YESTERDAY WE HAD AN EARTHQUAKE

It wasn’t much of an earthquake, although it’s been a while since we had one. (The above picture is, alas, from a movie.) The motion felt like cognac being swirled in a giant balloon glass and I was the cognac. Just a 5.1 with the epicenter some thirty miles away in Chino Hills. Of course, one never knows that it’s not going to be much of an earthquake when it starts. There’s always the chance that the ceiling will fall down and kill you and that will be the last thing you see, but yesterday I couldn’t overcome the inertia enough to panic. It had been a bad night. Insomnia from nicotine withdrawal, some fool drilling in the wall outside my window, some other fool playing Verdi very loud. (Yes, Verdi) And then, well a fucking quake. I looked at the cat. The cat looked at me. Should we even get out of bed? The cat, who is very old, shrugged and shook his head. Why bother? What were we going to do? Stand under a doorway? If we lived to see the authoritarian lady from Cal Tech on the local news, all well and good, but, if the seismic event had our name on it, so be it. You can’t influence tectonic plates. But here we are, and all was well, and, I guess, on to the next one.

FOR LONE GUNMEN EVERYWHERE

Thanks to Iggy I have a whole new set of perspectives to choose from regarding the Zapruder film and how the version that we see today may well have been totally fucked-with by Time Life or other culprits back in the late 1960s so it conformed to the scarcely plausible timeline for the JFK shooting established by the Warren Commission. (Fascinatingly Time Warner now owns the cable that enables this blog to reach you.) For another angle on the conspiracy, just check out what happened to the members of the Warren Commission in later life. They were so well rewarded, one even became President. This is as opposed to the witnesses who had a terrible habit of turning up dead. Click for the Zapruder analysis.

Abraham Zapruder's Bell & Howell Zoomatic movie camera

AND THIS IS FOR YOU JACK KENNEDY, WHEREVER YOU ARE

Maggie Gyllenhaal has been the subject of so many hundreds of Doc40 search engine hits it seems close to churlish not to post this pic of Maggie in her underwear.

The secret word is Drawers

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY WITH BERGMAN BLOODY BERGMAN

The day is not exactly hot, but jungle humidity rests heavy on a slight hangover and no cigarettes, enough to make me wonder if the world already ended and no one told me. But the really irksome factor is that, even with five hundred channels of TV, I still find myself watching Bergman’s Seventh Seal by default, and wondering why, as the dog days approach, every movie on offer has been infinitely recycled, and the History Channel runs a Monster Quest marathon. Why do the powers that be think no one stares down the tube in July and August? Oh, for the good lord’s sake, bring back Deadwood on a Sunday night.

The secret word is Tedium

"I hear Farren has kicked cigarettes yet again. It always makes him twitchy and paranoid."

WEEKEND WORLD CONSPIRACIES

Although I freely admit that conspiracy theories are the individual’s best defense against chaos, I have never had time to delve with any depth into the miasma of conspiracy that surrounds the real nature and the real origins of the attacks on the USA of September 11th, 2001. My only excuse is that I was too busy waiting for a deathbed confession to provide and nail the final details on the JFK/RFK murders. After reading this encapsulation of the current state of 9/11 theorizing (in the form of a kind of “9/11 For Dummies”) I couldn’t help but frown in awe at some points, but also mutter “prove it” at others. (Click to share)

And then I went on to watch the next tale of possible horror to come, and I had to wonder, whether I wanted to or not.

WHY ARE A HALF MILLION COFFINS STOCKPILED IN ATLANTA?

The following story of how a half million airtight coffins like the one above have been stockpiled in Atlanta, Georgia, was supplied by Kass, and very few positive aspects immediately present themselves as we read “apparently the Government is expecting a half million people to die relatively soon, and the Atlanta Airport is a major airline traffic hub, probably the biggest in the country, which means Georgia is a prime base to conduct military operations and coordination. It is also the home of the CDC, the Center for Disease Control. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but usually you don’t buy 500,000 plastic coffins “just in case something happens.” (Click for the full story on video.)

