By day he’s a father of two, by night he’s a super hero patrolling the seedier streets of Brisbane as “Captain Australia,” fighting crime armed only with a flashlight, cell phone and video camera:
``During one patrol, I stopped two sexual predators from taking advantage of a very drunk woman at a taxi rank,’’ he said.
``Unfortunately, I was unsure of my ability to conduct a citizen’s arrest and the two predators ran away before the police arrived. But I was able to prevent a near-certain sexual assault.’‘
Captain Australia won’t reveal his identity, but is adamant he is just a regular Queenslander fighting evil in his beloved Brisbane.
``Evil triumphs when good men do nothing,” he said. “I want to inspire a new generation to stop using apathy as a shield.
“People don’t know how to react to my costume it shocks and amuses them.’‘
It’s a little nutty, sure, but it’s also very sweet and I for one, salute his efforts. He’s making his world a better place, right?
What should we expect as events unfold this week in Wisconsin? Labor reporter and activist Mike Elk (In These Times, Michael Moore.com) discusses what he saw on the ground at the protests and the rebirth of the labor movement in America. What is happening in Wisconsin is the most import domestic issue of this generation. If you don’t understand why, you need to think a little harder! As labor goes, so goes the nation. Follow Mike Elk on Twitter
Michael Moore’s speech in Wisconsin is truly a MASTERPIECE of political oratory. You have to watch it, it’s absolutely riveting. One of the most vital statements of brutal political and economic fact that an American citizen has ever said with the eyes of the world upon them (and Moore’s never been shy in that department, has he?). To Michael Moore, I say “Bravo, sir.” And to the brave working (and retired!) people of Wisconsin and the Democrats on the lam fighting these over-reaching Republican goons on our behalf, you are the very, very best amongst us in a dark time in our nation’s history.
Heroes. Citizens.
Citizens. Heroes.
Talk about speaking truth to power, this is a knock-out. Moore’s words, the crowd, the moment. It’s stunning theater.
The fight in Wisconsin makes me prouder to be an American than I have ever been in my entire life. It makes me glad to be alive right now as the scales fall from the eyes of so many people at once all over the world.
The best part is that you know damned well that Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sarah Palin and the rest of the gasbag rightwing punditocracy are going to pull this speech apart tomorrow. Translation: Every one of those fuckers will have to watch it. Brilliant!
I laughed, I cried and I felt REALLY REALLY HAPPY AND ENERGIZED. What a fantastic gesture for Michael Moore to make and it came at EXACTLY THE RIGHT TIME.
That speech was a profound shot of adrenaline. A part of history. A thing of great beauty.
Please watch forward his speech to everyone you know and have ever met or will meet in the future. Here’s how it starts out:
America is not broke.
Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.
And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we’d have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic—and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.
A commenter on YouTube quipped “Imagine if Obama gave a speech like that!” Worth pondering. I hope that the President at least watches this speech, that would be a start in the right direction!
Here’s a great clip of the French space/rock/sci-fi/disco outfit Rockets performing their biggest hit, a cover of Canned Heat’s “On The Road Again” on the Italian TV show Stryx in 1978. Rockets combined the electronic pulse of Eurodisco with the driving power of classic 70’s rock. Terry Miller, author of the blog post quoted below, sums Rockets up perfectly: “Imagine Gino Soccio mixed with ZZ Top. Interstellar Rock!” It’s camp and fun, if not a little scary due to the matching bald-heads-and silver-skin look, and just how seriously they are taking it.
Like Giorgio Moroder, Rockets had been around for quite a while before finding international success on the first wave of European disco in the late Seventies, even managing to sign to the hallowed Salsoul Records in the States for one album . Although it’s fair to say they were a novelty act, that didn’t stop them from having some seriously bitchin’ tunes. Their front man Zeus B Held went on to produce a number of well known European acts in the 80s, including Nina Hagen and Gina X Performance. From The Stranger’s Line Out blog (by Miller):
In 1972 producer Claude Lemoine produced a single called Future Woman for a band called Crystal. With the single’s poularity the band decided to change it’s name and look, so in 1974 they became The Rocket Men (or Rocketters in France). They shaved their heads, wore matching “space age” outfits and painted themselves with silver make-up. They didn’t quite have the formula right though, unitl 1976 when they changed their name to Rockets. They did a dancier, spacier remake of thier hit Future Woman which brought them, once again, popularity throughout Europe. It didn’t hurt that their live shows were full of lasers, smoke, exploding cannons of fire and a tripped out light show.
I’ll be posting more from Stryx in the near future, but unfortunately most of the footage does not look or sound as clear as this clip.
After the success of his B-movie The Delinquents, Robert Altman was given the job of co-directing (with George W. George) a documentary on James Dean. The association of Altman’s surprise hit—about out-of-control kids who just “gotta have action”—and the young actor—who appealed to these troubled teenagers—was considered by Warner Brothers as too good an opportunity to miss.
