Pat Condell is a British atheist who makes popular—albeit quite controversial—YouTube clips railing against religion. He’s a former stand-up comic and has a quite a knack for looking right into the camera and really nailing it. Condell’s rants are anything but polite, and they throw cold water on religious belief (“An organized system of ignorance!” as my old friend Brother Theodore liked to say) as well as anything I can think of aside from George Carlin’s all-time classic “Religion is Bullshit.” (What happens to Christians when they accidentally listen to Carlin’s routine? I wonder about that every time I hear it!!)

Here is how he describes his mission:

I was a regular on the UK stand-up circuit until the mid nineties when I got fed up performing to drunken birthday parties, so I started writing for other people. I wrote my most recent show, and I now make internet videos, because I believe religion in the modern world is out of control and is given far too much respect by people who should know better. It enjoys a status it hasn’t earned and doesn’t deserve, and it’s time we stopped pandering to it before it literally destroys us. You can find out more at my website.

Below Pat Condell takes on Christianity:
 

The next time you hear a dumbass say something about how the Founding Fathers felt about religion, hit ‘em with this quote, courtesy of Condell:

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.” - Thomas Jefferson

In the name of balance, here’s Pat Condell’s epic rant from 2007 “The Trouble with Islam,” amazingly still on YouTube:
 

 
Via Joe My God

 
Don Ho died on this date four years ago and I can’t imagine a better way to commemorate his legacy than sharing this live footage from the early 1990s of Ho singing his classic song “Suck ‘Em Up.” Enjoy now. Thank me later.

Don is definitely in Dean Martin mode on this one.
 

 
Sleep with angels forever in your very own custom made Jonathan Ross casket from British company Creative Coffins. The company is “committed to providing a green alternative to traditional wooden coffins” by using cartonboard materials.

Our individually designed cartonboard coffins provide for a more eco-friendly funeral and, most importantly, the range of carefully created styles will help you find a design that truly reflects the personality of your loved one.

Video gaming pioneer Gerald Lawson has died from complications related to diabetes. He was 70 years old.

In 1976, Lawson designed the Fairchild Channel F, the first programmable ROM cartridge-based video game console. He went on to create software for the Atari 2600 in the early 80s.
 

Lawson was the sole black member of the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of early computer hobbyists which would produce a number of industry legends, including Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Lawson also produced one of the earliest arcade games, Demolition Derby, which debuted in a southern California pizzeria shortly after Pong.”

In a 2009 interview, Lawson was candid in his appraisal of Jobs and Wozniak: “I was not impressed with them — either one of them, actually.” He was so unimpressed by Wozniak he turned down his application for a job at Fairchild.

In March, Mr. Lawson was honored for his innovative work by the International Game Developers Association, an overdue acknowledgment for an unfamiliar contributor to the technological transformation that has changed how people live.

“He’s absolutely a pioneer,” Allan Alcorn, a creator of the granddaddy of video games, Pong, said in an interview with The San Jose Mercury News in March. “When you do something for the first time, there is nothing to copy.”

 
Here’s Mr. Lawson discussing Fairchild Channel F and the roots of virtual reality:
 

 
Our pals at Network Awesome bring together the varied and disparate artifacts of your favorite geniuses for your trouble-free enrichment. Here’s a swell multi-pronged tribute to visionary composer and inventor Raymond Scott including an interview with Jeff Winner of the Raymond Scott Archives
 

Jeff Winner is one of the chairmen of the Raymond Scott Archives, founder of raymondscott.com and co-producer of Manhattan Research, Inc., a 2-CD & book set of Scott’s early electronic work. That makes him totally the dude to talk to about Raymond Scott himself. And on top of being a total badass on Raymond Scott-ology, he was a nice enough guy to answer a few of our questions. The conversation goes everywhere - from Looney Tunes to Benny Goodman to Mark Mothersbaugh.

 
video playlist:
 
The Raymond Scott Quintette - War Dance For Wooden Indians
The Philharmonicas - Powerhouse
The Raymond Scott Quintette  - Ali Baba Goes To Town (1937)
The Raymond Scott Quintette - Night and Day
Raymond Scott’s Electronium: The Restoration
Designs in Music - Dorothy Collins, Raymond Scott on the Bell Telephone Hour
Raymond Scott: On To Something (trailer)
 

 
The Sound of Surreal: Interview with Jeff Winner on Raymond Scott

 
An original painting done by the late Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett that was stolen from a London art gallery over the weekend has been returned, according to The Wire magazine.

Barrett’s self portrait was from London’s Idea Generation Gallery on Saturday April 9th, right off the wall of the “Syd Barrett Arts & Letters exhibition.” The painting was a gift, done in 1961 or 62, for his then girlfriend Libby Gausden.

