When most people hear the name Jimi Hendrix they automatically just think of him as a guitar player. Yet, if you were to really listen to Jimi, I mean really listen to him you'll quickly realize that he was also a fantastic lyricist and alot of his song lyrics verged on poetry. Here's a great example of Jimi's lyrical power.
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So I thought I would stick with the marijuana theme I started in my last blog. I stumbled upon this video in which a federal marijuana user testifies for the legalization of marijuana. Yes you read that right he's a federal marijuana user. He gets his weed from the government. In fact part of mine and your US taxes pays for the growing of his marijuana. He's one of only a handful of people that still get he's medical marijuana straight from the government. Anyway just watch the video it's pretty interesting and from the looks of it the guy can use some Ritalin also. He's a bit hyper.
Related Posts: How to Make Hashish
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Just in case you have alot of extra marijuana trimmings laying around the house, here's a video that shows you how to make hashish from it. This seems like a great project that the whole family could have fun doing.
We all at times, daydream about finding a wallet on the street with a wad of cash and no identification in it, to let us know who it belongs too. Well at least that's what I daydream about. So, last night when walking up my front stoop my heart skipped a beat as I looked down and saw a wallet laying there. I quickly picked it up and looked inside. I immediately saw a drivers license and the address on it was actually just down the street from me. So, on the walk there, curiosity getting the better of me I looked thru the rest of the wallet. I found the usual stuff business cards, club membership cards and a wallet photo of his kid. There were two items though that did stick out. The first being the box cutter that was in the wallet and the second being a business card of a parole officer. Great, just watch the guy try to mug me as I try to return the wallet to him.
So I get to the apartment building and look at all the buzzers. I see the apt number that was listed on his license but the names don't match up. I buzz it anyway, no answer I buzz it again, still no answer. So what am I going to do with this guy's wallet. I just can't throw it away. I come up with the idea of dropping it off at the police station that's on my way to the subway station.
So I leave my apt a bit earlier then usual this morning since I have to stop in at the police station. I go up to the front desk and tell a cop that I have this wallet I found. So, of course I can't just drop the wallet off he has to fill out a report. He gets my name, address, where I found the wallet, what time it was when I found it and he than asks me for my phone number. This is where I experience a brain freeze and have to think for a second. I than rattle what I think is my phone number and that's that. As, I'm walking out of the police station I suddenly realize I had in reality given the cop a combination of my home and cell phone numbers. I know it's early in the morning and I hadn't had my second cup of coffee yet but hell your home phone number is something every kid should have memorized by the time he's 6-7 years old. Maybe, I'm getting early onset alzheimers?
Well in any event I guess I've added some check marks to my karmic value, which is always a good thing.
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This is the last of the CMJ related posts, it sure has taken me awhile to finish them all. I guess I've been wasting my time elsewhere.
The other movie screen I got to see during the event was for the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story. This film is a feel good dark comedy about love and suicide starring Patrick Fugit and Shannyn Sossamon. Patrick's girlfriend breaks up with him and he decides to end it all. He slits his wrists but unfortunately finds that there is no end only an afterlife that is strangely similar to his old life except much suckier(is suckier even a word?). In this strange purgatory limbo where everyone who has committed suicide ends he, he finds a job at kamikaze pizza. Soon he is befriended by a Russian punk rocker that killed himself by pouring beer over his electric guitar while on stage, thus electrocuting himself. Patrick soon discovers that his ex-girlfriend has also committed suicide so him and Eugene(the Russian Punk Rocker) set out on a road trip to find her. Along the way they pick up Sossamon, who claims she's not suppose to be here and is in search of The People in Charge so she can straighten out this misunderstanding. They also come across Tom Waits who is running some sort of magical hippy commune.
