PROLETARIAT PINUP #4

“Come in kitty, but don’t forget that Karl Marx teaches how the human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.”

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

IS THIS THE MANSON FAMILY LIVE?

This video had been floating around in cyberspace along with the claim that it’s real live footage of the Manson Family breaking into and creepy-crawling a private home somewhere in Los Angeles. It does raise a bunch of questions including whether this kind of filming was technically possible back in 1969. Some people who’ve seen it swear it’s footage from an aborted movie, while others assert that it’s a total hoax. I found it on the weblog of Adam Gorightly (that also exhibits a excellent obsession with go-go dancers) and, still having a morbid fascination with all things Charlie, I present it for your consideration. Click here and make of it what you will.

The secret word is Rise

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Uncle Bill, still on the alien spacecraft, attempts to phone home.

WHO KNEW EVEL KNIEVEL HAD A LINE OF PHALLIC POPSICLES?

Are we getting a bit too retro round here? I’ll attempt to fix that tomorrow.

I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH DISTORTED REALITY BUT THE IDEA OF LIVING ON A “GIANT COSMIC HOLOGRAM” IS A STRETCH

The divine Valerie sent us the following extraordinary report…
“For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.
If this doesn't blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.”
Click here for the full story.

The secret word is Quantum

Danny Dill – RIP

GIT YER DOWNLOADS

Back in the early nineties, I recorded Gringo Madness with Henry Beck and John Collins, and we all had a splendid minimalist time going by the name of Tijuana Bible. Now I discover it’s a free download. Click here.

HERE WE GO -- MAKE IT SO, BRO!

The secret word is Inspire

TALKIN’ ‘BOUT MY C-C-CORPORATION

The original recording of “My Generation” by The Who is now a Pepsi commercial and getting heavy rotation in Inauguration news coverage. Doesn’t Pete have enough money? I am less than happy about this, both the selling of my memories and it’s symbolic role as an omen or portent.

GRAND OPENING

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN NOW HAS IT’S OWN PAGE SO THE WHOLE THING CAN BE READ WITHOUT SCROLLING. CLICK HERE, BUT DON’T WORRY, NEW EPISODES WILL CONTINUE TO POST FIRST ON DOC40.

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 1408)

In which Marilyn checks into the Leader Hotel. Her plan is to take a shower, then take a handful of Nembutal, chase them with a couple of martinis, and then repeat as needed. If her luck holds, she should be able to sleep for a week and let the Inter-dimensional Great Game go on very well without her. Unfortunately, just as soon as she steps out of the shower, the room turns disastrously Stephen King. The lights go out, the TV turns itself on, and appears to be self-aware and hostile. Clutching a towel, but maintaining her goddess equilibrium, she reaches for the phone. Even though it is now plugged into thin air, she speaks into the handset anyway because the TV refuses to show a program and is advancing in her direction. “Please organize me an extraction. And organize it right now. I think we have a cliff-hanger in progress.”

94% ACETATE

They don’t make shirts like this any more, which is probably just as well. Although I figure you could have hidden up to a half a kilo of cocaine in the that collar.

The secret word is Superfly

THIS MUST HAVE BEEN A VERY ODD COMIC BOOK

And extremely unhealthy.

PROLETARIAT PINUP #3

“Like Marx told us, anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex.”

THEY STILL DESIGN POSTERS LIKE THIS...

In response to last Thursday’s post about designer Rick Griffin, our pal Valis complained “I think you're overlooking some GREAT new designers of rock posters.” He sent me a bunch of contemporary examples like this one by Chuck Sperry that truly proved “the art of rock is very alive and well.”

The secret word is Corrected

Over the last few days, the right-hand side of Doc40 has sprouted a bunch of decals and widgets. Maybe I’ve given in to an infantile impulse to gussie things up in hard times, so I wonder if it’s a case of too many headlights on the scooter. How do you all feel about it?

BATTLESTAR IS BACK

I’m hoping it’s symbolic of an improving world. Battlestar Galactica is back on the Sci-Fi Channel and Friday night becomes endurable. Needless to say, though, the news is not all good. After fleeing the Cylon menace for god knows how many episodes, the remnants of humanity find their way to Earth, only to discover the legendary homeworld is global nuclear toast. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, this is the final season. I am really getting pissed off with these auteur TV shows that coyly quit while they're ahead. First The Sopranos, then Deadwood and now Battlestar Galactica. Thank heavens for South Park.

The secret word is Frak

"You're a bad man, Walker."

THIS MUST STOP -- NOW!

If these reports are even close to being true, the Israelis have overstepped all bounds of civilized warfare. (If that, in itself, is not an oxymoron.)

