But this past extended weekend, I drove back to Amed. My usual place was full so I tried a cheaper spot. It was fine, not right by the great snorkeling, but I drove on to Tulamben after dropping my stuff at the room to snorkel around the wreck of the USAT Liberty. It was the first time I was envious of the divers and wanted to be “down there” closer.

The next day I rode on around the NE coast, stopping twice. Once at kookie Symon’s Art Zoo, though he was away in Ubud. And again near Singaraja to find the actual Pura Dalem with the naughty carvings I though I had seen before. Confusing as there is another Pura Dalem nearby, also with some carvings, but I think this is faulty linguistics on my part…again. The carvings aren’t in very good shape, but now I know for sure.

At a traffic light in Singaraja, a guy pulled next to me and urged me to see his place in nearby Lovina. I followed him, and declined to stay, stomached his lies (“Why go to the mountains? Only raining! You should stay here…”), though it was about lunch time so I ate there. A while down the road I turned left into the mountains and had soon climbed to Munduk, a town some other travelers told me about.

I am essentially more of a mountain person than a beach one and the cooler climate definitely agrees with me. I got a room at Guru Ratna and the guy dropped the price without my asking. I was worried about the budget for the trip, resigned I’d come home early when the money ran out, saving the majority for the after Xmas trip, but cheap rooms were there for me all three nights. I went to check out a waterfall. Then to try my first Kopi Luwak and have a lengthy conversation with Budi who runs the co-op. He’s a really swell guy. Unfortunately I thought you’d be able to order Civet coffee from the site but I’m not sure that’s the case…

The next morning, a guy at the hotel drew me a map and I went to check out the ancient Banyan tree, rice fields and another waterfall near Budi’s coffee plantation. The map was good, but at first I passed the tree and went way up into the hills, eventually realizing my mistake and returning. Even though you can see it from a distance, it’s easy to pass on the road.

The thing is thought to be 1,000 years old, the oldest on the island. Back when locals were fighting the Dutch, the story is 300 warriors once hid inside. I went in myself…sorry about the mouth breathing.

I’ll post some more pics and vids later. The only rain was very light Sunday morning as I headed back down to Denpasar, through familar Bedugal. Another great getaway! Had I a job up there, I’d be much more tempted to stay and do another year on Bali.

So let me begin my admiting my bias and sharing a story that has amused parts of my family for decades. I am solidly Gen X, and in 1982, when I as 11 years old, with my Dad and little sister, then 6, on one of the weekends he had custody by the divorce decree, killing time as we often did in a movie cineplex, we slipped into a screening of the original Conan. It had already started, the scene where Conan’s mom is decapitated. And we only made it as far as when, as a grown barbarian he meets the woman who is to turn into a lycanthrope during their intercourse, when my sister piped up, audible throughout the mostly empty theater, “Dad, we aren’t allowed to see full frontal nudity!”. Classic hilarity. Soon after of course I saw the entire thing, and would say over the years I have done so at least a dozen times. Friends and I at various times have described it as pehaps the the ultimate fantasy film. For those too young to remember, let me point out there were many in that era, some, like Beast Master, blantantly trying to cash in on Conan’s success, others from Krull, Dragonslayer, Excalibur, and LadyHawke taking things in other directions. So one must ask why one would want to fuck with a classic… But alas, we live
in an era of remakes. And after James Bond, Batman, Star Trek etc. I guess Conan the Barabrian was about due. And it doesn’t completely fail, but there are a few points I must harp on.

Schwarzenegger vs Jason Mamoa

At first look at least, the new guy measures up. I’m no huge Arnold fan, despite seeing him time and again in classic roles of my adolescence. But I would argue he was BORN to play Conan. His Austrian accent adds to the plausibility of his barbarism, as does the stoicism that might be the reult of inferior acting ability. It’s not completely Mamoa’s fault: the writers gyped him trying to add romantic dimensions to the character. After some inital cliche chauvanism, he has a tender “make love” scene with the heroine. Barbarians don’t make love: they fuck. True, old Conan had real emotion going for his thief woman, but only because she was so outlaw, 3/4 masculine and still hot. A barbarian knows when he wants something, and will definitly open case after case of vengence when it is taken from him. But he lacks a certain emotional vocabulary. If he is tender it is almost accidental because has has unintentionally crushed fragile things in his past. Hell, Momoa is a better barbarian in Game of Thrones, where all he does is glower, kill, eat and butt fuck! (Ok so it was most likely only “doggie style”, but I’m taking license for the sake of a comedic line.)

The soundtrack is complete shit, I assume Tyler Bates is a hack, though he did do Matt Dillion’s City of Ghosts which I think is underrated. One cliche “action movie” melody and musical attack after another. You can hear a sample from Basil Poledouris’ superior soundtrack here.

Stephen Lang is completey played out as a villian. The scenes of his scrawny frame fighting Conan without the use of magic or minons are absurd. That having been said – the mask of evil power as a device was superior to the James Earl Jones in a Betty Page mullet snake cult motif. And I liked the idea of the wanna be incestuous witch daughter character, and Rose McGowan seemed to be having fun, though by the end she came up short. The Freddy Cruger nails were just stupid.

What’s with Papa Smurf on the hookah lording over the Tai Chi madiens? He added nothing. Nor did Conan’s black pirate buddy. The character comes off as token pandering. And while I’m on that – there is nothing essentially wrong with Conan doing time on a pirate ship, but the way they did it just seemed like the writers going “Ok, we need a little Pirates of the Carribean vibe here”. As did the fight in the court yard feel “we need a little Prince of Persia/Scorpion King vibe here.”
Also, the only time magic is used. The theif buddy is also a throw away. A quasi-middle eastern guy with a ring of skeleton keys, nothing plausible about him as a theif.

AND WHERE IS CROM? You cannot have Elric without Arioch, and you cannot have Conan without his “God by default” Crom. Conan’s tribe is described as specifically atheistic. Perhaps he mutters “Crom” a few times in moments of surprise, but there is nothing of his shaky faith in the war god who mostly delivers for him.

The sets started out Ok, but eventually had to do the LOLR CG fest, the most absurd being the skull mountain, or I should say the crumbling of the skull mountain as they ride away, straight out of King Kong. Have some rocks fall maybe, not the entire thing crumble.

I don’t want to hate on Ron Pearlman, who does as best he can as Conan’s father, but since when does Conan have a father? I see him as the child of rape, or maybe an absent father off fighting with the horde and ghost writing half-assed lyrics for Robert Plant. Conan’s mother dying here, right at the beginning, and his ersatz cesarian birth are laughable. I’m not sure how Robert E. Howard laid out Conan’s father originally, but see now from IMDB, ’82 Conan did have a dad – but I didn’t find him memorable.

Evil Henchmen

And there are many here. “No nose” is fairly original, as is his demise. But none of the henchmen carry the heft of “Molly Hatchet” and the other dude from the original. The one guy, far too orchish for my tastes, with the face tattoos being sent back as a message on a giant boulder which lands perfectly in the middle of giant ship which is inexplicably being hauled everywhere is cartoonish. Thank Crom they didn’t get too “Burning Man” with the costuming which I could have seen happening. I didn’t appreciate the snarling snow Mohicans in the beginning either, though the concept of the race around the mountain with the eggs was a nice touch. I thought it would have been more bad ass if Conan had showed up with the three heads but had acted penitant because his egg had broken, truely feeling his father might think he didn’t measure up.

What else did this version get right? There was a respectible amount of breast footage (lots of eastern europeans if you look it up…), essential I feel for the genre, though somehow it could have been sexier. And despite my earlier complaints about the scene, I did appreciate seeing Rachel Nichols’, or her body double’s. It’s not that the film is a complete failure. They have to make everything so over the top for modern autistic audiences. But you should understand downtime when you’re trying to make something epic. The plot continues to move forward, but write in scenes where the characters have a chance to grow, or reveal themselves in subtle ways. Scenes for example of characters wandering around a foreign city unsure of the next step, until eventually a camel is punched in the mouth for comic relief. Or a crucifixion. In the new version, Conan rushes from “Slave Island” to “Theif City” to “Skull Mountain” and none of it is really cool, none of it has true ambience.

And more magic. When she started to turn into the dead wife they were trying to summmon, I thought “OK maybe now we’ll see something worth those absurd acrobatics on the wedged wheel we just had to endure”. But no, he falls into the lava and she’s back to normal with no ill effect. The word necromancy was absurdly overused here, with no serious extraction of essenses, animation or the canal violation of corpses I equate with a heavy term like necromany. Either only say it once, or go ahead and show, or at least infer, corpse fucking and fight it out with the censors.

There were no classic lines here. “Conan! What is best in life?” Followed by his O SO METAL answer. Here we actually have the head villian saying, “Conan, I don’t think I like you any more.”

And sadly, not knowing what the box office has taken in so far or ultimately will, I sense this film might go on record as solid for this generation. They will mock the bad Snake metamorphasis of the original and consider the battle won. But just maybe, some teenager will read these words, watch both versions again in his mature years and think “gee, that crotchity old glory days fucker was right.” Maybe not…

My parting complaint: whomever came up with that “omnipus” monster of whatever the fuck that tentecled mess was supposed to be should never be allowed to work in film again.