The secret word is Dubious

HOPE IS NOT JUST A TOWN IN ARKANSAS

(pic from Tom Sutpen)

The following came over Doc’s cluttered cyber-transom, I’m not sure from where, but it was written by an individual called Niki…

“I have no idea where we go from here. Abolishing the Federal Reserve and restoring the function of currency creation to the US treasury was tried by JFK. And yes, the banksters assassinated him (also McKinley and Lincoln for the same reason). At this point we don't even have the JFK option of issuing silver backed certificates because the gold and silver are gone. When the Vietnam war depleted our gold reserves Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. Federal Reserve "notes" are worthless.
The more I investigate, the more I see how colossal this is. This plan they have is not only for global domination in the military sense because they are getting rid of political boundaries established by national sovereignty. Abolishing traditional countries and governments (with their pesky regulations and human rights) to control and monopolize markets globally. When they look at the world they see markets and profit, not people and trees. If we get in the way of their unbridled greed we are expendable. All they care about is personal wealth. The mind control we have been subjected to in this country for at least 100 years is staggering. It has been so successful I never even realized what this system is in reality. The internet has educated me at last.”

I have seen these kind of sentiments more times than I care to recall over the long decades of resisting authority, and if I ever fall to sharing them, or accepting Orwell’s vision of the future as “a boot stamping on a human face – forever”, or that we the people are wholly impotent and totally controlled, then I know it will be time for me to step off the cliff with all the other lemmings. While I contintue to believe a people, angry, organized, and determined can achieve anything they want to achieve, I can continue to hope, and agree with Emiliano Zapata that “it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!”

Remember…
“There have always been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall. -- think of it, ALWAYS.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Or, if Jim Morrison is more your speed, “they’ve got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers.”

And let’s not forget…

NOW AND THEN WE WIN ONE (This time for the wolves)

The following note (see last Saturday) came to Doc40 from Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council…

"It's the best possible news. Seven weeks after we went to court, a federal judge has ordered the Bush Administration to restore endangered species protections for wolves in the northern Rockies until the full case can be heard. This interim victory is nothing less than a life-saving reprieve for hundreds of wolves outside Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. Since the Bush Administration stripped the region's wolves of federal protection, a total of 110 wolves have been brutally killed in as many days. But Judge Donald Molloy ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "acted arbitrarily" in taking the wolf off the endangered species list and turning their management over to the states. That means Wyoming, Montana and Idaho will be forced to abandon plans to allow the extermination of hundreds of wolves this fall as part of a massive public hunt -- the first in more than three decades. Simply put, the wolves of Yellowstone and the northern Rockies are much, much safer today than they were just last week. This incredible, eleventh-hour victory never would have happened without your strong support."

The secret word is Howl

YO HO-HO! IT'S THE COKE SUB!

Way back in January of 2004, Doc40 ran the story of how police found a small, half-assembled submarine of seemingly Soviet vintage hidden behind a Texaco station in Facatativa, Colombia. Today it would appear that the pirate submarine is the favored mode of transport for bringing in the blow. The following report came in over the weekend.

"MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican troops seized a small submarine smuggling drugs in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, the military said. A navy plane spotted the craft about 140 miles south of the tourist resort of Huatulco, setting off a three-hour chase, Rear Adm. Hector Mucharraz told Reuters. The green-colored submarine, carrying what was believed to be cocaine, was about 32 feet long and appeared to be a makeshift or modified vessel. "The submarine traveled almost at the surface of the sea and when it came up we took advantage," said Capt. Benjamin Mar, a navy spokesman. Special forces troops swooped on the submarine from a helicopter and subdued the crew of four, he said."

Although this was the first coke sub stopped by the Mexicans, this Coast Guard blog reveals how the Colombians are up to their nautical ass in C-Boats.

"It was the second time in a month that Colombian forces, backed by the U.S. Coast Guard, stopped an underwater craft that was then sunk by its crew members to destroy their incriminating cargo. Both submarines had the capacity to ship 10 to 12 tons of cocaine to the world's biggest market. Colombia's navy has stopped 18 cocaine submarines since 2005."

And click here for a happy and relevant little song.

The secret words are Up Periscope

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 44

Thought I’d post this while we are on the subjects of subs and note how Frank Herbert was seemingly beneath the sea before he reached the aridity of “Dune.” (Sent by Valerie)

THE FIREPOWER BREAKFAST

Yes, neighbors, these are really real products designed to make your eggs homicide up.

BARBIE IS NOT WHAT SHE USED TO BE (part 2)

By day she outsources jobs and ruins lives, but by night…(well, see yesterday, okay?)

A SPECIES DIVIDED?

