Aldous Huxley—English writer, humanist, early-modern psychedelic advocate and original dangerous mind—would have turned 116 years old today. In May 1958, five years after his first mescaline trip and three years after his first LSD trip, the author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception appeared on the late-night show The Mike Wallace Interview. Wallace had previously interviewed everyone from Margaret Sanger to Salvador Dali, and he works beautifully here with the dapper 63-year-old thinker.
The future anchor of 60 Minutes ran through a range of subjects with Huxley, including how overpopulation relates to freedom; technological development in proportion to authoritarianism; future dictatorships; Brave New World in America; the power of advertising in politics; subliminals and brainwashing; education and group morality; societal decentralization; how productivity necessitates freedom; and of course drugs.
Five years later, Huxley would die of cancer on the same day of President Kennedy’s assassination, tripping on 100 micrograms of LSD injected by his wife.
Tara and I watched Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story this weekend (it’s on the Netflix VOD currently) and I absolutely loved it. It’s a truly great film, one that I have no doubt will be looked at and revered by future generations trying to understand what the hell happened in our backwards era. I recommend it to everyone who reads this blog and cares about my opinion. It was absolutely spellbinding to me. I felt as if I wanted to cheer several times to see someone say these things and say them so powerfully. Capitalism: A Love Story, or a film just like it, needed to be made. but there is only one guy who could have pulled off something like this, gotten it funded, herded through the distribution system and gotten a message this radical the deep penetration in the culture that it deserves, and it’s Michael Moore.
Surprisingly, Capitalism: A Love Story is perhaps the least polemic of all of Moore’s films, even if it does, at root, articulately advocate the necessity of class warfare, at least at the ballot box. Most of what Moore, or his protagonists, have to say in the film would be damed difficult to refute, perhaps this is why it doesn’t seem as confrontational as Moore’s films often are. You’d have to have a very closed mind to deny the reality of what you see on display here. Even Sean Hannity would have a hard time arguing with any of it (although I doubt he watched or will ever watch Moore’s film)
To say what Michael Moore says in Capitalism: A Love Story took balls and it also took amazing skill as a storyteller, underscoring his Mark Twain-like role in American society. After a mind-numbing section where the audience is introduced to the concept of the so-called “Dead Peasant” life insurance policies some major companies take out on their non-essential employees—unbeknownst to them—where they make more money if the employee dies, he cuts to an interview with Father Dick Preston, the Flint, Michigan-based priest who married Moore and his wife Kathleen Glynn (who interviewed me for a job once, she’s super cool).
He quietly asks the priest if capitalism is evil and what Jesus would think about free enterprise and his answer is devastating. This isn’t some left-wing loony he had to search out, this is the man who married him, the local priest who, like Moore, has witnessed the tragedy and destruction the loss of the auto industry in Flint, Michigan did to their hometown. Both of these men knows what greed does and how and who it harmed. People with first and last names.
And let me tell you, this priest fucking nails it. It’s a powerful, powerful cinematic moment.
Speaking as someone who took ten people on my own 24th birthday to see Roger and Me when it was in theaters—I also released This Divided State on DVD when I was at Disinformation—maybe I’m biased, but do yourself a favor and see this film. Better still, if you watch it and you like it, consider having a screening party at your house and invite 5 or 6 friends over to watch it and discuss it afterwards. It takes two hours to watch and could open the eyes of even a devout redneck Fox News watcher (well, some redneck Fox News watchers) to what’s really going on in this country. It’s not like Glenn Beck is ever going to tell them.
Below is one of the most powerful moments in a film full of them: rare footage taken right after FDR’s final State of the Union address where he lays out the concept of a Second Bill of Rights that would have guaranteed that all Americans have “a useful job, a decent home, adequate health care, and a good education.”
God bless Michael Moore. He’s a great American.
The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it (Yahoo! Finance)
The U.S. Economy Is A Dead Horse And The American People Are Starting To Get Really Pissed Off And Frustrated (Economic Collapse)
Brilliant! Lays out the contents of Andrew Breitbart’s mind with surgical precision. This really will come in handy for people unfortunate enough to find themselves on the same TV show as Breitbart. I’m sure he’s seen this, can you imagine how infuriated he got? His looney debate technique must’ve taken years to develop and this fucks it all up!
Jamdown, the holy grail of reggae films is finally coming to DVD. Other than a screening this past July 17th in London, this French documentary, directed by Emmanuel Bonn, hasn’t been shown theatrically or made available in any form since it was briefly released in France in 1981. Jamdown is essential viewing for anyone who loves reggae
Reggae historian Roger Steffens has described Jamdown as:
[...] a melodic time machine that transports us magically to a time of massive creativity as reggae was emerging to the outside world. We see some of its most rootical exponents at the height of their powers. The film’s re-emergence after three decades is almost miraculous, and it should not be missed by anyone who cares about Jah Music.
The film features some thrilling footage of The Congos and Toots And The Maytals recording at Lee ‘The Upsetter’ Perry’s legendary Black Ark Studios.
The Jamdown DVD hits the streets this Tuesday, July 27.
Some claim the 1963 hit single Sally Go Round The Roses by The Jaynetts is the first recorded psychedelic pop tune. While this may or may not be true, it’s certainly a beautifully hypnotic, circular number with mysterious and whimsical lyrical imagery. It’s also, I’ve discovered, one of the most covered songs ever so I’ve decided to line up most of the versions I’ve found. Play ‘em one after the other or mix and match to make your own trance-inducing rose parade. Let’s begin with the original. I have no proof, but it’s claimed that the drummer on this session was Buddy Miles, later of Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies.
In keeping with the LSD theme here at Dangerous Minds, I present a lysergic episode from The Twisted Tales Of Felix The Cat. The series aired on CBS from 1995 to 1997.
In this episode, Felix gets psychedelized in Pittsburg! There’s a shitload of rock references in this trippy little mindbender, from Chuck Berry and Elvis to Dylan, grunge and Led Zeppelin. Dig the Rick Griffin eyeballs, the reference to cheeba and the scene where Felix lands in a melting landscape and says “well, hello Dali.” This is out there stuff for network TV.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) still goes on today, even in so-called civilized society. The horrifying practice of cutting and removing a young girl’s genitalia serves no hygienic, spiritual or sexual purpose. It is an extreme form of child abuse, savage, cruel and criminal. It should be stopped.
Female circumcision will be inflicted on up to 2,000 British schoolgirls during the summer holidays – leaving brutal physical and emotional scars. Yet there have been no prosecutions against the practice.
FGM can result in acute infection, tetanus, bleeding of adjacent organs, shock resulting from violent pain, and hemorrhage and even death. The lifelong physical and psychological debilities include chronic pelvic infections, vulval abscesses, sterility, incontinence, depression, anxiety, psychosis and sexual dysfunction.
In this article, from today’s internet edition of The Guardian, you can read the dirty truth about this barbaric ritual.
If young boys were having their peckers lopped off, the perpetrators would be doing life behind bars.