You would never think that a film about suicide could be so funny and heart warming at the same time but that's exactly what this film accomplished. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this film, hell(no pun intended) I'm even thinking about going to go see it again, it was that good. Unfortunately though since this is what they call an independent movie,this movie might not be at a local theatre near you, but I really urge you to seek out this movie and see it. After the movie there was an Q&A with the director, Goran Dukic. He had said that the movie only cost $1 million dollars to make, which isn't alot in the movie making world. In fact that's only one 1/20th of what Tom Cruise gets paid for a movie. Someone than asked him what he would of did different if given more money to make the film. He replied, nothing except maybe have better food on the set and some air conditioning since they filmed in the desert where it hovered around 100 degrees fahrenheit. He said the more money you have doesn't necessarily equate a good movie and some times it makes a movie worse, case in point(my thoughts not his) all the new Star Wars movies and any Jerry Bruckheimer movie made, except Transformers which I did like.
Now I don't want to give up where the movie ends up but let me just say that sometimes the person who you think your in love with really isn't the person your in love with. I hope that makes sense because reading that last sentence left me scratching my head. And one more thing, you can end up finding love in the strangest of places, even purgatory.
Wristcutters Official site
Wristcutters @ imdb
Wristcutters Trailer
Related Posts: Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, CMJ Music Marathon NYC, Photographing Michael Diamond, Brad @ Highline Ballroom, NYC
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I got to see a screening of this documentary a few weeks ago, during the CMJ festival. Originally this wasn't the movie I intended to go see, but due to other factors it was the one I ended up seeing.
As you can gather from the title, this film was about Joe Strummer of The Clash. Julien Temple, the director also did a documentary about the Sex Pistols called The Filth and the Fury, but you might know him better as the director of that cinematic masterpiece, Earth Girls are Easy. I never listened to The Clash growing up or knew much about them. My knowledge of them began and stopped at their Rock the Casbah video. It wasn't until about a couple years ago that I ended up acquiring some Clash records(yes I still call them records although they were really mp3s) and getting into them. So seeing this movie was pretty interesting, in that I learned more about them(specifically Joe Strummer), how they formed and their music. You learn how Joe Strummer(not his real name of course) acquired that name, due to the fact of how he played his guitar. The thing that interested me the most was that Joe was originally a hippy of sorts and started out playing more of a Rock-A-Billy/Folk type of music and you can see that influence in some of The Clash's recordings.
Now like I said, the movie was good in the fact that it provided me with a bit more knowledge about Joe Strummer and The Clash, yet this movie had its faults and to me they are some major faults. The one that was the most glaring was that there are numerous interviews with people who knew Joe throughout his life, but not once are you given any information as to who they are or their connection to Joe Strummer. The movie watching experience would have been more enjoyable if their names appeared on the screen at least once, as they were being interviewed. The other problem was the length of the documentary, although it was only around 2 hrs long which is normal for movie nowadays, the pacing of the movie made it feel even longer. Towards the end of it I was getting really antsy and was just thinking to myself when is this going to end. The first way that this issue could be remedied would be to get rid of a few of the interviews that just didn't make sense or felt so out of place in this movie. The director freaking interviewed Martin Scorsese, John Cusack, Bono(with his corny sunglasses) and Johnny Depp who was still in character as Captain Jack Sparrow. These interviews just served no purpose, they didn't drive the movie forward or add anything relevant to it that wasn't already provided by the other interviewees. So with that said my advice to you if you want to see this documentary, is to wait till it comes out on DVD so you can watch it in chunks and skip past those interviews.
The one thing that stuck with me from the movie was Joe Strummer's definition of a punk rocker. He said a punk rocker is just a hippie with zippers. That's just classic.
Coincidentally or not, later that night as I was waiting for a subway, a kid probably no older than 15 comes strolling down the subway platform dressed in text book British punk rocker uniform of the late 1970's. You could of taken a picture of him and put it next to punk rock in the dictionary it was almost too good to be true. He had a 2 foot high mohawk sticking straight up, a Romanes style leather jacket with lots of zippers and tight black jeans on. I'm also sure if I would of gotten a closer look he would of either had a safety pin through his nose or ear and a bunch of extra ones on his jeans or jacket. Ahhh the youth of today.
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten official site
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten @ imdb
Related Posts: CMJ Music Marathon NYC, Photographing Michael Diamond, Brad @ Highline Ballroom, NYC
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