Tonight brings a special guest post from Dangerous Minds pal, main Medicine man, and one of my dear childhood friends, Mr. Brad Laner:

Crass has always been one of my favorite bands.  While mostly known for their brilliant iconography and lyrics, media pranks, and communal origins/existence, I think they made tremendously creative and musically interesting records.  Drummer/lyricist Penny Rimbaud‘s drumming in particular is like none other I can think of.  The man managed to work a bizarre martial uh…march feel into nearly all of their material, and therefore made Crass sound like no other “punk” band before or since.

I recently picked up Rimbaud’s autobiography, Shibboleth, and while there is precious little about the actual music, it’s a fun and informative read.  An early moment finds teenage Jeremy Ratter (the future Mr. Rimbaud) crossing paths with The Beatles on Ready Steady Go.

As unlikely as that sounds, it’s thankfully preserved for all time on the YouTubes:

It also must be mentioned that Crass created the greatest lost feminist manifesto/concept album ever in 1981’s Penis Envy.  I’d be hard pressed to come up with another band that was able to so beautifully marry great heaping mouthfuls of bitterly angry lyrics to almost jubilantly inventive music.

Bonus I: Crass’s Nagasaki Nightmare (fan vid)

Bonus II: Crass’s Bata Motel (fan vid)

 
On this day 40 years ago, the very first e-mail message (long before they called it e-mail, of course) was sent by UCLA’s Leonard Kleinrock over the ARPANET system from Los Angeles to the Stanford Research Institute, more than 400 miles away.

Kleinrock, while still a student at MIT, developed the principles of “packet switching,” which allows the basic data-transfer functions of the Internet. As a professor at UCLA, Kleinrock helped develop ARPANET, the interconnected computer network from which the Internet evolved. Today more than 1.6 billion people around the world are connected to the network.

What was that first momentous message, you may be wondering? It said simply “lo”—the message was meant to read “login,” but the computer crashed almost immediately.

Cross posting this from Brand X

 
This is one of those stories that, when you are confronted with it, seems like a parody from the Onion, but upon closer examination ... it’s not. No, it’s a “truth is stranger than fiction” kinda thing. Actually, it’s more a case of her truth is stranger than fiction. This is some real Michelle Bachmann-level goofiness going on here. What am I talking about?

I’m talking about the marvelous loopy opinion piece written by one Kimberly Daniels, founder of Kimberly Daniels Ministries International, who describes herself as “a recognized prophetic voice” (whatever that means, details were not forthcoming). Kimberly penned what might be charitably described as a “controversial” essay for Charisma magazine, published online at its website and also picked up by Pat Robertson’s CBN website but removed as the story began to receive ridicule on the Internet. What was her essay about that caused such a reaction, you ask?

Well, you see, Kimberly wants to destroy Halloween! That’s right—she wants to destroy Halloween because of the demonic candy handed out during the holiday. Not just any candy, but accursed candy, the worst kind!

From her essay:

During this period, demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.

I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.

Sound the alarm! And be on the lookout for this evil, demonic candy! Why hasn’t someone alerted Fox News??!

Daniels goes on to write:

Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats. It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.

I’m not going to touch that one, but check out some of the other “secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes” during Halloween:

        * Sex with demons
        * Orgies between animals and humans
        * Animal and human sacrifices
        * Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
        * Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
        * Revel nights
        * Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
        * Release of “time released” curses against the innocent and the ignorant.

Who knew? Now that we are aware of the problem, what are we, as a society, going to do about it?

Here’s Kimberly’s final advice:

There is no doubt in my heart that God is not calling us to replace fall festivals and Halloween activities; rather, He wants us to utterly destroy the deeds of this season. If you or your family members have opened the door to any curses that are released during the demonic fall festivals, renounce them and repent. I already have.

Cross posting this from Brand X

 
I suppose you can consider the attached Merv Griffin clips where George and Kathy Lutz join actor Rod Steiger of the Amityville Horror movie, a Dangerous Minds “Halloween post.”  But I find them interesting for a reason beyond tomorrow’s holiday.

Without getting into the “truthiness” of the Lutz’s claims, and knowing this was obviously great publicity for the movie, they remind me of how seriously the television landscape back then treated matters of the occult and the supernatural.

In fact, as a kid growing up in the ‘70s, that’s exactly what made that decade, for me, feel so terrifying: even adults weren’t taking this stuff lightly!  Today there’s Ghost Hunters, sure, but that’s a self-contained show—a self-contained world.  And I can’t quite imagine the ladies of The View devoting an entire hour to a supposedly haunted house on Long Island.

As reads go, I remember Jay Anson’s Amityville Horror book being spooky and terrifying.  To my young mind, the demonic visitations that plagued the Lutz family felt entirely plausible.  Hell, even the cover announced it as “a true story.”  Not even “based on,” just true.  And it was happening to adults, authority figures—people in charge!  Like I said: spooky and terrifying.

But between In Search Of…, Night Gallery, and Ghost Story (both Sebastian Cabot‘s and Peter Straub‘s) that’s largely how I remember the ‘70s, anyway: far more spooky and terrifying than the decades that followed it.  And I don’t think this was entirely due to my young age, or some particular rise in darker shit going down.

The likelier culprit was that decade’s proximity to the one that preceded it: the nervous breakdown fallout from the ‘60s was still seeping and spilling under the floorboards of the ‘70s’ pop cultural landscape.

