WE CAN’T EVEN LEARN FROM RAMBO?

The roster of movies on TV over the July 4th weekend was so cheap and dire that, despite hundreds of bloody channels, some wee hour of – I think – Sunday night found me starring at Rambo III, and grimly noting between explosions how much the world has changed since 1988. Back then, cinema audiences applauded as the tortured but invincible John Rambo aided valiant Afghan rebels – presumably the mujahedeen, although not actually named – fighting the cruel and godless communists. In the modern world where the US and its allies have been blundering around Afghanistan in bad body armor for almost a decade, with grunts dying and generals being fired, the irony of time’s passage was all too evident, even in the cheesy dialogue.

Mousa: This is Afghanistan... Alexander the Great try to conquer this country... then Genghis Khan, then the British. Now Russia. But Afghan people fight hard, they never be defeated. Ancient enemy make prayer about these people... you wish to hear?
Rambo: Um-hum.
Mousa: Very good. It says, 'May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.' Understand what this means?
Rambo: That you guys don't take any shit?
Mousa: Yes... something like this.

And yet his pop-illiterate summation of the situation at the top of the world, where the landscape and mindset resemble Mars and the 12th century respectively, is as close to the truth as anything that has come out of either the Bush or Obama White House. The US will doubtless join roster of the Macedonians, the Mongols and the Brits as strangers who misadventured in this strange but historically formidable land. And yet the poor bloody Afghans are sitting on a mineral bonanza (and also the capability for producing some of the best hashish and opium known to man) which if properly exploited might coax them at least a little way in the direction of the 21st century. Mousa, however, has an answer for that.

Mousa: God must love crazy people.
Rambo: Why?
Mousa: He make so many of them!

But shall we leave the last word to Stallone?

Colonel Trautman: I'm sorry I got you into this Johnny.
Rambo: No you're not.

Click here for The Who

The secret word is Hapless

APPARENTLY I’M A COLLECTIVIST ANARCHIST (whatever that might mean)

Our good pal Alan who runs Motorheadbangers alerted me to the fact that this odd tome was being offered for sale on Amazon. Clicking the link told me nothing more than I could learn from the cover, so, as of this moment, you know as much as I do. Needless to say, my anarchist narcissism, and the fact that it was only fourteen bucks, compelled me to order a copy, and I’ll report back when it arrives. Right now I would definitely not recommend rushing to Amazon to order a copy. If you really want to go book shopping online go for a copy of my own Speed-Speed-Speedfreak. It’s also cheaper.

Click here for obvious Pistols

HANDS OFF MY COKE

I like a lot of stuff they do in the city of San Francisco, but this is beyond the boundary of even collectivist anarchist good taste. I’m not fat and I drink a fuck of a lot of Coke. Always have. I freely admit it. Click here to consult the Doc40 archive on the matter. I definitely don’t want some municipal comrade-bureaucrat telling me what’s good for me. Enough of that shit. That’s how they took my cigarettes. (And don’t even mention the drugs.) If they want to ban something how about leaf-blowers? Hell, I want vending machines that sell beer, like they have in Tokyo.

“Coca-Cola is out, and soy milk is now part of San Francisco's official city policy. Under an executive order from Mayor Gavin Newsom, Coke, Pepsi and Fanta Orange are no longer allowed in vending machines on city property, although their diet counterparts are - up to a point. Newsom's directive, issued in April but whose practical impacts are starting to be felt now, bars calorically sweetened beverages from vending machines on city property. That includes non-diet sodas, sports drinks and artificially sweetened water. Juice must be 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice with no added sweeteners. Diet sodas can be no more than 25 percent of the items offered, the directive says. There should be "ample choices" of water, "soy milk, rice milk and other similar dairy or non dairy milk," says the directive, which also covers fat and sugar content in vending machine snacks.” (Click here for more.)

Click here for The Andrews Sisters

THE DOC40 CHRISTIAN COLORING BOOK

All you born-again out there, just print out the picture full page, then get out your crayons, and color it in really nicely without going over the edges. It’ll keep you busy for a while and, while you’re busy, you won’t be annoying the rest of us.

