TRIPPING WAS GOOD FOR US?

Seems to be a day for the psychedelic. Our goodbuddy Arsydd sent us this story how all this acid we used to take might actually have been good for our mental and physical health, although maybe it’s illegality and general lack of overall quality control may have somewhat negated the benefits.

“A growing number of people are taking LSD and other psychedelic drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy to help them cope with a variety of conditions including anorexia nervosa, cluster headaches and chronic anxiety attacks. The emergence of a community that passes the drugs between users on the basis of friendship, support and need – with money rarely involved – comes amid a resurgence of research into the possible therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. This is leading to a growing optimism among those using the drugs that soon they may be able to obtain medicines based on psychedelics from their doctor, rather than risk jail for taking illicit drugs." (Click here for more.)

And while on the subject of acid, I have to register how it pisses me off that The Beatles 1967 anthem "All You Need Is Love" is now being used in a Blackberry commercial. Is this the work of Fab McCartney or the Michael Jackson estate? I was never a huge fan of the tune, but WTF?

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Great Uncle Orson was obsessively homicidal and owned his own Maxim gun.

(Supplied by HCB)

THUGLIFE OF THE WARLORDS

Another rant from the every-forceful Chris Hedges…

“The warlords we champion in Afghanistan are as venal, as opposed to the rights of women and basic democratic freedoms, and as heavily involved in opium trafficking as the Taliban. The moral lines we draw between us and our adversaries are fictional. The uplifting narratives used to justify the war in Afghanistan are pathetic attempts to redeem acts of senseless brutality. War cannot be waged to instill any virtue, including democracy or the liberation of women. War always empowers those who have a penchant for violence and access to weapons. War turns the moral order upside down and abolishes all discussions of human rights. War banishes the just and the decent to the margins of society. And the weapons of war do not separate the innocent and the damned. An aerial drone is our version of an improvised explosive device. An iron fragmentation bomb is our answer to a suicide bomb. A burst from a belt-fed machine.” (Click here for the whole thing.)

The secret word is Poppy

AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY

The following email arrived from our pal Thomas Paine...

"Christopher J. Christie - a former US Attorney in George W. Bush's administration who is running as the Republican candidate for Governor of New Jersey in Tuesday's very close election race - has been exposed as a copyright thief - stealing a Monty Python skit for an election commercial. Compounding his theft - after his piracy was exposed in an exclusive news story on Huffington Post - his campaign tried to cover up the crime by scrubbing his campaign website and YouTube. Unfortunately for him - the illicit commercial was captured as evidence for a possible lawsuit. The full story - the pirated TV ad that he tried to bury - and responses from members of Monty Python can all be seen here" (Now click here)

HALLOWEEN AFTERMATH

The glut of horror movies on my TV once again started me reflecting on how shock entertainment can only escalate. The first horror flicks I ever saw were Hammer classics in which Christopher Lee’s bloodshot vampire eyes were enough to set the joint jumping. Now it takes a woman diving into a tub of syringes, and I can only wonder whither we go from there? Richard Holmes in his book The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, illustrates how far we have come since Mary Shelley wrote the novel Frankenstein in the company of Lord Byron and her poet husband.

"On the bleak Mer de Glace glacier in the French Alps, the Creature appeals to his creator [Dr.] Frankenstein for sympathy, and for love. 'I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator would not call it murder, if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts ... Oh! My creator, make me happy! Let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of one existing thing. Do not deny me my request!'… "His terrible corrosive and destructive solitude becomes the central theme of the second part of Mary Shelley's novel. Goaded by his misery, the Creature kills and destroys. Yet he also tries to take stock of his own violent actions and contradictory emotions. He concludes that his one hope of happiness lies in sexual companionship. The scene on the Mer de Glace in which he begs Frankenstein to create a wife for him is central to his search for human identity and happiness. The clear implication is that a fully human 'soul' can only be created through friendship and love."

AND FOR A HALLOWEEN HANGOVER HERE’S JERRY LEE…

What better way to follow a drunken spook fest than by clicking here for nine minutes of a magnificently drunken Jerry Lee Lewis? (This is lifted from the splendid Houndblog where they’re running a special on rock-drunk videos.)

The secret word is Shaking

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 67

Ummm…is this not kinda odd?

CLICK (Busted!)

ALL HALLOWS’ EVE AND ZOMBIE STRIPPERS

I have always been somewhat ambivalent regarding Halloween and all the nonsense about demons and pumpkins, hell houses, and it being the celebration of Satan. The event seems – to one who looks like that all the year round – to be a very serious case of amateur night on any level you care to chose. It ain’t the Day of the Dead by any manner of means, and no Beltran fires burn. All too often it appears little more than an excuse for the squares to pretend they aren’t. Being raised in England also didn’t help. When I was a kid, October 30th meant being in full anticipatory mode for Guy Fawkes and November 5th -- Bonfire Night – when we got to run riot with legal fireworks and pyromania became an artform. The day found me planning later mayhem, not trolling the streets in a plastic costume begging for Milky Ways.
I used to enjoy Halloween more when I lived in Lower Manhattan, if for no other reason that the costumes on Christopher Street were outrageous in the extreme, and you could see nothing like them this side of Venus. The Boys’ Town parade here in LA just can’t compare, and it also turns the my neighborhood into one vast, cop-controlled parking lot which is damned irritating. My other problem – aside from ever cable channel being jammed with Saw movies that I really dislike – is that Halloween is a so firmly attached to Christianity and candy that it simply cannot qualify as the kind good hearty pagan death-rock Saturnalia for which I would have every sympathy.

But click here anyway for the clip from Zombie Strippers.

The secret word is Boo!

OR WOULD YOU PREFER A HALLOWEEN COMIC?

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

On Halloween, Posnan Frozdick would play the Vincent Price organ.

ESCAPADES OUT ON THE D TRAIN

Click here for savage, New York, D train dialogue

BLOW-BAT

Oh my. When the awesome Valerie sent the following (and also the image) what could I do (once again) but post the entire package? Especially on a busy and chaotic Friday in the world.

“Female short-nosed fruit bats have been observed performing fellatio on their partners during copulation. Mating pairs spent more time copulating if the female did so.
Cynopterus sphinx live in south-east Asia. The males often roost with small groups of females. Min Tan of the Guangdong Entomological Institute in Guangzhou, China, and colleagues captured 30 male and 30 female short-nosed fruit bats in Yuexiu Park in Guangzhou City and observed their mating behaviour in enclosures.
The bats copulate dorso-ventrally, with the male mounting the female from behind. During mating, the females reached over to lick the base of the male's penis in 14 of the 20 pairs that copulated. The tip of the penis had already penetrated the female's vagina, and the males did not withdraw when the female licked the base of the penis.
Both the duration of an individual copulation, and the overall time a mating pair spent copulating, were increased if the female performed fellatio.” Click here although I guess I should repeat the warning – "the video is sexually explicit and was edited and soundtracked by the researchers.”

The secret word has to be Head

SPACE OPERA de luxe

I guess one might reason that this is Pre-Raphaelite science fiction following in wake of steampunk. (But should I devise a fantasy series about Dante Gabriel XX901?) The pic was sent by the grand HCB.

GREAT OLD ONES WARNING

JUST WHEN YOU STOP WORRYING…

Just when you stop worrying that an asteroid will hit the Earth, one does exactly that.

"The New Scientist website reports the dramatic explosion over South Sulawesi, Indonesia, on October 8 underscores how blind humanity is to the danger of giant space rocks. NASA estimated the explosion was the equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT, making it one of the largest asteroid explosions ever observed. However, this time we were lucky - the blast caused no damage on the ground because it occurred at high altitude, 15 to 20km above Earth's surface. While the explosion was heard by witnesses in Indonesia and picked up by international nuclear explosion detectors, the asteroid only became visible after it exploded. Video images of the sky following the event showed a dust trail characteristic of an exploding asteroid, according to the New Scientist. Researchers believe the asteroid was about 10 metres wide - too small for even our most powerful telescopes to spot. But Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center, in the US state of Massachusetts, warns even an asteroid of this size could cause a lot of damage on the ground."

DOGGONE

Dog snorts speed? How could I not post this?

"A German shepherd K-9 in Ventura County should be eligible for a bump in hazard pay (read: more treats) after having a seizure that may be drug-related. Officials say K-9 Balu may have inhaled some loose methamphetamine Monday during a narcotics search in Moorpark, the Ventura County Star reported: The deputies believed they saw the suspect toss two bags of drugs, and they recovered one torn bag of methamphetamine, (Balu's partner Senior Deputy Dean Worthy) said. While he was searching for more drugs, Balu went to the area where the first bag was tossed and alerted Worthy, said the senior deputy. Balu got close enough to the spilled drugs that Worthy worried his K-9 partner might have sniffed some of it up, but there were no remnants of drugs on the dog's face, and he was acting fine." (Click here for more.)

The secret word is Arf!

HOWARD ZINN ON OBAMA?

Click here

OUR WHACKY AUNT AYN

Aunt Ayn is confident that traffic lights are only for the huddled masses of the stupid.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 66

LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY, A GALAXY TURNED UGLY

Our pal hipspinster sent me a link to some new Dr Who fan anime, but along the way I was sidetracked by a squib for a new Joe Schreiber novel called Death Troopers that seems to be set in a reality where Star Wars meets the Saw series. It had to start me wondering if this was a true sign of the times, or just the 21st century vision of corporate publishing. I think I’m glad I’m too old and cranky to need any longer to consider doing such things.

“The storyline for Death Troopers is pretty simple, really — an Imperial prison barge, during the years right before the original Star Wars movie, runs into some engine trouble. Good thing they find a Star Destroyer in the middle of nowhere, which they can cannibalize for parts. Unfortunately, the Star Destroyer has some kind of weird virus on board, which kills everyone it comes into contact with... and the people who die don't stay dead. And that's about it. The survivors from the prison barge have to run a gauntlet of Imperial zombies and try to escape in one piece, while facing their own personal traumas and uncovering a sinister biological weapons program that comes straight from Lord Vader himself.
Among others, we meet a sadistic prison guard, Sartoris, an idealistic prison doctor, Cody, and the Longo brothers, the two sons of Trig Longo, a smuggler whom Sartoris murdered. Everybody gets a nice story arc in between (and during) zombie attacks.
It's a quick read, and there's a lot of chasing around dark corridors and crawlspaces and the holds of abandoned spaceships." Click here for the whole story and a neat promo video.

The secret word is Nasty

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

When Podesta Frozdick got high, her hallucinations were elaborate.

OK DAY

No, it hasn’t been an okay day. It’s been a rotten day. Nothing apocalyptic, just the routine grind-down and the LA heat came back. I would probably be hiding under the bed, surly and with nothing to say except that I felt I had to remind all you good people that today is the 128th anniversary of The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, when the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday (my favorite gunfighter) faced down Ike Clanton and his crew. As Wikipedia tells it…

“The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a gunfight that occurred at about 3 P.M. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona. The famous gunfight did not actually occur at the O.K. Corral. It occurred in a fifteen- to twenty-foot space between Fly's Lodging House and photographic studio, and the MacDonald assay house west of it. The end of the gunfight took place in Fremont Street. Some of the fighting was in Fremont Street in front of the vacant lot. About thirty shots were fired in thirty seconds. Although only three men were killed during the gunfight, it is generally regarded as the most famous gunfight in the history of the Old West, even though many other gunfights of the period resulted in more people killed. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral has been portrayed in numerous Western films. It has come to symbolize the struggle between law-and-order and open-banditry.”

Click here to play the theme.

The secret word is Huckleberry

ONLY ONE CURE FOR THE TOMBSTONE BLUES?

SPACE OPERA

A DECADENT SUNDAY

The doctor poured cognac into the prisoner’s balloon glass. The gesture was superficially expansive, but did nothing to disguise the cold underlying hostility. “So much of what you say is hardly plausible.”
The prisoner swirled the brandy in the ostentatious glass. He inhaled the alcohol vapor. He hadn’t eaten in so long, the fumes alone were capable of making him drunk. “If you had seen what I had seen, you would not be so reluctant to believe me.”
“If I had seen what you had seen I would not be required to believe you. I would be you.”
“But if you were me, who would I be?”
“Word games? Juvenile existentialism? Isn’t this all a little pointless?”
“I didn’t ask to be here.”
The doctor leaned back in his chair. “That is something I do believe.”
“That’s something you know for a fact. Belief or disbelief don’t even signify. I didn’t ask to be here, I actively resisted coming here, and I’m being held against my will. You actively facilitated my captivity. It is something that cannot be called into question.”
The doctor carefully pressed his fingertips together. “Whatever you think is being done to you is ultimately for your own good.”
“Bullshit.”
The doctor smiled. “Now who’s unwilling to believe?”
The prisoner sighed. “I’m willing to believe. Tell me anything. I’ll believe it. Just watch me.”

WITH FUNNIES…

Even among 1960s comic book artists Jeff Jones was a little strange, but also a hell of draughtsman.

AND IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE RAN A PIC OF LIZ

CLICK! (We know who you are.)

THE SCUM TAKES THE MONEY

Our pal Faux Smoke sent over this unpleasant piece of news with the comment “this old bastard is still out there, lobbying against anything so long as he's getting paid.” And let’s not forget that while the senile old fool was running for president, he courted dunce-cred by positively boasting how he had no idea how even to send an email.

“U.S. Senator John McCain has introduced legislation that would block the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from creating new net neutrality rules, on the same day that the FCC took the first step toward doing so.
McCain on Thursday introduced the Internet Freedom Act, which would keep the FCC from enacting rules prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Internet content and applications. Net neutrality rules would create "onerous federal regulation," McCain said in a written statement.
The FCC on Thursday voted to begin a rulemaking process to formalize net neutrality rules. The rules, as proposed, would allow Web users to run the legal applications and access the legal Web sites of their choice. Providers could use "reasonable" network management to reduce congestion and maintain quality of service, but the rules would require them to be transparent with consumers about their efforts.
The new rules would formalize a set of net neutrality principles in place at the FCC since 2005." Click here for the whole story.

The secret word is Bribery

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 65

And the damage done?

BOOK ‘EM, DANNO!

I found the following on Common Dreams and figured I should pass it along…

“In Louis Jordan’s classic song, “Saturday Night Fish Fry,” which recounts a riotous party on Rampart Street eventually raided by the police, the hapless protagonist is nabbed by the cops and “booked on suspicion.” Anyone who remembers TV cop shows, like Dragnet and Highway Patrol, recalls dozens of bad guys hauled up “on suspicion” by Sgt. Joe Friday or Chief Dan Matthews. When I was a kid absorbing all this jurisprudence, I had no idea that “suspicion” was not an actual crime that could send you up the river. Even today, I don’t know if “suspicion” was the authentic argot of real cops in those innocent days.Regardless of the era, if the police say they’re arresting a guy on “suspicion of burglary” or some such pretext, they still have to muster enough evidence for a real arraignment. This rule applied to even pre-Miranda cops like Joe Friday. Without a charge, the suspect, no matter how suspicious he looked, had to be cut loose. American justice has always been exceptionally clear on this point: Suspicion by the forces of law and order against an individual implies no guilt whatsoever. Official suspicion confers on the State no right to accuse, pursue, arrest, detain or imprison. Anyone. This principle survived two centuries of challenge, ‘til September 11, 2001.”
Click here for the whole thing.

SCREW THE DOW AND THE TEN THOUSAND POINTS IT RODE IN ON

Twenty-three states reported unemployment-rate increases in September, with three registering record job losses, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly employment summary – Nevada (at 13.3%), Rhode Island (at 13.0%), and Florida (11.0%) all posted their highest unemployment rates since 1976, when the BLS began monitoring the rates.

The secret word is Disgust

SPACE OPERA

Soupy Sales -- RIP

HOW DOES IT FEEL?

