CANNIBAL UPDATE
If you look in the Doc 40 archives for Monday December 8th, you’ll find the story of Armin Meiwes, the 42-year-old German computer expert, who killed and ate Bernd Juergen Brandes, in March 2001 at Meiwes' home in the town of Rotenburg. The sexually motivated chow-down was conducted with Brandes full consent after the two had contacted each other through magazine personal ads. This week, a court sentenced Meiwes to eight and half years in jail, deciding that Meiwes had no ''base motives'' thus sparing him a murder conviction. Prosecutors had sought a life sentence, calling Meiwes a ''human butcher'' who acted simply to ''satisfy a sexual impulse'', but the defense argued that since the victim volunteered to be killed and eaten, the crime should be classified a mercy killing, which carries a five-year maximum penalty. According to reports Meiwes was calm after sentencing, chatting with his attorney and occasionally grinning for cameras. For a sense of warped perspective, in the US, one might well get a similar eight and a half years for selling an eightball of coke.
WALK THE BLOGOSPHERE LIKE CAINE
(That’s Kwai Chang, not Michael)
This is something of an experiment. Since I entered the weblog business at the start of December, I have wandered the ether and wondered at the sheer volume and diversity of the what is being blogged out there, and also the disturbingly high levels of fantasy, isolation, depression and rage. In the last week, I started picking up random snippets as I passed, like daisies in the field, and here is a sampling of the results. These anonymous quotes are not edited even as to sequence, and the original spelling is intact. Obviously the following of links constitutes a certain rudimentary navigation, but, apart from that, all is guaranteed random. I don’t know if this found poetry, a third generation Burroughs cut-up, or merely a reflection of the C21 condition of computerized humans. You decide and let me know.
Female age 14
I woke up this morning after having an extremely wierd dream about the extermintation of human beings.
Female teen
my name is mary...and im sick of xanga
Male teen
i've got some money now, finally, and i'm not entirely sure how to spend it. i'm going to get my conch pierced soon.
Male age 27
The problem was the gum was laced with some addictive additive, highly refined sugar or perhaps heroin.
Male teen
AHHHHH! HOW THE FUCK COULD U DO THIS TO ME...I THOUGHT U WERE MY FUCKIN FRIEND U FUCKIN BACK STABBER...U OUT OF ALL PPL...YEAH SOME FUCKIN MAGIC U DID...FUCKIN BONIN THE GIRL I LIKE...YEAH...AND U...I THOUGHT U FUCKIN CARED ABOUT ME..FUCKIN BULLSHIT THAT IS HUH...I GUESS U FUCKERZ R MEANT FOR EACH OTHER...U GUYZ CAN FUCK ANY-FUCKIN-TIME U WANT...I CANT BELIEVE U GUYZ WOULD DO THIS 2 ME...AFTER ALL THE SHIT THAT IVE DONE...THIS IS THE FUCKIN THANX I GET...FUCK U ALL...IM FUCKIN OUT!!!!!
Male adult
Hacked a few sites and know the ropes well enough for me or my friend to not jump your ass.
Male adult police officer
it's a bit disconcerting when officers get involved in gun battles twice in one week.
Female adult peepshow performer
He's ba-ack! Everyone's favorite virus-chaser, and the fair-haired boy of the peep show. Hard to believe that a guy who looks like Malibu Ken and wears a Rolex would be so willing, nay hungry, to lick other guys' cum off the floor of the booth.
Female adult chef
As I was making dinner I found myself stabbing an uncooked spaghetti squash Manson Girl-style, over and over again. I was aiming for the fifty-cent piece-sized label on its fat yellow side, full bore concentration toward my target. I caught myself thinking, "...hmmm...I'd always thought stabbing someone was the easy way to kill them but now I see that a certain amount of accuracy is involved.
Male adult
Imagine a party with a thousand hot man (at least) all tripping on X (real MDA not the bullshit you get today), crystal (meth/speed), acid and coke, horny as fuck, grinding together in a huge ballroom under an artificial sky filled with stars and lights and a gigantic floating disco ball. For a 24-hour period I was taken on rowdy rides that always ended with me getting nailed to a wall and fucked, hard.
Male adult
she was collared the whole weekend and spent it in skimpy night clothes.
Female teen
i stealed it from someone's lj who was linked to Yume-chan's lj...heh. I's a theif.
Female teen
last nyt naginuman kmi nina agot n jokim kina monty, andun cna ajoy, jenny at ang jowa ni jenny
na si ariel...Bday kc ni ariel kya my painom...
Male teen
...i broke my headphones today...because i am an angry man...an angry young man...watch out before i kill all my friends...
Male adult musician
...and adam still refuses to drive with me, yet i've never given him a near death experience...i don't get it...when i drive, I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING! goddamn it...
FROM THE EMAIL
Roger makes it clear that Elvis (see yesterday) absolutely refuses to leave the building. Not content with the possibility of a religion, he has, in the UK, inspired a political party with the following mission statement. “We believe that Presley is still alive and is now a sixty eight year old left wing revolutionary committed to over throwing the capitalist system which turned him into a fat media joke.”
For more – http://www.theplace4.co.uk/elvisseeninbaghdad/
Roger also reminds us to remember what Humpty Dumpy said to Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”
CRYPTIQUE – On your feet or on your knees.
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THIS BLOG IS DAILY, SO LOG ON REGULARLY AND EMAIL YOUR FRIENDS
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Saturday, January 31, 2004
Friday, January 30, 2004
THE SOUND OF ONE MIND BOGGLING
Over on the comments board a discussion has been triggered by Jett (when you’re a Jett, you’re a Jett all the way) over the worship of Elvis Presley as a viable religious alternative, and arsydd is perfectly correct. I did start toying with the idea in fictional form in the novel The Armageddon Crazy back in 1989, and by around 1998, as the Millennium approached, I had pretty much decided the Elvis faith might well be the coming thing, and wrote accordingly in Mojo and elsewhere. My basic thesis was that Elvis Presley had unknowingly tapped into primal human response; that he was something a modern fertility god. Moreover, his story was another version of the prehistoric fable of the sacrifice of the boy king that has been reflected down the years in The Fisher King, the New Testament, the Arthurian legends. A healthy non-judgemental, pillhead change from Islam or the old Judeo-Christian ethical bullying, I though, and even contemplated a gig in my old age as a Shaman of El (with enough of a stipend to keep me in a gold suits and a holy Cadillac.)
