MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE RAVAGED EARTH

Doug the Bass sent over this pic by Nick in Rancho Santa Fe of deer taking refuge in what looks like a foot or so of water. If so inclined, I could drive myself into depressed insanity wondering if they survived, but I will attempt not to do that. I’ll just live with the knowledge that this planet is becoming a dangerously unpredictable nightmare and it’s our own fucking fault. Nick took a number of these fire pics, but I think one is more than enough for today.

BUT, in a slightly more optimistic frame of mind, I speculate in the current LA CityBeat on the oblivion that I hope awaits all the highly paid, far-right so-called media pundits when the Bush/Cheney regime finally falls and their audience moves on.

The secret word is Bambi

The Interplanetary Space Fleet endorses this site. (But not to such a degree as to get me off this godforsaken planet.)

AND NOW WE’VE HAD ALL OUR SCARY HALLOWEEN FUN SHALL WE RETURN TO THE SCARY BAD REALITY

This short film by Max Blumenthal was shot at the recent Value Voters Summit. (Just scroll down a little and activate.) It sounds like a supermarket promotion but, in fact, it was the religious right making it known to the Republican presidential candidates that they expect major payback after supporting George Bush for almost seven long years, and, from their point of view, getting very little for it. You really have to sympathize with these good folk. They expected to be a handed a theocracy and they didn’t get it. Roe v Wade wasn't overturned. Not a single heretic has been incinerated, and atheists and homosexuals have not been rounded up and “quarantined.” This film has already appeared on Huffpo. I don’t know how much Arianna’s Wal-Blog overlaps with Doc 40, but I’m running it anyway just to remind us all that those people are out there and they don’t like us.

The secret word is Burning

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM THE DOC40 FUNHOUSE

Stolen from deviantART

A HALLOWEEN TALE

“You’re a bloody fool, Slobodan. I told you to morph into a bat.”

And here is a gravely seasonal and 100% factual anecdote from Sky…
Serbian vampire hunters have acted to prevent the very remote possibility that former dictator Slobodan Milosevic might stage a come-back - by driving a three-foot stake through his heart. According to Ananova, the politically-motivated Van Helsings, led byMiroslav Milosevic (no relation), gave themselves up to cops after attacking the deceased despot in his grave in the eastern town of Pozarevac. Milosevic died in his cell in at the Scheveningen detention center in the Hague, back in 2006, while on trial in a UN war crimes tribunal for various unsavoury activities connected with the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Miroslav Milosevic said "he and his fellow vampire hunters acted to stop the former dictator returning from the dead to haunt the country". His team explained that the wooden stake had been "driven into the ground and through the late president's heart". Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia naturally condemned the desecration, while his daughter-in-law Milica Gajic said she "planned to sue the vampire hunters and accused the police of failing to protect the grave properly".

Since Halloween is the annual vanilla flirtation with evil, the secret word is Blackwater

THE ARNOLD LAYNE FAN CLUB

I don’t know if onanistic perversion and undergarment theft qualifies as a Halloween preoccupation, and the song Arnold Layne is hardly as classic as The Monster Mash, but why not play it anyway? Here’s the original with Syd Barrett singing plus another quite soaring version with David Bowie.

Image by LichtReize

MOURNING PAUL MARSH

When Paul Marsh and I were in art school we both thought Brigitte Bardot was the most glorious woman on the cool green Earth. Paul also worshiped Gene Vincent and Franz Kafka and could hotwire any automobile known to man. So this picture is for you, man. Paul went on to be a smuggler, reefer runner, and cocaine cowboy, and in the process became well acquainted with the tides of the Caribbean, but also the interior workings of the British, US, and Jamaican prison systems. I was just told he died of lung cancer. He used to smoke unfiltered Pall Malls. His friend Alun described his exit thus. “It was lung cancer but typical Paul wouldn’t go to the doctor or take any government drugs his last hours were spent with a gram of pure acid, a bag of skunk candy, and the whole trilogy of Lord of the Rings. Wish it could have been different but, hey, the circle of life and all that shit. They were all his choices and you cant say fairer than that.”
Paul was also passionate about Jimi Hendrix so this too is for you, bro. Could be I’ll see you in the Grey Havens sooner than we think.

