BUSH IS WAR CRIMINAL AND COULD BE CHARGED

This report from The New York Times perversely gladdens my heart (see Sunday July 6th) with the thought that George Bush and his evil cronies could be dragged before the International Court in The Haigh just like genocidal chetniks.

"WASHINGTON — Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.
The book says that the International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the CIA last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were “categorically” torture, which is illegal under both American and international law." (Click for more)

The secret word is Jailtime

YOU'RE PROBABLY WONDERING WHY I'M HERE...

$$$$$$$$

Doug The Bass sent over this highly unique, early picture of the oh-so lamented Frank Zappa with the original Mothers of Invention actually playing a high school dance for frugging youth. Who are the Brain Police? But, more important, who the hell is the seated guitar player?

The secret words are Green Genes

CALL ANY VEGETABLE

Call it by name.

IT WAS ALL A HOAX???

“LAKE WORTH, Texas (AP) — A teenager jailed on accusations that he delivered drug-laced cookies to a dozen police stations was released Thursday after tests showed no drugs in goodies taken to two departments.
Blue Mound and Lake Worth police said tests by the Tarrant County medical examiner showed there were no controlled substances in cookies delivered this week by Christian V. Phillips, 18, who had been jailed in Lake Worth on $75,000 bond on a charge of tampering with a consumer product.
Phillips walked quickly out of the jail without commenting while accompanied by his father, who then drove away with his son.” Click for more

The secret word is Huh?

PSYCHEDELIC TEEN REBEL SPIKES COPS BUT WILL PROBABLY GO TO JAIL FOREVER. (It’s Texas)

From the Fort Worth Star Telegram (with another pic the source of which I blanked out. See yesterday.)

"A Watauga teenager was arrested Tuesday after he delivered cookies laced with LSD to the Lake Worth police Department, officials said.
Christian Phillips, 18, of Watauga may have delivered drug-tainted cookies and candy to a dozen area police departments, based on a list he was carrying that named 25 departments with 12 of them checked off, police said.
Watauga police ate all the cookies taken to them.
A basket was delivered Monday to the Fort Worth Police Department’s downtown headquarters, and at least three officers, including a sergeant and a detective, ate some of the items, Fort Worth police said.
Fort Worth and Watauga police are investigating whether the food they received was drugged and whether any of the officers who ate it suffered adverse reactions, authorities said.
Investigators believe the teen may have started dropping off the baskets with candy and cookies about a week ago. The baskets included a logo indicating that they were from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD.
But Lake Worth police were ready for Phillips. MADD officials had called the Lake Worth department Tuesday morning after they learned that someone had been delivering the baskets to area police departments, claiming to be from that agency.
MADD officials said they had nothing to do with the baskets.
Phillips was arrested about 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Lake Worth police station when he attempted to drop off a basket of cookies and peppermint candy, saying they came from MADD.
Phillips remained in the Lake Worth Jail late Tuesday on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance."

The secret word is Getaway

THE MOMENT WHEN YOUR CREDIT RATING CEASES TO SIGNIFY

As Iran rattles its rockets, I can only reflect that we have been so fucking lucky with regard to thermo nuclear global annihilation that I fear it has made us all kinda blasé. After finessing our way through the sixty some years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, through the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction, Vietnam, the Reagan era and two Gulf wars. Pakistan v India, and Kim Jong-il without popping so much as a single nuke, we may now be pushing our luck. Nuclear proliferation was one of those things that George Bush didn’t much like and thus idiots were put in charge, which essentially allows Bush buddies in the Pakistani almost-military junta to sell nuke tech to anyone who can pony up the scratch. I mean, Wal-Mart could have a bomb if it wanted one. Or Paul McCartney. (And don’t even mention the Russian mob in the context of nukes.) Without drastic and probably impossible international reforms, it’s a Vegas certainty that a real nut-job will get an atomic WMD and then, brothers and sisters, we will really see history being made.