Then a number of things happened that made me less optimistic. The 21st century arrived and much of the pre-Millennium metaphysical – Elvis, chupacabra, aliens, Satan cults, mothmen, etc, – appeared, if not actually to melt away, at least to become chimeral and transparent in the grim light of the new world order. Also, what looked like the first real nucleus of Elvis worship underwent what I could only define as a schism between the life-affirming, young-Elvis, rock & rollers, who celebrate on January 8th, and the grim, and probably Republican women who stage The Death Day in the August humidity of Memphis.
This is not to say that Elvis has gone, but he’s certainly in danger of being swamped in the present wave of mindless trivia, as the metaphysical lifeforce is syphoned of by sneaker manufacturers for their TV commercials.
But trivialization emerges as today’s theme. I have a diatribe on the subject in this week’s LA CityBeat that argues the TV show Entertainment Tonight is the embodiment of epidemic stupidity and dumbed-down distraction.
BOYS ARE STUPID
I have a good friend who frequently ends her emails with the line “BOYS ARE STUPID”, after she’s been castigating me for my lack of attention to detail and my use of mendacity when I’m losing an argument. (But we all know how the Doc loves a sound castigation.) I guess it was inevitable that the phrase should wind up on a T-shirt, and so it did, going just a little further to “BOYS ARE STUPID – THROW ROCKS AT THEM.” I smiled until I discovered it was also inevitable some fool should attempt to make the joke an issue. The fool in this case was a talk-radio idiot called Glenn Sacks who broadcasts here in LA, and has actually managed to get three chain stores to pull the shirts from the racks, because they “encourage violence.” It’s been my observation that little girls have thrown rocks a little boys – and vice versa – since the monkey met the monolith, and I don’t think a t-shirt is going to make that much difference. Are we of the Doc40 crew the only ones who have lives?
COMMENTS
Did I say lives? Another matter under discussion is the comments board. Some girl, Lord Marmite, and davinian all opt for the conventional form of a separate comment under each post, while others like the anarchy of the current formless comment heap that seems to taking on a life of it’s own as a diverse and decidedly weird miniblog. Me, I kinda lean to the anarchic, and, since the tech seems to be resisting the former, it may well stay as it is for a while, maybe until it collapses under its own weight. In this matter, however, majority will probably rule, so let’s hear from you.
WHALE BLOWS UP REAL GOOD
Proving that, despite our protests, we are not exempt from the seduction of trivia, I can’t resist the following wire service tale from Taiwan. The decomposing remains of a 66-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street in the southern city of Tainan, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours. The 56-foot dead whale had been on a truck headed for an autopsy at a university earlier this week, when gases from internal decay caused its entrails to explode The whale had died after it was beached on the southwestern coast of the island. (On the other hand, maybe an exploding whale isn’t that trivial.)
CRYPTIQUE – Moby no dick.
WHAT THE FUCK? – For a few hours on Thursday afternoon, the Google ad at the top of the blog was for Bush’s reelection campaign.
Over on the comments board a discussion has been triggered by Jett (when you’re a Jett, you’re a Jett all the way) over the worship of Elvis Presley as a viable religious alternative, and arsydd is perfectly correct. I did start toying with the idea in fictional form in the novel The Armageddon Crazy back in 1989, and by around 1998, as the Millennium approached, I had pretty much decided the Elvis faith might well be the coming thing, and wrote accordingly in Mojo and elsewhere. My basic thesis was that Elvis Presley had unknowingly tapped into primal human response; that he was something a modern fertility god. Moreover, his story was another version of the prehistoric fable of the sacrifice of the boy king that has been reflected down the years in The Fisher King, the New Testament, the Arthurian legends. A healthy non-judgemental, pillhead change from Islam or the old Judeo-Christian ethical bullying, I though, and even contemplated a gig in my old age as a Shaman of El (with enough of a stipend to keep me in a gold suits and a holy Cadillac.)
Then a number of things happened that made me less optimistic. The 21st century arrived and much of the pre-Millennium metaphysical – Elvis, chupacabra, aliens, Satan cults, mothmen, etc, – appeared, if not actually to melt away, at least to become chimeral and transparent in the grim light of the new world order. Also, what looked like the first real nucleus of Elvis worship underwent what I could only define as a schism between the life-affirming, young-Elvis, rock & rollers, who celebrate on January 8th, and the grim, and probably Republican women who stage The Death Day in the August humidity of Memphis.
This is not to say that Elvis has gone, but he’s certainly in danger of being swamped in the present wave of mindless trivia, as the metaphysical lifeforce is syphoned of by sneaker manufacturers for their TV commercials.
But trivialization emerges as today’s theme. I have a diatribe on the subject in this week’s LA CityBeat that argues the TV show Entertainment Tonight is the embodiment of epidemic stupidity and dumbed-down distraction.
BOYS ARE STUPID
I have a good friend who frequently ends her emails with the line “BOYS ARE STUPID”, after she’s been castigating me for my lack of attention to detail and my use of mendacity when I’m losing an argument. (But we all know how the Doc loves a sound castigation.) I guess it was inevitable that the phrase should wind up on a T-shirt, and so it did, going just a little further to “BOYS ARE STUPID – THROW ROCKS AT THEM.” I smiled until I discovered it was also inevitable some fool should attempt to make the joke an issue. The fool in this case was a talk-radio idiot called Glenn Sacks who broadcasts here in LA, and has actually managed to get three chain stores to pull the shirts from the racks, because they “encourage violence.” It’s been my observation that little girls have thrown rocks a little boys – and vice versa – since the monkey met the monolith, and I don’t think a t-shirt is going to make that much difference. Are we of the Doc40 crew the only ones who have lives?
COMMENTS
Did I say lives? Another matter under discussion is the comments board. Some girl, Lord Marmite, and davinian all opt for the conventional form of a separate comment under each post, while others like the anarchy of the current formless comment heap that seems to taking on a life of it’s own as a diverse and decidedly weird miniblog. Me, I kinda lean to the anarchic, and, since the tech seems to be resisting the former, it may well stay as it is for a while, maybe until it collapses under its own weight. In this matter, however, majority will probably rule, so let’s hear from you.
