AND THE ROCKETS’ RED GLARE/THE BOMBS BURSTING IN AIR...

Happy Fourth of July to all our American comrades as they recall their revolution. Rockets, ribs, hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day, while Larry the Mattress King dresses up as George Washington in his TV commercials. The Empire has staggered through another year. And now Sarah Palin wants to be president. OMG

The secret word is Independence

And, for some notes on independence, click here.

WHAT IS THE ABSURD WOMAN UP TO NOW?

My response to the news was one of profane bafflement. Palin is resigning as Governor of Alaska? Say what? If anything, it was even weirder than the announcement that she was running for VP. Does she really think that for the next three years, she can bounce around the planet – without any tangible powerbase – and wind up being elected president of what would have to be a totally insane superpower in 2012?
The timing of this move is deeply odd all on it’s own. Dropping this bizarre bomb on the Friday before a national holiday, when the majority of the media are heading for the beach, the golf course, or firing up the charcoal is strange in the extreme. MSNBC had basically shut down, a skeleton CNN was focused on Michael Jackson, and who the hell knew what was going on at Fox? The Friday bombshell is usually a political tactic that’s employed when some major, career-threatening scandal is about to break, and it’s used in the vain hope of softening the shit/fan impact before Monday comes around.
Could a Palin super-scandal be up the line? It’s infinitely possible. As Todd S. Purdum wrote in Vanity Fair – “Palin is unlike any other national figure in modern American life – neither Anna Nicole Smith nor Margaret Chase Smith but a phenomenon all her own. The clouds of tabloid conflict and controversy that swirl around her and her extended clan—the surprise pregnancies, the two-bit blood feuds, the tawdry in-laws and common-law kin caught selling drugs or poaching game—give her family a singular status in the rogues’ gallery of political relatives. By comparison, Billy Carter, Donald Nixon, and Roger Clinton seem like avatars of circumspection. Palin’s life has sometimes played out like an unholy amalgam of Desperate Housewives and Northern Exposure.”
In the meantime, the nation can only wait and barbeque while the madness of the Republican Party becomes close to hallucinatory.

(If you want to read the Vanity Fair piece, click here. For video of the bizarre Palin doubletalk, click here.)

The secret word is Curiouser

SOMETIMES THE ONLY SOLUTION IS CHEMICAL

THIS IS AL FRANKEN

This is Al Franken. I never liked Al Franken. An asshole. A tiresome wizeass blowhard. On the original SNL he was never as funny as he though he was which is why they never let him work with Belushi. And later he almost wrecked Air America by never being as smart as he thought he was – and dull to boot. I think it’s safe to say I loath Al Franken, but now he’s a fucking senator and – supposedly a liberal – and I’m expected to be pleased because he completes the magic filibuster-proof majority of sixty, and Barack will be able to push through a proper national heath service. Yeah. Right. If we live that long.

The secret word is Goodnight

Karl Malden -- RIP

SPACE OPERA

IT’S JUST A HOAX…

…BY THOSE LYIN’ SCIENTISTS

In Washington the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. It was flawed to the point of being dismissed by many environmentalists as a barely acceptable watered-down compromise that may yet be watered-down some more by the time it gets through the bought-and-paid-for Senate. At best – and like far too many Obama creations – it is a faltering and feeble step in approximately the right direction. And even that was only achieved after having to listen to all the poisonous crap of characters like Representative Paul Broun of Georgia who, to loud applause from the right, claimed that climate change is nothing but a “hoax” that is “perpetrated out of the scientific community.” This prompted Paul Krugman to respond in Monday’s New York Times…

“To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research. The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.
Thus researchers at M.I.T., who were previously predicting a temperature rise of a little more than 4 degrees by the end of this century, are now predicting a rise of more than 9 degrees. Why? Global greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than expected; some mitigating factors, like absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans, are turning out to be weaker than hoped; and there’s growing evidence that climate change is self-reinforcing — that, for example, rising temperatures will cause some arctic tundra to defrost, releasing even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Temperature increases on the scale predicted by the M.I.T. researchers and others would create huge disruptions in our lives and our economy. As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves — the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation — may become annual or biannual events.
In other words, we’re facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify failing to act?” Click here for the whole column.

Failing to act, however, seems to be the keynote of times. Times that we expected to be a frenzy of New-Deal salvation. And failing to act may well continue to be the modus operandi until those of us who still demand change make such a loud and bloody nuisance of ourselves we finally have to be acknowledged.

The secret word is Noisy

DOC’S HEALTHIER LIVING PROGRAM

“So how much cholesterol do you figure there is in rattlesnake?"

