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Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Love & Light, Elizabeth
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
A Very Private Person
I'll be on The Fix in Charleston on Aug. 3, 2014 - 10:00pm ET
I’m going down to the corner store.
I always remember to lock and bolt my door.
’cause I’m a very private person
and I don’t want anyone.
I make a cold, hard living
and I work from sun to sun. Oh, yeah.
Don’t want anyone in, no one to call.
It’s my artificial personality, my brick wall.
Insincere visitors have so much to hide.
They want so to come on the inside.
They know that I’m paying a hard hard price.
But never want to offer any good advice, oh, no!
’cause I’m a very private person
and I don’t want anyone.
I make a cold, hard living
and I work from sun to sun
and I ain’t got no time to mess with anyone, oh, no!
I always remember to lock and bolt my door.
’cause I’m a very private person
and I don’t want anyone.
I make a cold, hard living
and I work from sun to sun. Oh, yeah.
Don’t want anyone in, no one to call.
It’s my artificial personality, my brick wall.
Insincere visitors have so much to hide.
They want so to come on the inside.
They know that I’m paying a hard hard price.
But never want to offer any good advice, oh, no!
’cause I’m a very private person
and I don’t want anyone.
I make a cold, hard living
and I work from sun to sun
and I ain’t got no time to mess with anyone, oh, no!
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Devilish Women: The Tramp, The Flapper and the Naughty Vamp
I have a friend who loves Madonna (who many sometimes thought of as the modern day Mae West). I admire my friend for her marvelous way of charming everyone in HER midst, much in the same way Mae West did back in the early part of the 20th century. But why has society through the generations been so intimidated by women who make their own rules as they live their lives unapologetically?
"A vampire is a good woman with a bad reputation, or rather a good woman who has had possibilities and wasted them." --Florenz Ziegfeld
Liberated women were clearly so frightening one hundred years ago that equating them to undead, bloodthirsty creatures borne of Satan didn't seem so unusual.
In the late 1910s, women were on the verge of winning the right for equal representation in the voting booth. Women were asserting power in unions, and, in the wake of disasters like the Triangle Factory Fire, those unions were influencing government policy. They were taking control of their destinies, their fortunes, even their sexuality (Margaret Sanger's first birth control clinic opened in 1916).
This surging independence came just as the entertainment industry heralded the female form as one of its primary attractions. Ziegfeld's sassy, flesh-filled Follies -- and its many imitators -- defined the Broadway stage, mixing music, sex and glamour with a morality-shattering frankness.
But it was the birth of motion pictures that gave the allure of female bodies an unearthly, flickering glow, as nickelodeon shorts became feature-length films, and the first era of the movie siren was born.
Combine the power of liberation with the erotic potential of cinema, and in the late 1910s, you got the vampire (or as we would come to know, the 'vamp'). [more...]
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
I was 'Like a Rolling Stone'
One
of the most popular songs of all time, Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling
Stone," could bring between $1 million and $2 million at auction. A
working draft of the finished song in Dylan's own hand is being offered by
Sotheby's on Tuesday.
The
draft is written in pencil on four sheets of hotel letterhead stationery with
revisions, additions, notes and doodles: a hat, a bird, an animal with antlers.
The stationery comes from the Roger Smith hotel in Washington, D.C.
I
was never "a debutante who becomes a loner when she's cast from
upper-class social circles," but I did sing this song as a teenager at The Earl of Old Town and Somebody Else's
Troubles in Chicago... and I remembered every verse! [more...]
More fascinating links to the history of The Earl of Old Town:
John Prine
Yours truly
Yours truly... again...
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Remembering Robert De Niro, Sr.
"I felt I had to. I
felt obligated," Robert De Niro, the famous actor, says of the new short
documentary, Remembering
the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr. "It
was my responsibility to make a documentary about him. I was always planning on doing it, but never
did. Then Jane Rosenthal, my partner at Tribeca [Enterprises], said, ‘We should
start doing that now.' It was just something
I wanted to do."