The secret word is Failsafe

IT'S GOOD TO SEE THE OLD TRADE PLYING

I picked up this fine piece of art while shamelessly tolling cyber space for images. I think it came from the blog of a regular Doc40 reader, but when I got back to base I’d forgotten where I stole it. So if you recognize the pic, post a comment and I’ll post a link.

The question was answered. Check out here and here.

MANIFESTO...

...AND SOMETHING ABOUT THE COFFEE IS DECIDEDLY ODD

The secret word is Malcontent

YES, MY FRIENDS, IT'S KYLIE MINOGUE WITH A DALEK

(I kinda felt obligated after all the Google searches that have been initiated since we published the infamous Katy Manning nude-with-Dalek pic in May of 2007.)




The secret word is Exterminate

SIXTY ONE YEARS AGO TODAY...

HCB sent over the image, reminding me that, sixty one years ago today, the Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that personnel from the field's 509th Bomb Group had recovered a crashed "flying disc" from a ranch near Roswell. New Mexico. Later the same day, the somewhat irate Commanding General of the Eighth Air Force stated that, in fact, a weather balloon had been recovered by RAAF personnel, and definitely not a "flying saucer." And that’s how it went on for six more decades, with official explanations of weather balloons and marsh gas that insult our intelligence and do nothing to explain all the flying discs, EBEs, MJ-12, the fact that our pal from Pin Bush, NY is up to his ass in black triangles, and all the other alien stuff that paranoia to heir to. A new cycle of demands for full disclosure is currently thriving, and demands are being made for either a confirmation or denial from the government that Eisenhower made a secret treaty with the aliens in the early 1950s. Of course, the tendancy is to assume that the US government is the author of all this secrecy. If, however, it was the little grey bastards with the skinny fingers and big creepy eyes who wanted, and still want, to stay on the downlow, aren’t we kinda fucked?

The secret words are Zeta and Reticuli

POSTED WITHOUT COMMENT

Pic from Laz.

SEA MONKEYS CHANGED MY LIFE

A couple of days ago, I posted a nostalgic print ad for the Dick Tracy Two-Way Wrist Radio. This prompted Lost Jimmy and ib to bring up the subject of those damned sea monkeys that they used to advertise on the back of comic books. Sea monkeys were supposedly these small sentient beings who lived in miniature 1950s tract homes, watched microscopic TV sets, ate tiny TV dinners, and drank miniscule martinis, and every kid wanted a family of them, except, in the form that they were advertised, they never really existed. The first time I sent off for some sea monkeys, nothing happened. The second time, I received a bunch of lousy brine shrimp that were nothing like creatures in the advertising, and would no more watch TV than fly in the air. At the same time, I had my first indication that the adult world – despite all of its father-knows-best moral posturing – was the habitat of crooks and liars and totally couldn’t be trusted. Since that time, like-minded crooks and liars in the adult world have given me Dadaist drug laws, a handful of bloody wars, a mess of assassination conspiracies, oil dependency, and a ruined planet. (And I still think of the forces ranged against my perception of reason as the adult world. I guess a petulant teenager still lurks somewhere inside me, complete with shades and a turned up collar.)

The secret word is Deceit

This blog is still affiliated with The White Panther Party

MARILYN FOR SUNDAY

There is a natural order at Doc40 that we can’t go for very long without posting a picture of Marilyn Monroe. The last one went up on May 22nd. And now it’s definitely time for another…

RETRIBUTION FOR GEORGE

I would really be a whole lot happier if, at the end of his term, George Bush didn’t walk away scot-free. (This is assuming that Cheney and Rove haven’t come up with some Reichstag endgame to nullify democracy and extend the Bush reign indefinitely.) The man has wrecked the USA (not to mention Iraq) for everyone except the super-rich and his oil baron masters, and, one way of another, he should pay for it. I’m aware that a Saddam Hussein internet execution is out of the question, and I’m also aware that the Democrats won’t proceed with impeachment this side of the election, fearing a sympathy backlash. But once the election is done, I’d be like the proverbial dog with two tails if Georgie was hauled away in handcuffs, made to do the perp-walk, or otherwise penalized for the enormity of all that he’s done.

