POLY STYRENE PASSES AWAY

My lifelong obsession with punk rock girls started with just a few. Exene Cervenka, Dale Bozzio (yeah I know she beat cats but this was before that), Chere Currie, Joan Jett and Poly Styrene. These were girls that were beautiful but also pissed, spirited and incredibly talented. They inspired me with their music and, as I said, allowed me to develop my crush on punk rock girls across the board. This week Poly Styrene passed away at 53 after a battle with cancer. This was not only a loss to music but to the idea of non-conformity.

Stryene, whose given name is Marianne Elliot-Said, put together X-Ray Spex after releasing a reggae single in 1976 on GTO. Like most early punks, Said was inspired after seeing the Sex Pistols, so she put an ad out and the X-Ray Spex were born. The band only released one album, Germ Free Adolescents, which instantly became a classic and one of my personal favorites. There was a passion in the album, same as other punk bands, but it lacked the pretentious bullshit sneer that so much British punk suffered from.

After the band broke up Ms. Said stepped out of the spotlight and focused on battling personal demons including Bi-polar Disorder. She never stopped creating and being an outspoken voice against conformity or letting woman assume a certain role in the world of music. The later X-Ray Spex reunion and album wasn't the big return they wanted but it proved Ms. Said could still kick ass.

I've played the band's album all day and my thoughts go out to Ms Said's daughter and other family members. She was a hero to a movement and lit a path that many have followed. She will be missed.

RIP Poly Styrene

PHOEBE SNOW PASSES AWAY

When I was a little kid my first pangs of musical interest were set by my father. He was always listening to something, usually country or show tunes, sometimes blues and even a few rock jams in there. One artist he was particularly fond of was Phoebe Snow. He played her records constantly and I began to get wooed by Ms. Snow's magical voice. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a fan at the age of six but I do remember her name being bandied about at parties and get togethers my parents had.

As I got older and started appreciating music full time, I went back to Ms. Snow's recordings and really became a fan. I also found great respect for her story, leaving an incredibly promising career to tend to her daughter Valerie who was born with severe brain damage. Ms Snow would release the occasional album but she didn't tour and didn't push herself. In 2008 Valerie passed away and Ms. Snow returned to her career to try and deal with the pain. Recently she suffered a brain hemorrhage and complications from that ended her life at sixty.

I remain a fan of Phoebe Snow and incredibly respectful of her story. She was a great talent with a beautiful voice. She will be missed.

HARVEY PEKAR RIP

It's not often that I'm speechless, even less often that I care enough to get choked up but today's passing of writer and underground comic legend Harvey Pekar is just devastating to me. There's no word yet on what the brilliant man passed from but his battles with Cancer were wildly known. I can only hope that he went peacefully, the world is a little darker and a lot less interesting with him gone.

For me personally Perkar was everything I ever wanted to be, one of my true heroes. When I was about 24 or 25 I began to seriously get into R. Crumb and from there I found Harvey. His wit, his style, his entire way of approaching comics was so wonderful, so unabashedly different that it spoke to me instantly. He had no pretensions and even though he worked with pretentious artists the power of his writing held them at bay. I'm a big believer in honesty and few were as honest as Pekar.

I loved the movie American Splendor but it didn't come close to capturing what the comic book truly was. Pekar was the punk rock of comics, he proved you didn't have to know how to draw or even be trained to author comics to write touching, brutally honest and amazing work. I started my small comic press Isolation Disorder Press because of him and not since Johnny Cash have I been so saddened by the loss of a man I didn't know.

RIP Harvey Pekar, you will be missed.

RIP AL WILLIAMSON

Man sometimes it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. Al Williamson, one of the greatest artists and inkers in the history of comic passed away at 79. It's impossible to tell how far Williamson's reach has been, he's influenced two generations of comic book artists as well as leaving a pantheon of work that will not easily be duplicated. From his X-9 series to his work on Flash Gordon, Star Wars and his amazing inks for Spider-Man, Hulk and Daredevil. Nobody comes close to Al Williamson.

For me being a huge fan of the Golden Age of comics artists like Williamson define that entire era. His early work for the EC Comics titles like Weird Science and Weird Fantasy took what had already been laid out to an entirely new arena. It was there Williamson earned his stripes to later go on doing breakthrough work for Eerie and Creepy before landing on Secret Agent X-9. From there Williamson created amazing work for Star Wars comics before focusing on inking for Marvel.

Williamson received Will Eisner awards for inking in 1996 and 1997 as well being inducted into the Eisner Hall Of Fame in 2000. That in itself is no small feat and shows just how well respected and loved the man was. Williamson helped me understand just how important inking was for the world of comic books and helped raise the art from from a second tier occupation to something just as important as the pencils themselves.

