Found this in the Strand Stacks

Where the Buffalo Roam

I remember once being so low on cash that my friends and I saved money by watching the same rented movie several nights in a row. That movie was Where the Buffalo Roam.

Bill Murray is not a name associated with method acting, but in 1979, he came face to face with Hunter, spent weeks of all night drug-fuelled bad craziness to get into character and nearly didn't survive to tell the tale. During production Bill and Hunter staged a series of dangerous one-upmanship duels. Legend has it that after many drinks at the author's Colorado home and after much arguing over who could out Houdini the other. Hunter tied Bill to a chair and threw him into the swimming pool, he nearly drowned before Hunter relented and pulled him out. Bill immersed himself in Hunter so deeply that when Saturday Night Live started its fifth season, he was still in character. The role overtook him, he had virtually become Hunter—complete with long black cigarette holder, dark glasses and bad habits. His memory of shooting the film are a little sketchy. Bill recalls: "I rented a pad in L.A. with a guest house that Hunter lived in. I'd work all day and stay up all night with him, I was strong in those days and could take it. But I took on another persona and that was tough to shake. I still have Hunter in me, wanting to break out."

The whole movie is now on the Tube. Trivia alert! Neil Young is hanging out outside a bar at the 15:32 mark.

Thanks Bill! (And Neil)

Thanks Sarah...

...for tipping me off to the My Year Of Mixtapes blog where I am now doing my homework on Robot Love, Philly Soul/Disco, Post-Disco/Pre-House, Booty Bass, and Italo Disco among too many others.



And for sending me this advice on how to negotiate a dinner with Bill Murray, including:

• He will commit to memory the name of everyone at the table, making introductions each time a new person sits down.

• He will make friends with the waiters and give them nicknames. “Handsome” will now be your server.

• He will intentionally mishear offhand comments you make about the food and repeat them endlessly. You say, “seafood,” he hears “zebra.” You call the roasted carrots “exciting”; he hears “Poseidon.” As in, “Zebra! I never get to eat zebra! Want some zebra?” or “Have some Poseidon. Some Poseidon. Some Poseidon.”

• He will compliment the chefs by smacking his lips and crying out in mock ecstasy. If roasted duck is involved, he will beat his chest.

• He will take charge of the ordering and the serving of family-style dishes. If Handsome places the new supply of meats and cheeses with the cheese facing Murray, he will kindly ask Handsome to turn the plate around. “It’s the ladies who really want this cheese, and I just don’t want their nails coming for me when they grab it.”

• He will tell his most animated stories when you have turned away to talk to other people in an effort to make him believe you are not hanging on his every word. You may hear the word “tequila” coming over and over from Murray's direction as he mimes the pouring of a bottle into his mouth, and the tale gets louder and, apparently, more hilarious. When you finally turn back, the story over, and when you ask your laughing dinner companions what you missed, they will say, “Oh, just Bill talking about his early 20s.”

• You may, however, hear some stories about Bill Murray from movie producers also seated at the table. How, for example, he’s superstitious and won’t sign contracts until after a movie is finished, meaning the producers have to secure millions of dollars of financing and insurance on Murray’s word. (Which is apparently unshakable once he’s given it.)

• He might mention the Roebling Tea Room, where his son is a cook, and “they’re very proud of their kale.” He might then discuss how he likes to walk the nearby streets in Williamsburg late at night, and how he shot a movie on the south side when it was just Hasids and hookers, and the Hasids would stand outside late at night telling dirty jokes. (“They weren’t on the street reading the Word, I can tell you that.”)

• On the subject of South by Southwest, you may mention that you saw this video of Murray tending bar at a random Austin establishment. Murray will at first enjoy talking about this — about how he went to see GZA perform and brought him and RZA to the bar, where the bartenders told Murray they’d make more tips if he helped them serve drinks. He’ll tell you that he forgot that, GZA, as a major stoner, has no tolerance for alcohol, and that the rapper got so wasted after Murray gave him a shot and a half of tequila that GZA didn’t make it to his second performance at midnight. You might become emboldened to ask another direct question, something silly along the lines of, “I heard that you only served tequila, even when people asked for whiskey!” And without answering, Murray will stand up and excuse himself, never to return.

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

This blows away all my little regrets over shows I missed at SXSW with one giant regret:



Of course those three guys have hung out before:



Side note: Bill Murray has been green-lit to play the part of Terry Flanagan in the upcoming biopic of my life.

Sea Monsters in Space

[This is awesome]

I just finished reading R. Crumb's new illustrated version of Genesis. If you were planning on starting to read the Bible his edition is definitely the way to go. I had read most of Genesis before but this reading taught me something new: God did not create the world.

Here are the first few lines of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Because the language obfuscated itself I never took it its meaning until I saw R. Crumb illustrate it:

[Click to enlarge/improve]

What he's saying is that before what Jews and Christians think of as the creation, the earth was already in a sense there but in the form of an endless body of water. God created a pocket of air within that water, holding it back with the firmament (that is until Genesis 7:11 when "the windows of heaven were opened" and the waters were let in to flood the earth). This space constituted all of his creation with the sun and moon and stars floating between the land and firmament. Here is a better illustration:



This understanding of creation is buttressed by one Biblical scholars' more nuanced translation of the Hebrew:

Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author . . . claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world—and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals . . . She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara" . . . does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate" . . . [She] said her new analysis showed that the beginning of the Bible was not the beginning of time, but the beginning of a narration. She said: "It meant to say that God did create humans and animals, but not the Earth itself." She writes in her thesis that the new translation fits in with ancient texts. According to them there used to be an enormous body of water in which monsters were living, covered in darkness . . . The usual idea of creating-out-of-nothing, creatio ex nihilo, is a big misunderstanding.

Normally if I'm offered two stories of the same event I'll go with whichever one is more interesting. This story really gives the Black Sea deluge theory a run for it's money in terms of awesomeness. I think I'm having a crisis of atheist faith. I want to know more about these sea monsters! Do they now live past the edge of space? Are they like the Acanti?

Here's a bonus page from Genesis where Lot offers his two virgin daughters to an angry mob to rape rather than the two strangers he took in as guests (the same two daughters who would later get Lot drunk so they could have sex with him to have children. Fun!

[Click to enlarge/improve]