Heads Will Roll Blog

Southern Syncope

2011-05-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

Some things stick in my memory. Maybe that is what memory is - a stickiness with time where certain events float through one's consciousness. Like flotsam, but with people drifting in its midst. The 1959 Bethlehem Steel strike is one such piece of detritus. Involving a dozen steel mills across the US, it was a strike that lasted six months. My stepfather was one of those strikers. I remember him and my mother living in a housing project near the children's home me and my siblings were in. My mother and stepfather lived off of the union's strike fund, a coffer that grew slim as each month ticked by. I was flipping through Ghostly Ruins: America's Forgotten Architecture looking at photos of abandoned buildings. I am soothed by black and photographs of things from my past and earlier - cars from the '50's, prisons, mental institutions. Maybe it is because I am of that era; perhaps it is due my being a Southern. A malady in and of itself, my sense of time lopes along at a pace that is out of synch with other parts of the US. I think this is the Southern illness. Born and raised there, it was not in synch with the rest of the country. It is as though it has a stuttering relationship with time preferring to dwell in its own past. It was in that book that I stumbled across photos of Bethlehem Steel. It was then that I fell into my rabbit hole of memory.

There's more to be said on this syncopated sense of time that is so much the my experience of being from the South. But, for now, I thought I might just give you a link to the photography of the Southern author Eudora Welty and leave it at that.

Dark Moon Days Off for Vagueness Maniac

2011-03-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

As a means of unionizing against my over-working, vague-about-when-i-am-working-or-not self , i am basing my work patterns, my obsessing about work, as well as the days i close my biz on the lunar phases. Currently, we are in the dark moon aka new moon phase. The actual day is monday although like some cults, cultures, covens, spiritual practices etc., i am noting the dark moon phase as including 2-3 days before the actual event. "Hush crazy mind, hush," i'm telling myself. "No work, no thinking about work. Just hush."

Head Wound #10

2010-12-29T22:06:00.000-08:00

Our first true horror show! The Ring, the pathology of reproduction, and a call from Special Guest Star Dr. Jenny Worley.

Head Wound 10

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Head Wound #9

2010-12-25T21:06:00.000-08:00

Law & Order in Russian! Narcissism and queerness! Book reports on books we haven’t read! And this time, Wickie finds small breasts un-American.

Anastasia gives us the rundown on Russia's equivalent of Law & Order. Highlights:
• The poor man's Olivia Benson mixes with Criminal Intent Russian doppelgangers all in one police department.
• The budgets are so low, the cop station so like a lame dorm room, that they prompt a debate about which is more real—the contrivedness of the Russian version, or the diegetic seamlessness of our homegrown L&O?
• Wickie mostly notices the flat-breastedness and finds it very un-American.
• Anastasia points out that Russians find very un-Russian: (1) the presence of women among the cops; (2) the lack of marriage proposals between male and female cops; and above all (3) "if two detectives have been hanging out that long, how come they haven't had a spiritually redeeming conversation between the two of them?"
• Wickie thinks this all proves communism has failed somehow.
• Jed wishes we had redemption of soul on all our shows.

At this point Wickie "reviews" a few books she swears she plans to read. She also wants to watch the film Live Freaky! Die, Freaky!

Wickie deftly employs "incurvatus in se" to get us back to last time's discussion of narcissism in the Law & Order: CI episode "Prisoner." Why does Corbin Bernsen pull a crucifixion pose? Are narcissism and the "I'm long-suffering" thing always related, or is this a typical sociopathic pity play? Is Stockholm Syndrome just "codependency with extenuating circumstances?" Pity, mercy and suffering are all central to Christianity.

Medical narcissism, Belgian giants and trans surgery: is it a good or bad thing that genius male surgeons are creating more men in their own image? Is everything Jesus?

Also, is the dandy/punky preoccupation with fashion and dress actual narcissism, or the need to look inward to define yourself when the social context gives you no self to express? Narcissism, if you look at it, can mean childish/female/artist/any non-dominant community. In fact, who is really fascinated with himself and must see himself everywhere? The straight white guy. Maybe every person, people, and cultural entity must engage in some narcissism to be healthy—maybe it's a good and necessary part of the process of constructing the self.