The secret word is Criminal

SCREW YOUR CELLPHONES, ALL MY LIFE I'VE WANTED ONE OF THESE...

Pic from Tom Sutpen

JUST AS I THOUGHT I WAS OUT OF THE DOOMSDAY RACKET...

It’s pure Michael Corleone. “Just as I thought I was out…etc.” I mean, I thought I’d closed the file on the End of the World (as we know it or otherwise) but then Sabrina sent me this item about the Large Hadron Collider in France, and how it might create black holes that would eat the planet (although Stephen Hawking says it isn’t so.)

"MEYRIN, Switzerland (June 29) - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August. But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?" (Click for full story)

The secret word is Quark

THIS BLOG IS APPROVED BY THE CORLEONE CRIME FAMILY

SHOULD THIS BE ALLOWED?

“So Farren finally manages to crawl out of his hole and favor us with a post? Should he be allowed to get away with all these non-appearances, or should punishment be exacted?”

CALIFORNIA BURNS AND GERMAINE GREER MAKES A TOTAL FOOL OF HERSELF

Rising from the work-filled, smoke-filled gloom as more than a thousand wild fires threaten California, I feel that I have to take exception with my former friend Germaine Greer who, writing in The Guardian, seems to feel the need to draw attention to herself by rubbishing the work of Bob Dylan, in a screed so demented and without reason that I hardly feel the need to refute her tediously, wafer thin argument that she actually managed to collapse herself in the final line.

"Great lyricists? Bah! Humbug! In the 1960s and 70s, I battled students who wanted me to teach Bob Dylan rather than Donne or Yeats. Ever since, I have had screeds of stuff sent to me by people who thought that rhyme equalled reason, to whom I had gently to explain that their agonised posturings wouldn't pass for poetry. I blame Dylan. In my eyes, he wasn't fit to tie Woody Guthrie's shoelaces. I have never forgiven him for keeping his fans waiting at the Isle of Wight festival in 1969 for three hours, from 9 o'clock till midnight, before he would sing a word. Creeps sometimes make good poets, but Bob Zimmerman isn't one of them." (Click for the full measure of nonsense and the payoff)

The secret word is Imbecilic

AND NOW A WORD FROM ROBERT CRUMB...

OR IS THIS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS?

In this week’s LA CityBeat, I attempt to explain everything. Click here!

The secret word is Nevermore

OR MAYBE THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS

I just couldn’t resist posting this. Along with the blurb from the Cinefamily newsletter that follows. (The Cinefamily are reviving this monster next Saturday at the Silent Movie Theatre here in Hollywood.)

"The one-and-only Rudy Ray Moore aka Dolemite aka Petey Wheatstraw drives the cinema train straight off the tracks with Disco Godfather, the world's only kung fu dance party anti-angel- dust comedy. Rudy stars as an ex-cop turned popular DJ/nightclub owner, who grabs the viewer's attention by the kidneys from his first astounding and jiggly purple-suited entrance. When his nephew gets all strung out on PCP, hallucinating something fierce, he dives headfirst into the equally ridiculously garbed underworld to investigate, to almost no positive effect whatsoever. The film is a trademark heady mix of kick-ass distended elements, a blend of serious anti-drug talk, dance, martial arts and Rudy's repetitive catchphrases ("Put A Little Slide In Yo' Glide" and the truly haunting "Put Your Weight On It!"), which moved one anonymous Internet reviewer to write: "This movie was like witnessing the Civil War. It was loud, hard to understand what people were saying, and downright horrifying."

The secret word is Bad

IS THIS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS?

