Day: September 8, 2023

The Rolling Stones kicked into serious gear in this country in ’65 and early ’66 The explosive “Satisfaction” was released on 6.5.65, “Out of Our Heads” (album of blues covers) was released the following month, followed by “Get Off of My Cloud” on 9.25.65, and then “December’s Children” (blues covers) in December ’65.

And then came “Aftermath” on 4.15.66 — the first definitive Stones album, all original compositions, still one of their greatest.

Beneath the “Angry” video is some silent Sunset Strip footage that was shot in ’64. The Stones had been performing for two years at that point — 61 years ago.

“Hackney Diamonds” is obviously a good thing as far as it goes. Better to release an album of original material (the last all-original album, “A Bigger Bang“, came out in ’05) rather than be a greatest hits band.

Tatiana and I caught their show in mid October of ’21 (Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium)

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While roaming around Munich 10 or 11 years ago, I succumbed to an impulse buy — a Tom Rusborg of Copenhagen shirt — linen, light blue, banded collar. I’m wearing it now. Here’s a snap of the same shirt in a small room inside Hotel Bonsejour, maybe a year later. I love the idea of shirts enduring for decades.

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I returned last night to the Wilton homestead, and am only now catching up on stuff.

Item #1, for me, is the appalling decision by some slithering, thoughtless animal to try and destroy the classic hacienda-style bungalow bought by Marilyn Monroe in February 1962, or roughly six months before her (possibly accidental) barbituate death in August of that year.

A presumably thoughtless, soul-less life form recently bought the place for $8.5 million a while back, and wants it demolished.

A formal demolition permit is yet to be granted, but we know how this shit almost always plays out. It would be disgusting to destroy a place with this kind of haunted history, not to mention a place that exudes a vibe of understated class and simplicity.

The one-story bungalow is located at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive.

Built in 1929, it sits at the end of an inauspicious cul-de-sac not far from Brentwood’s San Vicente Boulevard.

The architectural heritage of the Monroe home was and is classic Mexican adobe (overhead beams, classic brick patio, backyard pool). She had bought a few pieces of Mexican-made furniture earlier that year when she visited Mexico City.

On or about 3.1.62 she dropped by the set of Luis Bunuel‘s The Exterminating Angel, which was finishing shooting at Churubusco Studios. It played in Cannes less than three months later.

I’ve never been inside the Monroe home, but I’ve visited two or three times and peeked through the fence, etc.

…which means that in a manner of speaking or superficial speculation that the lead character in Quentin Tarantino‘s upcoming film will resemble a late ’70s version of former stand-up comedian, former HE comment-thread enfant terrible (“I want a hooker!”) and podcaster LexG (aka Mike Gilbert).

HE to Tarantino: If the Hauser casting happens, please consider giving LexG a cameo part. It would be, at the very least, poetically and historically fitting.

Think of it! All these decades of the obstinate, hugely conflicted LexG huffing and puffing and podcasting from his modest Burbank realm, and now his persona may (I say “may“) be on the final climb toward the summit of film geek mythology.

In the same sense that Jeff Dowd is widely presumed to be the real-life inspiration for Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s The Big Lebowski, it could be argued that LexG is at least a partial real-life inspiration for “Jim Sheldon,” the lead protagonist in Tarantino’s The Movie Critic, at least by way of his vague physical resemblance to Paul Walter Hauser, who has reportedly been “offered” the Sheldon role.

Jordan Ruimy: “Tarantino has described the character as ‘Travis Bickle if he were a film critic”'” — an obsessive loner and a bit of an oddball who happens to review movies for an underground porn rag called The Popstar Pages or Hollywood Press. The film is set in 1977.

Tarantino to Deadline‘s Baz Bamigboye: “The Movie Critic is based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag…a porno rag that had a really interesting movie page. He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle might be if he were a film critic.

“[And this] porno rag critic was very, very funny. He was very rude, you know. He cursed. He used racial slurs. But his shit was really funny. He was as rude as hell. He wrote like he was 55 but he was only in his early to mid 30s. He died in his late 30s. It wasn’t clear for a while but now I’ve done some more research and I think it was it was complications due to alcoholism.”

I don’t know about now but a decade ago alcoholism was seemingly one of the anvils (if not the anvil) tied around LexG’s ankle.

On 9.24.13 I wrote the following about trying to save LexG if I had the money:

From “How the Internet Created An Age of Rage,” a 7.23.11 article by The Guardian‘s Tim Adams:

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