WHALE BLOWS UP REAL GOOD
Proving that, despite our protests, we are not exempt from the seduction of trivia, I can’t resist the following wire service tale from Taiwan. The decomposing remains of a 66-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street in the southern city of Tainan, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours. The 56-foot dead whale had been on a truck headed for an autopsy at a university earlier this week, when gases from internal decay caused its entrails to explode The whale had died after it was beached on the southwestern coast of the island. (On the other hand, maybe an exploding whale isn’t that trivial.)
CRYPTIQUE – Moby no dick.
WHAT THE FUCK? – For a few hours on Thursday afternoon, the Google ad at the top of the blog was for Bush’s reelection campaign.
Thursday, January 29, 2004
ANOTHER STUPID AND REALLY DANGEROUS IDEA
A story in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune can hardly be anything but cause for new levels of concern about what exactly the bloody White House thinks it’s doing. As I read it, according to “military sources”, the Bush administration, well put out by recent assassination attempts against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, and a resurgence of Taliban forces in neighboring Afghanistan, is preparing a U.S. military offensive that would reach inside Pakistan with the goal of destroying Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. I could be wrong, but, to a grizzled and paranoid science fiction writer, this would seem like an incredibly bad idea, in that it would set the Moslem Fundamentalists in fresh ultra-uproar, and further destabilize a highly fucked-up nuclear power, the stability of which is already about as tenuous as the snail bladerunning on the sharp edge of the proverbial straight razor.
ELVIS SHOULD LEAVE THE BUILDING
It's obviously nowhere near as serious as Pakistan going ballistic in a megaton blaze of Isamic, radioactive glory, but I also feel damned uncomfortable with the idea that the Elvis Presley Estate has authorized what would appear to be the fucking silly idea of cutting the quarter-inch master tapes of the Elvis Sun recordings into one inch strips and then encasing them in plexiglass plaques that can be sold to the true-believers, like pieces of the True Cross, as objects touched by the Magnetism of the King. Okay, so all of the music contained on the tapes is cleaned up, digitally preserved, and totally safe, but, hell, somehow it doesn’t seem right to be putting a knife into such originals. If Graceland Inc. needs the cash that bad, couldn’t they have called McCartney, Springsteen, Ted Turner, Felix Dennis and assorted other rich guys and asked them if they wanted to buy the whole uncut reels?
LINK OF THE DAY
Hip Spinster is a natural diarist with wondrous and on-the-money insights on all manner of topics from bars to cars to poetry to rock & roll, love, literature, depression, alcohol and the lousy shape of the human condition. Visit, but treat her right. She blogs at...http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/
CRYPTIQUE – Did you hear something?
POSTSCRIPT
And just as I'm posting this I find out that James Brown is back in the slam on a domestic violence rap. Damn, James wassamatter wit you? You're motherfucking 70, man. Like, old enough to know better.
A story in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune can hardly be anything but cause for new levels of concern about what exactly the bloody White House thinks it’s doing. As I read it, according to “military sources”, the Bush administration, well put out by recent assassination attempts against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, and a resurgence of Taliban forces in neighboring Afghanistan, is preparing a U.S. military offensive that would reach inside Pakistan with the goal of destroying Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. I could be wrong, but, to a grizzled and paranoid science fiction writer, this would seem like an incredibly bad idea, in that it would set the Moslem Fundamentalists in fresh ultra-uproar, and further destabilize a highly fucked-up nuclear power, the stability of which is already about as tenuous as the snail bladerunning on the sharp edge of the proverbial straight razor.
ELVIS SHOULD LEAVE THE BUILDING
It's obviously nowhere near as serious as Pakistan going ballistic in a megaton blaze of Isamic, radioactive glory, but I also feel damned uncomfortable with the idea that the Elvis Presley Estate has authorized what would appear to be the fucking silly idea of cutting the quarter-inch master tapes of the Elvis Sun recordings into one inch strips and then encasing them in plexiglass plaques that can be sold to the true-believers, like pieces of the True Cross, as objects touched by the Magnetism of the King. Okay, so all of the music contained on the tapes is cleaned up, digitally preserved, and totally safe, but, hell, somehow it doesn’t seem right to be putting a knife into such originals. If Graceland Inc. needs the cash that bad, couldn’t they have called McCartney, Springsteen, Ted Turner, Felix Dennis and assorted other rich guys and asked them if they wanted to buy the whole uncut reels?
LINK OF THE DAY
Hip Spinster is a natural diarist with wondrous and on-the-money insights on all manner of topics from bars to cars to poetry to rock & roll, love, literature, depression, alcohol and the lousy shape of the human condition. Visit, but treat her right. She blogs at...http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/
CRYPTIQUE – Did you hear something?
POSTSCRIPT
And just as I'm posting this I find out that James Brown is back in the slam on a domestic violence rap. Damn, James wassamatter wit you? You're motherfucking 70, man. Like, old enough to know better.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
THE GASPS OF DEMOCRACY
In the snow and bitter weather of icy New Hampshire, the alleged deciding of our fate continues with a wide-margin win for John Kerry, but the mainstream media, not sated with last week’s spontaneous destruction of the Dean campaign, leaps ahead with full scale trivialization; tales of Drew Barrymore doing a documentary on the presidential campaign and traveling with Wes Clark, Kerry having to deny he's using Botox, Al Frankin getting his glasses knocked off, and NY Times resident nitwit David Brooks attempting to spin Edwards “Two Americas” speech. Meanwhile the Bush machine stands in menacing reserve like the fiscal equivalent of an SS panzer division, with the capacity, I understand, to spend a million bucks a day on the SOB’s reelection all the way clear to November. Shee-it, I know with that kind of money, I could probably fix anything. I even wonder about today’s rumor that the real reason Dick Cheney is running all over the planet trying to convince the world that he has no plans to conquer it is only to thwart a palace coupe that in which Bush would dump Cheney in favor of Rudy Giuliani as VP. It could so easily have been concocted in some evil White House sub-basement, and tossed like a bone of false hope to the opposition. Kinda like the python giving the mouse a fleeting but erroneous idea that it might not be swallowed and digested after all.
One of my problems, of course, is that Democrat primaries always take me back 1968, when the Dems milled about like chickens in the rain, as cities burned and the SE Asia war raged, and Hubert Humphrey presented himself as the natural succesor to LBJ, while all the time the dark prospect of Richard Nixon bore down on us. But, wonderous day, a white knight in the shining form of Bobby Kennedy suddenly made it seem as though democracy might actually work one more time. Then finally the shock, horror and a scream of “No! Not again!”as, in the moment of winning California, he was gunned down in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel by yet another implausible lone gunman (with a cleanup by the LAPD and a young-but-rising Daryl Gates) and the sun went out, Hell moved closer, and everything turned ugly.
