Tag Archives: RIP

RIP Sean Connery (1930 – 2020)

“The Penis is evil. The gun is good.” —Zardoz

Sean Connery was a Scottish actor, for a long time considered the most handsome man alive.

I have fond memories of four of his films:

In The Man Who Would Be King (1975), he is one of two British adventurers who first become king of Kafiristan, which is an actual historical region in Afghanistan. Kafirs are unbelievers.

In Highlander (1986) he is an Egyptian immortal who has to compete with Christophe Lambert.

In The Name of the Rose (1986), Connery is a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Thomas Aquinas.

But in Zardoz (1972) Connery is the funniest and the most memorable. Not necessarily in the good sense, because Zardoz is really a ridiculous movie, and not even in the “so bad that it’s good” category. But once you saw that movie, you never forget the image of Connery, like a kind of beefcake in orange shorts, with a mustache, with crossed suspenders.

I have to formally advise you not to watch that film.

The plot:

We are 2293. The inhabitants of Earth consist of two groups, the Brutes, the plebs, ruled by the Eternals, a small elite that is bored. Eternals use part of the Brutes, the Exterminators, as a band of chosen warriors to kill common Brutes. Sean Connery is one of them.

The Eternals have a god for the destroyers, Zardoz, a giant stone head that flies through the air and spews weapons.

The teaching that Zardoz preaches goes like this:

“The Penis is evil. The Penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the Gun shoots death and purifies the Earth of the filth of Brutals. Go forth, and kill! Zardoz has spoken!””

Movies such as Zardoz were inspired by neo-malthusian overpopulation disaster scenarios distributed in books such as The Population Bomb (1968) and The Limits to Growth (1971) by the Club of Rome. Those books were partly right. Today population stabilization is predicted by 2064. Then we return — I hope with enough secularists (the religious shall NOT inherit the earth) — to an ideal of two billion inhabitants. A gentle return. Two billion is ideal for our planet, we were two billion in 1927.

Although Zardoz was really a shitty film, there were some good films to come out of this dystopian eco-fiction scene.

There is Silent Running (1972), about a spaceship that takes the last plants of Earth into space and Soylent Green (1973), about a society where the starving inhabitants of Earth are encouraged to commit euthanasia. Euthanized people are then offered back to starving humanity as biscuit food, but now I deviate very far from Sean Connery.

My apologies.

RIP Sean Connery.

RIP Jan Boerman (1923 – 2020)

Jan Boerman was a Dutch composer active in electronic music when it was still an affair of room-filling electronic machines.

Much of that music is also called ‘acousmatic’ and I suspect that this “Alchemie” (1961) composition by Boerman also falls under that label.

If you like “Alchemie”, be sure to check out Bernard Parmegiani’s masterpiece “De Natura Sonorum” (1975).

RIP Diane di Prima (1934 – 2020)

Diane di Prima was an American poet.

Her book Memoirs of a Beatnik (1969) was a fictionalized, erotic account about her experience in the Beat movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlF_al8QuF4&ab_channel=J.ChristianGuerrero
Gang of Souls (1989), di Prima is from 2:20 onwards

Di Prima is featured in Gang of Souls (1989), the Maria Beatty documentary on Beat poets.

RIP Jerry Jeff “Mr. Bojangles“ Walker (1942 – 2020)

Jerry Jeff Walker was an American musician best known for writing “Mr. Bojangles“.

Walker recorded “Mr. Bojangles” too, but when I hear that song I’m invariably only reminded of the heavily orchestrated version by the great Nina Simone.

The Nina Simone version wormed itself into my head in 2006 via the compilation Nova Classics 07 released on Radio Nova, keepers of musical taste in the early 2000s.

Nina first released on her cover album Here Comes the Sun from 1971.

“Mr. Bojangles“

RIP Spencer Davis (1939 – 2020)

Spencer Davis was a British musician known for such songs as “I’m a Man” (1967).

I give you that song here in a 18 minute bastardized disco version released in the US on Prelude.

It became a staple at the Paradise Garage, being, of course, popular with the gay crowd. I can just see all these men dancing and mouthing the “I’m a Man” words while touching their bodies and glancing lasciviously at one another. Lovely.

“I’m a Man” (1978) by Macho

RIP Alex Varenne (1939 – 2020)

Alex Varenne was a French comics artist.

This I know from the time in the late 1980s when I bought L’Écho des savanes and RanXerox was my hero. That time.

Alex Varenne is famous for his erotic comics which were fashionable from the late 1960s onwards. In this short reportage, he tells about his career in erotic comics, how his love life was very rich and full, how he drew from live models, his girlfriends, or friends of this girlfriends, how he used to tell his models stories, how the times have changed, starting in the sexual revolution, the era between the pill and AIDS (“La periode apres la pilule … avant le sida …”) , then the onset of BDSM and current times which are largely masturbatory. He talks about his admiration for Roy Lichtenstein.

Alex Varenne – Itenéraire Libertin (2015)

RIP José Padilla (1955 – 2020)

In DJ-land, the name José Padilla has achieved mythical proportions. One associates it with a beautiful sunset in a beautiful bar listening to beautiful music. The place I just described was a real place called Café del Mar and Padilla was its DJ. Café del Mar is also the title of a series of chill-out music compilations.

Padilla’s own compositions are not very interesting, and truth be told, his Café del Mar compilations aren’t either.

I once wrote that the ‘Café del Mar’, ‘Hôtel Costes’, ‘Buddha Bar’ and ‘Verve Remixed’ compilations served to satisfy the chill-out, downtempo, lounge, ambient and trip hop tastes of the late 1990s and the early 2000s yuppie crowds. Needless to say, these compilations were but the ersatz fix for a genuine sophisticated sound. Take Italian lounge of the 1960s and 1970s, for example.

I mean, seriously, listen for yourself and check “Tema di Londra” (1967) by De Masi and Alessandroni or “Deep Down” (1968) by Morricone.

And if it’s pure ambient you are after, check Brian Eno or my hero Hiroshi Yoshimura.

RIP Bunny Lee (1941 – 2020)

Bunny Lee was a Jamaican record producer and one of the major forces in the Jamaican music industry, producing hits throughout his long career.

“Wet Dream”

His song “Wet Dream”, interpreted by Max Romeo, became popular in 1968 despite being banned on the BBC; and Eric Donaldson’s “Cherry Oh Baby” would be covered by the Rolling Stones.

“My Conversation”

Lee also produced the perennial riddim “My Conversation”.

‘If Deejay Was Your Trade’ (1994)

The compilation ‘If Deejay Was Your Trade’ (1994), which was the debut release of the reggae compilation label Blood and Fire, consists of a selection of his productions from the period 1974-1977.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqXr-YmqJfw&ab_channel=KingJulian

The documentary ‘I Am The Gorgon – Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee and the Roots of Reggae’ is in full on YouTube.