Newt Gingrich falls under the spell of psychedelic pioneer Terence McKenna.
As McKenna speaks, Gingrich tries to maintain his equilibrium as subliminal broadcasts from DMT Radio (space is the place) activate the naturally occurring psychedelics (tryptamine) in Newt’s brain. Secret mystical teachings of love and peace are encoded in his nervous system for subsequent activation on 12/21/2012.
In 1959, a few years before Kenneth Anger filmed young men buffing their aluminum hubcaps in Kustom Kar Kommandos, Sid Davies and Haile Chace made this evocative roadster documentary, Ingenuity in Action for Hot Rod Magazine. Sid Davies was the master of the shock doc, whose educational films about Stranger Danger, or at-risk teenagers in Age 13; or the side-effects of LSD, formed the source material for John Waters’ movies on juvenile delinquents, psychotic killers and cry babies.
Ingenuity in Action is perhaps best seen at a fifties Drive-In, as there is a lack of close-ups and mid-shots to create a necessary sense of pace and dramatic tension for small screen viewing. Even so, the film captures a delightful sense of those seemingly innocent, by-gone days, when people celebrated their enjoyment of sleek, speedy racing cars, under wide, blue, cloud-freckled skies.
Previously on Dangerous Minds
With thanks to Iya Vinogradova
In case you’d like to peruse the uh… far-out newsletters that Republican Presidential Ron Paul published in the 80s and 90s, there are 50 of them posted online at the Et tu, Mr. Destructo? blog.
The newsletters, which were described by TPM’s Benjy Sarlin as “compar[ing] African Americans to zoo animals, warned of a coming race war, and generally promoted racist, anti-semitic, and fringe militia views” will still probably not convince Ron Paul fanatics of a damned thing!
“[...] there’s no way Paul could have been ignorant of the content [of] 8-12 page newsletters published under his name for over ten years. Paul supporters face three losing propositions:
• He lacks the competency to control content published under his own name for over a decade, and is thus unfit to lead a country.
• He doesn’t believe these things but considers them a useful political tool to motivate racist whites, which makes him fit to be a GOP candidate, but too obvious about it to win.
• He’s actually a racist, which makes him unfit to be a human being.
Further, you can’t dismiss this in the name of higher political or socioeconomic aspirations. Since Paul has no chance of winning — seriously, no chance at all — his only value is as a voice, a conduit for principles. And if your only hope is to change the discourse by amplifying ideas, you can do that via many voices and avenues. As I said in my Vice follow-up, acknowledging some of Paul’s good ideas, when you opt to support anti-imperialist and civil liberties ideals by supporting Paul the Candidate, you end up supporting everything else about him. That includes those newsletters and the unambiguous message to those who enjoy them: You can write these things and succeed; this works. The other good ideas to which he’s signatory can’t erase the fact that he put his name to those words printed above. The moral weight of those newsletters drags down even the most high-minded aspirations he has about civil liberties, and everything crashes down on all of us.
Back to Benjy Sarlin at TPM:
But his explanation is still relatively incomplete. As USA Today’s Jackie Kucinich noted on Thursday, when Paul responded to a similar controversy over the newsletters in a 1996 interview with the Dallas Morning News, he said that he was indeed aware of some of the offending passages and even offered explanations as to the thinking behind them. For example, he said a passage suggesting that “[g]iven the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal,” was based on outside research.
Video researcher Andrew Kaczynski unearthed a clip in 1995, before the newsletters had become an election issue in his district, in which Paul discussed the publication as one of his passion projects in his years out of Congress. He described it as a “political type of business, investment newsletter.”
Ron Paul’s base is by far the most devoted of any candidate and it’s unlikely the story, which came up in the 2008 election as well, will have much impact on his core supporters. But with Paul surging in Iowa and increasingly broadening his reach within the party, it might put a ceiling on his momentum.
In addition to the objectionable content of the newsletters, his odd explanation contrasts heavily with his hard-earned brand as an unconventional anti-politician who always tells the truth as he sees it and never waters down his views to pander to voters. It’s hard to square this with a candidate who claims that he somehow never bothered to read a newsletter published under his own name that generated as much as $1 million in revenues in just one single year. Even accepting that premise, how many politicians looking to start a publication would just happen to pick a half dozen writers with blatant white supremacist and milita leanings to run the effort?
Paultards, don’t shoot the messenger here. If you’re going to comment, comment on THIS STUFF, okay? Keep it ON THE TOPIC.
In the clip below, Paul discuses the newsletter at approx 1:40 in:
Thank you Ned Raggett!
