This really says everything you need to know about the attitude in Elliott Rodger which caused him to murder six people. Skip to 1:40 for the part where he starts talking.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Juliana Malacarne ... Perfection!
Here is Juliana Malacarne's posing routine from the 2014 Dallas Europa show. Amazing!!
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
The Source of the World's Problems
I was thinking this morning of the world's problems. I think that so many of them can be explained by the following 3 facts:
1. In order to get anything signficant done, you must be able to energize people to support your cause.
2. In order to energize people, you must not possess any self-doubt.
3. In order to do the RIGHT things, you must possess a decent amount of self-doubt.
1. In order to get anything signficant done, you must be able to energize people to support your cause.
2. In order to energize people, you must not possess any self-doubt.
3. In order to do the RIGHT things, you must possess a decent amount of self-doubt.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Lenten Thoughts Of A High Anglican - John Betjeman
This is one of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets, John Betjeman. I suppose he must be the patron Saint of all whose minds wander in church. Which is everyone, I should imagine.
Lenten Thoughts Of A High Anglican
Isn't she lovely, "the Mistress"?
With her wide-apart grey-green eyes,
The droop of her lips and, when she smiles,
Her glance of amused surprise?
How nonchalantly she wears her clothes,
How expensive they are as well!
And the sound of her voice is as soft and deep
As the Christ Church tenor bell.
But why do I call her "the Mistress"
Who know not her way of life?
Because she has more of a cared-for air
Than many a legal wife.
How elegantly she swings along
In the vapoury incense veil;
The angel choir must pause in song
When she kneels at the altar rail.
The parson said that we shouldn't stare
Around when we come to church,
Or the Unknown God we are seeking
May forever elude our search.
But I hope that the preacher will not think
It unorthodox and odd
If I add that I glimpse in "the Mistress"
A hint of the Unknown God.
Lenten Thoughts Of A High Anglican
Isn't she lovely, "the Mistress"?
With her wide-apart grey-green eyes,
The droop of her lips and, when she smiles,
Her glance of amused surprise?
How nonchalantly she wears her clothes,
How expensive they are as well!
And the sound of her voice is as soft and deep
As the Christ Church tenor bell.
But why do I call her "the Mistress"
Who know not her way of life?
Because she has more of a cared-for air
Than many a legal wife.
How elegantly she swings along
In the vapoury incense veil;
The angel choir must pause in song
When she kneels at the altar rail.
The parson said that we shouldn't stare
Around when we come to church,
Or the Unknown God we are seeking
May forever elude our search.
But I hope that the preacher will not think
It unorthodox and odd
If I add that I glimpse in "the Mistress"
A hint of the Unknown God.
Friday, March 14, 2014
The Winning Strength | Sony PROduction Awards
From my favorite Fitness competitor, Oksana Grishina!
If you like the video, you can vote for it here:
The Winning Strength | Sony PROduction Awards
If you like the video, you can vote for it here:
The Winning Strength | Sony PROduction Awards
Sunday, February 16, 2014
70 Year Old Bodybuilder
This guy is my hero.
I saw a different iteration of his video on YouTube in which some of the commenters tried to say it was just his good genetics that enabled him to be in this kind of shape at 70 years old. Some of them even played the race card, saying that only black men could age this well. But Sonny himself has the right answer, and it has to do with his work ethic and his dogged determination to outrun age for as long as he can.
Well done, sir!
I saw a different iteration of his video on YouTube in which some of the commenters tried to say it was just his good genetics that enabled him to be in this kind of shape at 70 years old. Some of them even played the race card, saying that only black men could age this well. But Sonny himself has the right answer, and it has to do with his work ethic and his dogged determination to outrun age for as long as he can.
Well done, sir!
Friday, February 14, 2014
SAVED by the Electric Prunes and Easy Rider!
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that I am a Christian today because of the use of the Electric Prunes' Kyrie Eleison (from their amazing album, Mass in F Minor) in the 1969 film, Easy Rider.
I was in high school when I caught this film (5 years after its debut) on my parents' little black-and-white TV. It changed my life. Soon, I borrowed a book of the Easy Rider screenplay from the North Babylon, New York Public Library. And then, I borrowed the Easy Rider soundtrack from the same library. I kept renewing both of them as long as they would let me. Finally, I splurged and bought my own vinyl LP of the soundtrack.
On the Easy Rider soundtrack LP were these musicians: Steppenwolf, the Byrds, the Electric Prunes, the Band, Roger McGuinn, the Holy Modal Rounders, and Jimi Hendrix. This is the album that led me to discover all the music I've loved since then, with very few exceptions. It was the trunk of my musical "family tree."
But, I digress. This blog is supposed to be about the appearance in the soundtrack of Kyrie Eleison, by the Electric Prunes. Below, I will post the relevant scenes for you youngsters who may not have seen the film, or you oldsters who were tripping too hard when you saw it back in '69. But first, some background.
