Attention, Los Angeles prankster community: If you haven’t heard, the hateful Westboro Baptist Church will be in town this weekend, picketing the memorial for the late heavy metal warbler, Ronnie James Dio. Considering the idea of who will be at the service (metal heads) and how many video cameras there are in this town, I fully expect to see YouTube clips next week which will rival the immortal Heavy Metal Parking Lot! This is truth-is-funnier-than-fiction style comedy in the making, folks. Could be historically funny.

The memorial will be held at The Hall of Liberty, Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, 6300 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles; May 30, 2 p.m. and is free to the heavy metal-loving public.

Here’s an excerpt from the confused ramblings about the protest from the God Hates Fags website the Church operates:

WBC to picket this public memorial to remind you who worship that old Serpent, Satan, that your time is very short. You know 67 year old, Satan-worshiping (or at least one of their enablers) Ronnie James Dio (of showing his devil horns to the world each time he goes in public) Black Sabbath fame is dead, right? We’ll be there! Just because the chances of any of God’s elect being amongst this group of heavy metal sycophants is slim to none does not mean they should not get some good words. Yes, it is true that Ozzy Osbourne did “accidentally” bite off the head of a bat, but THAT is the least of their sins (little nasties!), they currently do not do that, but they throw raw meat to the audience and encourage violence of EVERY FORM! Here you have the list of admitted sins of this now dead and in hell pervert: 1) He hates his neighbor(s) starting with Ozzy Osbourne 2) He hates God. Pay especial attention to the fact that he changed his original sir name from Padanova to Dio, which means “God” in Italian. 3)Ronnie the simpleton enabled, and encouraged Sorceries: everything he was about including the little finger horn thing (he got this from his mother which is an incantation to ward off the “evil eye”) to the drugs, bloody raw meat and his fellowship with those pentagram necklace wearing freakish band members. Yes, Ronnie James Padanova (NOT DIO) is currently residing in hell. When all those who worship him and his false gods meet him in hell it will be just like this: Isaiah 2:12 For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: Isaiah 14:11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. Praise God all ye, His people. The Great Day of the Lord draws nigh. AMEN

!

Did you get that?

Thank you Julien Nitzberg!

 
Author, filmmaker and bad taste-booster, John Waters, is out making the rounds promoting his new book, Role Models.  He’s also featured in this weekend’s NYT Magazine, “Questions For…” section.  Some snips:

There’s a chapter on Leslie Van Houten, one of the so-called Manson girls, who was convicted of murder in 1971, when she was 21, and who you argue should be released.
I do believe that.  Today she is the woman she would have become if she had never met Charles Manson.  Leslie is a good friend and someone who has taken full responsibility for the terrible crime she participated in.

What about the families of her victims, who don’t want her released?
They can never be wrong in their arguments, and I would never criticize their viewpoint.

Where is she being held?
The California Institution for Women, in Corona, Calif., an hour east of Los Angeles.  Every year I visit her on Oscar morning.  I go from her prison to Elton John’s dinner party.  I guess, oddly, that sort of sums up my life.

Is there anyone you would actually kill if you knew you could get away with it?
I find it repellent when people do yoga exercises at the gate in airports.  I want to kill them.

That’s reasonable.
There are little things that get on my nerves, like people who have reading material in their powder room.  When you go in someone’s house, and next to the toilet they have a huge basket of magazines, I find that repellent.  I recommend against straining while reading.

A much younger Waters also showed up in ‘81 on Andy Warhol’s TV.  Part I of it follows, with links to the other segments below:

 
John Waters on Andy Warhol’s TV Part II, III

Bonus: John Waters: Leslie Van Houten: A Friendship

Previously on Dangerous Minds: Andy Warhol’s TV

 
Conservative activist—and Tea Partier—Pamela Geller runs an organization called Stop Islamization of America (and in a fun bit of synchronicity today, Google her name and the first site that pops up is AtlasShrugs).

When she’s not working to prevent a mosque from going up at Ground Zero (watch her with Mike Huckabee below), Geller’s busy backing Refuge From Islam, a website designed to, in her words, “provide resources for Muslims who are fearful of leaving the faith.”

Well, what better place to promote a potentially volatile idea like that than the side of a New York City bus?!  The above “Leaving Islam?” ads are currently running on 30 MTA buses in all five of NYC’s boroughs.

While Geller asserts they’re “not meant to be offensive to Muslims,” and are more about “religious freedom,” Eugene Volokh, an expert of constitutional law at UCLA, thinks they “could leave some Muslims reluctant to ride the bus, and “there could also be a risk that some extremist groups might bomb the buses, although that possibility wouldn’t limit,” the free speech right that Geller’s exercising.

 
Controversial ads that help Muslims abandon Islam appear on NYC buses

 
For nearly 20 years now, Ayn Rand’s mammoth ode to capitalism and self-interest, Atlas Shrugged, has labored to find its way to a place it probably doesn’t belong anyway: the movie screen.  Why so long a journey?  Well, while some people (Alan Greenspan!  John Mackey!) consider it the intellectual equivalent to The Lord of The Rings, that trilogy’s success didn’t exactly wrap up with a 100-page speech to the masses.

But now, in a roll-the-dice move that would make John Galt proud (or Howard Roark laugh), the current option-holder of Shrugged, entrepreneur John Aglialoro, has set a, gulp, June 11th start date on the production.

