It’s been fascinating—and fun—watching Republican Tea party favorite, Rand Paul implode this past week. In my never so humble opinion he’s a straight up nut job—no wonder the teabaggers love him so much—who’s a card carrying member of the tin foil hat brigade. Did you see the stuff about him warning against the “NAFTA Superhighway” and the “Amero” on TPM? When someone starts talking about the fucking Amero, trust me, it’s time to get off the bus and wait for the next one! (He even warned of a Hitler-style dictatorship coming to America at a speech at a “machine gun shoot” last year)

But aside from the culturally unsophisticated Paul bringing the funny, which as I say, I enjoyed very much, one of the commenters about him on YouTube got me noticing how ready the media is to rip this guy apart. The poster wrote some typical “They’re just trying to tear a brave man down” BS. Well, brave or not—I think Rand Paul is an absolute moron—the guy did have a point: The media IS trying to tear Rand Paul down. This is not a conspiracy, it’s an easily observable fact. It’s not just about him saying some dumb shit and then it dies down, the members of the media actively want his blood. Look at the video below from Meet the Press. The sharks are circling Rand Paul.

I’d argue that this is an entirely appropriate reaction to a guy who espouses the brand of dangerous horseshit Paul does. This is a case, right before our very eyes, where the media—and I remind you that the media is made of human beings with opinions and feelings, I work at the LA Times myself—is acting like white blood cells trying to rid the body politic of a cancer.

A cancer named Rand Paul. Fuck this guy!
 

 
So begins R.U. Sirius’s history of Mondo 2000 magazine and its circle of fellow travelers. I approve of how it starts with this wonderful personal anecdote about his first exposure to the underground press as a teen, in the form of the San Francisco Oracle. Many people will tell you of an “Oh wow! This exists! And there must be more of it!” epiphany like this—I had a similar experience discovering David Bowie and reading Lester Bangs in Creem magazine eight years later—and it’s a highly enjoyable essay. Worth pointing out that kids today and forevermore will be unable to have an experience like this due to the always on mediascape we inhabit today. Discovering something rare used to require luck, a knack for ferreting out weird stuff or a hip relative. Not saying it would be preferable to go back to this earlier era, of course, I’m just saying that back then it took work:

Let the story beginning in the Spring of 1967. I am 14 years old and in 9th grade. It’s early evening and the doorbell rings at the suburban house in Binghamton, New York where I live with my mom and dad. It’s a group of my friends and they’re each carrying a plastic bag and looking mighty pleased. They come in, we shuffle into the guest room (where the record player is kept) and they show off their gatherings — buttons (“Frodo Lives!” “Mary Poppins is a Junkie” “Flower Power”), beads, posters (hallucinatory), incense with a Buddha incense burner, and kazoos. A lonely looking newspaper lays at the bottom of the pile, as though shameful, the only item unremarked.

Without realizing the implications, I happen to throw side one of Between The Buttons on the player. Eventually, the song “Cool Calm and Collected” plays and a kazoo sounds through the speakers. In an instant, newly purchased kazoos are wielded and The Rolling Stones only-ever kazoo solo is joined by three wailing teenagers, bringing sudden shouts of objection from my famously liberal and tolerant Dad in the living room. It’s quickly determined that it’s late, Dad’s tired, and it’s time to send all kazoo-wielding teens packing. As each of the friends moves to retrieve his items, I grab the newspaper to see what it is. There are, I now see, two of them — two editions of something called “The Oracle.” It has hallucinatory visuals on the cover and boasts an interview with a member of The Byrds (David Crosby). Vinnie, who had bought it — but who, despite writing poetry — avoids any signifiers of intellectual curiosity as the teen status crushers that they are, feigns disinterest and gives the copies to me.

And that’s where it begins, this strange love affair with the periodical, particularly the periodical that has flair and style… where you can almost feel the energy and fun emanating off the pages.

I remember only one thing from the content inside those two Oracles and that’s David Crosby denying that he was “some kind of weird freak who fucks ten chicks a day.” That stuck in my mind. I didn’t know it was possible even to think that, much less print it, much less be in a position to find it necessary to deny being it!

How great is that last sentence?

Read the entire essay—and support the project—here.

 
I think they might have glossed over some of the subtleties—just slightly—but in the main, it’s right on!

(via Nerdcore)

 
Dangerous Minds pal Rich Fulcher, the demented comedy genius of Snuff Box and the Might Boosh will be staging a mini-comedy festival on May 28th in Los Angeles at Largo, with an event celebrating the publication of his book, Tiny Acts of Rebellion: 97 Almost-Legal Ways to Stick It to the Man:

“A night of stand-up, sketch comedy, music and rebellion with special guests: Neil Hamburger (Jimmy Kimmel, Tim and Eric Awesome Show), Chad Hardwick (The Nerdist, Web Soup), The Lampshades (Kate Flannery of The Office and Scot Robinson of Anchorman), Eric Stonestreet (Cameron from Modern Family) and more!

