloppy, just barely in tune . . . and completely badass. The Replacements may have been the only other band with the attitude and panache to be simultaneously so bad and so great.
Some background: this was their first show in two years due to drug busts and Brain Jones’s decline, and their first gig with a 20 year-old Mick Taylor. They had kicked out Brian Jones a month previously, and sadly, he died two days before this gig. Jagger begins by reading a portion of Shelley’s “Adonais” in his honor. They opened with “I’m Yours and I’m Hers” because it was one of Brain’s favorites. Music begins at about 3:00.
Not feeling it …
These guys may not be Nazis, but they’ve got moxie.
My ancient obsession with comedy legend Steve Martin continues to manifest itself. From Letters of Note …
Celebrities are faced with a dilemma as their star ascends: the fan mail that used to trickle to the front door now needs its own home, and replying to those messages of support is suddenly a full-time job of its own. A small few battle on valiantly, determined to respond personally to each and every piece of correspondence regardless of the trouble, expense or delay; most, however, take the easy, altogether more sensible route and produce a form letter, to be signed and used as a stock reply for every fan. Impersonal and slightly disappointing, yes, but a response nonetheless.
Trust comedy legend Steve Martin to plump for the latter option but still, thanks to a dab of perfectly pitched humour, come out smelling of roses. Back in the day, he replied to fan mail with “A personal letter from Steve Martin,” a form letter in which just a few words were personalised for each recipient, and which was hilarious precisely for that reason. This particular example was sent to a 17-year-old fan named Jerry Carlson in 1979, the year The Jerk, arguably one of the funniest films he has ever starred in, was released.