But why wait until WAY after his father's death on his own
birthday in 1993? Throughout
the film, the actor is obviously wracked with painful memories and guilt over
having eclipsed his father whose lack of recognition gnawed away at him, his
life and his art... and eventually gnawed away as much at his son.
In
Wikipedia, Robert De Niro, Sr., the artist, is listed as being known for:
"Painter, School of Paris."
But is that a fact? I think I'm
very knowledgeable about culture and the arts but never heard a thing about the
actor's father until this.
After
seeing the film, I walked away thinking Robert De Niro, Sr. was a mediocre
painter; the actor, an unforgettable superstar.
De Niro, Jr. felt obligated to get his father recognized, though his
delivery does not convince us that he really believed his father was a great
artist. Rather, he's sentimental about
his father's work and even preserved his father's gallery intact for future
generations of De Niros to appreciate.
The actor is not ACTING in this film; he's being himself and appears to
be serving a penance for not having paid enough attention to his father in his
lifetime. An entry they chose from the
artist's own journal calls his son, the actor, "an angel" - for
having saved him from himself, perhaps for having brought him home from Paris
where he was ill and failing as an artist, or for having physically shopped his
paintings around to galleries in Paris with no results.
The
oft-mentioned quote about the artist receiving the recognition he deserves
after death makes us think of Vincent van Gogh who, reportedly, only sold one
painting in his lifetime. It took Vincent's
industrious sister-in-law's (Johanna Bonger) tenacity to make him famous... or
at least to start the ball rolling. The
rest, as they say, is history. But how
will the ages and passing of time treat De Niro, Sr.?
History
is being rewritten, in this film before our very eyes. I got the impression that the actor was being
his father's good son by convincing himself that his father was a great artist
- true to himself, not like any other, unable to fit into any movement or
category, moody, depressive, uncompromising - all the makings of the cliché
artist. This is evidenced by the obvious
omission of quality footage, being that the actor had access to all the cameras
in the world and the artist did live into the '90s. Since the actor became world famous back in
'73, that would have given him 20 years to document his father's so-called
accomplishments as an artist! The actor
obviously only recently felt an appreciation for his father's life work enough
to prompt him to participate in this film.
Another
glaring omission is that they never mention what the artist really did to make a living. It was obvious that he was broke most of the
time, yet he should have been blessed by his superstar son's meteoric rise to
fame and could have spent most of his 50s and all of his 60s painting to his
heart's content AND being documented for staying the course! They, instead, fill the frames with images of
artists and Garbo (he painted her obsessively) - those famous icons the artist
admired. He was in an elevator with
Garbo and never said a word to her? That
set the tone for the entire "victim of his time" theme. He was a lost soul who had rotten
timing? I think not. He was an emulator, an imitator, and too much
of a loner. There's too much more to
this story that we don't - and probably never will - know.
One
"newsmaker" stated that Robert De Niro was opening up about his "openly
gay father." What better way to
start a buzz - world famous actor reveals his dad is gay! However, the short film about his father
never reveals that he was openly gay. In
fact, his own journal writings reflect a man who was somewhat ashamed and
conflicted about his sexuality.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
An Actual Recording Of Arthur Conan Doyle's "Spirit" From A 1934 Séance
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle often wished that he would be remembered for his writings on Spiritualism rather than his Sherlock Holmes novels. That didn't happen. But he would no doubt be pleased that the British Library has provided a unique public service — posting rare recordings of the author, both before and after his death.
More than 80 years after he passed away, it's still hard to reconcile that the man who created the literary embodiment of empirical thinking would become a prominent global figure in the Spiritualist movement. Read all about it in Sandy's "The Mystic Artist" - second edition now available here. [more...]
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Remember. Love. John Lennon.
Auctioning a letter from John. Go here.
Never-before-heard John Lennon interviews from 1968. Go here.
