Martin Sorrondeguy (above), the lead singer of hardcore punk band Los Crudos, queercore group Limp Wrist and founder of the Lengua Armada Discos label, directed Mas alla de los Gritos (Beyond the Screams), a 1999 documentary about the Latino/Chicano punk movement from its late 1970s origins through the early 1990s.

The Chicano punk movement was forged by young, politically aware Latinos who were resisting discrimination and police brutality in the barrio and trying to raise awareness of border and citizenship/residency issues. In California, at least, opposition to Governor Pete Wilson’s Prop 187 was a major focus of the scene in the 90s.

From Wikipedia:

This film narrates the Chicano/Latino punk scene which is said to have exploded in Los Angeles during the late 70’s. Bands began organizing gigs in their own community at a place called The Vex which was located in East Los Angeles. Popularly coined as the East L.A. renaissance of 1976,many Latino/Chicano punk bands were formed around this community. Some of the most popular bands of the times were: The Plugz, The Bags, The Brat, The Zeros, Felix and the Catz, Stains, Los Angelinos.These bands were some of the first bands to create local punk in East L.A. which followed a new style of punk more like the political punk that was coming out of Latin American countries. This new customization of punk includes transnational struggles as well as local which reforms the notion of conventional punk rock music.
 

Thank you Glen E. Friedman!

 
The kids are all right.

The Prime Minister, however, appears to be a lil’ defensive today!
 

 
Both via The Telegraph’s live blog coverage of the today’s strike in the UK.

 
There is probably only but one man in America who seriously believes that Newton Leroy Gingrich could ever become the President of the United States and that one man also happens to be named Newton Leroy Gingrich. The idea that this repulsive, hypocritical turd will ever be in a position of elected power again, is, of course, as ridiculous and as preposterous on the face of it as, well, Gingrich himself. More people loathe him than can tolerate him. He polls about as well as Sarah Palin nationally.

It’s hard to even get worked up or irate when this doofus says things like he says in the below video, to a rightwing Christian audience, because A) he’s a joke, so who cares what this pudgy prick thinks? and B) WHO in their right minds would think electing Newt Gingrich president would be a way to “take back” America from the “minority elites, in the first place, even this audience? That doesn’t make… any sense (As Paul Krugman recently quipped Gingrich is a “stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.” He went on to add “but he is more plausible than the other guys they’ve been pushing up”! How true, how pithy! How very Idiocracy...)

It’s amazing to contemplate that this universally disliked, self-satisfied “conservative intellectual” is currently the front runner for the GOP nomination. Who’d have thunk this was possible? How low will they go? Bachmann. Perry. Cain. Gingrich? You’re joking, right? Will Sarah Palin jump into the race to “save” the party from these people? Will ole “frothy mix” Rick Santorum get his day in the Republican sun? What about the least influential man in the world, Tim Pawlenty? If Gingrich can rally a comeback, why can’t he? (Imagine being T-Paw and seeing a no-hoper like Gingrich in the cat bird seat. Even it it only lasts a couple of weeks, that’s gotta be pretty galling!)

Don’t get me wrong, it would be fantastic to see Newt get the GOP nod, strictly from the lulz perspective of seeing the Republicans utterly destroyed in a national election, but you’d have to sift through trillions upon trillions of alternate universes to find the one in which the disgusting toad that his pretty blonde “Stepford wife” Calista kissed would turn into the POTUS (it’s a parallel dimension where gravity has failed, “fun” has been outlawed and Snookie is the Secretary of Spray Tans). It’s never, ever going to happen. Scott Walker has a better chance of holding on to his job than Gingrich does of taking Obama’s. These are the cold and clammy facts.

The mainstream media taking Gingrich seriously again as a candidate, has got a shelf life of how many… days do you think? Anybody want to start a betting pool on how long his front-runner status lasts?

And one more question: What EXACTLY does well-fed fascist mean by the curious phrase “Classical America” when he’s saying it to an audience comprised of Christian evangelicals?

“But we have allowed ourselves to be bullied, harassed, intimidated, and dominated by a tiny elite using the courts, using the news media, using the entertainment community, using the bureaucracy to coerce the American people against their will. It is fundamentally anti-freedom, fundamentally anti-democratic and the core meaning of the 2012 is to stand up and say “no, the eighty percent of the country that actually believes in classical America is now about to take back power from the minority elite.”