Click here for Lyle

NO RETREAT – NO SURRENDER

Click here for a whole lotta Jerry Lee and Dave Edmunds

THE COCAINE CUP

This bizarre story from the BBC was supplied by our good buddy UK Steve. And if the World Cup fashioned out of blow wasn’t weird enough, tales of cocaine smuggling submarines being found in the jungles of Central America have circulated since at least the 1990s. (Click here)

“A replica World Cup trophy seized by anti-drugs police in Colombia is made out of cocaine, lab tests have confirmed. The 36cm (14in) statue was found in a delivery crate at Bogota airport. The crate was in an airmail warehouse waiting to be sent to an address in Spain, airport anti-drug chief Jose Piedrahita said. In another development, a submarine built by drug-traffickers was found in Ecuador before its maiden voyage. The World Cup replica was made up of 11kg (24 lb) of the drug, mixed with acetone or gasoline to make it mouldable. The gold-painted statue was found on a routine sweep of the airport on Friday, authorities said. The Ecuadorian submarine, capable of carrying tonnes of cocaine, was discovered in a river near the border with Colombia, the US Drug Enforcement Agency said. The camouflaged 31m- (100 ft-) long vessel has a conning tower, periscope and air-conditioning system. One man was arrested.”

Click here for Chuck Berry

The secret word is Devious

AND YESTERDAY WE RECEIVED A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

Okay, so we don’t pretend that this was sent personally to Doc40, and we’re well aware it’s just an electronic response to pushing the button on a virtual petition, but we never received any letters from George Bush.

Dear Friend:
Thank you for writing to me about the BP oil spill. I will stand with the people of the Gulf Coast until they are made whole, and I appreciate your perspective as we continue to do everything we can to address this crisis. The Gulf is one of the richest and most beautiful ecosystems on the planet. For centuries, its residents have enjoyed and made a living off the fish that swim in its waters and the wildlife that inhabit its shores. The Gulf is also the heartbeat of the region's economic life, and this oil spill has upended whole communities. My Administration will continue to leverage every resource at our disposal to protect coastlines, to clean up the oil, to hold BP and other companies accountable for damages, to begin to restore the bounty and beauty of this region, and to aid the hardworking people of the Gulf as they rebuild their businesses and communities. For information about response efforts, available assistance, or how to help, please visit: www.WhiteHouse.gov/deepwater-bp-oil-spill. Individuals affected by the BP oil spill can also find resources by calling the United States Coast Guard at 1-800-280-7118, and small businesses can find support by calling 1-800-659-2955.Thank you again for contacting me. I encourage you to visit WhiteHouse.gov to learn more about my Administration or to contact me in the future.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama

Click here if you’re waiting for the miracle

COLLECTION AGENCIES BRING BACK THE DEBTORS PRISON

Owe a couple of hundred bucks on some lousy credit card, and you find yourself in the join because of it? Impossible? Seemingly not. While BP hire uniformed cops to keep civilians from seeing the worst of the oil disaster, corporate collection agencies are now using law enforcement to both persecute and prosecute folks in debt. (Which, these days, may be most of us.) The pretext is usually a failure to show up at a court hearing. 

"The law enforcement system has unwittingly become a tool of the debt collectors," said Michael Kinkley, an attorney in Spokane, Wash., who has represented arrested debtors. "The debt collectors are abusing the system and intimidating people, and law enforcement is going along with it." How often are debtors arrested across the country? No one can say. No national statistics are kept, and the practice is largely unnoticed outside legal circles. "My suspicion is the debt collection industry does not want the world to know these arrests are happening, because the practice would be widely condemned," said Robert Hobbs, deputy director of the National Consumer Law Center in Boston. Debt collectors defend the practice, saying phone calls, letters and legal actions aren't always enough to get people to pay.” (Click here for long article)

Click here for rather obvious (and colorized) Elvis

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Johnny and Juno Frozdick claimed to have superpowers.

SPACE OPERA

Click here for Spacemonkey

MARILYN SEZ...

“The nation has a day off and Doc40 is resting up, but we wouldn’t just leave you hanging without some icons for company.”

Click here for Tom doing Hank
Click here for Hank doing Hank
Click here for favorite John Coltrane
Click here for Jerry Lee Lewis

NOW HEAR THIS!

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What???

GRATUITOUS LIZ

Click here for Elvis

IT’S THE FOURTH OF JULY IN AMERICA

As a descendant of those bloody Brits your ancestors fought for your freedom and tossed out on their imperial asses, I can’t get too excited about July 4th, and, of course – being used to our Guy Fawkes night in the dark of November – I have to wonder about a firework-heavy holiday in the middle of the summer when it doesn’t get dark until eight or later, but with a bit of luck, and because I basically support any revolution on general principle, I’ll eat my share of whatever barbeque is offered without feeling like too much of a hypocrite. In the meantime let me quote the late great Howard Zinn…

“On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed. Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power. National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves." (Click here for more)”

Click here for Ginsberg and Waits

The secret word is Liberty

AND OF COURSE THERE WAS ALWAYS ANOTHER AMERICA…

…in which people took pictures of people taking pictures of Elvis, and cars had fins.

Click here for Chuck

BUT DID YOU THINK WE’D FORGOTTEN SUNDAY BREAKFAST?

It’s roasted chestbuster! (Click here for an explanation)

Click here for Ian Dury

UNCLE BILL AT PHUN CITY

This would seem to be an account by William Burroughs of his visit to Phun City. Phun City was a very strange rock festival – the unkind called it shambolic – near Worthing in the UK, organized by your humble servant in cahoots with Edward Barker, Boss Goodman, Jess Cox, Steve Mann, Su Small, and many more. The featured acts included MC5, the Pretty Things, the Pink Fairies, Sonja Kristina, Kevin Ayers, Edgar Broughton, Mungo Jerry, Mighty Baby, and a whole bunch of unlikely legends. I happened across this piece on The Adventures of Dick Headley – a comrade blog – where it appeared with no explanation, and I have no idea if it’s real or a very obsurist spoof. Maybe DH can clue us in on the provenance.

“I’m pretty sure it was Brion’s idea. Very simple, he said, you take a train from Victoria to Worthing, get off and look for a local bus. Just ask the first aimless looking hippie you see. Who knows, you may even get a piece of ass. And I strongly advise you William, he added, using his best mid-Atlantic phraseology, to shoot up before you go. The chances of finding any horse are slim to none and you don’t want to be caught carrying in Worthing. So nobody packed me a hamper. In fact I wasn’t carrying much apart from my briefcase and the tape recorder. The train mainlined me deep into the lush countryside of Surrey or Sussex or Somewhere. Such a civilized country England. Uptight but civilized. On the way I skimmed through the promotional literature. Phun City. A festival it said. Phun. Pretty Things? Pink Fairies? Hmmmm sounds promising. Just before the train pulls into a place called Brighton I crack a tab of Methadone (1,1-diphenylbutane-2-sulfonic acid and dimethylamino-2-chloropropane) developed in 1939 Germany by scientists working for I.G. Farbenkonzern at the Farbwerke Hoechst. They were looking for a synthetic opioid that could be created with readily available precursors, to solve Germany's opium shortage problem. People, all young, all with long hair, are sitting in groups around a stage. I notice some ominous looking scaffolding. Towers open fire. I get a whiff of hash smoke. Sweetish. Almost certainly Red Leb. There’s a light show. Music. Nobody pays much attention to me. Just the occasional ‘Who’s the old bloke in the suit with earphones?’ Words can hurt. It occurs to me that we could start a tapeworm club and exchange body sound tapes. The word ‘free’ comes up a lot. There’s a group called Free (who refuse to play for free apparently), a free food kitchen (nettle soup), a hamburger stand (under attack) and even a sign flashing a message …“London has been nuked, you are now free”. I start to feel faint. Too much fresh air. Where’s Doc Benway when you need him? Next thing I’m coming to in a kind of tent. Everybody is very helpful. One of the organizers hands me a cup of lukewarm tea. I switch on the tape-recorder. They are complaining about gatecrashers, especially a group called the Swampies, a bunch sleeping rough in the woods. But there’s no gate to crash. No fence. What do they expect? Funny really how even in a situation like this a hierarchy quickly develops. Politics. Outside again and it starts to rain. My trilby elicits some envious looks. I am approached by a girl holding a plastic bag. I make a modest donation. The rain gets heavier. I take a cab back to the railway station. On the train back to London I make a few notes. I’ll work them into something later…”

