language is a virus

Lynyrd Skynyrd is "Alive" and well: Pearl Jam closes Sonic Youth show

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 06:43:00 +0000

And they did a fine job of it. I like Pearl Jam and love Sonic Youth. I have not been keeping up with PJ and have not seen SY live since a lame dollopoflosers appearance. Better than nothing, but still...it was great to see them tonight at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and stand on its comfortable concrete while listening to drooling PJ fans dis SY and Kim Gordon: "they suck, but they rock." That take some serious evolution. My friend Paula informed the guy he was a moron and used the word "asinine". Someone said "what's that mean?". Not good.

But Eddie and the cruisers do know how to rock like good 'ol boys, and they do it pretty fucking well. After seeing guitar deities like Daniel Ash, Thurston Moore, and Lee Renaldo in the last week or day it hard to stand up to comparison. The Pearl Jam lead guitarist was a bit Sabbath-like and not nearly as annoying as Joe Satriani. Thank God. Also major points for bringing out two members of the Avengers to play American Me which had the most politically overt message of the evening. And those over-30 chicks can really rock, no?

Like Bauhaus, I want to say that Sonic Youth does Sonic Youth better than anybody. So it seems that they are almost too perfectly doing what they do. One thing I like about these bands is that they just do what they want and don't give a shit what people think...always an admirable thing. Both bands also do not suck, and they rock.

bauhaus, NIN, peaches, and all kinds of fun

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 20:25:00 +0000

the link, which is for the NIN main site, has a great shot of Peaches singing in the audience...her set was too short and in broad daylight but maybe I will see her again in a dark disco...hopefully. Obviously I am a huge Daniel Ash/Bauhaus/Love and Rockets (the band and the comic) fan and loved seeing him especially last night at the shoreline. David J is extra cool. Murphy has an amazing voice and I appreciate his theatrics. As he said "This is our last show with Trent. It's hard being mahvelous."

Fittingly, I went to Death Guild (SF dance club) for the first time last Monday, so it has been a Goth week, in many ways. Last week my friend K. and I saw Fiona Apple at the Mountain Winery which was amazing: she is the music/movie hookup that brought me out to NIN last year and this year as well.

In other news, I finished Within a Budding Grove, a huge accomplishment, made some progress on my novel, and put together a book of my photographs and other art, using flickr and Qoop, which turned out well. It's a prototype but looks almost good enough for a gallery: I just need to make a few changes before sending it out. Overall I am very happy with it. Now I need to finish putting my slides together.

I am thinking of going to burning man this year, have not even looked for a ticket really, but it could happen, depending on work, projects there.

For those of you who remember my friend Brian's fascination with the Polish singer Ewa Sonnet, here is an update: you gotta have Faith

HP Lovecraft and Family Circus, together again

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:33:00 +0000

Aeon Flux

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 07:44:00 +0000

A good antidote to X3 and other crap: watch a few episodes of the Aeon Flux animated series, not the shorts but the ones where she talks, then get the Charlize Theron film. Great stuff! Weird, sexy, thrills, good sci-fi.

ministry, joy division, and an alternate universe

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Sun, 28 May 2006 05:50:00 +0000

Well I guess the highlight of this week was the Ministry show last night at the Filmore with Revco. Also on Thursday a tribute night for Ian Curtis at the Eagle Tavern: Leaders of Men and Ghost of Curtis played, two excellent Joy Division cover bands. Leaders has a frontman who looked and acted like Curtis but they did a great job of the earlier stuff and Ghost did a great job overall, playing many great songs their first set and then playing the entire album Closer on their second set.

The pit at Ministry was pretty intense, not bad but just a bit much for this old punker. Very intense show, great great great. Purefect. Kudos to Al Jourgensen for continuing to bring it home to the masses.

Saw the new "Xmen" movie tonight. As a huge X-Men fan, Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix fan, I can only hope that this film took place in an alternate universe I never have to visit again. Fortunately Ian McKellen was sexy and lent gravity an otherwise weightless film. Oh well. The first two are still great.

more photos from joshua tree

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Thu, 11 May 2006 07:58:00 +0000

climbing at joshua tree

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Wed, 03 May 2006 18:48:54 +0000

climbing at joshua tree, originally uploaded by ck23.

top of the thin wall, on sunday.

My First Trip to Joshua Tree

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Wed, 03 May 2006 04:55:00 +0000

My friend Mario (aka Satan) is sending me fresh Joshua Tree photos but this will do for now. My first trip to Joshua Tree in Southern California, the desert, beautiful, peaceful, quiet, calming. The rock, stellar. First outdoor trip this year, first outdoor lead actually completed in at least two years, first 5.8 crack trad lead, first climb at Joshua Tree that same lead, my 2nd or 3rd trad lead ever I'd say. A really great comeback and start to the season.

Saturday: some interesting sorta highball bouldering on interesting i.e. sketchy rock. Very fun. Wandered around Barkers Dam: a lovely dark lake in the middle of the desert with water birds. My friends went to Coachella but I felt quite happy in the rocks as I see plenty of live music in San Francisco. Ok so I do want to see Sigur Ros but anyway...

Sunday: wandered around a bit trying to find the Thin Wall with the team: Mario, Tru, her boyfriend Eric, and our friend Nathan (aka Dracula). We found it eventually in Real Hidden Valley and watched a woman lead a 10a called No Calculators Allowed...it ended up being a great toprope...but the big excitement for me was A. following Tru up the backside of the wall to set up the toprope for that route which was scarier than B. my first 5.8 lead which was Butterfingers Make Me Horny. Good stances, great encouragement from my excellent belayer Tru and while I made darn sure my placements were good I was able to feel confident and move up the wall which was short, but plenty challenging. Most of my lead history has been bolts so trad is still new, fun, and exciting. And the windy walkoff was super fun, as anyone who has been to Joshua Tree can attest.

