THIS IS ARIANNA HUFFINGTON. SHE WAS JUST PAID $315 MILLION

At first glance, the AOL purchase of Huffpo seems close to inexplicable. With an estimated 25 million readers, it would seem that AOL are paying slightly over twelve bucks a reader and how the fuck they expect to recoup that is anyone’s guess. The disturbing part comes at the end of the story. “The work of its 70-person paid staff is augmented by content from news outlets and 6,000 bloggers who write for free.” Yes, my friends, once again the assumption is made that, while the corporate assholes toss around hundreds of millions, the writers with work for nothing. I’ve never written for Huffpo, but if I had I sure as shit wouldn’t do it any more.

“Online company AOL Inc. is buying online news hub Huffington Post in a $315 million deal that represents a bold bet on the future of online news. The acquisition announced early Monday puts a high-profile exclamation mark on a series of acquisitions and strategic moves engineered by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong in an effort to reshape a fallen Internet icon. AOL will be adding Huffington Post co-founder and media star Arianna Huffington to its management team as part of the deal. After the acquisition closes later this year, Huffington will be put in charge of AOL's growing array of content, which includes popular technology sites Endgadget and TechCrunch, local news sites Patch.com and online mapping service Mapquest. The price that AOL is paying is "really just the hiring fee to get Arianna," said technology analyst Rob Enderle. "This is one of those out-of-left-field moves that actually makes a lot of sense. This could put AOL back on the map." Armstrong, a former Google Inc. executive, has been trying to turn AOL into a go-to place for a wide variety of news since he was hired to turn around the company in April 2009 while it was still a part of Time Warner Inc. The makeover is designed to give Web surfers a reason to visit AOL's websites more frequently to help boost online ad sales. At the same time, Armstrong has laid off hundreds of employees in an effort to boost AOL's financial performance and stock price." (Click here for more)

Click here for Barrett Strong

The secret word is Grasping

NOW THE TREES ARE DYING

Bees, bears, and now the trees in the Amazon. What can I say? I have no smart remarks. This is really fucking depressing.

“Billions of trees died in the record drought that struck the Amazon in 2010, raising fears that the vast forest is on the verge of a tipping point, where it will stop absorbing greenhouse gas emissions and instead increase them. The dense forests of the Amazon soak up more than one-quarter of the world's atmospheric carbon, making it a critically important buffer against global warming. But if the Amazon switches from a carbon sink to a carbon source that prompts further droughts and mass tree deaths, such a feedback loop could cause runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences. "Put starkly, current emissions pathways risk playing Russian roulette with the world's largest forest," said tropical forest expert Simon Lewis, at the University of Leeds, and who led the research published today in the journal Science. Lewis was careful to note that significant scientific uncertainties remain and that the 2010 and 2005 drought - thought then to be of once-a-century severity - might yet be explained by natural climate variation. "We can't just wait and see because there is no going back," he said. "We won't know we have passed the point where the Amazon turns from a sink to a source until afterwards, when it will be too late." (Click here for more)

THE PENGUIN SEZ…

“Why don’t you humans just get it over with and become extinct?”

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 88

SUNDAY BREAKFAST

Will the ancient outlaw ever again really enjoy the supreme satisfaction of coffee in anything but the hardness of a lone grey practicality with only the recalled delights of disheveled mornings as he sings the echoes of her blues? Sunday morning is, by definition the direct product of the Saturday night that precedes it, and if said Saturday night was spent with only poetry and hashish as protection, and TV ‘til dawn, what then? He stays among his books, his chemicals, and his pistols and makes no comment. To do otherwise would be to admit the fear – and that would never do. So uncase the colors for such guttering desperado glory that might remain, and…

…click here momentarily to wallow with Roy, then let’s feed the cat and get on with another desperate day.

The secret word is Holding

MARILYN SEZ...

“All I have James Joyce and no hash. Stop feeling sorry for yourself”

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Whiskey Jack Frozdick was an alcoholic’s alcoholic.

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST

In 1989 I wrote this novel. (With that lousy cover.) It was set sometime around 2004 and postulated that the USA had become a repressive Fundamentalist Christian theocracy. The book’s cinematic climax came when, during a massive revival meeting at Madison Square Garden, a renegade special effects crew loosed holograms of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse over 7^th Avenue, and insane mass panic ensued. Thus, when – alerted by HCB – I saw the weird horseman video from Cairo, I couldn’t help but smile. Click here if you haven’t seen it.