For the past few weeks I have been immersed in the paranormal. I’ve been exhaustively (and exhaustingly) researching all the end of the world prophecies that focus on December 12th , 2012 for a cover story for LA CityBeat. I’ll post that this coming Thursday, and maybe some thoughts on the new regime at the paper. In the meantime, I've attended occult events that have drawn packed houses, I’ve toured brimming quadrants of the internet. I cannot pretend that I’m anything but totally convinced (and Victor Renquist would agree) that a new interest in the metaphysical and the unknowable is on the rise. And I have to say I find that totally understand when the last eight years of supposed normality and reality have come courtesy of the Bush administration and random fascist madmen & madwomen. Then, with my head stuffed full of the supposed truths that are out there, I had one of those almost-falling-asleep experiences when lines of a poem flowed through my head. Elvis Costello has reported similar experiences with song lyrics and he keeps a pad beside the bed. I just turn over and hope I remember in the morning. This is what remained in the morning light. It will probably grow, since I have this nagging feeling that the perception of time underpins the whole phenomenon. (pic from Valerie)

THE PARANORMAL CONFORMS…

THE PARANORMAL CONFORMS
TO ITS OWN UNNATURAL LAWS
AND FUELED BY THE POWER SOURCES
THE ORGONES OF WILHELM REICH
THE ALTERNATING ELECTRONS
OF NIKOLA TESLA
TO PRECIPITATE THE OCCURRENCES
OF CHARLES FORTE
AND YET BENEATH IT ALL
ROLLS THE MAJESTIC RIVER
OF THE TIME STREAM
THAT BEARS ALL BEFORE

EQUATIONS
OF TIME AND SPACE AND ENERGY
IN MEASURELESS CURVATURE
AS THE RIVER BENDS

FROGS FALL
DISPLACED FROM A ONCE AND FUTURE POND
SWIRLED THROUGH A TEMPORAL EDDY
TO SLIP INTO AN ALIEN DRAIN
THAT HUMANITY MAY YET EXPERIENCE
(REMEMBER, MY WILD LOVE
FROGS FALL FIRST)

THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPHET
IS TO SURF FORWARD ON THE BOW WAVE
OF THE SAME GREAT RIVER
FOR AN OBSERVATION OF WHAT WILL BE
RATHER THAN WHAT IS

SAIL ON, SEER AND SENSEI
THE WATERS OF TIME
ARE THE KEY

The secret word is Passage and the secret numbers are 012

AND IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE VISITED ELVIS

But what better way to follow the paranormal with this truly bizarre clip of an Elvis Presley stadium show in Detroit in 1957? (Sent by BillH)

Or this equally absurd dope story (see yesterday) from Munz.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

AND SOME OLD FAVORITES

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. – William Blake

Dope will see you through times of no money better than money will see you through times of no dope. – Phineas Freak

If smoking dope doesn’t damage your brain, why do so many Jamaicans believe a dead Ethiopian is God. – Darius James

When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two, I didn't like it, I didn't inhale it, and never tried it again. – Bill Clinton

I never had trouble with drugs, only with cops. – Keith Richards

Smoking dope and drinking beer is like pissing in the wind. – Lemmy

The secret initials are THC

DID YOU EVER FEEL...

…paranoid? (Scattered thoughts for Friday 13th) Pic lifted from Tom Sutpen.

People have more than once made me aware that I am supposedly famous for my paranoia. On the other hand, a close friend once declared that as time passed and, we hope, mellowed all things, my legendary paranoia retreated to the level of a “friendly old dog that follows you anywhere.” In my own defense, I can only say that I am not sure where expecting the unexpected ends and paranoia begins. I guess somewhere at the frontiers of the psychotic state. (“There are no trials inside the Gates of Eden.”) I also wonder if it is truly paranoid to peer into the anomalies of the JFK assassination, the Jonestown Kool Aid mass suicide, or the 911 attacks? And most times I thought they were out to get me, they actually were. And what about this Yisrayl 'Buffalo Bill' Hawkins, in the following news report sent by Elf Hellion, how does he feel this morning when his predicted nuclear war failed to materialize and the wrath of people called Hawkins became palpable?

