Diversion, derision, and precious bodily fluids…
RIP Norman. Your wrote well, and were undoubtedly one of the craziest motherfuckers to achieve mainstream literary success.
I remember reading about his bizarre semi-autobiographical movie Maidstone, and his fight with actor Rip Torn involving hammers and ear-biting. Now, of course, it’s just a YouTube query away:
He was a very considerate host:
Doctors thought the strange, bleeding bumps on Aaron Dallas’ head might be from gnat bites or shingles. Then the bumps started moving.
A doctor found five active bot fly larvae living beneath the skin atop Dallas’ head.
‘I’d put my hand back there and feel them moving. I thought it was blood coursing through my head,’ Dallas told the (Glenwood Springs) Post Independent.
‘I could hear them. I actually thought I was going crazy.’
‘When I saw him again, it was pretty obvious something else was going on,’ said Dr. Kimball Spence, who could see the spots moving on Dallas’ head. ‘There’s an open pit. You see a little activity, not necessarily the larvae, but a fluctuation of the fluid in the pit.’
[Dallas’ wife, Midge Dallas] told him, ‘I will love you through your maggots,'’ she told the newspaper.
This announced yesterday on the Voice of America website:
President Bush has signed an order that allows the U.S. government to block the assets of any person or group that threatens the stability of Iraq.
The order exempts the United States.
As Juan Cole notes, “Either the VOA copy writer is a little clueless or this person has a wicked, dry sense of humor.”
Something in this little bit of questioning of Christianity, modern finance, and the 9/11 story was apparently too out-there even for a Wikipedia entry.
See the movie’s page, and its sources to get a sense of where it’s coming from… I’m not much on 9/11 ‘conspiracies’ — not because I think such evil is beyond the present gang of murdering, torturing criminals, but because I simply do not believe the Cheney Administration could have pulled off such a dazzling, flawless operation. But Wikipedia’s apparent disregard for materials that are not rendered “notable” by recognition from “official” sources is troubling. At best, it betrays a tremendous insecurity about its status. By suggesting that online cinema is not significant, aren’t they reinforcing the position of the Michael Gormans of the world, that online resources are inherently inferior?
According to this service, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
With apologies to HotNStinky hall of famer Terence McKenna - Echo of the Water (MP3)
And if you thought that sucked, wait till you get a load of this - The Escape (MP3)
Henry can be a little much some time, the punk rock comic schtick is intense, but he’s a good yakker:
One of the “Drawing Conclusions” series… here he is on junk mail:
Via Darren Barefoot.
“Why did Ronald McDonald have sex with his sister?”
“His judgment was impaired from all those years of eating junk food.”
Via Darren Barefoot, a clip asserting McDonald’s subliminal advertising.
…is the opening line from The Dope King’s Last Stand, “Drugs, Violence, Patriotism, Comedy… The whole ball of wax wrapped up in a package aimed at kids.” As usual, the anti-drug message contains lots of groovy sounds for the discerning head. Not surprising since half the people who contributed are well-known dopers. Download the entire album, just one of the fab offerings up on this year’s go-round of the 365 Days Project.
The latest cheery run on the data from the New Scientist:
Think back to the hottest summer you can remember. Now imagine a summer like that every year. For those of us who are still around by the end of the 21st century, this is what we can expect, according to a new index that maps the different ways that climate change will hit different parts of the world. The map reveals how much more frequent extreme climate events, such as heatwaves and floods, will be by 2100 compared with the late 20th century. It is the first to show how global warming will combine with natural variations in the climate to affect our planet.
Loops of highly charged particles burst from the sun’s surface in this image, taken on Dec. 4, 2006. Among the first images taken by STEREO, the image shows the sun’s roiling surface and atmosphere at temperatures around one million Kelvin (1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit).
…STEREO, launched on Oct. 25, 2006, consists of observation systems orbiting the sun in front of and behind the Earth. Just as our two eyes give us a three-dimensional view of the world, the views provided by each STEREO system can be combined to provide a three-dimensional view of the sun. Though the first STEREO images were taken in early December, the two systems won’t be in position to give three dimensional images until April 2007.
Coming to the rescue of cubicle slaves (or those who simply love goofing off) who are either watched too closely or are too lazy for the slightest physical activity. Throw Paper!
We will not be reproducing the image from this post. This point-form quotation should justify that little bit of editorial censorship:
- Tie off testicles tightly.
- Choose a large juicing tool (in this case a 10ga piercing needle).
- Puncture through the scrotum and outer skin of the testicle.
- Be ready with a cup or bowl to collect the juice.
- Collect and save the juice.
- Amaze your friends with the size of the spike in your testicle.
- Become aroused at the though of those friends drinking directly from your testicle.
- Drink and enjoy.
- Repeat steps one through eight.
Via Warren Ellis.
Hallucinogenic Weapons: The Other Chemical Warfare — R.U Serious
There were many acid tests happening in the 1950s and 1960s. Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters dosed sometimes-unsuspecting proto-hippies. The CIA was dosing unsuspecting mainstreamers. Leary dosed fully cognizant artists, therapists and students. But meanwhile, over at Army Chemical Center at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, psychiatrist James S.Ketchum was testing LSD, BZ and otherpsychedelic and deliriant compounds on fully informed volunteers for the U.S. military.