I also loved how Al Williamson could flow from style to style. His rougher work in the early books through his more refined Star Wars stuff you could tell there was an artist at work, a man who loved comic books and all they meant to people. His life was as inspiration and his death a tragedy. More so than my rambling I'll let his work speak for itself.

RIP DENNIS HOPPER

Holy fuck what is it with these last few months and all the death. Now it's time for legendary director, writer, actor Dennis Hopper to bow out of life's little stage play. What can you say about Hopper, he was the fucking man, even when he made stupid career choices he still rocked the shit out of them. What I always dug about Hopper was he seemed like he was always having a good time, as if no matter what was happening around him he was cool. One of my dreams was to sit back and get incredibly baked with the man but now I'll just have to watch all his movies stoned.

I first came to Dennis Hopper as many of my age did with My Science Project, a stupid, stupid, stupid eighties movie where Hopper played a wacked out science teacher. From there I watched him duel chainsaws with Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre II and of course got all weirded out by him in Blue Velvet. It wasn't until much later that I saw Easy Rider and began to understand his impact on Hollywood back when movies were actually good. I decided to really look into the man's career and started with one his first drug influenced movies titled "The Trip". Hopper was a volatile actor and a man dedicated to doing whatever he wanted, something I can always respect.

Though most people remember him from Blue Velvet, Easy Rider, and Apocalypse Now, there are several other roles that moved me just as much as those. His turn as a drunken father in Hoosiers was the heart of that movie, and I loved him as Feck in River's Edge. He was one of the most enjoyable things about the Indian Runner and of course he nearly stole away True Romance in a ten minute scene with Christopher Walken that people still talk about. Hopper made some crappy choices later in life (Super Mario Brothers anybody) but it always seemed like they were his choices, not motivated for profit.

Of course as always the man's last days were festered with drama as his cunt bag wife tried to steal from him, forced him out of his home and then forced him to pay this worthless bitch $12,000 a month because of the fucking completely wacked out divorce laws of Los Angeles. It sucks that one of the greatest film heroes we had passed on in those circumstances but he left a legacy to be incredibly proud of.

RIP PAUL GRAY

I took a long time to write this entry mainly because I wasn't sure I should. So often when people in the public eye pass away there comes a slew of folks who pretend to have been incredibly close with the person who passed. I had more than passing relationship with Paul but I was in no way a good friend of his so I wasn't sure what to do. Then the other night I was on the train and I heard two kids cracking jokes about the whole thing, saying it didn't matter because Slipknot wore masks and so forth and so on. That pissed me off and I came home to write not because Paul and I were exchanging Christmas cards but because I wanted to put out there what I knew of the man.

I met Paul when I went on tour with Slipknot many years ago. Clown has asked me to come not as a reporter for MTV but as a fan of the band, a normal guy on the road. I did so and had a kick ass time watching them play, traveling with them and getting to know each member even if only for a short time. Outside of Corey and Clown who I had gotten to know previously, Paul was the easiest to talk to. He walked right up to me and started making conversation, which was a real bonus on a tour bus with nine guys.

What I noticed right away was Paul's absolute dedication to Slipknot and their fans. Everybody in that band is dedicated but Paul took it even further. He was always off the bus talking to the fans, always high energy and always attacked the stage as if this was the last Slipknot show ever. I also applauded Paul because he wasn't the focus, he was on stage with nine guys, four of which had the freedom to run around and jump as well as all the pyrotechnics and stage insanity. Paul still as able to make his presence known on stage and the guy could fucking head bang with the best of them.

Recently the band had a press conference where they called Paul the essence of Slipknot and based on what I've seen I'd say that's a fair assessment. It wasn't just Paul's dedication to the fans and the music but also his desire for the band to be together making music. With nine talented guys in one room fights are gonna break out, egos bruised and bickering a constant. Paul wanted none of that and really worked to try and mend fences or keep issues from boiling out of control. He saw Slipknot as a family and wanted to protect it.

The last time I saw Paul it was very quick but also very genuine. One of the things the entire band has done for me is not pretend they don't know me post MTV. I've remained closest with Corey but I know if I saw any of them they'd act as if nothing had changed. Paul was an incredibly genuine person and somebody who will obviously be missed by those who knew him, respected him and loved his contributions to music. I hope people can be respectful of his passing and not try to turn it into something sensational. A Friend, father, husband, brother and musician has been lost and that is all that matters.

GARY COLEMAN PASSES AWAY

I'm a child of the eighties so I grew up watching Different Strokes and Gary Coleman. I also got to watch as his star faded and he became the target of ridicule and the punch line of jokes. That's what we do as a society, we suck the balls of people on top and then stomp those same nuts when they're flat of their back. Coleman suffered a lot of humiliation between Different Strokes and his passing from a head injury. Granted some of his behavior was bizarre and he had a problem laughing at himself but with everybody clamoring to take shots it's easy to see why.