The idea in the following story (supplied by Elf Hellion) that humanity will, over next millennium, divide into Herbert George Wells' Eloi and Morlocks poses a couple of problems for the Doc who sprawls discontentedly. For a start, I kinda figured humanity was already devolving into 500 lb snack-gorging Fox-watchers, and those of still capable of at least minimal reason and empathy. There’s also the fact that, on a bad day, I can hardly believe the human race will survive past lunchtime.

“Humanity may split into two sub-species in 100,000 years' time as predicted by HG Wells, an expert has said. Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge. The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said - before a decline due to dependence on technology.
People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added.
The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.” Click for the rest of the story

And also check out this little web-gem!

CRYPTIQUE -- Pity the class that cannot struggle.

The secret word is Knuckles

HAPPY THOUGHT FOR SUNDAY

“Mr. President, it is not only possible, it is essential. That is the whole idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy... the FEAR to attack. And so, because of the automated and irrevocable decision-making process which rules out human meddling, the Doomsday machine is terrifying and simple to understand... and completely credible and convincing.”

CRYPTIQUE – Love is strange.

AND BARBIE IS NOT WHAT SHE USED TO BE

Sent by Valerie










The secret word is Napalm

STOP KILLING US YOU BASTARDS

37 wolves had been slaughtered since the Bush Administration stripped them of their endangered species protection in March. Now a terrible new milestone has been reached: 106 wolves have been killed in the past 118 days. That's close to one wolf killed every day. And if Wyoming, Idaho and Montana have their way, at least 900 wolves -- nearly 60 percent of the population -- could be exterminated this fall, when a massive public hunt begins. Make no mistake: This will be the very last summer for many of Yellowstone's wolves -- unless immediate action is taken to stop the killing. Tourists visiting Yellowstone have been horrified to learn that the very wolves they've traveled hundreds and thousands of miles to see are being gunned down just outside the park. Hundreds of tourists a day are signing petitions to protest the slaughter. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), is circulating those petitions in the park and taking court action -- along with 11 other conservation groups -- to compel the Bush Administration to restore protection for the wolves. Click to sign petition, and Click to donate.

The secret word is Help

BILL HICKS, HOW WE NEED YOU...

Commenting on Wednesday’s post “Fuck The New Yorker and It’s Lame-Ass Cover”, Mark Haspam forcibly reminded me how much of a loss we suffered when Bill Hicks died and how much we need him after eight years of Bush. The democratic process is already giving me a headache, but here’s a classic clip to remind us of the absolute essentials.

The secret word is Deprived

LOUIS BROOKS IS NOT AMUSED

(As the world takes on the unreality of a weirdly dangerous but badly written movie.)

MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE?

While he bumbles his way through a presidential campaign, flanked by his Stepford, multi-million, pro-dom wife, John McCain would be tragic in his ineptitude, except that the mainstream media seem prepared to forgive his blatant cluelessness, and to grovel and genuflect before what should laughable because McCain is a supposed war hero, and thus, they tell us, eminently qualified to command the armed forces of the nation. Counterpunch, however, presents a whole new side to the story, claiming that he was a willing collaborator with the communist North Vietnamese. This could be disinformation but I disseminate it anyway, because McCain is a fool we don’t need in power.

“Not content with divulging military information, McCain provided his voice in radio broadcasts used by the North Vietnamese to demoralize American soldiers. Vietnamese radio propagandists made good use out of McCain. On June 4, 1969, a U.S. wire service headlined a story entitled "PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral.” (7) The story reported that McCain collaborated in psywar offensives aimed at American servicemen. "The broadcast was beamed to American servicemen in South Vietnam as a part of a propaganda series attempting to counter charges by U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird that American prisoners are being mistreated in North Vietnam." On one occasion, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the top Vietnamese commander and a nationalist celebrity of the time, personally interviewed McCain. His compliance during this command performance was a moment of affirmation for the Vietnamese. His Vietnamese handlers thereafter used him regularly as prop at meetings with foreign delegations. In the custody of enemy psywar specialists, McCain became what he is today: a professional psywar stooge.” (Click for the whole story)

The secret card is The Queen of Diamonds

There are days when I feel like Sideshow Bob.