FROM THE EMAIL
HC Beck informs us...
NO PAPAL THUMBS UP FOR BIKER FLICK
In an official statement released today, a spokesman for Pope John Paul II disputed widely published reports that His Holiness saw and enjoyed the new biker film "Torque." The film, which went into wide release on January 16, ignited a firestorm of controversy when studio publicists started spreading the word that the Pope had viewed the film in his Vatican City apartment and had pronounced the film "awesome." According to the publicists, producers of the film had presented Pope John Paul II with a special DVD edition of the film, complete with narration by the film's director, never-before-seen footage, outtakes and bloopers. Coinciding with the release of the film, reports started emerging in the mainstream press that the Vatican had issued the following summary of the Pope's private screening of "Torque" "He saw it, and it was good." But in a strongly worded statement released today, a spokesman for the Pope denied in no uncertain terms that the Pope had given two papal thumbs up to the biker flick, adding, "His Holiness did not see 'Torque,' nor is he entirely sure what the word 'Torque' means."
In other news, the Dalai Lama today denied widely published reports that he called "Along Came Polly" "the feel-good movie of 2004." In a prepared statement, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama said, "The Dalai Lama was, frankly, disappointed by 'Along Came Polly,' and warns moviegoers that all of the funny parts are in the trailer."
AND COUPLE OF LINKS
John Skipp, novelist, filmmaker, splatter punk, wit, gastronome, and a damn fine dude with whom to share a table at a book signing, blogs and more at – http://www.johnskipp.com/
While the spendid Jay Babcock of Arthur mag fame does the same at – http://www.jaybabcock.com/magpie.html
In the snow and bitter weather of icy New Hampshire, the alleged deciding of our fate continues with a wide-margin win for John Kerry, but the mainstream media, not sated with last week’s spontaneous destruction of the Dean campaign, leaps ahead with full scale trivialization; tales of Drew Barrymore doing a documentary on the presidential campaign and traveling with Wes Clark, Kerry having to deny he's using Botox, Al Frankin getting his glasses knocked off, and NY Times resident nitwit David Brooks attempting to spin Edwards “Two Americas” speech. Meanwhile the Bush machine stands in menacing reserve like the fiscal equivalent of an SS panzer division, with the capacity, I understand, to spend a million bucks a day on the SOB’s reelection all the way clear to November. Shee-it, I know with that kind of money, I could probably fix anything. I even wonder about today’s rumor that the real reason Dick Cheney is running all over the planet trying to convince the world that he has no plans to conquer it is only to thwart a palace coupe that in which Bush would dump Cheney in favor of Rudy Giuliani as VP. It could so easily have been concocted in some evil White House sub-basement, and tossed like a bone of false hope to the opposition. Kinda like the python giving the mouse a fleeting but erroneous idea that it might not be swallowed and digested after all.
One of my problems, of course, is that Democrat primaries always take me back 1968, when the Dems milled about like chickens in the rain, as cities burned and the SE Asia war raged, and Hubert Humphrey presented himself as the natural succesor to LBJ, while all the time the dark prospect of Richard Nixon bore down on us. But, wonderous day, a white knight in the shining form of Bobby Kennedy suddenly made it seem as though democracy might actually work one more time. Then finally the shock, horror and a scream of “No! Not again!”as, in the moment of winning California, he was gunned down in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel by yet another implausible lone gunman (with a cleanup by the LAPD and a young-but-rising Daryl Gates) and the sun went out, Hell moved closer, and everything turned ugly.
FROM THE EMAIL
HC Beck informs us...
NO PAPAL THUMBS UP FOR BIKER FLICK
In an official statement released today, a spokesman for Pope John Paul II disputed widely published reports that His Holiness saw and enjoyed the new biker film "Torque." The film, which went into wide release on January 16, ignited a firestorm of controversy when studio publicists started spreading the word that the Pope had viewed the film in his Vatican City apartment and had pronounced the film "awesome." According to the publicists, producers of the film had presented Pope John Paul II with a special DVD edition of the film, complete with narration by the film's director, never-before-seen footage, outtakes and bloopers. Coinciding with the release of the film, reports started emerging in the mainstream press that the Vatican had issued the following summary of the Pope's private screening of "Torque" "He saw it, and it was good." But in a strongly worded statement released today, a spokesman for the Pope denied in no uncertain terms that the Pope had given two papal thumbs up to the biker flick, adding, "His Holiness did not see 'Torque,' nor is he entirely sure what the word 'Torque' means."
In other news, the Dalai Lama today denied widely published reports that he called "Along Came Polly" "the feel-good movie of 2004." In a prepared statement, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama said, "The Dalai Lama was, frankly, disappointed by 'Along Came Polly,' and warns moviegoers that all of the funny parts are in the trailer."
AND COUPLE OF LINKS
John Skipp, novelist, filmmaker, splatter punk, wit, gastronome, and a damn fine dude with whom to share a table at a book signing, blogs and more at – http://www.johnskipp.com/
While the spendid Jay Babcock of Arthur mag fame does the same at – http://www.jaybabcock.com/magpie.html
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
OUT OF THE RISING SUN
Yesterday I did an interview for a Japanese rock magazine called Quest, which took up most of my afternoon and then I spend more hours reading the corrected m/s of my new novel Kindling (for a full description, and a shot of the cover I would refer you to http://www.thanatosoft.freeserve.co.uk/deviancefiles/kindling.htm)
I’m now two weeks late with the bloody m/s which is not my style at all, but a combination of overwork, poverty, flu, and an intense depression at the way Tor Books is currently treating me like mid-list scum, left me too depressed to look at for a number of days.
A combination of all things Japanese and the fact that Kindling is set in a whole imaginary alternate world prompts me to post the following from Yukiko in Tokyo, who rocks very politely, and quotes Mishima, who, I suspect, we in the West do not properly understand. The good news is that fact that Doc40 now appears to be rocking too has cheered me up no end. Also Yukiko’s remark about “Peeping Tomism” is highly apt in that it’s totally how I feel on my prowls of the blogosphere that have taken me to the domains of everyone from distraught teenagers to the journal of a witty and erudite brit call girl who blogs under the name Belle de Jour and defines her days of the week in French. http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/
Yukiko writes...
