5, well 6 Times Where I Wish I Was Alive...

You know, the times or places where movements started, seen the stuff people have seen, but yet you weren't even conceived or your parents weren't even born yet. Ya, this is the list for you. And it reminds me of John Cusack in High Fidelity with all his Top 5 lists. These are in no perticular order because then I'd never have a list.

1. Camden Town, London, mid 70's

I wish I was alive during the British punk revolution, going to "Sex" and see the original Sex Pistol's members hanging out. Then The Clash, oh my. My favorite "band," not artist. They are pure amazing, and would have loved to hear them live. I can't believe my parents never went to their concerts when they played. But then they were "too punk" for them. I guess who knew how amazing they would be. Their songs mattered, and still do. I was watching Let's Rock Again! and a fan coming out of the Mascaleros concert, thanked Joe for writing "The Call Up", that's why he didn't enlist. Now what other rock stars receive that kind of thank you? He is forever missed, and I wished I knew them, and could have hung out with them before and after they became a band. The movement still goes on today, it can relate to anyone. I so wish I was there..

2. The Village, NYC. San Fransisco, CA. 1956

The Beat times. My favorite time in literature. It was on both coasts, both so similar and so different. I love Jack Kerouac, and Neil Cassidy, Allen Ginsberg. From the stories, poetry readings, hitchhiking (which was more acceptable then)...to just hanging out with them in the stingy apartments with the typewriter's keys making rhythms of the writer creating a manuscript at four a'clock in the morning, with everyone asleep on the floor with unfinished paintings, photographs hanging from the ceiling...with jazz records put on repeat. Take me there! And let's go on a road trip in a broken down station wagon for the heck of it. Ya. I've always loved movies like that. And because of Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan I will forever love these ideas. Really need to re-read On the Road again.

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes...the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, glorify and vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Jack Kerouac

"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life." -Jack Kerouac

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked..." Howl

"Fortunately art is a community effort-- a small and select community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh." -Allen Ginsberg

3. Italy/France, early 60's...

Well, this one is two places in one. I could split them up, but I'm not quite sure how. Fellini. as I was saying to my brother on my phone "I would bow down to this man, metaphorically and literally...I'd actually stand there dumbstruck." He is my film god. I adore everything this man has done. 8 1/2 started it all and I am now going through every film he's ever done. I'd watch the old film reels from the archive if that's the only copies of his films. His imagery still leaves me breathless.

Then the French, I'm into a lot of early 60's French New Wave films. I also am into the contemporary scene too...Paris, Je T'aime, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement...(mainly because of my celebrity crush on Gaspard...but it's amazing).

I also have seen Umbrellas of Cherbourg (known to be a film where every line is sung-- it is), and about an hour and ten minutes of Jules et Jim. I love what I have seen, but every copy I have gotten has been all messed up during a vital scene. It's all so beautiful, in black and white, where people dressed up for everyday. And cool old bicycles is how they came to and fro into the countryside and city. And people knew art, and argued about culture and interpretations...things were so different then. The French always seem to beat us out way too many times. I am going to find a way to study film in France, their films are so amazing, from whatever time they come from.

4. Woodstock, NY 1969.

Yes, all of the best music, free love, peace. A idealized world that the hippies dreamed of. Well, I have hippy mindset..."high on life"...

All of the GREAT music played there, from Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane...that's the music I grew up listening to because my dad is a classic rock guy. I grew up listening to these legends, so therefore most modern music has got to live up to these people, and sadly it does not. But the band that got me into music was The Beatles..and my taste just continues to evolve...

If I was alive, I would have found a way to go...and all the great 60's films. aka Hair, Billy Jack, etc.

Donovan's "Colours" and "Catch the Wind" playing in background..so fits the mood.

5. New York, 60's

All the culture, the mecca that is New York City. So much culture and places I want to go...ya, the normal tourist places, but yet I still want to go there. The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island (I loved learning about that in elementary school and now...), Times Square...

But I really want to go to the Village, explore. Find all the old apartments of my heroes, and find all that culture. Joe Strummer's memorial, Imagine memorial (I read a book where a girl goes there and sees a man that looks like John Lennon...Harley, btw. Have to go), then the places where the Beats lived. And Brooklyn, Andy Warhol's old hangouts, the big city vibe that I adore so much. Sick of living in country land. It's beautiful, but I like old buildings instead of farm land with combines sitting in dead leaves of corn plants. I just plain love the 60's, jealous of everyone who was alive then.

6. Fairmount, Indiana late 1940's

James. Dean. James Dean. My hero, who I can't describe why. I've been asked, and I always reply with I'm not quite sure, he just is. is. my hero. I read what he loved, and contemplate his life, with posters of him all around my room. Rebel Without a Cause is by far my favorite, but I love anything this man has ever touched. I wish I knew him before he was famous, back in Indiana..I wish to see his gravesite, see his school, and walk the streets he walked...and put a rose on his tombstone. James or Jimmy Dean is so inspiring...

Control

Ok, I read a short posting on another blog, about this film. It showed some stills from the film and seemed good. Let me tell you, it was amazing. It's now on my list to own.

It's a "rockumentary" and biopic, except it has no interviews, pictures of the band, or really any dedications to lost band members. Control is based on a biography of Ian Curtis, written by his wife Debbie. He was the lead singer of "Joy Division," a post-punk alternative band. Now I have only heard of this band a few times, I'm thinking from all The Clash reading I've done.

Ian Curtis is a writer, a lyricist inspired by Bowie, the 60's (it shows Howl and other major works of the times) on his shelf. He finds a band (Warsaw) at a Sex Pistols gig and starts singing showing off his skill using words and instruments creating a new sound that became a movement in Manchester in the late 1970's.

This film was shot so beautifully, in black and white. It was just beautiful, and it put you in the picture and felt his emotion, and everyone elses. It was a tad creepy seeing a character look like a guy I've met. It was directed by Anton Corbijn, a rock photographer, and music video director.

Sam Riley, of 10,000 Things is the actor portraying Ian Curtis and does a fantastic job. It is more about his true life, not what the media portrayed him. The true, depressed, confused man...which eventually led to his suicide. Now every great rock musician dies. Yet some are living legends, but he was no hero by any stretch of the imagination. He was merely himself. I have now listened to all major songs by Joy Division and now a fan. Because of this film.

This film shows the frustration and confusion he had with his two loves, after marring Deb young, and figuring out the marriage was not working and that he was not a good father to his young daughter, Natalie and the hard decisions he had to make. Ian then met a young Belgian embassy worker, part rock journalist named Aniuk who steals his heart. This is one of the best films that shows true confusion and Sam Riley had a fantastic independent debut. He also being in the band "10,000 Things" also helped. Fantastic job, there are some well known actors performances that don't make me cry, and that did.

Favorite song: She's Lost Control. Great song, fits the mood of the entire film. It's so good.

Shot beautifully, with the black and white of Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes, and Down By Law (both films I adore), this man is so cool. Listen to his commentary on Down By Law and you will agree.

I'm talking to one of my friends about this band..well as I've been writing this YouTube videos have been playing. Addict. This film got me into them, and an odd thing is...one of my artist friends on Facebook mentioned The Stone Roses, which I listened for a while and saw they were in the same movement as Joy Division. They are a post-punk/alternative/independent band, with major inspiration from Bowie (who I adore anything he does-- no matter how weird..that just makes him cooler), and came after the Sex Pistols, and The Clash punk rebellion times. Let's just say it was an easy love. The film just brought their name to the table. The rest is history, I am now a fan of this 2 album band.