FUCK THE NEW YORKER AND IT'S LAME-ASS COVER

I may, of course, have missed some crucial nuance – but I am pretty damned good at crucial nuances – and I can only find the current cover of The New Yorker ill-conceived, off-target, and moronic. Aside from being appalled by The New Yorker’s frightening inability to discern where the line between satire and stupidity actually occurs, I can’t resist perversely asking what is so fucking wrong with being either a Moslem or an ideological descendant of Angela Davis? But digging deeper, I have to wonder if this isn’t really the product of a coy liberal racism that undeniably works beneath the platitudes and cocktail parties of the progressive. I figure it’s akin the friends who tell me the stumbling, potato-resembling McCain will be the next president because middle America will never elect a black man to the White House. They may be right, but some seem to exhibit a kind of the concealed pleasure on the pronouncement as though it reassures them to know that middle America is a swamp of racist fear. As an unreconstructed anarchist I have to believe that the people are somehow better than that and, at the very least, self-interest and the knowledge that a McCain administration would reduce the USA to chaos, depression, and abject poverty, faster than a falling Soviet Union, will place them grudgingly behind Obama. Or is total collapse what’s needed before change can come?

And talking of McCain, how does being shot down and tossed in a POW camp for five years qualify one as a military genius? Okay, so he was unlucky but…

The secret word has to be Revolt

LOOK, MOMMY, A UFO!

And if you’re like me and want to see a UFO yourself (alas I’ve never seen one) you could always build your own UFO detector. (sent by Elf Hellion)

“The theory is that an alien UFO would travel with some sort of advanced electromagnetic propulsion, it would disturb the magnetic field and the sensor would detect it. It's a simple trembler switch, you can make it yourself with some wire, a magnet, and an doorbell.” (Click for full instructions)

CRYPTIQUE – Mars needs women.

AND MARS ESPECIALLY NEEDS ISABELLA ROSSELLINI

I have been distracted by Isabella Rossellini since Blue Velvet, but a picture of her has never been posted on Doc40 before, and I fear it was an oversight. Thus, when I was able to steal this one from Tom Sutpen, I jumped at the chance.

The secret word is Enrapture

This blog is sanctioned by the Space Fleet of the United Planets

BUSH IS WAR CRIMINAL AND COULD BE CHARGED

This report from The New York Times perversely gladdens my heart (see Sunday July 6th) with the thought that George Bush and his evil cronies could be dragged before the International Court in The Haigh just like genocidal chetniks.

"WASHINGTON — Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.
The book says that the International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the CIA last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were “categorically” torture, which is illegal under both American and international law." (Click for more)

The secret word is Jailtime

YOU'RE PROBABLY WONDERING WHY I'M HERE...

$$$$$$$$

Doug The Bass sent over this highly unique, early picture of the oh-so lamented Frank Zappa with the original Mothers of Invention actually playing a high school dance for frugging youth. Who are the Brain Police? But, more important, who the hell is the seated guitar player?

The secret words are Green Genes

CALL ANY VEGETABLE

Call it by name.

IT WAS ALL A HOAX???

“LAKE WORTH, Texas (AP) — A teenager jailed on accusations that he delivered drug-laced cookies to a dozen police stations was released Thursday after tests showed no drugs in goodies taken to two departments.
Blue Mound and Lake Worth police said tests by the Tarrant County medical examiner showed there were no controlled substances in cookies delivered this week by Christian V. Phillips, 18, who had been jailed in Lake Worth on $75,000 bond on a charge of tampering with a consumer product.
Phillips walked quickly out of the jail without commenting while accompanied by his father, who then drove away with his son.” Click for more

The secret word is Huh?

PSYCHEDELIC TEEN REBEL SPIKES COPS BUT WILL PROBABLY GO TO JAIL FOREVER. (It’s Texas)

From the Fort Worth Star Telegram (with another pic the source of which I blanked out. See yesterday.)

"A Watauga teenager was arrested Tuesday after he delivered cookies laced with LSD to the Lake Worth police Department, officials said.
Christian Phillips, 18, of Watauga may have delivered drug-tainted cookies and candy to a dozen area police departments, based on a list he was carrying that named 25 departments with 12 of them checked off, police said.
Watauga police ate all the cookies taken to them.
A basket was delivered Monday to the Fort Worth Police Department’s downtown headquarters, and at least three officers, including a sergeant and a detective, ate some of the items, Fort Worth police said.
Fort Worth and Watauga police are investigating whether the food they received was drugged and whether any of the officers who ate it suffered adverse reactions, authorities said.
Investigators believe the teen may have started dropping off the baskets with candy and cookies about a week ago. The baskets included a logo indicating that they were from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD.
But Lake Worth police were ready for Phillips. MADD officials had called the Lake Worth department Tuesday morning after they learned that someone had been delivering the baskets to area police departments, claiming to be from that agency.
MADD officials said they had nothing to do with the baskets.
Phillips was arrested about 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Lake Worth police station when he attempted to drop off a basket of cookies and peppermint candy, saying they came from MADD.
Phillips remained in the Lake Worth Jail late Tuesday on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance."