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

Those where days, my friends. When Kellogg dusted their cereals with amphetamine and moms were happy all day and docile. Just ask Lucy Jordan.

TAKE THE EMOTIONAL HIGH GROUND

For some time now I’ve suffered from this unfocused fear that, here in the new 21st century depression, it all looked too fucking normal. No oakies. No railroad bums. No starving kids with flies buzzing around their eyes. While friends and acquaintances lose jobs, run out of money, and look quietly but increasing more desperate, the superficial world goes on with an appearance that everything – and by that I mean corporate capitalism – goes on as if there was no cause for concern. Although worrying, the feeling was sufficiently nebulous that I hadn’t managed to actually write anything about it. And now Munz has sent me this on-the-money piece by Chris Hedges from Common Dreams I guess I don’t need to because Hedges – give or take a point – voices many of the these uneasy thoughts.

“The ability of the corporate state to pacify the country by extending credit and providing cheap manufactured goods to the masses is gone. The pernicious idea that democracy lies in the choice between competing brands and the freedom to accumulate vast sums of personal wealth at the expense of others has collapsed. The conflation of freedom with the free market has been exposed as a sham. The travails of the poor are rapidly becoming the travails of the middle class, especially as unemployment insurance runs out and people get a taste of Bill Clinton's draconian welfare reform. And class warfare, once buried under the happy illusion that we were all going to enter an age of prosperity with unfettered capitalism, is returning with a vengeance.
Our economic crisis-despite the corporate media circus around the death of Michael Jackson or Gov. Mark Sanford's marital infidelity or the outfits of Sacha Baron Cohen's latest incarnation, Brüno-barrels forward. And this crisis will lead to a period of profound political turmoil and change. Those who care about the plight of the working class and the poor must begin to mobilize quickly or we will lose our last opportunity to save our embattled democracy. The most important struggle will be to wrest the organs of communication from corporations that use mass media to demonize movements of social change and empower proto-fascist movements such as the Christian right.” Click here to read the rest.

The secret word is Deception

HOLD ON TO THE ROMANCE OF THE LEFT

In a frozen photographic moment a young woman glows, and high on the nobility of her cause, prepares to turn back the fascists. In a matter of hours she may well be dead. But for us she is immortal.

SPACE OPERA

CALL THIS A CROP CIRCLE?

I gotta tell you, neighbours, I like a good crop circle circle as well as the next humanoid. (So much so I'll risk repeating myself. Scroll back to last Friday.) And I would never act the skeptic. Quite the reverse. Given the right combination of drugs and alcohol, I’ll believe pretty much anything. Not only that, but I know the phenomenon folklore and will talk molecular-level stalk-bending well into the dawn. This is why I have serious problems with what might be wrong with the above picture, that appeared in London in the conservative Daily Telegraph (supplied by our own Elf Hellion), and came with a report so uninformative that it verged on vapid…

"The 400-foot design was discovered in a barley field in Yatesbury near Devizes and depicts the mythical phoenix reborn as it rises from the ashes. Investigators claim more formations are referencing the possibility of a cataclysmic event occurring on December 21, 2012, which coincides with the end of the ancient Mayan calendar. The Mayans believed civilisation exists within a series of earth cycles of 144,000 days each with the 13th expiring in December 2012, resulting in Armageddon. Crop circle enthusiast Karen Alexander, from Gosport, Hants, said: "The phoenix is a mythical creature which symbolises rebirth and a new era in many cultures across the world.
"Within the crop circle community many believe the designs are constantly referring to December 21 and its aftermath. "This could be interpreted as the human race or earth rising again after a monumental event.
"The patterns are becoming more intricate with every find and it is exciting to think how they are going to evolve by the time we get to 2012."
Recent crop circles have included giant jelly-fish and one image discovered in Wiltshire in June which experts dubbed the most 'mind boggling' they had ever come across.
The formation, measuring 150ft in diameter, is apparently a coded image representing the first 10 digits, 3.141592654, of pi." (Click here to read more if you want to.)

My response was a disbelieving what the fuck? And where’s the pic of the circle defining pi? And what does a phoenix really have to do with 2012, and what is this thing anyway? It’s stylization is such a narrow, 20th century, neo-heraldic conformity that it seems hardly possible it is of either extraterrestrial or paranormal origin – even the wings of the Nazca bird image are more akin to alien art. And wouldn't it have taken days, if not very obvious weeks, for human hoaxers to create such an elaboration. Okay, so it looks like a phoenix. But it could also be the eagle of the US Federal government – begging all manner of weird-ass interpretation – or even a Nazi war eagle unfurling it’s wings, heralding the reincarnation of Hitler. It might also have been nice to have a reporter fly over the thing to give us all an idea of scale, and that it isn’t just Photoshop fakery. But no. (As John Belushi used to remark.) No wonder the mainstream media are going broke. They want to play in our strange, vacant-lot, junk-yard of a secret garden but they have neither clue nor education. (Nor the wallabies, for that matter.)

