screenwriter, survivor

 

 31. Brian Padian [76:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This article on tattoo removal really burned me up, no pun. Couldn’t you just come out and tell the kid “That’s what your daddy so enjoyed looking at while we were making you”? Cover ups are one thing, you shouldn’t be expected to live with a botch job or bad idea, but you essentially commit to a bigger, if only slightly so, piece.
Have you ever seen a tattoo post removal, before the ink filters down into the skin? It looks like a freaking radiation burn. And it costs you triple what getting the ink did. Thus the price of vanity. You can make the argument that augmenting the skin is an unnatural process, but it’s one that goes back millennia. What you’re doing there in that sterile (you hope) clinic with the greedy hack who can’t wait to play on your remorse like some some sort of ’skin preacher’ - that is an unnatural process!
Part of what drives me nuts about this is: validation for all of the “gee, I want a tattoo but don’t want like needles/pain” set, which I guess is fine - DON’T get one. And/or: if you can’t commit to pain, I’m not really sure what you’re doing on this planet. Plus it’s more evidence of superficiality and body image issues of the modern world. By the way, ever seen someone after they’ve had “cosmetic surgery”? It looks like they got the shit kicked out them. Then you consider what they paid for it…
Anyway, consider wisely before you make permanent decisions (breeding?), the image itself is every bit as important as “wanting to get a tattoo”, and posers/regreters: fuck off! Go run to the clinic and get financially raped - then on to the next step in your identity crisis. Tattooing of the brain is forever and you can’t “change your mind” once the cells are gone. Nevertheless, life goes on, deal with it-

Oh and by the way, everyone: you will die some day. Your “beautiful” shell and all the modifications you paid to have done to it will all become maggot food. Fight and fear this fact all you want to, but it won’t change…

On this day 22 years ago, Nintendo corporation released Super Mario Bros, which may still be the best selling video game in history. It featured the music of Koji Kondo, who also worked on the Zelda series.

Feeling old? Well that’s because you are-

artist, activist, traveler, stripper, template for womanhood

 

 30. Ms. Nina [84:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Meet Victor Licata, one of HJ Anslinger’s main case studies when he fought to demonize ganja in the USA in the 30’s. Licata confessed to smoking pot in Tampa, FL before murdering his family. But even an amateur’s glance at his mugshot makes one wonder if there might have been other things going on in ol’ Vic’s noggin. Nevertheless, marijuana was demonized for decades, some even think it’s “bad news” today. The thing is: ax murdering didn’t stop even with it’s criminalization. Sure - botanists were handed huge jail terms, billions in potential tax revenues have gone uncollected, untold cookies have been consumed and snooze buttons haphazardly pushed…but every once and a while, an ax murderer crops up. And the weirdest part of all - some of them haven’t been holdin’ “the devil’s weed”.
Now one thing I definitely don’t want to do here is give you the impression that laws are made and broken on the political whims of a few powerful persons - because there are actually much larger lobbies at work behind the scenes, deciding what your lives will and won’t consist of, at least ‘above board’. Sleep tight-

You said McKinley, right? Because the shot was fired by Leon Czolgosz on this day 106 years ago. Society wanted to label Leon an anarchist, creating a real shitstorm for other political radicals at the time, and while he did have radical political convictions, one also gets the impression he was a troubled youth - a ‘wanna be anarchist’ if you will. Classic example of violent, ‘black clad faction’ that tend to give the entire movement a bad name.

If McKinley seems less remembered than Lincoln or Kennedy, it may be because he wasn’t as dynamic an individual. I was tempted to use the word charismatic just then, but Lincoln suffered from depression, by all accounts was a somber chap, though obviously a noble and brilliant orator. Perhaps a chance to fuck Marylin Monroe would have put a smile on his face as well… Anyway, it was also a week after the shooting before McKinley succumbed to his wounds. And into office came Theodore Roosevelt, a more macho and bold leader - the type Americans love to remember.
As for lessons to be learned from troubled Leon: proof that no matter how inconceivable it may seem, within two months of moving to a new town, you could be cooking in the electric chair. And never underestimate the hateful mob - his corpse wasn’t allowed to leave the prison grounds and was mutilated with chemicals during the burial. Most importantly of all: dashing acts of violence almost never result in positive societal change!

“Paging the ghost of HG Wells, white courtesy telephone please…” I’ve often pondered how completely sad it is that humans are still squabbling over really simplton issues like gay marriage, when we are in fact living in the early years of the genetic revolution. The splitting of the genome is gonna make the splitting of the atom, and all of the trouble that followed, look like child’s play. More evidence from Britian, fusion of human and animal embryo’s for purposes of research. Before I get too “yellow journalist/sensational” on you, realize they are talking about the smallest percentage of animal make-up to go into the embryos, which supposedly will be destroyed within 14 days of creation. Really, not that far off from using pig arteries to save a human heart patient - or eating animals for their protein content (not now vegitarifucks…I’m dealing with bigger issues-).
But my mind quickly goes to inherent human curiosity, “let’s do it just ’cause we can” logic, ‘mad scientist shit’ if you will. For all the above board science that will be legit and force itself to answer to laws and civilized standards, there will be a small percentage of those who will pursue knowledge for it’s own sake - and ethics come second. Korean scientist and Raelians lying about having developed clones come to mind. Indeed, why should great minds allow themselves to be hampered by moral majority morons who want to pretend the earth is less than 10,000 years old? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the future is going to be freaking weird!
When are we gonna get around to genetically breeding people with gills to again repopulate the oceans, as mentioned in Alvin Toffler’s ‘Future Shock’? Make that really amazing filter gills to deal with all of the crap that will be in the water by then…