Now, Dr. Ketchum has released his fascinating self-published memoir, Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten, primarily detailing his times at Edgewood. The book boasts charts, graphs and experimental reports — a veritable goldmine of information for those who are interested in psychedelics, deliriants, or chemical warfare. It’s also a funny, observant, and reflective personal memoir, casting a light not only on Ketchum and his work, but on a decade that saw 60s counterculture and the military share an oddly intersecting obsession with mind-altering drugs.
The MP3 of R.U. Serious’s interview with Dr. Ketchum is just a click away.
The fine folks who listen to your phone calls have been asked by the big boys to help keep your computer’s private data safe. Security technology Bruce Schneier weighs in:
Basically, the NSA has two roles: eavesdrop on their stuff, and protect our stuff. When both sides use the same stuff — Windows Vista, for example — the agency has to decide whether to exploit vulnerabilities to eavesdrop on their stuff or close the same vulnerabilities to protect our stuff. In its partnership with Microsoft, it could have decided to go either way: to deliberately introduce vulnerabilities that it could exploit, or deliberately harden the OS to protect its own interests.
A few years ago I was ready to believe the NSA recognized we’re all safer with more secure general-purpose computers and networks, but in the post-9/11 take-the-gloves-off eavesdrop-on-everybody environment, I simply don’t trust the NSA to do the right thing.
Terry Jones offers up some numbers more grotesque and absurd than any Monty Python routine:
In 2002 the house budget committee and the congressional budget office both guesstimated the cost of invading Iraq at approximately $50bn; $500bn seems a bit wide of the mark. What’s more, with over half a million dead, it means that the world’s greatest military superpower has spent a million dollars for every Iraqi killed. That can’t be value for money!
So how on earth could such a vast overspend occur? After all, the US is the flagship of monetary common sense. Well, for starters, in 2003 the White House refused to allow competitive bidding for contracts in Iraq, which is odd for the champions of free enterprise. Then the White House ensured there would be no overseeing of what was spent. In the original Iraq spending bill, which earmarked the first $87bn to go down the drain, there was a provision for the general accounting office to keep a check on things, but that provision was stripped from the bill - even though the Senate had originally voted for it 97 to 0.
If you’ve found your way to this obscure corner of the web, you’ve doubtless seen Spiders on Drugs:
What you may not know was that it was made by Victoria-based filmmaker and journalist Andrew Struthers, and that its posting was the result of an experiment into the dynamics of YouTube popularity that had an outcome beyond his wildest hypotheses:
No one was more surprised than me when Spiders on Drugs became a minor hit on the film festival circuit this summer, by which I mean it was seen by tens of people at festivals all over the planet.
But the festival guides usually listed it as a “spoof,” which I thought ruined the joke. My fantasy had been to rent a slot on local TV at 2 a.m. and run it as a PSA. I imagined people getting sucked in, and their minds blowing like old nickel fuses.
That’s when I became interested in YouTube.
I made three little films, and they got a few hundred hits each. My dream was to do one a week for e-zines like, say, The Tyee or Slate.com, something like an editorial cartoon, except on video. While the Tyee showed a bit of interest but waited around to make up its mind, I ran out of money and had to write more stuff about buildings and food to pay the rent. But Christmas delayed all the cheques, and by Jan. 2 I still didn’t have my rent, for the second month in a row.
Meanwhile I had discovered the greatest thing about YouTube: you can connect with everyone on the planet, because everyone is doing it. That’s also the biggest problem. There are 65,000 videos posted a day. If you go to the videos page and click on “Most Recent,” you’ll see the newest hundred uploads have no hits at all. That’s the fate that awaits most clips, even many of the good ones. They disappear into that giant electronic hopper and vanish without trace.
This is somewhat similar to the problem writers encounter when selling a magazine article. Editors are very busy people, and unsolicited manuscripts tend to pile up on their desks like snow and sit there for a week in what’s called the “slush pile” until they get a chance to slog through them. Of course, there’s one big difference with YouTube: there’s no one checking the slush pile. No editor. No one driving the plane.
…How to stand out in all that slush? Late last Tuesday night I had an idea. A simple experiment I could run right from my desktop that very night.
In addition to generating more than a million views (and counting), Mr. Struthers has gotten his wish — a weekly slot on the relatively obscure but worthy British Columbian webzine The Tyee (where this account is published):
The funny thing is, I’ve been showing the script for Spiders On Drugs to Canadian film producers for seven years. Nobody bit. I could have made a thousand of these little films in the meantime, but I was tied up with committees and meetings.
But that’s all in the past, just like the Canadian film industry. And Hollywood, for that matter. The long dark meeting of my soul is over. I’m shooting my next film in my living room as I type, and I’ll see everyone next week, right here, with another crazy tale of YouTubular adventure.
One day late, Happy Birthday to Bowie. Here’s 60 semi-interesting things about rockdom’s latest sexagenarian.
Better yet, a few videos. This clip of Queen Bitch begins with a removal of the makeup and the persona of a ‘bizarre, self-constructed freak’, revealing a pretty damned fine stripped-down live performance:
But Bowie wouldn’t have been Bowie without the sheer shaved eyebrow weirdness on display in Life on Mars:
But we can’t limit ourselves to the hot, we just gotta add the stinky — though Bowie comes across as the essence of cool compared to his dance partner…
One is tempted to call this track the death of rock — except that it comes more than a decade before the Satanic virgin birth of Nickleback.
Tags: david bowie, video
