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Imaginary pinball machines of Hawkwind, The Stooges, Jim Jones, and more
05.23.2016
08:58 am
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If you’re as much of a pinball nut as I am, you’ll flip over these fantasy back glass illustrations by Charlie Fogel.

Illustrator/cartoonist, Fogel has loads of amazing work on his Plop Culture Prints Facebook page, but these imaginary pinball games are something special. I’ve been hooked since seeing the first one in his series, Jonestown, featuring a grinning Jim Jones holding a silver ball and dishing out Flavor Aid to busty beauties.

Since that first piece, Fogel has created five more fantasy machines depicting, in order of their release, the band Hawkwind, Jodorowsky’s arthouse classic Holy Mountain, notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar, the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll, and a Stooges Funhouse piece.

Fogel told Dangerous Minds a bit about the pinball series:

I was lucky enough to grow up with a pinball machine in my house that my dad inherited from the firehouse where he tended bar—I’m just now realizing how the countless hours of staring at it informed the way I draw. I got the idea for these at the Pinball Museum here in Asbury Park, looking at how random and awkward a lot of the subject matter of the old machines are. They’re the basest of advertising art, using totally overt sex, violence, bright lights and loud noises to stand out in a crowded bar or arcade. It’s a perfect vehicle to keep addressing the stuff I’m obsessed with (Jim Jones, for instance) without repeating myself or others work on the subject. It’s also cool because all the machines of that era, from the design down to the electronics, are totally analog—but still manage to overpower your senses without any slick computerized fluff. That really appeals to me as someone who works almost completely in analog methods and materials.

All of these illustrations are 12 inches square, mixed media on Bristol board. Fogel is planning to create six to ten more similar pieces to present in a gallery setting. Until then, you can view his work on his Facebook page or his website plopcultureprints.com.
 

 

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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05.23.2016
08:58 am
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Mindf*cker: Actual footage of Rev. Jim Jones preaching at The People’s Temple
06.20.2013
10:52 am
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Here’s something you don’t see everyday, footage of Rev. Jim Jones and a few hundred members of his People’s Temple. One of their actual services. It’s astonishing. Thirty fly-on-the-wall minutes of an expert brain-washer in action.

This was shot sometime in the 1970s and is presumed to have been recorded during a service at the People’s Temple’s Redwood Valley “home church” (there were several dozen satellites churches in California and about 3000 People’s Temple members).

At first you hear some testimony and praise from some members of the congregation about how great Jim Jones is and then some gospel singing. When the crowd is all good and worked up, the good Reverend steps up to the pulpit to harangue them with a sermon about socialism. Then more gospel music, then more preaching about Marxism.

Jones’ idol was Mao Zedong and the reason he got into the religion racket in the first place—which he was quite open about—was to infiltrate it. Religion was the vehicle for Jones to demonstrate his Marxism in the 1950s and initially he did so by organizing things like soup kitchens for the homeless and other charitable works. By the 1970s, the Peoples Temple was running nine residential care homes for the elderly, six organizations for orphaned children and a state-licensed 40-acre ranch for the mentally disabled.

Jesus was a Communist, he taught. Jones himself was the “ultimate socialist” and often hinted that he was a prophesied revolutionary messiah, a reincarnation of Jesus, Gandhi, Father Divine and Lenin!

Jones carefully studied Mao’s moves during the Cultural Revolution and used the same propaganda/mind control techniques that the Chinese Communist Party had perfected, in particular the “we’re the vanguard of a new age” and “us vs. them” aspects of “outcast” group think. Since he was so paranoid himself, this talent came easily to Jim Jones.
 

 
When you look at the composition of the followers in the videotape, at first it looks like all of the People’s Temple members were black, but then the camera finds an entire contingent of young white people sitting together who are dressed conservatively. Whenever Jones starts hitting the high notes about socialism, these folks stand up and cheer like Pentecostal apparatchiks.

Nearly 80% of the People’s Temple congregation was comprised of working class blacks. If you examine the format of the service, Jones kept the trappings of “old style religion” that his African-American followers would have felt at home with at the same time they were being politically re-indoctrinated. One of Jones’ standard dramatic tropes was to throw the Bible on the ground and stomp on it, telling his African-American followers that the white man’s version of Christianity was a boot on their necks.

“This black book has held down you people for 2000 years. It has no power.”

 

 
The young white people were the inner circle and had law degrees and other skills that would be useful to a barely disguised flim-flam man like Jones. Some knew how to work the public relations levers or deal with politicians or were good at keeping Jones’ various mail order scams going. Most were Communist “true believers” and felt that they were a part of an exciting social movement. Many of them also acted as de facto social workers, interacting with the State of California on behalf of the poorer members. The praise being heaped on Jones at the beginning of the tape should be seen in that context. By helping the less fortunate deal with the state’s often cruel bureaucracy or by getting them much-needed medical care, housing, food and so forth, Jones became a beloved and trusted father figure, gaining their loyal attendance at his church even though he often openly admitted to being an atheist!

It was ingenious. And it was utterly insane.

Part of the online collection of the Media Resources Center, Moffitt Library, University of California, Berkeley at Archive.org. Digitized by the California Audiovisual Preservation Project (CAVPP).
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.20.2013
10:52 am
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Get in the weekend mood with The uplifting sounds of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple Choir!
10.19.2012
11:26 am
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“He’s a friend – to the friendless
He’s a father – to the fatherless
He’s your joy – he’s your sorrow
He’s your hope – for tomorrow”
(“He’s Able”)

This week I’ve been busy putting various menial finishing touches to an exciting forthcoming Headpress release on music and the occult by Mark Goodall, Gathering of the Tribe: Music and Heavy Conscious Creation. The collection includes essays on various “occulted” artists ranging from Captain Beefheart to John Coltrane, the Beatles to the Wu Tang Clan, and features contributions from Mick Farren, David Kerekes and myself, among others.

For the last day or two, I’ve been mostly embroiled in the book’s final chapter “Mindfuckers: Cult Groups, Outsider Artists and Their Sounds,” and so by osmosis have ended up predominantly listening to music made by psychopathic demagogues and their unfortunate minions. Most distinctive of these, perhaps, is the saccharine, sunny, seventies pop gospel of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple Choir, almost all of whom would be wiped out in the Jonestown massacre about five years later, resulting in the re-release of their 1973 He’s Able album with a far darker cover (see above) than the one in which it first appeared. The playlist below treats you to the entire life-affirming record – which was once described as, “coming out of your stereo speakers like a sunbeam through a stained glass window.” 

Hands up who’s in the mood for a refreshing glass of Kool-Aid?  
 

Posted by Thomas McGrath
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10.19.2012
11:26 am
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