I loved Different Strokes as a kid and really liked Gary Coleman. I saw the movies he did during his time on top including Scouts Honor where he played a dedicated boy scout, On The Right Track where he played a street kid with a knack for picking winning horses (I dug the whole idea of living in a locker at that age) and the Playing With Fire movie about being a fire bug. What can I say, I thought Coleman was funny and he had the adventures I wanted to have as kid.

Coleman's problems with the law and most of his behavior can be traced back to how fucked he was once Different Strokes ended. I know a little something about having fame ripped from you and how fucked up and awful people you thought cared about you can be. I had about a zillionth the public eye tenor that Coleman had and I found the post-fame road seriously harsh to walk down. I can't imagine Coleman's life having to swim those waters from his parents fucking him over to the pot shots he had to stand.

When I couldn't get a job post MTV I ended up working for Whole Foods. Part of my job was to work behind the deli counter and every so often I had to deal with the snickers and comments from somebody who recognized me. It was all I could do not to kill them or myself and like I said that's nothing compared to what Coleman had to sit through. It doesn't seem like Coleman ever got past the loss of his career and that's sad because it means he spent the last twenty years or more hating life. I was lucky I had a few friends that stayed close and a mom who was always there, I kinda wish Coleman had been able to have that.

Now we get to watch the sycophantic scum in Hollywood pretend they cared and pretend how shocked they were that Coleman died. That's pretty fucking disgusting but it's typical for the society we live in. I hope now Gary Coleman has the peace the so eluded him in this life.

DIO RIP

Man this just hasn't been a good few months for metal.

First we lost Pete Steele, then Frank Frazetta and now the man himself Dio. Dio succumbed this week to stomach cancer after thirty plus years being one of the truest people out there. Dio was metal, he was what the entire idea of metal was all about. He sang about the mystical, the fantastic, he kept the choruses anthemic and never took himself too seriously. Some considered Dio cheesy but those were people who missed the point of what metal really was. There's a reason the diminutive singer had fans ranging from Black Metal lovers all the way to bad Nu-Metal devotees. Simply put Dio kicked a whole lot of fucking ass and he had the pipes to back all of his shit up in spades.

I'm not gonna front here and say I knew about Dio from back in the Black Sabbath days, I'm just not that old school. The first time I ever heard of Dio was when the metal kid at school brought in a cassette of the album Holy Diver. I looked at that cover with the demon tossing a chained up priest into the ocean and I was sold. It helped that the music was pretty damn awesome and I remember getting my dad to buy me the cassette so I could look at the cover while listening to Dio sing about Rainbows In The Dark. It didn't matter that I had no idea what "Ride the tiger, you can see his stripes but you know he's clean" meant, I was just enthralled with music and the visuals.

To be one hundred percent honest while I dug Dio's work with Sabbath I never considered it Black Sabbath. Those records always sounded like Dio stuff to me, which was fine even though that proclamation got me yelled at by many a metal head. I'll also confess that for many years I turned my back on Dio when I was too busy being Punk Rock or Hip Hop or I launched myself into only liking super brutal metal. Eventually as I got older and my pretensions faded I came back into the fold and realized how incredibly awesome Dio really was.

Outside of his obvious talent the thing about Dio that was so strong was how real he was. I interviewed him twice during the MTV days and the man was always humble, funny and obviously dedicated to heavy metal. The genre was never a stepping stone for him like so many others and he never sold out his dignity for cash like say...gosh....um....Ozzy. When I finally saw Dio play at a Sabbath reunion it was one of my all time favorite shows. Not just because it rocked but because Dio elbowed the shit out of some gigantic fan who got too close to him. Dio might have been small but he took no shit from anybody.

Let's also get one thing straight, Dio invented the metal horns so Gene Simmons can shut his fucking trap now and forever. Unlike Gene or Ozzy or others Dio always kept true to his word, his music and his fans. He never faked the funk, never changed up his style or went super pop, he just existed as he always had, as Dio. It still pisses me off that a man like Dio can get struck with stomach cancer while Phil Anselmo and Fred Durst continue to walk the Earth. The only thing that makes me feel better is Dio is now in a band with Pete Steele, Dimebag, Cliff Burton, Hendrix and Phil Lynott. How fucking rocking must heaven be right now?

So to Dio, from all of us who loved what you did and who you were I salute you.

Metal Horns Up From Us All!!

