pulphack
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Posts posted by pulphack
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the 'is she famous enough' debate is an interesting one. it is only a satellite show, after all. but now that there is such a proliferation of media, then how much exposure does one have to have to be famous? after all, fame doesn't equate with worth. look at it this way - when i was a kid i used to watch this is your life, and the ones that were people who'd achieved things of worth were boring, whereas the idiots who appeared on tv and film were interesting. sure that makes me facile, but the same is true of most of the human race (and i woul like to point out that it's the zealots and intellectuals who start wars, not the shallow ones - we're too busy collecting old ITC series on dvd to bother with that). tv is not there to inform, enlighten or even entertain - it's there to make broadcasters money. and nearly always has been, public service broadcasting being in the minority almost everywhere except here and - i think - france.
so fame just means getting enough exposure. question is, how much is 'enough' now that we have four hundred channels instead of four? the fact that people posted replies suggests that it's enough. may be that should be a rule of thumb - if it gets more than four DL'ers who recognise the name, it qualifies?
she has a famous dad, and now her own show. sounds like any showbiz dynasty...
but how come the USA gets the Gottis, and we get Dave Courtney?
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of course i know you. but you ain't seen me... got your e-mail via the list as well, but i crave anonymity. that's one of the things i like about these kind of lists. not that i would abuse the privilege, of course...
don't worry, i'm not an enemy. and i like old max, even though he can't tell the difference between moroccan stella and the real thing...
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michael - nay, sir michael horden - was the voice of paddington. now that's what you call a celebrity. looks like some of you work at the house of commons, which is prime politician territory. i have a chum (two really, but one doesn't like to talk about it) who work there, and i once went down the escalator at westminster tube behind ann widdicombe before the blonde dye job - it actually looked like the poor woman had a bald patch, so i wouldn't have thought peroxide was a wise choice.
met lots of eighties indie types, and used to live round the corner from alan mcgee and help pack early creation singles into sleeves. had a long talk with bobby gillespie about can - always figured he has great taste but little talent. mostly muso types as used to work amongst them.
did meet Anthony Armstrong Jones - ex-of princess margaret whose title escapes me right now - at some charity do, and he was a really nice bloke, and very down-to-earth, which surprised me. also met lemmy back in the day, but all he did was borrow a couple of quid for the one-arm bandit and not get his round in!
favourite 'sleb' types have actually been those who are minor, or cult figures. used to know Richard Gordon, the film producer and distributor, also the late Vernon Sewell, director of many a b-movie, ITC episode and brit horror epic. and also know the son of Michael Klinger (producer of Get Carter).
but most of those don't count really as have had jobs in media industries, so it's just work.
gave me a chance to be a flash bugger, though - for which i thank you.
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god, max is such a pop tart. he's got to be a good bet anyway, as he must have a liver of Best-ian proportions. last year he had a twenty minute conversation with me - instigated by him - which was very bizarre as he talked like we were old friends (i've never spoken to him before then) and he knew me well. god knows who he thought i was... nice bloke though, if a little drink-eccentric.
mary - is it possible for rockers to grow old and play out careers with dignity, d'you reckon? it's not something they or us think about when we're twenty. but at past forty, you do start to wonder. and i answer my phone at home in the middle of the day - what does that say about me?
(ps - slightly off topic - i hope derby don't lure simpson away - best thing to happen to your lot for years)
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just been looking at the al lewis stuf on wiki, and it still seems to have the same old problem for me. maybe i'm being pedantic, but the word 'encylcopaedia' carries a certain set of suggestions and expectations. you would expect and hope for a certain veracity and authority. now while wiki has a lot of debate, the fact that it can be messed with in ways decribed on this thread and elsewhere means that it can never claim that.