I haven’t done one of these pervy posts for a while, but as this starlet was born in Indonesia, it’s fitting. I’ve been eyeing Cannibal Compilation #28 for a while now in a pile of films in the night market. The three of the seven that I hoped to see were Lugosi in ‘Bride of the Monster’, Fulci’s ‘Zombie’, and ‘Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals’. Unfortunately, the DVD had only the last, and only about three quarters of the film. But I still find it comment worthy, from the late 70′s when an Italian schlock-master might combine the themes of soft-core porn with extreme violence.

The film, or what I got of it, is thoroughly watchable, with great scenes of 70′s NYC, the absurd dialogue one hopes for in these sort of films and lots of T+A. Apparently there are many different versions of the film, some with hardcore moments of other actors spliced in to the footage, and varying degrees of gore, but this semi-copy I got (and for only $1.25 I can’t quite claim total disappointment…) doesn’t have anything too gory. Looking around online, there is plenty of choice footage I’m missing. At one point, Emanuelle and the Anthropologist watch a black and white film in his apartment of tribesmen decapitating and castrating an adulterous couple. The effects are absurd at best. But then there’s all of the footage of lovely Laura Gemser, still alive and living in retirement in Rome. And that’s definitely worth watching…

My heart goes out to his brothers and kids, the women who loved him and all that knew him. As I’m on the other side of the globe, I’ll be having my own private wake. For all of the strange charisma, he was a strangely magical fucker. Flawed, adventurous, and Balls to the Wall.

Here’s another. Make’s ya wanna have have a swingin’ knife fight…

I saw a book on this guy a few years ago, didn’t pay attention to his name and had to do much research to rediscover Greg Irons. But how can I not help but feel affinity for a guy who worked in Underground comics and actually on one of my favorite films The Yellow Submarine, before reinventing himself in the world of tattoo? As for his death in BKK Thailand, soon after receiving “magic” protection tattoos: after seeing some cynicism expressed about this, may I offer an alternate view that perhaps the ink was only a final step before passing from this realm. Anyway, a great and interesting guy while he was here.

And tell me the chorus of this Chrissy Zebby Tembo song doesn’t have Ozzy written all over it…

If you like it, get more here. Props to Aesop and his Cosmic Hearse blog.

*Also want to note two additions to the film link here: Love Train of the Tenebrous Empire,which I’ve been following for a while; and the amazing UbuWeb, which I’m still exploring and will certainly be reposting from in the near future*

Also psyched for the new doc coming out, WSB:A man within…

In the midst of moving to and adjusting within the lifestyle of China, I haven’t had a chance before now to give proper memorial for an old friend who recently past. Thom was a totally swell guy I hung with quite a bit in the late 80′s/early 90′s.

In high school, I had a friend who’s Mom moved to Canada for several months leaving his older sister in charge. No surprise, this became a party house of sorts, during what we now refer to as “Salad Days”(I believe taken from the Minor Threat song). It was in this era that I first met Thom. He was a year older and went to another high school, but we had similar musical and cultural tastes. In fact we collaborated on a zine called Soma, which I think only ever achieved two issues, and who knows if I even have one buried in my files any longer. But he went on to become program director for my favorite ATL radio station, GA tech’s WREK, where they have a podcast and memorial in the works. I last ran into he and his wife in the winter of 2006(07?) and was pleased to realize he seemed the “same old Thom”. He died in a hiking accident in the Grand Canyon, and while this is obviously horrible, to happen while he was so young, I take comfort in the fact he was spared some more painful fate in possibly not as beautiful a setting. Knowing we all have to go some time, may I say I hope for a similar passage. I wish all the best to his surviving wife and family, and know that all who knew him will always think fondly of him. He was that open and friendly type, without enemies or spite, while still striving hard against a mundane system that deserves to be shaken up-

This film has gotten much hype and acclaim, all of it deserved. It stands now as a further memorial to the demolished towers, and a beautiful quixotic event in another bleak economic period. I also think it’s really interesting that there was another toll or cost from the event, in terms of the lost friendships and love, which are honestly discussed. A must see! I’ll probably read Philipe’s pick pocket book at some point as well.

She was found dead in her mobile home in California. I’m a fan of the early Cronenberg film Rabid in which she starred. I’ve never actually seen Behind the Green Door…well maybe it was on a middle school VHS comp I briefly had possession of with Debbie Does Dallas and other “hits” of the era, but I don’t remember any of it.

And here’s a VERY 1977 interview.

Great noir film director who left America after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era. He had a hit with the documentary style The Naked City, but last year I came across Thieves’ Highway which I highly recommend (trailer below), I can almost assure it to be the most cutthroat tale concerning fruit vendors you will ever encounter. There is also an French television interview where he describes working in the Hollywood system in the old days, and specifically with a “mommy dearest” style Joan Crawford. There was a recent film forum retrospective of several of his works in NYC. And the NYT obit. from last year.

pt.2

A strange as it seems, some series didn’t last long and not much is known about them today, such as The Weird Circle. I tend to enjoy the horror, sci fi, cop and suspense stuff the most. Lots of Poe adaptations, if only he got a chance to know how much they loved to adapt him in the mid-20th… BTW, Poe celebrated what would have been the 200th BDay back in mid-Jan.

“Rock ‘n’ Roll specialists”

Letting this end is so foolish! If it is no longer profitable for your company, why not sell off the formula and let someone else hang on to it for the diehards? Supposedly the company is open to doing this after 2009, but I won’t be comfortable until the deal is made. Vinyl wasn’t allowed to fully die in the 90′s (thank you turntablists), horses can still go places cars can’t. Gung ho technology and all that, but never eliminate the hard copy. Anyone who has ever wound up a Victrola by candlelight during a power outage knows how cool a feeling that is. Also see Polanoid.

And a song from Athens, GA based Madeline Adams Betty Page from her album “Kissing and Dancing”.

My first hint of such things I encountered seeing “death porn” magazines in LA during my first trip out there in ’94. There was a general pre-millenial crazy with killers and satanism in the 90′s, a throwback to the big 70′s craze, which included all sort of paranormal interest, from biorhythms to Est. There was a claim that many of the corpses shown mutilated in these magazines were victims of satanic cults in Mexico. It sounds like the usual nonsense hysteria when presented like that, but when you dig a little deeper, there are actual beliefs going on that help sustain, along with the chemicals, weapons and money, the malicious cycles of violence.

Found dead in Portland, OR.

Floyd Webb is making a film about John Keene AKA Count Dante and you can follow the progress through his blog. Dojo wars, bleeding ulcers and comic book advertising: a very 70′s story.

And he has a heck of a job to do: restarting the economy, repairing the US image in the world view, continuing to battle against those who wish to see America destroyed. But many of us are exited by the change he brings and embrace the return to true leadership!

For 10 years afterward, on Halloween the anniversary of his death, seances would be held in an attempt to contact him. Ironic as he was a devote debunker of spiritualism, which is part of a rift with his one time friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who believed in contacts with the spirit world. His wife Bess took part in her last seance attempt to contact him, held on the rooftop of the Knickerbocker Hotel, after failing to receive a pre-arranged code she and her late husband had designed. But others continue the seances even to this day…

1934 Fetiche Mascotte is one of Terry Gilliam’s fav’s from Ladislaw Starewicz.

The stories were simplistically drawn, and while my lack of understanding Italian prevented me from really judging the quality, there was no doubt I was in possession of smut. But a style of smut one finds themselves challenged to find elsewhere – sexy horror, boobs with zombies and vampires. I have since learned the genre to be referred to as fumetti neri. The French and Spanish have their own versions of such books, but the Italians seem most over the top.
Though the artists often shamelessly steal source material and images, it is the covers of these little gems that are the most intriguing. The Groovy Age of Horror has done some great analysis and archiving of various examples, including more Zora La Vampira and so I will refer you there.

Although it didn’t happen on that first flight, I also want to take a moment for Laika, who was the first terran being into space. I am a dog lover and she was a good looking dog, it makes me sick to imagine how stressful her final hours must have been. What I don’t get, even if you suspend all ethics, is why you would send a dog into space in such a way that you had no hope of studying the effects of the voyage upon it? Why include any organism, destined only to burn up?
The USA, USSR, France and Argentina also tortured several kinds of monkeys over the years in the name of their space programs. It seems doubly insulting now that the focus has been greatly reduced on these sorts of projects, expensive though they may be.