"Nuclear war will begin next Thursday, June 12, or sooner, according to the latest prediction of self-proclaimed prophet Yisrayl 'Buffalo Bill' Hawkins, the founder of a religious sect in Abilene, Texas. Hundreds of truck trailers have been loaded with food and water on the group's 44-acre compound, in preparation for the coming war. Everything that he preaches has to do with people buying something," said former House of Yahweh elder David Als of New York City. Like many of the his followers, Als actually legally changed his last name to Hawkins because he became convinced that only those named Hawkins would be saved.”

The secret name is K

DID YOU MISS ME WHILE I WAS IN RETRO ORBIT?

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 43

The Doc has been in the deep space of hellhound recall and failing life support. (Only in the Age of Bush could one be constantly overworked and constantly broke.) I was, however, forced to return to this quadrant of reality when Valerie sent me this clip from New Scientist with the absurd and maybe dangerous news that our first transmission to possibly inhabited planets will be a Doritos commercial.

"It could be the longest commercial break in history. Over a six-hour period this morning, high-powered radars in the Arctic Circle broadcast an advertisement into space for the first time.
The advertisement, for Doritos tortilla chips, was being directed towards a solar system in the Ursa Major constellation, just 42 light years from Earth. The solar system contains a habitable zone, and could host an Earth-like planet and extraterrestrial life." (For the whole story)

The secret words are How To Serve Man

FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol (and also art critic Mario Amaya). Solanas was arrested the day after the assault. By way of explanation, she said that "He had too much control over my life."

The secret number is 15

CALIFORNIA VOTE NO ON PROP 98!

FINAL BO

MrMR sent the image and our pal Tim Stegall pays his tribute.

I OWE BO

So many epitaphs as the shadows lengthen. I grew up on Bo. The beat fascinated me in the way that it took no prisoners. It was always there, a launch platform to anything you wanted it to be. It was the foundation of PTOOFF! It was the reason for Mona, and while we were recording Mona, Paul the cello player hipped me to how the same rhythm was totally replicated for a few measures in one of the Bartok string quartets, (I forget which one off hand, you gotta go look for it) written at the dawn of the 20th century. The beat talked of Detroit steel cars and heavy industry, and endless highway, and thus it became background for demented poetry in Tijuana Bible’s “Memphis Psychosis.” Bo is gone, my sisters and brothers, but -- it’s mercifully trite but the truth all the same -- the beat goes on. (Whip it out Cher.)

BO DIDDLEY -- RIP

Right now I can hardly sum up how much he meant to me.

The secret word is Time

DID I SAY WEIRD?

It’s only Sunday morning and Valerie has sent the above and the suggestion that Marilyn was not in fact murdered, but abducted by a retro-UFO (from other worlds, of course) and is, in fact, pictured here – the top figure on the right. What more proof is needed, I ask myself? Of course, Marilyn was still alive when the magazine was published, but time's only relative, right?

Meanwhile, munz emails a link with the message, “thought you might dig these '60s grindhouse cheesecake trailers.”

The secret words are Back To Bed

THIS JUST IN...

It's getting weird out there.

WHEN JIM MORRISON TRIED TO OVERTHROW THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT

Our good pal Steve sent this video clip from the BBC that provides an amazing insight into the levels of paranoia which the British Government and their grim minions in the Special Branch – the Brit anti-terrorist equivalent of the FBI – viewed the anti-Vietnam War movement and the belief of some right-wing extremists that The Doors were behind it all.

As Steve writes…
Loads of official documents obtained by the Beeb about the 1968 protests. Some fascinating stuff -- apparently we were making Molotov cocktails out of lightbulbs (!) and filling eggs with acid and hiding them in lunchboxes to avoid detection. And, of course, the whole shebang was orchestrated by the Doors (those rascals)...