FRANK FRAZETTA RIP

When I was a kid my grandfather used to work in a distribution house. Essentially that means that when publishers sent off their products they went to where my Grandfather worked and from there he got them to newsstands, grocery stores, etc. Having that kind of first run access is what introduced me to the world of comic books and fantasy magazines. I remember being about 14 or 15 and coming across a few books about Conan The Barbarian. I wasn't a big Conan fan but the covers caught my eye instantly. They were unlike anything I'd ever seen before, these larger than life figures with swords, tigers, dragons and pretty girls scantily clothed. I loved the covers so much I took the books home and became a life long fan of Conan.

The artist that brought me into that world was Frank Frazetta, a man who is one of the few that is actually in a league of his own. Nobody painted the way Frazetta did and though many have attempted his style none came close. It wasn't enough for Frazetta to be a master of the human form he was also a master of elevating that into something superhuman. Without becoming cheesy or laughable Frazetta's heroes were always the perfect specimen of what a hero should look like. When you viewed one of his paintings on the cover of a book you instantly had to know what was happening on the inside. Many times the paintings that Frazetta presented on the covers were infinitely more interesting than the books themselves.



The thing that truly separated Frazetta from the rest was how his art rose from simply paintings to an institution, a genre all unto itself. I remember being young and trying to describe movies like Sword And The Sorcerer or Dragonslayer and telling my friends it had a real "Frank Frazetta feel to it". Instantly my friends knew what I meant though each of their interpretations of his work were different. For my generation he was fantasy, he was what mythological worlds looked like, he took all of us to places we wanted to go to have adventures we dreamed about.

When I was surly teenager traveling around with graffiti kids bombing trains and tagging I kept my love of fantasy and sci-fi to myself. That was until I saw a documentary on graffiti titled Style Wars where one of the artists profiled was looking at a movie poster and said loudly "You know who that is right? Frank Frazettaaaaaaa". Seeing a kid steeped in the urban world give props to the man I knew his reach was far beyond just fantasy and sci-fi. I even began to notice other artists using Frazetta style work on their pieces. As I got older I began to really understand that art like his was something that comes along very, very rarely.



With Frazetta's passing we've not only lost a giant in the art world but also one of the few remaining true legends of the craft. It's too bad his shitty kids turned the last years of his life into a circus but greed usually fucks everything up. I can only hope that Frank Frazetta knew how much he was adored by his fans and how many young artists and writers he inspired to do what they do. I like to think of it this way, most other artist are but shadows while Frank Frazetta was the sun.

For an awesome documentary about the man check out Frank Frazetta: Painting With Fire

My Thoughts On The Death Of Pete Steele

It goes without saying that the death of a prominent musical figure usually produces a tidal wave of people saying how much they always loved the band. I can't say that about Type O Negative but I can say that about Pete Steele. My introduction to Steele's music was in a giant room on the upper west side, the apartment of my then best friends Josh and Jason Diamond.

It was early 1990 and one of them had secured a tape of the "new Pete Steele" project called Repulsion. I remember thinking it was cool the tape was green but other than that I was kind of new to Steele and his music. One of the two put on the first Carnivore record and I flipped out. I remember the song "Carnivore" when Pete ended a line screaming "I LOVE TO EAT PUSSY" and I thought that this guy was awesome. I also dug his voice.

Then the Repulsion tape went in and I loved that music just the same. I really, really thought I was going to become a lifelong fan. Later Steele changed the name to SubZero but had to change it again because there was already a hardcore band with the same name who, ironically enough, I had been friends with for awhile. Once Type O Negative established themselves they released The Origin Of Feces which was pretty much the Repulsion tape.

As subsequent Type O Negative records came out I became less interested in the band. I know it's blasphemy but I just don't care about gothic metal at all. I could lie here and say that I had all their albums but I didn't, to be honest I didn't really like their style of music. I did go and see Type O live a bunch through the nineties because no matter what you thought of the music live the band kicked a lot of ass.

As the years went on I had the chance to meet Pete a few times, worked with the band on putting Type O music into the film Nosferatu as well as seeing a few Carnivore reunion shows. One of those reunion shows ended up with my sprawled on the floor after being whacked in the face with a large side of raw beef. Through all of that what I always liked about Pete was his honesty, his ability to show suffering in a genre that relied on everybody being a testosterone idiot playing fast.

If the genre called for fast, Pete played slow. While everybody screamed about satanic this and that Pete sang in a low drawl about love and Gothic chicks. Pete was king of giving the middle finger to what the "genre" wanted and doing his own thing. He also loved to fuck with people and his honesty about everything including himself was legendary. In a world and a genre so filled with ass kissing dickheads. Pete was a seven foot tall breath of fresh air. Let's also not forget the motherfucker could play an upright bass like a normal on with it looking weird.

Pete was harsher on himself than anybody else could be from his music to his body. Over the years he had cleaned himself up and returned to writing music, something that he was driven to do. Sadly everything caught up to Steele and he passed away from heart failure. There are so many people in metal that deserve to die Limp Bizkit, ICP, Phil Anselmo, the list goes on.