So the first step is research – see what things go for. It is interesting to note that everything up until ’82 is considered “Bronze Age”. So take that geezer. But I’m really not complaining. I also have some “Silver Age” titles as well. Then comes the strategic game of pricing and seeing how the bidders react. The best case, of course, is to get a bidding war going, and watch your sale go up and up. But it’s difficult to list something for 99 cents to get those initial nibbles, when you saw the same title just sell for $20. But I’ve had plenty of listings expire with no interest at all, so one wants to list low and get at least two buyers drooling. A high price is useless if no one bids. Then comes the building of multi-book “lots” to gain attention. Offer a gem or two and make them take some lemons in the mix. Of course, one geek’s gem is another geek’s lemon. Then there is the professional grading system, but I’m not obsessing on that too much, just trying to be honest in my descriptions.
And finally, as I attempt to widdle three long boxes down to one of keepers and some paypal cash, there is the challenge of my own changing taste. Much of this stuff was someone else’s collection and I have no attachment to certain titles, but now suddenly, a huge run of early Dr. Strange does seems cool. Maybe I should keep these early 70′s Conans when he meets up with Elric… What’s wrong with Werewolf by Night? And hell, if I unload these Ms. Marvel and Captain America’s (squares) I could even buy the issues I’m missing for a complete run… So you see: Overstreet is just as complicated as Wall Street.

You make Reagan look good, you bumbling fool…

I just can’t stop imagining riding around the lusher parts of the Forbidden Zone, mounted on the same black horse as she, The Association’s ‘Never my Love’ somehow always playing in the background, until we are eventually captured and dissected, perhaps used for target practice. OK, she can’t speak, but she looks great in dog tags, or munching pilfered fruit.

Yes, of course it’s pathetic – but that’s what aging fanboys do. Not to mention, I heard she only dates astronauts…
Also, silly ape pep rally set to Queen courtesy of Blancotron industries.

He would have been 88 today. Who’s drunk right now?

Some poems:
death

the sex fiends

From “Poems and Insults”, recorded in the City Lights Poets Lights Theatre, SF 9-14-73
Here’s the entire show, if you want it…

Maybe it’s just the mustache…

I’ve always had an irrational hatred of Bob Costas, but am feeling him here-

It couldn’t have been easy being that bald in the 70′s. But the chain jacket helps…
And Jesse Jackson definitely needs to go back to his old look!

So over dinner with some friends the other night (ahem) I became aware of this Japanese man who “got away” with murder and cannibalism in Paris during the 80′s. Issei Sagawa‘s is a fascinating case, not only because he wrote about the experience, including a children’s book, but he also went on to star in a Roman Pinky (porn) film. There is a breakdown of those Parisian events and some background on Mr. Sagawa here, but none of this is to be confused with garden variety nyotiamori, which is not eating a woman, just eating off of a woman. Well I guess there is the other kind, eating the fake woman…

Bo Diddley

I’ve only recently discovered this pop psychedelic creation of Guy Peellaert, and haven’t seen any of the actual comics yet. (great, another expensive hobby no one needs: collecting vintage European comics…) And sadly, I sense none will add up to be as cool as this animated sequence, a slow load but well worth it! I especially love the lampoon of the three major western religions included.

So doing a bit of hack research, I see that Judy Strangis was also a child actor in a ’63 episode of the Twilight Zone, The Bard, which happened to feature a young Burt Reynolds. A television actress, as she grew up, she appeared in episodes of many classic shows of the day: Room 222, Love American Style, The Mod Squad, a few years later the A-team, though she seems to have retired in the 90′s.

Sundance channel is running this film and I caught it over the weekend. I can’t recall exactly where I first heard about Punishment Park (1971), but it was fairly recently, and considering the controversy, was surprised to get a chance to see it. Overall as a film, I must say, it’s not all that. But as I’m obsessed with that period in American history, it was something I had to see. Watkins was by chance ahead of the curve in terms of what reality TV has become, but the ideological back and forth between the radicals and tribunal comes off as overstated and cliche, the yelling between the camera crew and cops rather unrealistic (why wouldn’t fascists destroy the equipment and confiscate the footage?), and the “ironic hook” at the end can be seen from a mile off – or more accurately, 50 miles off.
But there is enough substance to keep this from being a “b movie”, despite it’s vague similarity to films of the era like Deathrace 2000, which came out 4 years later, and to be fair, is much more of a fantasy. In some ways, it falls into a dystopian genre with Children of Men, at least in terms of paranoia when viewing The State. Certainly a lot accomplished with a small budget. I’m always interested in films that for one reason or another are pushed off the radar, and now definitely curious to see more of Peter Watkins work.
As a time capsule, two things that are interesting are to look at how relatively naked “the pigs” are when compared with the modern day forces of control. And I couldn’t help but imagine a parody of this film, where various 19-27 year olds are lined to face “the tribunal” in the modern day – how timid they might seem in comparison…”you mean like, no Starbucks OR videogames?!? Dude…” But that’s unfair of course: more accurately the accused, if in fact youths from rejected bourgeoisie backgrounds, would be anti-G8 eco-terror types, and the virile minority man gagged and pinned to the floor would have a lighter skin tone and be talking a more religious jive. There would also be a lot more talk about The Patriot Act than the Constitution, and hopefully that realization sends a bit of a chill down your spine…

Portland, OR (February 11, 2008) – On a February night in 1956, Allen Ginsberg stood in front of a group of students in a dormitory lounge at Reed College and read from a manuscript that a few months later would be published as Howl and Other Poems. “Howl” is Ginsberg’s most famous and controversial poem, and a seminal work of the Beat Generation. The book sparked censorship debates that are credited with broadening First Amendment protections.

The February 1956 recording at Reed was duly labeled, cataloged, and then overlooked in the college’s library for more than 50 years. Literary scholar John Suiter rediscovered the tape last summer while researching a biography of poet Gary Snyder (Reed Class of 1951, winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry); Snyder and Ginsberg were on a hitch-hiking trip to the Pacific Northwest at the time the tape was made and spent February 13-14 on campus giving poetry readings. Suiter concludes in a forthcoming article in the Reed alumni magazine that this is the earliest-known recording of Ginsberg reading “Howl.” On the recording, Ginsberg reads to the conclusion of Part I, but ends before completing Part II, saying, “I don’t really feel like reading any more. I just sorta’ haven’t got any kind of steam.”

The pristine recording of “Howl” caught on tape that night at Reed differs in numerous ways from the legendary first public reading of the poem at San Francisco’s Six Gallery in October 1955. It predates by approximately five weeks the previous earliest-known recording of “Howl,” made at the Town Hall Theatre in Berkeley on March 18, 1956.

And the recording. It’s strange to me when these things are discovered after half a century: unknown sketches from great painters, previously unheard demos from famous rock bands etc. hidden and decaying in “archives”. But then I’m someone often with too much time on his hands who would relish access to certain caches.

I-mockery presents you with the following list, some I’ve played, some I’ve never even seen. Ah, to have the money, space and patience with continuous repairs to collect such things. Home systems have their advantage, but as a Gen X’er, I’ll always have nostalgia for these big clunkers. I don’t think Galaga made the list, but as a testimonial to it’s longevity, check any laundrymat.

Thanx Jairoo for the bite.

I caught Conan the Barbarian last night on cable and was noticing how hot the character who plays his mom is, and with a little research, wasn’t too surprised to find Nadiuska was in fact an Italian porn star. Actually, most every actress in the film looks like she might have done a little “Blue” work – the Witch, Thulsa Doom’s daughter, Conan’s girlfriend, the various cult and orgy members… It was sort of an interesting era for film: lingering 70′s ethos, lots of “Penthouse soft lense”, a certain European feel to the entire production. Not to mention the general crossover appeal of Italian porn actors-

Take the example of Ilona Staller, AKA Cicciolina, who in ’79 ran for Italian parliament in their first incarnation of the Green Party, then switching to the Partito Radicale, was actually elected in ’87. Near the beginning of the first Gulf War she offered to fuck Saddam Hussein to help ease escalating tensions with that conflict. She later made the same offer to both he and Osama Bin Laden for the same reason, but let’s face it, Osama’s a longshot, and not just because of the dialyses…

America is clearly behind the times, though porn stars here do cross over into legit film and pro wrestling. Recently a candidate may have increased her results in a primary by “tearing up” during a press conference, apparently it made her more relatable to some voters… makes you wonder. This is only a jokey insight Mrs. Clinton – please don’t do anything drastic!

Here’s a link to his myspace page.

More on the history of the ol’ Gorilla-Whale.

This year, I have selected Elizabeth Bathory, kook-ass Hungarian noble lady. A sadist who decided the blood of virgins kept her complexion vital and thus chose to bathe in their blood. Her reign of terror is scary enough, but picturing her life ending locked in chambers of her own castle isn’t very pleasant either. I eagerly seek the ‘Bathory’ film which may have recently come out. It’s quite a tale, surprising more films haven’t been made before now. Larger version of the image above here.

So like everyone who’s tuned into what’s going on with this crazy ol’ earth beyond the red, white and blue borders of celebrity, sport, talent shows and farces; I’ve been following, as best anyone not there can, the situation in Burma. Such bizarre repression that still holds on to some cultural traditions that seem counter to it’s fascistic cause. The dynamic of the monks. First of all, I can’t completely wrap my head around monks getting political, but rarely it happens. The dramatic example of Thich Quang Duc comes to mind, but that can be seen as a statement of “this war is so absurd and senseless, and I’m not in the least bit attached to this shit anyway, so I’m gonna go out in a flaming protest”. But it’s different with these Burmese monks. By refusing alms they made the junta look bad and gave people faith. And as screwy and twisted as the junta dudes are: they couldn’t just shoot down the monks in front of everyone. Mao had no problem sending the red army into Tibet, sending the Dali Lama into exile, destroying monasteries, forcing male and female monks to copulate at gunpoint – total “we will crush your religion and spirit” tactics. But the Burma military types don’t even steal the gold off the pagodas. It’s as if they still believe, or at least can’t go all the way with atheism and selfish raw power – but surely they know they’re fuckin’ up. Perhaps they believe they hold enough power for the next several rounds of the wheel as well.

