word decEMber 21, 2010

I hate winter

Six Degrees Of Assassination

Julian Assange, Karl Rove...you knew there had to be a connection somehow, someway. And the answer is Yes! In 2010, Rove was hired by the present Prime Minister of Sweden, Fredrik Reinfelt to do what he does best...help Reinfelt get re elected using the sure fire techniques of subterfuge and character assassination that Rove has poisoned American politics with.

Speaking to Legal Schnauzer's Robert Shuler, an unnamed source suggested that Rove is likely "playing a leading role in the effort to prosecute" Assange. The founder of the secrets website was arrested Dec. 7 in London after Sweden issued a warrant for alleged sex crimes.

After Assange's release on bail, Guardian obtained and published leaked details of the allegations against him. A WikiLeaks source told The Australian that the leaked police reports were "a selective smear through the disclosure of material."

And there's no coincidence that the charges against Assange originate in Sweden, Shuler's source said.

Assange is being called a terrorist in the press these days, but let's look at what this "terrorist" has actually done:

If anyone wants to go there, let's have a quick review again of some of the "terrorist" WikiLeaks reports and then decide who is the actual problem. This is only a small portion of the material. Let's think about what country has decided to pressure businesses such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to halt payments despite the lack of any charges against WikiLeaks. And let's not forget about the government censorship in China US.

- US irritated by EU privacy laws.
- Bank of America bans WikiLeaks payments despite no charges. They simply disagree with the message, which is a new chapter in the American system of politics.
- Taxpayer money used for child sex slavery in Afghanistan.
- US oil giant Chevron discussed oil drilling in Iran despite US laws which forbid such agreements.
- BP had oil well blowout like Deepwater in Azerbaijan months earlier.
- Failed UK bank directors "failed to live up to their duties"
- Vatican pressured Ireland to grant immunity to priests in child rape cases.
- Pfizer used "dirty tricks" in Nigeria in attempt to avoid prosecution.
- US conspired with China to block environmental reform in Copenhagen.
- Saudi Arabia is a "terrorist ATM"
- Senior Chinese Politburo member involved in Google hack
- Yemen offered US "open door" for missile attacks.
- Afghan VP arrived in Dubai with $52 million (possibly US taxpayer money)

In The Sky

(On the 17th Night of Zappadan, my true love said to me,
why o why does it hurt when I pee?)
1968, Live on the BBC, The original Mothers Of Invention perform In The Sky featuring the incomparable asthmatic wheezing of Ray Estrada.......

WORD december 20, 2010

Limited Time Offer

Messin With Our Myths, Man....

Here's a photo of British actor, Idris Elba who is the focus of a boycott by the CofCC, The Council of Conservative Citizens. It seems that they are upset with him because he is playing the Marvel Comic based character of Heimdall, who is a mythological Nordic God in the Kenneth Branagh movie version of the Comic Book Series, Thor.
The US White Supremacist Group which opposes inter-racial marriage and gay rights, has set up a website, boycott-thor.com to set out its opposition to what it sees as an example of leftwing social engineering.

"It [is] well known that Marvel is a company that advocates for leftwing ideologies and causes," the site reads. "Marvel frontman Stan 'Lee' Lieber boasts of being a major financier of leftwing political candidates. Marvel has viciously attacked the Tea Party movement, conservatives and European heritage.

"Now they have taken it one further, casting a black man as a Norse deity in their new movie Thor. Marvel has now inserted social engineering into European mythology."

The CofCC post [warning: hate site] goes on in this vein:

It’s not enough that Marvel attacks conservative values and promotes the left-wing, now mythological Gods must be re-invented with black skin.

It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves.

Considering that a number of outright neo-Nazi organizations have adopted Asatru and other "Nordic" neo-paganisms as their official religions (most famously, perhaps, The Order among them), it's not surprising, perhaps, that they would get all worked up at the prospect of a black face spoiling their long-awaited screen rendition of the Lords of Asgard.

Especially since Heimdall is known as the "white god" and "whitest of the aesir". It's enough to make one rend their Klan robes.

You all may recall that the CofCC was at one time a favorite cause of Trent Lott's, and was a big supporter of Haley Barbour's run to the Mississippi governorship.

Then there was Ann Coulter, claiming in her latest screed that the CofCC had been unfairly defamed and mischaracterized. Perhaps this may become Bill O'Reilly's next Crusade as he calls his troops to action on FOX to battle against the WAR AGAINST NORSE MYTHOLOGY!

Makes me almost want to go see this movie when it comes out..............

