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26 Jun 16:09
Vespalogy
by Gerard
Vespa is an Italian brand of scooter manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian. The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 to a full line of scooters. Here's a groovy retrospective of Vespas from 1943 to 2013.
Vimeo link
(thanks Cora)
Vimeo link
(thanks Cora)
19 Jun 00:31
From the people who brought you "Sex House...
by Cookiebastard
More nightmarishly dystopian horror comedy with Dr. Good
19 Jun 00:28
Can You Say Oncilla?
by Andrew Bleiman
On January 14th, the Sao Paulo Zoo in Brazil welcomed a new resident, a male baby Oncilla named Poli. (It's pronounced AWN-sill-uh, by the way.) The cub’s mother, Luiza, is one of the last melanistic Oncilla remaining in captivity today. Melanism is a genetic mutation causing dark pigmentation, so rather than being spotted, Luiza’s coat is entirely black. Despite the mother’s mutation, Poli was born with the more common spotted fur pattern.
Soon after the birth, Luiza rejected her baby, so Poli was bottle-fed by zoo staff. Now at four and a half months old, Poli is already fully weaned, healthy, and continues to grow strong. (These photos were taken on March 15th and May 21st).
Photo Credits: Carlos Nader / Sao Paulo Zoo
See and learn more after the fold!
The Oncilla, also known as the ‘little spotted cat’, is classified as vulnerable by IUCN. Oncilla are generally nocturnal and live in a wide range of environments from scrublands to cloud forests from Costa Rica to southern Brazil and southeast Argentina. As adults, these small cats measure about 40 to 50 centimeters and weigh 1.75 to 3.5 kilograms (slightly less than an average domestic cat). Once heavily exploited for fur, this species is now protected in some, but not all, countries throughout its range. They are at risk due to deforestation as well as hunting and poaching. Though widespread, their populations are fairly small and isolated from each other.
19 Jun 00:26
"I move for a 'bad court thingy'."
by Fizz
Scarlett Johansson is suing the author of a best-selling French novel that features her "doppelgänger."
"The American star is challenging writer Gregoire Delacourt, and his publisher JC Lattes, after he described a character in his novel as being her "doppelgänger", or exact double. The case — if it comes to court — could make legal and literary history."
18 Jun 07:34
Orson Welles hated Woody Allen
Oh is this good. It’s almost too good.
Director Henry Jaglom and the great Orson Welles knew each other pretty well. The younger man was one of the participants in Welles’ legendary but never-completed satire of Hollywood, The Other Side of the Wind, and Jaglom directed Welles himself as an actor in his first film, 1971’s with A Safe Place (which co-starred Jack Nicholson, Tuesday Weld and Phil Proctor from The Firesign Theatre) as well as Welles’ final film performance, 1987’s Someone to Love.
They had lunch together from time to time at Ma Maison in Los Angeles. Welles, like Malcolm McClaren and Quentin Crisp, was a gent who was happy to sing for his supper as long as the tab got picked up. Jaglom also recorded their conversations and transcripts from these tapes are being published in a new book titled My Lunches With Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles by Peter Biskind.
New York Magazine’s current issue has a few delicious, bitchy excerpts:
Henry Jaglom: By the way, I was just reading Garson Kanin’s book on Tracy and Hepburn.
Orson Welles: Hoo boy! I sat in makeup during Kane, and she was next to me, being made up for A Bill of Divorcement. And she was describing how she was fucked by Howard Hughes, using all the four-letter words. Most people didn’t talk like that then. Except Carole Lombard. It came naturally to her. She couldn’t talk any other way. With Katie, though, who spoke in this high-class, girl’s-finishing-school accent, you thought that she had made a decision to talk that way. Grace Kelly also slept around, in the dressing room when nobody was looking, but she never said anything. Katie was different. She was a free woman when she was young. Very much what the girls are now. I was never a fan of Tracy.
Henry Jaglom: You didn’t find him charming as hell?
Orson Welles: No, no charm. To me, he was just a hateful, hateful man. I think Katie just doesn’t like me. She doesn’t like the way I look. Don’t you know there’s such a thing as physical dislike? Europeans know that about other Europeans. If I don’t like somebody’s looks, I don’t like them. See, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I’m profoundly convinced that that’s a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks.
Henry Jaglom: Orson, that’s ridiculous.
