The Gonzo Daily - Thursday
I was supposed to be going to London this weekend,
but I have so much stuff to do here, I really didn't want to leave Woolsery
until I had caught up with myself. I seem to have been chasing my tail for weeks
now, and I need a breather. So I was very pleased when I was told by the person
organising the event that we were filming that they only wanted one
cameraperson. So, Graham (who enjoys travelling more than I do) is going in my
stead, and I shall be at home with the animals and various people in my extended
family. I have spent much of the last few days listening to Tim Blake's New
Jerusalem and kicking myself that I hadn't remembered what a bloody super record
it is.
Back in my student days I first saw the movie
'Animals House', and spent the rest of my student days trying to emulate these
people. Then, after my divorce in 1996 I did much the same, and I was in the
second half of my forties before I stopped behaving like one of the characters
in the film, and with my health in tatters, finally settled down. I had vaguely
realised that the movie was based upon the experiences that one of the writers
had in college.
Last week Harold Ramis died, and I was convinced
that he had been the writer in question. So in one of my maudlin moods I looked
him up on Wikipedia, found that he wasn't, but that someone called Chris Miller
(who - as far as I am aware is still alive - was. And furthermore he had written
a book about it. I ordered it, and yesterday read it in one sitting. It is
massively entertaining, but one of the most interesting things in it was that
the social group that was lampooned (oooh) as Delta House, had become depraved
party animals in the first half of the 1950s when it was mostly inhabited by
ex-American soldiers who had come back from the Korean War suffering from Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder, and as a result ran amok, starting a tradition which
carried on for nearly a decade. From a purely sociological point of view that is
very interesting, or at least it interests me. And it makes me wonder what
psychological guidelines (if any) are in place now to stop such things happening
now.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: William of Wykeham (who died
in 1404) is supposed to have been the first to have said that "Manners Maketh
Man", but it was one of my fathers favourite quotes, and unlike some of his
watchwords, this is one that I have always tried to take on board. If manners do
indeed maketh man, I suspect that some of the people with whom I have been
dealing over the last week or so are probably eunuchs.
This weekend's issue of Gonzo Weekly is underway, with lots of Rick
Wakeman stuff, a Tim Blake interview and a report on The Musical Box amongst
other things.
The current issue features Hawkwind, Hawkwind, and some more Hawkwind, plus
exclusive interviews with two musical legends - Keith Levene (ex-PiL and The
Clash) and Judy Dyble (founder member of Fairport Convention and the band that
was later to become King Crimson), plus stories on Mike Rutherford, Acid Mothers
Temple, Devo, Paul Whitrow, and the world premiere of new videos by Auburn and
Galahad, and more news, reviews, views, interviews and packets of long nosed
potoroos (OK, no special rabbit-sized macropodiformes, especially in convenient
packaging) but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you
can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
To make sure that you don't miss your copy of this and future issues make
an old hippy a happy chappy and subscribe
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* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want
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jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and
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spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to
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* The
Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about
artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has
other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly
newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this
link:
www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to
things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not
responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest
guv!
* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several
others) is an old hippy of 54 who - together with his orange cat (who is
currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very small kittens (one of
whom is also orange) puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a
tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and
sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna,
his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection
of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange cat?