Cinderella 2000
Here’s a description of the film from DVD Drive In:
In the year 2047 (so what if the film is titled CINDERELLA 2000?), the world has been taken over by an authoritarian government that forbids sexual activity, due to population overgrowth. Surrounded by this oppressive atmosphere is Cindy, a dirt-covered maid living with her heavily-accented German stepmother and two stepsisters (a nasty white girl and a surprisingly nice black girl). While crooning a tune about Cinderella after reading a fairy tale book, she is visited by an intergalactic Fairy Godfather, who introduces her to the art of making love by transforming woodland animals into humans in tights and giant masks who grind crotches and perform a musical number. Ugh?
Here’s the great trailer:
After the jump, the complete film…
If I owned this car, the only music I would ever listen to driving around Los Angeles would be Giorgio Moroder.
Car Body Design says:
“Presented at the 1968 Paris Motor Show, the Bertone Carabo was a futuristic sportscar based on the Alfa Romeo 33 chassis. Designed by Marcello Gandini, it featured original solutions such as scissor doors and multi-coloured glass windows.
Penned by Marcello Gandini, from Bertone, the Carabo (which means beetle) was unveiled in October 1968, at Porte de Versailles in Paris.
The Carabo was Bertone’s bold but aesthetically and functionally valid vision of the sporty car of the future. And the use of new materials and novel construction techniques means that this concept car was something more than just an exercise in styling.”
Car Body Design: Bertone Carabo Concept (1968)
oto6.free.fr (in French)
The ill-fated Middle Eastern sounding rock group, The Devil’s Anvil were discovered by record producer Felix Pappalardi (Cream’s Disraeli Gears) playing in a New York City cafe in 1967. Pappalardi got the band signed to Columbia Records and played bass on the their album.
The Devil’s Anvil, were Steve Knight (rhythm guitar, bass, bouzouki), Jerry Satpir (lead guitar, vocals), Elierzer Adoram (accordion), and Kareem Issaq (oud, vocals). Hard Rock from the Middle East
Pappalardi later went on to form Mountain with Knight and Leslie West.
Below, a four song selection from The Devil’s Anvil (“Karkadon,” “Besaha,” “Hala Laya,” “Nahna oud-Diab.”
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
I was foresaken by rock and roll in the early 1970s. Gene Vincent, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Brian Jones had died. The Beatles disintegrated. The Byrds broke-up and then reunited to record their worst album. The Stones released their last great one. The Who were making tedious, bombastic operas choked with bad symbolism and simple minded metaphors. Pink Floyd took the brown acid and became boring. The Dave Clark Five became Dave Clark and Friends. Phil Spector went into seclusion. Elvis went to the White House to shake Nixon’s hand. Bob Dylan went Nashville. Brian Wilson went mad and Arthur Lee wasn’t too far behind.
Top 40 radio was in dire need of a Rotor-Rooter. The pipelines were full of excremental sludge consisting of some of the worst songs to be sprung from the a-hole of rock n’ roll.
“A Horse With No Name” - America
“The Candy Man” - Sammy Davis Jr.
“Joy To The World” - Three Dog Night
“One Bad Apple” - The Osmonds
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” - John Denver
“Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Old Oak Tree” -Tony Orlando & Dawn
” Bad Bad Leroy Brown” - Jim Croce
“The Way We Were” - Barbra Streisand
“Seasons In The Sun” - Terry Jacks
“The Streak” - Ray Stevens
“One Hell Of A Woman” - Mac Davis
All of the above were best-selling singles from 1971-74, all of them appearing in the Top Ten.
And when it came to rock criticism, Robert Christgau’s insulting and utterly clueless one-line review of Tim Buckley’s masterful 1970 release Starsailor is one of the most odious things that sandal-wearing beatnik ever wrote:
A man who was renowned for his Odetta impressions on Jac Holzman’s folkie label switches to Frank Zappa’s art-rock label, presumably so he can do Nico impressions.
Yes kids, it was a wasteland. If it was some fresh badass rock and roll you were looking for, you had to look hard. If you were lucky, you found Iggy… and eventually you’d come upon a few other shards of light within the shitstorm: Marc Bolan’s Electric Warrior and Roxy Music’s debut album, with Lou Reed’s Transformer and Ziggy not far behind. The guys with the make-up, glitter and hairspray brought something essential back to rock and roll: big hooks, guitars, a little danger and sex.
I took a pass on Bowie. Reed, as a Velvet, was already a hero. Roxy music knocked me out, but it was Marc Bolan that blew me way. Everything about T. Rex worked for me : the chugging guitar riffs, undeniable hooks, propulsive tribal rhythms, sassy vocals, surreal alliterative lyrics and Marc’s pimped out fashion sense. It all came together with a certain inspired savoir faire. Bolan, like Hendrix, Chuck Berry and Elvis, exploded fully formed out of the rock and roll godhead. He was one for the ages. His influence reached far and deep, inspiring and setting the stage for The Ramones, The Runaways, Blondie, The Clash and The Sex Pistols.