One angle you don’t hear being played up much is Burma is very much part of the Golden Triangle, which means opium, which means lots of money. When you hear Junta – think warlord. And just like there are warlords in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, Afghanistan off to the west, the difference here is these warlords ARE the govt. so don’t even have to pretend to play the “drug war” game. Total “Jibot” from ‘Supercop’, the cliche generals with the sunglasses waiting for Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh to bust in on their meeting hut.
On the other hand, there is a ‘time capsule’ element to their misguided stranglehold of power that is strangely appealing. They don’t represent some Kim Jong-il supervillian with an itchy trigger finger, who can’t wait to annex territories they feel were wrongly divided and start attacking neighbors. One wonders exactly what their power mad dreams entail: building more secret cities in the jungle and polishing their medals and sunglasses? Don’t they even have Kim Jong Il “short man’s common sense” and want to nail Swedish ho’s? Maybe they’re all strung out – think about it, it would explain much of the slowed response time and ‘logic’ behind their moves. Certainly alcohol, sleep deprivation and god knows what pharmaceuticals play a large role in the decision making processes of western leaders, not to mention the perceived guidance of Magic Toughguy Jesus for some…

I don’t mean to make lite of the situation over there though: certainly dozens if not hundreds are being killed and tortured right now as a result of events of last week. It just seems so strange how things seem to work there: the people have elected Aung San Suu Kyi – well, just keep her under house arrest. The monks are marching with the people in the streets – well, raid the monestaries at night, scare the shit out of the monks, then we can shoot into the crowds with a clear conscience. The world is watching and judging our rule – well, just turn off all the phones and the internet, seal up the borders tighter. How much longer into the future will govts. be able to get away with that one? Though as history has shown, and continues to: just because horrible things are known to be happening in the world, it doesn’t mean the rich “free” people are really gonna get off their asses and do anything. And even if they do -the myth of “democracy” sometimes only equals removing your dictator so you can get on with the clan war you’ve been stewing up for centuries…

Feeling old? Well that’s because you are-

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-

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!

On this day 80 years ago, two Italian immigrants were executed by the state of Massachusettes for their alleged involvement in theft and murder. Many believe the case was actually about anti-immigrant and anti-anarchist sentiments in the community. Ancient history, right?
Additional thanx to the late Kurt Vonnegut JR. for first turning me on to these events through his novel Jailbird.

The good news is: common sense did prevail enough to be sure another artistic landmark was preseved. Back in the late 40′s, Greek railroadman Tom E. Stefopoulos drew these great chalk drawing on the concrete columns that supported the viaduct during his spare moments working as a switchman. The columns were saved and now sit half a block north of NW Everett and 10th in front of some flash condo building. True, what you see are large photo reproductions encased in plexi of the actual drawing that lie beneath, but in the name of preservation, this was most likely the best route to go. You can see some more of my personal shots of the columns in their new home here. Also, for cultish fans of the film, an exploration of “hats on beds” that ties into a C. McCarthy novel.

Tell me you heard about the recent discovery in the D.F. of the exciting Aztec tomb. Not only does it turn out to be possibly the first time the burial chamber of an Aztec ruler has been discovered, but it also might be the great Ahuizotl’s, oh be still my beating heart (…jk)! It was the monolith with the image of Tlaltecuhtli that tipped them off. Why can’t I find a woman like that?

So a bit later I headed out to go to a Willamette Week party, that is mooch their free grog and grub, as my boy Trevor was an employee and invited me. But heading to the train it was obvious something was definitely going down: cops blocking off sections of major roads and rush hour traffic frustrated, chaotic and trying to figure new routes through the spontaneous maze. As I waited, I could tell the main area they had blocked off, but it was hard to see all those blocks away, figure out what had happened. ‘It’s quite windy, maybe a limb or sign came down.’ I speculated with fellow passengers but no one seemed to have solid answers. I went on to the shindig, ran into an old friend from like 1st grade(!) and generally forgot about it, until it occured to me to look for info later that night/morning.
Turns out these three numbnut boyz decided to rob a liquor store and had set off a highspeed chase and ensuing manhunt trying to escape. The funniest part to me is I’ve been noticing/complaining about all of the scummy white people you find out here. Now this is straight up elietism I’m talking (and true, I’m no ‘Brad Pitt crossed with MENSA’ myself), but when it’s about your own race I think it’s acceptable. Coming from the south, obviously I am familiar with a broad spectrum of rednecks, but I swear – something about the urban pressure of ATL or who knows what exactly, instills even the most would-be obnoxious, NASCAR lovin’, Bush worshipping, bible banging caucazoid with some level of style and grace superior to the lumber jack descended stock of mutant ass white freakies you encounter out here. True, there are statistically higher rates of mental health issues and whatnot, which ties into the state’s healthcare policy and other politics I don’t want to go into now; and sure, the long rainy season leaves everyone a bit ‘moldy’. When I’ve tried to bring this up with friends, they sort of look at me like I’m Hitler or something, but I think ol’ peckerwood DJD’s mugshot speaks volumes in defense of my case.

Comicbook guy sez: “Lamest attempted armed robbery ever!”

I often bitch about the ATL film scene (and Athens is even worse…) and people tend to not believe Portland’s to be superior when I try to explain this to them. That’s their problem: I definitely know better. Having seen some recently released powerful stuff before I left, I wasn’t surprised to find the same things playing here, plus various lingering gems now in Portland’s $3 theatre circut, but it’s really about the vast number of small but great films that also run here. TWO D+D documentaries have come out in recent months? WTF!
So I read about the Floating World Animation festival going on at the comic shop and headed down. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting, but imagine my surprise when I found the event not only free and connected to another gallery full of illustrative art, but also with a free liquor bar! Goddamn, I love this town*

The program broke down into a first set of jewels under 10 minutes, then a retrospective on the influencial Adam Beckett, Hooliganship played live in front of a pseudo-Mario Bros. animated set, then another group of shorts put together by e*rock, but by then I was mostly tanked and talking with Pam Turner, Beckett’s biographer.
I can’t recreate the entire experience for you obviously, but here’s some info I was able to get on several of the animators presented: Joanna Priestly, Christophe Blanc, Howie Shia, Mariola Brillowska, Aidan Koch, Graham Annable, the supercool Rob Chiu, Vivian Wong and that’s all for now. You fuckers can do more research if you’d like from the FWC info provided, I’m too hungover…

I mean no disrespect to the friend involved in the following story, nor to the people of China either. I intend only to illustrate a point in how their logic works differently than my own: I actually stood in Tiananmen sq. in Jan ’06 and tried to imagine those events that took place while I was still in high school. I asked my friend, over a decade younger than myself, what she thought about the events in the capital city at that time.

“I don’t know about these things. I’ve heard some things, but I don’t know what is true”, was her response. Keep in mind that from their view, westerners are people to not be entirely trusted. There is the lingering possibility that we are steeped in propaganda and capitalists eat their babies (possibly a metaphor that went awry…). I assured her the things did happen in the place where we stood, nearly 2 decades earlier. Keep in mind 90+% of Chinese nationals have never seen the image in this post, it made me think a lot about propaganda and control: perception trumps truth. Apply this line of thinking to your own culture.

So there in the Square is also Mao’s tomb which was really important to her that I see. I waited in line, actually was escorted to the head of the line by a power abusing official of some sort wanting a bribe, filed past the statue where the cultish devotees leave flowers, then saw the likeness of a human body in a crystal sarcophagus. Bizarre. But no bags nor cameras where allowed inside and so she waitied outside with my stuff while I toured.
Crossing a large road we headed into the Forbidden City, where there was no security check of any kind. When I pointed out the strangeness of this, she didn’t seem to see my point.
“But what if some crazy person where to bring a bomb into the Forbidden City?”
“We can always rebuild the Forbidden City”, she said. “But we have only one body of the chairman.”

I intentionally use a less than completely dramatic shot (actually of Mt. Adams from St. Helens) from Jasonaut, as we hiked around out there at one point a decade ago together, though I never summited that mountain as he later did. In the shot you can barely make out still stunted tree growth in the area. You’re hiking along, then come around a bend to see what was the blast area. All of the trees are cut off at the height they would have been at the time, giving the illusion it only happened years ago. Elsewhere in the area, there is the world’s longest lava tube, which is far enough away to not feel like the mountain per say. But lava was forced out of the ground at some point in the past and created a sort of smooth lateral hole, which is a natural trail through a cave, with other fissues and tubes leading off of it. You can climb into these fissures, squeeze yourself through an area that might open into a bigger space. At some point it might occur how close you are to an active volcano, and if the earth were mearly to belch, as it were, you would become human jelly without even a moment to realize it was happening. It adds a little something to the spelunk.
To tell more of the story of that ’97 hike: we went with another individual (who shall remain nameless for the sake of posterity, let’s just say a less than experienced hiker). Back in nearby Portland, OR before the trip, this guy had ‘gone to the store’ to get supplies and strained our patience by being gone for a very LONG time while we waited. So we finally loaded ourselves into the truck, drove north into Washington and the area park, messed around in the lava tube, then off to hike/camp overnight on the mountain, a nice little walk but well below the snowline. Suddenly, just as we were about to make camp for the night, Other Guy announced that he didn’t have any food! It turned out his entire lengthy trip to the store was to get/obsess over picking out boots and he’d completely neglected the thought of what he would eat in the wilderness after a day of hiking. Luckily, the others were prepared and had extra to eat. What was he carrying in that little pack anyway? Moral of the story: never underestimate a novice.