G Spot Tornado

Here we are, 16th night of Zappadan, when we tell our Kennie and Ronnie Booger stories around the campfire, dunking our Burnt Weenie Sandwiches in the Lumpy Gravy.Later, there will come a time when You Can Even Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance, wah wah wah wah...What, no one wants to start?
Uhh, okay, ahem....
It all started in 1965, in a school social hall, in the basement of the grade school across the street from where I lived in Detroit. There was an attempt at creating a teen club. I went with some of my neer do well friends, 15 year olds who were some how different. We liked rock music, thought the Yardbirds were the greatest thing on earth and had the delusion that we were going to start a band and become really cool!
I walked in and a few kids were hanging around and some cheesy music was playing on the cheap tinny PA system. Then a moment of silence and a strange huge sound came slithering out of the air.
I tried to grasp it, it was too big, too strange and too distorted by the cheap tinny sound system for me to grasp it. It sounded like two giant balloons being rubbed together! When the nuns began to run to the back to stop the hideous din, I knew that I had been a witness to something awesome!
As my friend George was being ejected from the hall, I left with him and asked him what he had put on the sound system. He grinned and showed me a copy of FREAK OUT by Frank Zappa and the Mother of Invention!
Over the next few months I listened to and absorbed the esthetic behind the noise. I was already a developing young visual artist who idolized the surrealists and even more so the anti-esthetic of the DA DA movement of the early 20th century. My heroes were Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp. Zappa seemed to be the perfect mid 20th century extension of this to me. The Freak Out album is still important to me and I find myself listening to it again and again and always finding something wonderful that I have never heard before. One of the Great Protest Songs of all time is on the record, Trouble Comin' Everyday, a song written in reaction to the media coverage of the Watts Riots in LA, but the sentiment, vitriolic and corrosive is timelesss!
This was a composer who was equally influenced by Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Edgar Varese. He was self taught and scored movies at the age of 18. He appeared on the Steve Allen Show when he was 19 as a composer and performed with Steve Allen a piece of music for Electric Bicycle, tapes, and jazz combo. The results are viewable now on YouTube! He owned and operated a recording studio that released doowop records, novelty recordings and some pretty good dirty rock! He was a true American original, in thought, talent and action.
I got to see The Mothers of Invention perform a year later in Detroit at the Ford Auditorium. I was the art editor of an early student underground paper from Cass Tech High School called Yellow. I did an ad for the Ford Auditorium Show. I got a ticket for the ad and saw a program that had the Mothers abusing the Ford Auditorium stage elevator, doing a medley of doo wop and rock covers with Frank announcing the Label, Artist, Record registration # before each song. Then they did songs from Freak Out including the title song of my blog "Who Are The Brain Police?". At the end of the show they did a early version of the monstrous jazz piece, King Kong! I was never the same!
There you have it, my first introduction to the music of Zappa. I saw him quite a few times after that...a bizarre performance at The Grande Ballroom in Detroit in 68 that involved the ritual abuse of large stuffed giraffe, then numerous times in the 70's with various configurations of musicians and finally some of the performances at the Palladium and The Pier in New York. The performance in the Video was with The Ensemble Modern in 1992. Zappa is conducting G Spot Tornado with a grand interpretive dance performance in Germany, shortly before he died.
The specific time and circumstances allowed the freedom that permitted this singular, unique American artist to have a career outside of the constraints of the corporate music industry.
We have seen others try it...but not with the uncompromising vision of Zappa...will it ever happen again? or will we discover that.....

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE.........

Have Yourself A Fascist Little Xmas

word DECEMBER 19, 2010

Stereogram

Snowflake Stereogram                                                             

Two view in stereo, cross your eyes, relax your vision until you see three images, and focus on the center image. You may need to slightly tilt your head to the left or right to bring the image into focus. This really works!

This is an LT-SEM micrograph taken by the  USDA Electron and Confocal Microscopy Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. I think I just found an exact double outside my window...we are having another real snow event here in La Sechere!

Banksy Xmas

ELECTRICITEEEEEEEEE

1968, on the beach in Cannes, Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) manages to vaporize the entire French Riviera.
I woke up this morning to hear that Don had passed on at age 69 due to complications from Multiple Sclerosis. I can only say that Van Vliet had a profound effect on me when I first heard him at the tender age of 17. The unique filter of his genius, a kid from an California Town on the edge of the desert, taking in the influences of European Dada and Surrealism, Jazz and then finally, acutely focusing them through the lens of real raw American Blues, allowed him to create a brilliant, powerful, truly original body of work. His voice was an expressive instrument which he used like John Gilmour's sax of the Sun Ra Orchestra, capable of the sweetest soulful tones, the most terrifying high pitched squeals and his declamatory basso barks and growls. Yes all this and he was a blues great harmonica player as well.
(by the way, can anyone verify if Ry Cooder is the other guitarist in the video? He played on the original recording and it really sounds like him in the video as well!)


Here is Van Vliet in the early 80's on French Television performing the piece, Bat Chain Puller, surrealist poetry, abstract expressionist dada music, but an absolutely disciplined, brilliant and focused performance. This is the kind of uncompromising vision that has influenced generations of artists including Tom Waits, who said of BeefHeart," Once you've heard Beefheart, it's hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood."


