Former-white nationalist teen-pop duo Prussian Blue tell the world about their love of the chronic.

Via WFMU

 
This is a guest editorial from Dangerous Minds reader Em, expanding on some pointed commentary he’s made elsewhere on this blog. Em—who’ll keep his last name to himself, thank you very much—works in the financial industry:

One day you’re going to arise from your habitual feast

To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast they call The Revolution

“They Call It Democracy”—Bruce Cockburn

When Bruce Cockburn sings these lines during a performance, his largely left-leaning audience will often cheer, apparently not comprehending that this is intended to be a cautionary tale. In They Call It Democracy, Bruce is informing the international 1% that time is running out, and that if they don’t use their disproportionately vast resources to reform and truly democratize access to goods and services and capital, then the 99% are going to lose faith in the system itself and eventually overthrow it. And Bruce is fully aware of the fact that The Beast isn’t well represented by romantic notions and Che Guevara T shirts. The Beast is often ugly and brutal and doesn’t always bring in something better. But by the time it comes to that, the 99% will be fully aware of the risks but just won’t give a shit anymore.

That’s why the LIBOR issue is so damned dangerous.

Back in 2009 I was working at a “Too Big To Fail Bank” on Canary Wharf in London, and during my lunch hour walked over to where LIBOR is set and took the above photo. (LIBOR is housed in that building on the left.) Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine, however, that the setting of this key rate upon which the price of mutual funds and derivative securities are indexed, could be easily manipulated by a tiny number of coked-up traders. Although I worked on the retail half of that TBTF Bank, for one summer, I did actually utilize the famous Ho-Lee model to analyze derivative securities for volatility risk. So I knew enough about LIBOR to understand that it is in some ways as important as the prime interest rate, set by the Fed. But I naively assumed that the US and UK governments, along with the Big Banks, would tightly control the LIBOR process because a loss-of-faith in LIBOR could set international markets into chaos.

And that’s the last thing we anyone really wants right now. Right?

But I was wrong. And who knew? Who knew LIBOR could be impacted by such a slipshod and unregulated process? What the hell? Conflicts of interest seem to be practically built into the system, but it only hands out benefits to those in special positions of power. And if I, a banker, can begin to view the system as this deeply corrupt, how will rank-and-file investors feel? Will they put their money into real estate? Hide it in mattresses? That can only accelerate a possible collapse or, worse yet, a revolution.

Revolution? Hah. No one in the US would seriously consider a socialist much less a communist revolution. But those aren’t the only kinds of revolution. The Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 proves to us that even moderate and reasonably urbane and clever people will sometimes simply choose the devil they don’t know when the Devil they do know (in that case the Shah) has proven beyond all doubt that his system won’t work for most people by design. On purpose. Like the American version of capitalism.

And is that what we really want? OK, maybe in the US we won’t have an Islamic revolution. But who knows what our idiotic science-denying masses might come up with? Maybe the Tea Party was just a first try and all that’s needed now is some less idiotic reformulation that appeals to a wider audience. And remember, it doesn’t have to work in reality, it just has to be able to convince enough people that it might or could be better than the corrupt and closed system most people believe operates today. All it has to do is make a few promises while providing a sort of “purity code” that allows the rank-and-file to throw off outside influence. And for all of its bloodshed and hostages, the Iranian revolution at least returned Iran’s destiny back into the hands of the Iranians, rather than the US and UK-backed torturous regime that was impoverishing practically everybody outside a tiny cabal of the well-connected. And if the Iranians can do it (ie, create a populist strain of Politcal Islam that freezes out external meddling influences), there’s no reason to believe the Americans can’t come up with something of their own in order to lock out and dismantle predatory economics and access structures.

Back in the late 1990s and during the Bush II era, The Fed continued to lower interest rates in order to boost the housing sector. They did this precisely because it worked, and because the traditional industries that provided wealth and capital to the working classes had been strip-mined of value by not only upper-level managers but by Private Equity firms (such as Bain Capital) that searched for value and then capitalized it into their own pockets by moving jobs and manufacturing overseas. As the “Mighty Trucks of Midnight” (another lefty Bruce Cockburn ref there) moved whole industries overseas and Labor imploded, there were fewer and fewer investment opportunities for fund managers. So the steroidally pumped-up housing sector took up the slack while the level of personal indebtedness (to the banks, of course) skyrocketed. We were, in effect, borrowing chunks of our future in order to pay the bankers that colluded with an unregulated system to enrich a very few but without the creation of real new wealth.