The secret word is Getaway

THE MOMENT WHEN YOUR CREDIT RATING CEASES TO SIGNIFY

As Iran rattles its rockets, I can only reflect that we have been so fucking lucky with regard to thermo nuclear global annihilation that I fear it has made us all kinda blasé. After finessing our way through the sixty some years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, through the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction, Vietnam, the Reagan era and two Gulf wars. Pakistan v India, and Kim Jong-il without popping so much as a single nuke, we may now be pushing our luck. Nuclear proliferation was one of those things that George Bush didn’t much like and thus idiots were put in charge, which essentially allows Bush buddies in the Pakistani almost-military junta to sell nuke tech to anyone who can pony up the scratch. I mean, Wal-Mart could have a bomb if it wanted one. Or Paul McCartney. (And don’t even mention the Russian mob in the context of nukes.) Without drastic and probably impossible international reforms, it’s a Vegas certainty that a real nut-job will get an atomic WMD and then, brothers and sisters, we will really see history being made.

The secret word is Failsafe

IT'S GOOD TO SEE THE OLD TRADE PLYING

I picked up this fine piece of art while shamelessly tolling cyber space for images. I think it came from the blog of a regular Doc40 reader, but when I got back to base I’d forgotten where I stole it. So if you recognize the pic, post a comment and I’ll post a link.

The question was answered. Check out here and here.

MANIFESTO...

...AND SOMETHING ABOUT THE COFFEE IS DECIDEDLY ODD

The secret word is Malcontent

YES, MY FRIENDS, IT'S KYLIE MINOGUE WITH A DALEK

(I kinda felt obligated after all the Google searches that have been initiated since we published the infamous Katy Manning nude-with-Dalek pic in May of 2007.)




The secret word is Exterminate

SIXTY ONE YEARS AGO TODAY...

HCB sent over the image, reminding me that, sixty one years ago today, the Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that personnel from the field's 509th Bomb Group had recovered a crashed "flying disc" from a ranch near Roswell. New Mexico. Later the same day, the somewhat irate Commanding General of the Eighth Air Force stated that, in fact, a weather balloon had been recovered by RAAF personnel, and definitely not a "flying saucer." And that’s how it went on for six more decades, with official explanations of weather balloons and marsh gas that insult our intelligence and do nothing to explain all the flying discs, EBEs, MJ-12, the fact that our pal from Pin Bush, NY is up to his ass in black triangles, and all the other alien stuff that paranoia to heir to. A new cycle of demands for full disclosure is currently thriving, and demands are being made for either a confirmation or denial from the government that Eisenhower made a secret treaty with the aliens in the early 1950s. Of course, the tendancy is to assume that the US government is the author of all this secrecy. If, however, it was the little grey bastards with the skinny fingers and big creepy eyes who wanted, and still want, to stay on the downlow, aren’t we kinda fucked?

The secret words are Zeta and Reticuli

POSTED WITHOUT COMMENT

Pic from Laz.

SEA MONKEYS CHANGED MY LIFE

A couple of days ago, I posted a nostalgic print ad for the Dick Tracy Two-Way Wrist Radio. This prompted Lost Jimmy and ib to bring up the subject of those damned sea monkeys that they used to advertise on the back of comic books. Sea monkeys were supposedly these small sentient beings who lived in miniature 1950s tract homes, watched microscopic TV sets, ate tiny TV dinners, and drank miniscule martinis, and every kid wanted a family of them, except, in the form that they were advertised, they never really existed. The first time I sent off for some sea monkeys, nothing happened. The second time, I received a bunch of lousy brine shrimp that were nothing like creatures in the advertising, and would no more watch TV than fly in the air. At the same time, I had my first indication that the adult world – despite all of its father-knows-best moral posturing – was the habitat of crooks and liars and totally couldn’t be trusted. Since that time, like-minded crooks and liars in the adult world have given me Dadaist drug laws, a handful of bloody wars, a mess of assassination conspiracies, oil dependency, and a ruined planet. (And I still think of the forces ranged against my perception of reason as the adult world. I guess a petulant teenager still lurks somewhere inside me, complete with shades and a turned up collar.)

