Tonight is the last night of The First Night of The Living Van Vliet Festival. A strange white kid who grew up in the Mojave Desert and somehow developed mutated dna vocal abilities giving him the super powers to somehow cross breed Otis Redding and Alien Amphibian mating calls from another planet in another galaxy. An esthetic that mixed Delta Blues with Hugo Ball Dada poetry. An ability to compose music that deconstructed and reconstructed itself as you listened to it. A totally original American phenomena who happened to be able to profoundly change the way we play, listen to and the way we think about music even if you never heard of him. This is another piece off of his first commercial 1967 recording, Safe As Milk...The song is an authentic Delta Blues by Robert Pete Williams who recorded it in 1959. Here's Robert Pete Williams Version:
I want to thank mikeb302000 for instigating and curating this event. It's given me a chance to reconnect with Captain Beefheart and the strange thread I've been unraveling from the sweater of my life. We barely scratched the surface and it seems that more and more archival material surfaces all the time...so I'm getting out my pick axe cause I got to dig a little deeper and get ready for the next
After a day with out internet, I am trying to catch up...Let's see how the Arizona/Michigan Republican Presidential Primary wins by Romney spin out...did Romney cheat? Did the Republicans prove again that they cannot be trusted to hold an honest election even in their own little house of marked cards? What ever.... I asked my Main Man, Dr Biggee Dee D Dawkins to dedicate a hip hop rap piece to Little Rickie just to cheer the little tragic muthafucka up...
I design more thangz than god, came up with the word ‘meme’
and my extended phenotype is making bitches so keen
when they go down on me they swallow my selfish genes
I am dedicating this to Little Rickie Santorum. The legendary John Peel presented this stunning compilation of the absolutely most demonically terrible pop performances ever presented on BBC.
I could not post yesterday because we lost our electricity here in La Sechere! Candles and an early bed time.... The power came on around 9 am this morning. A mystery. So, to celebrate, I'm doing a little surrealist stand up comedy!
Monday, February 27, 2012
Rarely does a commercial film live up to the hype. The Artist deserves the awards it got on many levels. Besides being engagingly inventive and entertaining, it was a film about film. A film where the process of fim making was the sub text. It celebrated and slyly paid homage to the great film makers of the past. In a world of ever more complex special effects and budgets, the special effects in The Artist were sheer simplicity, style and acting! Great cast and the best film doggie I've seen in years. Maybe the world will finally forgive Dujardin for Brice de Nice!
I am continuing my posting on fracking in The USA. Particularly in the Marcellus Shale formation thgat extends through upstate NY through Pennsylvania and into Ohio which is currently being aggressively developed more rapidly than it is possible for the residents to organize to effectively protect their homes, communities and the environment. Fracking is being successfully fought here in France and now in New Zealand, but in The USA, you have state agencies actively obstructing citizens getting the information they need to stop corporate abuses. Under Gov. Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania, officials have raised the protection of gas drilling companies to an art form:
EVANS CITY, Pa. (AP) — A western Pennsylvania woman says state environmental officials refused to do follow-up tests after their lab reported her drinking water contained chemicals that could be from nearby gas drilling. At least 10 households in the rural Woodlands community, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, have complained that recent drilling impacted their water in different ways. The Department of Environmental Protection first suggested that Janet McIntyre's well water contained low levels of only one chemical, toluene. But a review of the DEP tests by The Associated Press found four other volatile organic compounds in her water that can be associated with gas drilling. DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday said on Friday that the low chemical concentrations were not a health risk, and suggested that the contamination may have come from the agency's laboratory itself or from abandoned vehicles on or near the property. But Sunday didn't answer why DEP failed to do follow-up tests if the DEP suspected that its own lab was contaminated. One public health expert said the lack of follow-up tests by DEP doesn't make sense. "DEP cannot just simply walk away," said Dr. Bernard Goldstein, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.
As a graphic artist who has had a long time passion for graphite, I learned that the most important tool of the drawing process, for me, was the erasure. This is another film by the Montreal based Surrealist, Alex Fatta. Here he combines automatic drawing, graphite, erasure and stop action animation to create a brilliantly perturbing evolving experience. Fatta is one of my current favorite artists.
Look, I really don't want to know what an Alabama Three way is. I am having a very hard time believing that this headline was written in an objective manner, but then perhaps, that is the up side of having a filthy mind. I hope it's not a joke that starts with, "Well, Rick Santorum walks into a bar and sitting there is a Catholic priest having a drink with his date, a donkey...."
Rather than further soil my pristine mind with a sordid photoshop episode, I'll give you the photo of Mitt Romneys reely beeg Detroit rally at Ford Field:
and, the even bigger protest out side as he was speaking:
Well, this is a bona fide Night of The Living Van Vliet Miracle! Hallelulah and Amen!
