This just in...
Our pal Alan Burridge (who also runs the Motorheadbangers Club) writes…
"Hot X Buns Indeed! Just read Mick Farren mentioning back in the UK they will be having Hot X Buns" and it's obviously one aspect of living in LA he's missing.But my wife, Jane, arrived home from her shift at our local Hospital yesterday to say that, (after 17 years of working there, and it happening every Good Friday, until now), the patient's are no longer getting their Hot X Buns.It was tradition!It was what happened!When one of her colleagues asked "Where are the Hot X Buns?" she was informed: "The Hospital Trust decided not to provide them as it might upset or offend patients of other ethnic groups/religions."Excuse me?I'm pretty open-minded about everything, but this is OUR country!What ever happened to When in Rome, you do as the Roman's do?They need not eat the darned Hot X Buns, so why should their choice of living and using the hospitals in the UK stop others, also in hospital, from doing so?Even though religions vary, God must be pretty much the same geezer, mustn't he?When we visit or live in other countries, we are expected to join in and enjoy their traditions and ways of life, so why do we have to change ours to accomodate them?"
We are also talking the importance of bake goods here. I mean, I’m not a Christian but a good hot cross bun -- as pictured above -- is transcendental, an old-country tradition, ancient and powerful enough to parallel that moment in The Godfather when Clemenza tells Rocco, after they whack Paulie. “Leave the gun, take the cannolis.”
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Friday, April 06, 2007
DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S #3
Drug addicts probably fare as badly as lesbians in pulp fiction and also lose their clothes just as regularly.
BEARS, TO BUNS, TO BURROUGH, TO BUNNIES (AND STONED SPIDERS)
It’s Good Friday for all you Christians, right? All hammers, nails, crucifixions, and, back where I come from, things called hot cross buns that are delicious but defy description. So enjoy yourselves, right, and, come Sunday, you’ll be dealing with the theological significance of bunnies and chocolate. I wish you all joy.
For some unfathomable reason I find myself precipitated into a bout of double-plus nostalgia. Since about around the time I ingested my first chemical stimulants, I have been seeing photographs of what happens to the web-weaving abilities of spiders on various drugs, but now we have actual film.
And for no other reason that a blast from the past, here’s a showing of Uncle Bill Burroughs' classic Towers Open Fire.
The secret word is Golgotha
For some unfathomable reason I find myself precipitated into a bout of double-plus nostalgia. Since about around the time I ingested my first chemical stimulants, I have been seeing photographs of what happens to the web-weaving abilities of spiders on various drugs, but now we have actual film.
And for no other reason that a blast from the past, here’s a showing of Uncle Bill Burroughs' classic Towers Open Fire.
The secret word is Golgotha
Thursday, April 05, 2007
IF YOU MET US WE'D PROBABLY EAT YOU, BUT PLEASE SAVE US.
This is a Doc40 public service announcement. The Fish and Wildlife Service has recently announced a proposal to list the polar bear as 'threatened' under the Endangered Species Act. This opens a 90-day public comment period. Afterwards, the FWS will then undergo a 12-month review of all the comments, then issue a final ruling. Full story.
(We also trust that pictures of adorable polar bears evoke sentimental guilt to the max, if that’s what it takes to motivate us to salvage this sorry fucking planet.)
(We also trust that pictures of adorable polar bears evoke sentimental guilt to the max, if that’s what it takes to motivate us to salvage this sorry fucking planet.)
AS MUCH FUN AS WATCHING CHEESE MATURE
The panda cam is long gone. Butterstick is a surly teenager smoking cigarettes behind the bushes and the cheese cam is really no substitute. In fact the cheese cam – real name Cheddarvision TV – may be finest example of aesthetic boredom since Andy Warhol’s Sleep. What we are invited to watch is 44 pounds of English Cheddar cheese mature over a period of a year, give or take a few weeks either way. Thanks to Rich, Doc40 has both a news report and the actual cheese cam.
The secret word is Cracker
ALSO in this week’s LA CityBeat, I have some truly stunning observations on what’s being called viral politics.
The secret word is Cracker
ALSO in this week’s LA CityBeat, I have some truly stunning observations on what’s being called viral politics.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
MAYBE FALLING OUT OF A TREE DOES MAKE YOU TALK TOO MUCH
So Keef now claims he was joking when he regaled the NME with the tale of how he snorted his father's ashes along with a line of blow. He is, however, continuing to assert that he was trepanned by a brain surgeon, who watched his thoughts flying around in his head.
The secret word is Hush
The secret word is Hush
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
DOES FALLING OUT OF A TREE MAKE YOU TALK TOO MUCH?
The following story has been wandering around the internet for most of the day. Why Keith should indulge in all these revelations is anyone’s basic guess…
Keith Richards admits ingesting all manner of substances in his time. But none quite as bizarre as he reveals in his latest confession: he snorted his father's ashes. In a wide-ranging interview published today, the 63-year-old veteran of tequila breakfasts and drug marathons described how he once sampled his father's ashes mixed with cocaine. "The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," he told NME magazine. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared, he didn't give a shit. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive." Bert Richards died five years ago at the age of 84. He had been a factory labourer and wounded in the second world war.
But if this episode of his Rolling Stone son's life was relatively innocuous, it was a different story when the guitarist found himself in what he said was his most life-threatening drug experience. "Someone put strychnine in my dope. It was in Switzerland. I was totally comatose, but I was totally awake. I could listen to everyone, and they were like, 'He's dead, he's dead!', waving their fingers and pushing me about. I was thinking, 'I'm not dead!'," he recalled. He said his longevity in the face of multiple drug abuse over decades was just luck, and advised others not to follow his lead. "I've no pretensions about immortality ... I was number one on the Who's 'Likely To Die' list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list."
Richards himself had yet another brush with death last year when he had a fall on holiday in Fiji. It had been overplayed, he said; he was not climbing a coconut tree but sitting on a "shrub". But he did not play down the subsequent treatment. "I've been trepanned. That's quite an interesting experience, especially for my brain surgeon, who saw my thoughts flying around in my brain. I've got pictures of it, mate. They cut my head, brain, skull open, went in and pulled out the crap, and put some of it back again. I mean, shit, Keith Richards has got to do everything once."
And yes, I suppose he does. We have to give the old boy that much.
The secret words Crossroads
Keith Richards admits ingesting all manner of substances in his time. But none quite as bizarre as he reveals in his latest confession: he snorted his father's ashes. In a wide-ranging interview published today, the 63-year-old veteran of tequila breakfasts and drug marathons described how he once sampled his father's ashes mixed with cocaine. "The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," he told NME magazine. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared, he didn't give a shit. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive." Bert Richards died five years ago at the age of 84. He had been a factory labourer and wounded in the second world war.
But if this episode of his Rolling Stone son's life was relatively innocuous, it was a different story when the guitarist found himself in what he said was his most life-threatening drug experience. "Someone put strychnine in my dope. It was in Switzerland. I was totally comatose, but I was totally awake. I could listen to everyone, and they were like, 'He's dead, he's dead!', waving their fingers and pushing me about. I was thinking, 'I'm not dead!'," he recalled. He said his longevity in the face of multiple drug abuse over decades was just luck, and advised others not to follow his lead. "I've no pretensions about immortality ... I was number one on the Who's 'Likely To Die' list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list."
Richards himself had yet another brush with death last year when he had a fall on holiday in Fiji. It had been overplayed, he said; he was not climbing a coconut tree but sitting on a "shrub". But he did not play down the subsequent treatment. "I've been trepanned. That's quite an interesting experience, especially for my brain surgeon, who saw my thoughts flying around in my brain. I've got pictures of it, mate. They cut my head, brain, skull open, went in and pulled out the crap, and put some of it back again. I mean, shit, Keith Richards has got to do everything once."
And yes, I suppose he does. We have to give the old boy that much.
The secret words Crossroads
Sunday, April 01, 2007
HOW THEY BUILT THE GREAT PYRAMID -- MAYBE!
This very disturbing report comes from the wonderful some girl but I don’t like it.
PARIS - A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built — with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place. Ending eight years of study on the subject, architect Jean-Pierre Houdin released his findings and a computerized 3-D mockup showing how workers would have erected the pyramid at Giza outside Cairo.
PARIS - A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built — with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place. Ending eight years of study on the subject, architect Jean-Pierre Houdin released his findings and a computerized 3-D mockup showing how workers would have erected the pyramid at Giza outside Cairo.
And here are pages of it, plus a slide show and 3D animation except the 3D animation involves downloading yet another goddamn player program, this one made by Dassault Systemes, which I kinda suspect are the same Dassault that made lousy jet fighters back when the French were losing their war against the Viet Minh.
I would be interested know however if M. Houdin has taken into account the odd system of narrow shafts and remote controlled doors discover by Rudolph Gantenbrink and his robot Upuaut. And then there are the man-hour calculations. I can’t give you a reference, but back in the 1970s, I recall a work-study on moving that volume of rock into a pyramid structure, and how it would have taken the then-population of Egypt, plus any available enslaveable neighbors about 350 years to complete the project without the use of levitation or alien tractor beams. That would mean they started building Cheops tomb some two and a half centuries before he was born. Me? I’m still an alien interventionist and cling to the image below. The origins of Victor Renquist will not be undermined.
The secret word is Secret
DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S #1
I come across so many great paperback covers in my travels I figure I should start an irregular series, just to share them with all of you friends and neighbors. And how better to start than with that laugh-a-minute cut-up George Orwell?