Howard Stern’s take on Sarah Palin’s audio book. Truly hilarious and definitely NSFW. You just know she’s going to complain to the media and/or try to sue him when she gets wind of this.

Thank you Ynohtna Oimefue!

 
This is one of the most insane things I’ve ever heard. Talk about bravery! (To say nothing of a steady hand). In 1961, a Soviet surgeon named Leonid Rogozov, then 27-years-old, and a member of the party of the 6th Soviet Antarctic expedition felt lower abdominal pain. What happened next is probably fairly obvious from the photograph!

In 1959 Leonid Rogozov graduated from the Institute and was immediately accepted to the surgery clinical residency. However, his studies at the residency were broken off for some time due to Leonid’s trip to Antarctica in September, 1960 as a doctor of the 6th Soviet Antarctic expedition to Novolazarevskaya station.

During this expedition there happened an event that made a 27-year old surgeon world-famous.

In the 4th month of the wintering, in April, 29th, 1961, Leonid showed disturbing symptoms: weakness, nausea, fever and pain in a right iliac region. The following day his temperature got even higher. Being the only doctor in the expedition consisting of 13 people, Leonid diagnosed himself: acute appendicitis. There were no planes at any of the nearest stations, besides, adverse weather conditions would not allow to fly to Novolazarevskaya anyway. In order to save the sick member of a polar expedition there was needed an urgent operation on site. And the only way out was to operate on himself.

At night, on the 30th of April, 1961, the surgeon was being helped by a mechanical engineer and a meteorologist who were giving him the medical instruments and holding a small mirror at his belly. Lying half bent on the left side, the doctor made a local anesthesia with novocaine solution and made a 12cm incision in the right iliac region with a scalpel. Either watching in the mirror or by touch he removed an inflamed appendix and injected antibiotic in the abdominal cavity. In 30 or 40 minutes from the beginning of the operation there developed a faint and giddiness and the surgeon had to make pauses for some rest. Nevertheless, by midnight the operation lasting 1 hour and 45 minutes was over. In five days the temperature normalized, in two days more – the stitches were taken out.

You think you’re tough? You ain’t tough!

Via English-Russia

 
Dangerous Minds pal Brian Butler has a new short film that’s part of a film festival coming up in Los Angeles soon. Brian was a producer on the Disinformation series with me a while back, helming two of the show’s more memorable segments: the feuding Satanists and Rocketboy, the real life superhero/half cat. He also introduced me to Uncle Goddamn. Brian also contributed the great essay on Marjorie Cameron, Cameron: The Wormwood Star to my Book of Lies anthology. For these reasons and more, I shall be forever grateful. The video clip below is a shorter version of Night of Pan that was made for a Beijing arts festival, the full version will be shown at the Projections festival. It’s pretty striking, I think you’ll agree!

From the press release:

Brian Butler’s Night of Pan Premiers in LA at Projections Festival, January 16 at Roberts & Tilton

Los Angeles, CA: Noted filmmaker, artist and musician Brian Butler (www.brianbutler.com) will premier his short film, “Night of Pan” in Los Angeles on January 16 at 7:30pm at the opening of Projections, a festival of rare and hard to see films including other directors such as Spike Jonze, Harmony Korine, Jean-Luc Goddard, and Miranda July . Projections was curated by Aaron Rose an artist, film director, writer, musician, and independent curator most noted as the co-curator of the successful museum exhibition and book Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art & Street Culture which toured the world through 2008.

Projections takes place at the Roberts & Tilton Gallery, 5801 Washington Boulevard, between La Cienega Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, in Culver City, California from January 16 to February 20, 2010. In addition to screening on January 16, “Night of Pan” will also be screened in a loop at the gallery on February 18, 2010.

“Night of Pan” is a seven and a half minute film featuring film auteur Kenneth Anger and actor Vincent Gallo. The film has been screened in various versions internationally in Beijing, Lisbon, Cannes, Athens, Rome, Berlin and elsewhere, but never in Butler’s base, Los Angeles.

In the film, Anger, Gallo, and Butler depict an occult ritual that symbolizes the stage of ego death in the process of spiritual attainment.

Brian Butler is a multidisciplinary artist who creates works around dark magical themes. He had worked extensively as a producer on director Kenneth Anger’s recent work. Additionally he has written for Dazed & Confused and performs along with Anger in the band Technicolor Skull.

 
This one is pretty self explanatory. Tickets are only $35 in advance, but the ballroom only holds 400 so you’d better act fast if you want to attend.

Thank you Julien Nitzberg!

 
Crowd-sourced surrealists Improv Everywhere are holding their second annual LA No Pants Mission starting with a “pants-less” subway ride in Los Angeles on Sunday before everyone ends up at the Hollywood and Highland complex. They’re being joined by members of the GuerilLA and other urban pranksters. Details below, but the subtext here is worth pointing out: while the rest of the country is freezing its collective ass off, we here in the great city of Los Angeles can go outside without our pants on! It was around 74 degrees here yesterday. Gorgeous.