I enjoy your weblog. Long time ago, when the word "internet" was known to only a handful of tech people, someone told me that the development of the internet would entirely depend on a single thing: Peeping Tomism. He was proved right. What a pleasure to know what has inspired someone whose creative works you admire - today. As you pointed out, some posts are too local to make much sense over here, but I don't mind since Japan is usually too unique in nearly every level of human activity. But what you write there is mostly applicable to us, too. Also, the fact that Farren-sensei has started weblogging reminded me of Mishima's diary which he published as "Holidays of a Novelist". One day Mishima impressively wrote about the period 1945-47/48 (when he was around 26 years old) as follows (again, please put up with my lame translation):
“Around that time, although I could do nothing practical in real life, I had sympathy and anticipation for vice whirling around in my mind. While doing nothing significant, I was certainly ‘sleeping with’ the epoch. However counter-epoch pose I might have taken, I was, anyway, sleeping with her. Compared with this, the current time -- the year 1955 or 1954 -- is not enough to make me sleep with it. Ever since I reached so-called the ‘reactionary" period’, I have never slept with an era. Should a novelist always sleep with his/her contemporary era like a whore? Of course, a novel should inevitably have some features of the current time. However, aren't the solitude and abstinence of an author in a reactionary period more prolific to create great stories?
Yet, a novelist must have, at least once, the experience of sharing a bed with an era and, apparently, he/she needs to be energized by the memory of it.”
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THIS BLOG HAS NEW POSTS ALMOST DAILY, SO COME BACK SOON, WORD UP?
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A COMMERCIAL
I have a new book out. Or at least the paperback edition of the last hardback. UNDERLAND is now in the stores, although the publishers, Tor/St. Martins are doing their level best to make it a well kept secret. So buy a book, strike a blow, support the scribe. Go you local store, or look on Amazon. UNDERLAND, the last for the moment of the Victor Renquist counter-culture vampire stories, is loads of fun being choc fill o’ not only vampires, but the Hollow Earth, Nazis, flying saucers, the NSA, serpent gods, snow, government corruption, alternative history, plus all the usual lurid sex, drugs and violence. (Someone should really make a movie.)
I would also recommend THE DNA COWBOYS TRILOGY and JIM MORRISON’S ADVENTURES IN THE AFTERLIFE.
************************
Yesterday I did an interview for a Japanese rock magazine called Quest, which took up most of my afternoon and then I spend more hours reading the corrected m/s of my new novel Kindling (for a full description, and a shot of the cover I would refer you to http://www.thanatosoft.freeserve.co.uk/deviancefiles/kindling.htm)
I’m now two weeks late with the bloody m/s which is not my style at all, but a combination of overwork, poverty, flu, and an intense depression at the way Tor Books is currently treating me like mid-list scum, left me too depressed to look at for a number of days.
A combination of all things Japanese and the fact that Kindling is set in a whole imaginary alternate world prompts me to post the following from Yukiko in Tokyo, who rocks very politely, and quotes Mishima, who, I suspect, we in the West do not properly understand. The good news is that fact that Doc40 now appears to be rocking too has cheered me up no end. Also Yukiko’s remark about “Peeping Tomism” is highly apt in that it’s totally how I feel on my prowls of the blogosphere that have taken me to the domains of everyone from distraught teenagers to the journal of a witty and erudite brit call girl who blogs under the name Belle de Jour and defines her days of the week in French. http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com/
Yukiko writes...
I enjoy your weblog. Long time ago, when the word "internet" was known to only a handful of tech people, someone told me that the development of the internet would entirely depend on a single thing: Peeping Tomism. He was proved right. What a pleasure to know what has inspired someone whose creative works you admire - today. As you pointed out, some posts are too local to make much sense over here, but I don't mind since Japan is usually too unique in nearly every level of human activity. But what you write there is mostly applicable to us, too. Also, the fact that Farren-sensei has started weblogging reminded me of Mishima's diary which he published as "Holidays of a Novelist". One day Mishima impressively wrote about the period 1945-47/48 (when he was around 26 years old) as follows (again, please put up with my lame translation):
“Around that time, although I could do nothing practical in real life, I had sympathy and anticipation for vice whirling around in my mind. While doing nothing significant, I was certainly ‘sleeping with’ the epoch. However counter-epoch pose I might have taken, I was, anyway, sleeping with her. Compared with this, the current time -- the year 1955 or 1954 -- is not enough to make me sleep with it. Ever since I reached so-called the ‘reactionary" period’, I have never slept with an era. Should a novelist always sleep with his/her contemporary era like a whore? Of course, a novel should inevitably have some features of the current time. However, aren't the solitude and abstinence of an author in a reactionary period more prolific to create great stories?
Yet, a novelist must have, at least once, the experience of sharing a bed with an era and, apparently, he/she needs to be energized by the memory of it.”
***********************
THIS BLOG HAS NEW POSTS ALMOST DAILY, SO COME BACK SOON, WORD UP?
***********************
A COMMERCIAL
I have a new book out. Or at least the paperback edition of the last hardback. UNDERLAND is now in the stores, although the publishers, Tor/St. Martins are doing their level best to make it a well kept secret. So buy a book, strike a blow, support the scribe. Go you local store, or look on Amazon. UNDERLAND, the last for the moment of the Victor Renquist counter-culture vampire stories, is loads of fun being choc fill o’ not only vampires, but the Hollow Earth, Nazis, flying saucers, the NSA, serpent gods, snow, government corruption, alternative history, plus all the usual lurid sex, drugs and violence. (Someone should really make a movie.)
I would also recommend THE DNA COWBOYS TRILOGY and JIM MORRISON’S ADVENTURES IN THE AFTERLIFE.
************************
Monday, January 26, 2004
DENY EVERYTHING, BUT ONLY WHEN BUSTED
The following quote comes from no less than yesterday’s New York Times.
“If we were a true empire, we would currently preside over a much greater piece of the earth's surface than we do. That's not the way we operate.” – Vice President Dick Cheney, on whether the United States considers itself an empire.