The word is no secret.

Pic from Tom Sutpen

THIS ROBOT ROMANCE IS GETTING WAY OUT OF HAND, IF INDEED ROBOTS HAVE HANDS

HCB just sent over this one

And also this one, pointing out the obvious resemblence.

And then there's this ridiculous thing.

PORTER WAGONER-- RIP

MR ROBOT RISING

This antique image arrived in part as a kind of graphic comment on the previous posted picture. Is it coincidental, or are we drawn to replicant romance, and rusting, recherché robots in a kind of Jungian subconscious preparation for The Singularity, when man (and of course woman) merge with the machinery and the micro processors? And is the night still made for lovers be they flesh, metal or both? (Of course, believing in the extinguishment of everything on 12.21.2012 means you don't have to wprry about The Singularity.

The secret question is Why?

Paul Marsh -- RIP

SHEEP SHAGGING IS ONE THING, BUT....

This story, sent by UK Steve and written by Richard Alleyne. is from The Daily Telegraph Online and hardly requires comment…
A man has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle. Robert Stewart was discovered in his room by two cleaners at the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr, south west Scotland, in October last year.
On Wednesday Mr Stewart admitted to sexual breach of the peace in Ayr Sheriff Court, where depute fiscal Gail Davidson described how he had been found by the hostel workers. She said: "They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply.
"They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist down.
"The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex." Both witnesses, who were extremely shocked, notified the hotel manager, who in turn alerted the police. Mr Stewart was placed on the sex offenders’ register but his sentence was deferred until next month.He is not the first man to be convicted of a sexual offence involving an inanimate object, however. Karl Watkins, an electrician, was jailed for having sex with pavements in Redditch, Worcs, in 1993.

The secret word is Handlebar

The robot sex illustration was contributed by Valerie who seems amused by such things.

AND THIS short film sent by HCB is pure numerical genius.

WHAT ABOUT BOB?

I can appreciate that a whole corporate big deal is going with Bob Dylan and introducing him to the 21st century. Yeah, DVDs, CDs, new compilations, and who knows what, plus the Bob Dylan machine that enabled you to write your own messages on the Subterranean Homesick Blues, pre-video video. And the weird use of All Along The Watchtower on Battlestar Galactica. Old Bob’s always been there, alternately – and probably fiendishly – inspiring and disappointed. I mean, the Victoria’s Secret video was a bit of a shock, but did he really have to do a fucking commercial for a gas guzzling behemoth like the Cadillac Escalade – Tony Soprano's vehicle of choice, that gets 14 mpg in the city and 19 mpg on the highway, and was named the worst SUV in terms of fuel economy? It makes it hard to retain the memory of this guy.

On the other hand, this is the finest cat animation I’ve seen in many a month. (If you understand feline wiles.) You need the sound.

The secret word is Miaow

LOVE OR DESTRUCTION?

96F in LA today and its near fucking impossible to breath. The sense disaster is palapable. All the charred ruins. I feel ill. The despicable Bush arrives later for a sound bite. If I said what I really thought I’d probably have the FBI on the doorstep. (Although suicide by federal agent might be a merciful release.) Too hot to write, too hot to think straight, I wasn’t going to post. But this picture of two galaxies consuming each other seemed a cool contrast to the constant fire on TV. But are they devouring each other or maybe making love? And is there a difference?

The secret word is Gasping

AND this is Jackson Pollack and The Who

LA COUNTY BURNING

The fires overshadow everything. They fill the hills. They surround the city, decimating the suburbs. Jokes, secret words, and YouTube clips, for the moment, seem superfluous. The sunset was an evil yellow/grey. I find it hard to breath. Just short of a million people have been evacuated and, so far, an area the size of New York City has burned. The temperature topped 90F this afternoon, while the Santa Ana winds randomly gusted and then died down. My home is so damned urban the cat and I are in no real danger, but friends just a few blocks up to the north must be sweating that nothing sparks off in the Hollywood Hills or Griffith Park. The mind can’t help but boggle at the unreality of it all. Firestorm is a terrible word when it becomes possible. Bush will show up here on Thursday like we needed his fucking photo op, and CNN talking head and nationally syndicated radio and wholly psychotic host Glenn Beck brings total insanity to the conflagration by stating, “I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.” Who gives these bastards airtime? I don’t hate America but there are parts of this country that don’t make it easy to love.