When a guy who really did move the genre forward gets taken from us like Pete or Dimebag it not only hurts us but also the music world. I hope Pete's looking down now, drinking a beer and laughing his ass off. I also hope he's tuning up a band with Dimebag, Phil Linot, John Bonham and all the other greats who are no longer with us.

RIP Pete Steele, you will be missed.

DICK GIORDANO DIES...THIS FUCKING SUCKS

With so many crappy artists out there wreaking havoc on the comic book industry, it blows massive chunks to wake up to the news that DC Comics icon Dick Giordano has died at the age of 77. For those who don't know Giordano he was a major force behind the rejuvenation of DC Comics in the 70s and I'd lay bets he's one of the major reasons DC was able to start matching Marvel Comics as far as content and art were concerned. Giordano wasn't a glory hound, nor was he basking in the spotlight of DC's return but if not for him the return either would not have happened or not at all to such a degree.

You have to understand Giordano's inking ability brought a certain depth and realism to the pencils happening in the 70s, a realism that raised the bar as to what could be done. Outside of his incredible art Giordano would help to bring the Charlton Comics characters over to DC (he had worked there previous) and without those characters there would have been no Watchman. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons based their Watchmen on the Charlton Comics characters and if the work done by Giordano, Adams, Denis O'Neil, and the ilk hadn't been done in the 70s, a book like Watchman could never have come out.

Giordano was also the man behind some of the greatest titles ever to hit the streets. Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Superman Vs Muhammad Ali, Superman Vs Spider-Man (the first Marvel/DC crossover), Crisis On Infinite Earths, and the inks during John Byrne's classic Superman run. Outside of that he also helped to make Aquaman (one of my favorites) less hokey as well as bringing his talents to books like Wonder Woman and JLA. None of the art that made the 70s & 80s era of comics books so magical would have worked as well without Dick Giordano, that's simply fact.

Personally I idolized the man because he was part of the team that brought Batman back from the brink. See I'm a Batman guy, before any other heroes ever entered my life I was hooked on the Dark Knight. I bought my first issue in 1977 and I've been hooked ever since. Even during the days when money or room kept me from collecting I would always stop by the comic shop (or drug store in the early days) to make sure I was on top of what was up with Batman. As I got older and began looking into the history of the character I became sickened at what Batman went through during the Silver Age. The art was lame, the stories corny and slowly all the darkness of the Dark Knight was ebbed away, culminating in that goddamn motherfucking shtiheap TV series.

Then along comes Neal Adams (Art), Denny O'Niel (writer) and Dick Giordano (Inks) to save Batman. They understood what Bob Kane (creator of Batman) had intended with the original run. A lone, twisted, dark and sinister creature of the night, a weirdo with a thirst for revenge. That team brought out the detective side of Batman, the dark side and the violent side. They also helped breathe new life into Batman's rouges gallery, a gallery that is still unparalleled today. If not for these men I would never have gotten into Batman, a title that helped me through some really bad spots in my life as well as providing me with at least one hero who wouldn't let me down.

So Mr. Giordano I wish you all the best in the next world and I hope you know just how much you have done to enrich all of our lives, especially mine.

EDWARD WOODWARD PASSES AWAY.

The first time I ever saw Edward Woodward I was 15 years old and a friend of mine showed me The Wicker Man. After sufficient time to recover from watching it (if you've seen it you know what I mean) I became obsessed with the movie. A few years later Edward Woodward became The Equalizer and I instantly became hooked on the show. I was a kid getting picked on a lot so a show about a guy who would even the odds appealed to me right away.

During the second season The Equalizer started shooting constantly outside my building on the Upper West Side. I would constantly leave for school and watch huge trucks and people with headphones milling about getting ready to shoot the show. I would always look to see if I could find Mr. Woodward but I never saw him. One day I walked outside and there he was, just standing outside my building like it was no big deal. I walked right up to him and told him what a huge fan I was and how I loved the show and the Wicker Man.

He was so awesome, so kind and just stood there talking to me for ten minutes before he had to go off to shoot. I never saw him outside my building (though they continued to shoot there) but I never forgot that meeting. Sadly this was way before phones in cameras or even digital phones so I didn't get a picture. As the years went on I also became a fan of Breaker Morant and Mr. Woodward's other works.

He'd been kind of quiet over the years and as of yesterday he is no longer with us. He was a great actor and a kind man and I will always remember our talk outside my building.

