Earlier, I read the poetry of the detainees after some impromptu chat. It was too grim to be pleased with the performance. (See Monday for the background details.) But the people present seemed to be affected by what the others and I did. Wayne Kramer wore an orange jump suit. We hugged. Some performers didn't show. I guess fearing an FBI file or something. When all was done I drank in aptly named Dresden. It never changes. I got home and fell asleep in front of Stephen Colbert. I woke, alone with cat -- knowing I would always be alone with the cat -- and wondering if our evening efforts had made an iota of difference. Because, if they didn’t, the only question that remains is do I blow my brains out now, or cultivate a total loathing of humanity first. I'm exhausted by 40 years of fighting the bastards.
Hi, I’m an amphetamine molecule and this is The Who.
Hi, this is the Witch-king of Angmar and I hate to see towers falling down. In this clip it’s the cooling towers at Calder Hall in Cumbria, England, the world's first full-scale nuclear power station, being demolished. (Monty Burns take note.)
Oh, and, as of today, the Iranians claim the Russian specialists working on the construction of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran are not leaving town. (See yesterday’s post, and thanks, Munz.)
Also I have a media column in this week’s LA CityBeat about how Fred Thompson should definitely not be president.
Aeswiren, Doc40’s apocalyptic watchdog, and pessimist emeritus, sends some very disturbing news.
"Iranian and Israeli news outlets are reporting that Russia has evacuated its entire staff of nuclear engineers and experts who were working at the Bushehr nuclear reactor, increasing speculation that the United States is preparing an imminent military attack on Iran. According to the Khorramshar News Agency, which represents ethnic Arabs in opposition to Ahmadinejad's regime who live near the reactor, the Russians packed their bags and left on Friday." (Click for the rest.)
And I can’t help it, but this kind of news makes me resort to Ol’ Bob. Here are not one, but two versions, just shy of half a century apart, of the same very obvious song. This not only shows the artist at extreme phases of his career, but also how, in the 45 years since Cuba Missile Crisis, when the song was written, we have made little headway in negating the fear of nuclear annihilation.
The secret word is Strontium and the secret number is 90
This is a TASER. The TASER seems to be showing up all over the place. Security guards, campus cops, real cops. As far as my research goes, it has yet to appear in the BDSM community, although other electric shock devices like cattle prods are becoming quite the rage, but all levels of quasi-law enforcement, including the security at political events, seem to think they are the equivalent of 21st electric billyclubs and are using them with gleeful abandon on anyone who does or says anything they don’t like. And the New Scientist is concerned.
…I’d be experiencing massive metaphysical concern over the volcano that erupted yesterday on an island in Yemen’s end of the Red Sea. The idea of a volcano spewing lava and flame far too fucking close, in my estimation, to the massive Ghawar oilfield, would make me one worried fundamentalist, except most of the media have chosen to ignore it, and I probably wouldn’t even know about it. In my own, more secular reality, I am far more perturbed about Seymour Hersh's revelations in the current New Yorker about how Bush now totally seems bent on starting a war with Iran. (Do Bush and Cheney think their place in history will be assured by leaving the Middle East and maybe the whole bloody planet charred to a crisp?)
“In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran. “Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,” Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. “The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.” He then concluded, to applause, “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.” Click for the rest of the story
Also, if I were of bible praying kinda guy, this version of “I Got You Babe” might tip me over into total apocalyptic dread.
The secret word is Endtime
"I have knives, boys."
A week ago last Friday (Sept 20th) I posted a video link to David Bowie performing Brecht & Weil’s “Alabama Song.” Since then I’ve come across more of the related same. I don’t know why I find this music of the 1930s so I appealing. (I mean, even I wasn’t born yet.) Maybe it's because there is the same sense of fascist evil I feel today, pushing its way up through the fetid swamp of power – not even a new fascist evil, just the same one as before, but with a different tailor. I have also been running graphics from the Spanish Civil War. I have to suppose that I am really looking at two sides of the same coin. Spain was the briefly shining hope, and Weimar Germany was the doomed hedonism. As modern analogues of the doomed hedonism, here is Nick Cave’s version of Mack the Knife, Mick Jagger performing Streets of Berlin from Bent in full drag, Bob Fosse’s ultimately scary Tomorrow Belongs To Me from Cabaret, and Klaus Nomi’s Falling In Love Again. (pic from Valerie)
The secret word is Marlene
Would you believe I used to lend this man a quid ‘til Friday? That I let him eat the cheese out of my fridge? That he and I wrote a bunch of tunes together? Well, we did, and here’s one of them, “Damage Case” being performed by Metallica with Lemmy as a special guest.
