RAVAGED EARTH REVISITED

Now we have a degree of confusion (see yesterday’s comments) about what fire photographs were taken when and by whom, I will simply leave it that this scary image all too vividly illustrates how all those little boxes (that’s right, the ones made out of ticky-tacky) are being built on hillsides with histories of cyclical wild fires. And all evidence appears to indicate that a longer fire season and larger and more intense fires are yet another symptom of escalating environmental catastrophe. Which is ultimately what counts and why I post these pics. Breathtaking as they might be, this is a horrorshow not an art exhibit.

The secret word are Scorched Earth

“Errors in Doc40 will not be tolerated, and, since they undermine your other arguments, the penalties must, by simple logic, be cruel and unusual.”

But this is definitely Venus In Furs.
(And the pic was definitely sent by Valerie)

YOU HAVE TO HEAR THIS!

There really is nothing else I can say except listen to Saturn! (apart from to thank Valerie for sending it.) I love this stuff! It rocks! (But bear in mind that I also once wanted to form a band with a pod of humpback whales.)

MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE RAVAGED EARTH

Doug the Bass sent over this pic by Nick in Rancho Santa Fe of deer taking refuge in what looks like a foot or so of water. If so inclined, I could drive myself into depressed insanity wondering if they survived, but I will attempt not to do that. I’ll just live with the knowledge that this planet is becoming a dangerously unpredictable nightmare and it’s our own fucking fault. Nick took a number of these fire pics, but I think one is more than enough for today.

BUT, in a slightly more optimistic frame of mind, I speculate in the current LA CityBeat on the oblivion that I hope awaits all the highly paid, far-right so-called media pundits when the Bush/Cheney regime finally falls and their audience moves on.

The secret word is Bambi

The Interplanetary Space Fleet endorses this site. (But not to such a degree as to get me off this godforsaken planet.)

AND NOW WE’VE HAD ALL OUR SCARY HALLOWEEN FUN SHALL WE RETURN TO THE SCARY BAD REALITY

This short film by Max Blumenthal was shot at the recent Value Voters Summit. (Just scroll down a little and activate.) It sounds like a supermarket promotion but, in fact, it was the religious right making it known to the Republican presidential candidates that they expect major payback after supporting George Bush for almost seven long years, and, from their point of view, getting very little for it. You really have to sympathize with these good folk. They expected to be a handed a theocracy and they didn’t get it. Roe v Wade wasn't overturned. Not a single heretic has been incinerated, and atheists and homosexuals have not been rounded up and “quarantined.” This film has already appeared on Huffpo. I don’t know how much Arianna’s Wal-Blog overlaps with Doc 40, but I’m running it anyway just to remind us all that those people are out there and they don’t like us.

The secret word is Burning

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM THE DOC40 FUNHOUSE

Stolen from deviantART

A HALLOWEEN TALE

“You’re a bloody fool, Slobodan. I told you to morph into a bat.”

And here is a gravely seasonal and 100% factual anecdote from Sky…
Serbian vampire hunters have acted to prevent the very remote possibility that former dictator Slobodan Milosevic might stage a come-back - by driving a three-foot stake through his heart. According to Ananova, the politically-motivated Van Helsings, led byMiroslav Milosevic (no relation), gave themselves up to cops after attacking the deceased despot in his grave in the eastern town of Pozarevac. Milosevic died in his cell in at the Scheveningen detention center in the Hague, back in 2006, while on trial in a UN war crimes tribunal for various unsavoury activities connected with the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Miroslav Milosevic said "he and his fellow vampire hunters acted to stop the former dictator returning from the dead to haunt the country". His team explained that the wooden stake had been "driven into the ground and through the late president's heart". Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia naturally condemned the desecration, while his daughter-in-law Milica Gajic said she "planned to sue the vampire hunters and accused the police of failing to protect the grave properly".

Since Halloween is the annual vanilla flirtation with evil, the secret word is Blackwater

THE ARNOLD LAYNE FAN CLUB

I don’t know if onanistic perversion and undergarment theft qualifies as a Halloween preoccupation, and the song Arnold Layne is hardly as classic as The Monster Mash, but why not play it anyway? Here’s the original with Syd Barrett singing plus another quite soaring version with David Bowie.

Image by LichtReize

MOURNING PAUL MARSH

When Paul Marsh and I were in art school we both thought Brigitte Bardot was the most glorious woman on the cool green Earth. Paul also worshiped Gene Vincent and Franz Kafka and could hotwire any automobile known to man. So this picture is for you, man. Paul went on to be a smuggler, reefer runner, and cocaine cowboy, and in the process became well acquainted with the tides of the Caribbean, but also the interior workings of the British, US, and Jamaican prison systems. I was just told he died of lung cancer. He used to smoke unfiltered Pall Malls. His friend Alun described his exit thus. “It was lung cancer but typical Paul wouldn’t go to the doctor or take any government drugs his last hours were spent with a gram of pure acid, a bag of skunk candy, and the whole trilogy of Lord of the Rings. Wish it could have been different but, hey, the circle of life and all that shit. They were all his choices and you cant say fairer than that.”
Paul was also passionate about Jimi Hendrix so this too is for you, bro. Could be I’ll see you in the Grey Havens sooner than we think.

The word is no secret.

Pic from Tom Sutpen

THIS ROBOT ROMANCE IS GETTING WAY OUT OF HAND, IF INDEED ROBOTS HAVE HANDS

HCB just sent over this one

And also this one, pointing out the obvious resemblence.

And then there's this ridiculous thing.

PORTER WAGONER-- RIP

MR ROBOT RISING

This antique image arrived in part as a kind of graphic comment on the previous posted picture. Is it coincidental, or are we drawn to replicant romance, and rusting, recherché robots in a kind of Jungian subconscious preparation for The Singularity, when man (and of course woman) merge with the machinery and the micro processors? And is the night still made for lovers be they flesh, metal or both? (Of course, believing in the extinguishment of everything on 12.21.2012 means you don't have to wprry about The Singularity.

The secret question is Why?

Paul Marsh -- RIP