George and Kathy Lutz show up on Merv Griffin in Part IV.  Links to the remainder of the show follow below:

 
The Amityville Gang Does Merv Griffin, Part: I, II, III, V

 
If you’ve ever felt like working out the precise distance between Earth and Mars measured in AA batteries while lying on a beach, hiking in the mountains or sitting in traffic (you wouldn’t do that, would you?) then get thee to the iPhone Apps Store to grab a copy of the newly released Wolfram Alpha app.

The app is based on the “computational knowledge engine” Wolfram Alpha, launched in May, that allows online users to get accurate answers to computational queries. Think of it as a super-complex pocket calculator for extreme math, chemistry and science geeks, like its founder, Stephen Wolfram. Wolfram is the Illinois-based British mathematician, physicist, computer programmer, businessman and author of “A New Kind of Science” who has been compared to Issac Newton and Albert Einstein.

The Wolfram Alpha iPhone app is proving popular, indeed. After just a few days in release, the app has already made the Apple “Hot List” and is one of the top sellers in the App Store. Some tech writers have been critical of the app’s jaw-dropping $49.99 list price, but it’s important to keep in mind that the app is not just another way to access the Wolfram Alpha website, but a sophisticated, high-end calculator capable of supporting calculus, discrete number theory and function plotting, then spitting out graphics that illustrate the information like a fancy spreadsheet, all in a matter of seconds.

Cross posting this from Brand X

 
I’m not sure exactly what kind of digital voodoo LiveFeedVideoImaging applies to their historical footage, but the clarity of the following clips is pretty astounding.  In clip one, from ‘57, Billie Holiday performs Fine and Mellow from the Seven Lively Arts episode, “The Sound of Jazz.”  To compare and contrast the resolution, you can check out the extended YouTube clip here.

 
Even more amazing—in terms of clarity, anyway—is the following brief Beatles clip from ‘63’s Royal Variety Performance:

The Secret World is an upcoming MMORPG in which players join one of three secret societies and battle evil forces threatening to overwhelm the world by 2012. Something like this’s been coming for a while… let’s see if it lives up to expectations.

From IGN:

Last week, Funcom released the second teaser trailer for its highly anticipated MMO The Secret World. At the same time, an “initiation test” went up on the game’s website, classifying test-takers into three secret societies - the Illuminati, the Dragons and the Templars, providing a brief description of each with a promise of more information to be revealed at Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. If PAX attendees had hoped to catch a glimpse of some gameplay or anything other than the video, they would have been disappointed because the revelations were done behind closed doors. The good news is that we were there to see it.

Funcom’s Creative Director Ragnar T?ɬ?rnquist started off the presentation with a video that was shown at GDC in April, which was mostly about the game’s setting and its universe. The Secret World takes place in modern day cities all around the globe, but it’s a world where paranormal occurrences do happen. The designers have drawn upon various myths, legends and conspiracy theories to create a world where supernatural beings exist right under our noses, for the most part undetected or ignored by us. The player takes on the role of a hero with great magical powers who has to battle zombies, vampires, demons and other fell creatures in order to keep the rest of the world safe.

(The Secret World: Dark Days Are Coming)

The ether be abuzz with reports of two cons who covered their faces in black magic marker in an attempt to conceal their identities before robbing a liquor store, which proves that, yes, crystal meth does help clear your head before tackling stressful and complex activities like robbery, providing the mental boost needed to face challenges with clarity and panache. Also, I think this is my Halloween costume sorted.

WAtoday reports:

It’s been labelled the worst disguise ever - two men arrested over a burglary attempt in the US were found with fake beards and masks scrawled on their faces with a permanent marker.

Police stopped the car of Matthew McNelly, 23, and Joey Miller, 20 after it matched the description of a vehicle used by two men who allegedly tried to break into an Iowa apartment last Friday night.

When officers looked inside the 1994 Buick Roadmaster, they were surprised to find the men with masks, beards and moustaches painted on their face in some sort of rudimentary disguise.

Check out video at the link below.

(Huffington Post: Stupid Criminals: Burglars Use Black Magic Marker On Their Faces As Disguise)

 
Darth Vader conducts the Icelandic Philharmonic Orchestra as they play “The Imperial March” from “Star Wars.” Why he didn’t conduct with a light saber is what I want to know…?

Cross posting this from Brand X

 
Not content to put the mom and pop stores out of business, the Bentonville, Ark., behemoth now wants to bury funeral homes. This is not some kind of zany Halloween marketing hoax—at least that we know of. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is now selling ... discount coffins. In the “For the Home” (?) area on the Wal-Mart website, feast your eyes on its entire line of inexpensive caskets and even urns, for all of your bereavement needs.

The prices of the Wal-Mart caskets are to die for. All but one of the coffins sells for under $2,000. The deluxe Sienna Bronze model sells for a still bargain-basement—in casket terms—price of $2,899. One of the least expensive model is the still lovely Lady de Guadalupe Steel Casket (see above) at $895. Another design sports a carving of “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci.

Wal-Mart will even deliver the coffins directly to the funeral home of your choice within 48 hours, but there is a catch: They won’t accept returns unless the product has been damaged in transit. So make sure your loved one is actually dead before you order!

Cross posting this from Brand X