John Waters gives an amazing address on free speech. (Thanks Munz) I guess – just to prove we don’t have any free speech – children shouldn’t watch this because it would probably get Doc40 into a mess of excrement. So, if you’re under 18, piss off and don’t click the link. We mean it. Go watch Fat Britney or idiots sticking bottle rockets up their rectums.
The secret word is Dirty
“Oh course I’m going to see Mick and Andy, why do you think I’m dressed like this?"
Mick Farren and Andy Colquhoun will once again be romping and stomping their two-man psychedelic deviant future blues – with new tunes and special guest Tom Gardner at Tequila Mockingbird’s Club Fluffer at the Hyperion Tavern in Silver Lake this Thursday (September 27th) and you are sooo cordially invited. Showing up between 9.30 and 10.00 PM would be about right.
Hyperion Tavern, 1941 Hyperion Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027. 323-665-1941 (Look for the red lights.)
Drink it up, tip the bartender, forget your troubles and come on down. (Still our current slogan.)
We understand that Dick and Jane, Slobbery Jim, Angel and Love, Vaseline Tuner and burlesque queen Madame Miss La Diva will also grace the stage.
I don’t quite know what to think about this pretty damn unique portrait of George W. Bush by Steve Lazarides (and sent over by Doug the Bass.) Does the loathsome oaf even deserve the attention? I recall something similar was done to John Ashcroft when he was the Holy Roller Attorney General. This, however, is a great deal more subtle and takes a little figuring out, but start from the top of his left ear (your left) and move out across all the pornographic contours of the face. Left clicking for a bigger image helps.
I’m also unsure about this Budweiser commercial from the 2002 Super Bowl that's been making the web rounds in the wake of 9/11 hindsight. Is the damned thing dignified or a piece of tawdry beer bathos? Those Clydesdales are damn fine horses, though.
The secret word is Decide
This is meat. Doesn’t it look yummy? Don’t you just love vintage advertising? The red tint alone is an argument for vegetarianism. Or liquid nourishment. See how it coordinates with the nail polish. But don’t expect anything too profound from me in the next 48 hours. Even Strindberg had a day off.
The secret word is Cocktail
At least enlisting in the Hordes of Mekh might get me away from the gratuitous madness of this damned planet where the military is now attempting to turn bees – who have enough trouble already – into little flying bomb detectors. (Also Valerie notes "If you check out the applications on the company web, they´re already marketing all this, which means they´ve been messing with the bees for a long time.")
“Honeybees are trained to recognize particular odors (for example, that of explosive compounds), and then to associate that smell with a food reward. Bees are able to recognize odors that are as faint as only a few parts per trillion in an air sample. When the bees detect the special odor, they extend their proboscis in expectation of receiving food.” More
Meanwhile, in this week’s LA CityBeat, I re-discover MAD magazine. And wandering YouTube, I re-discovered the Grateful Dead, which is always tricky. Middle-aged punks stare at you like you were a puppy molester caught en flagrante. (Or maybe OJ) “Farren is a closet Deadhead!” Which is actually not true. As Boss Goodman used to put it. “You like the songs and the singing, not the solos.” Whatever fashion might dictate, though, I am unashamedly fond of New Speedway Boogie.
The secret word is Tromp
The following story, forwarded by Doug the Bass, but I believe to be circulating on the net has a naïve neo-Norman Rockwell quality that suggests those in power can't fool all of the people all of the time forever and ever, amen. On the other hand, how long and how much does it take for supposedly decent citizens to wise up to what is being done to them and theirs? Does it always require mutilated children before they grasp there's something wrong with this picture.?
THE BALLAD OF BLUE LAKES BOB ! (In memory of 9/11) by Purple Gene. I remember that Monday morning when I was driving to work ...9/11/01. I'll never forget it...ever!
The following weekend I was walking on a little dirt road behind our cabin on Blue Lakes. I ran into a larger than life old Vet named Bob walking his aging black Lab. I said Hi and the first thing out of his mouth after Hi was, "Fuckin' Ragheads!"
A year later, around September of 2002, I saw old Bob again and he told me that his oldest son had enlisted in the Army and was going to Afghanistan. I said, "Bob, I'll keep your boy in my thoughts. I mean it"!
A year later, around September of 2003, I saw old Bob again and he told me that his youngest son had enlisted in the Army and was going to Iraq. I said, "Bob, I'll keep your boys in my thoughts"! And I did!