When the Great Recession hit, we had to pay the piper for all that debt we had amassed but, Lo! We had no money left. A lot of the money we had been spending had come from debt but now we couldn’t borrow anymore, because the banks were failing and couldn’t make any more loans. And yet, no one really wanted to change anything because it looked like the system was essentially fair so we just had to let it recover a bit so we could all continue on our merry way.

But now, perhaps, we know that wasn’t the real story. And that the system was rigged. We are slowly becoming aware of the fact that only a tiny minority benefit from it while the rest of us work our asses off and still suck shit and struggle every day to feed our families and keep a roof over our heads. As awareness of what LIBOR-fixing really means begins to penetrate popular consciousness, more and more people will begin to question whether the system is even reformable at all. What the 1% and their Walking Dead-like minions do not comprehend, however, is that even if there is a way to reform the system and keep this party rolling a little longer, we are rapidly passing the time where anyone will still believe the system can be reformed. In other words, the window of reform and long-term survival of a system that resembles our current one is closing, and closing rapidly. It will have to be the 1% who choose to utilize their resources in order to give themselves (and their privileged families) a shot at longer-term survival.

That is the only chance the 1% has of keeping the 99% from invoking The Beast, in some form or another.

About the author: After living in China in the late 80s, Em worked in the physics and electrical engineering space until 2002, at which time he moved into the financial world. In July of 2010, Em returned to the US after living in London for several years.
 

 
“The Great Red Dragon and the Beast from the Sea” by William Blake

 
Best birthday wishes to Peter Serafinowicz, co-creator (with Robert Popper) of the all-time genius comedy classic Look Around You and the voice of Sith Lord Darth Maul.

He’s also in a class of his own on Twitter, using the 140 character social media tool like a laughter-spitting machine gun. Peter Serafinowicz turns 40 today.

(Peter, they’ll tell you that 40 is a “good age for a man” but they’re lying: It is pretty much a mathematical certainty that it’s all downhill from here and you get to carry that thought around with you from here on out. Aging. I don’t recommend it.—Richard, 46)

Below, the “Germs” episode of Look Around You, one of the smartest TV comedies ever produced.
 

 
Nos television’s six o’clock news are claiming they accidentally gave German chancellor Angela Merkel a “Hitler moustache” during a report this past Sunday.

Apparently the Hitler ‘stache “was caused by part of the news programme’s updated set decorations which crossed Merkel’s face with a black line.”

According to the show’s editor in chief Marcel Gelauff, “It was an unfortunate coincidence.”

Set malfunction gives Merkel a moustache
 

 
Via Arbroath

 
Dennis Flemion of Milwaukee duo The Frogs drowned over the weekend in Racine, Wisconsin’s Wind Lake. He was 57.

Highly respected among fellow rockers like Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder and Billy Corgan, Flemion was an outrageous performer, singer, songwriter and artist. While never achieving the popularity of the bands he influenced and inspired, his work with his brother in The Frogs will long be remembered for its provocative humor, style and devilishly witty punk rock attitude. 

Here’s a piece I wrote for Dangerous Minds two years ago on the fabulous Frogs:

Love them or loathe them, The Frogs, brothers Jimmy and Dennis Flemion, are undeniably one of the most outrageously tasteless bands in the annals of rock and roll. While no group will ever equal the exalted standard of rock depravity set by G.G. Allin, The Frogs have definitely earned a spot near the throne.
 