Here are two pieces of later BeefHeart. The video has an illustration, a record cover painted by Van Vliet. He stopped performing in the mid 80's and devoted himself to his painting, which was quite successful, but by that time, he was beginning to be affected by the progressive symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis. Captain BeefHeart, a totally unique, American original artist who, through the persistence of his vision, managed to change the world. He changed mine.

WOrD DECEMBeR 17, 2010

FREAK OUT!

What day is this? Friday...the 17th of December? Zappadan began on a Saturday... Let's see, by my astrological divinations and lunar calculations, that means, oh my frickin lord, cheezopeeza!

 IT'S FREAK OUT FRIDAY!

 SUZEEE? SUZEE CREEMCHEESE?

My Old High School

I found the book that I want for Christmas. It just came out in English and was originally released here in France. The book is a stunning, horrifying, fascinating album of photos compiled over a 5 year period by
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.
The name of the book is The Ruins of Detroit, published by Steidl.
The publishers statement:
 Over the past generation Detroit has suffered economically worse than any other of the major American cities and its rampant urban decay is now glaringly apparent during this current recession. Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre documented this disintegration, showcasing structures that were formerly a source of civic pride, and which now stand as monuments to the city’s fall from grace.

“Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension. The state of ruin is temporary by nature, the volatile result of the end of an era and the fall of empires. This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to watch them one very last time: being dismayed, or admiring, wondering about the permanence of things. Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state.”

The picture I posted was a photo of a melted wall clock from my old high school, Cass Tech. It is a magnificent turn of the century 9 story building with a huge 5 story professional theater in the heart of the building. There is a new Cass Tech Building, but the original hulk is still standing and decaying at the edges of the old downtown area, near the stadium.

Detroit was never an easy place to live, perhaps that's why the music was and still is so damn good. It was never a city of Peace, Love and Harmony, but it was a place of Dreams, Revolution and Hope for a future that never was.....

Detroit is a unique example that captures the essence of the rise fall and decay of American industry and the American Dream. There are many other cities in America that have experienced this social reality, but the drama and passion, pain and desolation of Detroit somehow distills it all.

Yet, to me, every time I vist the city, and I was there only a month ago, I feel that something else on the verge of occurring. A place trying to reinvent itself, a place where dreams and fantasies could just become possible again.

Check out the links for more great pictures!

Help Support The Collapse of Western Civilization As We Know it...Part 1

‘Fuck off Harrods’ done by a disgruntled employee, fired by Harrods from his job as the toy department’s Father Christmas, took revenge last night in spectacular style.

Gaining access to a maintenance control room, Lloyd Hudson, 35, from Ilford, Essex, was able to locate the chart and corresponding switches for Harrods’ 10,000 external lights.

Barracading himself in, Hudson disabled the correct lights until he could spell out his feelings to Harrods bosses and Christmas shoppers alike. He was removed by security guards after an hour-long stand-off, then handed over to police.

“He had drunk the best part of two bottles of whisky,” said a spokesperson for the iconic London store, “and it’s that kind of behaviour that got him the sack in the first place.” Hudson has since been released on police bail.

Knightsbridge visitors were stunned.

“Honestly, I am disgusted, ” said Irene Rider, 59, from Gary, Indiana. “I was with my grandchildren. We had just gotten off the bus. I said ‘look everybody’ and pointed up to the lights – but you know what the lights said? They said f**k off. And that is not an appropriate message for a child.  At least not at Christmas time.”

WOrD DEcEMBeR 16, 2010

Nowadays, A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man

On the 13th night before the 14th day, we have a tradition which has its way...We pay homage to the Captain and his Sun Zoom Spark...He turns on the bright light when the sky gets dark...

It might seem drastic to let this come between us, but you gotta give way to them BIG EYED BEANS FROM VENUS...O My O My.......

Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band, Paris 1980.

In case don't you get the connection, Frank was Dons (the captain) best buddy in Lancaster, California when they was pimply teens sharing pineapple buns from Dons' Dads bakery delivery truck, holed up in Dons' room listening to Muddy Waters....

The World, The Flesh And The Devil

THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL,

a stunning 1959 film by director Ranald MacDougall

He showed us stunning imagery of the abandoned metropolis in this post-apocalyptic allegory. Harry Belafonte (in his screen debut!) plays Ralph Burton, who may be the last man on earth after a mysterious nuclear catastrophe.Then a woman (Inger Stevens) appears and the two form a cautious friendship that's threatened when a third survivor (Mel Ferrer) arrives. There are no external monsters to battle in this urban apocalypse landscape. Instead, the monsters -- fear, intolerance, jealousy -- lurk within the human heart. Loaded with stunning and unforgettable vistas of an unpopulated New York
I saw this years ago and it burned in my mind and I have just read that it was rereleased in a new remastered edition from The Warner Archive Collection.

And The Survey Says....