The secret word is Gullible

CAT FROM MEATLOAF

Some of you will just want to revisit the B. Kliban classic while others may need the essential information. (And on the subject of cats, Finn is one year old today.)

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Cousin Zenobia and Cousin Sioban exercise their duckies.

REMEMBER STONEWALL

(And those long-gone days when freaks were freaks, gay straight, stoned, or just plain confused.)

REMEMBER STONEWALL

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the spontaneous uprising by street punk gays during a raid by the NYPD Public Morals Squad on the Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-owned gay bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. From the Stonewall Inn, enough-is-enough gay fury spread to the surrounding streets, sparking days of rioting during which gay men, lesbians, and drag queens fought the New York cops to a standstill, and brought the world to an understanding that homophobia would would never again go unchallenged. And if you’re not up to speed, click here to learn some history.

“When did you ever see a fag fight back?... Now, times were a-changin'. Tuesday night was the last night for bullshit.... Predominantly, the theme (w)as, "this shit has got to stop!" – anonymous Stonewall riots participant

“You know, the guys there were so beautiful—they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago.” – Allen Ginsberg

"We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We don't wear underwear/ We show our pubic hairs” – A chant from the nights of rage

"Do You Think Homosexuals Are Revolting? You Bet Your Sweet Ass We Are!" – Heading on a flier distributed by the newly formed Gay Liberation Front

The secret word is Dolores

SPACE OPERA

JUNKIE WALLABIES MAKE CROP CIRCLES

So – while thanking the deities it’s Friday – we wait to see what exactly the coroner decides laid Michael Jackson low, try to imagine what the hell the funeral is going to look like, and note in periphery how po’ Michael’s passing temporarily wiped South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his gaucho senorita-on-the-side off the news cycle. With all that going on, ol’ Doc – working on the principle that nothing succeeds like drugs and furry animals – can only spin the tale of the junkie wallabies sent by both Valerie and Facebook Aaron…
“Wallabies in Tasmania — the island off the south coast of Australia — have been accused of hopping into the state’s hundreds of commercial poppy fields, getting “high as a kite”, and then stumbling around forming “crop circles” in the paddocks.
In an amusing exchange during a parliamentary Budget estimates committee in Hobart on Wednesday, the Tasmanian Attorney-General, Lara Giddings, was addressing security issues at the state’s poppy plantations when she made the drug accusations against the island’s wallabies.
“The one interesting bit I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting high as a kite and going around in circles.”
Click here and here for more.

AND SNACKS TURN WEIRD

The secret word is Footsy

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

THIS IS TURNING OUT TO BE A VERY WEIRD DAY

MICHAEL JACKSON – RIP
FARRAH FAWCETT – RIP
SKY SAXON – RIP

GET WELL, BOSS GOODMAN

Our great and magnificent friend, Boss Goodman, is back in the hospital. Seemingly he’s doing okay, but our thoughts and hopes are with him. (Details are private until someone tells me otherwise but I stress again that he’s doing okay.)

HOPPY, THE CAT FROM HELL

The delightful Valerie sent us this tale of mindless feline violence, but we have not allowed Finn to read it…

“You don't want to mess with Hoppy.
A pet that has twice raced out from its south Minneapolis yard to attack passing dogs and their owners was returned home Tuesday after Animal Care and Control impounded it for the second time in two years.
Hoppy is a cat.
Reports of cats attacking dogs in Minneapolis are rare, and last week Hoppy became one of just two cats currently labeled "potentially dangerous," said Dan Niziolek, manager of Minneapolis Animal Care and Control. By contrast, the city has a list of about 140 dogs that have been declared a threat.
The felonious feline ran afoul of the law in fall 2007, when a man walking his dog said he was charged by a large black cat in the 3900 block of Drew Avenue South. The man, Thomas Buchberger, reported that he fell to the ground and was bitten and scratched several times before Hoppy let up. Buchberger's dog, Walden, ran to the safety of the middle of the street.
The city impounded Hoppy, an adult male, and ordered him destroyed, but his owner, 82-year-old Leo Noltimier, got the ruling overturned, according to city records.
Then, last month, Hoppy did it again, according to the city. A second victim, Russ King, told the city he was walking his dog, a Maltese named Charlie, past the same house on the evening of May 20 when a cat matching Hoppy's description pounced. When King scooped up Charlie to get the dog out of harm's way, the cat scratched King instead.
When Animal Control came looking for Hoppy after that attack, Noltimier refused to hand over his pet, prompting city workers to get a search warrant for the cat.
Calls to Noltimier's house were not answered Tuesday evening.”
Hoppy was taken into custody earlier this month and held for several days, Niziolek said. He was released Tuesday on several conditions. Hoppy has been microchipped and given a rabies shot. Noltimier must register the cat with the city each year. When outside, the cat must wear a harness with a leash held by an adult, and he must be kenneled or shut in a room when visitors are in the house. If Hoppy acts up again -- and "hopefully it won't," Niziolek said -- the city could order him destroyed.
Last year, the city had 268 cases of animals that were declared a threat or ordered destroyed, Niziolek said. Just one was a cat.
The only other "potentially dangerous" cat, Ralph, lives on the 4000 block of Beard Avenue S., Niziolek said. Ralph also attacked a dog."