I said music clips were superfluous, but maybe I was too hasty, maybe The Doors are needed. I notice I have already unconsciously quoted Jim. “The hills are filled with fire.”

THE BLACK MATTER

The Black Matter

The Black Matter is confined to its cube
The Black Matter cannot be controlled or directed
The Black Matter can only be imprisoned
The Black Matter communicates with me
But only through the penitentiary labyrinth
Heat-pipes of my imagination
And even then my summoned strength is insufficient
To process it in more than small jigsaw fragments
Needlepoint details
The aerodynamic flutter of fabric
Through the long and fatal fall

But the Black Matter empowers me
To talk of the events that dare not speak their name.
Sinister? I would say so.
But do my enemies experience the same anguish?
I would hope so
Yet I fundamentally doubt it
Such pain has been edited,
Excised and censored
From their pastel dictionary of Newspeak
And that, of course, is why they are my enemies
Turning in their narcissism
And suit-of-lights illusions of power
They deny the very existence of the Black Matter
But they will face it
They will face it head-on and hard
When the power to the controlling cube finally fails
And the Black Matter is loosed to its terrible freedom

The above represents something of a breakthrough. For over a year, for reasons that are known to some but otherwise I don’t care to discuss, I have been unable to write poetry. Fortunately I had such an untouched backlog of work that it wasn’t a crisis, and there was always new material for shindig, reading, or insurrection. But now, like some vintage panhead Harley, the machine turns over and I will ride it again wondering where it will take me this time – to Nirvana, maybe Hell, or just to the nearest tavern.

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF

Yes, he even steals lines from Norman Mailer. But commercial motivation needs to be underway, because, even though I try hard to forget it, if I am to survice, I really do have to move books and CDs. (And keep asking myself if I need to get into the Café Press coffee mug business. Comments?) This glowing retrospective of my second solo CD – Vampires Stole My Lunch Money – showed up on the Spending Loud Night website, and made my ego very happy…
"Leader of England's answer to the MC5-- the late, great Deviants, NME contributor, sci-fi novelist-- Mick Farren has had his fingers in a lotta pies over his nearly 40-year career. Sadly, like most of the artists I profile here, his contributions to my beloved rock 'n' roll (did I mention he writes lyrics for Brother Wayne Kramer?) have gone virtually unnoticed for that same nearly four decades. No wonder Mick had been driven to drink by the time of this 1978 recording." (For more)

I believe copies of VSMLM can be obtained from the Bomp Online Store. Just search Mick Farren & The Deviants and there’s a wealth of stuff.

The secret word is Rent

RON COBB FOR SUNDAY

Valerie sent us this copy of the classic cartoon from the 1960s. Ron Cobb was, beyond doubt, the greatest single panel underground cartoonist. His immaculate draftsmanship was the envy of all, and, from his home base at the old LA Free Press, his work was syndicated across the global counterculture. He also designed all the human hardware in Alien which provided the crucial and stunning contrast to the alien constructs of H. R. Geiger

Of course, the above is from way back then. And this now. We used to be so paranoid back in the day, you'd hardly believe it. Thank heavens it's all different now.

The secret word is Progress

ANOTHER FROM 1967

AND ANOTHER FROM 1975

Plus The Rolling Stones doing "Jumping Jack Flash" live when they still meant something and Brian was still in the band.

MAKING SENSE OF ANY OF IT IS CLOSE TO POINTLESS

This, of course, is Santo. Latino kitsch? Sure, but also, according to Wikipedia, hailed "the greatest legend in Mexican sports.” His wrestling career spanned nearly five decades, during which he became a folk hero and a symbol of justice for the common man through his appearances in comic books and movies. As a superhero – The Man In The Silver Mask – he battled supernatural creatures, evil scientists, zombies, vampires, and various criminals/ secret agents. I don’t think I need to post a picture of George Bush, we all know what that bastard looks like, but I watched him on TV today declaring that he’d vetoed the State Children's Health Insurance Program to prove that he was still relevant. I think Santo makes far more sense. Viva Santo.