You never know what you are going to find once you start looking. This is a really bad quality, badly lit tape of an almost incoherent, but what is coherent? performance by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band at the long gone legendary Mudd Club in Soho...well now more fashionably, Tribeca below Canal Street in Manhattan. The Talking Heads refer to the Mudd Club in Life During Wartime and it was the club that Scorcese's After Hours was shot in.
This was shot around 5 am after they had played at The Irving Plaza, the night John Lennon was assassinated. How do I know so much about this? I was there. I have to thank this bookhaven fellow for posting so much incredible archival Van Vliet stuff! He has piano rehearsal sketch tapes by The Captain...
Please check out the postings on zencomix and of course the grandmaster of the festival.
Let's step into the Wayback Machine with Mr. Peabody and his pet human, Sherman and set it for say, June1980, Tompkins Square Park on Avenue A and East 7th Street in Lower Manhattan. Why, there's that French/American band, Belle Star. They are going to play their soon to be released record, Be In / Sweet Paranoia! There's Janet, Didier the guitarist, Tim the drummer and a guy named Microdot who was just learning how to play bass
poster by David Koepp/1981 this material just resurfaced thanks to Graham Dawson! Thanks Graham!
Newt Gingrich's s-pac manservant Rick Tyler broods that in the expansive wasteland of Mitt Romney's total war and scorched-earth campaigns, "there will be no one left to vote against Barack Obama." And Newt Gingrich's manservant may not be far from the truth. We've watched the collective conservative attention span as it is captivated by and then bored with one contestant after another. Once it was Perry Kong. Then it was Super Newt. Now it's Astro Santorum. The super pacs are plugging their quarters into the slot trying to keep the game alive and the gamers interest fresh. After how many debates, how many rounds of video poker and how many more to go? Video Game fatigue is not only setting in, it's becoming virtual reality
Look at it this way: X.
Which is to say, political psychologists have long agreed that negative advertising's collateral damage, in any general election season, lies in the alienation of independent voters, while in primary seasons its chief aim is to drive all but friendly partisans within the broader partisan camp of party into despair, indifference, and dormancy. This, the GOP's presidential candidates have accomplished admirably: out of Maine's more than 1.3 million residents, for example, scarcely 6,000, or 0.4 percent, bothered with civic duty.
Republican genocide is taking a prodigious toll, and one must ponder its lasting effect. For about a quarter-year now we've witnessed massive air campaignsof charges and countercharges of malfeasance, fiscal recklessness, "serial hypocrisy" and "corporate raiding" and "blood money" -- the war portends no delimitation, only escalation. When, however, this civil war officially concludes, and two-party belligerency commences, one easily envisions Republican enthusiasm as the top-left-to-bottom-right line in an 'X' graph. That is, there will be casualties and durable animosities lingering within the GOP base, which should materialize in lower turnout.
Meanwhile, though, Barack Obama will possess an unmolested, essentially unified and motivated base, translating into the 'X's' bottom-left-to-upper-right line. In other words, the scourge of polarization could actually work to Obama's advantage; or, put another way, the independent vote may prove to be of lesser importance in 2012 than in preceding elections.
With Obama and Mr. X (X=Romney and it will be Romney, because in the long run, he's got the deepest pockets and the players with the most quarters to pump into the arcade) blasting away at each other with martial abandon, independents will doubtless experience the selfsame despair the GOP base is now experiencing. In brief, independents could likely stay at home, which would cut into Obama's numbers. Yet while Obama has a unified and (given Obama's stump skills) energized base to work with, the disaffected, demoralized and despairing GOP base -- see Tyler, above: "there will be no one left to vote against Barack Obama" -- could likely stay home as well.
Thus the rough and enduring equilibrium of this nation's left and right camps could be thrown into a vast disequilibrium on the only day that will matter: November 6. The real game is getting Democrats to actually vote and ensuring that the Republicans can't tilt the machine by fixing the game, because that is the only real game plan they have. Cheating.
This beautiful song is dedicated to Little Ricky. I think, if he should get the nomination as the annointed presidential candidate of the of The GOP, this must be his theme song.
Performed by the lovely Harriet Hilliard, who as we all know became Mrs. Ozzie Nelson, Mother of David and another Ricky....
Here's a clip of Little Rickie doing what he does best...Just pure lying and talking shit. You can put stuff in his mouth like the guy who does the great Bad Lip Reading videos does, but if you really listened to the the Real Little Rickie, he does a great job of it by his own little self. In this clip, he pontificates about abortion and euthanasia in the Netherlands. It doesn't matter that he doesn't know what he is talking aout and he just pulling phony figures out of his ass. His ignorant fan base couldn't give a damn, they don't need facts, they don't need to actually think...Little Rickie tells them what to think. And, of course, we can blame the totally lame American Media for their softball intellectually vapid interviews. (David Gregory? Am I talkin' to you?)