John Lennon as guitarist: "I'm not technically good, but I can make it fucking howl and move. I was rhythm guitarist. It's an important job. I can make a band drive." Go here.
John Lennon's last days. Go here.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Premiere of Sandy's New Single, "Spectres"
Listen on SoundCloud
Masterwork by crippled hands… holding on an angel’s strands.
Spirit killed (by) society. I can’t take sobriety.
Sleepless eyes at unseen dawn; restless nights will never calm.
So why does it hurt like such a loss?
Why can’t I meet such a cost?
(I’m) dying in a gin mill, running on the treadmill.
Throaty is my narrow range; rehab, to me’s, foreign… strange.
I have known no sweet relief; I’m not sure of one belief.
Supporters aren’t my looking glass -
I observe when meetings pass.
Mine is not their rise and fall;
no similarity at all.
So take my flowers, take my song.
Bloody money all is gone.
Don’t want my fears to overcome,
but I can’t breathe, my nerves are strung.
Never knew a strong will.
Cannot take the big thrill!
Sunday, December 22, 2013
"Love & Light" By Elizabeth Baron
The world of the paranormal is one of the most misunderstood and ill-researched fields of life on earth and has, in this day and age, become all but a joke with the broadcast of countless reality shows run by people with questionable credentials. Phenomena beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation has proven to be almost impossible to investigate and accurately document. Elizabeth Baron's research is the rare exception; she has consistently sought to prove the existence of life after death over a period of nearly 40 years. Other researchers throughout history (Blavatsky, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Houdini, Maurice Maeterlinck, et. al.) all tried in earnest to find evidence that there is life beyond this world, life after death. But no one has been as tireless and determined to document true accounts of the many examples that evidences such phenomena; and this great teacher shows us these lessons by the example of her own life.
Elizabeth's memoir is about a real American girl born in the Depression Era deep south - a "Coal Miner's Daughter" tale, if you will, that follows her metamorphosis from a small cocoon to a woman of the world in 20th Century America, and on into the post 9/11 21st Century. She actively sought and found her place in order to live out a highly challenging destiny - what she refers to as her "sacred path," rife with obstacles, pain, suffering, loss and ultimately surrendering to the paternal comfort of the Great White Light she calls her Creator. Her undying belief in the power of prayer, the endless searching through the marvels and wonders of the many faiths that inspired her, constantly striving towards the reconciliation of her physical body to her spirit body, not to mention what she calls the mainstay of her life's work: her consistent message that meditation, going within and the silence of the mind could stop all wars, heal all wounds and bring about great revelations in body, mind and spirit is more than provocative. From the back hills of Tennessee to big city Chicago to San Diego where she studied and honed her craft - to her home in Charleston, South Carolina - the stories are entrancing, enthralling and full of vim and vigor. This book will surely end up having a second volume to follow... the stories are too numerous for a single edition. [more...]
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Sandy Frazier News Update
Sandy has had a wonderful 2013 with the release of "Windows of My Soul" - 25 Years of Original Poetry, Song Lyrics & Art, Lyrics from Sandy's record, "Resurrection"...and songs from "Painting Music."
Her new single, "My New York Mood" is out on i-Tunes and Amazon... [see the lyrics here]. Go here to see the original artwork for the cover design.
The new updated revised 2nd edition of "The Mystic Artist" is out on Amazon.com - with almost 100 more pages of Sandy's writings on art, culture, entertainment and mystic artists of all kinds.
She's working on her next book on art: "The Art of An American Girl" - which will be out late Winter of 2014. This book tells the story of Sandy's life in art, complete with full-color photographs of some of her best paintings.
Sandy's next full length record, "Painting Music," is coming in 2014. She is working with a wonderful producer and great musicians who are helping her to realize her dreams of the original visions for her songs. "Spectres," her next single, will be out at the end of December. You can listen to some of Sandy’s songs on SoundCloud.
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