"The HAL 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error."

DEATH DON'T HAVE NO MERCY IN THIS LAND

NORMAN MAILER – RIP

And here’s something of a tribute. (Via Noudela)
I intend to post more later, but I didn’t want to wait on this. The old guard are going fast. And I don’t feel so well myself. But now, more than ever, we really must continue no matter how tempting dreamless oblivion may become.

GIMME THAT OLD TIME ROCK & ROLL!

“Hell, what do I know. I’ve been dead thirty years and still sell records.”

Kass sent over this report. It does, however, emanate from Fox Noise so there may be more to the slant. The same report was also heavily down on Britney Spears Blackout CD that has now shown up in the Billboard charts at #1.
"Clear Channel seems to have sent a clear message to other radio outlets that at age 58, Springsteen simply is too old to be played on rock stations. This completely absurd notion is one of many ways Clear Channel has done more to destroy the music business than downloading over the last 10 years. It’s certainly what’s helped create satellite radio, where Springsteen is a staple and even has his own channel on Sirius. It’s not just Springsteen. There is no sign at major radio stations of new albums by John Fogerty or Annie Lennox, either. The same stations that should be playing Santana’s new singles with Chad Kroeger or Tina Turner are avoiding them, too.”

I’m not certain that it’s just a matter of simple ageism. Clear Channel is essentially run by corporate suits who know little about music, and like to keep it that way. They also hate the whole idea of diversity because its untidy and unpredictable, and only really want to be assured that they have a universal and standardized formula that will attract what they believe is the crucial 18-45 (or whatever) key demographic. With Clear Channel one also has to look for an underlying political motive and, in this instance, I think they would rather see the whole 1960s-70s generation with its independent thinking and pinko-socialist ideas just fuck off and die because, philosophically, they are just too noisy and high maintenance. But we won’t, fuck, it. On the other hand, does anyone really want to do like The bloody Eagles and sell a million and some units exclusively through Wal-Mart.

The secret word is Fluff

And this is Elvis

GLOBALLY, THE BAD NEWS IS WORSE

This story from Scientific American makes for extremely dire reading…
“Since 1987 annual emissions of carbon dioxide—the leading greenhouse gas warming the globe—have risen by a third, global fishing yields have declined by 10.6 million metric tons and the amount of land required to sustain humanity has swelled to more than 54 acres (22 hectares) per person. Yet, Earth can provide only roughly 39 acres (15 hectares) for every person living today, according to the United Nation's Environmental Program's (UNEP) Global Environmental Outlook, released this week. "There are no major issues," the report's authors write of the period since their first report in 1987, "for which the foreseeable trends are favorable.” (For the rest)

OLBERMANN OPENS UP ON BUSH AND JAILTIME

Yesterday on his MSNBC show Countdown Keith Olbermann delivered what he called a “special commentary” accusing George Bush of now only being concerned with holding on to power for its own sake while keeping his sorry ass out of jail. Powerful stuff.

"It is a fact startling in its cynical simplicity and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed: The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush. All the petulancy, all the childish threats, all the blank-stare stupidity; all the invocations of World War III, all the sophistic questions about which terrorist attacks we wanted him not to stop, all the phony secrets; all the claims of executive privilege, all the stumbling tap-dancing of his nominees, all the verbal flatulence of his apologists...All of it is now, after one revelation last week, transparently clear for what it is: the pathetic and desperate manipulation of the government, the refocusing of our entire nation, toward keeping this mock president and this unstable vice president and this departed wildly self-overrating attorney general, and the others, from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of this country. (For the rest)

Wanna see some trick pool shots?

“My pets will protect me.”

THE BANNER SAYS IT ALL

Yesterday I wanted a day off. Maybe it’s now just a variation on Monday madness, but I find myself looking a pieces of what would appear to be a hideous jigsaw puzzle. Pakistan is obviously a part of it. A nuclear power with Al Qaeda in the mountains moves murderously towards military dictatorship as Musharraf suspends the Pakistani constitution and rounds up the intellectual opposition. This analysis seems good as far as it goes, but fails to factor in enough of nuclear India. Then another piece of the puzzle is the nagging idea that Musharraf could provide a template for Bush/Cheney holding onto power as their term in office legally draws to a close, except Bush has alienated the Joint Chiefs and so he must build up Blackwater – who now have their own intelligence agency – to run his coupe for him. And then I hear rumors of a drug made from fermented raw sewage that I don’t think even I would sample

And I really don’t want to put it all together. It could be the measure of my tether. Do we really have to tale our ivory handled Colts out of storage (the ones that now make us feel guilty about the elephant) and once again head for the metaphoric OK Corral? So, to buy myself as little time to procrastinate, I take refuge in the comfort of punk. Here are The Ramones, and also The Sex Pistols.

The secret word is Blitzkrieg

CRYPTIQUE – I miss my uncle Bill.

EX-PAT GUY NOSTALGIA

And I also miss Guy Fawkes Night, (and wondering if we celebrated him because he failed to blow up Parliament and King James I, or because he tried) and all the brands of fireworks of my youth -- Paynes, Brocks, Standard, Wessex, the Air Bomb, the Mine of Serpents, the penny banger, the Mt. Etna, the Emerald Mine, the smell of gunpowder and treason in the air. But for all I know, the UK nanny state has made it all illegal. (Actually the pic is of Barcelona fireworks sent by Valerie.)

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE, BUT THIS ONE NEEDS A DAY OFF

It seems like I’ve been staring at this computer since at least the pre-Cambrian period – or perhaps last Tuesday – but even though nuke-packing Pakistan seems to be in the throws some military coupe in drag and Ms. Bhutto may well be assassinated and India will go to it’s Hindu version of DEFCON 1 and the Citigroup CEO just quit after losing billions, and what’s poor Stephen Colbert going to do now his two dozen writers are on strike, I refuse run around like Chicken Little until at least tomorrow because I’m just plain tired.

Meanwhile Kass has sent us a disturbing report of how, as if things weren’t bad enough, the Congress has sanctioned some idiotic program to fuck with the weather. But Noudela sent me a clip of Neil Young singing Like A Hurricane which seems appropriate. So now I think I’ll go and become a vegetable. Or maybe have a V8. (Sigh.)

The secret word is Wolf

Pinup donated by Valerie

BUT REMEMBER...

RAVAGED EARTH REVISITED

Now we have a degree of confusion (see yesterday’s comments) about what fire photographs were taken when and by whom, I will simply leave it that this scary image all too vividly illustrates how all those little boxes (that’s right, the ones made out of ticky-tacky) are being built on hillsides with histories of cyclical wild fires. And all evidence appears to indicate that a longer fire season and larger and more intense fires are yet another symptom of escalating environmental catastrophe. Which is ultimately what counts and why I post these pics. Breathtaking as they might be, this is a horrorshow not an art exhibit.

The secret word are Scorched Earth

“Errors in Doc40 will not be tolerated, and, since they undermine your other arguments, the penalties must, by simple logic, be cruel and unusual.”

But this is definitely Venus In Furs.
(And the pic was definitely sent by Valerie)

YOU HAVE TO HEAR THIS!

There really is nothing else I can say except listen to Saturn! (apart from to thank Valerie for sending it.) I love this stuff! It rocks! (But bear in mind that I also once wanted to form a band with a pod of humpback whales.)

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.