Orson Welles: Measure them. Measure them!
I never could stand looking at Bette Davis, so I don’t want to see her act, you see. I hate Woody Allen physically, I dislike that kind of man.
Henry Jaglom: I’ve never understood why. Have you met him? [Jaglom is forgetting about Casino Royale]
Orson Welles: Oh, yes. I can hardly bear to talk to him. He has the Chaplin disease. That particular combination of arrogance and timidity sets my teeth on edge.
And as if THAT conversational gem wasn’t enough, try this LOL anecdote on for size:
Henry Jaglom: What is wrong with your food?
Orson Welles: It’s not what I had yesterday.
Henry Jaglom: You want to try to explain this to the waiter?
Orson Welles: No, no, no. One complaint per table is all, unless you want them to spit in the food. Let me tell you a story about George Jean Nathan, America’s great drama critic. Nathan was the tightest man who ever lived, even tighter than Charles Chaplin. And he lived for 40 years in the Hotel Royalton, which is across from the Algonquin. He never tipped anybody in the Royalton, not even when they brought the breakfast, and not at Christmastime. After about ten years of never getting tipped, the room-service waiter peed slightly in his tea. Everybody in New York knew it but him. The waiters hurried across the street and told the waiters at Algonquin, who were waiting to see when it would finally dawn on him what he was drinking! And as the years went by, there got to be more and more urine and less and less tea. And it was a great pleasure for us in the theater to look at a leading critic and know that he was full of piss. And I, with my own ears, heard him at the ‘21’ complaining, saying, “Why can’t I get tea here as good as it is at the Royalton?” That’s when I fell on the floor, you know.
Henry Jaglom: They keep writing in the papers that, ever since Wolfgang Puck left, this place has gone downhill.
Orson Welles: I don’t like Wolfgang. He’s a little shit. I think he’s a terrible little man.
This book can’t make it into my hands fast enough! In just the short excerpt in New York magazine, Welles dishes on all of the above, plus “super agent” Irving “Swifty” Lazar (who he accuses of being a germaphobe) and fucks off Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, too! Peter Biskind’s My Lunches With Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles is published by Metropolitan Books.
18 Jun 04:27
On his favorite joke that went unnoticed:
Highlights from Mitch Hurwitz's Reddit AMA
by Elise Czajkowski
Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz took to Reddit today to answer "questions, complaints, criticisms, etc." and thank fans for "supporting this crazy casserole of a show." Unsurprisingly, the internet had quite a lot to ask him, on topics ranging from the future of television to his writing process to ostriches. The always-exuberant Hurwitz gave thoughtful answers for more than an hour and half, even hinting that might return for more in the next few weeks. Below are the highlights of his AMA, with some minor spoilers for the fourth season (and major ones for the original seasons.)
On any crazy story lines that never made it into the show:
Believe it or not, I don't think there IS one! Because every time I think of something that's too outlandish, I end up trying to find a way to use it. I remember pitching Buster loses his hand as a bad example to motivate the writers to think outside the box...and then a moment later, I thought "Hey, why don't we have Buster lose his hand?"
On advice for aspiring writers:
[T]he first advice I'd give aspiring writers is to try to exceed expectations. I feel like everyone gives the advice that you should write a spec script, and I found a lot of people who just try to write as badly as they think the show is written (for whatever that show is) – people who start the process without respecting what they're writing for. You have to choose something to write that you really want to write.
On whether doing a fourth seasons hurt the chances of an AD movie:
I would say that I'm more interested in telling the ongoing saga of this family than working out a particular strategy for how to do it. I kind of feel like the form will emerge in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated – like Netflix a few years ago – so it's possible that a film studio says "There's a lot of AD out there. Do we want to invest in more" or it's possible that a film studio says "Wow, we had no idea there was this kind of a following." And I think the latter scenario is possible. Just because I didn't think there was that kind of a following!
On his favorite joke that went unnoticed:
My favorite joke is who the real George Maharis is – because that's a punchline we didn't finish. Basically the joke is, he doesn't want to be George Michael, because George Michael had sex in a public men's room, and he doesn't want to be Boy George, because Boy George had sex in a public men's room, so he settles on the name George Maharis... but a little research will show that name has a similar fate. That being said, I think the groupthink on reddit has caught all the jokes that we've layered in – except for the ones we haven't finished yet, which are setting up for a future story.