The secret word is Disgust

This is Bob Marley – “Get Up, Stand Up”, I think I may be posting it as a message to myself. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to all of us.

WHEN ARE YOU BLOODY FASCISTS GOING TO STOP YOUR IDIOT POSTURING?

I’ll make this real fucking simple. Today – as nuclear Pakistan seems to be coming unglued – we watched the President of the United States clearly demonstrate that he cares infinitely more about his wretchedly pointless war and wars-to-come than the health of the nation’s children. In so doing, he provided an interesting twist on Herman Goering’s old dictum of “guns before butter”. And why aren’t we all out in the street screaming? Because we’d better do it soon, as we learn Bush now has his own private merc army, answerable to no military or civil authority, all too ready to be set to suppressing domestic dissent. Some girl sends the following from Newsweek…

BLACKWATER RISING

"Responsible for guarding top U.S. officials in Iraq, Blackwater operatives are often accused of playing by their own rules. Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone, said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live ammunition once inside. One military contractor, who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution in his industry, recounted the story of a Blackwater operative who answered a Marine officer's order to put his pistol on safety when entering a base post office by saying, "This is my safety," and wiggling his trigger finger in the air. "Their attitude was, 'We're f–––ing security; we don't have to answer to anybody'." (For more)

The secret word is Caligula

CURIOUSER

In my accidental Lewis Carroll fest of the last few days, I kept threatening to play Gracie Slick singing White Rabbit, but didn’t because I figured it was overused. Then I got an email from our pal Wendy that simply read “you could always post PATTI singing "White Rabbit" instead.” Okay Wend, you got it.

The illustration is by Arthur Rackham

And this is Captain Beefheart by way of a bonus.

ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANY MORE

Following on from yesterday's post. This is Alice Liddell who started it all, little knowing that…

…the psychedelic era would produce some very odd distortions of the basic Alice concept. But then again, Dr Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was exceedingly peculiar.

Yesterday I was also complaining of a certain weariness. (I believe the phrase was “a barely functioning protozoa.”) Apart from anything else, I had knocked out two stories for La CityBeat, one on my feelings about the nostalgia industry and the other on how Hillary Clinton may be leading us to the 21st century nanny state.
But what the hell, why worry? Again I resist the temptation to post Gracie singing "White Rabbit", and run Bill Hicks instead, and (why I’m not sure except it amuses me) The Wall by Korn.

The secret word is Dormouse

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 31

Tonight I am tired, beat, worn out, wilting, a dishrag, a stain, a barely functioning protozoa. The best I can do is leave all the Lewis Carroll fans among you to marvel at how following a Victorian white rabbit down a hole became “One girl’s descent into drug induced debauchery!” Not that I have anything against drug induced debauchery but this has to qualify as damned bizarre marketing.

I guess the obvious would be to post a clip of Gracie Slick singing White Rabbit, but that’s too easy. Instead, here’s Bill Hicks on acid. (By which I mean Bill Hicks talking about acid not actually…well, you know what I mean.)

But talking about drug induced debauchery could be a warped cue to post John Coltrane playing My Favorite Things.

The secret word is Palatable

MONROE READS JOYCE

It would seem that Doc40 cannot survive for more than a couple of months without stealing a picture of Marilyn Monroe from Tom Sutpen. And do note that she has almost finished the book, which is more than I have ever done. (To be totally honest.)

And what better to go with Marilyn and Ulysses than Miles Davis and John Coltrane playing So What?

The secret word is Easy

(And Yukiko, if you read this, an email I sent keeps coming back.)

THE LAST CHOPPER OUT OF BAGHDAD

Special Operations Command in Iraq says it's whupped Al Qaeda. Sanchez, who was in command in the early days, says it’s a goddamned cluster-fuck. A couple of talking heads on CNN say we could be in there for fifteen or twenty years. The peace movement chant once again becomes “troops out now.” And this was all in the space of one afternoon on TV.

