June 1, 2009

Britta and I ate dinner over the weekend at Wichcraft on 20th Street, where our friend Sisha Ortuzar cooked us delights like pork ‘n’ pickle, avocado with a burnt chili sauce, and cannelloni stuffed with sweet-pea puree. Thursday we’ll be eating cheesesteak sandwiches in Philadelphia; before our show at Johnny Brenda’s, Friday it will be chili dogs before our gig at the Black Cat in D.C., and Saturday night we will eat and perform at Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker Street in Manhattan. This last is an early show – Cheval Sombre will go on at 7:30, we’ll be on at 8:30. These will likely be our last non-Warhol shows of the year, at least here in the USA.

Matthew Buzzell emailed from Los Angeles over the weekend; he wanted me to know that one of my favorite films, Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, has at last been released on DVD. Matthew has always liked Luna’s “Roll in the Sand”, a B-side recorded during the Penthouse sessions, which was an ode to Mark Frechette, the actor who played the lead role in Zabriskie Point, a young university student who steals a small plane after a riot on campus. In real life, Frechette was a member of Boston’s nutty Fort Hill Commune, to whom he gave his earnings from the film. His co-star in the film, Daria Halprin, also joined the commune after making the film, but quickly got out.

Antonioni staged a great love scene in the desert; dozens of naked bodies rolling in the Death Valley sand, set to Jerry Garcia’s “Dark Star.” Apparently critics laughed aloud during this scene; the film received nasty reviews and flopped at the box office. The soundtrack is unbeatable – Garcia, Kaleidoscope, Patti Page singing “The Tennesse Waltz,” the Rolling Stones, and an incredible slow-motion sequence of explosions at the end, set to the music of Pink Floyd.

In 1973 Frechette was involved in a botched bank robbery ordered by the Commune, was sent to jail, and died there in 1975 – in an accident in the weight room.

He fell from the skies
With his sensitive eyes
And he dropped out of school
With his evil sunglasses
And the desert he crossed
Was a picture to see
A roll in the sand
He had it all in his hand