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Head Wound #8

2010-11-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

Anastasia Kayiatos joins Head Wound! “The stalking won me over,” she explains. Today we have two psych disorders (at least): narcissism and Stockholm Syndrome. Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by grandiosity, seductive charm, a great ease with exploiting other people, and a tendency to appear in today’s discussion of Law & Order Criminal Intent—the episode is “Prisoner” with Corbin Bernsen. Why the connection between queerness, dandyism, and self-oriented love? Does narcissism put the “homo” in the mo, and even in the tranny?

Stockholm Syndrome, meanwhile, is just so ’70s. (See a fascinating re-telling of the original Stockholm incident in the reader response here.) Anastasia wonders how long it takes for the syndrome to stick, or even to become something that’s a real attachment—somehow Dog Day Afternoon comes to mind. Newborn babies all fall under a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. Jed explains that we know we’re talking about old shows, and we’re doing it on purpose.

The episode is impressively complex and thought-demanding, which Wickie finds wholly un-American. She also figures Goren is a narcissist—and that maybe you can’t have two narcissists sit in one plot. We debate the true cheese content of the “Pyramid of My Potential” as Anastasia shows a devastating grasp for plot that she attributes to reading lots of Russian crime novels. Plus fake feminism, pandering police, and Eames borrows some clothes that fit and some Gorenese condescension since poor Jenny Hendry (the great Elizabeth Marvel) is occupying the puppet role this time.

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Head Wound #7

2010-11-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

Captain’s Log: supplemental. Some strange news to tide you over: a woman advertises on Craigslist for a freelance hitman; Lord Byron died of bloodletting, so watch the indy health care; thirsty migrating snakes are becoming a problem in downtown Australia City. Wickie is reminded of her past in the segregated South. The government warns: “Keep your grass well cut, wear adequate clothing and stout shoes.”

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Head Wound #6

2010-11-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

Enrico “The food is made of people!” Colantoni and his CBS show Flashpoint are today’s subject. We talk in depth about the show’s premiere episode, which involves your usual macho skinhead cops who are nevertheless Canadianly made charming by virtue of (a) having feelings and (b) singing Gilbert & Sullivan. No personality disorders today, but we learn that killing somebody, anybody, is traumatic for the killer.

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Head Wound #5

2010-11-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

Borderline is the personality disorder of the day. People with BPD get attached super-quickly, find rejection unbearable, and constantly find themselves as characters on Law & Order. We discuss L&O Criminal Intent episode “Semi-Detached”—does the title refer to Bobby Goren’s unintended intimacy with Nelda, who likes to use human hair in gifts for the men in her life? Is BPD on TV only for women and girls? Plus, check-cashing corpses and milkshake-slurping snakes!

Head Wound 05
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Head Wound #4

2010-11-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

Histrionic personality disorder is today’s special. Histrionics express their problems through sickness, seduction and drama. We check in on the Hollywood writers’ strike. Jed loves The Wire and got to meet Bunk’s brother! Jed also loves Oliver Stone; deal with it. Wickie just doesn’t care for Women’s Murder Club. If there isn’t a movement into depth, it’s coming off the TiVo. Wickie and the nation of Italy continue to watch CSI: Miami, and David Caruso continues to stand sideways too much. Also, in Japan, people who turn into vending machines.

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Head Wound #3

2010-11-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

Head Wound acquires a second microphone. We use it to talk about sleep disorders—specifically “sleep sex,” and The Family That Couldn’t Sleep. Ostriches fight back against humans. Wickie goes to sleep to murder, crime-show-wise: she finds she must fortify her diet with at least eight murders a day. Plus, the new Bionic Woman sucks and Magenta the Tarantula doesn’t like change.

Head Wound 03
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Head Wound #2

2010-11-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

The word “crepuscular,” megalomania, and why the shrink on Law & Order: SVU is ruining America. Trained armies of psychic chickens go after China’s locusts. Also, Jed says “people” a lot.