The secret word is Hissssss

ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING (A photographic study)

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 97)

In which Marilyn, heavily disguised, disgusted with the status quo, fleeing the Dionysian anarchy, and carrying her own hat, also leaves the building.

(THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN NOW HAS IT’S OWN PAGE SO THE WHOLE THING CAN BE READ WITHOUT SCROLLING. CLICK HERE)

HOW I SOLD OUT THE REVOLUTION

This picture from 1973 is pure ego, but it kinda symbolizes one of the major problems of the 1960’s counterculture that has most recently surfaced in the comments on Monday’s post Flip To Reality. The shameful truth is that, somewhere around 1975, we freaks made the classic revolutionary misstep and allowed not only the means of production, but even those of distribution, to slip back into the hands of totalitarian corporate management. And that is the root cause, as Roldo notes, “for outlaw/Underground artists finding so few gigs.”
If, as he says “economic crucifixion does seem the current method-of-choice” it has a lengthy and decidedly sorry history. Between approximately 1966 and 1975, give or take, the counterculture did it’s damnedest to run it’s own mom and pop store, walking a hard-to-follow line between cooption, prosecution, and hip capitalism. We printed our own propaganda, we dyed our own ties, we smuggled our own dope, and where the squares gathered, we sold retail. Jobs for hippies were generated so they didn’t need to join the Manson Family.
By the mid-seventies, however, a serious combination of weariness and greed had set in. I was as much to blame as anyone. On the music side of things, The Deviants had packaged and distributed the first album PTOOFF! ourselves, but later we’d look for a deal with a major label because it made life easier. IT, Nasty Tales and the other print publications with which I’d was involved had been independently organized from paste-up to newsstand. After years, however, of police raids, poverty, and preparing for one bullshit trial after another, the idea of writing for a corporate music tabloid like the NME seemed damned attractive. Of course, NME was owned by the IPC mediaglomerate, but I rationalized that there weren’t too many content clashes with management, and punk was on the horizon, and I getting to promote the shit out of the Ramones, the Pistols, and The Clash, and also make records of my own. How bad could it be? But something very crucial was in the process of being lost. What remained of the counterculture was hard wired to global total media – Every Boredom Entertained – and only survived if handled accordingly. South Park. The revolution will be animated.
Thus when Matt and others commented on the need for a broad, ground-up revision of our ideas, it felt like a return to ideas long lost. A whole lot of mom & pop micro-economies functioning on a local level. “We can choose to be active Americans in our local communities who build our direct economies rather than join the entrenched top-down Republican-Democrat-Corporate collusion (no matter who their symbolic savior/figurehead is at any given moment).” This may actually be the path out of totalitarian capitalism.

The secret word is Comintern

Nigel Cross provided the pic.

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

The rest of the family were never comfortable around Mandrake and Lothar. And Penny was only tolerated as the lone Frozdick penguin.

THE CASE OF THE $134 BILLION

The following disturbing tale was sent over by MrMR…
“It’s a plot better suited for a John Le Carre novel. Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear. Are these would-be smugglers agents of Kim Jong Il stashing North Korea’s cash in a Swiss vault? Was the money meant for terrorists looking to buy nuclear warheads? Is Japan dumping its dollars secretly? Are the bonds real or counterfeit? The implications of the securities being legitimate would be bigger than investors may realize. At a minimum, it would suggest that the U.S. risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale.
Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia. These men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest U.S. creditors.” (Click here for more.)

The secret word is Slush

“Rumors circulate that Farren is becoming concerned about his health. That would be sooo tedious. We only liked him for his recklessness.”