Accordingly I devised this game/contest. Imagine this picture is of the last chopper out of Baghdad. Hit the comments link and leave your personal estimate as to the date when this might take place. It won’t take but a minute and could be modestly enlightening. (You don’t get this kind of fun plus Miles and Coltrane on HuffPo. Oh no.)

Meanwhile, in another kind of game/contest, this Voting Made Easy web device, sent over by Doug the Bass is fucking unbelievable. Democracy can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

TECH EATS BRAIN

For some time little had been posted on my favorite pop-culture science blog Collision Detection by Clive Thompson, but now he comes back with a stunning piece on how our dependence on all of our texting, cell-phone, Bluetooth, pocket-sized technology is making us all as dumb as planks (especially the youth), and when the machines take over and the terminators come, we’ll just be sitting and grinning like bipedal fungus.

"We're running out of memory. I don't mean computer memory. That stuff's half-price at Costco these days. No, I'm talking about human memory, stored by the gray matter inside our heads. According to recent research, we're remembering fewer and fewer basic facts these days. This summer, neuroscientist Ian Robertson polled 3,000 people and found that the younger ones were less able than their elders to recall standard personal info. When Robertson asked his subjects to tell them a relative's birth date, 87 percent of respondents over age 50 could recite it, while less than 40 percent of those under 30 could do so. And when he asked them their own phone number, fully one-third of the youngsters drew a blank. They had to whip out their handsets to look it up. That reflexive gesture -- reaching into your pocket for the answer -- tells the story in a nutshell. Mobile phones can store 500 numbers in their memory, so why would you bother trying to cram the same info into your own memory? Younger Americans today are the first generation to grow up with go-everywhere gadgets and services that exist specifically to remember things so that we don't have to: BlackBerrys, phones, thumb drives, Gmail..." (More)

Or maybe we’ll be hallucinating colored claymation bunnies to the sound of the Rolling Stones. (Stolen from Peromyscus)

Ronald McDonald was never like this.

The secret word is Stupid

A JIMI HENDRIX SUNDAY

People ask me how come I never seem to listen any music from the 21st century, and all I can do is just shrug, and offer the only answer I have. “When they start playing shit like this shit, I’ll start listening.” This first clip of Jimi Hendrix on the Lulu Show (thanks Noudela) is unique in that we see a musician completely take over an MOR TV pop show and turn it on its ass until – as Jimi remarks at the end – they take him off the air. Also included is some stoned and impromptu goof on Hound Dog. Oh, Voodoo Child, what a waste, what a waste.

The secret word is Mercy

This blog has no respect for authority.

I'M BLACKWATER, YOU FUCKING MAGGOT!

The pills had worn off and I was awake far too early, sitting at the computer by default, reading the MSNBC online news, because the word “Blackwater” had caught my attention while the damned machine was booting up, and I’ve been figuring for a while this private, capitalist, and highly profitable gun-thug legion requires a whole bunch of our attention – and maybe more – lest we find our sorry selves in a world of armed goon-terror and because vast areas of basic law enforcement will seemingly be sold to for-profit sociopaths. The news story was pretty much what I expected up until the end of this excerpt.

“Blackwater has an airstrip and hangar filled with gleaming helicopters, a manufacturing plant for assembling armored cars, a pound filled with bomb-sniffing dogs and a lake with mock ships for training sailors. An armory is stacked to the ceiling with rifles. Throughout the place are outdoor ranges where military, intelligence and law enforcement authorities from around the country practice shooting handguns and assault rifles at automated metal targets made by the firm. An incessant pop, pop, pop fills the air. There's no other place quite like Blackwater, at least not in private hands. The complex anchors a global training and security operation that is one of the government's fastest-growing contractors and both a fixture and a flashpoint of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a decade, Blackwater's revenue from federal government contracts has grown exponentially, from less than $100,000 to almost $600 million last year. In August, the company won its biggest deal ever, a five-year counternarcotics training contract worth up to $15 billion shared with four other companies.”

At which I exclaimed “Hold it the fuck right there!” Because – with this fucking contract – it would seem Bush & Cheney have gone and sold the War On Drugs to a cartel of Uzi-toting fundamentalist storm troopers with cart-blanche to kick my fucking door down if they so desire because they think I’m a reefer smoking old trouble-maker. And this is the first I’ve heard about it -- when it’s already a done deal! Time to get the .50 caliber and plan for the blaze of glory, methinks.