Click here for Uncle Bill doing Jim

The secret word is Lunch

TICKET TO RIDE

A rare Edward Barker designed ticket to Phun City which became kinda redundant when circumstances dictated the festival was declared free before it even started.

Click here for classic MC5

WEB UP, BRO!

One attendee at Phun City, your pal and my longtime collaborator Andy Colquhoun now has his webpage up on which he is incrementally posting his new album of guitar instrumentals titled String Theory. Click here.

Click here for Bruce in Dublin

OR WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE AN ORGY?

Click here for legs

SPEED-SPEED-SPEEDFREAK IS GO

Today is the official publication date of my brand new book Speed-Speed-Speedfreak – a cultural, social, and political history of amphetamine. I say “official” because the book encountered a few bumps along the way. Printed in China and trimmed so it resembles a giant black beauty (dextroamphetamine capsule), the books were held up in customs for almost a month and, being of a paranoid disposition, I couldn’t help wondering if something was – as they say – up. All is now well, though. They’re at the distributor and have started shipping. I have posted the story below (from Time via Dangerous Minds) to prove – if any proof was needed – that speed is still a crucial topic. La Familia Michoacana is too recent a development to have made it into the book, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of meth, mayhem, mania, and the Mexican mafia, plus sex, celebrities, rock & roll, Federal corruption, and drug war stupidity literally to fill a book. And for the depression-friendly price of $12.95.

"Mexico’s newest drug cartel, and certainly the most bizarre, is La Familia Michoacana, a violent but Christian fundamentalist narco-gang based in the torrid Tierra Caliente region of western Michoacan state. The group is infamous for methamphetamine smuggling, lopping off enemies’ heads and limbs, and massacring police and soldiers. (Most recently, on June 14, a band of Familia gunmen ambushed a federal police convoy in Michoacan, killing 12.) Yet La Familia’s leader, Nazario Moreno — aka El Mas Loco, or The Craziest One — has written his own bible, and his 1,500 minions hold prayer meetings before doing their grisly work. La Familia, which has started to expand beyond Michoacan, poses more than theological problems for Mexican President Felipe Calderon. His 3½–year-long military offensive against drug traffickers, a period that has seen 23,000 gangland-style murders in Mexico, looks increasingly on the ropes. And amidst it all, investigators tell TIME, La Familia is establishing a troubling new narco-business model: It doesn’t merely buy off officials, it puts its own candidates in power. “Other cartels just pay off the political structure in order to be able to do their business,” says a Michoacan investigator, who estimates the group controls 83 of the state’s 113 municipal governments. “La Familia is making itself the political structure.”

Click here for buying information.

Click here for the Move

The secret word is Bestseller

NOT WITH MY HUMP YOU DON’T

Yesterday we were talking about Tutankhamen’s missing penis. Today we’ve moved on to penises in general, courtesy of this emailing from our cohorts at Delancey Place. I do, however, wish people would stop sending me penis enlargement spam. I’m happy with what I have, and even if I wasn’t, I’m too old to do much about it.

"Ever since man began to walk upright, he had been obsessed when his penis would not behave likewise and searched for ways to fix the problem. The world's earliest known medical document, the so-called Edwin Smith Papyrus of Egypt dating from 1600 B.C., presents a strikingly sophisticated view of trauma surgery - except on the back, where one finds 'Incantation for Transforming an Old Man into a Youth of Twenty.' In ancient Greece an herb called satyrion, recommended by the philosopher Theophrastus in 320 B.C., was swiftly harvested to extinction. During the ensuing centuries cloves, ginger, and massaging one's genitals in ass's milk all had their vogue. In England around the year 1000, men were devouring 'love bread' (naked maidens romped in wheat, which was then harvested counterclockwise). The Middle Ages favored lubrication of the afflicted member with melted fat from camel humps. Charlatan – Pope Brock (Crown)

Click here for Isaac Hayes

AND IF THAT WASN’T ENOUGH…

Our pals at World of Wonder have provided us with this rotation of the President’s signature.

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Predicate Frozdick embraced a belief system that included many unexplained rituals.
(Image supplied by Wendy)

DON'T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?

Click here for Moby Grape

“A PERSON DOES NOT DRINK TO GET DRUNK”

I stumbled across this amazing conversation between Richard Nixon and Art Linkletter, two legendary 20th century drug warriors. I was stoned at the time so I forgot how it got to me but it totally sums up the ramshakle logic of drug prohibition by which billions were spent and millions were jailed. (Sigh.)

"Linkletter: “There’s a great difference between alcohol and marijuana.”
Nixon replies: “What is it?” The president wants to know!
“When people smoke marijuana,” Linkletter explains, “they smoke it to get high. In every case, when most people drink, they drink to be sociable.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” Nixon says. “A person does not drink to get drunk. . . . A person drinks to have fun.”
Then Nixon turns to the global history of drinking and using drugs. “I have seen the countries of Asia and the Middle East, portions of Latin America, and I have seen what drugs have done to those countries,” he says. ”Everybody knows what it’s done to the Chinese, the Indians are hopeless anyway, the Burmese. . . . they’ve all gone down.”
Nixon continues, “Why the hell are those Communists so hard on drugs? Well why they’re so hard on drugs is because, uh, they love to booze. I mean, the Russians, they drink pretty good. . . . but they don’t allow any drugs.”
“And look at the north countries,” Nixon continued. “The Swedes drink too much, the Finns drink too much, the British have always been heavy boozers and all the rest, but uh, and the Irish of course the most, uh, but uh, on the other hand, they survive as strong races.”
Linkletter says “That’s right.”
Nixon comes to his main point about the “drug societies:” they “inevitably come apart.”
Linkletter adds, “They lose motivation. No discipline.”
Nixon gets the last word: “At least with liquor, I don’t lose motivation.”

Click here for Zappa

The secret word is Dick

THE KING TUT PENIS HEIST

But talking of Dick, how could I resist this story from New Scientist, even though Stephen Colbert ran something about it last night? Some bastard has stolen Tutankhamen’s penis…

“I spotted a note admitting that the penis in question is no longer attached to the king's body. I smelled a conspiracy. Could ancient Egyptian embalmers have replaced the royal member to hide the fact that their king's manhood was somewhat lacking? What's more, the front of Tut's chest is missing, so it's impossible to check whether he did indeed have breasts. Was this part of the mummy's anatomy sabotaged too? I called John Taylor, who looks after the mummies collection at the British Museum in London. When Tut's mummy was first unwrapped in 1922, he reassures me, "the penis was there and was attached". The breakage must therefore have occurred in modern times, perhaps during a particularly brutal autopsy. (The wayward penis was reported missing in 1968, before it was discovered again during a CT scan in 2006, lying in the loose sand around the mummy's body.) The chest cavity was also damaged in modern times, probably by Cooper's team in 1922.” (Click here for the whole story)

Click here for The Bangles (yeah, it’s the obvious choice but, what the fuck, it’s Thursday)

IN THE KITCHEN OF THE FUTURE

“I flip this switch and the Earth dies screaming!”

OR SHALL WE ESCAPE TO THE UNITARD UNIVERSE?

Click here for unitards

Click here for D. Bowie

SPACE OPERA

Click here for some kind of wonderful.