100 YEARS OF WOODY

In July of this year, Woody Guthrie would have been a 100. I didn’t know that until I read this early tribute by Jim Hightower.

“Guthrie unabashedly celebrated America's working class, seeing in it the commitment to the common good that lifts America up. He drove The Powers That Be crazy (a pretty short ride for many of them back then, just as it is today). So they branded him a unionist, socialist, communist and all sorts of other "ists" ­— but he withered them with humor that got people laughing at them: "I ain't a communist necessarily, but I have been in the red all my life." Going down those "ribbons of highway" that he extolled in "This Land Is Your Land," Guthrie found that the only real hope of fairness and justice was in the people themselves: "When you bum around for a year or two and look at all the folks that's down and out, busted, disgusted (but can still be trusted), you wish that somehow or other they could ... pitch in and build this country back up again." He concluded, "There is just one way to save yourself, and that's to get together and work and fight for everybody." And, indeed, that's exactly what grassroots people are doing all across our country today. From Occupy Wall Street to the ongoing Wisconsin uprising, from battles against the Keystone XL Pipeline to the successful local and state campaigns to repeal the Supreme Court's atrocious Citizens United edict, people are adding their own verses to Woody's musical refrain: "I ain't a-gonna be treated this a-way." Where's Woody when we need him? He's right there, inside each of us.” (Clickhere for more)

Click here for Woody

Click here for a real rarity

The secret word is Highway

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

EVENING ALL…

DON’T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?

POT KILLS

Yes my friends, I know Doc40 has been away for far too long for reasons great and small and too depressing or maybe exciting to go into right now, but I do hope from here on out that we can rectify matters in the coming days and week and put the fun back in fun house again. And what better way to start up a new run than with this true tale from our pal Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds?   

“Excerpted from a 1988 Department of Justice/DEA brief written by Judge Francis L. Young: “In layman terms this means that in order to induce death, a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.” Compare and contrast the damage that just two bottles of tequila would do to the human body (Been there, done that and won the booby prize of 4-day hangover...). And while I’m on the topic, whereas you can see that it’s impossible for a human to OD on cannabis, the plant is HIGHLY toxic to dogs. That’s right, do not let your pooch near your stash. If you make pot brownies keep them out of your dog’s reach (Chocolate is also lethal to dogs. So are grapes and onions). If your dog eats cannabis, rush it to a pet hospital without hesitation.”

Click herefor Afroman

The secret word is Return 

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

L. Ron Frozdick founded his cult at a very early age.

LIFE IS FILLED WITH CHOICES

GRAUITOUS BARSTOOL

I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT THIS ALBUM COVER

The best I can do is stare at it in bemused puzzlement and then turn away. And that is just as well because I am supposed to be working as hard as I can on a piece of creative writing that is required soon. I can say no more except it’s guaranteed to be great. Observe the bottom left hand corner, however. It may be one of the roots of catapocalypse.

Click here for Elvis in Absurdity (But maybe only HCB will twig the ref.)

The words are Mousy and Den


Michael Davis – RIP 

BUT FRANK SEZ…

AND JESSICA SEZ…

“Do any of you remember me?”

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Dale Frozdick was devastated when her Flash Gordon imitator revealed he was exclusively gay. 

THE FORMICIZATION OF ELVIS PRESLEY

(Image supplied by HCB – see above)

SPACE OPERA

SOMETHING CHEAP AND NASTY

I may have to go out a get drunk on something cheap and nasty. I just got screwed by Microsoft who cancelled the MSN email account I’ve had since the days of dialup because they claimed they couldn’t process a credit card that didn’t have an US billing address. The sum in question that will force me to spend a whole mess of manhours learning a new system? $9.99. 

Click here for Albert Collins

The secret word is Ire

MARILYN SEZ...

“We will hang the corporate bastards from the yardarms of the luxury yachts.”

WHAT ARE YOU REBELLING AGAINST?

GRATUITOUS HANDHOLDING

FARCEBOOK

While I use Facebook for my own gratification, communication, and promotion I’m under no illusion that it’s anything but two-way street of exploitation and the action is transactional. Thus I’m glad The New York Times has finally discover the social network danger of stereotyping and data aggregation.