A background video from The Nation

The secret word is Rabid

OF PROMOTION OR REMEMBERANCE

Gene Vincent died on this day (October 12th) in 1971. He is missed, he is mourned, especially by me, so is it too unethical to remind you all that I wrote a book about the man, and it would be nice if it was more widely read? I mean, it’s a really good little book, infinitely collectable and absolutely guaranteed to make you the envy of all your hipster friends. And if this has over stepped the bounds of respect for the iconic dead, here is a clip – killer in its magnificence – of the late great Ian Dury singing Sweet Gene Vincent (watch for a dementedly inspired solo by my old friend Wilko Johnson) and also Gene himself doing Baby Blue.

The secret word is Gone

OF SINGLE BOUNDS AND TALL BUILDINGS

According to Doug the Bass, the following instruction was included with a child’s Superman Halloween costume. "The wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly."
(The illustration shows the death of Superman in January 1993 – Superman vol. 2 #75. Could it be he didn’t read the label?)

To be honest, today I don’t feel so good. My mind is a slug and I think I am hiding from the more serious stuff like (for instance) indignation at Turkey having the unmitigated gall to get miffed and recall its ambassador after the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs passed a resolution condemning the 1915-17 Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 30

You realize there are people in this world who have read this book? They are out there. They may be your dentist’s receptionist or standing behind you in the 7-Eleven. I believe they are harmless, as long as they don’t come off the meds. They also have John Tesh CDs.

The secret word is Normal

Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion?-- Frank Zappa, to a concert audience at the Rockpile, Toronto, May 1969

(Yesterday we had a shot at the Creationists and the sky didn’t fall, let's see if this gets a response.)

ANGRY ATHEISTS FIGHT BACK -- "WHAT'S GOD DONE FOR YOU LATELY?"

One of the problems with liberals – or progressives, if you prefer the term – is that they are just too damned well brought up. (As opposed to Reds, Anarchists, and other snarling malcontents who just love to mix it up.) Liberals tend to treat even the most rabid fundamentalist with a degree courtesy will never be reciprocated – since the fundamentalists have a history of abuse, mutilation, torture, and an entire menu of slow and excruciatingly painful methods of execution reserved for those who disagree with them (that they now insist President Bush bring back into common usage.) Put 98% of liberals in proximity with some religious body part spouting how the world was created 6000 years ago and Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs, and they will quietly sidle to some other place and watch South Park. Only 2% will warn the religious nut-job that if he or she doesn’t can the arrant nonsense their cat will claw their holy rolling eyes out. Thus this linked film makes me very happy since it seems to have been made, or at least instigated by, a crew of extremely pissed off scientist who are not afraid to call an evangelist an asshole.

LEGO YOUR TIRED PRECONCEPTIONS

And from the War on Creationism let's move swiftly on to Lego. (As a child, I loathed Lego, but this really redeems it.) Some might say this Lego model of Stephen Hawking is inexcusably tasteless, but I figure Hawking would dig it. He has been on The Simpsons, and managed to have an affair with his nurse while as immobile as Davros*. Also, at Doc40, tasteless is our business. And while we’re still in Legoland, here's Eddie Izzard’s Death Star Canteen and Cake or Death with Lego animation. (Thanks Noudela)

* just ask.

THREE LITTLE PIGS

Okay, so now it’s getting really infantile. Left is the Disney version of the tri-porkers, but this is Christopher Walken.

The secret word is Huff

CHE POSTSCRIPT

A comment on how Che is missed and missing from the world by Joan Brossa (the late Catalan (visual) poet) Sent by Valerie.