Whatever, dude… I just… can’t be bothered getting worked up about you or even to take you seriously.
 

 
And have you seen this harsh video that Ron Paul’s campaign just dropped on Gingrich’s big fat head? Ouch!
 

 
UPDATE: I have to admit that I laughed with Newt on this one...

It really just doesn’t seem that funny anymore, does it, Scott?

Things are not looking too good for the hapless prick running the state of Wisconsin into the ground. As yet another group of craven Republican shits supporting this son of a bitch have been outed, and as anti-Walker groups announce that they’ve already got more than half of the signatures necessary to trigger the recall election, now Scott Walker gets this news!

Via The Cap Times:

Under Walker, Wisconsin now leads the nation in job losses.

In fact, of the states that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics described as experiencing “statistically significant unemployment changes” in October, only one actually lost jobs: Wisconsin.

Wisconsin lost 9,700 jobs in October, almost all of them in the private sector.

But that is not the worst news. The worst news is that the job losses are part of a pattern that began around the time that Walker’s “reforms” took hold.

Wisconsin did not just lose jobs in October.

Wisconsin lost jobs in September.

Wisconsin lost jobs in August.

Wisconsin lost jobs in July.

Back in May, when Walker was bragging about how he had “fixed” Wisconsin, the latest figures put the state’s unemployment rate at 7.3 percent.

Now, the latest figures put the rate at 7.7 percent.

How does that compare with the national average? During the same period when unemployment went down one-tenth of a percentage point nationally, it rose four-tenths of a percent under Scott Walker.

There are a lot of reasons why Wisconsinites are lining up to sign recall petitions. Citizens are concerned about the governor’s assaults on basic rights and his undermining of the authority of elected schools boards and town boards. They are angry that he said one thing on the campaign trail in 2010 and did something else altogether as governor.

But the damage the governor’s policies have done to Wisconsin’s economy is no small factor in the popularity of the recall movement. When Illinois is creating jobs while our state is losing them, it is clear that Walker isn’t working for Wisconsin.

So this is what REALLY happens to a state when those union-busting, tax-cutting Republicans control the statehouse? Numbers don’t lie, as the saying goes.

Scott Walker with his dumb, Charlie Brown face, and through his own idiotic efforts, has become one of the most notable human punchlines in the crowded field of today’s completely insane, increasingly divorced from reality, Republican Party. Because of fucking ridiculous people like Walker, Bachmann, Cain, Perry, Gingrich, and Florida’s Gollumesque governor Rick Scott, etc, it must be a humiliating time to be a GOP voter. I sometimes feel sorry for Jon Huntsman, but it’s his fault for being a Republican, isn’t it?

The GOP “philosophy,” such that it is, is but an an organized system of ignorance, an anti-science religion of flaming stupidity and rampant cupidity. Such a pleasure to see a cretinous jerk like this about to be tossed out on his ass by informed people making an INTELLIGENT decision about what type of place they want to live in. And the motherfucker knows it, too. Walker’s blood is in the water. The unions and the Democrats can taste it.

The Republican party, so obviously on the wrong side of history, seems so limp and silly and so impotent, that it’s hardly even worth becoming irate about them anymore. After next year’s election is over and done with, and the Reichwing has been beaten up good and put in its place, then it’s going to be high time to start getting irate with the fucking Democrats.

Read more of
Under Walker, Wisconsin is No. 1 job loser (The Cap Times)

Via Wonkette

 
The new video for Miley Cyrus’s “Liberty Walk” single goes out in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement with clips of protests from all over the world. A caption at the beginning reads “This is dedicated to the thousands of people who are standing up for what they believe in…”

Predictably there have been hilarious comments left all over the Internet, both pro and con. Me, I’m all for a pop video that introduces 11-year-old girls to the evils of capitalism and the concept of mass civil disobedience. In fact, I think it’s fucking great!

If Fox News isn’t already feigning outrage about this video, surely they will be soon!
 