ONE EXPLANATION OF WHY AUTHORS ARE SO DAMNED SORRY FOR THEMSELVES

This is a pretty damn severe rejection, but, if you’re going reject Gertrude Stein, severe is maybe the only way to go. Although writers don’t have to cope the levels of rejection suffered by actors and dancers, sections of the publishing industry have always taken an obscene glee in creating scenarios of suffering that can drive sensitive artists to doubt, to drink, to drugs, or, at the most destructive despairing extreme, generate the suicidal death-machismo of Hemingway or Dr. Thompson. And now print teeters on the brink of extinction, people ask me how I am able to adapt to the end of everything I hold dear. I just smile and shrug. Writers have adapted easily to a radically changing technology. We simply go on writing. The hard part is finding people to pay us. The real pain is in publishing where a great winnowing of individuals who had little talent beyond an ability to order lunch. (I think I can safely say this because few editors employed in mainstream publishing read this blog and those who do will happily agree with me.) It’s a little consolation as books supposedly vanish. (Which, of course, they won't. They will simply mutate)

Click here for an interesting video take on the future of publishing supplied by the lovely Hermit. (But stick with it to the end.)

SAY WHAT?

“You’re in the wrong place my friend. You’d better leave.”

YOU CAN’T PUT YOUR ARM AROUND A MEMORY

Or too much junkie business? Click here for a clip of Johnny Thunders and a clear demonstration of why public access television was a bad idea of the 1980s.

PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE

Click here for Boys

THE NEWS FROM THE POLE GETS WORSE

While fools still snigger at the idea of climate change.

SAN FRANCISCO - February 3 - The National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that the extent of Arctic sea ice for January 2011 was the lowest ever in the satellite record for that month. In January 2011, Arctic sea-ice extent averaged just 5.23 million square miles (13.55 million square kilometers), the lowest January ice extent since satellite records began in 1979. Air temperatures over much of the Arctic were 4 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit (2 to 6 degrees Celsius) above normal in January. Meanwhile, earlier this week several members of Congress moved to block or delay action to slow global warming. "The evidence mounts daily that climate change is here now, yet some members of Congress are digging their heads deeper into the sands of denial, preferring to preserve polluters' profits over the future of our planet," said Shaye Wolf, climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. Polar bears, ice seals, walruses and other Arctic animals rely on the sea ice for survival. Arctic sea ice also plays a critical role in regulating our global climate by reflecting sunlight and keeping the polar regions cool; it has declined dramatically over the past 30 years. (Click here for more)

Meanwhile, in an email exchange about the Australian super-cyclone, the always-on-the-money Aeswiren neatly nutshells what’s happening…

“I guess this mega-stormage stuff is a taste of what the warmer world will be like. Searing hot summers-- as in Russia last year, and occasional enormous storms that threaten civilization. I read that the winter's are getting wilder, in the N. Hemi, because the arctic is generally a bit warmer. This seems to mean the circumpolar jet stream is weakening and wanders off course, allowing arctic air masses to slop off the pole and slide down into temperate zones, with resulting snow and havoc.”

Click here for Tiny Tim (Really. Do yourself a favor.)

The secret word is Bad

WHILE SOME GRASP FOR THE SOLUTION OTHERS COMPOUND THE PROBLEM

One thing I will not miss from my life in the USA is the wanton-ignorant, arrogant stupidity of Bill O’Reilly. Click here. (Clip supplied by MrMR)

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Grizzly Frozdick knew how to deal with ice.

SOME SURVIVE – OTHERS DON’T

Click here for a great faux-Godzilla clip

GRATUITOUS JULIE NEWMAR

JUST PLAIN WEIRD

I hadn’t heard of the Toynbee tiles until the excellent Wendy alerted me to this odd phenomenon. (And the guy who won an award at Sundance for a documentary about them.) Wikipedia tells us…

“The Toynbee tiles (also called Toynbee plaques) are messages of mysterious origin found embedded in asphalt in about two dozen major cities in the United States and four South American capitals. Since the 1980s, several hundred tiles have been discovered. They are generally about the size of an American license plate, but sometimes considerably larger. They contain some variation on the following inscription…
TOYNBEE IDEA
IN Kubrick's 2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPITER
Some of the more elaborate tiles also feature cryptic political statements or exhort readers to create and install similar tiles of their own. The material used for making the tiles was long a mystery, but evidence has emerged that they may be primarily made of layers of linoleum and asphalt crack-filling compound.Articles about the tiles began appearing in the mid-1990s, though references may have started to appear in the mid-1980s.” (Click here for more)

Click here for more about the documentary.

The secret word is Inexplicable

YOUNG MAN WITH A BULLHORN

Yeah, yeah, it’s maybe the ego in overdrive. But I hadn’t seen this particular photo before and it does have a certain retro-drama. It shows me rousing the rabble at a rally to spring the three editors of Oz -- Felix Dennis, Jim Anderson, and Richard Neville -- from jail while they appealed their conviction. The image surfaced when our pals at Dangerous Minds posted my 1967 video interview with John Peel that went up on Doc40 a couple of weeks ago. I guess I was in full revolutionary delinquent mode, and what follows is an example of the writing style that was a part of it and showed up on Rock's Back Pages this week. Maybe I shouldn’t have been quite so hard on Germaine, but, at the time, she had royally and recently slagged me off in Oz and payback is always a temptation.