PATRICK SWAYZE

I'll be the first to admit it, I thought Patrick Swayze was cheesy. I never considered him a great actor nor did I love that many of his films. What I did like about Swayze was that he always seemed like a good guy, like a guy who could laugh at himself and never got a shitty Hollywood attitude. He remained with the same woman for 35 years, he was always respectful and seemed truly thankful to be able to make a living as an actor. I watch these "Young Hollywood" shitheels and think it's sad that there aren't more Patrick Swayze's in the Hollywood.

There were some Swayze films I liked a lot. Roadhouse was awesome, Point Break was great, I even dug Ghost except I hated Demi Moore in it. Then of course there was Outsiders and Red Dawn, which kicked major ass. Whatever his acting "skill" was Swayze just seemed like the kind of guy you wanted to hang out with. He had no problem making fun of his sex symbol stuff or even making fun of some of his early films roles (Pigs Vs Freaks anybody?).

When Swayze got cancer he was very open and honest and put on not a fake brave front but one that was totally genuine. It was very much "This sucks and I want to beat it but if I can't, what an awesome life I've had". How can you not dig a guy like that? It's a shame he passed away when so many other deserve to die. Of course, he'd hate to hear me say that.

JIM CARROLL DIES

This past week poet and author Jim Carroll died of a heart attack in New York City. For most people Carroll became known after the 1995 movie The Basketball Diaries which was not a great movie nor a great representation of his book. Carroll was considered by many to be a "punk poet" who ventured into the world of music in 1980 with the album Catholic Boy. The album gave the band their one hit titled "People Who Died".

I guess people automatically think that if you're pissed off or lived in NYC or love punk rock that you're a disciple of Carroll's work. I've been asked a lot to write some words about my feelings on his death and to be honest I'm kind of at a loss. I respected Carroll as I respect anybody who is obviously a critical thinker and their own person but I had no great love for his works. The Basketball Diaries was an enjoyable read but it didn't change my life or get me to sign up as a fan. I've read Forced Entries which I enjoyed more than The Basketball Diaries as well as most of his poems. Obviously the man could write but I just never got why people fell all over themselves for Carroll.

I think part of it is the allure of the New York City scene which for those of us who didn't grow up in it can become as mystical and mythical as Oz. Alcohol soaked drug stories don't impress me, I've had too many friends dealing with drug problems for me to let myself get romantic about it. I also found Carroll's diatribe about Kurt Cobain self-serving and awfully condescending.

Musically I just didn't get the hoopla at all. It was decent enough bar music but that was about it. I find people tend to allow for more when somebody perceived as anti-establishment does something. In other words if people saw The Jim Carroll Band and Carroll had been some guy from downtown I don't think the love would have been quite as enormous for it.

So am I sad that Carroll has passed away, yes because as we lose poets and free thinkers they're replaced by Mall Culture and a generation in love with being part of the machine. Do I find Carroll to be up there with some of the great writers he's set alongside? No, not at all. I'm sure people will call me a "hater" or jealous because these days anybody with an opinion that differs from the masses is called one of those things.

I will say this, I wish it had been Kanye West dead and not Carroll.

ANDY KESSLER HAS PASSED AWAY

Skateboarding legend Andy Kessler passed away on Monday at the age of 49 from of all things a fucking Wasp sting. Kessler had an allergic reaction to the sting and died of a heart attack because of it. Kessler was a real deal skateboarding hero who ran with the Souls Of Zoo York team in the late 70s. This guy was just as important to the development of what skateboarding is today as Tony Alva, Stacey Peralta or any of the Dogtown Crew.

You have to understand that for me skateboarders were like real life superheroes. I always wanted to skateboard, since I first saw The Search For Animal Chin I wanted to be Tony Hawk or Lance Mountain. The problem was I had zero talent for it, and I mean ZEEERRROOOOO. It could've been that I was overweight or just scared or maybe I was just not coordinated enough to be a skater but I tried.

I had the clothes, the haircut, the skateboard and I could go from A to B on it I just had no juice for tricks. In my eyes at that age the idea of what they were doing rocketed the Bones Brigade into the status of a living Justice League. I watched the videos, bought their shirts and stickers and anything else I could

This was an era before any idiot with a board could start a company and release a video. It was before youtube or the internet period allowed you to watch your favorite skaters shred. It was also way before skateboarding became a sporting event or a mass co-opted thing fed to the mall crawling zombies by corporations. You just couldn't see skateboarding anywhere so you read the magazines, went to the shows and skated with your friends. When a new video came out you would've hit your grandmother in the head with a shovel to get it. Kessler was part of all of that.

It skaters like Kessler and Zoo York and their counterparts Dogtown that actually physically gave birth to the world of skateboarding. They didn't take it and run with it like Hawk and Caballero and Mountain did, they started it out of nothing. That amazed me even more than the boys that had been my heroes for so long.