Another year later, around September of 2004, I saw old Bob again and he told me that both his boys were doing O.K., but he started complaining about what his sons were saying in term of lack of protection on their Humvees and body armor and the heat and the sand and. I said, "Bob, I hope those boys of yours stay safe!"
A year later, around September of 2005, I saw old Bob again and he told me that his oldest son was back from Afghanistan but that his youngest boy re-upped in Iraq. Bob said, "my youngest is kinda crazy and I'm a little worried". I said, "Bob, I hope we can get him back home soon!"
Yet another year later, around September of 2006, I saw old Bob again and he said that his son was writing him less and less and that more of his buddies had been blown up by I.E.D's and he didn't give a shit who won the congressional elections. They’re all the same up in Washington...I said, "Bob, I would like nothing more than to see thiswar end and your youngest come home...and besides, I think they're spending too much of "our" money over in that "shit hole"!
Well I just saw old Bob this last weekend (September of 2007) up at Blue Lakes. He had on his usual army fatigues and hat and his black Lab was still limping along behind him. This time Bob said something that really struck me hard. "I think these "Chicken Hawks"in Washington have been lying to us all along. They just want that black gold. Oh and by the way my youngest made it back in one piece, but his head is kinda screwed up." I said, "Bob, tell your sons thanks a lot for trying over there...and I think you're rightas rain about Washington and the War!"
I wonder what he'll have to say next year?
And all I can follow this grim Americana with is Elvis singing “Trying To Get To You.”
(See yesterday’s comments. I felt challenged.)
"A meteorite fell Saturday night in the Peruvian area of Puno, close to the border with Bolivia, forming a crater with a 30 meters diamater, and six meters in depth, the local press reported today. A luminous object fell a little before midnight of the day before yesterday in the town of Carancas, in the province of Chucuito, about 1.300 kilometers to the south of Lima. According to sources of the Territorial Direction of the Police, the alarmed inhabitants of the area heard a great noise, similar to that of an airplane falling. Later, the witnesses saw a luminous object in fire in the sky that hit the ground, producing an explosion that left the earth charred. The meteorite didn’t hurt anyone, but the authorities are investigating if the remains found in the area are of animals that may have died because of the explosion. The farmers of the place fear the appearance of some disease, since chips of lead and silver were liberated in the shock of the meteor with the soil, the local broadcasting station “RPP” informed. The member of the National Academy of Sciences, Modesto Montoya, told to the “Andean” state agency that the fall of meteorites in Peru doesn’t present any danger, unless they hit some structure. “None of the several meteorites that fall in Peru and make perforations of varied sizes are harmful for people, unless they fall over a house”, Montoya said. In June, another meteorite fell in the Mascapampa hill, in the province of Arequipa (south), leaving the population alarmed. Curiously the meteorite fell exactly one month after the terrible earthquake that hit Lima on August 15.
Other more dubious stories told of tiny people emerging from the meteor."
The secret word is Scully
NOW… You wanna see the Sears Tower struck by lightning?
Doc 40 was never designed as an animal rights blog, but humanity is spends so much of its time fucking over the other inhabitants of the planet it becomes impossible to ignore. I am not fond of zoos, and I loathe circuses that feature animal acts. (I don’t much like clowns either, but that’s a whole other story.) Part of my loathing for circuses stems from knowing, from nothing less than personal experience, that much of so-called animal training is based in calculated cruelty. This clip send by blu reveals a little of the nastiness involved in training an animal act, in this case elephants. Be warned, though. This video is not pleasant.
The secret word is Bastards
Now here’s where it really gets complicated. In this message from Dan, Bob Dylan (helped by Antonio Lopez) warns us of the Cylon menace, while out there across the galaxy, the human survivors have All Along The Watchtower ringing in their ears, and we poor schmucks back on Earth are going to have to wait maybe a year to find what the fuck is going on and what the writers are up to. (Why do I watch TV? It only makes me dissatisfied.)
But if I actually lived in the TV all of this would be the primary mythology, not to say some high-octane motherfucker metaphysics of possibly catastrophic dimensions and I’d be thinking, right here, roll on 2012 and let’s see what that’s going to bring. In space no one can hear you scream, but on Earth, mind-snapping terror is completely audible. (Although if I lived in the TV I would be nano-tiny and speak in binary code. Word?)
CRYPTIQUE – God is just an out-of-control vending machine. (But what currency does he/she/it accept?)
The secret word is Relief
I have a nickel and a dime and one fuck of a toothache. I’m off to Hudson Avenue, Albany.
The secret word is Bicuspid
Rate Me on BlogHop.com!
help?
.JPG)