No wonder the rest of the world is appalled at this clown. He is an international laughing stock and making America the Butt of his joke. This clip generated a bit of controversy in Holland. Here's the link for a reddit page of comments about it. Here are a few of the Dutch comments...I warn you, as I warn everyone, The Dutch can't really be trusted with the concept of "humor"...as we understand it:
Santorum is wrong. It's actually much worse than that. I remember this one time my grandmother got so high on drugs at a government organised prostitution party she lost her ’Please don't euthanise me' bracelet. She was euthanised on the spot. Also, children under 12 are required to wear a 'Please don't abort me' bracelet. Only if they don't want to be aborted obviously.
Well there you have the ugly truth. I have to go now as I have to drive my GF to her weekly abortion. Bye!
Americans should start wearing please don't taze me bracelets
We mainly try to avoid wearing anything electrically conductive.
I wear a self-made shirt with two electrical plates charged to a million volts or so. It sends a large bucked of electrons back to the tazer so it explodes in the user's hand rendering it useless.
I am not familiar with this notation. How many Libraries of Congress does a bucked of electrons convert to?
Make sure you wear the 'Please don't same-sex-marry me' bracelet!
I noticed sir, you've forgotten yours and I gay married you while you weren't looking.
.....A cup of tea would be wonderful, darling.
I have to go now as I have to drive my GF to her weekly abortion.
If Netherlanders ovulate weekly, how long do their periods last?
One and a half hours, at which time you see the bars filled with married men. That's right, every woman begins their period at the same time. Sometimes you can hear the nagging from the other side of the world.
careful you dont get stopped by the police and get euthanised on the spot for speeding
My wife is Dutch about about shit herself with anger from watching this clip. DO NOT SHOW THIS CLIP TO YOUR DUTCH SPOUSE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO CHANGE HER PANTS
Why do you have to change your wife's pants? She's a grown woman, isn't she?
She was wearing a PLEASE CHANGE MY PANTS bracelet
Don't mind what Rick Santorum says; the man is a fucking idiot. Unfortunately, so is half of America.
This is my answer to critics of the Obama administration's economic policies in a single word: Europe. As Paul Krugman's NYT column Sunday pointed out, most of the governments in Europe actually tried what the president's critics have been demanding. They cut government spending, tried to reduce deficits, and encouraged people to practice austerity. The results have been slow or negative growth, high unemployment, and high interest rates. Whereas in the United States, where at least at the federal level we increased government spending and cut taxes, we have seen a return to economic growth, reduced unemployment and low interest rates. Krugman has consistently suggested that if we had run even bigger deficits, and used that money to assist state governments in maintaining public sector employment, we could have done even better.
I am a European resident. Even here in France, the austerity measures that benefit the coporations in the short term have daily driven up the hardships on the general population, It is hardly trickle down, it is an icy cold shower of economic reality that stifles small businesses, drives up the cost of living for every basic neccessity of life. We are told that, hey! the cost of living is actually going down, but as you know even in the USA, economic smoke and mirror type statements like this rely on factoring in the ever decreasing price of imported items, like clothing from Asia and expensive one time purchases like computers and lcd televisions. This is on the level of Rick Santorum 's idiotic comparison of the daily neccessity of buying prescription drugs for the survival of a child to the cost of an Apple I Pad. Austerity causes economies to self destruct from the bottom up while creating social upheaval. Greece is immolating itself. Germany, while a model for international trade has a totally moribund national economic growth. Spain is smoldering. Portugal is the pathetic saucer eyed poster child, they will never have a yacht. England? Will there always be an England?...perhaps, or a dried mummified husk of something that once was.
These are hard lessons to grasp. Common sense tells most people that if our income falls during tough times, we must cut back on spending. That might work for individual families, but when the government tries it, the result is only to prolong the economic downturn. That's because the government needs to make up for the reduction in consumer spending by maintaining and even increasing, public sector spending. I think another part of the reason we are afraid to increase spending during a recession is that we mis-define the problem. A lot of people think the problem began with, or continues to be the debt. And so they make the common sense assumption that you can't spend your way out of debt. You will only make the debt worse. But what if the main problem was not the debt? What if the problem was economic contraction? It turns out you can spend your way out of that because spending causes economic expansion. We can turn our attention to deficit reduction after we have restored the economy to growth.