“THE ISLE of Wight Festival, to me, seemed a practical demonstration of the way the wealth of the underground is at present distributed: a V.I.P. enclosure surrounded by fences & protected by guards; kids walking into the medical tent in a state of collapse because they hadn't eaten for 2 days; illustrations of a culture which, although paying sanctimonious lip service to the concepts of love & equality, manifests an inequality of rank & money as brutal as that of Czarist Russia. It is a society where a man can be paid £500 a minute for playing a guitar, yet protests that people need to be fed are shouted down: "You're spoiling a groovy scene: shut your mouth"! The kids who, in desperation, lead others in an attempt to pressure the 'haves' into giving something to the 'have-nots', are insulted & ridiculed from the stage, and condemned in print. Human ethics are used like a substitute for cash in the bank, while love is peddled as a commodity more blatantly by Rikki Farr than by any whore in history. Woman's Liberationist Germaine Greer stays in the backstage enclosure & trades small-talk with rock business flunkies, and wonders why the kids don't liberate themselves. Meanwhile, the kids who do are being slugged with iron bars by those same guards who protect her privileged enclosure.”

MARILYN SEZ...

“Why do you conservatives always fuck things up?”

THE PENGUIN SEZ…

“Why do you humans always fuck things up?”

DON'T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?

Click here for a very edible Little Richard

THE US GOVERNMENT NEGLECTED TO TELL US THEY OWN THE INTERNET

No, they haven’t shut down Doc40. I guess we’re not that much of a menace. They have, however – as our pal Bernard informs us – shut down a site in Spain. It would seem to indicate that, if our corporate overlords feel sufficiently threatened, they can leave us blind, deaf, and cut off.

"US authorities have seized the domain of the hugely popular sports streaming and P2P download site Rojadirecta. The site, which is one of the most visited sites on the Internet, lost its .org domain which now redirects to a notice from DOJ/ICE. Rojadirecta is an unusual target because two courts in Spain have ruled that the site operates legally, and other than the .org domain the site has no links to the US. Rojadirecta is known as one of the world’s major Internet sports broadcast indexes. The site links to broadcasts of many popular soccer matches plus other sporting events including NBA, MLB, NFL, NPB, IPL. The site has well over a million visitors a day, and is listed among the 100 most popular sites in Spain in terms of traffic. This morning, however, visitors were surprised by a warning from US authorities. Continuing the previous “Operation in Our Sites” actions, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had seized Rojadirecta’s .org domain. Rojadirecta is an unusual target for several reasons, not least because the site has been declared legal twice by Spanish courts. The site’s owners have previously fought a three year legal battle in Spain, which they won, but a single seizure warrant from US authorities has made this victory pointless.” (Click here for more)

The secret word is Isolated

BUT DON’T FORGET THE BIZARRO CODE

WHAT A DRAG IT IS GETTING OLD

When our good buddy UK Steve sent me this story from The Irish Times, I could only respond that it “would seem to confirm what The Rolling Stones told us all those years ago. ‘What a drag it is getting old.’ (And maybe a salutary warning about taking your benefits and trying to make bit extra on the side as a rock star.)”

“American-born Proby (72) enjoyed British success in the 1960s with a string of hits including Somewhere and Maria from West Side Story and enhanced his fame by being banned from the BBC after splitting his skin-tight trousers during a notorious concert in Luton. Magistrates in Worcester ruled that Proby, who denies the charges, should be committed to stand trial at the city's crown court, the Press Association reported. Proby spoke only to confirm his address, date of birth and his real name -- James Marcus Smith -- during a five-minute appearance before two magistrates. Proby, who lives in Twyford, near Evesham, in Worcestershire, faces a total of nine charges over claims for pension credit, housing benefit and council tax benefit. Among the charges are two counts of failing to declare savings and investments, and four of failing to inform the authorities of a change in circumstances. He was granted unconditional bail to reappear at Worcester Magistrates' Court for a formal committal hearing on March 30th."

Click here for Proby

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 87

THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD IS WATCHING

While the future of Egypt hangs in the balance, I hardly know enough about what's happening on the ground to comment, but I am impressed by the numbers of young women in the heart of the protests and passionately hope that they are not crushed by an  Islamic fundamentalist takeover.

Click here for Bob

The secret word is Change

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL (Part 1)

This note was written by William Burroughs to Brion Gysin in 1977 when Uncle Bill was venerable but impoverished icon. Later efficient management and a functioning business plan would turn WSB into a venerable and prosperous brand. From where I’m sitting, it seems like a really good idea.

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL (Part 2)

Of course, being a brand isn’t all peaches and credit. I was at Uncle Bill’s 70th birthday party in February 1984 at the New York Limelight nightclub where he was photographed with the “up and coming” young Madonna. The reality of the situation was that Burroughs was positioned by his minders at a table and a line formed of people who wanted to have their picture taken with him. The movement was brisk and Bill looked tired, kind of shell-shocked, and glad of the joint. I was even pressured by some friends to take part in the process myself. I found it all profoundly embarrassing and never did know what happened to the picture.

Click here for Burroughs on Ginsberg

PEDAL TO THE METAL, COMRADES