On guest stars he didn't get, and one he did:
I spent a little while trying to get Howard Stern for something... I did want to get Jerry Bruckheimer, and he was too busy.I did want to get Maria Bamford even before we started. I knew that we needed to get her, and I was willing to move the whole shoot to accommodate that.
On whether Ann Veal was named after an anvil:
Yea, there were a lot of things that her name was made out of – Anvil was definitely part of it. The image of a veal padding pen. And there's an old Monty Python skit where John Cleese's character's name is "An Elk" – it was an oblique reference to that too. Her original name was "Fugly." We were going to name her something Fugly – and then it felt a little too jokey and they fortunately didn't allow us to say it.
On playing with the form on Netflix:
If you look at the transition from radio to television, the first 15-20 years were basically just radio shows on TV. I didn't want to just do a series on Netflix, I wanted to see what the form would allow. And they dug that idea.I think the Netflix model makes [television] a little more like publishing – there are different books for different people, and still within that world there are top 10 books that are blockbusters, and then there's fiction that's not for everybody. In an interview recently, someone asked me "Hey, what did you think of that New York Times review?" A guy at the NY Times watched 5 shows at 3 in the morning and then said "I don't like this" on day 1 – it was a bad way to start. And I don't blame him – try watching something in the middle of the night and see how you like it, especially if it means skipping brunch with your daughter on Memorial Day weekend. And in response, I said, "It sounds like he really didn't like it. But you know who did like it?" And the interviewer said "Who?" And I said "People who really liked it!" (which is true – it's NOT for him, it's for them!)
On whether he thought the Bluth story would continue after Fox cancelled the show:
I DID. There's an audacity that comes with any creative enterprise. I mean, I don't think I would have written my first spec script if I had known how unlikely it was to get a writing job. And I don't think I would have tried creating ARRESTED if I really thought "look at the data of what's already been developed. they won't make this." but I should have – that was the evidence that existed. I don't think I would have included all the stuff about Saddam Hussein in Season 1 if I'd done the math on the likelihood of getting through an entire season to reveal the punchline. And I think that everyone has to jump off that cliff and make that assumption in their own work – because the truth is, even if it doesn't happen, you have a more interesting life if you're to sit down and write a novel than doing the math on the likelihood of it getting published.
On whether a hypothetical fifth season will see the Bluths interacting more:
For the 5th season, it would DEFINITELY be about the family all together. That was always the design. The idea was originally to have them even together LESS for Season 4 – it really was going to be basically 9 stories (like the Salinger collection) that had nothing to do with one another, and just showed everybody's life, so that everybody's life could get to a point of peril, and then the family could truly have no choice but to get back together for the next iteration.
On why Tobias can sometimes be seen lying in the fireplace:
There has been more theorizing about that online – I'm amazed that question got through, because I've seen questions about this for YEARS. David Cross has been approached about it for years, and here's the unfortunate answer; it was a joke that didn't work. I walked onto the set, and there was nothing funny happening in the scene, so I said, "Hey, what if David is leaning back into the fireplace relaxing?" and then when I went into the penthouse in another scene, David had decided to do it again. And people constantly write "I don't get it!" (and unfortunately they DO get it – it's a man in a fireplace!)
On the Michael and George Michael relationship:
I think one of the things that is fun to do and also sometimes generates great material (and sometimes doesn't) is to "paint yourself into a corner" when you're writing or performing or doing anything creative. And it reminds me of cutting off Buster's hand. It's like, what do you do now? And the answer is – a LOT MORE than you'd do without it. So I wanted to get to an honest point in their relationship that was very uncomfortable, so that there wouldn't be a pat solution, even for me.
On the origins of Never Nude:
We had this joke that just put us out, that was Tobias keeps crying in the shower. And then I had pitched – I was thinking about production, and the way they shoot those things, they always put people in flesh colored bathing suits, and I said, what if we show part of the flesh colored bathing suits for 3-4 weeks – and then in the 4th week we reveal that he showers in a flesh-colored bathing suit because he doesn't like showering naked. And then Richie Rosenstock (who's an absolutely brilliant, hilarious guy – and is responsible for so many of the giant laughs in the show) said without hesitation: "Oh, he's a Never Nude."And everybody in the room froze. And looked at him, and said, "is that a real thing?" and he shrugged, and it was just so funny. It wasn't a funny idea until Richie called him a Never Nude, which took the joke from being just a sight gag, to a psychological affliction that really elevated it in such a brilliant way. And then I remember looking up to see online if there was such a thing as a Never Nude – and guess what you can't search for besides finding pornography? "Never Nude" – back then you'd get 25,000 pages with the word "Nude" in it. Even if you used the Boolean quotation marks, you would still get things like "Hot 18 year old who'd NEVER been NUDE in front of a boy!" So we'll never know if it was a thing before ARRESTED. Although I suppose I could just ask Richie.