It’s the anniversary of the riots that followed the verdit in the Rodney King beating, really bad in LA, but also events in ATL, Fresno, Dallas, NYC and other cities that seem to already have been overshadowed. What’s changed for Black America? Other documented beatings and aquitals of police; not to mention Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans, the propincity for opportunistic looting, and the fact that many in that city are STILL waiting on aid would seem to say: not much. Well, no one has seen tanks in the streets of South Central for a while.

But perhaps things are better for African American women now. Two black Americans have served as Secretary of State for an outlandish bridge burning administration, the current an intelligent and proud woman. And you can’t say “nappy headed ho’s” on the radio…

Seriously. Do you think he stole an election, fabricated an expensive war, declared a specious victory, then a few years of tuff guy chest thumping on someone else’s bill and blood just to let a bunch of washington beauracrats end the fun?

*I’ve got my power pen! My mighty pen, no matter what ANYONE says!*

At a certain point you have to ask yourself who’s an AL Qaeda operative, and who ain’t…

A young video blogger ended up with some footage of an anti-G8 rally in SF that the Federal Govt. wanted to look at and he refused, claiming journalistic license, and went to jail. He has released the video now which you can see here. In it you can see Left Coast types getting a little riled up, and eventually, SFPD getting a little riled up, as one might expect. It is always interesting to witness the ‘no nonsense’ re-establishment of control. The footage seems to fall short of being a potential smoking gun though. Surely cases like this will become more prevelent in the future.

Wait, the ancient Persians didn’t actually have giant mutant monsters on chains they could send into battle? No legions of zombie warriors? Charging rhinos that went down with a single well placed spear? Ancient battlefields weren’t choreographed spectacles with ‘mud blood’ flying around, but not sticking to anything?

Well here’s a thought guys…make your own fictional films. Aren’t you actually just pissed because of the momentary attention and profits the film is getting? Hey, it’s the only way we can get our ADD teenagers to learn ANYTHING about ancient history. I’m telling ya, whip up a CGI epic about the assassins and you’ll have a blockbuster of your own, not to mention a recruitment vehicle-

It’s the 315th anniversary of women being brought before the magistrate in what would become known as the Salem witch trails, or by the wikipedia info, the day some of the accused were searched for “witches teats”. How do I get a job like that? Included here are some of the legal chain of events that went into prosecuting someone of witchcraft in this country. It doesn’t happen in America anymore, but elsewhere on earth superstition still wreaks havoc on peoples lives, Popo Bawa, bat demon of Tanzania, for example. It’s interesting to see how the malleus maleficarum of various witchhunters changes over the ages in different cultures.

The point I want to make here is how different young people today (and this is sort of a joke, as I am 5 years past ‘untrustworthy’ by the common 60′s wisdom) react to an unjust war. Youth will bitch and joke, Tivo and youtube choice bits of The Daily Show, but they aren’t about to start planting bombs and writing manifestos. True, the stakes are completely different – both in terms of govt. survellience and the new laws against dissent. Today we are more concerned with a terror war than a cold war, as manifested by the conflict in Vietnam that so effected them. But the main difference today I think is the abscence of a draft. The nuclear bomb is one thing to make young people think they are up against a wall with little to lose, but regularly learning of men in their lives – brothers, cousins, friends – dying as result of being forced to fight a resilent ‘enemy’ population on their own soil, that’ll get your back up against the wall really quick! And it’s interesting how hopelessness often lends itself to extremism: from south central LA to the Isamic world, which has one of the fastest growing under-educated, poor demographics on earth.

The global pedulum has swung back from leftist days as well. Nor are modern white American youth inspired by armed struggles of other members of the general population, such as Panthers, Natives, and prisoners. Selfishness has taken on new forms and distraction culture is ubiquitous. Lots of things were changing in those days with the social code. Lots of things are changing these days as well, but very little of it is anti-caplitalistic. Then again, the truely poor don’t have the luxury of blogging…yet.

True, there was the Battle of Seattle in ’99 just before ‘the change’, and I used to hear about eco-terrorist action all the time out west. Once again, the rules are much different now. They took advantage of the collective fear to paint some really broad strokes. I still think Kaczynski‘s manifesto will prove prophectic as we progress through the genetic revolution. I want to be clear about something: whenever you take violent action against a population in order to promote your ideals, you have gone beyond the realm of civilized human interaction and must face the music. Yes, I am also talking to you, Mr. Bush.

“Where are you going, risen son of god?”
“To the moon, mortal fuckwit”

… seems like it might have been good copy.

There are also specific mentions of stars, and falling stars, in ‘The Book of Revelation’ as well, but I’m not even gonna touch that hornet’s nest… Revelation my ass, I’ll take Crom vs. Cthulhu anyday-

1. Music One of the things I miss the most when I’m away, and even if you have your own tuneage on a trip, there’s nothing quite like catching some Great American Song when you are elsewhere to bring up a misty-eyed feeling of home. Appalachain old time and bluegrass, JAZZ!, blues, classic country, rock and roll (to a large extent), soul, funk, metal, punk rock (to some extent), DIY hardcore, post punk, indie rock, neo-metal, electronica, minimalist neo-classical (not to dis great straight classical composers like Arron Copeland, very American), and anything else not covered by the categories mentioned. Several of these genres have ‘ethnic appropriation issues’, but for better or worse, it’s American Music now. Unfortunately, ask a random member of another nation these days to name an American musician, and they are likely to name some pop star who knows more about make up and dance steps than the key of D minor, but this marketing by which they have been effected can’t erase a few centuries worth of innovative music – what I see as one of our cultural gifts to the earth.

2. Geography I’ve canoed through swamps, wandered around sand dunes, walked entirely around and over different types of mountains – some so old they are worn, some relatively new and dynamic, rode over praries that seem to never end, relaxed near and been exhilirated by two distinct oceans, myriad clean and dirty rivers, roamed very different types of forest, seen mineral deposits that paint rock formations in a most bizarre and beautiful fashion, been energized by big sky and horizon, gotten lost and been terrorized by intense weather of various extremes, and know for a fact if you go a little further, stray a bit more from the trail, there is still terra incognito in which the hermit can practice his solitude and learn. And this all in America. I’ve been to all 50 states and wish more of my countrymen could make the same claim. I wouldn’t mind if Guthrie’s “This land is your Land”, replaced the National Anthem, but that won’t happen. At least make sure the kids keep hearing the song, deleted civil disobedient versus too. I don’t mind the actual National Anthem, but have never heard a more beautiful or more accurate version than that played by James Marshall Hendrix in August of 1969 in Woodstock, NY at a music festival, within a few weeks of when the first terran, an Adventerous American, stepped foot on the moon.

3. Porn OK, so maybe we didn’t invent it, but we took it to astounding new levels, despite the purtanical influence that still pulls like undertow in the American tides. You see estimates in the billions, but who knows how much revenue has been generated in this place by still and moving images of the naked human form in carnal digressions, especially as organized crime (which doesn’t exactly share their ‘bookkeeping’) has been involved from so early on. I direct any who are disgusted by this fact of American living to this case study of pornography in Japan. We clearly have some issues to work out with this ‘good cop/bad cop’ thing we have going with sexuality and the documentation thereof, but under this umbrella I want to ‘shout out’ to all the strippers in the states that allow them to dance (though let’s be clear – this is ‘fantasy’, not ‘sex’…guess by now you know I’m no rich cokehead), and though I have never legally (directly) paid a woman to copulate with me in this nation, shout out to you too Nevada – like your style.
I would further like to thank former Vice-President Al Gore for inventing the internet, and thus my continued exploration of Id and every fetish I never knew I had. I am the infidel you seek to destroy Bin Laden (you too, you blue blood, WASP, ‘god says this’, square-ass motherfuckers), come and try to get me… Meanwhile, this infidel Jacks It for Freedom! (wow, sort of the ‘patriotic jack off’ I promised you wouldn’t get here- oh, well)

4. Indie Spirit I felt this especially pronounced after a trip to China about a year ago, but you even see traces of it in European culture. There is something to be said for the American willingness to defy tradition, family, common sense, and plain good judgement to ‘think outside the box’ when it comes to finding new ways to ‘get things done’, and generally ‘step out of line’. If you’ve got a better way to do things than your boss here, and assuming you have some capitol, you quit and become the competition. Now, clearly, this ‘bold steppin’ and ‘rule breakin’ gets us into hot water too, but that’s not the focus right now. I want to take a moment for every kid who moves out of his parent’s nest before they can truely afford to do so and works drudgery to pay the rent and hold on to some crackerbox they can call their own. Are rents so much lower here than in these countries where the youth stay at home until marriage, and then some? Not really, but we make it happen anyway, it’s just part of the indie spirit (well…there are also economic realities, and relative stability that make this plausible…not to undermine my own argument, but I’m being real – no famine, roaming gangs of raping soldiers, not many children orphaned by carpet bombing in the States these days). Mother of invention, ‘know how’, gumption, ‘coming up with a new way’ (for better or worse), THAT’S how we roll. You don’t like it? Figure out some new way to roll, yo!

