In "The Gun Is Loaded" Lydia Lunch delivers a brutally frank manifesto in a journey through the heart of contemporary American darkness. Her poetic nihilism is set against a barrage of real-life street-action, scenery, news footage, and the deranged music of J. G. Thirlwell.The last Movie Saturday I brought you a couple examples of myth creators, artists who dive deep into our common well of stories to form a vision of what's happening to us beneath the surface. When we contemplate the myths that surround us we get a sense of who we are and where we are going. Or, rather, on the passive and of the larger mediated culture, where we are being taken against our will and against our best interest. Well, this week, let me show another approach.
Lydia Lunch will blast your defences and strip your pretences. She's talking to you, yes you! It will do no good to avert your gaze sheepishly. What she offers is a cleansing. You should thank her.
Edited by Adam Cooper-Terán
Featuring clips from the films:
"Unspeakable" directed by Marc Rokoff
"What is Art?" by Steven Johnson Leyba
"PAINing POORtraits" by Leyba + ACT
Music by:
David J
Jeanelle Mastema
Adam Cooper-Terán
Project 9
A Fallen Mind
and
United Satanic Apache Front
Including samples from Omar Souleyman's "Labji Wa Bajji Il Hajar"
and Eric Brosius' "Trail of Blood"
Featuring Interviews with:
Barron Storey
Billy Warsoldier
Charles Gatewood
Chris Trian
Crazy Benny
Dave Archer
Durk Dehner
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
Geraldo Rivera
High Priestess Blanche Barton
Hollie Stevens
Howard Bloom
H.R. Giger
Isabella Sol
James Luna
Jeanelle Mastema
Jennifer Fox Bennett
Joe Coleman
Leslie Leyba
Richard Metzger
and
Ugly Shyla
Unless an artist has the favour of the money that owns you, me and everything we survey, s/he is an outsider. Here's the mythological construct through which most in the Western world see society through that hides a basic truth - unless you're one of the top one percent earners, you are an outsider. You are owned, your children are owned, your house is owned jointly by the government and the bank. (It's an imaginary distinction that separates the latter two.)
What can an artist do in this age of institutionalized theft and militarized enforcement of subjugation but strip mythology of narrative until the superimposed patterns burned on the mind by conditioning and indoctrination fades enought to show the actuality of how much you've been fucked. There is nothing for you in acquiescence. If ever there was a moment when you had to stop and take a close look at who and where you are this is it. You don't need to become an artist, live like Lunch or Leyba, but the only hope for any future lies in each one of us living our own truth. Step outside.
Featuring one of the last interviews with Willaim Burroughs and previously unseen vintage footage of him during the 50s and early 60s. - The great Beat Generation experiments took place in Tangier, the Moroccan city where William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and the Moroccan painter Hamri taught Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, and Allen Ginsberg how to live outside the law. This DVD features one of the last interviews with Burroughs and previously unseen vintage footage of him in his prime during the 50s and early 60s. Also featured are The Master Musicians of Joujouka collaborating with avant garde Dublin musicians, veterans of the Tangier Beat Scene, and cutting edge writers. In addition, there is music from Bill Laswell, The Baby Snakes, plus contributions from Ira Cohen, Hakim Bey, Brian Downey (Thin Lizzy) and many more.