Ice-storm this morning -- first thing I did was scrape ice a millimeter or more thick from my car windows. Oh, not quite -- I had to move the car to a place where I could place my feet without slipping, and I couldn't see out of said windows. Next thing was sliding into a curb at 2 miles an hour just as I got out of my alley. Luckily, the main road to my work was passable, and I got there on time, doing a lonnnng slow controlled skid into my parking spot. We delayed opening until 10 AM because of the dangerous driving conditions. When I left in the PM, most of the ice had thawed, but it was raining.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Oakland, California; McLean, Virginia; Saint Peters, Missouri; Toronto, Ontario; Nova Iguau (Rio de Janeiro) Brazil; West Chester, Pennsylvania; Davis, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Dix, Illinois, and New York City, New York.

Check out: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
NEW UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics.





Many thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's FIRST illustrator of the 21st, for including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. Check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site. Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art has Seldom Seen, from the Permanent Collection,First Nations Artists -- Contemporary / Traditional, Crown of the Continent, and Ace of Diamonds. Dan Fagre's new show about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park is a true labor of love by himself and other scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and now.

Ch-ch-changes: Today marks the birthday of Robert Nesta Marley (1945-1981). He was one of the few superstars of Reggae Music, and the genre's most popular performer by far, despite the wealth of talent in this prolific first-cousin of Funk. His death from cancer in 1981 turned out to be a harbinger of Reggae's decline in the worldwide Pop Charts. The music still exists, especially as a vital regional genre, but it competes with stylings from around the world, all of which benefitted from Reggae's success in the 60's and 70's. Congratulations go out to the late Desmond Dekker, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh, but also to the still-living Bunny Wailer, Toots Hibbert, Jimmy Cliff, and pioneering popularizer Johnny Nash. A couple of shout-outs to Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers, Sly & Robbie, Steel Pulse, Roots Radics, Israel Vibrations, young Morgan Heritage, and many others!
Besides Buddy Holly and Bob Marley, for me, the first week of February also marks the death of my father in 1986. My mother followed him two and a half years later. They were both fifty-six years old when they passed away.

Concert Review: Courtesy of Washington D.C. drummer "Father Thyme" -- from a so-called "youngin'" in Southern California last month.

I went to see George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic on Tuesday night at House of Blues. I remember a couple years ago in LA, I was debating whether to blow some money on James Brown tickets or yknow, continue feeding myself for a week. Being selfish, I chose the latter, figuring I’d catch JB next year when he came through. Six months later, my family’s driving home from a holiday at my uncle’s house in Orange County, only to hear on the radio that James Brown had passed. OUCH!!! Since then, I’ve tried to make it a point of catching the legends live as soon as the opportunity arises, lest they keel over the next day from complications from prescription drugs or something. I want to see them at least once before it’s too late.

Needless to say, it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, if not certainly THE best. The adage applies: “No school like the old school.” Highlights from the bizarre ride on the pharcyde ……

The bassist for P-Funk fronts a band called Naked Funk for the opening act. On their third song, he pulls out this utterly disgusting, hangover-in-your-mouth funky-ass bass solo. Thizz faces all around. I would’ve been a fan if he had stopped after that song.
P-Funk comes on-stage with some hella crazy costumes. One singer’s wearing a taxi cab outfit, this other girl’s cruising on rollerskates. The bandleader’s chillin’ in nothing but a banana yellow rockstar vinyl jacket …… and a diaper. I like that old school acts still value the element of theatricality and their live shows are the better for it.

George Clinton (center) and friends on his most recent album Gangstas of Love -- Kim Manning is pictured on rollerskates down front. (Inset) Ms. Manning's on rollerskates for real, with George, singing Red Hot Mama in California last month, from a photo by C.M. Talley (PfunkJazz).
Six guitars on-stage at once. SIX! Everytime they come together, it gets too crazy and your head’s about ready to explode and you think that they’re gonna finish the night on that note but then they just keep on rolling right into the next song.
Speaking of theatricality, the band’s stage-hand doubles as this spaced-out narrator of the funk telling us to get ready to board the mothership and stuff like that. And this one singer’s specialty is seriously just screaming wild, incoherent nothings behind the narration, all for atmosphere.
Some guy in a white, woolly mammoth oufit with a big-ass, fake plastic nose comes out every so often to diss the crowd. At one point, he grabs his crotch then picks his big nose with the middle finger on the same hand. My friend tells me his name is Long Nose.

Correction: SIR Nose, played by double-jointed dancer (and good guy) Carlos McMurray.

When George Clinton finally makes his way on-stage after like a half hour, he’s rockin’ like a rainbow, Troll wig or something. The way he says “f**k” is dope.
The most recent rap songs I’ve heard George Clinton on, the rappers use him to bring out this psychedelic, space-age element in the song. But I think those songs forget the other, hella raunchy, highly likable/charismatic side of him that g-funk latched onto. Hearing this geezer sing all these pervy songs like nothing is priceless.
This set is like a mini-history lesson in black music. There are entire sections dedicated to James Brown, Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix, and at one point, this drop-dead gorgeous singer came out and belted the blues, bringing the house to its knees like Sam Cooke or something.
Clinton brings his teenage granddaughter on and she raps about weed and d**k while her gramps trades doobies with someone in the crowd.
Every single one of the 20+ performers drifting on and off the stage can sang. They got a special singer for every mood you can conceive.

…… Yeah, I’m pretty sure the faded guy standing in front of me took a piss in his cup. Ignorant comment of the night: “Yknow, they’d really sound tight …… if they put their music on record and had a DJ cut them up. Then they’d be really live.” Win!

I wish I could say more but they’re too crazy, I couldn’t hang. Parliament alone rocked for two and a half hours straight before I called it quits at midnight. I wouldn’t be surprised if they went on until 2am and all the old folk in the audience stayed with them.

Speaking of Space People:

Queen Azura blows her enemies off!
At the suggestion of my friend Jessica, I made an animated image to use for my comparison pages between Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, and the contemporary newspaper strip. The Martian Azura, Queen of Magic performed this trick many times in the 1938 serial.