A BRIEF HISTORY OF RABBIT EARS Part 3

The Rotwang M90 full body suit was always very suspect. And those who wore it even more so.

FLIP TO REALITY

One might think this is nothing more than a 1930s girlie book with an anatomically implausible cover, but, if you look very carefully, it’s just possible to see a small NRA logo on the right-hand side of the page. Part of the First New Deal, the NRA was a Federal Agency that gave the Roosevelt Administration the power to develop voluntary agreements on work hours, pay rates, and price fixing. The NRA, symbolized by the Blue Eagle (a stylized thunderbird) was popular with workers. Businesses that supported the NRA put the symbol in their shop windows and on their packages. That the Blue Eagle should be featured on the back-then equivalent of soft porn is an odd but telling confirmation of the trust and loyalty that FDR enjoyed among the American workers during the New Deal. Oh that Barak Obama could manage the same.
On November 6th, 2008, two days after the American people directed Barack to the White House, the tabloid LA CityBeat published my cover-story love-letter to the new President Elect, in which I likened him jokingly to Superman, but unequivocally demanded that he counter the corrupt collapse of free-market capitalism with massive, FDR-style public works and job creation. It was maybe an arrogant demand for a writer of gothic novels and one-time rock & roller, but I did have Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman at my back.
As I write this now, moving into the end of the first six months of the Obama administration, I see very little of either what I hoped for, or was tacitly promised during the campaign. LA CityBeat is history. Some 6000 writers are out of work and most without prospects.
My TV is a clogged artery of bickering politicians, with Obama under fire from both a dangerously insane GOP and turncoat, bought-and-paid-for Dems. We are being shown no awe-inspiring public works, no valiant and visible job creation, or any clear and present hope being offered to the unemployed and evicted. Layoffs continue, unions are sacrificed for the survival of corporations, and zombie banks dare to declare profits while putting the screws to their customers. Peace is nowhere near the horizon. Healthcare likewise. Obama is amused by the idea of legal, revenue-bearing marijuana, and any minor moves in the direction of a new socialism are tentative and apologetic.
Last Friday Bill Maher brought progressive dissatisfaction with the current state of Barack-Knows-Best into the open with a comedy bit that instructed those who accuse Obama of being a Marxist to realize that he’s “not even a liberal”, and explained how the Democrats were the new Republicans. “Shouldn’t there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military budget, a party that is straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal health care, legalizing pot, and steep direct taxing of polluters?”
I’m still not saying that Barack Obama isn’t astute and talented, but he may not be The One for whom we all worked so hard. Maybe we believed too hard just to get rid of McCain-Palin. Barack may still turn out to be a creditable head of state, but he is looking less and less like the Superman who could ease us through what may ultimately be the collapse of capitalism. I fear many of us will have to face reality and start making our own demands. As loudly as is needed.

The secret word is Tarnished

PROTEST OR ROLLERBALL?

Can one be a connoisseur of riots? I have been in one or two in my time, and, as the pictures come in of the theocracy clearing the streets of Tehran and, I guess, attempting to put the djinn of dissent back in the bottle, while the shrieking US domestic right cries freedom as though nothing like every happened or could ever happen here, my attention is drawn past the politics to all those riot police on motorcycles. I have never seen anything like it before, and it would seem to add an entire Rollerball aspect to business of civil unrest and urban mob protest. I also figure that any rioters worth their Che t-shirts will rapidly figure a way to unseat and upend a cop on a bike – maybe by the use of long poles – and this new threat, although highly photogenic, will be effectively neutralized.

THE UNDERGROUND PRESS REFUSES TO DIE

Without risking a total lapse of modesty, I think I can justly claim I lent a willing hand in the founding of the international weekly tabloid press. In the beginning, it was known as the “underground press” but later – after it kissed the ass of the advertisers one time too many – it changed its hooker name to “alternative.” Alas it is now all but gone -- destroyed in no small part by its own management attempts trying to ape the corporate, and the way in which these efforts culminated in the long-term agenda of the porcine Michael Lacey of Village Voice Media to sell what was left of the once u/g press to Goldman Sachs.
For the first time since 1970, I find myself with a bee in my bonnet – in this case that we may be buying too totally into “Barack Knows Best” – and nowhere to exercise it as a cover story on cheap newsprint. And this is really a loss to the world and blow to my ego. On the other hand, our pal DH has just clued us in on the IT Database. IT (originally called International Times until there was a lawsuit) was maybe the fifth or sixth 1960s-style u/g tabloid on the planet, and this data base – coordinated by the tireless Mike Lesser, and abetted by Miles, Hoppy, others – is truly amazing offering facsimiles of every page of every issue, at a time when a complete set of the real thing sells for $3000-$5000. (Click here for the full wonder.)

