Larry King was an American talk show host iconic in the 1990s. He was called the father of talk show democracy and was instrumental in the development of infotainment.
His whole era is captured by the superb documentary Spin.
In that documentary, he can be seen talking to G. W. Bush on the merits of the drug Halcion at 5:40.
Jim Haynes was a cultural entrepreneur and leading member of the American-British underground. He was the co-founder of the Traverse Theatre in Scotland and International Times countercultural newspaper. He was also involved in Suck magazine and the Wet Dream Festival.
He was a source of fascination for me in the 1990s when my interest in the underground was at its highest.
There is very good footage of him in Naughty!, the amusing film in which he, somewhere backstage during the Wet Dream Festival, says:
“I’m just interested in freedom, extreme libertarianism, the right for anyone to see, eat and do whatever they want.”
and in true “make love, not war” style:
“Biafra children starving, that’s pornography.”
It is often said that history repeats itself. I wonder if the 1960s will repeat themselves. When? And are the 1960s a repetition of some previous libertarian era? I believe it has some elements unique to itself that will not be easily repeated. For one thing, the world has been globalized which makes all the circumstances different.
In accordance with the 1960s mythology of which Jim Haynes is part, by way of illustration of the repressive tolerance and ‘selling out’ concepts, I show above the advertising clip Jim Haynes recorded for Nestlé in order to promote their After Eight mints.
Remaining survivors born in 1933 in my book are Tinto Brass, Yoko Ono and Liliana Cavani.
Eddie Cooley was an American songwriter best known for co-writing “Fever” (1956).
That song has become a pop standard and is best known in the Peggy Lee rendition.
However, I I give you the version of The Cramps from their debut album Songs the Lord Taught Us (1980).
After all, as I explained before, I like all roads to lead to Rome, and The Cramps are central to my archive.
Krzysztof Penderecki was a Polish composer of 20th century classical music, a period characterized by the use of dissonance.
Outside of the classical music domain his music has been popular in horror films. The piece Polymorphia (1962) for example, is used in The Exorcist (1973) and in The Shining (1980).
And then there is his opera based on the book The Devils of Loudun (1952) by Aldous Huxley. The story of the Loudun possessions is highly remarkable and any occasion to bring it to your attention, shall be grasped.
Another covid-19 victim.
Manu Dibango was a Cameroonian saxophonist best-known for his composition “Soul Makossa” (1972), a crucial proto-disco recording.
I also had Gone Clear (1980) and Electric Africa (1985) in my collection.
Only today do I listen for the first time to the whole Soul Makossa (1972) album. I already was familiar with “New Bell” (which had been covered on the electro scene) but “Hibiscus” was new to me and totally exquisite.
Now that I listen to “Soul Makossa” today, I hear in the bassline resonances of acid house. Do you hear it too?
Sometimes a death escapes my attention.
This particular death escaped my attention for eight years.
Stanley Long was a British filmmaker active in what is known as exploitation cinema.
An untypical work, Naughty! (1971) is recommended for including scenes of the Wet Dream Film Festival (1970).
The film is a laudable attempt to fictionalize the history of erotica and is appears to be based on The Other Victorians (1964) which was the first book to revert the received idea of Victorian prudishness. It’s similar to way worse movies such as Sexual Freedom in Denmark (1970).
You can watch Naughty as I just did by following site:https://www.eroticage.net “naughty”. That ‘eroticage.net’ site seems interesting because it has lots of vintage erotica films from the golden age of porn.
P.S. While researching Naughty! I found out that William Levy passed away in 2019.
John Karlen was an American actor. Outside of the United States, he was primarily known for his lead in the Belgian film Daughters of Darkness (1971), a lesbian vampire exploitation chic vehicle.
Joe Shishido was a Japanese actor known for his eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He also played in Japanese exploitation exercises such as Gate of Flesh (1964).
The clip above is a tribute to Joe Shishido, a montage of clips from A Colt Is My Passport (1967). It is, as is usual with this kind of endeavors, more interesting than the product it is based upon.
Ivan Passer was a Czech film director best known for his film Cutter’s Way (1981).
Syd Mead was an American concept artist best known for his work on Blade Runner (1982), Tron (1982) and Aliens (1986).
His death comes only three months after the death of Luigi Colani (1928 – 2019) who was in a different but comparable branch of concept art.
Both Colani and Mead were obsessed with futuristic aerodynamics.