some time back TF posted that he believed that its strength was in the democracy it afforded. this was after i said it was the kind of thing that gave democracy a bad name - given that i was in a bad mood that day, i take his point. BUT only if wiki calls itself a forum for informed debate and information that is subject to scrutiny. some of you may be teachers and have students who turn up with 'somefink i got off the net' which purports to be fact. the word 'encyclopaedia' encourages this sort of behaviour. clearly labelled, it's an interesting site. but it ain't the truth and the whole truth, and if i get another teenager who tells me that... true, the idiot who takes it at face value is at fault, but that's a wider question of our culture that this problem is a part of. and a part i can moan about.
ok, so the idea of absolute truth is a biggie for debate, but there are verifiable truths. the very strength of the net is also its weakness if not clealy described.
i'll shut up about this now. and i still think it's too close to some twot who made a prog album in 1974 plugging himself as a lost genius.
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one of the few things max hasn't done. bingo caller now, used to be a barman (a dangerous job for one wit his liking for ale), allegedly a porn actor (though i've never seen an example of this - thank god), and once was reduced to walking around the Standard in walthamstow offering free copies of his 'seven golden gussets' lp to anyone who'd buy him a pint.
festivals like punk aid and wasted are a bit crap in lots of ways, but for many of the bands in middle age it's a chance to play to more peopl than they may have done in their peak years. not sure i'd want to still play thirty year old two chord songs to ageing punters but, pardoxically, i've been only too happy to go and see some of these guys if only from curiosity.
it gives them and me someting to do of an evening.
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i see the handbags are out again, which is always nice. it's interesting to note that dickie was the nominal star of MATH and RN, and yet was outshone by support on each show: yootha & brian, and the excellent mr kelly. isn't that part of his charm, in a sense: that he gives that lopsided grin and waves the co-stars into all the laughs?
odd thing that struck me watching a few at random: robin has a brother who marries chrissie played by norman eshley (poor sod who was married to dorothy squires after roger moore)... who then cropped up immediately afterwards playing the snobby neighbour in George & Mildred. that was a post-modern moment...
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another dead drummer, but a man of mystery in some ways... Pierre Moerlen, who was one of many to pass through several versions of Gong, taking the name with him at one point to form his own jazz/rock version with his brother Benoit and Mirielle Bauer (aka the missus). the odd thing is that according to one version of events he dies five years ago from cancer, and another is that it was two years ago from heart attack. is either one correct, or is the poor sod actually still alive and tired of hippies asking him if he's dead?
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the wonderful mr wyngarde (cyril to his mum, i believe) fronted a season of repeats of jason king on bravo in the mid-nineties and aprt from a few lines, looked as arch as ever. he won't die, for king is as immortal as mark caine (have you read 'index finger, left hand'?)
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well well, so bradders is a morbid sod, too. wait til i tell rob about this... i think this is just part of your campaign to relaunch max's career. anyway, he's been one of the walking dead for years!
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aaahh... now i understand
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so uncle ernie could truly have been the fastest milkman in (north) west (london)... aw, too contrived.
another dead drummer is paul hammond, who played on the second and third atomic rooster albums. he went about twelve years ago, the effects of alcholoism. if you ever chance upon rooster's second album, it has a gatefold sleeve with the three members sitting in a graveyard looking miserable. two of them are dead, and the other is a bit of a casualty. vince crane topped himself in '89, and john cann lives in seclusion, out near norwich (at least he did last i heard of him).
very sad to see that basil kirchin went last year: worlds within worlds is one of the most amazing albums i've ever heard. and his work on the dr phibes and mutations soundtracks is superb.
what IS it about drummers?
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blimey, curtis gone, too... thanks for that. i haven't looked at dead drummers yet - too many threads, not enough time - but will check it out. drummers: butt of jokes, and prone to unusual demise. you have to be a certain type of person to be a drummer...