Made in 1957, two years after the actor’s death, The James Dean Story is well-made documentary composed from archive and photographic footage, interviews and out-takes, which gives a great sense of Dean’s life and talents. The film was also a key piece in the actor’s mythologizing.
According to Forbes magazine, the James Dean estate makes $5m a year, which is more than the star made his lifetime. That his fame continues to grow says much about Dean’s ability to epitomize that certain something generations of film-goers have identified with over the past six decades. As Dennis Hopper once said about Dean:
“He seemed to capture that moment of youth, that moment where we’re all desperately seeking to find ourselves.”
Or, as Dean himself said, in a line from Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s The Little Prince:
Stevie Riks is a British comedian who does remarkable impressions/parodies of pop stars that are affectionate, smart and often brutally funny. His take on Bryan Ferry is so good it’s scary.
In this video, Riks does Ferry doing nursery rhymes while Freddie Mercury adds a bit of color.
Riks as Ray Davies is some brilliant silliness. He really nails the subtleties of Ray’s voice and that is no easy task. This had me laughing to the point of tears. Maybe it’s the face.
Stevie has almost 400 videos uploaded to his Youtube channel. It’s all him doing his impressions and they run the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime. A few cut to the bone. Check them out here. He does a killer Lemmy.
Filmed in Chicago in 1962, Twist Craze features a triumvirate of bands that exist in no known universe outside of the sphere of the movie itself: The Parisian Twisters, The Manhattan Twisters and The Windy City Twisters. The proposed sequel, Twist, Crazed And Confused, was reputedly going to include performances by The Kenyan Twisters, The Tulsa Twisters and The Istanbul Twist Society but during pre-production the world’s attention shifted from The Twist to The Watusi and the project was scrapped.
I was a teenager browsing the shelves of Better Books in Edinburgh where amongst the imported copies of Grove plays—Pinter, Beckett, Behan, Arden, Delaney, and the City Lights’ volumes of Ginsberg and Corso—there was a small collection of Kerouac books. I picked up The Subterraneans and started reading:
Once I was young and had so much orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling as this; in other words this is the story of an unselfconfident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally, facetious won’t do - just start at the beginning and let the truth seep out, that’s what I’ll do -. It began on a warm summer night…
I was filled with “nervous intelligence” yet still “unselfconfident” I was hooked. And this is why Kerouac appeals best to the young whose lives are starting out, giddy with living, filled with a growing self-belief yet still filled with agononizing self-doubt—in need of someone to say, “it’s all right.” And here was Kerouac saying just that.
John Antonelli’s 1984 film Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats, tells Kerouac’s story through dramatized sequences, archive footage and interviews with the regular cast of players - William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg. At times, it skates across, and avoids those cracks that’d reveal troubled depths, but it is still a reminder as to how and why Kerouac very much matters.
As if we in the bottom 99% need any more PROOF that capitalism only works for the top 1%, this should put even Republicans’ teeth in a collective clench.
How many months of how many people’s monthly insurance premiums would it take to pay for this??? From Boston.com
Cleve L. Killingsworth, who abruptly resigned last March as chief executive of the nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, collected $8.6 million in compensation from the state’s largest health insurer in 2010.
The rich package — which included $1.4 million in severance pay, with more money to follow — was detailed in a Blue Cross filing with the state Division of Insurance yesterday. It touched off a volley of criticism at a time when government and business officials, including Blue Cross’s leaders, have been struggling to restrain health care costs….
Public interest advocates, pay specialists, and insurance customers were quick to call Killingsworth’s payout excessive.
“It sends the wrong message at the wrong time to consumers and employers,’’ said Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. “We’ve gone through years and years of double-digit premium increases. We need the health care industry in this state to start reflecting the rest of the economy.’’
It sends the wrong message is an understatement, this is IMMORAL and should be illegal. Why aren’t the Teabaggers and the Christian right up in arms about the fact that THEY themselves helped pay for this fat cat’s golden years? Isn’t this more of an affront than government borrowing or gay marriage?
This came DIRECTLY out of the bank accounts of the people of Massachusetts. There is no other way to spin it, is there? Maybe it was carved out of the savings from turning down organ transplants for children or something? There’s no math to do here, the people of Massachusetts paid for this. Incredible.
WHY IS THIS ALLOWED TO HAPPEN? WHAT DID THIS GUY DO THAT WAS SO GREAT THAT THOUSANDS OF THE “LITTLE PEOPLE” SHOULD PAY HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS EVERY MONTH FOR *HIM* TO RETIRE LIKE THIS?
WHAT SORT OF MAN-GOD IS THIS CLEVE L. KILLINGSWORTH?