AFTER FORTY YEARS THE LEGEND OF CHE GUEVARA REMAINS UNDIMINISHED BUT THE REVOLUTION EQUALLY UNCOMPLETED

“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” – Ernesto Che Guevara

Forty years ago today Che Guevara was murdered in a schoolhouse in the tiny Bolivian hamlet of La Higuera. His killer was Mario Teran, a Sergeant in the Bolivian Rangers Special Forces, who had drawn a short straw after, according to legend, his superiors including Felix Rodriguez, the CIA agent who had coordinated Che’s capture, proved too chickenshit to do the deed themselves. On the first attempt, it’s alleged that Teran so botched the job that the badly wounded Guevara screamed “Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.” After the killing, Rodriguez the spook stole Che’s Rolex watch, his only possession of any value, as a souvenir. Then his body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to neighboring Vallegrande where it was laid out in the local hospital and displayed to the press like a trophy in a big game hunt.

Some girl pointed out that today’s Los Angeles Times contains a surisingly even-handed retrospective on Guevara, and a video with some rare film footage. “Great men like Che never die," said Ubanis Ramirez, one of hundreds of Cuban doctors and teachers imported by leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose office features a likeness of Guevara crafted from coca leaves. "His lesson is with us always."

Another video.

WHILE ON A MORE PERSONAL NOTE

Around 1995, I spent the best part of a year writing a script for a movie about Che. The movie was supposed to be released on the 30th anniversary of his death. Needless to say, it was never made. The first draft was brilliant, a thing of courage and beauty. The second was good. The third was quite good, and after that, a million notes from assholes later, it sucked shit. It was around that point that the director decided the film was really a love story. And he didn’t mean the obvious one between Che and Fidel. I was thinking in terms of Lawrence of Arabia. Fuck knows what he was thinking about except that arrogance and money could answer any question he might be asked. It was then that I knew what might have been the project of my life had died, and I went to the Formosa Café and became very drunk. Seems like everyone in the entire Los Angeles basin believes they can write a movie script. I know for sure that they can’t, but that still puts me in the minority.

The secret word is Hasta

And here’s my good pal Johnette singing "Everybody Knows", just to complete the cycle and serve as the requiem .

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 29

This is the most hideous cover ever inflicted on one of my novels.

But who says I’m not a fucking icon? In yesterday’s London Sunday Times, Mick Jones and Tony James talked about the formation of their new band Carbon/Silicon.
“We met when Mick was being thrown out of another band,” James says. “They aid to him, ‘We’re chucking you out, but here’s this other bloke.’ We got talking on the Northern Line on the way back to Mick’s gran’s.”
“You had a silk bomber jacket and loons,” suggests Jones. “I never had a silk bomber jacket,” counters James, apparently accepting the loon-pants allegation, “but he had girls’ shoes on.” Such was the confused state of fashion between glam and punk, and in a dull and dispiriting time, Jones and James realised that they were kindred spirits. “We were into the same bands, we both read Creem [a US rock magazine] and we were both reading Mick Farren’s The Tale of Willy’s Rats – and I’ve never met anyone else who’s even heard of that book, let alone read it,” says James. “So here we are, 32 years later. Who else can you trust but your best friend?” (For more)

But, if you’re one of those people who’ve never heard of The Tale of Willy’s Rats, you can download it for free from Funtopia.

EDGAR ALLEN POE IS DEAD

“Edgar Allen Poe died in the Washington College Hospital today after a strange affliction drove him to madness. Poe was found in the Baltimore streets on October 3, and was taken to the hospital shortly. He was frantic and delusional, and never regained coherency before his death. Poe became famous in literary circles, and infamous for long sodden bouts with whiskey. His loyal friend was his mother-in-law. She nursed him to sobriety, nodded agreeably to his hundredth promise, and never left his side,” eulogized The Lawton Constitution on July 27, 1976. “The world had turned its back on the genius. But not Maria Clemm. He was sent to Washington Hospital. He survived four days in screaming delirium. Edgar Allen Poe died on Sunday, Oct. 7, 1849.” Edgar Allen Poe remains one of the most important figures in American literary history. From poems such as The Raven and Lenore to short stories including The Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death, Poe’s style and voice has influenced countless authors and poets since." (And Roger Corman) From HCB

And here’s Christopher Walken reading “The Raven”.

The secret word is Nevermore

“You’re a nice little raven.”

PIG OUT WITH THE SANITIZED TAPEWORM

I almost regret that the tapeworm as a slimming aid went out of fashion around 1900. A staple in your stomach is somehow more acceptable? Or liposuction? And just imagine the TV infomercials.