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all this french has given me an idea. dickie as jacque tati in Monsuier Hulot Sur Le House (franglais version)
crap? yes - but so is all this needless french
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i'm assuming anyone interested will have seen the picture of him in classic rock last month, looking fit and well and carrying a NEXT bag (gratuitous plug).
roger/syd's nephew posted on a wire forum that he was healthy and happy coming up to 60, and appreciated the interest but didn't want to talk about the past. it's nice to know that someone who's had such severe problems is able of living a fairly normal life. it seems there's no more than the average 60-year old's chance of him popping off.
but he did verge on greatness before the illness got in the way. all we really have are flashes of what was possible. dave gilmour seems a decent chap, and this 'he replaced syd' lark is a bit of a simplification. he was supposed to augment barrett before the illness got too big. and very few rich people would flog a £6m house and give the money to shelter. ok, you could say he could afford it - but how else do rich people get and stay rich other than by being tight?
never mind a floyd reunion tour (they got a bit dull later on like most old bands) lets see roger waters and dave gilmour take a baseball bat t each other and slug it out while wright and mason act as seconds. they know its what they've REALLY wanted to do to each other for years!
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alright so i've just got back from the pub and my typing will be crap but we are talking PJ PROBY!!! the greatest lost rock'roll singer of all time. i can just about remember the sixties, but my path and his cross in odd ways over the years. my best mate's ex-wife's dad (urban legend alert) was the compere on the tour where PJ split his kecks on stage several times. it was deliberate - he courted the controversy and was sick of being the man who demo'ed songs for elvis in the states.
anyway, he had a well-documented penchant fr young girls that got him into trouble - especially when he shot his young 16 year old wife allison in 1980. at that time he was caretaker of a block of flats in salford. before this he had been involved with leapy lee, the singer sent to jail with alan lake for assault (hence the DD connection).
savoy books rediscovered him and made a series of great 12" singles of heroes, love will tear us apart, an alleged rap duet with madonna (yeah right) and his mugwump dance (with I was born a poor white poor in N-wordtown on the reverse side). he also recorded eliots the wasteland with musical backing.
prior to this his he had been arrested and his parole officer ended up writing books about psychic animals. i had a cat in one of his books (yes, it was a scam) and then ended up doing a book on esp for the same publisher and so got to know him. he had financed a comeback CD full of northern soul and hated the savoy guys as they kept pj drinking. he sent me a copy of pj's parole record - i'll see if i can find it for anyone interested.
jim gave up the sauce, got god and went to live in barnet with billie davis, the 60's soul singer who was in the car crash that f**ked up jet harris (so she was au fait with casualties of one sort or another). he liked to paint sunflowers. he was a nice guy. then i lost track of him.
given his past, he should be fragile... however, he's kept clean for a good while as far as i'm aware, which cuts down his chances of kicking it.
and remember, it was on a proby session that page, jones and bonham recorded if not for the first time, then before the first zep album was released.
if you want r'n'r 60's possibilities, look at drummers. tony meehan popped off recently. chris curtis (ex searchers, roundabout and the catalyst for deep purple) is still around as far as i know, but has been a bit iffy for a long while.
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according to her sister, as it said in the mirror (so it must be true). would that be the sister who's copied kylie in every career move? so expect danii to have a health scare as soon as kylie's clear.
danii (or is it danni? can't be bothered to check) hasn't got the arse for it, though
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they should try and get old reg to tickle the 88's for them. if he's a bit doddery they can always claim he's not out of time, just avant-garde.
anyway, after seeing anna karen in these parts a few weeks back, i saw bloody kate williams today while i was waiting for a bus. she's another old dear who'll get herself hit&run'd if she's not too careful. what is it about this part of essex? she's been a bit more high profile than jack smethurst of late, what with her music hall nights in local theatres and hanging around family affairs until it was cancelled. if you could tempt rudolph walker away from eastenders, it's be interesting to have him & kate in a sit-com as a couple, with her ex Jack living next door.
and whatever did happen to nina baden-semple?
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so we're no nearer going back on topic, then... MATH: it's on paramount 2 as i type, and it really is poor stuff. but then most sit-com is. in truth, it's dead - waits for some smartarse to make a crap joke - and a lot of what gets called comedy these days is reality - jackass, kenny vs spenny, etc. so the way to go for any of these old buggers - unless they want to join last of the summer wine (a good career option for the ageing thesp with a background in sitcom) - is to have their own reality show. Brinsworth: The Longest Days... it'd be cheap, full of 'stars', and would have more people on this list watching it than they'd care to admit
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quite right on the grammar. there's a difference between classically taught english and vernacular english - which e-mailing certainly is - and that's before you start on whether or not english is a static or mutable language. one thing i have noticed so far is that all the pedants think they've nailed it then get another pedant on their ass.
and quite right too.
anyway, my outsider for this year is margaret thatcher. she's had those mini-strokes and is going ga-ga; furthermore, my mate who works in the commons has seen her wandering about in less than wonderful state for some time. i think her condition is worse than is commonly perceived.
and i wouldn't rule out maradona. sure, the boy looks fit now, but he's lot that weight quickly - too quickly. plus he was pumped full of steroids when he was playing. add that to the coke habit as was, and you've got a heart attack candidate. notice how many ex-abusers get fit and then succumb to damage incurred? sometimes the shock of cleaning up too quickly can be enough. and anyway, he's a cheating sod at heart so he'll soon backslide... bugger, nearly stayed reasonable all the way through.
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if he can be in malta and the west country at the same time, then why doesn't he just move to bloody brinsworh house - every other bugger on this list seems to be going there...
i saw anna karen picking up her dry cleaning in woodford a while back, and she won't be long for this world the way she waltzes out into the traffic without looking.
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it's sad but true that dear old rog is starting to look his age, but i don't think he's in any danger of popping off yet. most serious caners look like that past 45, but to get there they have to have the constitution of fifty oxen. brian might be a better bet - that homemade guitar of his must be getting a bit dodgy in the wiring after nearly forty years. but if either of them go, what's paul rodgers going to do now that people finally remember who he is/was?
queen were craftsmen. but it always rankles that freddie was deemed a god for everything he did for aids research - well no, he shamefacedly owned up two days before kicking it, and the others did it all in his name. let's be fair about this - they deserve the credit for awareness, fund raising, etc.
however, having just discovered this thread, i find i missed out on a lot of crap about terrible bands... my ex-wife nearly ran mick box down in palmerston road walthamstow when he came out of the acquarium shop. she missed, and wouldn't reverse to try again. that's why she's my ex-wife.
loverboy were crap, at least thor was funny, and the worst band in the world had to be a german band called atlantis. i had to review one of their reissued albums once, and i nearly tore my ears off to escape. reissue: why?
and when will radiohead own up that they ARE a prog rock band, no matter what they say?
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is being in wikipedia anything to be proud of? it's the equivalent of all those terrible tossers who made one album in the seventies and now have their own webpages, maintained by themselves, in the hope that they might finally get a career. it's these aspects of the net that give democracy a bad name.
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don't give fred quimby any credit for t&j under anyone. apparently he was a miserable old sod who never understood why t&j were funny, and was permanently in a sulk because he'd been appointed producer on an animation unit and not on pictures with real live actors (i know, hard as it is to digest, t&j weren't real). but, on reflection, perhaps we should be glad that he left h&b alone as look at the mess chuck jones (otherwise a flawless producer) made of t&j when he was sic'ed on 'em.
bill and joe (as we call them around here) were great businessmen first and artists eighty-second: those bloody awful recycled backgrounds and ten-frames-a-second jerkiness. a lot of it looks dog rough when you watch it on boomerang next to looney tunes, t&j, or tex avery.
but hey, he invented hong kong phooey and he's over 90 - i should be so lucky.
Victoria Gotti
in DeathList Forum
Posted
jovial dave is a celeb villain who got off a murder charge, sort of manages punk band the business, and used to be a baliff. he does speaking tours, books, dvds, and fronts shows about villains.
charming...
however, he's the sort of minor-leaguer who gets celeb crim fame in the uk. the point being, i guess, that the really good criminals are those that are never caught.
unlike mr gotti...