On the origins of the Bluth family:
I started with the idea of a set of twins, and one was conservative, and one was liberal. And that gave birth to the idea of the children of those twins, where one was fearless and one was fearful. And then a MILLION other things happened. And those ideas are just so deep down in the pile that they're almost unrecognizable.
On why the show cut right before George Michael's chicken dance:
I don't know – it just seemed funnier! It's almost like negative space in art. Or a rest in music. Sometimes it's funnier to have the moment occur, and sometimes it's funnier to not have the moment occur, and in that moment it felt like it would be funnier to NOT see it.Also (*and this could just be personal preference), I saw his Chicken Dance, and chickens don't do that.
---
See more posts by Elise Czajkowski
18 Jun 03:56
"You see, sir, my anus is of such elasticity that I can open and shut it at will. . . . I can absorb any quantity of liquid I may be given. . .[and] I can expel an almost infinite quantity of odorless gas."
Joseph Pujol
by RaoulPrompt
Video:
17 Jun 14:55
4 Tips for Enjoying the New 'Arrested Development' Season
By Gladstone Published: June 16th, 2013
As you've all heard by now, a fourth season of Arrested Development is a reality. On May 26, after seven years off the air, one of the most celebrated sitcoms in the history of television returned to Netflix with 15 new episodes. For Arrested Develop
17 Jun 12:51
'80s Emiliano melodic pro-Soviet punk
by taz
CCCP Fedeli alla linea was an Italian "Emilian1 melodic music pro-Soviet punk" band that performed and recorded between 1981 and 1990, disbanding on the same day as German reunification. For those who can read Italian, here is their story in their words. For the rest of us, Wikpedia does a pretty good job of thumbnailing the group, calling their sound a "genre-defying convergence of militant rock, industrial music, Folk, electropop, Middle Eastern music, and even chamber music." CCP's final album was Epica Etica Etnica Pathos (Epic, Ethics, Ethnic, Pathos), recorded live in an abandoned farmhouse/villa in the Romagna countryside. (exterior shot, and a couple more pics on this page)
Here are YouTube offerings of 12 of the 15 tracks on "Epica Etica Etnica Pathos."
Aghia Sophia
Paxo de Jerusalem (and "Sofia")
Narko'$ (includes Baby Blue)
Campestre
Depressione Caspica
Amandoti
L'andazzo Generale
Al Ayam
Mozzil'o Re
MACISTE contro TUTTI
Annarella
Here are YouTube offerings of 12 of the 15 tracks on "Epica Etica Etnica Pathos."
Aghia Sophia
Paxo de Jerusalem (and "Sofia")
Narko'$ (includes Baby Blue)
Campestre
Depressione Caspica
Amandoti
L'andazzo Generale
Al Ayam
Mozzil'o Re
MACISTE contro TUTTI
Annarella
17 Jun 12:48
O grupo de teatro do Pichel estrea ‘precárias’
by Gentalha
SnobOooh! Hai que ir!
Esta quinta 20, sexta 21 e sábado 22 de junho às 21h00 e o domingo 23 às 18h00 o grupo de teatro do Pichel dirigido por Zé Paredes estrea a sua primeira peça Precárias.. Umha obra que nom se pode contar , porque a hai que ver…
16 Jun 11:24
TOS?
by William Shatner
Does it bother anybody that she's wearing an Abrams era uniform when she's standing in front of TOS video?
Here are TOS uniforms
Here are TOS uniforms
16 Jun 11:00
Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenix
by Jacqueline
Yeah, so about your hope for Kal-El to be the "bridge" between the people of Earth and Kryptonians? Little problem with that.
