Jonathan Bell, AKA Screaming Boy, first came to my attention via a VHS tape given to me in the mid-90s of the only two episodes of his Dallas, TX-based cable access evangelical program. He screamed a lot, talked (yelled) about Jesus, abortions, gays and how you were going to GO TO HELL! His favorite topics seemed to be abused children and how you were going to GO TO HELL. Twisted, twisted stuff. Picture a nelly blond Sam Kinison-type in a tux—and totally and deliriously insane—and you’ve got Jonathan Bell. Eventually The Daily Show caught up to Bell and did a memorable segment about him, but before that, the only information I was able to dig up about him, pre-Internet came from a “Kooky Kontemporary Kristian Kulture” zine called Snake Oil that is now online:
Upstart TV preachers flock to Dallas like young starlets drawn to Hollywood. So begins the story of Jonathan Bell who arrived in Dallas from Kingston, Ontario in early 1992 with a vision from God to start a television ministry. Accompanying Jonathan were Carrie Hart, a 71-year-old invalid and her 35-year-old retarded son. With the $1400 per month that the Harts received in government checks, the three got set up in a one bedroom apartment in the predominately gay Oak Lawn section of Dallas, and Jonathan Bell Ministries was on its way.
That first Texas summer, however, took its toll on the trio of transplanted Canadians. Their living arrangement had deteriorated to the point that on the night of July 28th, police were called to the scene of a domestic disturbance at the ministry apartment, whereupon Jonathan was hauled in on aggravated assault of an invalid.
The police incident report reveals a sorry state of affairs: Jonathan typically sent the Harts out early each morning on ministry errands, and they were expected back promptly at 9 PM. Being late, or not following instructions exactly resulted in a beating. Neighbors told police that they had seen the Harts with bruises and black eyes, and Harry Hart, the son, claimed that earlier in the summer Jonathan had tried to drown him at an area lake by holding him underwater by his hair. The Harts were given just a few dollars a month, and Jonathan got the only bed while they slept on the floor with no bedding.
Within a few days of Jonathan’s arrest, the Harts went back to Canada, and the charges were dropped.
This sordid little tale would not be worth telling if shortly thereafter Jonathan had not gone on to produce two of the most psychotic, disturbing religious programs ever made.
Continue reading Screaming Boy (Snake Oil)
Here are a couple of fan recorded videos of murdered Narcocorrido star Valentin Elizalde
Novelist Will Self debates physicist David Eagleman on the nature of the afterlife, courtesy of New Scientist:
Will Self, the novelist, doesn’t buy Eagleman’s bright-eyed, confident manner. He wanted to find out where fear lay in the scientist’s jumping between imagined afterlives.
Concerned, he said, that the conversation might get boring, he began to cross-examine Eagleman. “Was your epiphany emotional or intellectual?” he asked.
Earlier, Self had described his own epiphany. The experience of nursing his sick mother until her early death had profoundly altered the way he thought about death, and he suggested that all writers were inspired by such epiphanies.
Eagleman answered that his epiphany had been intellectual: after spending several years as a proselytising atheist, he found it was more interesting to think about God in new and different ways than it was not to think about him at all.
Self pursued his comic role as prosecuting counsel. “How old are you?” he asked. Thirty-eight, Eagleman said. Young, Self noted, but Eagleman is precocious - was he in the throes of a precociously early mid-life crisis? One that involved his spending his nights in hotel rooms gripping his mattress in dread of death?
Coming soon?
Add this one to your list of must see vinyl inspired documentaries and movies. Director Jony Lyle gives a quick teaser of his upcoming film entitled To Have & To Hold, which Lyle describes as “a ‘musicmentory’ to celebrate the age of vinyl records.”
The film promises enough archive footage, records rooms, music collections, pressing plants, and rare vinyl to satisfy even the most die hard physical music addicts. In addition to its irresistible collectible eye candy, To Have & To Hold, which is scheduled for a 2010 release, features interviews with such notable vinyl aficionados as Questlove, Chuck D, Bobbito Garcia, DJ Amir, Bruce Lundvall, Christian Marclay, and Paul Mawhinney.
(via Nerdcore )
Here’s a delightful collection of ultra-70s fashion sketches by designer D. Jame. Visit 1970s Fashion Drawings to see more funky design concepts and 70s trends.
Thank you Andrew Vogel!
Above, the amazing opening credits for Dave Allen at Large, a show I absolutely loved when I was a kid. Almost unknown in this country, Dave Allen was an Irish raconteur, who did most of his extremely popular show each week sitting in a chair, smoking and drinking. He hated, I mean hated, religion and it gave his comedy a fantastic edge for the day. No popular American performer would have been able to get away with anything even remotely similar to what Dave Allen did. Allen was hardcore about his Atheism. Even George Carlin didn’t start taking on religion as hard as he did until late in his career. And Lenny Bruce never said religion was stupid, he just said it was corrupt.
Dave Allen said religion was stupid and he said it over and over again throughout the many years of his television career. For a while he was even banned from Irish TV. He was hardcore, Dave Allen.
But the song! What about that fucking groove? It’s a song called Blarney’s Stoned by Alan Hawkshaw, an appropriate title for a song for Dave Allen, to be sure.
A lot of Hankshaw’s best work ended up in commercial music libraries where it could be licensed for film, radio and television. The video below, which I saw on Lady Bunny’s blog today, is a clip of Paco Rabanne’s collection of 1969 from a German TV show.
According to the YouTube poster the music is from the library label KPM 1169 - ARP ODYSSEY and the title of the track is Transcendental Meditation:
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