The secret word is Letraset

RICHARD BRANSON BUILDS HIS SPACEPORT

Almost two years after the first plans were announced construction has finally begun in New Mexico on Spaceport America. The spaceport, which will serve as the launch pad for Virgin Galactic flights, is the first of its kind anywhere in the world, and represents the first serious commitment of infrastructure to manned commercial spaceflight. Right now Richard Branson only has two spaceships, barely capable of achieving sustained orbit, but, after the track record of Virgin Records, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Rail, Virgin Megastores, and even Virgin Cola, growth would seem inevitable. And, in a strange connection with the story above, Branson began his galactic empire building with an underground mag called The Student. (Click here for more.)

“Very soon the world will wise up that there’s more to being a writer than merely owning a computer.”

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE DAY OF RAGE

Back in the 20th century, I spent the nights before a couple of major demonstrations in eerily quiet contemplation, wondering if the end of the following day would find me beaten, bloody, or worse. In many ways it was like the eve of a battle, except that, in a battle there is some semblance of matching the enemy weapon for weapon, while – as Jim Morrison pointed out – in a political demonstration, they have the guns and all we have is the numbers. It seems that Iran's opposition will go ahead with a planned rally on Saturday in Tehran despite a government warning against new protests, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s intimation that heads would be broken. The rally will be held at 4:00 pm (11.30 GMT/3.30 PST) at Tehran's Enghelab square, so we do not have long to wait to learn the outcome.

The secret breath is Bated

MEANWHILE, UP IN THE ANDES

While the world watches Iran, another conflict comes to a head in Peru where Indians have been protesting for two months against a series of laws which open up their communal rainforests to oil and gas companies. In the last few years more than 70% of the Amazon has been parcelled out to oil and gas companies for exploration, and a series of large-scale finds threaten to transform much of the Indians’ virgin forests. Similar schemes in neighbouring Ecuador have had a devastating effect on the rainforest, and led to chronic pollution and ill-health amongst the Indians who live there. Violent clashes on Friday between Amazon Indians blockading roads and rivers, and police and army units intent on breaking up the protests have left dozens of Indians, and at least 23 policemen, dead. Click here for the whole sorry tale.

SPACE OPERA

THE ROAD TRIP COMES HOME

Doc40 is back from journeying around the far-flung limits and safe back home. I was hoping for a little time to rest up, take stock, and make antique jokes about the tiredness of my arms before starting in with new posts and catching up on all the unanswered emails, but, on opening up the trusty desk-top, I found myself immediately enmeshed in yet more stupid nastiness…

HELP! GOV ARNOLD WANTS TO KILL US!

The following furious letter comes from our angry pal Elf Hellion…

URGENT – Help stop the murder for money scheme of California Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger who wants to balance the CA budget by killing shelter dogs and cats after only 3 days. The new 3 day kill rule isn't enough time for owners to find lost pets or animals to find new homes. You don't have to live in CA to help. Please... take a second and click here to send an email to the asshole governor, and your local reps (if you're in CA), it’s just a simple form and took me less than a minute. It doesn't matter if you live in CA, or even the US...! I don't understand... I'm a native of this state. We're last in education. We overthrew gay marriage. If we'd legalize weed (which I don't even smoke!) we'd have no budget deficit. Who are these morons running my state? It's enough to make me fucking move, out of the state, out of the country, just to be spiteful! He's already closing our state parks, and cancelled summer school. One out four latino girls drops out of high school to have a kid in CA. WTF??????????

The secret word is Emergency

CYBERPOSTCARD #4

Well, my dears, I'm glad to say that Barad Dur proved as warm and welcoming as ever, and the Hank Williams records are still on the jukebox in our favorite bar.

THE ROAD TRIP ROLLS

"Wish you were here!"

THE SWINE REMAIN THE SAME

Still on the road, Munz sent this to a prearranged pit-stop.

Click here to hear Buddy Holly being screwed by his record label live on the phone, and realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The suits fatten and creativity dies.

The secret word is Mutiny

A BRIEF HISTORY OF RABBIT EARS #2

This series has been shamelessly neglected during the protracted Doc40 road trip, but when Valerie came up with this rare example of the XM90 monster helmet (unfortunately without the matching gorilla suit) we had to pause and post.

SIXTY FIVE YEARS ON

Outside the roadtrip capsule, they are remembering D-Day. Not only does the destruction of Nazism pose a problem for anyone basically opposed to war, but, on a much more personal level, I have to wonder if I would have had what it took to do what these guys did?