“Stereotyping is alive and well in data aggregation. Your application for credit could be declined not on the basis of your own finances or credit history, but on the basis of aggregate data — what other people whose likes and dislikes are similar to yours have done. If guitar players or divorcing couples are more likely to renege on their credit-card bills, then the fact that you’ve looked at guitar ads or sent an e-mail to a divorce lawyer might cause a data aggregator to classify you as less credit-worthy. When an Atlanta man returned from his honeymoon, he found that his credit limit had been lowered to $3,800 from $10,800. The switch was not based on anything he had done but on aggregate data. A letter from the company told him, “Other customers who have used their card at establishments where you recently shopped have a poor repayment history with American Express.” (Click here for the whole thing)

REMEMBERING SOUL TRAIN

RBP/Yahoo have reprinted my account of a visit to the Soul Train set back in the 1970s. 

“An incredibly beautiful, tall slim girl drifts by. She has a huge afro, skin tight Iron Boy overalls, elaborate platforms and pounds of Navajo silver and turquoise jewellery. Her friend is encased in the full Marilyn Monroe black sequined sheath dress drag and a blonde wig that contrasts stunningly with her light brown skin and black lipstick. They stop and chat with an almost executive a looking boy. He wears a collar, tie and very English cut suit, wide lapels, narrow shoulders and a nipped in waist. His whole images is careful except that the suit is a flaming orange, his shirt a pale lemon yellow, and his tie a riot of red William Morris. The profusion of style variations is so fast and intense that it's almost like being taken back to the heady days of high mod in London. (Click here for the whole thing)

Click here for James Brown

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSICS # 97

And while we’re talking paganism and dark arts…

MADGE OF SATAN

GRATUITOUS ZENOMORPH

WHEN THE MIND CONTROL BUTTERFLIES COME, WE’LL BE READY FOR THEM

I had not heard about mind control butterflies until our pal Elf Hellion (who else?) dropped it on me last week. But now, after a little research among the Real Crazy Paranoids And Their Ilk I discover that our gaily-winged friends are probably going to be a sources of endless speculative fun and may even make a major debut in the novella on which I am currently working. (A major – but commissioned – secret that will be revealed in good time.) I love this shit!

“One of the best kept secrets in history is the Monarch Mind-control programming which uses trauma-based mind control along with state of the art mind control to create humans who are totally controlled by a 'handler’ without even knowing that they are controlled. This is accomplished by sophisticated use of the brain's ability to disassociate, which is used to the extreme to create structured multiple-personality- disordered minds. For an extremely technical definition of what the Monarch program was: it was used as US Department of Defense code name for a subsection of the CIA's Operation Artichoke which is also known as Project MK-Ultra. However, this technical definition is misleading because the Monarch programming under various names such as marionette programming has been going on since the Nazis.” Click here for more

Click here for the video

The secret word is Flap

BUT, IN THE MEANTIME, OUR LIPS ARE SEALED

Click here for Zombie Attack

AND WHEN THE BUTTERFLIES FAIL…

GRATUITOUS SID

SUNDAY BREAKFAST

Fish? Anyone for fish?

Click here for more fish

The secret word is Aquarium

MARILYN SEZ...

“He’s being surreal again.”

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Ferdinand Frozdick had a enviable collection of babies.

WELL, I ASK YOU…

A thirty year anniversary, Argentinean protesters throw rocks at Brit offices in Buenos Aires, the sheep still outnumber the Falkland Islanders who still seem to be living in 1952, Cameron sends Prince William in a gunboat, exploratory oil drilling takes place off the Malvinas/Falklands, a Facebook cause wants to stop Margaret Thatcher being given a Reagan-style state funeral when the bitch kicks off, and Meryl Streep plays her in the movie. My head spins. Who exactly is promoting what?

Click here for Robert Wyatt

AND TALKING OF MRS. THATCHER…

"Surrealism will not be tolerated."