And while that’s only weeks away, and he’s currently lacking a single cast member (no word yet on Angelina Jolie or Charlize Theron as Dagny Taggart), Aglialoro has at least selected a director: Stephen Polk.  Okay, if not Aglialoro, is Polk worried about the film’s casting?  Nope!

Polk said they are not intimidated to film a storied book even if stars don’t align.  “For more than 15 years, this has been at studios and there has been a whole dance around who’ll play the iconic roles,” Polk said.  “Making it an independent film was the game-changer.  Everybody is saying, how can you shoot this movie without a star?  We’re shooting it because it’s a good movie with great characters.  We’ve been in pre-production for months, but kept it a mystery.  Part of the reason is because there’s so much crap about how you need a great big budget and stars.  We aren’t looking for big names to trigger press or financing.”

For those of you wondering how Polk, whose acting credits far outweigh those of his directing (29 to 1), landed such a gig, what follows is the trailer for his last (and first) film, ‘08’s Cherly Ladd and Barry Bostwick-starring, Baggage:

 
Okay, now, given the above, we still can’t be sure how the resulting Atlas Shrugged film is going to turn out.  But here’s something I do know: it’s gonna have a hard time stopping critics from seizing upon one of the novel’s central images: the train wreck.

Best of luck to both Polk and Aglialoro!

’Atlas Shrugged’ Rights Holder Sets June Production Start

Previously on Dangerous Minds:

Ayn Rand Assholes

Frank Llloyd Wright on Ayn Rand, “What’s My Line”

 
Following up from Bradley’s awesome Tom Waits and Bob Dylan post, here we have a Family Guy spoof of the two rock stars along with two of our other favorites, Muhammed Ali and Popeye!  “Why didn’t you play Hurricane?”  Thanks Britt!

 
Miles Davis’ birthday was yesterday but I still love him today, so I’m posting this absolutely staggeringly great series of clips comprising his 1970 performance at the Isle of Wight festival. After viewing this for the first time when it was released a few years ago it got under my skin to such an extent that I had dreams about it for the next few nights. There’s some sort of holy communion with the spirit of pure music going on here that I can’t begin to profess to understand, but the musicians here are obviously touched by the proceedings in a way that transcends mere “rocking out”. See if you don’t agree.

 
The insane $2000 Miles Davis Box Set

 
From “loincloth collector” SongdogMI, “I used to have a big explanation of why there are breechclouts and loincloths in my closet and why there are photos of them. For now, I’ll just say it’s partly an outgrowth of my interest in the American fur trade, and it’s partly just fun.”
 
Loincloths by SongdogMI
 
(via Everlasting Blort )

 
(via Retro Thing)

 
I suppose you could say about this, “Well, it was the ‘70s” but even during that free-wheelin’ decade this would’‘ve been wrong! WTF?

Via Lady Bunny Blog

 
Over at Salon today, Glenn Greenwald has posted a terrific, take no prisoners rebuttal (more a demolition) to an article published in the NY Times about how the citizens of Pakistan harbor dark and paranoiac thoughts about the United States, and of course, Israel (and India). It’s a well-established fact that some absolutely insane conspiracy theories are widely believed by the Arab man in the street. Even elite media types—people who travel a lot for work—fall prey to and propagate such memes—like the long discredited anti-Semitic text Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was made into a TV mini-series in Egypt. Yes, it’s safe to conclude that utterly false, and quite unhelpful conspiracy theories about the USA are common currency in the Arab world… but… but what about the batshit crazy stuff Americans believe about the Middle East, Islam and Arabs?

From Greenwald:

Initially, it’s worth asking how these “conspiracy theories” compare to this: from the front page of The New York Times, September 8, 2002: 

More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today. . . . In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. . . . An Iraqi defector said Mr. Hussein had also heightened his efforts to develop new types of chemical weapons. An Iraqi opposition leader also gave American officials a paper from Iranian intelligence indicating that Mr. Hussein has authorized regional commanders to use chemical and biological weapons to put down any Shiite Muslim resistance that might occur if the United States attacks.

*Ahem*

He goes on to give example after example of mind-numbing misstatements of fact, fear of the other—and just plain awful reporting—all courtesy of America’s chattering classes, i.e. the folks who are supposed to be better informed than the public, the media elites.

It’s not hard to conclude that there are extreme misconceptions on both sides of the equation. If you watch, say, Al Jazeera in English (which is all we really have access to) it’s a pretty measured news organization, much more BBC than Fox News, that’s for sure. But look at our media here and the flouting of woefully misinformed—just fucking stupid—people like Sarah Palin as opinion makers. There was an article I came across just today about how the CIA was planning to make a phonied up video of Saddam Hussein screwing a little boy (before abandoning the idea because they realized it wouldn’t have the same taboo shock value over there as it would here!). I mean, this is the shit the CIA admits to! Is there any wonder at why the average Pakistani citizen would feel that the United States is the Great Satan and not trust us?

Paranoia? Or rational fear?

I highly suggest reading Glenn Greenwald’s entire piece, this is just a teaser for it.

Those irrational, misled, conspiratorial Muslims (Salon)
 
In conclusion, here’s a lovely bit of homegrown convoluted thinking… the maker of this video actually seems to believe in his heart that this man is a liberal plant at a Tea party! The Democrats sent him! Blame Obama! (To be clear, the guy is right to fuck with the idiot, but to call him a Democrat plant is quite a leap, I think you’ll agree! Can’t just be a conservative idiot, can he, he’s got to be a liberal plant? Or ACORN! WTF?)