“Did you know OnStar has the ability to shut off your engine, deflate your tires and listen to what you are saying inside your car?? It's true. They never used to use this technology, though it has been available- but now that the government is running GM, apparently they have decided to go ahead with it. Did we miss that press release? At the very least, it should concern you…with this kind of technology in the wrong hands.”
Those of you who watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann will already know Fox News’ house psychotic Glenn Beck has been howling how the OnStar system that provides drivers with GPS enabled navigation, remote diagnostics, and on-board security services will help the "government" to "know where you are in your car all the time" and even put a "microphone" in your car to broadcast socialist propaganda! But, hey, just click here for whole extended audio mania. And – while we’re at it – let’s not forget how, if the rumors are true, the optional voice of OnStar may be that ancient and vicious totalitarian commissar Bob (pictured above) Dylan

GRATUITOUS GENTRY (or is this just too retro-weird?)

I have always had this strange attraction to Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode To Billie Joe”. If memory serves, I think I once suggested to the rest of The Deviants that we should perform it in a manner that was part Dylan’s “Ballad Of Hollis Brown” and part The Stooges “We Will Fall.” They looked at me as though I was wholly and barking crazy and the idea was never mentioned again, but I continue to this day to find the song hauntingly eerie, slightly creepy and an example of genuine country gothic of a kind that Nick Cave could only seek to emulate. Click here for the clip I found.

The secret word is Tallahatchie

“I’m only eight years-old but I already have an agenda. Do you have one?”

LET THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL...

But why don’t we take all this a stage further? The last time I heard a number quoted, it was that a tad more than 80% of the hideously massive US prison population was locked up for crimes that had, at very least, an indirect connection with the sale and use of recreational drugs. Clearly the nation – whether it admits it or not – is conducting a radical rethink of the War on Drugs. Here in LA we have a de facto decriminalization of marijuana and pot shops are opening up on what seems to be every goddamned corner (although still they are still charging prohibition prices – but that’s another story.) What’s annoying me in this instance is that while middle class stoners who can afford the doctor’s $100 fee for a medical marijuana card talk smugly about the joys of their Purple Urkle, the poor bastards who were criminalized in the bad old days still rot in the slam. (Some for long stretches under the mandatory minimums of yesteryear.) And that fucking sucks.

HALF PRICE DRINKS

Still basking in a degree of dubious glory, here’s the guys – (l to r) Russell Hunter, yours truly, our great friend Yukiko Akagawa, and Duncan Sanderson – doing a little preshow drinking before our recent Brighton reunion. Plus you can click here for another clip from Rich of the band doing the song “Half Price Drinks.” Sadly the sound is camcorder lousy but word has just come from our pal Gregg the Theremin Guy from the band Paradise 9. “Spoke to Tim earlier. (Rundall, that is, playing guitar in the cowboy hat) He's been talking to Roy who did the sound and recorded the night. I believe they're gonna get together, and either Roy do a mix down of the night and/or Tim has a guy who can do a mix n'all. My mate Philip also video'd the night along with a couple others, so he's gonna get me a copy to pass on and maybe if the quality is ok, maybe a vid may work...but that maybe iffy given the awful lighting that night!”

SPACE OPERA

And after that, things started getting really interesting.

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

DO WE NEED TO BOYCOTT BUD?

The following came in from MoveOn.org. There are times when I find MoveOn and their constant demands for money kind of irritating, but this does need to be addressed, especially as I rather tend to drink Budweiser by default and because it’s always there….
“Why would a company like Anheuser-Busch oppose solutions to global warming?
Anheuser-Busch is a prominent member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which just launched a $100 million campaign described as a "declaration of war on the White House." The Chamber is pouring millions into killing clean energy as well as health care reform. Recently, an uprising of companies fighting back against the Chamber of Commerce has begun, led by companies like Apple, Nike, Johnson & Johnson, and GE. But Anheuser-Busch continues to help fund the Chamber's anti-climate agenda through their Chamber dues. Can you call Anheuser-Busch and urge them to quit the Chamber of Commerce? If you're a customer of Anheuser-Busch, be sure to mention it when you call. Here's the info: Anheuser-Busch (202) 293-9494”

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Esmeralda Frozdick felt a constant need to reconfirm her allure.

SIMON'S CAT

The amazing Noudela has sent us a brand new Simon’s Cat cartoon. Click here.