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Head Wound #1

2010-11-02T17:54:00.000-07:00

Now that we've got 10 WHOLE EPISODES of our podcast Head Wound available on iTunes, we are going to post show notes for all the eps. We'll also be gathering all notes and eps onto our Head Wound page shortly.

Here's #1, a quick 30-second intro.

Head Wound 01
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Stranded on a desert island

2010-08-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

I really like this first cartoon—lovely connection to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," charming and funny.

Love, cameras, and microphones: What Michael Jackson means

2010-07-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite commentary on Michael Jackson's death, from the Ill Doctrine's Jay Smooth. Hat Tip to Jesse Thorn of Maximum Fun.

Pretty

2010-07-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

SURFACE : A film from underneath from tu on Vimeo.

Cribbed from Andrew Sullivan, who is also the most fun person to read when Sarah Palin is acting up.

Swine Flu

2010-05-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

Has anyone said in the last five minutes what a heroic genius we have in Stephen Colbert? Undoubtedly. It's not just the great writing; it is, most of all, the crazed prophetic certainty in his eye. I adore this.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Enemy Swine: A Pigcalypse Now

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

First 100 Days

Fer Real: a rat on a cat on a dog

2010-04-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

I saw this in person last night in Union Square, SF. The best thing was watching the reactions of everyone who came by. Foreign tourists, local shoppers, the urban underclass, you name it. Everybody who came by didn't notice at first, then did, then stopped and stared and commented in awe. I had immediate conversations with otherwise-aloof strangers about our takes on the comparative enthusiasm of each creature. One couple felt the cat was getting the rawest deal. Best comment, and typical: "Now that's something you don't see every day." This is the kind of thing that really makes your week.

Posting for polymaths

2010-04-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

I seem to post on a completely different area of life every time...so be it. Walt Whitman and so on. Here's the deal. I have found the perfect new iPhone game. It's called DoodleJump and it looks like this:

It's about jumping. It's super fun to play. It's 99¢. Kinda like Q-bert, from back in the day, but upside down, I think. Let's take a close-up look at that little feller, shall we?

If you are a person who plays games on an iPhone or an iPod Touch you can get it here and you should!

Various awesome

2010-04-02T18:00:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of awesome going around, despite the grim clouds rolling around. Here's one: Jacqueline Novogratz was talking about her Acumen Fund on the equally awesome Diane Rehm Show podcast the other day. I ain't an expert, but setting up systems in Africa, India, and Pakistan to employ thousands of local people in doing stuff like providing cheap clean water to their neighbors for the first time—sounds pretty excellent to me. Her set-up is a bit like Kiva in that it allows us first-worlders to invest in the enterprises of people in desperately poor areas. Novogratz has a new book out called The Blue Sweater, referring to a piece of clothing from her own adolescence that she had put in her family's GoodWill pile one day and that turned up, decades later, worn by a random boy she ran into in the streets of Rwanda (I think). She said she grabbed him and checked the inside collar of the sweater—her name was still sewn in there.

Dude. Am I growing a new bone inside my brain?

2010-03-01T18:57:00.000-08:00

Because if not, I don't understand why these earplugs won't fit in my right ear anymore. They come out all squiggly, having jammed part-way in. Three in a row. "Compare to Flent's" it says on the Walgreens container—as if I wasn't having a Kafaesque enough day as it was.

Emerging from Blackstring Hell—again

2010-03-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

Ah! After being vomited out of Blackstring Hell a few weeks ago, I've spent the following time in some foggy recess of my mind. Grisly business this thing within which we exist.
During this time which spread into months (it could have been longer as Blackstring is a non-linear place), I've had many obsessions that the Blackstringers either cursed with or, like a rock climber beginning to fall, I perhaps grabbed onto whatever would hold me. As I stare back, volition remains elusive. TV, crime shows in particular, kept my mind silent. I'd even wake up into the night and immediately turn on the TV. Although a true rarity, I think I have finally gorged myself so badly on the Law and Order shows that like when I ate Lima beans with salt, pepper and butter for three years (of course while in front of the TV watching old Sherlock Holmes movies) I would almost retch if I even saw a box of frozen Limas. This retch-response lasted for about 10 years. I am afraid. Will I have to "Be Here Now" as old Baba Ram Dass insisted in his book "Be Here Now"?