Now I must confess that I found this a tad curious because I thought it was only we deluded radical nutters were of the opinion that the Bush Administration harbored an intention of conquering the known world by high-tech advanced military force. I could be wrong and am certainly open to correction, (let’s face it, friends, I’m always open to correction) but it seemed to me that, up on the “reasonable” level of the NYT, such ideas were dismissed as paranoid hysteria. Indeed, I have read a number of right-wing columns that made exactly the point and poured scorn on the concept that bellicose neoCon think-tanks like Plan for the New American Century (PNAC) were running the show. Thus I feel forced to ask why Dickie is going to all this trouble to deny what are only the hallucinatory fears of the likes of me?
OLD HIPPIES JUST GET WEIRDER AND THEY HAVE NO SENSE OF TIME
And talking of hallucinatory fears, (and nutters) I discovered the following anonymous screed in my wandering of the blogosphere, and felt it needed to be reproduced. Damn, but I didn’t know this kind of thing still went on. If nothing else, it makes me feel a lot more comfortable with my own insanity. Let’s not forget, though, that one of the greatest practitioners of this kind of thinking was the long incarcerated Charlie Manson.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to whom this has occurred, but suppose this whole thing was a smokescreen for Dylan's death in a motorcycle accident in Woodstock (site of a festival - from which Dylan was notably absent - held the same year as the memorial service on the zebra crossing) and subsequent replacement by an actor who looked the same, except for the beard, but had a different voice ('I can't see your face anymore, your voice has changed...'). This would explain the presence of the Beatles (featuring J.W. Lennon) on the cover of J.W. Harding. And of course, it's not Johnny who's in the Basement but Bobby, like, as in under the ground in upstate New York. 'He travelled with a gun in every hand'. Could this be a reference to the multi-handed doll on the cover of Sgt Pepper? The apparent reference on which to the Rolling Stones is actually a reference to the author of Like a Rolling Stone (also there depicted, along with a lot of other dead people - 'some are dead and some are living'), over whose grave a stone (also, incidentally, the maiden surname of his mother, Beatty Stone) has just been rolled. God (=JWH) said to Abraham (Zimmerman, of Hibbing, Minnesota), kill me your son. The covenant of HW61R (what is Dylan wearing on the album cover?) not only foreshadows Dylan's own death on the symbolic Highway 61 of his semi-rural idyll, but echoes the covenant made by Robert Johnson (who produced Highway 61 Revisited?) with the devil at the crossroads on Highway 61 decades earlier.
And of course there's all the Freewheelin' stuff (parked VW vehicle etc.). George acquired this album in Paris. But as well as designating France's capital city, 'paris' is also the plural of the noun 'pari', meaning 'bet'. So the Beatles were actually the Roman soldiers attending the Christlike Dylan's death. 'In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes'. Hilltop? Clearly an allusion to The Fool on the Hill, and the fact that it's not McCartney who's dead but Dylan; the Paul is Dead thing is just a ruse to 'fool' the world. 'On the Hill'? A possible reference to one of the sites of the fooling taking place, viz I Dreamed I saw Saint Augustine ('alive as you or me'), itself a reworking of 'I Dreamed I saw Joe Hill'. It's merely a dream that St Augustine is still alive - and that's how alive Dylan is.
And what model Triumph did the accident occur on? A Bonneville TT 650cc. Bonneville? Salt Flats? Salt? Pepper...?
Just what was going on in Woodstock with all that apocalyptic imagery (e.g. All along the Watchtower - incidentally, magazine of the "JWH's" Witnesses - , with its 'barefoot servants' and 'two riders')? Yes, the apocalypse. Of St John. In Woodstock. Or St John's Woodstock? Are the Beatles the four horsemen? Is Ringo the Joker? Is Lennon the Thief (he stole a harmonica - a symbol closely associated with Dylan - in Arnhem en route to Hamburg; when he sings 'they're going to crucify me' does he mean as Christ or as Thief by Dylan's side)? Dylan sings of 'lies that life is black and white', knowing the truth that it is death - his death - which is inextricably connected with the black and white of the zebra crossing. 'Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now'. It's as if he knew in 1964 - the year he met and 'turned on' the Beatles- that he was to be replaced by an actor younger than him. 'If I ain't dead already, then you'll know the reason why', sings Lennon. The reason why being that Dylan - to whom he has not long before alluded - has been offered as blood sacrifice.
FOR MONDAY, MONDAY
Today, being a Monday, I would also recommend Modern Drunkard Magazine.
http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/
CRYPTIQUE – Baby needs new shoes.
The following quote comes from no less than yesterday’s New York Times.
“If we were a true empire, we would currently preside over a much greater piece of the earth's surface than we do. That's not the way we operate.” – Vice President Dick Cheney, on whether the United States considers itself an empire.
Now I must confess that I found this a tad curious because I thought it was only we deluded radical nutters were of the opinion that the Bush Administration harbored an intention of conquering the known world by high-tech advanced military force. I could be wrong and am certainly open to correction, (let’s face it, friends, I’m always open to correction) but it seemed to me that, up on the “reasonable” level of the NYT, such ideas were dismissed as paranoid hysteria. Indeed, I have read a number of right-wing columns that made exactly the point and poured scorn on the concept that bellicose neoCon think-tanks like Plan for the New American Century (PNAC) were running the show. Thus I feel forced to ask why Dickie is going to all this trouble to deny what are only the hallucinatory fears of the likes of me?
OLD HIPPIES JUST GET WEIRDER AND THEY HAVE NO SENSE OF TIME
And talking of hallucinatory fears, (and nutters) I discovered the following anonymous screed in my wandering of the blogosphere, and felt it needed to be reproduced. Damn, but I didn’t know this kind of thing still went on. If nothing else, it makes me feel a lot more comfortable with my own insanity. Let’s not forget, though, that one of the greatest practitioners of this kind of thinking was the long incarcerated Charlie Manson.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to whom this has occurred, but suppose this whole thing was a smokescreen for Dylan's death in a motorcycle accident in Woodstock (site of a festival - from which Dylan was notably absent - held the same year as the memorial service on the zebra crossing) and subsequent replacement by an actor who looked the same, except for the beard, but had a different voice ('I can't see your face anymore, your voice has changed...'). This would explain the presence of the Beatles (featuring J.W. Lennon) on the cover of J.W. Harding. And of course, it's not Johnny who's in the Basement but Bobby, like, as in under the ground in upstate New York. 'He travelled with a gun in every hand'. Could this be a reference to the multi-handed doll on the cover of Sgt Pepper? The apparent reference on which to the Rolling Stones is actually a reference to the author of Like a Rolling Stone (also there depicted, along with a lot of other dead people - 'some are dead and some are living'), over whose grave a stone (also, incidentally, the maiden surname of his mother, Beatty Stone) has just been rolled. God (=JWH) said to Abraham (Zimmerman, of Hibbing, Minnesota), kill me your son. The covenant of HW61R (what is Dylan wearing on the album cover?) not only foreshadows Dylan's own death on the symbolic Highway 61 of his semi-rural idyll, but echoes the covenant made by Robert Johnson (who produced Highway 61 Revisited?) with the devil at the crossroads on Highway 61 decades earlier.