I'm still obsessed with skateboarding and I'm still awful at it. As I get older those memories and those videos mean even more to me. I watch them constantly (on DVD now thank you technology) and follow what my old heroes are up to. I'm not trying to be "that guy" and jump on any bandwagon. Kessler wasn't a hero of mine though I thought he was pretty awesome.

Mainly his passing, which was so senseless, just fucking sucked. It sucked because he was an originator and an innovator who deserved a hell of a lot better than that.

A TRIBUTE TO JOHN HUGHES

I have to admit it, I was late to the entire John Hughes thing. Not because I didn't know about them, I was a teenager of the eighties I had no choice but to know about them. It was more because I didn't realize how good John Hughes was at what he was doing nor did I understand at 15 the social impact of his films. When Sixteen Candles first came out I refused to see it, mainly because all the cool kids were lining up to go see it. I sat at home with my stacks of comic books and ignored that it was even a movie.

Then a girl who I liked (who of course didn't like me) asked if I wanted to go with her and some friends to see it. The power of possible boobage will overrun any ethical boundaries you've set for yourself, especially at 15. When I walked out of the movie I wasn't pissed but I was confused. What had I just seen? The nerd girl gets the hot guy, the nerd guy gets the hot girl, what was this bullshit?

In my world of saber rattling and soapbox dwelling we didn't want to be part of their world, they were the enemy! Who were they to lower themselves to date us? The two nerds should've gotten together because that's what needed to happen. I wasn't totally outraged though, only enough that when I was done venting I never heard from that girl again.

My true source of outrage came from The Breakfast Club which I saw as a horrid propaganda movie about conformity. I'm not going to go into the plot because I'm 99% sure that those who read my blog have seen the movie or at least know about it. At the end of the film the rebel who has raged against the rich preppy popular girl is happy when they become an item.

The basket case girl really only finds happiness after the preppy girl plows her with makeup and she becomes more "popular pretty" and gets the jock guy as a boyfriend. Then there's the nerd who gets nothing but the chance to do everybody's in-detention assignment and for some reason he's AMPED on that. Oh man I walked out of that movie like a Al Sharpton in front of a video camera, out to bring down hellfire and brimstone on all of those who enjoyed The Breakfast Club.

I have to be honest being in a high school like Dwight where the kids were quoting the movie and seeing it 4 and 5 times was heavy going for a non-fan. I wasn't the best at avoiding confrontation anyway but this made me a target as soon as I walked through the door. I was the one kid who didn't like The Breakfast Club and I would need to be expunged like a virus from the healthy cells of high school.

From then on my hatred of John Hughes movies grew and grew. I hated what a cunt Ferris Bueller was to Cameron, I couldn't stand the bullshit ending of Pretty In Pink and finally I just decided that John Hughes and I had nothing more to say to each other. To be honest I continued to have stuff to say but Hughes remained oddly silent.

It was a few years later before I gave John Hughes another chance with Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Not when it was released in theaters but when it came out on....GASP...VHS. I friend of mine had rented it and forced me to sit there and watch it with him. By the end of the movie I was red faced and crying from laughing so hard. I literally laughed out loud from the Taxi cab race between Kevin Bacon and Steve Martin to the end which really actually touched me.

I remember my friend saying "Dude John Hughes kicks ass" and wanting to believe him but being scared. By then I had raged for so long about him that if I turned around and said I was wrong I'd been seen as a liar. You have to understand to the young adult mind you know everything already so admitting your wrong is like telling the world you were rooting for the Nazis...you just couldn't do it.

That's one of the great things about growing up, you realize that you will often be wrong and that admitting that is a sign of character as is the ability to change your mind. A few years after watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles for the first time a small arthouse theater was running a double feature of The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles so I decided to go. I went alone and sat ready to be confirmed that while he may write a witty adult movie his teenage films were bullshit.

What happened startled me.

I fell in love with those movies and by the end of the double feature I couldn't believe how stupid I had been. These hadn't been propaganda movies about conformity, these had been films by and large rooted in reality. Hughes wasn't making high school movies the way we wanted it to be but the way it was. Most kids who freaked out about not wanting to be part of the popular crowd secretly did, most kids who acted the freak did it because the felt unloved.

I was even moved by Molly Ringwald's princess speech about hating her friends. Even I who had raged about individuality all through high school had wanted to be in the in crowd or at least wanted them to want me so I could turn my nose up at them. The fact that they just didn't want me was painful as was the non stop teasing.

After the movies I rented all the John Hughes films and began to understand how good he was at finding the humanity in the most mundane situations. From a filmmakers perspective he was one of the first to really say "Hey let's pull the veil back from the image of uber happy suburbia and see what's really happening". Hughes had meant for Ferris to be a jerk because it made us look at ourselves and why we'd champion a guy like him.

