This week’s gay rights victory was historic, but the transgender community still faces staggering challenges. Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver focuses on the “T” in “LGBT.”
“Transgender people have a gender identity that differs from the one they were assigned at birth. Gender identity is who you are; sexual orientation is who you love. Some transgender people do undergo hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery as part of their transition; some do not. And interestingly, their decision on this matter is, medically speaking, none of your fucking business.”
Mike Love in a live setting elicits common reactions that typically revolve around terms like “powerful” & “goosebumps.” Combining elements of traditional Hawaiian music, the message, Mike’s masterful guitar playing and looping & the low end organic push of Sam Ites’ percussion, the group has made instant and life long fans out of anyone who has been fortunate enough to catch them live off of the islands.
This Dodger fan has caught hundreds of home runs with one hand while filming it with the other. Here are his top fifty catches. Note he gives his souviers to younger fans afterwards. I’d like to say, I’ve NEVER EVER caught a ball.
The original limited edition classic and deluxe editions of Spirit Of Talk Talk sold out within weeks of going on sale in 2012. If you have a copy of it, look for my name in the credits. But, for the first time, is a new, expanded paperback edition of the book that Mojo called “a thing of beauty”.
As well as including all of the content of that first edition—James Marsh’s exquisite, classic and previously unseen artwork, interviews, rare photographs and a biography of the band by Chris Roberts—there are 24 pages of new content including an extensive preface from founding member Simon Brenner, and exclusive interviews with a host of people connected to the band, among them musicians, engineers and musical collaborators.
Plus, there’s a new introduction from Phill Brown, the studio engineer who worked on Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock, and Mark Hollis, and a wealth of new, unseen photographs and memorabilia taken from Simon Brenner’s personal archive.
This new paperback edition of Spirit Of Talk Talk is available as a pre-sale now. Simon Brenner has agreed to sign the first copies so pre-order NOW to be certain of getting your copy on publication in October.
If you’ve been faced with taking a long, strange trip by plane into San Francisco, now you know why. This shows the locally named flight paths in and out the San Francisco International Airport (SFO). TRUKN (Truckin’), GRTFL (Grateful), TYDYE (Tie Dye), COSMC (Cosmic Charlie), HYPEE (Hippie) and DEDHD (Deadhead) are all Grateful Dead-related names or references.
I wonder what the vending machines at their airport looks like.
From Kurt Vonnegut’s introduction to his short story anthology, Bagombo Snuff Box, here are his 8 tips on how to write a good short story.
Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things–reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them–in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Here’s the Find The Fish scene, taken from Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life called “The Middle Of The Film.” Terry Jones picked this as part of his Top 10 Monty Python Movie Moments for Esquire Magazine. He says, “Originally, we were going to have a load of stars—like Sean Connery and Julie Andrews—saying, ‘This is the middle of the film,’ but it was too hard to organize. But it turned out all right, because this is the inside of the Battersea Power Station, with those beautiful parquet floor and magnificent ceiling, and it doesn’t exist anymore. I think this is Python at its surreal best.”
After a brief, surreal piece in which a drag queen (Graham Chapman), a gangly long-armed man (Terry Jones), and an elephant-headed butler eerily challenge the audience to find a fish in the scene, all six members of Monty Python appear as fish swimming and chatting to each other in a restaurant fish tank.