Click here for Billy Bragg

SPACE OPERA

DOWN MEMORY LANE

Or, to be precise, down Santa Monica Boulevard back in Hollywood in the 1990s, when – on the way to the drugstore or one of my favorite bars – I would pass the "Undie World of Lili St. Cyr" a lingerie store owned and operated by the legendary stripper who was alleged to have been an nearly role model for Marilyn Monroe. If my memory serves me (which it may not) it was between a dry cleaners and a donut shop. (Although, from the ad it seerms that the mailorder office was on Melrose.) The story was that the store was manned by a crew of little old ladies who were all ex-strippers who’d found a semi-retirement working for Lili. The weird part was that I’d always imagined the strippers of the 1940s and 1050s to be tall and statuesque, but in all of them, including Lili herself, were little tiny women.

Click here for The Cramps

The secret word is Grind

AND MORE...

AND HERE’S LILI…

ELVIS & SCIENTOLOGY

Our pal Postcriptus sent us this gem of an insight…

“I'm reading a history of Scientology. Peggy Lipton at one point got Elvis to go into the Scientology center on Sunset. They start testing him, but Elvis soon comes back out saying, "Fuck these people! There's no way I'll ever get involved with this son-of-a-bitchin' group. All they want is my money." Not only is this a revelation that many of his peers failed ever to have, but his initial reaction shows that here was a man who either had little in the way of self doubt; or if he had it, then also had the moral fiber to deal with it on his own terms.”

Click here for a party.

PAINTED TALLULAH

I lifted this from the blog of Anthony Brockway for no other reason that I’ve always admired the celebrated Bankhead…

“What a meeting it must have been when Augustus John painted Tallulah Bankhead in 1929. The Welsh artist, famous for his scandalous behaviour and voracious sexual appetite, in the same room as Bankhead the American actress, famous for her scandalous behaviour and voracious sexual appetite.”

GODZILLA ON A DATE

GRATUITOUS JOLIE

SUNDAY BREAKFAST

In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti and a hatful of McFries. What more does a poor boy need to get to heaven?

Click here for Dies Irae

The secret word is Sanctum

OR FROM ANOTHER IDEOLOGICAL STANDPOINT

(Image by Romero Britto)

MARILYN SEZ...

“Neither the Pope nor Chairman Mao had to play paddle ball with drunken cowboys staring at their ass.”

JONESEY AND THE XENOMORPH

For some years I have been working in semi secrecy on a book of short stories all from the point of view of cats. (Publishers take note.) The half finished collection contains tales of feral felines and mendacious moggies, but also celebrity cats. I have already written the first scene from The Godfather from the POV of the cat in Marlon’s lap, and I had planned a reworking of Alien as told Jonesey the cat but (goddamn it) author Anne Billson beat me to the punch…

“Nostromo is making hysterical hooting noises and flashing its lights on and off. This is all rather exciting, but as I’m being ferried through the passages and walkways I feel helpless, and would really rather be free to run around. Also, the can-opener is hurling herself around like nobody’s business, so it’s not a smooth journey, I can tell you. Anyhow we roll to a stop, and I can tell straightaway it’s because we’ve run slap-dab into the hairless kitten again. Only I’m not sure I can call it a kitten any more – it’s really big now. Honestly, it’s like a super-giant cat. But since it’s still only a few hours old and clearly hasn’t been housetrained and hasn’t a clue how to groom itself or behave in can-opener company, I shall continue to call it a kitten. Because, technically, that’s what it is.” (Click here for more)

DON’T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?

UNDISCOVERED WOODY

I see happy school kids singing Woody Guthrie’s "This Land is Your Land," unaware that Woody was a card-carrying communist, a lifelong supporter of the IWW, and that the song was written as a protest against the banal apple-pie patriotism of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." "This Land is Your Land" was originally titled "God Bless America for Me," and the original chorus used that line instead of "this land was made for you and me." And, of course, the apple pie version always leaves out the last two verses.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

As I was walkin' I saw a sign there
And that sign said trespassin'
But on the other side it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are hungey and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Click here for Bruce and the whole tune

The secret word is Dustbowl

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Bucky Frozdick liked to get drunk and make out with chicks in his UFO.

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT