PLUGS FOR PALS

Click here for another track from the upcoming virtual album String Theory by my longtime songwriting partner and band mate Andy Colquhoun (once and future Deviant and Pink Fairy). The title of the track is “Hot Rod.” The whole album should have been up on Andy’s website by now but some of them unforeseen tech glitches have beset the launch.

And while we’re viddying well, I just got a heads up that the tune “Bela Lugosi” from my 1977 album Vampires Stole My Lunch Money has been posted on YouTube by some kind person. It was written by Andy and me back in the day and features Chrissie Hynde and Sonja Christina singing backup. Click here.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 78

But Captain Kirk taught us all about green women, didn’t he?

GRATUITOUS BARDOT

KILL THE KILL SWITCH

No question. This has to be stopped. Now.

“US President Barack Obama would be granted powers to seize control of and even shut down the internet under a new bill that describes the global internet as a US "national asset". Local lobby groups and academics have rounded on the plan, saying that, rather than combat terrorists, it would actually do them "the biggest favour ever" by terrorising the rest of the world, which is now heavily reliant on cyberspace. The proposed legislation, introduced into the US Senate by independent senator Joe Lieberman, who is chairman of the US Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the internet in times of national emergency. Titled "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act", the bill stipulates any internet firms and providers must "immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by a new section of the US Department of Homeland Security, dubbed the "National Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications". Lobby group TechAmerica told ZDNet it worried that the bill would give the US "absolute power" over the internet and create "unintended consequences." (Click here for more)

Click here for Lennon

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING DRAFT

Now that Afghanistan is the longest running war in US history and, with all the “new” mineral finds, it might go on for another fucking decade, where is the Pentagon going to get its manpower? Conscription? No, my friends, why risk all that a draft might precipitate when you can seemingly sucker the kids into the bloody risks of grunt-hood with video games? (And mass unemployment also helps, of course.)

“David Simon and Ed Burns are all too aware of young men and their often-misguided call to adventure. In their award-winning TV series Generation Kill, based on Evan Wright's embedded reporting for Rolling Stone, the series documents the first three weeks of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In it a new generation of young marines or ''warriors'', who have been raised on hip-hop, heavy metal and video games, request the evacuation of a young Iraqi boy badly wounded by one of their more trigger-happy colleagues. Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen ''Godfather'' Ferrando acknowledges the situation is worse than ''shitty'' but refuses their request. He reminds them that ''nobody put a f---ing gun to our heads and forced us to come here. We're all volunteers.'' But surely this is disingenuous. Every year, the Pentagon spends $US6 billion using the latest digital gaming technology for training for the armed forces. This in turn has given rise to an effective recruitment tool called ''militainment''. According to Peter W. Singer, director of the 21st Century Defence Initiative at the Brookings Institution, ''America's Army'' is one of the top 10 downloaded games on the internet. Singer describes it as a ''first-person shooter'', where the player is a soldier who goes out on various missions. However, to access the game online you must sign up and give your personal information, which helps recruiters find you. Although Singer acknowledges that a large number of the players engage for the fun of playing the game, it has turned out to be, according to one study, ''more effective than any other form of recruiting that the US Army has.'' (Click here for more)

Click here for Edwin Starr

The secret word is Colonialism

FLOGGING A DEAD HORSE

“On July 3, 1965 at the Rogers ranch in Hidden Valley, California, Trigger left this earth at the age of 30 (one day before he would turn 31), succumbing to old age. Reluctant to "put him in the ground," Roy was inspired by the animals on display in the Smithsonian. He decided to have Trigger mounted in his iconic rearing position on two legs and put on display at the Roy Rogers - Dale Evans Museum, then located in Victorville, California.”

But now the museum has decided to put Trigger up for auction. The dead horse is expected to fetch $100 thousand at Christies. (Click here for the catalogue entry)

Click here for Dead Weather singing Bob

Thanks to J-Walk for the heads up.

CATCH THE WAVE (Endless Summer)

Orange Beach, Alabama, 90 miles from the BP gusher.

Click here for ironic Beach Boys

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Melinda Frozdick treated the pool as a serious challenge.

SPACE OPERA

Click here for the Beatles on Dr Who

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

WE ARE THE (THIRD) WORLD

Sometimes it’s all in the juxtapositioning. Compare and contrast with the image below and then place your bets on who survives the apocalypse. (Photo by Pieter Hugo)

Click here for Burundi drums

Gary Shider -- RIP

WE ARE THE (FIRST) WORLD

Need we say more?

Click for Cliff

YES, NEIGHBOURS, IT’S RAINBOW BACON

Here at Doc40 we like to keep an eye on the bacon that’s being brought home.

“Neil Caldwell has come up with something that is pure genius. He has created the color wheel of bacon! No, this isn’t some graphic design trick (although Neil is a graphic designer). This is real, genuine colored bacon. Ever had trouble getting your kids to eat their meat? Well, we can just about guarantee that the kiddies won’t turn down a rainbow of sweet, sweet bacon. Just how does Neil create this fantastically colored bacon? Well, for the moment he’s keeping the secret under wraps. We’ll keep on the case though and see if we can’t get you a recipe for this colorful concoction.” Click here for more.

AND IF ANY MORE PROOF OF THE MADNESS WAS NEEDED

The insanity proliferates as the rabid Michele Bachmann springs like a dog at a bell (Pavlov joke) to the defense of BP. (But I guess BP is her corporate master's voice, as she serves to confuse the proles and the surly American lumpen.)

“The president just called for creating a fund that would be administered by outsiders, which would be more of a redistribution-of-wealth fund. And now it appears like we’ll be looking at one more gateway for more government control, more money to government. If there is a disaster, why is it that government is the one who always seems to benefit after a disaster, and that’s of course what cap-and-trade would be. They (BP) shouldn’t have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest — they’ve got to be legitimate claims. The other thing we have to remember is that Obama loves to make evil whatever company it is that he wants to get more power from. He makes them evil, and what we’ve got to ask ourselves is: Do we really want to be paying $9 for a gallon of gas? Because that could be the final result of this.”

JIMMY, WE TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM THE BEACH

OKAY, WHO GAVE THE ACID TO THE CAT?

Click here for cat drama

MIASMA OF DISBELIEF

The President makes a ineffectual TV address. Oil CEOs appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee and display blind ignorance. A helicopter dices the night air over my apartment. Meanwhile crude oil still hemorrhages massively into the Gulf of Mexico without a tomorrow, while the estimates climb, killing the seas as though it was some prequel to Soylent Green, and all BP seems able to focus on is public relations spin and limiting their liabilities. So far – if witnesses are to be believed – they have manipulated Google, removed dead wildlife to prevent the carnage being filmed, and now they are refusing to supply clean-up workers with hazmat protective clothing, and threaten them with firing if they bring their own. Supposedly this is so BP will make no tacit admission that the oil and dispersants pose a health hazard that might be used in a court of law against them. I no longer know what to think. How long is it now? How long have we floated in this miasma of disbelief? 58 days? Oh mama, is this really the end? Is there any way out of this horror, or are we hearing the whimper with which the world ends? Is that Chicken Little I see, coming down the road, carrying a chunk of sky?

Click here for Cat Power

The secret word is Desperate

DOC’S DATING TIPS #2

(Anonymous was right. These do have a Jim Thompson vibe.)

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 77

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Eyebrows were raised, even among the Frozdicks, when Imelda married Univac.

TALK YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS ONE

Our pal Wendy sent over the following story with the comment “try claiming this on insurance.”

“If you've ever driven between Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, on I-75 then you probably saw the six-story King of Kings statue featuring Jesus coming out of a lake with hands raised in front of the Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio. Monday night the statue was destroyed by fire after being struck by lightning. Monroe fire chief Mark Neu told the CNN Belief Blog he's never seen anything like the fire in his 32 years as chief. He said the 62-foot statue had a steel frame and was wrapped in Styrofoam and covered with a fiberglass coating to protect it. At 11:16 last night, the fire department got the call the statue had been hit by lighting and was on fire. "It spread from the statue to the amphitheater," he said. "There was heavy damage to the amphitheater where the stature backed up to. It was a fast-moving fire. We’re looking at $700,000 worth of damage." (Click here for more and a video)

Click here for Blind Willie Johnson

Click here for Nick Cave

The secret word is Odin

GIVE THE DOLPHIN AN iPAD

Our friend Aeswiren sent over this story of the dolphin with a computer. Damn. Maybe they’ll take over. They couldn’t make more of a mess than humanity has.

“The fact that there is a dolphin using an iPad is perhaps less amazing than the surprise that Apple’s marketing department had nothing to do with it. Yes, Merlin the dolphin has an iPad, and he and his trainer are using it to better understand each other’s communication patterns. If successful, the Apple gadget may help break the dolphin-human language barrier. Ever since the debut of the iPad, there have a plethora of cats, dogs, birds and mice playing with the Apple gadget. Though some, like the amazing cat Iggy, seem to demonstrate a level of self-awareness about the iPad, Merlin is the first mammal to use it as a learning tool. The innovative program was the brainchild of dolphin researcher Jack Kassewitz of Speak Dolphin, an organization dedicated to unlocking the secrets of cetacean communication. Kassewitz explains: The use of the iPad is part of our continuing search to find a suitable touchscreen technology which the dolphins can activate with the tip of their rostrums or beaks … We think that once the dolphins get the hang of the touchscreen, we can let them choose from a wide assortment of symbols to represent objects, actions and even emotions. The researchers have found a way to waterproof the iPad and are now using it to help Merlin — an animal that lives in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico — to make associations between physical objects and digital representations of those objects. The next step will be to layer in verbs and prepositions, making the dream of interactive communication with the brainiest animals on the planet a true possibility.”

Click here for Humpbacked Whales

DOC’S DATING TIPS #1

(Lifted from Brusquelles)

Click here for John Lee Hooker

SPACE OPERA

DON’T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY? (Tuesday Finale)

That's all, folks!

I’LL BE ON TV…

…but only in the UK
The show is called Rude Britannia and it starts up tonight on BBC Four. I didn’t receive the heads-up in time to warn you about the first episode that aired tonight at 9pm on BBC Four. The second is tomorrow (Tuesday 15th June) at the same time. Episode 3 (which is the one I’m – talking about the comic book Nasty Tales and the 1971 obscenity prosecution against it) will go out on Wednesday 16th June at 9pm. (Click here for a preview.)

THE BODY OF BIERCE

Our pals at LOWFI have just posted a lengthy discourse by Brad Steiger on the legendary Ambrose Bierce…

“In the San Francisco of 1876, Ambrose Bierce reigned as unchallenged literary king, the best known writer west of the Rockies. Some of the contemporaries who nourished their lights in Bierce’s shadow are much better known today. Bret Harte, Jack London, and Joaquin Miller not only rate larger space in the textbooks, but their works remain easily available. Of Bierce’s voluminous writings, only a collection of short stories, In the Midst of Life, and fragments of The Devil’s Dictionary are easily obtainable. But if Bierce’s literary endeavors have not stood the test of time as well as those of certain of his contemporaries, he still enjoys a last laugh, because the mystery of his strange disappearance is better known than the entire life histories of Harte, London, and Miller.” (Click here for the whole thing)

And to give the story more heft, it comes hot on the heels of how…

“A construction worker in Chihuahua, Mexico unearthed what appear to be the remains of writer Ambrose Bierce from the basement of an old bordello demolished to make way for condominiums. Bierce scholars are excited about the unexpected discovery, considering that nearly a century of speculation as to what happened to the writer may finally be brought to an end. Rumored to have mysteriously disappeared in 1913 while investigating the Mexican revolution in his later years, 'Bitter Bierce' was well known in America for his disenchantment with politics, war, capitalism and his most favored target of all, human nature.”

Click here for the Death Proof Coasters

IF I HADN’T SMOKED ALL THAT DOPE I MIGHT STILL HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING OF MATH

Click here for Chuck

DON’T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY? (Monday Extra)

GRATUITOUS BARDOT

Click here for mambo

SUNDAY BREAKFAST

It has to be a while since I breakfasted on hors d’oeuvres and champagne. How long has it been? How long is the dream, girl? How far can it be extended? Too much of late has become just a matter of retreat into fantasy. But maybe that is just as well since, throwing off the warm dead sheets of illiterate self-pity, Renquist V – which is now well under way – could prove to be the hardest fantasy into which I have ever retreated. The good fight must be fought while I fluctuate at dangerous keyboard frequencies between “This is brilliant” and “Michael, you are going certifiably crazy”, but always stretching for the correct crack in the tuning-fork tonality has never been a symptom of sanity. But I don’t despair. It is early days yet. Characters old and new are loosed to scrabble randomly across the star-studded sidewalk like the windup toys of a indigent street vendor of Newtonian clockwork. Smile when you pray that, pilgrim. Only I know how clueless and simultaneously confident I am that it will all come together in the end and I won’t have to nuke the whole lot of them, because I did that on one occasion and it really pissed off many of you gentle readers. But, in the meantime, remind me to tell you about the Fermi Paradox and the Zoo Hypothesis before the ancient wistfulness silences me.

Click here for Tom Petty

MARILYN SEZ...

“Everyone needs a healthy and wholesome breakfast.”

Click here for Jim

MEANWHILE, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN…

…someone doesn’t feel like breakfast.

The secret word is Slutwalk

Click here for Memphis Minnie

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Frozdick family events had a tendency to jovial violence.

DON’T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY? (Sunday Special)

DON’T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY? (Saturday Special)

It’s been a hard week and I’m attempting to rest up a bit, but here are a couple of fun items that showed up in the last day or so. And also one that’s kinda serious.

"Published during the time of U.S. participation in the Korean War, Junior Books’ Atomic War! Speculated on the possibilities of World War III. Despite the series’ stated purpose to warn against the horrors of atomic warfare, it did just the opposite. In its stories, U.S. forces employing tactical and strategic nuclear weapons triumphed repeatedly over the Communists.” According to Scott Shaw at Oddball Comics: “This is one of many comics that reflected our national paranoia during the Cold War of the 1950s and early 1960s. The cover depicts the atomic destruction of Manhattan (note the crumbling Empire State and Chrysler Buildings.) Here's a quote from the issue's first story, "Sneak Attack." "Look upon the pictures of our giant cities hundred of years in the building, smashed by the atom-bomb, and say: this shall not come to pass! More than ever today, only a strong America can prevent this from becoming a reality!" (Lifted from Wikisource.org )
Tune in tomorrow for another Atomic War! cover.

Click here for Chrissie

The secret word is Fallout

DARTH VADER’S PSYCHIATRIC PROFILE

From the journal Psychiatry Research…

"He presented impulsivity and difficulty controlling his anger and alternated between idealisation and devaluation (of his Jedi mentors). Permanently afraid of losing his wife, he made frantic efforts to avoid her abandonment and went as far as betraying his former Jedi companions. He also experienced two dissociative episodes secondary to stressful events. One occurred after his mother's death, when he exterminated a whole tribe of Tuskan people, while the other one took place just after he turned to the dark side. He slaughtered all the Jedi younglings before voicing paranoid thoughts concerning his former mentor and his wife. Finally, the films depicted his quest to find himself, and his uncertainties about who he was. Turning to the dark side and changing his name could be interpreted as a sign of identity disturbance." 

Click here for Eddie Izzard

AND DON’T FORGET THE NERVINE!

Click here for the Flaming Groovies
Click here for the Stones

SPACE OPERA (While on the subject of Ol’ Darth)

DOOMWATCH

Click here (or wait until Monday if you don’t want to be plunged into depression.)

THE DAY THE THOUGHT POLICE CAME TO SCHOOL

Drug Abuse Resistance Education better know as D.A.R.E.. I used to see the fucking bumper stickers everywhere, but having little or no contact with school age kids, I didn’t know just how insidious its thought police tactics really were until I lifted this story from reddit.com.

“It must have been in 1987 or so. I was in 2nd grade. the D.A.R.E. officer was paying our class an educational visit. The officer told us of all the evils of drugs, especially marijuana. Weed seemed to be the main focus of the the officer's attention. He was using an overhead projector when he showed us various types of paraphernalia. "If you see a pipe like this, or a clear baggy with this green plant in it, it's marijuana," the officer told us. "If you've seen this before, you should let me know right away so I can make sure no one gets in any trouble," we were told. Then came the next slide, a photo of a marijuana plant. The officer explained to the classroom full of seven year olds, that this was a pesky weed. In fact, usually it just grows wild, with most people never realizing that this highly illegal plant is growing on their property. He asked us if any of us recognized the plant. One boy did, Daniel. When pressed, though, Danny seemed to regret piping up. The cop told him "If you have one of these plants, I need to know so that we can get it out of there before anyone gets in trouble. If there's one in your yard, and you tell us, we'll just remove it and no one will be in any trouble, but if we find it on our own, everyone goes to jail." That's when Danny told the officer about the plants like that in his back yard. That was the last time I ever saw Daniel. A few days later I overheard my parents discussing how his parents had been arrested for growing pot. Now I am 30. I have a son about to turn 10. We have had the "D.A.R.E. talk." Basically, this is the talk explaining to him that what Daddy does at home is Daddy's business, never tell anyone. Now, usually the cops shoot for the 7-8 year old kids so they can get the info before the parents have had time to properly educate their kids about police deception. Teach your kids that the D.A.R.E. officer is not their friend, and that he will lie to you. Tell them this story, like I did. "Don't be a Daniel," I told my son.”

Click here for Uncle Bill

Click here for Uncle Frank

The secret word is Snitch

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A VIDEO THAT HAS BEEN RELOADED ONE THOUSAND TIMES?

Sure you would. Just click here.

“This piece explores the 'photocopy effect', where upon repeated copies the object begin to accumulate the idiosyncrasies of the medium doing the copying. Full words: I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice as well as the image of myself, and I am going to upload it to YouTube, rip it from YouTube, and upload it again and again, until the original characteristics of both my voice and my image are destroyed. What you will see and hear, then, are the artifacts inherent in the video codec of both YouTube and the mp4 format I convert it to on my computer. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a digital fact, but more as a way to eliminate all human qualities my speech and image might have.”

This is, of course, also a fairly precise analog of why we get old and die.

Click here for the Dead

SECURITY IS THE NEW PRIVACY

HOLD ON, I’M COMING!

Here at Doc40 we are militantly pro-science, but there are times when science really doesn’t help and causes us to sigh and demand of the vacant air, “How the fuck did they get the funding for that nonsense?” A recent example was when a journal called Archives of Sexual Behavior ran a report called “Evidence to Suggest that Copulatory Vocalizations in Women Are Not a Reflexive Consequence of Orgasm.” As you will see from the following excerpt, the combo of language and sexism manages to do the impossible and make the whole idea of orgasm grimly depressing.

“The current studies were conducted in order to investigate the phenomenon of copulatory vocalizations and their relationship to orgasm in women. Data were collected from 71 sexually active heterosexual women (M age = 21.68 years +/- .52) recruited from the local community through opportunity sampling. The studies revealed that orgasm was most frequently reported by women following self-manipulation of the clitoris, manipulation by the partner, oral sex delivered to the woman by a man, and least frequently during vaginal penetration. More detailed examination of responses during intercourse revealed that, while female orgasms were most commonly experienced during foreplay, copulatory vocalizations were reported to be made most often before and simultaneously with male ejaculation. These data together clearly demonstrate a dissociation of the timing of women experiencing orgasm and making copulatory vocalizations and indicate that there is at least an element of these responses that are under conscious control, providing women with an opportunity to manipulate male behavior to their advantage.”

I am now so fucking old that my memories of being manipulated by vocalized female orgasm are kinda hazy (and were probably hazy back then too.) Fortunately Annalee Newitz takes this dour nonsense apart. Click here.

Click here for Buddy

Click here for Frankie

The secret word is Yes!

SECOND LIVE?

Back in the 20th century I wrote a novel called The Feelies in which virtual reality was presented as a fascist-groove-trap, Darwin-eugenic thing in that those who opted for reality survived and those who immersed themselves in a virtual sensory fantasy died. (After about three months.) Thus, when folks started telling me about Second Life and suggesting I try it, my misgivings were such that I never bothered. Then, this morning, our good friend Some Girl sent me a link to a story in The LA Times about artists doing shows on Second Life, and that really perked my interest, especially the added postscript, “I have to admit, I would love to see how a Mick Farren gig would go down in cyberspace. the avatars alone would rival the Star Wars cantina, methinks.”
A few years ago Andy Colquhoun and I did a live webcast one of our dog-poet guitar and poetry shows. This involved showing up at the club called Spaceland in LA shortly after noon and performing to an empty room for a webcam that relayed our images to an event in the UK, where it was nine in the evening and the audience was waiting. Strange but interesting, and strange but interesting has always been both attractive and one of the names of the game.
Unfortunately the story in The LA Times was so badly written that it gave no real insight into what a Second Life performance might involve. Any worthwhile reporter would have participated in Second Life and described the entire experience. (Hell, I would have – gleefully.) Thus I am researching the possibilities. I figure it must be possible to something more creative than the pitiful stereotypes depicted above. I don’t know if it will come to anything, but investigation is good for the brain. You can click here for the lame story from the Times, and I’d welcome all suggestions, information, thoughts, and offers of help.

Click here for a poor dog-poet

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Lois Frozdick didn’t know the power of kryptonite and, even after she’d brought down Superman, she didn’t care much either.

DON’T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?

Click here for Public Enemy