People who question or criticize these assumptions behind the administration's economic policies of the last three years should have an obligation to point to a working model that proves that a policy of reduced government spending would have led to a better result. The counter-model turns out to be right in front of us. It is Europe, where misguided austerity policies seem to be leading that continent to a double dip recession. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the economic situation is improving every day. Our major economic concerns right now are that Europe's mishandling of its economic problems could affect our economy; and that the American opposition party's plans for reduced government spending could cause us the same kinds of problems they are experiencing in Europe. If we didn't have to worry so much about people with the wrong answers trying to undo the progress of the last several years, we would be able to enjoy and appreciate that progress a lot more.
If you haven't already seen this, here is the link to the great Greek produced documentary about how the economic crisis in Greece evolved and who the major players are who should be doing the Perp Walk instead of collecting those bonuses. Here is the link to Debtocracy:
Oh, I do believe that this is the 13th Night of the Living Van Vliet. I have been remiss, a slacker a negligent acolyte..So to perform penance, I am going to publish a list, I am engaging in an true act of worshipful obeissance contrition. Take heed, listen and learn ye who art unworthy. These are Captain Beefhearts 10 Sacred Commandments of Guitar Playing:
1.Listen to the birdsThat’s where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren’t going anywhere.
2. Your guitar is not really a guitar Your guitar is a divining rod
Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you’re good, you’ll land a big one.
3. Practice in front of a bush
Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush dosen’t shake, eat another piece of bread.
4. Walk with the devil
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the “devil box.” And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you’re bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
5. If you’re guilty of thinking, you’re out
If your brain is part of the process, you’re missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.
6. Never point your guitar at anyone
Your instrument has more clout than lightning. Just hit a big chord then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.
7. Always carry a church key
That’s your key-man clause. Like One String Sam. He’s one. He was a Detroit street musician who played in the fifties on a homemade instrument. His song “I Need a Hundred Dollars” is warm pie. Another key to the church is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf’s guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty-making you want to look up her dress the whole time to see how he’s doing it.
8. Don’t wipe the sweat off your instrument
You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.
9. Keep your guitar in a dark place
When you’re not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don’t play your guitar for more than a day, be sure you put a saucer of water in with it.
10. You gotta have a hood for your engine
Keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house, the hot air can’t escape. Even a lima bean has to have a piece of wet paper around it to make it grow.
I beg forgiveness from my more worthy blog buddies, who have been faithfully keeping the vigil lamp full of the sacred oil and well lit. Mikeb302000 andZencomix
19. shall identify the specific identity and amount of any chemicals
20. claimed to be a trade secret or confidential proprietary
21. information to any health professional who requests the
22. information in writing if the healthy professional who requests the information executes a
23. confidentiality agreement in writing and provides the written statement of
24. need for the information indicating the following:
25. (i) The information is needed for the
26. purpose of diagnosis or treatment of an individual.
27. (ii) the individual being diagnosed or treated
28. may have been exposed to a hazardous chemical.
29. (iii) Knowledge of information will assist in the
30 diagnosis or treatment of an individual. The barely intelligible legal gobbledegook above are lines 18 through 30 of page 98 of 174 page text of HB 1950, the act which has passed through both houses of the Pennsylvania State Legislature and was signed into law by Governor Tom Corbett on February 13th. This piece of legislation supposedly deals with regulating the drilling and pipeline industry in Pennsylvania. It in fact is an industry piece of legislation designed to reduce the onus of proof and responsibility of environmental and health damages on the public guaranteed by the Constitution of The State of Pennsylvania which the Pennsylvania State Legislature is supposed to be upholding. Basically, the language of the passage I presented above states that physicians treating a patient who have reason to believe the illness may be the result of toxic exposure from drilling, must submit a written request asking for the chemicals used in the process, provided they sign a confidentiality agreement.In essence it basically says, we're probably going to poison some people, but we demand no press. For more information of Fracking, you can go to my previous posts:RIP CARL STILES and The Fracking Fakts About The Fracking Frackers. More over, in the public debate on Fracking and the evidence that was corporately presented to push this bill through the house, the theatrical performance of Halliburton CEO, David Lesar in November 2011 at a presentation in a conference in Denver, for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association was cited as evidence that fracking is now safe and the industry just doesn't need the costly, restrictive regulations and safeguards that the crybaby environmentalists demand.