The Frogs are USDA grain fed rock and roll dadaists, improvising their songs and recording them on the fly in their home studio,utilizing genres as disparate as Appalachian ballads and glam rock to satirize pop culture and subvert sacred cows. They pissed off some of the humorless members of the Gay community (you know who you are) with their hilariously insincere celebration of homo love, It’s Only Right And Natural (1988), which featured campfire singalongs like “I Don’t Care If U Disrespect Me (Just So You Love Me),” ” Been A Month Since I Had A Man and “Hot Cock Annie.” And when The Frogs brought their record label, Homestead, the uber politically incorrect Racially Yours (2000), the label refused to release it even though the album had sure fire hits (in an alternate universe) like “Darkmeat 4 Sale” and “Two Blacks Don’t Make A White.” It seems record execs are just too fucking dumb to understand satire. The Frogs are The Fugs for a new generation - The Frugs. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is off limits for their deliriously weird and often very funny vamps, particularly sex (of all sorts), drugs and rock and roll, with The Frogs themselves often the butt of their own jokes. Their take-no-prisoners attitude to rock star poseurs is particularly brutal.

The Frogs actually did release an album that was radio friendly, a sardonic piss-take on rock stars called   Star Job, which contains two of the best rock songs of the past 15 years: “I Only Play 4 Money” and “Weird On The Avenue.”
 

Dennis, Kurt and Jimmy.
 
Unfortunately, most of The Frogs videos on the Internet are shitty quality and really and don’t do the brothers justice. Having seen the band live, I know what they’re capable of. Yes, they could be sloppy, but they were often awe-inspiringly good. I’ve put together some of the best videos I could find, including clips from their never released long film Toy Porno.
 

 
Frogs with Vedder, Toy Porno and more after the jump…

 
DM pal Ann Magnuson is a genius at painting “parody” fake Basquiats.

And now, for a low, low price you can own one, too! Ann’s got these two paintings on offer for a mere $1000 donation to her “The Jobriath Medley: A Glam Rock Fairy Tale” project. I know Basquiat never painted with glitter, but he really should have!

WHAM BAM, JUST THE PAINTING, MAAM: Don’t give a damn about glam rock but you want one of Ann’s Fake Basquiat paintings? Okay! Done!

This tier is for those who want Ann to create an original Fake Basquiat painting CUSTOMIZED JUST FOR YOU! With or without glam rock themes. That’s right, YOU pick the colors YOU like and give Ann YOUR specific likes, dislikes, loves and/or select experiences from YOUR life and she will incorporate some into a special Fake Basquiat painting just for YOU! 16”x20” canvas. Glitter optional.

*We’ll also add The Jobriath Medley CD whether you like it or not!* (One of Ann’s rare Fake Basquiats sold at auction at a LACE benefit for $1,600 so this is quite a bargain!)

Just five days left!
 

 

 
Mexicans may have woken up the day after their election worried that they’d chosen a “himbo” who has never read a book version of Sarah Palin to lead their country in the form of seemingly empty-headed pretty boy president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, but it might be worse than even that nasty nightmare come true: What if Peña Nieto is more like a closeted gay OJ Simpson/John Edwards kind of homicidal super-cad hybrid character?

Sounds vaguely like a telenovela that has jumped the shark, no?

Wonkette’s Lisa Wines has the down and dirty. Trust me this shit is the best:

Agustín Humberto Estrada Negrete, a former director and teacher at a school for children with special needs, claims to have been Peña Nieto’s homosexual lover for seven years while Peña Nieto was governor of Mexico state and married to Monica Pretelini. Estrada Negrete claims that Peña Nieto’s wife discovered him and Peña Nieto inflagranti and an argument between husband and wife ensued. When Peña Nieto started to beat his wife, Estrada Negrete decided it was time to leave. The next thing he knew, Monica Pretelini was dead. Since Estrada Negrete had been beaten before by Peña Nieto, he is convinced that Peña Nieto killed his wife. In an interview, Estrada Negrete said that after Monica Pretelini’s January 2007 death, Peña Nieto cried upon Estrada Negrete’s breast, “I went too far.”

On May 12, 2007, Peña Nieto’s deceased wife’s bodyguards were murdered while accompanying Peña Nieto’s three children, their maternal grandparents and aunt in Veracruz. Only the truck of the bodyguards was targeted; the family was unhurt. Estrada Negrete attests that these were the same bodyguards who would come and pick him up, in the same truck, for his assignations with Peña Nieto.

On May 17, 2007, just four months after the death of Peña Nieto’s wife, Estrada Negrete participated in an LGBT event, posing in a red dress. The photo of him in a dress made it into the papers and since then, Estrada Negrete’s life (as well as the lives of his family and the mothers of the school children who supported him) has been in grave danger. Estrada Negrete says this was the end of his relationship with Peña Nieto, since he had always been warned by Peña Nieto that there would be dire consequences if he came out of the closet.  Estrada Negrete lost his job, was arrested twice for minor charges, tortured and gang-raped in jail, had death threats written on the walls of his school and inside his home and finally someone tried to kill him with a plastic bag over his head. Left for dead on the street, luckily the Red Cross saved him. In a wheelchair he escaped to the United States in 2010 with his political asylum papers in hand. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights filed a precautionary measure in Mexico to protect Estrada Negrete and his family and eventually was able to get the Mexican government to pay Estrada Negrete’s teacher’s back-pay. He lives in San Diego now, still fearing for his life but denouncing Peña Nieto and telling his story any chance he gets.

Adding to the mystery, on the day of Peña Nieto’s wife’s death, the announcements were all over the place. First, the governor’s own spokesperson announced that she had died from an overdose of anti-depressants (other reports said sleeping pills), then that she was brain dead, then finally, the doctor who had been treating her for two years made an announcement that she had been having seizures and that she had suffered, this time, from a fatal one, which caused cardiac arrhythmia and in turn respiratory arrest, from which she died. No wonder Peña Nieto was so confused in a May 2010 TV interview with respected Univisión journalist Jorge Ramos, when Ramos asked Peña Nieto how his wife had died. He couldn’t answer. He babbled on and on like he did at the Guadalajara book fair when asked what books he’d read that influenced his life. Ramos had to remind him that his wife died of an epileptic seizure. We think that Peña Nieto should have said in Guadalajara that the book that most influenced him was, If I Did It, by OJ Simpson.

Of course, all the bad things happened when he was just a tyke (in his thirties). Now he’s a man (in his forties). And president. So we’re sure he’s learned his lesson, right? Well, all is not well in the soap-opera fairy tale of Peña Nieto and Angelica Rivera, his soap-opera star wife. On March 13 of this year, Angelica Rivera was admitted to a hospital, bruised and beaten. Mexican radio station Radio Formula confirmed that Rivera was hospitalized for two days in March after she “fell from the stairs.” On May 29, Mexican actress Laura Zapata (Tony Mottola’s sister-in-law) tweeted that Angelica Rivera was severely beaten by Peña Nieto and hospitalized again. This time, no media outlets confirmed Angelica’s stay in the hospital, because according to Laura Zapata, the attending physicians were told not to say a word.

Ay yi yi!

Read more of Gay? Murderer? The telenovela life of president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto at Wonkette
 

 
John Lydon bumps heads on the legalization of drugs with chick lit author and conservative member of parliament Louise Mensch in this episode of BBC TV show Question Time. Mensch claims class A drugs addled her brain. An accurate self-assessment?

Lydon makes a lot of sense while managing to get Mensch’s knickers in a twist. I can foresee a day when the old punker runs for political office himself.
 

 
Via The Stool Pigeon.

 
Here’s a Troma film unlike any I’ve ever seen. Rufus Butler Seder’s Screamplay (1985) is an homage to the cinematic expressionism of films like The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu and Les Vampires that really captures the look and feel of those classic excursions into the world of dream and nightmare.

Shot in gorgeous black and white, Screamplay is a murder mystery that succeeds not so much in its plot line as it does in its accomplished visuals and surreal atmosphere. Its a really original and exciting work from a director who only made one feature length film before devoting his creative life to “optically animated public art installations.”

The blurb from Troma: “Edgar Allen must confront old actresses, rock stars, and the police in the bleak setting of broken dreams in Hollywood.”

Enjoy Screamplay in its entirety. Its stunning.
 

 
How cool is this? A stunningly high quality YouTube upload of the MC5’s entire session on German TV’s ‘Beat Club’ circa 1972.

1. Kick Out the Jams
2. Ramblin’ Rose
3. Motor City’s Burning
4. Tonight
5. Black to Comm