 
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that I added a tag for “Congressman Ron Paul” to the post about the nearly completely unknown, but nevertheless quite amazing occult rock group Kongress. This may have seemed like a mistake. It wasn’t.

So what’s the connection between the Republican Texas congressman currently making his third for president and an insane rock group that made the New York Dolls look like pikers, you ask? That would be Dangerous Minds pal Otto von Ruggins, the group’s keyboard player, who appeared several times on The Morton Downey Jr. Show, a pre-Jerry Springer, late 80s syndicated “talkshow.”  One time he was on the program, his fellow guest was then former US Congressman Ron Paul. The discussion was the war on drugs.

Imagine what the people look like who comment on the Fox Nation website and then picture a group of such unhinged yoo-hoos as a talkshow audience. Downey Jr. loved to pit his guests against each other and the Cro-Magnon audience members, who were dubbed “Loudmouths.” Downey Jr and his guests and audience screamed at each other with seething hatred and low IQs. The Morton Downey Jr. Show was the original “trash teevee” show. Just about the only advertisers were local bail bondsmen.

Judging from the evidence that he actually agreed to go on The Morton Downey Jr. Show, I think it’s safe to assume that Ron Paul, who was then running as the Libertarian Party’s candidate for President, never, ever thought he was going to get anywhere near the White House and was probably just trying to do what he could to spread the word about Libertarianism. Still, it was pretty ill-advised to go on a show like this.

I’m sure Ron Paul would like to forget he was ever on The Morton Downey Jr. Show. Too bad! Here is Otto’s recollection of the taping:

I remember the first time I was called to be on The Morton Downey, Jr. Show.  He was there in NYC’s Channel 9 Secaucus, NJ studio before Jerry Springer took occupancy.  I had written a letter to his producer suggesting they do a show about the legalization of drugs.  I even recommended some guests for them - Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, the Life Extension authors and MIT graduate research scientists.  I was told they had no budget to fly people in, but they wanted me to come on the show.

Ten minutes into the show, I was at home base, on stage with Mort, telling him, “I’ve come to slay Dracula!” I made a positive showing, but 45 minutes into the show, my supervisor in the Post Office got a call from the Post Mistress telling him his employee was on the show talking about giving away free drugs and what was he going to do about it?  He calmly told her I was a professional, one of his best workers and what I did on my own time was my business.  Eventually, I told her I was going on again, displaying to her the Time Magazine cover story on the subject.

My best appearance (I was on six times, they loved me so much) was a July 4th aired show in 1988 where I wore a black and white checkered shirt under a black Teddy Boy jacket with red velvet collar and cuffs.  Colonel Bo Gritz, a most decorated Viet Nam vet was also on, telling how Uncle Sam was in the drug business, naming names like Richard Armitage and Frank Carlucci, who would later surface as Chairman of the Carlyle Group with Bush connections, after his stint in the Reagan Administration.  I fended off Downey’s initial comment that if I had wheels, I’d look like a checkered cab by declaring that “As outrageous as the war on drugs is, that’s how outrageous I have to dress to give all you mad men out there who want to fight the war on drugs, a sobering dose of reality - and for all you women out there who want to fight the war on drugs, you’re mad men, too!”  Downey’s response was, “Sounds like if this was a whore house and you had a thousand dollars, you wouldn’t see any action.”  I quipped back, “I didn’t come to fuck around!”

The prime time national debut on that show was the appearance of then Libertarian Party candidate for President, Ron Paul who, when Downey accused me of looking like I just came from Emmett Kelly’s funeral, rose to my defense with -  “Stick to the issues, Mort, and don’t attack the way he’s dressed!”  Mort quickly ripped Ron Paul’s candidacy, “If I had a slime like you in the White House, I’d puke on you!”  It was that clip with me in my glorious outfit and Mort raising his arms over Paul that made it to ABC-TV’s New Year’s Eve highlights of the year in review with Sam Donaldson.

As I came off the stage at the end of the show, I was grabbed by the arm by what I thought was some Fed accosting me for trying to burn the Constitution earlier—Mort stopped me—but it was some representative from Nightline who wanted to know what it was like to be on The Morton Downey, Jr. Show. My response, which was not aired, was, “It’s like being high without drugs!”