16 Jun 10:54
See also Mississippi John Hurt & Skip James on WTBS-FM 1964
Skip James - Devil Got My Woman
Skip James - Worried Blues
Skip James - I'm So Glad
Skip James' Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
by y2karl
...James is, of course, overshadowed by the most famous bluesman of them all: Robert Johnson... Few can resist the legend that he sold his soul to the devil, was poisoned by a jealous lover, and died a young genius's death... Skip James' mythos is less compact than Johnson's. James survived his misspent youth, and the story of his later years provides plenty more of the kind of misery that fueled his music. Where Johnson supposedly cut a single, grand deal with the devil—trading his soul for mastery of his form—Skip James seems to have struck deal after deal and never come out ahead. In a way, James' story is the truest story of the blues: He led an open wound of a life, and all he got for it was minor-league, post-mortem stardom.Skip James' Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
See also Mississippi John Hurt & Skip James on WTBS-FM 1964
Skip James - Devil Got My Woman
Skip James - Worried Blues
Skip James - I'm So Glad
15 Jun 15:20
Even nerd misogyny is subject to Rule 63.
by Strange Interlude
"I know the only reason you wear those cargo shorts is to get my attention, okay? I'm not buying it."
Ladies, I'm sure you've noticed them on the Internet: Fake Nerd Boys -- a brief rant on the impending demise of a proud but beleaguered subculture. (SLYT)
Previously on MeFi:
Previously on MeFi:
- It's a weird, sad way for an adult to behave.
- Geek He-Man Womun Haters Club
- Geek Tragedy
- BONUS MetaTalk thread: Where did I read that girls were the first geeks?
14 Jun 19:27
Las calles Carretas y Hortas serán peatonales a la vuelta del verano
by x.r. santiago / la voz
La construcción de una rotonda en Galeras permitirá el doble sentido de circulación en la rúa García Sabell
14 Jun 19:27
Valle Inclán: el último que apague el proyector
by nacho mirás
Los míticos cines del Ensanche cerrarán el día 30 después de treinta años de actividad
14 Jun 19:27
Un evento con chicas en bikini y otro con cubatas causan malestar en Padrón
by uxía lópez
El PSOE dice que el Concello se prestó a anunciar un show sexista y una fiesta de la juventud con bebidas alcohólicas
14 Jun 19:24
A premonición de Pico
by magago
Xosé Manuel Olveira, en Alzheimer. Fonte: culturagalega.org/AVG
Publiquei esta anécdota real, calándome o protagonista, no 2009. Agora xa podo dicir quen foi o autor da frase e o premonitoria que remataría por ser. Vaia como sentida homenaxe a esa gran figura do noso teatro e audiovisual que foi Xosé Manuel Oliveira, «Pico», un gran home.
Hai pouco, convidaron a Xosé Manuel Olveira, «Pico», que estaba de xira teatral por Madrid, a cear en Casa Lucio: xa sabes, o famoso restaurante no que a nobleza, a monarquía e a xente de diñeiro de Madrid danse homenaxes de callos e ovos rotos. O actor entrou na sala, puxo a man no chaleque e repasou o salón ateigado de mesas e comensais, con ese sotaque retranqueiro tan característico del. Totalmente serio aseguroulle aos compañeiros desde o alto da sala:
-¡Vaia redada que se podía facer aquí!
14 Jun 19:02
Please Kill Me: Happy, Happy, Happy! - A Memory of Arturo Vega
by Legs McNeil
Joey Ramone, Arturo Vega, and me in the studio in 1978. Photo by Tom Hearn
“Really Arturo, ABBA?” I shake my head in disbelief as I enter his loft, where the Swedish rock band is blaring from the record player. The record player is on a table, and next to it sits the Ramones' entire silk-screen operation—one long counter weighted down with a wooden silk screen, cans of white acrylic paint, and stacks of black T-shirts. Arturo is busy making another pass with the squeegee over the latest model of the new Ramones logo, the one with the names of Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee, and Tommy encircling an American eagle clutching a baseball bat in one talon and an apple-tree branch in the other. It will become their most famous design ever.
“Aren’t they wonderful?” Arturo beams at me, looking up from the T-shirt. I can’t tell if he’s talking about the music or the T-shirts, since he’s never been self-conscious about his musical guilty pleasures. Let’s face it: even though ABBA is spectacularly popular, no one would ever accuse them of being hip or guess they'd be on the stereo here at the epicenter of punk, the Ramones' loft at 6 East Second Street. Arturo Vega lives here.
That was the beauty of Arturo. He would combine elements that didn't fit, and sometimes the end result actually worked. Though, back in the late 70s, I wasn't so sure about the whole ABBA nonsense.
“ABBA is like some satanic bubblegum that you can’t stop chewing, ya know?” he explains, noticing my displeasure. “Es like what you think happiness should sound like, right?”
“I don’t know about that,” I say, considering his theory. The Swedish pop music was way too loud.
“You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen / Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine / You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life / See that girl, watch that scene, diggin' the dancing queen!"
“That’s happiness?” I scowl, “Give me the fucking alternative..."
“Happy, happy, happy!” Arturo chuckles, mimicking a line from the Ramones' “Gimmie Gimmie Shock Treatment” as he pulls a freshly printed T-shirt out from under the screen and replaces it with another. The song's lyrics are “Peace and love is here to stay / And now I can wake up and face the day / Happy, happy, happy all the time / Shock treatment I’m doing fine.” It’s become a sort of mantra around the loft whenever things aren’t looking too good for the band, which is quite often. Arturo would smile that inviting smile of his and, overflowing with irony, say “Happy, happy, happy!” Then everyone would kinda snicker, suck in their gut, and keep on going. Sometimes a line from a song is all you have to go on.
Arturo holds the freshly screened shirt up for me to inspect. “Isn’t it beautiful! Es so… so… so majestic! Like, rigid militarism combined with that 'Beat on the Brat' honesty, right?”
He isn’t just pleased with his new design, he’s thrilled. It really is an iconic symbol. “Wow, really cool,” I say admiringly. “Can I have one?”
Arturo rolls his eyes. “Donchoo ever have any money? Doesn’t Holmstrom pay you? You know, Legs MucNeil, maybe you should be looking for another job?”
“Doing what?” I mope, knowing that now isn’t the time to hit him up for a pack of smokes and a tall boy of Bud. I only have three Marlboros left. Shit. At least the ABBA album finished, and Arturo didn’t restart it, like he usually does.
“I don’t know. There’s gotta be something you can do.” He thinks hard before breaking out laughing at the absurdity of his own words. “Nevermind! Of course you can have a shirt, but you gotta wait until we get back from London, these has to last us the whole time!”
“Why are you guys going to England, anyway?” I gripe, not seeing any benefit to the Ramones' upcoming weekend in the UK. I know about Malcolm McLaren and the cool rock 'n' roll fashions coming out of the King's Road, but other than Dr. Feelgood and the Flaming Groovies there isn’t much happening music-wise in London. And while those bands are OK, they don’t sound like the future of rock 'n' roll to me. At least not the way the Ramones do. Besides, who was I gonna hang out with over Fourth of July weekend?
Though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, the English punk-rock explosion is waiting for the Ramones to show them how to detonate the bomb. It will only be a matter of days before the shit hits the fan. I continue griping. “Come on, England sucks. There’s nothing going there! I mean, warm beer—you call that civilization?”
"You’d rather we stayed here and played My Father’s Place?” Arturo deadpans. He's referring to a shitty nightclub out on Long Island that’s a hangout for the mullet set, and quickly becoming a Ramones staple. He had a point. There aren’t many places that welcome the Ramones outside of Max’s and CBGBs. It’s a pretty desperate situation all around, even if none of us can understand the resistance to the world’s greatest rock 'n' roll band.
“No, I think we should take over a radio station,” I offer, growing excited. “We could, like, barricade ourselves inside the station and just blast the Ramones for 24 hours until everyone realizes how great they are! You know, like that DJ did in The Buddy Holly Story, how he just barricaded himself inside and played 'That’ll Be The Day' over and over."
Arturo just smiles at me. “You’re such a child, arenchoo? You know, they do have SWAT teams now, hahaha! You’d be dead before 'Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World' even finished.”
“Well, at least it was an idea,” I mumbled, defending myself. “There’s gotta be someway of getting the music out there.”
I’m interrupted by Joey Ramone bursting through the door, happy and excited for his upcoming weekend in England. He's gushing and fires out a machine-gun greeting: “Hey Legs, what’s happening? What’s going on? Where’s the party?”
He’s carrying a few packages, and he dumps them on the kitchen counter before joining us around the silk-screen operation. His enthusiasm for England only makes me sadder and lonelier.
“Hey,” I nod to Joey. “Where were you?”
“My mom had to take me shopping,” Joey explains. “I had to get some shit for the trip, but when we went to get my vitamins, there was like this crazy homeless lady inside the health-food store who was screaming at the cashier. I thought she was gonna murder somebody, she was like really nuts. So we had to wait for the cops to come. I thought they were gonna pack her off to Bellevue, but all they did was take her name and address—and then they just left her there to continue her tantrum, man. The cops probably went back to get more doughnuts. So it was taking like hours, and it turned out all she wanted was a birthday card for her nephew. So I helped her pick one out, a real funny one.”
“You shoulda mailed it for her,” Arturo joked. “I can just see the headline: '27 Massacred at 14th Street Post Office, Little Boy Says His Aunt Never Forgot a Birthday.'”
“She wasn’t that bad, for a nut, yaknow?” Joey smiles as he loops a strand of hair around his index finger. He never stops playing with his hair. Ever. “And she even paid me for helping her, she gave me a quarter!”
“Save it for her legal defense fund,” Arturo quips as he runs the squeegee over another T-shirt. “She’s probably one of these eccentric millionaires who es gonna leave all her money to her cats.”
“Maybe I can get Paul in her will, too?" Paul is Joey's cat. He grabs a shopping bag off the kitchen counter and pours over it, looking for something. Whatever he’s looking for, he can’t find it. He’s even worse than me, and I lose everything immediately. Most of Joey’s mornings at the loft are spent searching for shit—scraps of paper with girls' phone numbers on them, articles of clothing, a pair of sneakers—anything. Searching for Joey’s stuff was a daily ritual.
“Yeah, she probably had millions stashed under her mattress,” Joey laughs, abandoning the shopping bag. “That cheap bitch, she probably had thousands in cash on her. I shoulda frisked her, but she wasn’t smelling too good.”
And then we’re all in hysterical laughter.
“So whatta we doing tonight?” Joey asks, as he stares at some of the finished T-shirts hanging out to dry. “And why does John’s name always have to come first?”
Arturo ignores the question. He knows better than to open that can of worms.
“Johnny says he can’t afford to pay me to go to England,” Arturo explains, dodging Joey’s query. He's become an expert at navigating the Ramones' internal politics. “He said I can keep all the money I make selling T-shirts, so I thought I’d make a bunch of 'em to pay for my airfare and expenses. John said he didn’t know why anyone would want to buy a Ramones T-shirt, but I was welcome to try and sell em."
“Yeah,” Joey snorts again. “Always the optimist, isn’t he?” Joey was already tired of Johnny Ramone taking all the enthusiasm out of the Ramones' creative possibilities with his excruciatingly practical approach to band business.
“I think they look really cool, yaknow?” Joey says, admiring the T-shirt design, pretending to get past the order of names on the shirts. But Joey can never let anything go. “It’s like one of those presidential things, yaknow? That they hang on his desk whenever he speaks? What are they called? Emblems?”
“Presidential seals,” Arturo corrects him as he puts the ABBA record back on.
“Uh-oh,” Joey cracks. “I feel a 'Dancing Queen' about to rape me! You know this is crap, right?”
“Es happy music!” Arturo laughs, singing along with the record. “I was telling Legs, es what happiness is supposed to sound like!”
“No one was ever that happy,” Joey cracks. “Except maybe you, Arturo."
”Oh go on and be your big punk rockers,” Arturo tells us, glowing. “It makes me happy, and es all that matters, right?”
“Happy, happy, happy!” Joey laughs, mesmerized by Arturo’s assembly line production as he silk-screens the shirts. Arturo falls into a faster pace, bolstered by the Swedish pop music. We just stand over him, watching him work.
“It would be really cool if we actually sold some shirts, yaknow?” Joey muses, looking at me and dreaming. “And then maybe we can afford to eat breakfast, hahaha!”
And then we’re all laughing again.
Previously - David Bowie Stole My Suicide Record So I Ripped the Hubcaps off His Limo
Legs McNeil founded Punk Magazine back in 1975, which is part of the reason you know even know what that word means. He also wrote Please Kill Me, which basically makes him the Studs Terkel of punk rock. In addition to his work as a columnist for VICE, he continues to write for his personal blog, pleasekillme.com.
You should also follow him on Twitter - @Legs__McNeil