Reuters
“A warehouse in a U.N. compound in Gaza that came under Israeli fire on Thursday was apparently hit by white-phosphorus shells, U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes said. "The main warehouse was badly damaged by what appeared to be white-phosphorus shells," Holmes told reporters at a news briefing in New York. "Those on the ground don't have any doubt that's what they were. If you were looking for confirmation, that looks like it to me."

BBC:
“Human Rights Watch says it has observed "dozens and dozens" of white phosphorus shells being fired by Israel at the Gaza Strip - a heavily populated civilian area where its use is prohibited.
Palestinian medical officials said they had treated large numbers of casualties with unusual burns that were extremely painful to treat and could be consistent with exposure to white phosphorus.”

The Times of London
“The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus shells in the Gaza offensive, although an investigation by The Times has revealed that dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have sustained serious injuries from the substance, which burns at extremely high temperatures. The Geneva Convention of 1980 proscribes the use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in civilian areas, although it can be used to create a smokescreen. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said today that all weapons used in Gaza were "within the scope of international law."

The New York Times
“Luay Suboh, 10, from Beit Lahiya, lost his eyesight and some skin on his face Saturday when, his mother said, a fiery substance clung to him as he darted home from a shelter where his family was staying to pick up clothes. The substance smelled like burned trash, said Ms. Jaawanah, the mother who fled her home in Zeitoun, who had experienced it too. She had no affection for Hamas, but her sufferings were changing that. 'Do you think I'm against them firing rockets now?' she asked, referring to Hamas. 'No. I was against it before. Not anymore.'”

AFP
“Medics in Gaza say they have treated more than 50 people suffering burns caused by controversial white phosphorus shells, a claim backed up by a report of the New York-based Human Rights Watch. And two Norwegian doctors, recently returned from working in the Gaza Strip, accused Israel of using the territory as a testing ground for a new "extremely nasty" type of explosive.”

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 52

Sent by Valerie

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Uncle Bill leaves the planet, but doesn't tell anyone where he's going or when he'll be back.

THEY DON'T STAGE SHOWS LIKE THIS ANY MORE #12A

And they don't design posters like the great Rick Griffin, either.

The secret words are Pay Attention

PROLETARIAT PINUP #2 (With Red Book)

“Chairman Mao reminds us if you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.”

THE MARILYN MEME IS SPREADING

Forgive the self-congratulation, but last night, on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert launched into a convoluted faux-conspiracy theorist rant that concluded, “…Marilyn Monroe disguised herself as Howard Hughes and flew the Spruce Goose into the JFK motorcade.” Of course, it was spoken and not written in pink type, but it would seem that the Marilyn meme, as instigated by Doc40’s ongoing series of weird, disjointed, multi-reality Flash-Gordon-on acid snatches of fiction around ancient and retro photos of Marilyn Monroe is spreading. Which causes me to think hard about what might be happening here. Could it be that, instead of promoting global utopian revolution, we find ourselves simply spreading conceptual weirdness. Or maybe, somewhere deep in the sub-conscious culture, they are one and the same.

“I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.” – Marilyn Monroe

Patrick McGoohan – RIP

Ricardo Montalban – RIP

THIS MUST HAVE BEEN A VERY ODD MAGAZINE #2

Back on December 19th of last year, Doc40 ran a reproduction of a cover from the quite extraordinary Sir magazine from the 1950s. Since then, others have crossed our threshold, and this is one of the more sensational. I don’t know if the H-bomb can "stop sex", but I do know that a thermo-nuclear strike can spoil one’s entire day.

The secret hyphenation is Ka-Boom

LOST JOHNNY

Our pal Arsyd sent over a audio link to a somewhat unusal version of the song “Lost Johnny” that Lemmy and I wrote way back in the twenieth century. It’s by the German/Dutch rock/experimental group Tohuwabhu, who, some time ago, covered the Tijuana Bible tune “Memphis Psychosis.” (And who feature a rock & roll accordion.) Click here to take a listen.

BEES/COKE UPDATE

Our pal Aeswiren has sent us this update…

“BEES LIKE COCAINE (From Science Cite Track. by Laura M. Zahn)

Cocaine triggers reward pathways in the human brain and is toxic at high doses; it is postulated to have evolved as an insecticide that protects the coca plant. Barron et al. have tested the response of honey bees to cocaine and find suggestive evidence of a reward effect at low doses. By examining the honey bee dance--the means by which bees signal the availability of resources to their hive-mates--they found that dosing the bees with cocaine increased both the likelihood and rate of dance after foraging; furthermore, the bees exhibited behavior consistent with a withdrawal effect when the drug was withheld after chronic treatment. The authors conclude that responsiveness and signaling in the appropriate settings were increased by the treatment with cocaine, suggesting that the response to the drug may be similar in humans and bees.”

The secret word is Hexagram

VIDDY WELL MY DROOGS

THE PENTAGON AT WORK

So when do we see the photos?

William Zantzinger died on January 3rd. (Thanks Bernard)

BLOGGED DOWN

RIGHT NOW BLOGGER REFUSES TO UPLOAD IMAGES. WE'LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 455)

In which Marilyn, during the siege of Arkham, has been operating alone behind enemy lines – without control, back-up, or any clear means of extraction – using her goddess powers of persuasion to spread disaffection among the rank and file invaders. When finally exhausted from her efforts, she lies down to take a fast power-nap on the wheelbase of one of the Fox war machines. Her reasoning is simple. Wasn’t it the very last place that they would look for her?

IT'S SUNDAY AND THIS IS A FRIED EGG...

...AND IT'S LOOKING AT ME LIKE A BLOODY CYCLOPS!

(Lifted from Siblingshot on an afternoon when my gravity has definitely failed and I’m waiting for the negativity to pull me through.)

The secret word is Indolent

YUM YUM!

PROLETARIAT PINUP #1

“Remember what Marx taught us, comrades. Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.”

THE ENDANGERED BANANA

Two days ago we were discussing bananas in the context of the Elvis Presley sandwich. Now Johann Hari, writing on Huffpo, tells us the days of the jolly yellow, phalic fruit may well be numbered.

“Bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible. There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon - in five, 10 or 30 years - the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world - and where they are leading us.”

Banana production also turns out to be of a model of capitalism at its most viciously merciless.

"Find a poor, weak country. Make sure the government will serve your interests. If it won't, topple it and replace it with one that will. Burn down its rainforests and build banana plantations. Make the locals dependent on you. Crush any flicker of trade unionism. The term "banana republic" was invented to describe the servile dictatorships that were created to please the banana companies. In the early 1950s, the Guatemalan people elected a science teacher named Jacobo Arbenz, because he promised to redistribute some of the banana companies' land among the millions of landless peasants. President Eisenhower and the CIA (headed by a former United Fruit employee) issued instructions that these "communists" should be killed, and noted that good methods were "a hammer, axe, wrench, screw driver, fire poker or kitchen knife". The tyranny they replaced it with went on to kill more than 200,000 people.” (Click here for more.)

(And maybe proving the reality of karma, the politicization of Che Guevara actually took place when he was in Guatemala City during the CIA overthrow of Arbenz.)

The secret word is Peel

This blog is still affiliated with The White Panther Party

JANUARY 8TH

Here at Doc40 we usually celebrate the birthday of Elvis Presley, but today has been such a mess from hell there isn’t much celebrating going on. (Maybe more after I’ve had a drink. To cap it all we had a small earthquake a moment ago.) Elvis shares a birthday with Stephen Hawking, and Soupy Sales, and also David Bowie (who was once in the band Tin Machine with Soupy’s sons Hunt and Tony Sales) but I’ve never been totally convinced that David really had the same birthday as Elvis.

In other news, I just learned from our pal Joly that Twink (if you don’t know who he is it doesn’t matter) has converted to Islam and taken the name Mohammed Abdullah. I ask myself if he’s headed for the DHS no-fly list.

BUT WHAT BETTER WAY TO MARK THE NATIVITY OF THE KING THAN WITH A GREASY SANDWICH?

I believe this recipe for the legendary peanut butter and banana sandwich is the first recipe ever to feature on Doc40. (Suddenly we’re a cooking show.)

Take...
2 slices of white bread toasted on one side.
2 tablespoons of smooth peanut butter
1 small ripe banana mashed
2 tablespoons bacon fat
Spread the peanut butter on the untoasted side of one slice of bread and the mashed banana on the other. Press the slices gently together. Melt the bacon fat over low heat in a small frying pan. Place the sandwich in the pan and fry until golden brown on both sides. Repeat.

The secret word is Skillet

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

On Elvis’ birthday, Uncle Bill turns his back on the obvious threat.

ONLY FOUR BILLION YEARS LEFT

Our pal Bernard sent this item from The Guardian in London
“The white band of the Milky Way is visible on a clear night, but the Andromeda galaxy is more than 2m light years away and rarely seen by the naked eye. They are hurtling towards each other at a million miles an hour and could meet within fewer than 4 billion years - but it is highly unlikely that planets or stars from Andromeda will hit those in the Milky Way. The space between them is equivalent to a football field between grains of sand. While the stars and planets will pass each other, clouds of dust and gas will smash into one another, creating enormous shockwaves that force particles together so violently they form new stars.”

Click here for a simulation of galaxy crash, and here for a longer one.

The secret word is Wow!

SMOKE IF YOU GOT ‘EM

The actor on the Godzilla suit takes a break for a cigarette. The picture quality is rotten but the concept is infinite.

BEES LIKE COKE

Munz sent us this fascinating item…
To learn more about the biochemistry of addiction, scientists in Australia dropped liquefied freebase cocaine on bees’ backs, so it entered the circulatory system and brain.
The scientists found that bees react much like humans do: cocaine alters their judgment, stimulates their behavior and makes them exaggeratedly enthusiastic about things that might not otherwise excite them.
The bees however would seem to be cheap dates where coke is concerned. A gram will keep a bee happy for two years. (Click here for more)

The secret word is Buzz

FAQ

“How did I get into this sick fuck’s fantasy?”

WHO'S MINDING THE STORE?

A massive rift in the way the US political system functions in the 21st century has finally been revealed. Maybe the fact that the country remained effectively leaderless for some two and a half months following a presidential election didn’t matter in the days of stage coach, railroad and the telegraph, but, in the brave new electronic century, when every nano-second counts, a superpower cannot simply drift on the tide of events with no one minding the store. With two more weeks still to go before Barack Obama is inaugurated, we have already seen the militantly lame duck Bush administration do everything it can to booby trap the future with their legislative scorched earth tactics, seven hundred billion dollars of public money has been effectively disappeared into the banking system, while the global economy still spins to perdition, and now Israel using this weird post-election dead zone to go a-howling into Gaza with artillery blazing. And few days still remain in which Dick Cheney can destroy the planet.
How is it we never noticed this before? The answer is that 2008/9 is the first smooth transfer of presidential power in the 21st century. In 2000/1, the hung election and the Florida recount filled up the dead air between November and January as they went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 2004/5, of course, Kerry failed to unseat Bush and no power was transferred. This is the first time the world and the White House has had the full chance to do their worst.
Can this be rectified? Who the hell knows apart from a handful of constitutional scholars. But obviously something needs to be done or everyone from the Taliban to the Somali pirates will be well aware that when America changes presidents there’s a seventy-five day window to wreak all manner of havoc. (Or maybe it doesn’t matter because capitalism has collapsed already, but is too dumb to lay down.)

PSILOCYBIN VINDICATED

Lucy sent over this report on a Johns Hopkins study on magic mushrooms. It’s from CNN but surprisingly balanced. (And there's extra stuff on the end.) Click here.

Or conceivably OUT.

The secret word is Oblique

LIZ ON SUNDAY

I think, in the movie, the scene actually played out on a Sunday morning. And on the subject of Butterfield 8, here’s a memorable clip that recalls how, even in 1960, love was a many splendored thing. (Click here)

REMEMBRANCE AS AN AVOIDANCE OF REALITY

This may require some explanation.
When I saw this image on a visit to one of my favorite websites – If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats – my memory was forcibly prodded into a long-gone haze of what could only have been late infancy, or at least to a time when I had just started to read. I can recall such posters on the platforms of British railway stations as my mother and I waited for the 10.25 to grandmother’s house (change at Paddington) and destinations of that ilk. Even as a child, I can recall finding something insinuatingly grotesque about the ancient fat mariner leaping a sand puddle and a starfish in his rolled down boots, and the slogan “It’s SO bracing!” I think the poster alone was enough to engender an innate and lifelong resolve to avoid Skegness unless actually paid to go there. I’m sure it’s a very nice town, but the poster was just too much.
I have much clearer memories of teenage, Goon Show/Bonzo Dog shock parody my with school buddies whenever the name Skegness was mentioned, and our dismay at what had once been our oppressed elders’ benighted idea of enjoyment. To advertise a vacation resort as “bracing” was surely only something the English, in the pre-Elvis cultural poverty of the 1950s, could come up with. The idea that one might find satisfaction walking in a raw wind that was whipping of the North Sea, after blowing all the way from the frozen fiords – with nothing more than pints of stout and mild, cod and chips, and the Beverly Sisters at the Pier Pavilion after the exercise – was incalculable to a generation that aspired to cocktails in semi-tropical cabana while girls in Brigitte Bardot bikinis walked by. Even that early there was a vast gulf of consciousness.

But why do I bring up all these yesterdays, and why now? I guess because this is the last Sunday of idleness until the full horror of 2009 really kicks in. Tanks are supposedly rolling into Gaza, another fire is being extinguished with gasoline, more slaughter is underway, but I’m trying to avoid thinking about that – and all the other New Year slings and arrows – for another 24 hours.

The secret word is Coward

THEY DON'T STAGE SHOWS LIKE THIS ANY MORE #12