Recall: George Hanson (the Jack Nicholson character) had just been murdered by rednecks. Our heroes Captain America (Peter Fonda) and Billy the Kid (Dennis Hopper) have not yet met their similar fates. They are having dinner when the song starts, and Hopper is trying to talk Fonda into visiting the New Orleans whorehouse which Nicholson had recommended to them: Madam Tinkertoy's House of Blue Lights.
Fonda is protesting, being the spiritual one of the pair, but Hopper (the carnal one) wins him over with the argument that George "would have wanted us to." So, they zip off to the brothel, and it appears to be housed in an abandoned church, because the place is adorned with high religious art, interspersed with pin-up style nudes. It is an interesting juxtaposition, given that the Electric Prunes are psychedelically chanting: "Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy" in Latin.
There has never in the history of the world been an album quite like Mass in F Minor. Everyone with any interest in popular music and/or Christianity should hear it at least once. When I first saw the above scene, this song affected me very powerfully, along with the images of the film. After spending some time in the brothel, and hooking up with two prostitutes, Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil), they decide to head out to Mardi Gras.
They wind up in a cemetery, and decide to drop acid (I've written a bit about my experimention with LSD here and here). The deliver method of the acid is important. Fonda places it on the tongue of Karen and then of Mary, like a priest giving the consecrated host.
During the cemetery scene, after the acid begins to kick in, the words of the Apostles' Creed are recited in the background.
So, what do we have here? We have sin: drunkenness, fornication, and drugs. We have the cry for mercy (Kyrie Eleison!). We have high church art juxtaposed with pornography. We have a mimicry of Holy Communion. We have the historic Christian Creed being recited. These scenes from Easy Rider happen at the intersection of sin and redemption, of transgression and mercy. And it is all bound together in one by the psychedelic chanting and mesmerizing guitar and organ of the Electric Prunes.
This scene made me feel powerfully, for the first time, the pull of the beauty of the historic Christian faith. It was not the Christian tradition cloistered away in safety, but bursting out of every seam of the universe to meet, confront, challenge, and possibly even convert these drug smugglers and prostitutes, even in the very midst of their intoxication.
It gave me hope of the same thing happening to me.
I was in high school when I caught this film (5 years after its debut) on my parents' little black-and-white TV. It changed my life. Soon, I borrowed a book of the Easy Rider screenplay from the North Babylon, New York Public Library. And then, I borrowed the Easy Rider soundtrack from the same library. I kept renewing both of them as long as they would let me. Finally, I splurged and bought my own vinyl LP of the soundtrack.
On the Easy Rider soundtrack LP were these musicians: Steppenwolf, the Byrds, the Electric Prunes, the Band, Roger McGuinn, the Holy Modal Rounders, and Jimi Hendrix. This is the album that led me to discover all the music I've loved since then, with very few exceptions. It was the trunk of my musical "family tree."
But, I digress. This blog is supposed to be about the appearance in the soundtrack of Kyrie Eleison, by the Electric Prunes. Below, I will post the relevant scenes for you youngsters who may not have seen the film, or you oldsters who were tripping too hard when you saw it back in '69. But first, some background.
Recall: George Hanson (the Jack Nicholson character) had just been murdered by rednecks. Our heroes Captain America (Peter Fonda) and Billy the Kid (Dennis Hopper) have not yet met their similar fates. They are having dinner when the song starts, and Hopper is trying to talk Fonda into visiting the New Orleans whorehouse which Nicholson had recommended to them: Madam Tinkertoy's House of Blue Lights.
Fonda is protesting, being the spiritual one of the pair, but Hopper (the carnal one) wins him over with the argument that George "would have wanted us to." So, they zip off to the brothel, and it appears to be housed in an abandoned church, because the place is adorned with high religious art, interspersed with pin-up style nudes. It is an interesting juxtaposition, given that the Electric Prunes are psychedelically chanting: "Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy" in Latin.
There has never in the history of the world been an album quite like Mass in F Minor. Everyone with any interest in popular music and/or Christianity should hear it at least once. When I first saw the above scene, this song affected me very powerfully, along with the images of the film. After spending some time in the brothel, and hooking up with two prostitutes, Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil), they decide to head out to Mardi Gras.
They wind up in a cemetery, and decide to drop acid (I've written a bit about my experimention with LSD here and here). The deliver method of the acid is important. Fonda places it on the tongue of Karen and then of Mary, like a priest giving the consecrated host.
During the cemetery scene, after the acid begins to kick in, the words of the Apostles' Creed are recited in the background.
So, what do we have here? We have sin: drunkenness, fornication, and drugs. We have the cry for mercy (Kyrie Eleison!). We have high church art juxtaposed with pornography. We have a mimicry of Holy Communion. We have the historic Christian Creed being recited. These scenes from Easy Rider happen at the intersection of sin and redemption, of transgression and mercy. And it is all bound together in one by the psychedelic chanting and mesmerizing guitar and organ of the Electric Prunes.
This scene made me feel powerfully, for the first time, the pull of the beauty of the historic Christian faith. It was not the Christian tradition cloistered away in safety, but bursting out of every seam of the universe to meet, confront, challenge, and possibly even convert these drug smugglers and prostitutes, even in the very midst of their intoxication.
It gave me hope of the same thing happening to me.
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