To quote Randy Newman, “I love L.A.”

WHAT: 2nd Annual No Pants Metro Ride
WHEN: Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 2:00 PM
WHERE: Metro System
BRING: $5 for Metro Day Pass, pants you can easily take off, something in which to keep them

This mission is pretty self-explanatory: we ride the subway just as anyone would on any given normal day, just without pants. (Note that this is NO PANTS, not NO UNDERWEAR day. Wouldn?

 
My colleague at the Los Angeles Times, Ramie Becker, wrote a great short article about the closing of iconic LA nightspot Dragstrip 66, looking back at the club’s almost unheard of seventeen year run. (Make sure to browse through the photo gallery. Some winners there):

Equally inspired by high fashion and lowbrow art, Dragstrip 66 carved out a niche for those who liked their night life tempo somewhere between a John Waters film, a Bob Mackie fashion show and a drunken punk dance party. It became a who’s who of the alternative/queer performance art scene; Jackie Beat, Joey Arias, Varla Jean Merman, Chi Chi LaRue and Jer Ber Jones all graced its stage. A-list celebrities showed up too: Marilyn Manson, Claire Danes, Roseanne Barr, Traci Lords, RuPaul, Alan Cumming, Drew Barrymore and Adam Lambert among them.

Read more: Dragstrip 66: Saying goodbye is such a drag (Los Angeles Times)

Thanks to the never-ending French love of Frank Herbert’s Dune, we’re in store for a new adaptation of the book to film. What is this?

 
(via Super Punch)

 
Remember “The Big Guy”? Mike from Brooklyn (AKA The Kid from Brooklyn and The Big Guy) is an outspoken senior citizen with a penchant for the “F” word who makes his home-pundit videos in his bathrobe (or shirtless) and puts them up on YouTube. Not saying I’m endorsing, necessarily, everything that Mike has to say (he likes Sarah Palin and is vociferously anti-Muslim), but very often he’s bust-a-gut funny and he’s more liberal than you might think at first glance. Here are a few better examples of Mike’s zany, boisterous and LOUD home-punditry.
 

 
Thank you Jesse Merlin!

 
Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something like this comes along:

My New Pink Button (tm) is a temporary dye to restore the youthful pink color back to your labia. There is no other product like it. This patent pending formula was designed by a female certified Paramedical Esthetician after she discovered her own genital color loss. While looking online for a solution she discovered thousands of other women asking the same questions regarding their color loss. After countless searches revealing no solution available and a discussion with her own gynecologist she decided to create her own. Now there is a solution!

They have several different shades—but of course—in their product line.

For instance, there’s “Bettie”:

Think of that favorite lipstick you wear for those dressy black tie affairs and think “Ginger.” This shade blends with a woman’s own skin tones to bring out that “sexy hot pink, I am fired up, look”. Go dancing this weekend and remember to bring “Bettie” along!

“Audry” will give your vagina a ?

 
Coming this Spring, Sir Christopher Lee’s symphonic metal concept album about the first holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne.  If that sounds at all like an odd career move for the knighted actor, consider this:

The Carandinis, Lee’s maternal ancestors, were given the right to bear the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.  Through his Carandini ancestors, Christopher Lee has a direct link to Charlemagne, and has decided for the first time in his life to pay homage to his distinguished ancestor, who is credited as “The Father of Europe.”

 
More on Christopher Lee’s Charlemagne: By The Sword And The Cross

(via YBNBY)

 
More mixed signals from the wild world of Danish advertising.  First came this highly questionable campaign to combat violence against women.  Now comes the video below.

“Karen” is an attractive young mother who’s looking for the father of her child, the product of a one-night stand.  She’s not obsessed, a bimbo, or looking to assign blame.  She simply wants to alert the baby daddy—whomever he may be—that their child “exists.”  But as Sociological Images points out:

The video was actually produced as part of a campaign by Visit Denmark, a Danish tourism agency.  The idea is, apparently, to market Denmark to male tourists with the implication that it?

 
My Gawd! And I thought I was “gangsta” for using Visine. 
 
(via misterhonk)

 
Feeling more than a little torn and frayed from the ‘00’s, Mick and Keith look forward to a brand new decade of Dangerous Minds Rolling Stones posts!

 
“I’m cooking like a man on killing spree, my mom says I’m dating, weird like a thug, I’m in love, ‘cause she’s all cooked up!”  If Mel Brooks did it with Hitler, maybe filmmaker Steve Russell can do it for Plainfield’s most notorious flesh fetishist?  Get ready for Ed Gein: The Musical:

According to the Associated Press, this jaunty-creepy portrait of Gein?