I doubt there was ever a greater outsider/misfit character than Ducky from Pretty In Pink which got a second chance from me after I discovered that Molly Ringwald had forced the i-end-up-with-rich-guy ending and Hughes had wanted her to stay with Ducky originally.

Sure Sixteen Candles still wasn't a great movie but Hughes was cutting his teeth on that film and I'll say this, it has more to say and stands up better than just about every teen film today. I also firmly believe that without the Hughes teenage movies the entire indie-melancholy-teen-angst field that's happening today would never have been born.

With my new love of Hughes I delved into all of his stuff and found most of it really enchanting. Weird Science became my personal favorite because that was a stone cold perfect look at my friends and I at that age. I never did latch on to Some Kind Of Wonderful mainly because it seemed like a reverse Pretty In Pink but what the hell nobody is perfect.

Outside of Planes, Trains and Automobiles (and maybe Uncle Buck) my love affair with Hughes ended with his early movies. I was never a fan of the Vacation films and even less of the Home Alone movies and most of his written work post 1990 left me cold. It wasn't bad work it just wasn't the stuff he'd done before.

At the ripe old age of 38 the John Hughes teen movies make me nostalgic for a part of my life I couldn't wait to get out of. All the angst all the crap all the bullshit fades in time and you just remember that you were once that young. That your life was filled with possibilities and expectations and the world was your oyster. No matter how great your life is now you lose part of that as you get older. Life slaps you down, friends betray you, love is found and lost and that view point on life is tragically gone forever.

When reality, responsibility and grown up life start wearing on me I'll turn on those Hughes movies and escape to a time of neon colors, long coats, great pop music and bad fashion. It helps me remember a time when I wasn't so bitter and my cold shoulder wasn't the first thing I used to greet the world. Hughes did more than he probably ever hoped for with those original films and he touched more lives in more ways than he knew possible. I work with teens now and they watch those movies and feel like somebody relates to them. That's pretty powerful stuff the idea that though they were steeped in eighties style those movies spoke universally to any teenager going through the turmoil of....well...being a teenager.

For the films, the escape and the ability to learn more about myself I thank you John Hughes and I wish you great success in the next world.

Iann

I NEVER GET WHAT I WANT - BAM MARGERA STILL LIVES

I was very excited today when I opened my email and saw that Bam Margera, probably the biggest waste of human life out there, had been rushed to the hospital because of a presumed drug overdose. So happy I was, cheerfully doing a jig dance in celebration of the death of a man who is such a Cunt he gives other Cunts a bad name. Bam is on the same level as Paris Hilton, Perez Hilton, the cats of NYC Prep, in that none of them actually deserve to live because they serve no purpose at all. Bam is a sad hateful, shitty little man and I could not have been happier he was dead.

BUT HE'S NOT DEAD

Ah fuck his enabler mom says he was just dehydrated. While it's sad that Bam Cuntface is still alive hopefully it was drugs so he can keep trying until he gets it right.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM THE DEATH OF MICHAEL JACKSON

THIS BLOG ENTRY WILL BE RUN ON CRAVE ONLINE STARTING MONDAY.

THANKS
IANN

DAVID EDDINGS AND DAVID CARRADINE PASS AWAY

Some sad news in the world of Hollywood and Fiction as author David Eddings and actor David Carradine have both passed away. Eddings apparently of natural causes at the age of 77 while Carradine's death was apparently self-inflicted.

Eddings was best known for his five-part Belgariad and Mallorean sagas. These fantasy books have a devout following and a love that was so strong I often felt bad about missing out on them.

Carradine was found hanging in a closet in Bangkok, Thailand with nylon rope used from the hotel curtains. Carradine was best known for the Kung Fu TV series as well as his role as Bill in Kill Bill. I never really enjoyed Kung Fu and I hated Kill Bill (more because the movie sucked than Carradine) but I loved his portrayal of Woodie Guthrie in "Bound For Glory" as well as his character in Martin Scorsese first film Box Car Bertha.

At this point nothing more is known on Carradine's death though many of his close friends say that suicide was not something Carradine would ever do and that his career was really picking up steam at this point. He was in Thailand to film a movie titled Stretch (no jokes please).

DOM DELOUISE PASSES AWAY AT 75....THAT SUCKS!!!

I always dug Dom DeLouise and not in post hipster ironic way, I actually thought the guy was funny. My dad took me to see the Cannonball Run movies and I just had to fall in man-love with a guy who pretended to be a Super Hero. As I grew older I dug him in The End and even as the father of the heavy set tough guy cop on 21 Jump Street. Dom passed away in his sleep last night and that's a total bum out to me. He was just a sweet and funny guy, no attitude, no bullshit, ad that's a rarity. I'm glad he went peacefully and I decided to post these Cannonball Run outtakes to celebrate the man.

VIVA DOM!!