And of course there's all the Freewheelin' stuff (parked VW vehicle etc.). George acquired this album in Paris. But as well as designating France's capital city, 'paris' is also the plural of the noun 'pari', meaning 'bet'. So the Beatles were actually the Roman soldiers attending the Christlike Dylan's death. 'In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes'. Hilltop? Clearly an allusion to The Fool on the Hill, and the fact that it's not McCartney who's dead but Dylan; the Paul is Dead thing is just a ruse to 'fool' the world. 'On the Hill'? A possible reference to one of the sites of the fooling taking place, viz I Dreamed I saw Saint Augustine ('alive as you or me'), itself a reworking of 'I Dreamed I saw Joe Hill'. It's merely a dream that St Augustine is still alive - and that's how alive Dylan is.
And what model Triumph did the accident occur on? A Bonneville TT 650cc. Bonneville? Salt Flats? Salt? Pepper...?
Just what was going on in Woodstock with all that apocalyptic imagery (e.g. All along the Watchtower - incidentally, magazine of the "JWH's" Witnesses - , with its 'barefoot servants' and 'two riders')? Yes, the apocalypse. Of St John. In Woodstock. Or St John's Woodstock? Are the Beatles the four horsemen? Is Ringo the Joker? Is Lennon the Thief (he stole a harmonica - a symbol closely associated with Dylan - in Arnhem en route to Hamburg; when he sings 'they're going to crucify me' does he mean as Christ or as Thief by Dylan's side)? Dylan sings of 'lies that life is black and white', knowing the truth that it is death - his death - which is inextricably connected with the black and white of the zebra crossing. 'Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now'. It's as if he knew in 1964 - the year he met and 'turned on' the Beatles- that he was to be replaced by an actor younger than him. 'If I ain't dead already, then you'll know the reason why', sings Lennon. The reason why being that Dylan - to whom he has not long before alluded - has been offered as blood sacrifice.
FOR MONDAY, MONDAY
Today, being a Monday, I would also recommend Modern Drunkard Magazine.
http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/
CRYPTIQUE – Baby needs new shoes.
Sunday, January 25, 2004
POETRY ON SUNDAY
The idea of posting poetry on Doc40 has been a question that I’ve recently mulled to only partial avail. Should I? Shouldn’t I? There was so much other fun to be had, but then a hip spinster of my acquaintance started posting poems on her blog that had previously been about angst and drinking, so I decided what the hell, some of you might enjoy it. This piece was written two or three years ago, it’s been performed a few times when Andy Colquhoun and I have been out doing our solo Hendrix and poetry thing. It was on the short list to be recorded for the Dr. Crow CD, but the composition had so many movements and stuff, it would have busted our shoestring budget. It’s also a great exercise in borrowed lines from other sources that span Oscar Wilde to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Because it was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
That was what I said as bought myself a ticket
Ventured into the darkness and sat down
Right there in the very first row
To take a good look
At Little Egypt and her tattoo
Her ruby
And the diamond big as Texas on her toe
But lord, lord, hey pardon me ma'am
It was really nothing
It was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
That was what I rationalized
As I cut myself free
From all tiresome reality
As I merged with the movie
And drifted through the sheen
Of the screen with a prodigious thirst
And became one with the black and white
There somewhere in between
But I swear to you all
I considered it...
Just something to do between cigarettes
And in the flash of a moment
I found my phone was tapped
And I was on the lam from Special Agents
Of the Red Queen
Who thought busting themselves a poet
Would provide a path
To painless professional prestige
With maybe blackmail as a fallback
And I told myself as I ran through the sewers
In a voice like Harry Lime
Hey you guys, this is a terrible mistake
It was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
And later that was the only
Explanation I could offer
To the girl with short black bangs, the satin dress,
The fuck me sandals and Rayban sunglasses
And who was pointing a revolver at my head
And seemed to be extremely angry about something
I'd done or maybe failed to do
But it didn't mean nothing, baby. It was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
Just something to do between cigarettes
And on a day trip in a dayglo blue bus
To the end of the night and all the way out
To the leading edge of insanity
Straining with bleeding ears
To hear the multitude sounds of the Earth
The million half notes
Played on the stringed lute of the world
By all the winds of the air
From Loanshark Laments
To the Chorus of the Cutting Crew
The requiem of the Murder Review
The faces lost and masks regained
And I will never be the same
A full half century pissed away
(Should I go or should I stay?)
And it seems like only yesterday
(I hardly believe in yesterday)
When all I needed
When I assumed all I needed was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
Just something to do between cigarettes
MARMITE
Some discussion has been taking place on the comments board on the matter of Marmite. For all of you who don’t know, Marmite is a brand of salty savory spread made from brewers’ yeast. It is a disgusting looking black/brown viscous paste that is spread on toast, or dissolved in water as a hot drink. It comes in a mysterious brown-glass jar with a Victorian label. Small British children become addicted to it at early age after being fed “Marmite soldiers”, small slivers of toast spread with the stuff to dip in their soft-boiled eggs. My personal, heart-stopping weakness was to fry slices of bread in either butter or bacon grease and then slather it with enough Marmite to burn off the roof of your mouth. The finished product is quite as daunting as Elvis’ fried peanut butter and banana creation. Marmite is alleged by some to cure hangovers, but I’ve never noticed that it did, beyond the obvious benefit if hot greasy food and lots of B complex vitamins.
For more check – http://waterpistol.davinian.co.uk
FROM THE EMAIL
The fine fidicen writes...
When this Interweb thing first hit I thought, mmmwaaahahahhaha, poets and freaks finally have the means to create, publish, and distribute from one point and on their own--this is the end of the JudeoChristiaNixonic Era... the Beast has been born in Bethlehem West, we shall hound the heathens to the far reaches of some doomed and frozen galaxy.