A portion of all proceeds will go to the flood relief fund for the victims in Tennessee.”

Rich will also be bringing his new one man woman show to the Cinefamily/Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles for three days, June 2, 3, and 4 at 8pm.

Cinefamily’s 2nd Annual Comedy Festival kicks off with the U.S. premiere of the new live one-man/woman show by Rich Fulcher, co-star of the freaky British import “The Mighty Boosh” (seen on Adult Swim) and the savage BBC3 cult comedy hit “Snuff Box”! Rich presents Eleanor, the world’s greatest groupie and self-professed “tour whore”, a filthy and outrageous character first brought to life on “Mighty Boosh” and now embodied in the flesh on our stage. Decked out in overly tight tights, she’s made Neil “Young” again, put the “Wood” in Woodstock, and now she tells all—the Z-list musicians she’s bedded, the litany of her glorious past excesses, instructions on sleeping your way to the top—through song, dance, audience participation and X-rated confessional monologue. Her decadent and surreal stories will leave you feeling freshly molested, so join the legendary slut and prepare to be pounded like yesterday’s beef!

 
More Rich Fulcher on Dangerous Minds

 
I had no earthly idea about this until just this moment.  From the rare movie Umano non Umano by Mario Schifano. Shot in ‘69, released in ‘72.
 
thx Matt Devine !

 
While the rest of the world is playing Pac-Man on Google, we invite you to celebrate the yellow one with Buckner & Garcia and their classic hit Pac-Man Fever.  I remember getting this 45 when I was five and being totally stoked that the “c” on the Columbia label was shaped like Pac-Man, as seen on the Macca 45 down below. 
 

 

 
It’s more babytalk than Edward Albee, but still… She really gets under his skin doesn’t she?
 
Thanks, Khara Alii!

 
Mobile, Alabama-based traveling evangelist, Anthony Hopkins, who authorities say terrorized his family while preaching the gospel was sentenced to life in prison, plus 51 years after being convicted of killing his wife and hiding her body in a home freezer for three years. Circuit Judge John Lockett imposed the sentence Thursday on Anthony Hopkins in Mobile. Assistant District Attorney Ashley Rich called Hopkins “evil of the worst kind.”

Prosecutor told jurors that Anthony Hopkins terrorized his wife and young children, isolated them and used the Bible to manipulate them. “He was the supreme commander of his own little army,” said Assistant District Attorney Jill Phillips.

After 90 ,minutes of deliberation, the jury in Mobile also found Hopkins guilty of sodomy, rape, incest and sexual abuse of a child between the ages of 12 and 16.

From an April 6th, 2010 article on the Black Christian News website, prior to the trial’s conclusion:

People who heard traveling evangelist Anthony Hopkins deliver sermons in the rural Southern towns where he preached sometimes called him a psychic or even a prophet.

But prosecutors say the former soldier kept dark secrets while spreading God’s word. They accuse him of killing his wife, storing her body in a freezer for years and raping and molesting a young female relative.

Opening statements in his trial were expected to start Tuesday.

Hopkins, 39, was arrested in 2008 while preaching a rural revival in Clarke County. A teenage relative allegedly pregnant with his baby led police to the body of 36-year-old Arletha Hopkins, a mother of eight ranging in age from an infant to late teens.

Investigators say Hopkins killed his wife in 2004 after she caught him having sex with a female relative, then stuffed her body into a freezer at the Mobile home he shared with her, six children and two stepchildren.

Nicholas L. Jackson Sr., pastor of a small church in Jackson where Hopkins sometimes preached, told a local newspaper in 2008 that many who heard him considered him a prophet with psychic abilities.

“When he told you something was going to happen, you could pretty much count on it,” he said.

Then Hopkins should have seen his own sordid fate. May he rot in hell.

There’s one slightly amusing note to this tragic story: When asked if ministers should be held to a higher standard than laymen, one of the potential jurors is said to have replied “Yeah, they should practice what they preach!” Amen, brother.
 

WKRG.com News

 
Via my dear old friend, the brilliant microtonal composer/instrument builder Kraig Grady, comes this clip about the amazing yodel singing of the Central African pygmies. After getting all excited by this moving and beautiful music I hunted down the other couple of clips for my and your further aesthetic excitement. Incredibly lovely stuff.
 

 
Bayaka: The Extraordinary Music of the Babenzele Pygmies and Sounds of Their Forest Home