What did Lesar do?He sipped from a glass that he claimed contained the current version of Fracking Fluid....wait, Lesar didn't exactly drink the fluid himself, he had an underling exec drink the fluid.... What was in the glass was never determined by no other criteria other than Mr. Lesar's claim. Lesar claimed the glass contained a liquid called CleanStim. The state of the art, "safe" fracking fluid that Halliburton has developed. But what is CleanStim? The industry claims it is a "totally safe" fracking liquid made from ingredients used in the food industry. "Totally Safe" claims Halliburton, but not intended for human consumption. But don't try to find out what is in ClearStim. It's a trade secret, patented and now protected under the aegis of HB 1950. The only way you could ever find out is to get sick enough to have a doctor who suspect that the symptoms you have are caused by fracking fluid formally request in writing for a list of the patent protected recipe of the safe and delightful concoction of chemicals used in the liquid.
The product CleanStim is still in the developmental stage. It's theatrical and dramatic presentation had nothing to do with the current state of the industry. But the theater had it's effect on the easily lobbied and fully graftable legislators who voted on the passage of the bill. The reality, of course is that the companies doing the fracking are causing ground water pollution and enviromental problems faster and more often just by unregulated, shoddy and hasty work. On February 16th, The Energy Institute at the University of Texas in Austin released astudy reported that many problems blamed on hydraulic fracturing are related to processes common to all oil and gas drilling operations, such as casing failures or poor cement jobs.
University researchers also concluded that many reports of contamination can be traced to above-ground spills or other mishandling of wastewater produced from shale gas drilling, rather than from hydraulic fracturing, Charles “Chip” Groat, an Energy Institute associate director, said in a statement.
“These problems are not unique to hydraulic fracturing,” he said. But here is another piece by Josh Fox, the writer and director of the documentary Gasland, In it he presentsevidence that the casings as they are presently being constructed will almost certainly develop leakagewell within the productive life of the well. Wow, the Oil Industry funded University of Texas Energy Institute determined that we are at more danger from the the shoddy practices of the fracking industry than from fracking fluid. Should we all be breathing a collective sigh of relief?
Perhaps, we are totally fracked. TOTALLY FRACKED? I don't think so, there is still a lot of active opposition to this bill and if you live in any of the active drilling regions now being exploited in The USA, you owe it to your self to learn about the organizations in your region protecting your rights and environment. Here is a link to a fact sheet about fracking opposition. Here is another. Here is the link to the PBS free site to view Josh Fox's documentary Gasland, which led to his arrest 2 weeks ago in the US House of Representatives as he tried to record additional material from the House Hearings to update this great documentary. I also would like to direct your attention to this local Southwestern PA blog , Lingonier Living. Ligonier, PA is a community sitting on top of the Marcellus Shale formation and now being destroyed as the developers tear the community apart by pitting neighbor against neighbor to pressure the residents into surrendering the rights to the shale under their property. There is a lot of stuff to wade through here, but it is full of useful links and information in the ongoing battle to control the fracking madness.
again, I want to thank my friend, Mr. Politeness for inspiring me to write more about fracking and providing the horrific details of the implications in HB 1950.
MIchael Davis, the bass player of the MC5 in their most glorious incarnation, died on Friday at age 68.
Mike was an artist studying at Wayne State and was recruited by Rob Tyner the singer and Wayne Kramer in 1966 into the band. After the demise of the MC5, Mike was one of the original members of the highly influential conceptual band, Destroy All Monsters. Tragically, Mike Kelley, the LA based American conceptual artist who was in the DAM, died 2 weeks ago. Davis had returned to art and had a number of shows and was actually going for his Masters at Berkeley when he died. He had been appearing with Wayne Kramer and Dennis Thompson, the other surviving members of the 5 in the MC5/DKT project which toured the world during the mid decade with a revolving cast of guest musicians playing the music of the MC5. This band was such a huge part of my life. I knew Michael in a few of his incarnations and he was truly a real man! I am in the crowd in the video, from 1970, live at Tartan Field at Wayne State University on the edge of the John C. Lodge Xway in Detroit!
Nobody plays music like this anymore! Here's a cut of the MC5/DKT project from 2005. Thompson on drums. Wayne Kramer of course on guitar and Mike is playing bass and singing. I Can Only Give You Everything!
Frankly Speaking And of course we are celebrating another Night of the Living Van Vliet Festival. Could Don Van Vliet ever be given the chance he was given in the 60's by a major record label today? Frank brings up some very interesting points about how things got to where they are and how we seem to be mired in a musical mafia of mediocrity and a miasma very predictable product again. Here is Frank and Don performing together on a radio broadcast in the mid 70's. Don performs Orange Claw Hammer and Frank plays solo guitar.
Japanese inspired Techno from Brazil from a DJ named Strausz.
Totally surreal with some nudity, hamburgers, Pokemon and Godzilla and yes,
there is a disclaimer at the start warning that the imaging might trigger an
epileptic fit in susceptible individuals My only critique is that Strausz plays bass with a pick, and if you really want to get to the bottom of the beat...take it from me, I'm not only a real funk bass player, I play one on TV! It's the thumb muthafukah! You gotta grow them froggy fingahs and learn how to play bass down in bottom of the swamp!