The secret word is Deceit

This blog is still affiliated with The White Panther Party

MARILYN FOR SUNDAY

There is a natural order at Doc40 that we can’t go for very long without posting a picture of Marilyn Monroe. The last one went up on May 22nd. And now it’s definitely time for another…

RETRIBUTION FOR GEORGE

I would really be a whole lot happier if, at the end of his term, George Bush didn’t walk away scot-free. (This is assuming that Cheney and Rove haven’t come up with some Reichstag endgame to nullify democracy and extend the Bush reign indefinitely.) The man has wrecked the USA (not to mention Iraq) for everyone except the super-rich and his oil baron masters, and, one way of another, he should pay for it. I’m aware that a Saddam Hussein internet execution is out of the question, and I’m also aware that the Democrats won’t proceed with impeachment this side of the election, fearing a sympathy backlash. But once the election is done, I’d be like the proverbial dog with two tails if Georgie was hauled away in handcuffs, made to do the perp-walk, or otherwise penalized for the enormity of all that he’s done.

The secret word is Criminal

SCREW YOUR CELLPHONES, ALL MY LIFE I'VE WANTED ONE OF THESE...

Pic from Tom Sutpen

JUST AS I THOUGHT I WAS OUT OF THE DOOMSDAY RACKET...

It’s pure Michael Corleone. “Just as I thought I was out…etc.” I mean, I thought I’d closed the file on the End of the World (as we know it or otherwise) but then Sabrina sent me this item about the Large Hadron Collider in France, and how it might create black holes that would eat the planet (although Stephen Hawking says it isn’t so.)

"MEYRIN, Switzerland (June 29) - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August. But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?" (Click for full story)

The secret word is Quark

THIS BLOG IS APPROVED BY THE CORLEONE CRIME FAMILY

SHOULD THIS BE ALLOWED?

“So Farren finally manages to crawl out of his hole and favor us with a post? Should he be allowed to get away with all these non-appearances, or should punishment be exacted?”

CALIFORNIA BURNS AND GERMAINE GREER MAKES A TOTAL FOOL OF HERSELF

Rising from the work-filled, smoke-filled gloom as more than a thousand wild fires threaten California, I feel that I have to take exception with my former friend Germaine Greer who, writing in The Guardian, seems to feel the need to draw attention to herself by rubbishing the work of Bob Dylan, in a screed so demented and without reason that I hardly feel the need to refute her tediously, wafer thin argument that she actually managed to collapse herself in the final line.

"Great lyricists? Bah! Humbug! In the 1960s and 70s, I battled students who wanted me to teach Bob Dylan rather than Donne or Yeats. Ever since, I have had screeds of stuff sent to me by people who thought that rhyme equalled reason, to whom I had gently to explain that their agonised posturings wouldn't pass for poetry. I blame Dylan. In my eyes, he wasn't fit to tie Woody Guthrie's shoelaces. I have never forgiven him for keeping his fans waiting at the Isle of Wight festival in 1969 for three hours, from 9 o'clock till midnight, before he would sing a word. Creeps sometimes make good poets, but Bob Zimmerman isn't one of them." (Click for the full measure of nonsense and the payoff)

The secret word is Imbecilic

AND NOW A WORD FROM ROBERT CRUMB...

OR IS THIS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS?

In this week’s LA CityBeat, I attempt to explain everything. Click here!

The secret word is Nevermore

OR MAYBE THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS

I just couldn’t resist posting this. Along with the blurb from the Cinefamily newsletter that follows. (The Cinefamily are reviving this monster next Saturday at the Silent Movie Theatre here in Hollywood.)

"The one-and-only Rudy Ray Moore aka Dolemite aka Petey Wheatstraw drives the cinema train straight off the tracks with Disco Godfather, the world's only kung fu dance party anti-angel- dust comedy. Rudy stars as an ex-cop turned popular DJ/nightclub owner, who grabs the viewer's attention by the kidneys from his first astounding and jiggly purple-suited entrance. When his nephew gets all strung out on PCP, hallucinating something fierce, he dives headfirst into the equally ridiculously garbed underworld to investigate, to almost no positive effect whatsoever. The film is a trademark heady mix of kick-ass distended elements, a blend of serious anti-drug talk, dance, martial arts and Rudy's repetitive catchphrases ("Put A Little Slide In Yo' Glide" and the truly haunting "Put Your Weight On It!"), which moved one anonymous Internet reviewer to write: "This movie was like witnessing the Civil War. It was loud, hard to understand what people were saying, and downright horrifying."

The secret word is Bad