The secret word is Beachhead

WHAT'S REAL AND WHAT IS NOT

Since I’ve never been exactly in the habit of taking vacations – I always figured, to do that, one had to be gainfully employed in the first place – I have been looking through the windshield of this mythic but quite actual Doc40 road trip with some fascination. The world seems a much calmer and more organic place away from the 24-hour news cycle and the manufactured crisis-de-jour, although this is not to say that the world of Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, and the Taliban is any the less real. It’s just that – when not caught in the immediate ebb and flow – it tends to recede and not so constantly and so petulantly demand my attention and emotional involvement. I know I will return to media perdition, but it feels so damn good to be away from it. (Pic from Valerie.)

The secret word is Relax

Koko Taylor – RIP

David Carradine -- RIP

BILLBOARDS ON THE LOST HIGHWAY

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Uncle Bill does not approve of the roadtrip and makes his attitude abundantly clear.

THE ROAD TRIP ROLLS

The Doc40 road trip rolls on, into the dust and into the distance. I know the posts have been short – if not skimpy -- but that’s the way of it when reporting from the fabled Lost Highway. Most of the characters are keeping up, although there are elements of the exercise that are akin to the proverbial herding of cats.

The secret word is Boldly

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Cousin Claudia stayed home to take care of her Seconal collection.

CYBERPOSTCARD #3

Mekonta is breathtaking as always. The weather is lovely. My hotel is the one exploding. Wish you were here.

MARMITE JESUS?

Jesus H. Christ. When the image follows one across all cultural divides, and appears in the lid of a jar of Marmite -- the unique British salty yeast spread -- you know the guy has to have something going for him despite all the trouble he's caused. Of course, the Brits are not gathering in their hundreds to worship at the Jesus jar. Those raised in what Eddie Izzard calls "the Murdering Bastard Religion" -- only invented to let Henry VIII dump a couple of surplus wives -- can't raise those levels of emmotion. (The image came from the wonderful Valerie.)

The secret word is Soldiers

IN ALL THE DELIS IN ALL THE WORLD...

A sandwich has been named after me! I am blown away. Like I was in old school show business. My Facebook pals Mike Dolan and Tim Napalm alerted me to the above menu posted in what Mike called “little indie coffee place called Cake Shop” on Ludlow Street in New York. The really odd part is that I actually eat ham & Swiss.

The secret word is Crust

CYBERPOSTCARD #2

The bottle people of Pangea do not communicate well.

SUNDAY MORNING

In distant places, breakfast can be strange. (Or is it that in strange places, breakfast can be distant.)

CYBERPOSTCARD #1

The flight was all that might be expected and we were able to avoid the attack of the Lego facegrabber.

The secret word is Brunch

ROAD TRIP!!!

For the next couple of weeks Doc40 and the whole cast of characters will be travelling and bulletins will come from the Lost Highway.

The secret word is Outahere

AND MAYBE SEEKING THE ABSINTHE FOUNTAIN OF ETERNAL YOUTH OR MAYBE DAMNATION

Image supplied by Elizabeth

HEY TEACHER, LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE!

The fabulous Nickel In the Machine site currently carries an amazing story of the 1972 London school kids uprising. I recommend everyone to check it out. “We ain’t gonna take it. Never did and never will.” (Nickel In The Machine recently changed it’s URL. It’s been updated in our permalinks on the right.)

“The pupil power demonstration was called by the rebel Schools’ Action Union, of which self-confessed Marxist Ginger Finch was a member, who were mainly against caning, detention, uniforms and ‘headmaster dictatorships’. Eventually 800 pupils had joined the demonstration and Finch was arrested, charged with using insulting behaviour and obstruction. Prime Minister Edward Heath decided to take no risks, remember this was only four years after students in Paris had brought down the French Government, and ordered MI5 and Special Branch to monitor the schoolchildren revolutionaries. Mr Heath asked Margaret Thatcher, then the Education Secretary to compile a report which warned: “Some boys and girls are already beginning to develop political attitudes in an immature way…” A march of 10,000 pupils was organised by the Schools’ Action Union and the National Union of School Students for the 17th May. The Government wanted to take no chances but were struggling to find out the exact nature and route of the march. A Conservative MP called David Lane forwarded a report based on the accounts of a group of girl ’spies’ who had infiltrated a meeting.”

The secret word is Wall
The secret message is 537461792074756e65642e

THE LOCKED DOORS OF PERCEPTION

How tightly locked down are the doors of perception in this aftermath of Bush-era constriction, deception, and stupidity? Dare we hope for a spiritual awakening or is the road to ruin too well mapped in advance? Our good buddy Sigmond Twayne started the ball rolling with a video of Terence McKenna
and then I collected a few more for good measure.