5. World Hotties No offense to any hetero turned on by corn fed, small town, blondes, but that’s not who I’m into. I love the diversity of different types of beautiful women you can find here, especially in the cities, but it’s slowly getting better everywhere. It goes back to one of my favorite metaphors for America – ‘the melting pot’. Some choice fucking going on here folks, DNA combinations creating some beautiful women. Even though I do a lot of bitching about ‘the modern American female mentality’, I realize this construct is actually a myth, or something too diverse to be defined. My complaint once again is with puritanism and the forced socialization of the genitals. I truely believe, and this is just Darwinism 101, that the best hope for humanity is when we have created the ‘uber-mut’ (the group with the largest genetic diversity has the best options to attain adaptibility and survival) and salute inter-racial breeding, though not so much breeding in general. If you feel you must procreate, I urge you to do so with a beautiful partner who’s genetic background differs from your own substantially. This again is misleading, as we share 99% of our genetic make up with a freaking fruit fly, but perhaps you see what I’m getting at – no more ‘straight up white’ Ms. America’s! And double points if she’s got some slutty skeleton in her closet. ‘Slut’ is a myth; read the old testiment, if Baal or Ashera had won out over Yaweh, I’m telling you, ladies, you’d definitely be a ‘star’ down at the temple when it came time to worship… And in terms of copulation for non-reproductive purposes, this ties into point 3 as well, obviously.

6.Writers including poets. From The Transcendentalists to the Post-Modernists, this country has produced some great writers who represent a certain individuality. Jack London to Jack Kerouac. Walt Witman to W.T. Vollmann. And never to exclude those who leave their own nations, bring something new to the mix from their old, and help to redefine yet again: American (I’m thinking specificly of Haruki Murakami here). Melville to DeLillo. And a special ‘Poe award’ to all who have trod the nether-realms and burned the candle at both ends. And not just novelists and poets, screenwriting is a very American thing (I suppose very Indian as well, as Bollywood is the film capital of earth). So thank you too, playwrights -David Mamet and Sam Sheppard. I exclude all who ‘write’ for the purposes of adversitizing specific products- ya’ll vampires suck.

7. The Road Trip This ties into points 2 and 4, but I think deserves it’s own distinguishment. From the days of ‘you kids get in the wagon, we’re gonna try somewhere else’, to ‘wonder where that train goes?’, to ‘fuck it, what’s over the next hill?’ there is a rich history of movement in vast America. I’m intentionally avoiding potentially negative topics like ‘oil’ and ‘Detroit vs. the rail system’, and even though it can be oppulent and wasteful (though not as bad as NASCAR) there’s something to be said for the American wandering(rolling) spirit, and exploration of unknown tarmac. The best way to see this country is still by automobile, which sadly surpassed the horse – which I assume used to be old ‘best way’. Homogenous convience islands have cropped up at many interstate exits, but the old two lane highways are still there, the forgotten little ‘one traffic light’ towns, the real America, under-represented by sitcom television. It’s amazing the amount of cultural influence NYC and LA project onto the rest of the country, and then the world, but there are many shades in between not represented on the TV and in film (which is slightly better about capturing lesser known locales). I’m not saying it’s all good, and you might need to put on your ‘David Lynch filter’ to appreciate some of it, but never forget about the small towns and the state parks, the one of a kind mom and pops that are still holding on, either through altruism or stubborn laziness. Maybe some day this country will just be one giant strip mall, but that day isn’t upon us yet. Get out there, if you have a little time and money, and see it! Cross country, maybe just something new in the next county over, what’s really stopping you? The rolling mental institution commonly know as ‘Greyhound’ is often another cheap option, depending on where you want to go; if you, like I currently do, find yourself carless.

8. A History of Violence This one’s a little sketchy, but for better or worse this has long been a land full of violence. I’m not justifing it, just stating truth. And like it or not, there is something in me that responds to this violence. Though we have abstracted it through media and superficial projections of ourselves, we have a high threshold for violence. I have no problem with the second amendment and truely see the problem in our mentality, the gun itself is just a tool. Watch Brits, or Aussies fistfight, somehow this art as been lost here, which is a dis to human pugilism. Any little bitch can hide behind some misplaced potshots, there is nothing manly about it. Despite the tension and victor, assuming there is one, fistfighters will walk away with more respect for one another when the bout is over.
Another spin an older, biker friend put on this out in Oregon: if you must hide behind a gun, LEARN TO SHOOT. What’s with the ratio or ‘shots fired’ to ‘hits’? How can so much ammunition be discharged without more entry wounds?
Something has been lost in the testing of American mettle. Our willingness to create violence seems in tact, but somehow the testoserone and raw balls need to be reproven. How can the pungy sticks and IUD’s of willful opponents add up to satelite imagry, all the bombs you can buy, and unmanned drones? Despite these insurgent issues, we seem to have taken violence to some abstracted place away from real human interaction.
And all you bitches hung up on respect, and shooters who feel they must turn High School into the ultimate proving ground: be patient, grow up and run away to join the circus like everyone else did. The ‘bullies’ will prove themselves sad enough in time, and you’ll need to save your energy for far more crafty and wealthy bullies.

9. Pure Escapism When the bar has been set so high, I’m surprised by how many settle for the same ol’ dreams of a nice car, plasma TV and trophy wife. In this sense, Howard Hughes, Phil Spector and Michael Jackson are sort of heros for allowing their neurotic fantasies take them to new heights, at their own expense, mentally if in no other way. Rich and poor, we are a nation of dreamers. A War on Certain Drugs, while they want to be sure nearly everyone is on something they must score from the establishment. An entertaiment industry to match the incarceration industry. A free press controlled by a corporate oligarchy. Everyone talking about freedom, most on their way to or returning from doing something they most likely would choose not to be doing, for money. We identify ourselves through our jobs, our cars, our network of spouses and peers, and let’s get real now, by our penchant for dreaming. But let’s up the ante, gang, sky’s the limit. Ah, sweet luxury and that which it affords. Now immortality seems some unspoken American goal, or at least it would seem from the continuing legislation. Are we out of touch with our relevance on the little rock human’s call home? It bums me out and I buy into it at the same time-

I don’t have a 10. Fuck nice round numbers-

Speaking of which, do you know what the good ol’ US of A has in common with Burma/Myanmar and Liberia? Wow, does France have a problem with us, or did it start out the other way around? One minute it’s all Louisianna purchase, and Statue of Liberty, and then we’re pouring their wine down the gutter (and believe me, they got a huge laugh from that one, as we’d already paid for it) and are trying to teach our tongues to ‘freedom kiss’. BTW, assholes, that sliced fried potato style comes from Belgium, don’t forget the mayo-

Feel free to list what you think might have happened to other fictional characters in settings taken completely out of context – historically and geographically. For example, in modern times, Nabakov’s ‘Lolita’ surely could’ve found herself signing a big ol’ check (and another carefully worded false legal document) written by The Bang Brothers; Dostoevsky’s ‘Raskolnikov’ might have also copped to the Jon Bennet Ramsey murder; ‘Holden Caufield’ certainly would have considered Caligula a phony; hell, Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote’ might have been a great replacement for Rumsfeld…; I don’t think ‘Merlin’ would have sweated Oct 28, 1929 all that much, nor Lao Tzu-

Lothlorien and I flirted a bit but both knew it wasn’t really in the cards. Said goodbye at the station, bedding down in Khorat which is very much just a Thai city without farang, but a nice place to break up the train ride. Hilarious tuk tuk driver ‘Cookie’ had good english and wanted to take me on a boom boom adventure, but also pay for his ho, as he hadn’t had any in three months. Read my lips Cookie: “I am laughing at your ‘pain’” Ate entire rotissery chicken which was worrisome, but stayed down. Got back into the writing.

Seems my camera has shit the bed, and I seem to remember some moment of whiskey spillage that may relate to this, but perhaps I can extract the SD card to use it in a borrowed one or buy one here in town. Think I’ll rest up a bit and catch up on the writing before ‘the crossing’. Nang Khai isn’t as cheap as I’d like it to be, but comfortable and I’m learning many tricks to keep the budget down.
The guy who built the wacked out Buddha garden on the other side of the river also did one here, but now I have to figure out some way to photograph it, as I’m heading to see it tomorrow. Apparently there is no website to link to….

I’ve been writing! Nothing stellar yet but bit by bit each day.