Marc Bolan:The Final Word is a BBC documentary that provides a fairly detailed overview of Bolan’s life. It’s narrated by Suzi Quatro and features contributions from his companion Gloria Jones, brother Harry Feld, producer Tony Visconti, Queen’s Roger Taylor, Steve Harley, Zandra Rhodes and more.
The late Kim Jong-Il was a notorious film fanatic, but did you know that in the 70s he kidnapped a movie director called Shin Sang-ok, brought him to North Korea and forced him to make feature films? The most successful of these films is Pulgasari from 1985, a Godzilla-inspired monster movie-cum-allegory for capitalism run wild.
I was unaware of this incredible story until details of Kim’s life started emerging after the announcement of his death on Monday, but in 2003 Shin Sang-ok spoke to the Guardian about his ordeal:
In 1978, he fell foul of the frequently repressive government of General Park Chung Hee [South Korea], who closed his studio. After making at least 60 movies in 20 years, Shin’s career appeared to be over.
What followed, according to Kingdom of Kim, Shin’s memoir, was an experience that revived his career in an unbelievable way. Shin and his wife were kidnapped by North Korea’s despot-in-training, Kim Jong-il, who sought to create a film industry that would allow him to sway a world audience to the righteousness of the Korea Workers’ Party. Shin would be his propagandist, Choi his star.
Shin’s story is as fantastical as many of his movies. He writes of being caught trying to escape, and spending four years in an all-male prison camp as a result, left to assume that his wife was dead.
Then, just as suddenly, he was brought into the inner sanctum of Kim Jong-il, the would-be successor to his father, Kim Il-sung, who ruled the country for nearly 50 years. Shin’s talents then officially fell to the service of North Korea, and he made seven movies before he and his wife made a breathtaking escape in Vienna in 1986.
That entire piece is well worth reading, it’s fascinating! For those of you wondering what Pulgasari is like, here is the full, 94 minute film (in 9 parts, with English subtitles.) The story of a doll made of rice that comes alive after contact with human blood, and feasts on raw metal, the production values actually aren’t that bad - it’s certainly not the worst obscure B-movie I have ever seen (although admittedly I didn’t make it to the end.) But we will let you decide for yourselves, dear readers, whether Pulgasari is the crowning achievement of the Supreme Leader’s legacy:
Pulgasari, part one
Thanks to Simone Hutchinson!
Pulgasari parts two to nine are after the jump…
Before I post this, first I really must offer the obligatory disclaimer that I am not endorsing the person or candidacy of Rep. Ron Paul by publishing this video on DM. I won’t go into the reasons why because that only invites avalanches of angry rebuttals from his supporters, who feel very, very passionately about their candidate, and frankly I really just don’t care to hear it. But I’m not putting them down, either. This ability to be able to excite the passions of his base the way that Ron Paul does is a rare, and indeed enviable, quality for a politician to have. Furthermore it’s something that (usually) only comes about because the supporters see themselves as standing behind a person of principle and integrity and on those counts, I have no trouble giving Rep. Ron Paul his due.
Whilst Ron Paul is decidedly not my cup of tea, I do happen to agree with a whole heap of what he has to say on civil liberties, ending the drug war and a dramatically more isolationist American foreign policy. His views on the Military Industrial Complex are anything but wacky! On the flipside, there is just so much that alarms me about his other views that I could never come even close to being persuaded to pull the lever for him in a voting both. As I would classify my views as basically “Marxist,” these reasons should be obvious enough.
Having said all that, and although I would not like to see Ron Paul as the next President, I sure as shit would love to see him debate Obama.
I’d also love to see him throw a hand grenade into the heart of the Republican political establishment, which I think is coming. Some of Paul’s (better) ideas are getting a lot of traction and this is very alarming to the GOP elite, who never took him seriously. As you will hear repeated ad naseum in the weeks leading up to the 2012 Iowa Caucus, “Ron Paul can’t win nationally.” And that’s not the Democrats talking. The Republican establishment is scared stiff of the assent of Ron Paul, and will do everything they can to quash his candidacy.
Fun fact, in late December of 2011, Ron Paul is out-polling where John McCain was nationally this same week in 2007.
Thank you Otto von Ruggins!
By god, it’s true. From Tom Jones’ TV variety show circa 1969. Tom seems to be inspiring a certain level of vocal enthusiasm from the other fellas here. Even the untouchably cool Neil Young seems inspired by the odd pairing. I never knew…
Thanks Danny Benair !