Click here for “Reclaim You Mind”

Click here for "Aliens"

Click here for "UFOs"

Click here for "Cultural Operating System"

And click here for the other side of the coin and see FBI boss Mueller repeat the same tired excuses for not legalizing drugs.

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Drusilla finally finds an occupation to which she can relate.

MEMORIAL DAY

It's more than old war movies on TV.

MEMORIAL DAY

The name of the village was Trang Bang.

MEMORIAL DAY

When will enough finally be enough?

The secret word is Redundant

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 4491)

In which Marilyn finds herself caught between a rock and hard place, or, to be more precise, an old-school gloved heavy and one of the million incarnations of Groucho Marx. It’s a predicament of cosmic proportions, and, in the background, a hatstand is observing. Both basic training and simple common sense have taught her never to trust a man in a cheap suit and black gloves. They never mean you any good especially if they’re holding a pistol. And yet the Groucho multiples are a danger in themselves, especially if you don’t know the secret word and can’t summon The Duck. With the Grouchos, you bet your life and there isn’t a sanity clause.

(THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN NOW HAS IT’S OWN PAGE SO THE WHOLE THING CAN BE READ WITHOUT SCROLLING. CLICK HERE)

MEMORIAL WEEKEND SUNDAY BREAKFAST

A henge (well that’s a memorial isn’t it?) built from bacon-wrapped Twinkies. I lifted this from Adam Gorightly who may be as unwell as I am.

VOODOO NOUVEAU

Valerie sent us the following (and also the pic of Marilyn)…
“Late one night in a small Alabama cemetery, Vance Vanders had a run-in with the local witch doctor, who wafted a bottle of unpleasant-smelling liquid in front of his face, and told him he was about to die and that no one could save him.
Back home, Vanders took to his bed and began to deteriorate. Some weeks later, emaciated and near death, he was admitted to the local hospital, where doctors were unable to find a cause for his symptoms or slow his decline. Only then did his wife tell one of the doctors, Drayton Doherty, of the hex.
Doherty thought long and hard. The next morning, he called Vanders's family to his bedside. He told them that the previous night he had lured the witch doctor back to the cemetery, where he had choked him against a tree until he explained how the curse worked. The medicine man had, he said, rubbed lizard eggs into Vanders's stomach, which had hatched inside his body. One reptile remained, which was eating Vanders from the inside out.
Doherty then summoned a nurse who had, by prior arrangement, filled a large syringe with a powerful emetic. With great ceremony, he inspected the instrument and injected its contents into Vanders' arm. A few minutes later, Vanders began to gag and vomit uncontrollably. In the midst of it all, unnoticed by everyone in the room, Doherty produced his pièce de résistance - a green lizard he had stashed in his black bag. "Look what has come out of you Vance," he cried. "The voodoo curse is lifted."
Vanders did a double take, lurched backwards to the head of the bed, then drifted into a deep sleep. When he woke next day he was alert and ravenous. He quickly regained his strength and was discharged a week later.” (Click here for more.)

The secret deity is Doctor Hypodermic

SPACE OPERA

SCI-FI POLICE STATE (Part 1)

Our pal Hipspinster sent this over. I don’t know whether to be disturbed or envious.

“The line between what's real and what's not is thin and shifting, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has decided to explore both sides. Boldly going where few government bureaucracies have gone before, the agency is enlisting the expertise of science fiction writers. Crazy? This week down at the Reagan Building, the 2009 Homeland Security Science & Technology Stakeholders Conference has been going on. Instead of just another wonkish series of meetings and a trade show, with contractors hustling business around every corner, this felt at times more like a convention of futuristic yarn-spinners.” (Click here for more.)

In the email that brought the link, Hipspinster asked “why didn’t they call you?” My first response was “why indeed.” I sure as hell could think up a totally fiendish, fear driven, and wholly ruthless state security machine. It would be almost as much fun as a sci-fi writer inventing his or her own religion and taking over the minds of movie stars (such as they are.) But then it occurred to me that’s exactly why I wouldn’t be invited. Too gleefully overt about stuff they still like hide with euphemism. And, of course, I’d never get a security clearance. It’s a damned shame Phillip K. Dick isn’t alive to see this.

The secret word is Oprichnina

SCI-FI POLICE STATE (Part 2)

Ummm…Gore Police? Is this Renquist territory or what? Tokyo seemed okay the last time I looked.

(That’s the Tokyo Tower in the background on the left. I once played a very prestigeous rock & roll gig there.)

FELINE POLICE STATE