and anything else in danger of tipping off the edge of society
Monday, January 29, 2007
R.I.P. Cowboy Lang
I'm obviously a little late with this since Mr. Lang passed on almost a month ago (Jan. 4th) but I figured "better late than never." Why? Well he obviously deserves a spot on this blog because of his stature, but (as stated below) he also died here on the cold, cold streets of Portland.
As a wrestler, Cowboy Lang played some of the biggest venues in the sport on some of the biggest nights -- Madison Square Garden, the Superdome, the Metrodome forWrestleRock. But at the end of his life, he died virtually penniless, a homeless person on the streets of Portland, Ore. He was 56.
In his autobiography, Ric Flair talked about Cowboy Lang behind the scenes. "He'd walk around the dressing room in his cowboy hat and boots, with his dick hanging practically below his knees. He was a good guy, and loved to party after the shows. But he always expected me to get him laid," Flair wrote, launching into more sordid details.
Ever wonder what the guys you went to high school with are doing right now? Me neither. Except when I stumble onto one of them searching the internets...
Jason Wayne Rose Born: 1/10/68 Sentenced to death: 5/16/1989 Rose was convicted in the 1988 machete attack and strangulation of Melissa Ann Meyer, 19, whose body was found near a water-filtration plant in Springfield in 1988. Prosecutors said Rose and a companion, John Ray Jones, spent an hour killing Meyer in a ritualistic human sacrifice. Jones was sentenced to life in prison. Rose was one of nearly two dozen Oregon Death Row inmates whose sentence was overturned by a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
I know, you think I'm screwing with ya. But I'm not. I shared many a class with this guy from the sixth-grade until he dropped out sometime during our senior year. Hell, we were in band together. I even remember watching the news when they was hauled him in for this crime--dishevelled hair dyed jet-black, all pale and pasty except for black Dolphin shorts and pair of black Nikes. Yep, one of Springfield High's proudest moments. What I didn't know, though, was the following tidbit.
Interesting fact: Rose in 1997 filed a civil rights lawsuit, claiming that state corrections officials were violating his constitutional right to exercise his faith when they took away his Dungeons and Dragons game.
In doing a little research on strange Oregon sights, I stumbled upon the fascinating story of inventor Frances Gabe and her unique home. Located in nearby Newberg, this home does exactly as advertised-- it cleans itself at the push of a button. Well, let's let the folks at About.com explain it:
Each of the rooms in the termite-proof, cinder block constructed, self-cleaning house is fitted with a 10-inch, ceiling-mounted cleaning/drying/heating/cooling device. The walls, ceilings and floors of the house are covered with resin, a liquid that becomes water-proof when hardened. The furniture is made of a water-proof composition, and there are no dust-collecting carpets anywhere in the house. At the push of a sequence of buttons, jets of soapy water wash the entire room. Then, after a rinse, the blower dries up any remaining water that hasn’t run down the sloping floors into a waiting drain.
Sounds interesting enough, right? If not a little too mainstream for my usual posts. Well, that's what I thought until I stumbled upon the following clip at Weird America.com. It's a great lesson for us all: Clean up after yourself or you may be killed!
Until now, the 2008 presidential field was wide open. That is until Larry Flynt threw his hat in the ring and chose W's brother Jeb as his running mate. Now let's hope the White House is both wheel-chair and porn accessible.
(Thanks to Russ for this clip)
Oh, and how about some outstanding (and relevant) logic from our soon-to-be Pornographer-in-Chief. (It's definitely not suitable for work).
You may remember Oliver Reed from Oliver!,The Three Musketeers and (his last film) Gladiator. Impressive, sure. But who knew he was also a world-renowned hellraiser? So much so that his friends had a nickname for him when he got so shit-faced he turned mean-- Mr. Nasty. If I'd known all this I might've followed his career more closely. Luckily I've stumbled on a few clips in all his drunken talk-show glory:
I'll also include links to a BBC documentary on him (in five parts). It shows more of his hellraising (especially pts. 4 & 5) as well as interesting tidbits like his disdain for the rich and famous (he always brought his old working-class drinking buddy "Dobbo" to the high society parties so he'd have someone to drink with). Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5
Are you familiar with Roky Erickson? Well, if you like Halloween, rock music, and certifiably insane individuals, you should. You see, Roky Erickson is a kick-ass guitarist, writes great music-- oh, and he's also crazy as a moon-bat. You see, in the 60's, Roky was a founding member of The 13th Floor Elevators, arguably the first Psychedelic band ever. Then, in 1969, he was busted for pot (he had one joint on him) in Austin, Texas. Instead of going to prison for ten years, though, he pled insanity and was sent to the Rusk State Hospital for the criminally insane where he received electroconvulsive and Thorazine treatments. When he was released in 1972 he was full-fledged lunatic, obsessed with the occult and b-rated horror movies. And that's where Creedence Clearwater's Stu Cook comes in.
In 1979, Cook began working with Roky, hoping to channel some of his "energies" into an album. The only problem was that, at this time, Roky was back in the loony-bin. Well, let's let Stu finish the story:
"Initially, when I started working with him, he was incarcerated in a Texas State mental hospital in Austin. The task at hand was to get him sprung from there to take him to recording sessions (laughs). I went actually down to the hospital with Craig (a friend of Roky's). I was going to go out and meet Roky's doctor and explain to him what was going on. That I needed to get him for a while and bring him back at the end of the day. I'll never forget this--I had to wear a tie. I didn't have one at the time, so I borrowed one from Craig. I was wearing this tie, I went into the mental hospital, and all the inmates, the patients, started acting weird to me. Because I had a tie on, they thought I was a doctor. I walk into this room, and there's just all this people drooling and popping the walls. It's like bedlam. Then we got Rock, and Rock was calm, he's on his medication. When he takes his medication, as bad as that stuff is in the long term, it definitely works in the long term. He was cooperative, inquisitive, alert. But not really focused on the recording."
"I finally figured out, the way to do it is to just get him in the studio and just keep coming at him. Don't let him have a chance to start talking about his apartment or dinner. Just keep him with flooded with musical paths. That way, I found I could keep his attention. And whenever he started to lose it, I'd use my bag of tricks.
(And, about his lyrics): "He's very concerned about aliens and things like that, other life forms, interplanetary invasion and stuff like that. His darkest psychosis--there's that fear, and all that concern about that. "Creature With the Atom Brain," "Night of the Vampire," "Two-Headed Dog." One of my favorite songs by him, and I think I consider it a love song, is "I Think of Demons." "I think of demons for you" is the hookline for the chorus."
What resulted is Roky's best album, "The Evil One" (pictured above). In addition to the one's listed above, it includes tracks entitled, "Bloody Hammer,""Don't Shake Me Lucifer," and "Stand for the Fire Demon." If you don't already own it, go out and buy it, now!
For the final sell, here's a clip of Roky performing "It's a Cold Night for Alligators."