Another Night of The Living Van Vliet. This is a live 1980 performance of the Magic Band in Paris, performing The Best Batch Yet from Beefhearts great recording of the same year, Doc At The Radar Station. This is basically the same band as in the last post. and while we are posting about "best batches" from the past, here's one of Little Rickie's best batches of rich and rancid vintage frothy Santorum from a 2008 speech at Ave Maria University, Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic, warned about the dangers of “the NBA” and “rock concerts,” but also said that while Protestants founded America, mainline Protestantism is in such “shambles” that “it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it”:
We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. [...]
Whether its sensuality of vanity of the famous in America, they are peacocks on display and they have taken their poor behavior and made it fashionable. The corruption of culture, the corruption of manners, the corruption of decency is now on display whether it’s the NBA or whether it’s a rock concert or whether it’s on a movie set.
Check it out:
In this speech, first flagged by Right Wing Watch, Santorum basically says these millions of Christian-Americans are not real Christians. At a time when Santorum and his party are grasping at straws to claim the Obama administration is waging war on Christianity, it seems that it was the candidate himself who declared war on one of the biggest groups of American Christians four years ago.
Meanwhile, the rest of Santorum’s speech dwells on his now-typical hyper-Puritanical warnings about “Satan,” and the dangers of “sensuality,” “rock concerts,” and “the NBA” that sound like they were plagiarized from Dana Carvey’s Church Lady skits on SNL. But of course, Little Rickie, never meant to say this, it's not what he meant! Taken out of context, right? The corrupt liberal media is twisting his words again and hey, it was just a joke...what's your problem, people?
O Yes! It's another Night Of The Living Van Vliet!
Here we are in 1982, in the Captains natural desert habitat in the Mojave outside of Lancaster, CA. This video, Ice Cream For Crow is now a part of the Permanent Film and Video Collection of the NYC Museum of Modern Art. It was directed by Don Van Vliet, who of course sings and plays harmonica. The guitarists are Gary Lucas and Jeff Tepper, The Bassist is Rick Snyder and the Drummer is Cliff Martinez. It was rejected by MTV as being too weird. The paintings are Van Vliet originals.
Please check out Mikeb302000 and zencomix who are also posting as part of the Night of The Living Van Vliet Fest! Mike has a great post with a pretty interesting piece linking the punk band The Minutemen with Captain Beefheart and zencomix has Mitt Romney performing a Mormon Baptism on The Captain....
I realize that so much has been written in regards to current and ongoing conservative of using an attempt to assault women's rights as some sort of issue that is going to somehow propel them into control of the White House, the senate, the congress...etc, ect.... There is a point when fascism becomes totally tone deaf. But please, don't let me stop them. Let the Republicans form an alliance with the Roman Catholic Conservative Bishops, pleeze! Let Rick Sanrtorum's advisor, Foster Friesse make all the aspirin between the knees birth control jokes he wants... Fascism is fascism, Islamic, German, Italian (sorry Little Rickie, I didn't mean to get ethnic on you there) or American or even more specifically Virginian! Weren't we all so utterly outraged a few months ago about the Egyptian Police and their utterly obscene and invasive "virginity tests" that were carried out to intimidate arrested women protestors? Bad Egyptians! And god bless the Republican defenders of freedom and democracy who are howling for the investigation of the Egyptian police to "protect" democracy. But, let's look at the legal definition of rape and the utter hypocrisy of the legislation on the verge of being enacted in Virginia and the obscenely fascist defense of the conservative mad men who are in control of the Virginia legislature. The bill they are on the verge of enacting will require many women in Virginia to undergo vaginal penetration with an ultrasound probe against their consent in order to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion, even for nonsurgical, noninvasive, pharmaceutical abortions.
I don't want to focus on the abortion, or the political pushback, or even the Constitution. I want to focus on the act.
"Vaginal penetration with an ultrasound probe against their consent" ... How is that not Rape with Instruments?
What's "rape with instruments"? It's when someone shows up and shoves things inside of you without your consent — except that the things aren't his body parts. One definition:
Rape by Instrumentation
Rape by instrumentation is an act of forced sexual aggression against an individual that does not involve sexual intercourse.
Specifically, it is:
"an act within or without the bonds of matrimony, in which any inanimate object or any part of the human body ... not amounting to sexual intercourse, is used in the carnal knowledge of another person, without his or her consent and penetration of the anus or vagina occurs to that person."
The utterly smarmy defense of the procedure by a Virginian Legislator, C. Todd Gilbert was summed up in the statement, "a woman already consented to being “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant."