Not yet as two newer shows (as well as new episodes of CSI and The Closer have saved me from myself—Fringe and Eleventh Hour. I am now obsessed with scientist on Fringe. Plus Fringe has cool illness and maladies often accompanied by even cooler special effects. I also find the mad scientist's relationship with his son of some interest. But Eleventh Hour has better plots. I say this as Fringe has that conspiracy theory thing going on. I hated it in X Files; my resentment of it as a backstory/frontstory has not tempered.

Musically, Matthew Schultz's new album Division as well as his website, have also keep me sane (or as close to it as I ever float.)

There have been other things—cool clothes from friends who moved as well as a skeleton closet that looks like it is straight out of a legit funky New Orleans Voodoo shop. And of course, my cadre of friends as well as my brilliant partner in crime...

The Darkish Teal Ribbon for Maximum Fun Awareness

2010-02-15T15:36:00.000-08:00

These guys crack me the hell up! (Hat tip to Chris Ereneta.)

Narcissism 101 with T. S. Eliot

2009-11-03T17:08:00.000-08:00

Half the harm that is done in this world
Is due to people who want to feel important
They don't mean to do harm
But the harm does not interest them.
Or they do not see it, or they justify it
Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle
To think well of themselves.

T. S. Eliot

Nice! "But the harm does not interest them." Thanks, Narcissism 101.

Head Wound #10 is UP!

2009-11-02T16:42:00.000-08:00

Woo hoo! Ten episodes! This one includes fancy Special Guest Star Dr. Jenny Worley, and a discussion of the scary movie "The Ring" and the pathology of human reproduction.

Get it here on iTunes!

PS: If you know how to change "artist" names on one's podcast in iTunes, please drop me a line—I've spent days trying to get our co-host Anastasia Kayiatos added to the credits with no luck!

On Spiders, Shaman-girls and Louise Bourgeois

2009-08-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

I just got a tattoo of a spider. There was a tangled web of motivations behind this decision. The hallucination was primary. Methadrine-induced and 30 years in my past, that hallucination or vision - I can never discern the difference – stuck in my head. Hallucinations tend to stick with a person. Especially if they are of very large SUPER creepy spiders that show up while you're flirting with your college advisor. I am not an actor, but I can guarantee you, carrying on a conversation as though everything is normal while a three-foot arachnid leers at you from over your lust-interest's shoulder, demands a command performance. I think I handled the situation rather well. My Southern training in manners, which insists that no matter what, you remain genteel, occasionally pays off like that.

My shaman–yes, I see spiders and shamans but no dead people as far as I know–thinks the spider was trying to tell me something. "Sure," I said. "Run! motherfucker, run like the wind!" We both laugh.

My second inspiration for my tattoo was murder: I killed way too many wolf spiders as a child. Good God Almighty, those things that cruised through my Southern childhood home were about 4 inches wide and COULD JUMP! Second only to the previously mentioned gargantuan hallucinatory beast, hairy pole-vaulting things scare the be Jesus out of me. So crush, crunch and squash I did. I wreaked karmic spider hell on myself. Thus Veronica—the name of my spider tattoo.

I should have probably named my newest skin art Louise since it was the 30-foot high spider iron sculptures of Louise Bourgeois that I used as a prototype for Veronica. I was particularly charmed by her spidey sculpture that is down by the waterfront here in San Francisco. Entitled Crouching Spider, it is the only thing that will get me to venture into the foreign territory of SF’s financial district (that and when my boyfriend begs me to pick him up for any work he may snag down there).

So there you have it. The tale of my tattoo, my shaman and the odd hallucinations I suffer from.