Gausden and the gallery offered a $2000 reward and appealed for the safe return of the painting. On the 12th of April, the painting was returned via post to the gallery in perfect condition. You can see some of the now-closed Syd Barrett exhibition online here. Reasonably priced prints from the show are also for sale. I particularly liked this one:
 

 
Below, Syd Barrett and Roger Waters try to remain polite in the face of ridiculously uptight classical music critic Hans Keller, after the band play “Astronomy Domine” on BBC’s Look of the Week.
 

 
If you like your folkish Americana with a large twist of David Lynch, then Bee & Flower should be right up your deserted stretch of backwoods road. It’s maybe hard to push boundaries in this particular genre, but then I guess that that’s not really the point. It’s more about atmosphere and quality songwriting, and those are things that Bee & Flower have in spades.

The group was formed at the start of the century by the multi-talented Dana Schechter, who up til then had been playing in Michael Gira’s post-Swans group Angels of Light. Since then she has gone on to collaborate with a veritable who’s who of alt-Americana, including members of Sparklehorse, Calexico and The Bad Seeds, not to mention having string arrangements supplied by Jim “Foetus” Thirwell. If a collab list like that doesn’t pique your interest, then truly I fear for your soul. If you’re after more tangible evidence, however, here’s some music:

Bee & Flower - “I Know Your Name”
 

 
Bee & Flower - “Homeland”
 

 
Bee & Flower - “Green Glasses”
 

Although Bee & Flower formed in Brooklyn, Schechter now resides in Berlin where the last couple of B&F albums were recorded (2007’s Last Sight Of Land and the upcoming Suspension). Tonight however she and the band will be back in Brooklyn for a one-off, free gig at the Zebulon (258 Wythe Ave) along with four other acts. They will also be giving away copies of their 7” single “Dust & Sparks” to 3 lucky people to help celebrate Record Store Day.

Yes, I said the show is free (the favored price of the next generation) so if you are around be sure to check it out. If you’re not lucky enough to live in Brooklyn or New York, here is a live video of B&F in Berlin from 2007.

Bee & Flower - “Don’t Say Don’t Worry”
 

For more info on Bee & Flower, this is their official website, and here is band’s tumblr.

 
From The Telegraph:

Wesley Hosie, 25, found the yellow and red sweet by chance as he and his girlfriend tucked into a 700g jar from The Jelly Bean Factory.

Mr Hosie and girlfriend Jessica White, 24, from Taunton, Somerset, kept the mango-flavoured bean and now plan to sell it on eBay for £500.

Mr Hosie said: “As Jessica opened the jar, I saw her immediately. She was literally lying there staring back at me.”

Tasty!

 
These tats reveal a sensitivity that should earn these guys some time off for good intentions.

Here, mugshot tattoos shed a light on the tender side of thuggery. A vegan, a devoted father and a lover.

I wonder what the vegan was busted for? Brutalizing a carrot? Raping a mound of tofu? As long as he kept his hands off a sentient being, I say cut him some slack.

The father of two lovely daughters really needs to get home as soon as possible. The three-fingered babies need special care.
 

 
Not all ladies love it, but he’s trying to please in the best way he can. Give him points for effort. At least he’s attempting to take the moustache ride to the next level. He’s an innovator.
 

 

 
Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey are accused of violating child pornography laws in a 1964 film directed by Morrissey called All Aboard The Dreamland Choo Choo. The suit was filed in 2009 against Warhol’s Estate and Morrissey by a lawyer representing the grown children of Richard Toelk. Toelk appeared in the film when he was 14, rolling and smoking what might or might not be a joint, giving himself electrical shocks and plunging a small knife into his leg. It is strong stuff, but how much of it was staged? Toelk died in 1990 so he’s not telling.

Morrissey has said that All Aboard The Dreamland Choo Choo was intended to send an anti-drug message and it was made a year before he met Warhol. The title of the film came from a Shirley Temple song that he would play during the silent film’s screening.

Emily Larish of The Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law doesn’t think Toelk’s children have much of a case and may actually be exploiting their father more than Warhol and Morrissey ever did:

Assuming the depiction of Toelk in All Aboard The Dreamland Choo Choo can be considered sexual exploitation, if the footage was filmed in 1964, then it could not have been in violation of federal child pornography laws; the first federal laws aimed at child pornography were not enacted until the late 1970s. As for the claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress for damaging the family’s image, it is hard to imagine that many people have even seen the film, certainly not in recent years. Moreover, even out of those who have seen the film, I doubt that many would be able to identify the young boy smoking pot as Richard Toelk, the father of the plaintiffs.

It seems that this family is attempting to do the very thing for which they are accusing the defendants: exploiting the images of a young Richard Toelk for financial gain.

You can read the complaint here

Watch the rarely seen All Aboard The Dreamland Choo Choo and make up your own mind…or don’t. In my opinion the self-torture looks no more real than what you’d see in a mainstream horror movie. The film seems to want to dramatize a young man’s desperate need to feel something, anything, some kind of kick. It’s certainly not porn. And the young actor doesn’t appear to be suffering the kind of pain you’d feel after plunging an Exacto knife in your leg. It looks like theater to me.