Click to watch this quite extraordinary video.
And if you want to see a rerun of me on another show talking about the same events click here.

Younger readers might well comment that this was all back in the day, and would hardly be possible here in the 21st century. I can only agree. Today, those in power appear twenty times more paranoid.

The secret word is Insanity.

Meanwhile, back at LA CityBeat I talk about the quality of Barack Obama’s suits. (But my run at CityBeat is almost done. More about that in the future.)

I DON'T THINK THIS IS WHAT BOB DYLAN HAD IN MIND

DON'T FUCK WITH NIKOLA TESLA (#7 in a series)

“The spread of civilization may be likened to a fire; First, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.”

And, having rolled out of bed, facing a morning of the mundane, I feel unnaturally energized, wondering as I walk from room to room, feed the cat, check the mail, if the fight for freedom and the metaphysical are the flint and steel to kindle the true spark of the revolution I crave. Thus I post a picture of Nikola Tesla and go about my business wondering, hoping. I have the strength to hold this thought and act upon it.

The secret word is More

THEY DON'T MAKE FILMS LIKE THIS ANY MORE

“Fortunately Bob Dylan, unlike like Johnny Cash, was too busy reinventing rock & roll to appear.”

(Yes, Farren has been busy writing so he’s posting a picture to cover the continuity.)

The secret is A Thousand Words

Sydney Pollack -- RIP

WHERE'S THE DOPE? WHERE'S THE DOPE?

“Never send a dog to do a narc’s work.”

Officials admit that an unwitting passenger arriving at Japan's Narita airport unknowingly walked away with 142g of cannabis after a customs test went awry, A customs officer hid a package of dope in a side pocket of a randomly chosen suitcase in order to test airport security. Sniffer dogs failed to detect the cannabis and the officer could not remember which bag he had put it in. (Click for full story from Valerie)

The secret word is Aroma

SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM

"When peace comes (if ever) you won't be able to smoke any fucking place."

MEMORIAL DAY MESSAGE

Which would be to force George Bush and his grasping cronies to pay veterans and their families, and the serving troops for that matter, decent pay and benefits.

BUT WE'RE BACK ON MARS

I, for one, are damned glad we’re back on Mars. Space is, of course, (as Sun Ra once put it) the place. Admittedly I’d be a whole lot happier if we found some Martians. Maybe the Phoenix Lander should just try following the canals.

The secret word is Thark

DON'T FUCK WITH THE BLENDER (#6 in a series)

"Werrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

The secret word is Liquefy

SAVE THE PANDA!

As pandas are saved from the Chinese Chinese mega-quake, it might raise the ethical question of whether we first save Pandas or humans, but I will not engage in it. Me, I’m with the pandas. (Click for video)

“BOBBY KENNEDY WAS ASSASSINATED IN JUNE IN CALIFORNIA”

For Hillary Clinton to blurt out these now notorious words on camera in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, that inevitably linked Barack Obama, Bobby Kennedy, and the specter of assassination, surely must be the termination of any plausible political career. I supported Hillary in her run for the Senate, I was a huge fan of her husband, but, these eight words opened a door on a character so insensitive and single-minded in her hopeless quest for power that I would hate to see this woman anywhere near the White House. And if you might wonder why such words are so dangerous in modern America, just read on…

A car dealership in Butler, Missouri is offering a free handgun with every vehicle sold. The car lot in question, Max Motors, says sales have quadrupled since the start of the offer. The reason for the somewhat grim promotion? Owner Mark Muller explained "We did it because of Barack Obama. He said all those people in the Midwest, you've got to have compassion for them because they're clinging to their guns and their Bibles. I found that quite offensive. We all go to church on Sunday and we all carry guns." Click for the rest of the story (Sent by Valerie)

The secret word is Firepower