Then things sort of went nowhere except a slice of the smarmy indie musicians did all of their rot, and fairly poorly for the most part. Now seems like things are catching on. A non-Iraq voter has raised 25 or 40 million mostly via youth on the web and he will fuck things good even if they kick him out of the dance and now there's all this blogging and such, from Hollywood to Fallujah, not to mention blazing radical journalism like Counterpunch and tall walking bitches of digests like What Really Happened, Common Dreams, and Smirking Chimp. One could really get optimistic if one wasn't too careful.
So Bravo, we need you in fishwrap yes, but this is double plus good, and I will pass along to the ranks. 2004 is the time and the place. I reckon this is our moment to matter, at least until the next one comes--and I could live without that one if we fail here.
Give Them Hell,
And Dan forwards this important heads up...
Dear Friend,
As you probably know, Ralph Nader is considering running for president again in 2004. Like millions of Americans, I am disturbed that Nader may again cost the Democrats the election, and once again tip the balance in our closely divided nation to George Bush. Nader says he will make up his mind in the next few weeks. The link below will take you to a message about Nader's potential candidacy and a simple step you can take right now to oppose such a run.
Come watch Ralph Don't Run:
http://www.turtlerock.com/RalphDontRun
CRYPTIQUE – Without bread, you’re toast.
The idea of posting poetry on Doc40 has been a question that I’ve recently mulled to only partial avail. Should I? Shouldn’t I? There was so much other fun to be had, but then a hip spinster of my acquaintance started posting poems on her blog that had previously been about angst and drinking, so I decided what the hell, some of you might enjoy it. This piece was written two or three years ago, it’s been performed a few times when Andy Colquhoun and I have been out doing our solo Hendrix and poetry thing. It was on the short list to be recorded for the Dr. Crow CD, but the composition had so many movements and stuff, it would have busted our shoestring budget. It’s also a great exercise in borrowed lines from other sources that span Oscar Wilde to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Because it was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
That was what I said as bought myself a ticket
Ventured into the darkness and sat down
Right there in the very first row
To take a good look
At Little Egypt and her tattoo
Her ruby
And the diamond big as Texas on her toe
But lord, lord, hey pardon me ma'am
It was really nothing
It was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
That was what I rationalized
As I cut myself free
From all tiresome reality
As I merged with the movie
And drifted through the sheen
Of the screen with a prodigious thirst
And became one with the black and white
There somewhere in between
But I swear to you all
I considered it...
Just something to do between cigarettes
And in the flash of a moment
I found my phone was tapped
And I was on the lam from Special Agents
Of the Red Queen
Who thought busting themselves a poet
Would provide a path
To painless professional prestige
With maybe blackmail as a fallback
And I told myself as I ran through the sewers
In a voice like Harry Lime
Hey you guys, this is a terrible mistake
It was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
And later that was the only
Explanation I could offer
To the girl with short black bangs, the satin dress,
The fuck me sandals and Rayban sunglasses
And who was pointing a revolver at my head
And seemed to be extremely angry about something
I'd done or maybe failed to do
But it didn't mean nothing, baby. It was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
Just something to do between cigarettes
And on a day trip in a dayglo blue bus
To the end of the night and all the way out
To the leading edge of insanity
Straining with bleeding ears
To hear the multitude sounds of the Earth
The million half notes
Played on the stringed lute of the world
By all the winds of the air
From Loanshark Laments
To the Chorus of the Cutting Crew
The requiem of the Murder Review
The faces lost and masks regained
And I will never be the same
A full half century pissed away
(Should I go or should I stay?)
And it seems like only yesterday
(I hardly believe in yesterday)
When all I needed
When I assumed all I needed was...
Just something to do between cigarettes
Just something to do between cigarettes
MARMITE
Some discussion has been taking place on the comments board on the matter of Marmite. For all of you who don’t know, Marmite is a brand of salty savory spread made from brewers’ yeast. It is a disgusting looking black/brown viscous paste that is spread on toast, or dissolved in water as a hot drink. It comes in a mysterious brown-glass jar with a Victorian label. Small British children become addicted to it at early age after being fed “Marmite soldiers”, small slivers of toast spread with the stuff to dip in their soft-boiled eggs. My personal, heart-stopping weakness was to fry slices of bread in either butter or bacon grease and then slather it with enough Marmite to burn off the roof of your mouth. The finished product is quite as daunting as Elvis’ fried peanut butter and banana creation. Marmite is alleged by some to cure hangovers, but I’ve never noticed that it did, beyond the obvious benefit if hot greasy food and lots of B complex vitamins.
For more check – http://waterpistol.davinian.co.uk
FROM THE EMAIL
The fine fidicen writes...
When this Interweb thing first hit I thought, mmmwaaahahahhaha, poets and freaks finally have the means to create, publish, and distribute from one point and on their own--this is the end of the JudeoChristiaNixonic Era... the Beast has been born in Bethlehem West, we shall hound the heathens to the far reaches of some doomed and frozen galaxy.
Then things sort of went nowhere except a slice of the smarmy indie musicians did all of their rot, and fairly poorly for the most part. Now seems like things are catching on. A non-Iraq voter has raised 25 or 40 million mostly via youth on the web and he will fuck things good even if they kick him out of the dance and now there's all this blogging and such, from Hollywood to Fallujah, not to mention blazing radical journalism like Counterpunch and tall walking bitches of digests like What Really Happened, Common Dreams, and Smirking Chimp. One could really get optimistic if one wasn't too careful.
So Bravo, we need you in fishwrap yes, but this is double plus good, and I will pass along to the ranks. 2004 is the time and the place. I reckon this is our moment to matter, at least until the next one comes--and I could live without that one if we fail here.
Give Them Hell,
And Dan forwards this important heads up...
Dear Friend,
As you probably know, Ralph Nader is considering running for president again in 2004. Like millions of Americans, I am disturbed that Nader may again cost the Democrats the election, and once again tip the balance in our closely divided nation to George Bush. Nader says he will make up his mind in the next few weeks. The link below will take you to a message about Nader's potential candidacy and a simple step you can take right now to oppose such a run.
Come watch Ralph Don't Run:
http://www.turtlerock.com/RalphDontRun
CRYPTIQUE – Without bread, you’re toast.
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