So, the State of Virginia is on the verge of enacting legislation which would require any woman who needed to have an abortion, for any number of plausible reasons to undergo what is technically and legally considered a perversely invasive and illegal unnecessary medical procedure, which if performed by the Egyptian Police would raise their righteous christian holier than thou hackles to somehow get the governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell poised for his big Republican Vice Presidential bid with Little Ricky SANTORUM....Fuck them, but they will surely only fuck themselves..,....
On Wednesday evening , on prime time tele, Nicolas Sarkozy, to no ones surprise announced his candidacy for re election as president of France. We were not impressed, but the UMP released this as the official campaign poster and slogan. A "blank canvas" so to speak. Nicolas staring vaguely off into the "future" The larger version shows a seascape which within hours had been identified as a shot from some where off the coast of Greece. How unfortunate. I won't even bother you with the immediate pun, France Forte, Frankfort... With in hours, the fun began.
Of course, it was sarko who went there in his embarrassing speech. He made the unfortunate and faal reference to himself as the captain of the ship. He really should have known better after the idiotic comment by his Minier of Defense 2 weeks ago comparing Francois Hollande to the captain of the sunken Italian Cruise ship.
Then the French version of Sgt. PepperSpray made his embarrassing appearance. There was a little graphic slip up in one of the biggest internet clothing catalogs in France a few weeks ago. Children romping on the beach and then this guy emerges, accidently un edited out of the photo in the background. Since then, he seems to be appearing everywhere.
And then this version, Sarko efficiently eliminated with the aid of popular toilet bowl cleaning product....
and then, well, my version, La France, get off of the lawn!
Another Magic Band piece as part of the on going Night of The Living Van Vliet Festival which is so far a Euro Zone Festival...please visit Mikeb302000 in Rome, to fully experience the extreme shazashizzleyoshissnesss of this extremely tasty event! I am posting this in response to the a comment by a person who would prefer to be known as anonymous, who tried to scholarly dispute the time frame of The Captains work. I, of course, dispute the needless relevance to such tawdry concepts as time and the even more tedious idea of errr...space. But, in the spirit of intellectual accuracy, I would like to post this piece from 1971. Krikey, I actually saw this on television, or perhaps I only think I did, given the time frame of the dates...1971, Channel 56 alternative Detroit Music Program TubeWorks...
The Magic Band doing one of the ultimate funkiest pieces of music ever written, When Big Joan Sets Up, originally on Trout Mask Replica and one of my faves from the era, Woe is AmoeBop from one of my favorite records of all fucking time...okay...I'm tediously referring to time again, sorry,
LICK MY DECALS OFF BABY! but it just gets better.....
Another cut from the 1966 version of The Magic Band recording, Safe As Milk.
I'm Glad, again with Ry Cooder on guitar. Van Vliet exhibits one of the most unique and expressive white soul voices ever on vinyl! I love the video use of the Murnau expressionist
German Cinema images from his film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
I may post another Beefheart piece today....
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
An eloquent, straight shooter, Democrat Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ. explains why civil rights must never legislated by popular referendums.
If you want to tell him that you agree with him, here is his facebook address.
I just don't get the conservative paranoia in America about Sharia Law. I understand how it is being used as manipulative anti islam xenophobic scare tactic, but the fear that the manipulated idiots have about it becoming a real issue in America is simply not logical. Unless of course, we use the manipulative political propaganda illogic that the nominally christian conservatives and the right wing religious groups are using now to oppose the mandated contraception assistance availability that the Obama administration has proposed. The offending proposal has actually been in effect in 28 American States since the 1990's and was enacted during the time of George Bush Jr. California, for example has had a birth control mandate law on the books since 1999. it reads: Cal. Insurance Code § 10123.196 and Cal. Health & Safety Code § 1367.25(1999) require certain health insurance policies that already cover prescription drugs to provide coverage for prescription contraceptive methods approved by the FDA. Religious employers can request health insurance plans without coverage of approved contraceptive methods that are contrary to the employer’s religious tenants. (AB 39) The California allows churches to opt out, and is exactly like the proposed federal one. In fact, the federal law was modeled after the exemption offered by California and other states. The latest opponent of the Administrations proposal is none other than Rick Warren, the Saddleback Congregation, based in Lake Forest, CA. Warren has been pontificating about just about everything, Here is a statement by him from 2008 in which he goes off about embryonic stem cell research and abortion in there, but nothing -- absolutely nothing -- about birth control or contraception. While it is true that Warren advocates for abstinence-only measures for unmarried women, I can find no statement of his that speaks to what married women may or may not do within church doctrine. So it is rather strange that he is now on the anti administration conservative bandwagon along with the catholic church with is twitter statement from last week: "I'd go to jail rather than cave in to a govement mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29" Incidentally, I would like to know if Warrens' Saddleback employee health insurance plan complies with California law or not. But of course, he is not alone by a far shot, we have the catholic church and every republican presidential candidate making a religious based opposition to the administrations policy a political issue. I mean, hey Mitt? What about the mormons? Mitt's a mormon and he's opposing it on ostensibly religious grounds, the same as the catholic, Santorum. I suppose mormons are considered christian...well they are a white male dominated aryan religion, just like the catholics. But, wouldn't you say that this is a great example of religion trying to dictate the policies for all Americans? This using their logic, is like Sharia. Religious doctrines and beliefs dictate the law for everyone, regardless whether they adhere to the religious beliefs of not. This is not American. This is not our Constitution. And, if you really want the evidence that this is unconstitutional and illegal, there is a century of American legal rulings that have established the precedents and the framework that prove that Sharia law could never be acceptable in America. Antonin Scalia, extremely conservative devout catholic Supreme Court justice himself, ruling on the 1990 Supreme Court Case, Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, wrote the opinion: “We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition."