Below, a boisterous excerpt from the July 4th, 1988 “War on Drugs” episode of The Morton Downey Jr. Show with Ron Paul, Otto von Ruggins and in the audience, then-Guardian Angel Lisa Sliwa, now known as Fox News correspondent, Lisa Evers.

At about the one minute mark, Downey Jr. tells Ron Paul what he’d like to do to him if he ever becomes president…
 

 
In Growing Up In America, Morley Markson revisits his 1969 documentary on counter culture icons, Breathing Together:Revolution Of The Electric Family, with the original subjects of the film to get the perspective of age and hindsight.

Reflecting the past through the present, forming a kind of Möbius strip of history, we watch as they watch: Jerry Rubin’s transformation from firebrand radical to Capitalist cliche, the evolution and assassination of Fred Hampton (through the eyes of his mother) and the unwavering integrity and self-realization of Abbie Hoffman, William Kunstler, Timothy Leary, former Black Panther Field Marshall/expatriate Don Cox, Allen Ginsberg, and MC5 manager and White Panther founder John Sinclair. This is a fascinating glimpse at lives that mattered and still do.

It’s hard to believe that with the exception of John Sinclair and director Markson all of these men are dead. Are these the last of a dying breed?

While Growing Up In America is a vital and significant document, its failure to include some women in the mix is a glaring oversight. Bernardine Dohrn, Angela Davis, Shulamith Firestone and Diane di Prima are just a few of the women who were actively involved with cultural and political upheaval of the Sixties and any one of them would have provided a much needed woman’s point of view to the film. Once again, we’re confronted with the notion that the Sixties counter-culture was a boy’s club.

This fine documentary is out-of-print on video and has yet to be released on DVD.
 

Painting by Dan Lacey.
 
Memes within memes within memes.

We’ve entered the hall of mirrors at the sideshow.

Of the “Hitler reacts” videos, this is particularly stellar in its self-referential brilliance. 300 views on Youtube. Let’s see how fast this goes viral.

“It’s pathetic, being a meme used to mean something.”
 

 
Thanks Mirgun

 
Much respect to The Roots’ Questlove for what has to be one of the best TV punkings of all time. When Michelle Bachman appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon last night, his band The Roots played the Fishbone track “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” as she stepped on stage (as NO-ONE applauded). We couldn’t think of a better song! Questlove has since been “grounded” by Fallon (whatever that means), but we wouldn’t worry too much about it - aside from all his excellent music work, this guarantees the guy legendary status.

Michelle Bachman’s entrance onto Jimmy Fallon:
 

 
Here’s Fishbone playing the original, live in Japan in 1987:
 

 
Thanks to Rusty Lazer!

Mural by El Mac.
 
In the past few years the City of Los Angeles has painted over and buffed into oblivion more than 300 murals effectively destroying the city’s reputation as the mural capitol of the world.

Some of the problems started in 1986, when the city was looking for a way to alleviate the growing scourge of billboard blight. The city was being blanketed with unsightly commercial advertising, so the Los Angeles City Council adopted a code to reduce commercial billboards. The new restrictions exempted artwork. Advertisers responded by suing the city, arguing that they had the same right of free speech as the muralists. So in 2002 the Council “solved” the matter by amending the code to include works of art. “The law left many murals technically illegal,” wrote the Times in an Oct. 29 editorial, “no matter how talented the artist or how willing the owner of the wall or how inoffensive the subject matter.”

Since then, murals that were already in existence have come under increasing threat from two sides: from graffiti “artists” who mark their territory by defacing murals, and from a city that seems determined to find any pretext to paint over them. This is the subject of Behind the Wall: The Battle for LA’s Murals (above), a six-minute documentary by students in the Film and TV Production MFA program at the University of Southern California. It was directed by Oliver Riley-Smith, shot by Qianbaihui Yang, and produced and edited by Gavin Garrison.

The loss of these murals is not just a blow to the world of art it diminishes the culture of the people who’s lives and history are depicted in the murals. L.A. is a lesser place without these glorious human creations.

As L.A rejects these artists, they are being welcomed in cities all over the world who want art to beautify the walls of their buildings. Check out El Mac’s website and see the possibilities.
 

 
Via Open Culture