Trying to get an interview for the podcast with Gaa the lesbian pimp, whom I first met here 2 years ago, but she’s often off hiding with her new lovely or one or both of us are too drunk when we run into one another.

Got fooled by my first katoey (ladyboy) but it was nothing like what ‘Mick the Crazy Irishman’ had to go through in Trainspotting: the morning I met Oh, she had been up all night at this one bar on soi Rambuttri, and I was still in a period of only being able to sleep 4 hours at a time – which between the jetlag and apnia still sort of continues. There were all of these wasted french around, including this one complete psycho dude, who hit some x-boyfriend in the head with a bottle, so we quickly split to flirt and shoot pool at another place. With us came her fat friend Pai. A few hours later, when we were all buzzed and it was decided she’d move me into her hotel and Pai got up from her lounging on the sofa and was bitterly storming off because we were getting along so well, Oh gave chase and brought Pai back, who quickly hit me up for 100 baht cabfare. Later when I asked about seeing Pai again to get the money (though this is less than $3 and I essentially had kissed it off as I handed it over) Oh made the following confession.
“Pai owes me 200 baht also”

“Well that ain’t right darlin’. She said she ran a stall and she’d get me back. I will be leaving town eventually…”

“Whenever I ask her for this, she say she don’t have. What I can do?”

“Well we can be in her face until the money comes”

“This is usually way with ladyboy, they just drinking and eating ask for money money all the time”

“WTF! Pai is a ladyboy!”

“Yes, you not know this?”

“Your telling me that ugly fat chick is actually an ugly fat dude?”

Oh was laughing at me. “Yes you not could tell? You not know this?”

Rumor has it Vang Vieng is already past it’s prime, the bamboo bridge gone, the swell bamboo bungaloo’s gone and concrete highrises going up, the entire town overrun with Israeli’s. (Go ahead and think me an anti-semite by making this statement, then YOU come on over and deal with these people. I assure a very high percentage are obnoxious.) But I’m going anyway. I have to do a visa run, as my trip is 35 days and visa only good for 30. I get a fresh 30 upon return to Thailand (but you can only do this three times in a row, then must wait 6 months and pay more money).

I threw out the idea to Oh of going back to her home in Surin with me, as I’ve never been there, but she’s waiting around town to get her old job back at a guesthouse. So this most likely won’t happen.

Sunday night happened to be New Year and traditionally evey good buddhist buys these little flower boats and put’s them on the river with a candle inside and sends them off. The big river by the park was completely swamped with farang and Thai’s, but we found a quiet back canal where a family she knew ran a stall and put our flower boats in there. The tradition is to put finger nail clippings and bits of hair in the boat, as you are symbolicly letting go of last years bad karma. Everyone got a kick out of me trimming my goatee a bit and putting it in my flower boat. There were a bunch of adorable kids running around, excited about operating the hoist that put the boats in the foul smelling canal. The host guy kept switching out cassettes of this awesome scratchy Thai music. Oh and I prayed together and sent our ‘old bad’ away down the river.

My new favorite breakfast is a glass of cold black thai tea and an authentic bannana shake, which together come to about 80 cents US. I have yet to experience any intestinal discomfort, aside from some rumbling on the plane, but I have a bit of a sore throat this morning. It’s hilarious how Oh is always complaining about this being the cold season and she’s always in goose bumps, while I naturally haven’t stopped sweating since I got off the plane.

Click the Flickr badge on the right for a few photos.

*also props to Sam Dunn for general research and info*

A sex worker is a truth worker, if only Washington had the values of most hookers

I am promoting lookism, extending the power of wonderful sexual images and other photographs from around the world that I have shot-

I photograph the sex workers, prisioners, poverty, war and difficult marginal sitautions.
I will now merge these forgotten people with the headlines of the news, usually only shown with pictures of the powerful, or blonde news presenters!!!

The world is a chaotic flux of images upon which we impose a meaning. My photography aims to crush through the imposed meanings to get to the image itself.

From the image I find an infinate number of unconventional meanings-this is particularly why I like strippers and drag queens because I try and remove them from a sexual context and place them in a freespace where all kinds of meanings can arise for the viewers.

I studied photojournalism at The School of The Art Instiute of Chicago and than received a Masters there as well. I was a stringer for AP when I was twenty-four years old. I worked for the mayors office in Chicago and a press photographer for the Immigration Office in Chicago, and Telemundo channel 44 and for the Hilary Rodham Clinton foundation for children. I also won the Patagonia travel award but I didn’t go at the time. I have received several grants but they were never large enough to pay for my photography. I was invited to join Gamma and I received a post in South Asia. I could not take it as we had spent all of our money coming to live in Europe. I continued to shoot everything even though I was not linked to an agency and than Corbis/Sygma picked me up and I ended up leaving.

I love my early photos from my days in Central America in 1982 when I went and photographed prisons in Guatemala. I have travelled around the world capturing everything from sex workers to Russian prisons and riots in Serbia.

(I did a little typo editing in the text, might have missed some-ed.)

Here’s a link to a few photo-essays. Note: click where it says ‘photos’ to begin the text for the various countries represented.

Here are the links to her Flickr (warning:lots of boobs) and MySpace pages. Apparently she has a podcast as well, but I haven’t gotten that far yet…

Also thanx to the Doc for turning me on to Gail’s work!

There really is some good advice given here that can be applied to finding lost keys, checkbooks, as well as lost selves. But one shudders to imagine any child conversing with a character dressed like this dandy, much less a chap who can vanish into his own yo yo, or sing songs about what might be behind your face. But when you think this tidbit was essentially made for a child who lived in a large urban area in the 70′s, these psychedelic characters are far less sinister than street reality was at the time.

I can’t find a link to my favorite quote of his, so I’ll parphrase from a documentary through which I heard this:

‘I’ve found the greatest relief for my asthma to come from the aroma of gunpowder.’

It’s also John Lennon’s birthday. He was killed by a paranoid wacko as well. Both of these guys have been much mulled over in the public mind, and most Americans have some impression of each. Leftists who stood tall with a middle finger raises to ‘the Man’, fighting in different ways and to different result, but both clearly ‘enemy’ to certain minds. One said ‘Peace’ often while the other was more into saying ‘War”, but both were also saying in no uncertain terms ‘Revolution’.

It may be harder to find megolithic Rock icons these days, but Latin America still represents with the revolutionaries. Subcommandante Marcos in a way embodies the spirit of both John and Che, check him out, and the excellent documentary A Place Called Chiapas.

So it’s set now, Nov.2 I fly to what is not my first choice city (unexplored Hanoi) but still remains mighty Bangkok (the entire time I’m over there I dance around and carry a little boom box playing that obnoxious 80′s song, I think by Taco, ‘One night in Bangkok and the World’s your oyster…’ the ladies, and ladyboys just love it) and so wasn’t really suprised to open the travelzoo newsletter and see fucking $450 to BBK r/t from either Chicago or Denver, places I could have reached by bus and still have the trip come out way less, had money to buy gemstones to finace the entire venture and finally put that asshole Tom Shane out of buisness once and for all. Ho hum, but I comfort myself in knowing I would have had to fight like a dog to get a seat through any of those bargains and would have only one month by their limitations as opposed to the 5 and 1/2 weeks I’ll be enjoying. Still, the universe laughs – you just know it’s going to happen, then it does.

I also must console myself by thinking the way a friend does when he always mentions how amazing it is that we can go to the other side of the planet so quickly for half the cost of the ticket, when you look in the past at a journey that may have taken lifetimes/years/months and at a relatively higher cost. Of course, I subscribe to the idea that much of the journey is just getting there, so I would have loved to try it the way they did too: aboard a streamship; hearing the timbers creak in a sailing ship after being shanghi’ed from Portland (the most notorious port on the west coast into the early 20th century); stops on the way – seeing the King’s original longboard surfers in Hawaii; the spice islands of Indonesia; the Edo period in Japan; the opium wars in China; seeing Marco Polo and the monks steal silk, gunpowder, pizza and pasta from China; Kubali Khan setting up the first postal system across the vast expanse his daddy had whopped ass on; trying to get a grasp on Hindu cosmology by experiencing things from the origin-listening to whacked out yogi’s make starchatter; hunting mastadons across the Bering Strait; being a mite suckling off some wayward seagull who brings you to the strange new world…

I sort of thought Scanner would have been a bigger film, but don’t mind that it wasn’t. Spielberg and Cruise doing an adaptation of one of Dick’s stories was a bit too close for comfort. I don’t necessarily want to see one of my favorite SF writers become Hollywood fodder, and he has dozens and dozens of brilliant short stories, surely more films adaptations are to come. May they all be done as tastefully as Blade Runner. The biggest I’d say still to look for, and I could handle an animated version, is The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