Monday:Wandered around the Barker Dam area again with Satan and Dracula and saw some cool stuff but did not really find anything we could do until we worked on Gunsmoke a 5.11 traverse at the Gunsmoke/Killer Cracks area. Nathan did super well for a beginner as he did on Saturday and Mario looked really strong on Gunsmoke. It was hot.

What a beautiful, peaceful place. More pictures soon.

Bee Season

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:44:00 +0000

I know it was a book first, and obviously a great one, based on the film. Thanks to a great friend I got to see this the other night and it was wonderful. Binoche plays an interesting role and the young girl is really astounding. My only backstory is that I have a friend who is Gere's double: Michael could have got me on the set and I could have met Binoche but I chickened out. Perhaps someday...

I also want to mention that the story deals with a kind of mystical connection to words or language. I certainly understand this as a writer and mystic, although I think that the spiritual connection often transcends words. I do want to say that I was exposed early as a child by my mother to mystical ideas including ESP etc. and while I have learned to be cautious around such ideas I do appreciate knowing that sometimes they are indeed valid and real and have a basis in something Other...

Rashomon

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 07:22:00 +0000

Well I just watched Kurusawa's classic film Rashomon, and before I read or listen to any commentary I'm going to put my two cents in. I have read a bit about it so I know what at least some prevailing opinions are. The essence of the story, or stories, is that there are several different versions of a rape/murder told by various people who are involved or not involved. There is also the aspect of a court or tribunal and the judgement entailed. At first I thought the film was a reaction of a director who is tired of being judged or critiqued or expected to "tell the truth" with his art. And it may be partly that. On the other hand, you just have a story told several different ways from different perspectives, which is interesting enough on its own. There is also the theme of the priest and his belief in the essential goodness of man. I don't know the direct tie in to the multiple stories but he does find a way to continue his belief in spite of the lack of absolute truth, which I guess makes sense. A fascinating and scary and beautiful film.

from england to poland and back

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 05:20:00 +0000

my friend Brian details his adventures and stops along the way. worth checking out. one of my favorite directors is polish, but I am starting to see there is more there...

brian has been my guide through finnegan's wake and a few other realms.

Sartre and music

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 09:12:00 +0000

Bought a new book, very excited, Sartre's "Critique of Dialectical Reason Vol. 1". I had a gift card for Borders so I grabbed it. It seems to deal with ideas around revolution, including the French Revolution, which I would like to write about, as well as 20th Marxist revolutions and related ideas.

Saw Teri Falini again tonight, chatted with her and her guitarist Mark Caputo who is great and had some interesting thoughts on music and some interesting stories. One of his bands opened for Roxy Music on their Avalon tour, and as a result he got to meet XTC when they were recording Skylarking in San Francisco. Is that cool or what? The other band I heard tonight was good, kindof Primus-like but in a good way: Bill Nayer Show is bass, drums, and electric autoharp. They have been around for a while. Good stuff, probably influenced Primus for all I know.

I am a bit wired, but I think Jean-Paul will help me sleep.

Editorial from NYTimes: Adventures in Testifying

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 05:48:00 +0000

from the above linked article, which reminds me also of one of Capt. Willard's lines in Apocalypse Now:

The Justice Department later tried to clarify Mr. Gonzales's comments with a statement so profoundly Orwellian that it just made us more nervous: "The attorney general's comments today should not be interpreted to suggest the existence or nonexistence of a domestic program or whether any such program would be lawful under the existing legal analysis."

the Sheen/Willard quote:

"Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation - nor would
I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in
fact exist, sir."

doubleplusgood

light installatiOn @ Exploratorium

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 04:25:08 +0000

light installatiOn @ Exploratorium, originally uploaded by (jennY).

lovely photo by jennY

interests

keatts@gmail.com (Charles Keatts) — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 06:27:00 +0000

my interests as I have them listed on my livejournal profile:

aa, apocalypse now, beauvoir, bertolucci, black flag, bowie, bowles, eno, buddhism, climbing, conceptual art, cronenberg, dark phoenix, daydream nation, de kooning, de man, derrida, diane arbus, duchamp, fatboy slim, galway kinnell, graphic novels, greenaway, hamlet, heathers, heideggar, heroes, hinduism, husker du, infinite jest, installation art, james joyce, jean cocteau, joko beck, joy division, kafka, kali, kerouac, kristeva, kubrick, lacan, led zeppelin, light, london, magritte, mary daly, massive attack, meditation, mexico city blues, miles davis, milton, moby, mochas, monty python, new order, nine inch nails, nirvana, optic nerve, painting, paradise lost, philosophy, picasso's castle, pink floyd, plath, poetry, pollock, portishead, post-structuralism, postmodernism, primus, proust, r.e.m., radiohead, reading, recovery, river's edge, rollins, rothko, running, rush, samuel beckett, san francisco, sartre, sex, sfzc, shunryu suzuki, skateboarding, snowboarding, songs for drella, sonic youth, soto zen, soundgarden, spiderman, spirituality, sunlight, thai food, the beatles, the castle, the color yellow, the doors, the hunger artist, the mission, the nation, the ocean, the outdoors, the pixies, the sheltering sky, the silmarillion, the smiths, the sound of rain, the south of france, the the, theory, tolkien, triathlon, tuolumne, underwold, unitarian universalism, vegetarianism, velvet underground, very dark chocolate, white noise, wicked, wittgenstein, writing, x-men

most of the entries in my livejournal "blog" unlike this one, are only viewable by a small group of people. personal, journal-like stuff. I like the idea of connecting the two a bit more, as they know this blog moreso than the other way around. as it should be, I suppose. maybe something will show up on a search engine somewhere or in del.icio.us/ck23.