Scalia traces Supreme Court rulings on the issue back to an 1879 decision that upheld federal laws against polygamy. A member of the Mormon Church had argued that because his faith required men to marry multiple wives, polygamy was protected under the First Amendment and that Mormons could claim a religious exemption from such a law.
Might be a good time to ask Mr. Romney if he thinks the United States' no-polygamy rule was an attack on the freedom of religion of Mormons.
Probably the most relevant case to this controversy was a recent 1982 Supreme Court ruling that closely parallels the current discussion over contraception:
In United States v. Lee, the Supreme Court found that there was nothing unconstitutional in requiring an Amish employer to withhold and pay Social Security taxes for his workers even though “the Amish faith prohibited participation in governmental support programs.”
Here’s how they put it:
“When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes that are binding on others in that activity. Granting an exemption from social security taxes to an employer operates to impose the employer’s religious faith on the employees.”
Not only do these decisions decisively demonstrate that the American Constitution is the best defense against any fear of the goblin of Sharia Law, but it is firm legal ruling that the Mormons, The Catholics, Evangelical Christians and any other garden variety of conservative religious groups cannot impose their religious beliefs on any of their own employees, including their employees who aren't even Catholic, Mormon or what ever. How does Mitt Romney feel about the employees' freedom of religion? Or was he just grandstanding, as usual,on an issue that he held a 180 degree different view just six years ago?
hey, I love die antwoord...this is an unreleased track i just bumped into...is the horn sample from the godfather? i love the big beat....it needs to be loud!
About a year ago, I published a piece titledAtlas Wankedexpressing my thoughts regarding the fantasist, pseudo philosopher and frankly sociopathic immature ideas of Ayn Rand. Rands ramblings are taken seriously because they provide an irresponsible pseudo rationalization for conservative greed.
Even Alan Greenspan, who at one time quoted her to rationalize his acceptance of an unregulated stock market has repudiated her idea that the market will regulate itself "for it's own survival". Some of Ayn's current fans who are using her fiction as a basis for their rationalization of greed are the supposed intellects of the new TeaBrained fueled GOP, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan and the Paul father and son team. Ron Paul even named his son after Ms. Rand.
Since that time, a Tea Party Freedom Works sponsored movie version of Atlas Shrugged was released. It wasn't the hit that the TeaBrains thought it would be, but it is being used as a basis for doctrine, by those more illiterate tea brains who need this badly acted abridged piece of trash because they don't have the attention span to actually read through her rather tedious written fiction.
During her lifetime, Rand advocated "the virtue of selfishness," declared altruism to be "evil," opposed Medicare and all forms of government support for the middle-class and the poor, and condemned Christianity for advocating love and compassion for the less fortunate:
Rand also dismissed the feminist movement as a "false" and "phony" issue, said a female commander in chief would be "unspeakable," characterized Arabs as "almost totally primitive savages," and called government efforts to aid the handicapped and educate "subnormal children" an attempt to "bring everybody to the level of the handicapped." Even more, my earlier post documents her drug use, her reliance and manipulation of the very medicare system she preached against. She also was a fan and supporter of a particularly gruesome mass murderer, William Hickman, who she seemed to have formed an erotic fixation on. Yet, this is the "intellectual" heroine of the "values" obsessed Conservative Movement in America.
I would like to use this post to promote Blue America and the candidates they are promoting across America who need your help to fight the massive onslaught of corporacracy funded campaigns. To learn more and to donate, go to the Blue America ActBlue page!
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