• Rashomon ’50 Akira Kurosawa
• Seven Samuri ’54 Akira Kurosawa
• Yojimbo ’61 Akira Kurosawa
• The Insect Woman ’63 Shohemi Imamura
• Youth of the Beast ’63 Seijun Suzuki
• Woman in the Dunes ’64 Hiroshi Teshigahara
• Gate of Flesh ’64 Seijun Suzuki
• Tokyo Drifter ’66 Seijun Suzuki
• Double Suicide ’69 Masahiro Shinoda
• Blind Beast ’69 Yasuzo Masumura
• Lady Snowblood ’73 Toshiya Fujita
• Sexy and Furry ’73 Norifumi Suzuki
• In the Realm of the Senses ’76 Nagisa Oshima
• The Ballad of Narayama ’83 Shohemi Imamura
• Ran ’85 Akira Kurosawa
• Tampopo ’85 Juzo Itami
• Testsuo the Ironman ’89 Shinya Tsukamato
• Black Rain ’89 Shohemi Imamura
• Tokyo Decadence ’92 Ryu Murakami
• Angel Dust ’94 Sogo Ishii
• Audition ’99 Takashi Miike
• Battle Royale ’00 Kinji Fukasaku
• Ichi the Killer ’01 Takashi Miike
• Pulse ’01 Kiyoshi Kurosawa
• Suicide Club ’02 Sion Sono

I have listed only films I have personally seen and can vouch for, though clearly I’m on a quest to check out more from the catalogs of each director. Also, I have given English titles here, which should be OK for database searches – but many of these films had several English titles. Multiple genres are represented here: horror, suspense, sexploitation, classics, experimental (also for any who don’t realize – lots of ‘Adult Situations/nudity/blood and kooky fucking’ represented here), but it’s all ‘live action’ I have excluded anime – perhaps that’s another list for another time. The idea is: films I consider to be worth seeing – but to sit and watch this list over a long weekend, there would be a lack of continuity in ‘overall quality’. I’d like this list to grow so please post others you find noteworthy and I’ll check them out.

*Akira Kurosawa is considered a ‘master of world cinema’, most all of his films rule. I have only mentioned what I consider to be the MOST important/possibly overlooked*

Thanks Hashtoker for ‘unlocking the code’.

note complete lack of computer generated imagery…

Jeez, and just when I was trying to figure out how I felt about all the 9/11 films, continued ‘hero worship’ at the 5 year anniversary, and a vaguely defined reactionary war (in multiple theatres…no pun intended) that has no end in sight-

The entire thing is weird on several levels: imagine what the average Dylan fan looked like in ’69 and Bob himself appears relatively conservative. He was a few years past his ‘gone electric’ ‘sacrelidge’ against the folkies, recently having turned out a rather straight up country record – always mixing it up and refusing stasis for the sake of fandom. Johnny himself presenting more enigmas: a man with a history of dope and delinquency putting forward the face of ‘wholesome country host’. In all, an interesting era on many levels for a variety of reasons. They were actually friends behind the scenes, and according to the recent Scorsese doc, Bob was really touched when The Man in Black preserved a country music tradition by giving his guitar to the younger songwriter – a symbolic and literal ‘passing of the torch’.

I’m not exactly sure where my research began, but I’ve got this thing about female Chinese pirates (wha?…I don’t tell you what to think about when you’re “spankin’ the pig”…), the most famous of which may be Cheng I Sao AKA Ching Shih. She was essentially a stone-cold, freak badass: started as a whore, married the pirate Cheng I, went on to eventually command a fleet of 2,000 ships, terrorized the coast of 19th century southern China, and later hooked up with her adopted son (again…wha? call it the ‘reverse Woody Allen‘ if you must). I half assed tried to do some research on her and other ‘ladies of the black flag’ when I was over in Beijing earlier this year, but with little result. First of all I was in the wrong part of the country, had absurd language skills, and we are talking history here. The closest I came was a NatGeo special in english about pirates: I sensed I had tuned in just as they were finishing up ‘history’ to talk about modern day piracy, the facts of which may surprise you.

Anyway, images of the actual Cheng I Sao are obviously hard to come by, if not nil, but I found this artist depiction above on DeviantArt.com thanks to mooncalfe, who was kind enough to let me use it here. Definitely check out his site, buy something if you can – he’s quite an artist, and also wanted me to mention some ‘libertys’ he took in the illustration of she and her son/lover: there is no mention of her being able to paint with her toes, or command a zombie army (see his notes below the enlargement)…

A book, Bold in Her Breeches, is a starting point if you want to continue your research on female pirates in general, though I have yet to read it. In a notebook I have this list of other Chinese female pirates and their alias’, though I am no longer sure where this list came from, and I can find no other info on any of them… But of course if I break new ground, I’ll pass the info on. BTW, there’s a Chinese pirate in the 3rd of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ francise, so I’m ahead of the curve here and don’t be surprised if Chinese Pirates (or CP’s) suddenly get huge. But don’t forget, it’s REALLY about the FCP’s-

Today is the anniversery of the Sacco-Vanzetti execution, events I was turned on to through Vonnegut’s Jailbird (-thanx Kurt). These events are relevant not only as part of a lesser know darker side of US histroy, as well as the history of the Anarchist experience in America, but with a little reading, parrallels quickly become obvious with the current political climate of the country and potential dangers relative innocents may face.

Contrary to the usual practice of Massachusetts courts, Vanzetti was tried first in the summer of 1920 on the lesser of the two charges, the failed Bridgewater robbery. Despite a strong alibi supported by many wit nesses, Vanzetti was found guilty. Most of Vanzetti’s witnesses were Italians who spoke English poorly, and their trial testimony, given largely in translation, failed to convince the American jury. Vanzetti’s case had also been seriously damaged when he, for fear of revealing his radical activities, did not take the stand in his own defense.

The arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti had coincided with the period of the most intense political repression in American history, the “Red Scare” 1919-20. The police trap they had fallen into had been set for a comrade of theirs, suspected primarily because he was a foreign-born radical. While neither Sacco nor Vanzetti had any previous criminal record, they were long recognized by the authorities and their communities as anarchist militants who had been extensively involved in labor strikes, political agitation, and antiwar propaganda and who had had several serious confrontations with the law. They were also known to be dedicated supporters of Luigi Galleani’s Italian-language journal Cronaca Sovversiva, the most influential anarchist journal in America, feared by the authorities for its militancy and its acceptance of revolutionary violence.

Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on August 23, 1927, a date that became a watershed in twentieth-century American history. It became the last of a long train of events that had driven any sense of utopian vision out of American life. The workings of American democracy now seemed to many Americans as flawed and unjust as many of the older societies of the world, no longer embodying any bright ideal, but once again serving the interests of the rich and the powerful.

Read the entire page from which these various quotations are taken here. Technology and globalization have changed the game to some extent, but in terms of what Burroughs might have called CONTROL – the enemy excercies the same tactics. If this knowledge interests you at all, I urge you to make the effort to continue your research.

“Same as it ever was” – D. Byrne

“Same same, but different” – unusual but appropriate Thai expression

As a nod to Pakistan’s independence day, I remind you of the great Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. You’ve most likely heard him sing at some point but might not have been aware of his background or Sufi form of Islam. I love this tidbit as well:

Apparently, when Nusrat toured in foreign countries, he would watch television commercials in order to identify the melodies and chord progressions popular in that country. He would then try to choose similar sounding songs from his repertoire for his performances.

(ed. note-sorry the clip was yanked kids, somebody seems to think there is valuable intellectual property here that shouldn’t be shared with you for free… 6/8/07)

‘Grantchester Meadow’s’ above isn’t from either album, it’s from Ummagumma, around that general era. I believe these are alternate lyrics and a slightly different arrangement to what ended up on the album version.

Also, go out and read some more Bukowski!

Tura Satana

Asia Carrera

(…don’t miss the bit where Asia mentions all night fragfests with her LAN Unreal Tournament posse. And click the ‘why I do porn’ link at the bottom for more backstory than just stats.)

They came from different eras, certainly share some of the same fan base, and though it seems things were a bit rougher for Tura, they both remade themselves and carved out their own niche of Americana. If it’s dating Elvis and hanging with the brat pack, or marrying a ‘fitness guru studmuffin’ after your porn retirement, I guess on some level The American Dream is still out there for a girl with gumption.

(ed. note- not so surprisingly, this one was yanked too, sorry)

And it’s all the easier to miss them when watching a cute chick with an accent discovering her inner godess. Those were the days my friends! Especially love the intro to one of my fave Harrison tunes at the end. Wonder where it went from there: this clip, …..everything, the whole trip, man….

as it is in a sense, The Ultimate Western, and I’m told the first time women and children were ever shown being shot on film. In the real west, I ask you, did they worry about not hitting the women and children?
And the grit doesn’t stop there! Are you familar with the term ‘green trash’? To see just how scummy and scary rural Irish folk can get be sure to catch

and a personal favorite, showcase for his buddy the great character actor Warren Oates

Already a fan of Peckinpah and wanting to sound off on something not mentioned? By all means, post away and we’ll start a bloody little tea party right here!

then go check out

and come on back to me with what you think about your boy ‘T bag’. Sure, the genre samuri and chop sockey films rip each other shamlessly, just like westerns, detective ‘noir’ pulp and many other genres. But I’m on a mission to expose this rube’s ‘stunning originality’. I don’t see the point in remakes, and definitely not in theft. True originality is hard to attain, but if the viewing audience are going to allow themselves to become such gulible sheep, what’s the point in ever making another movie again?