This live footage of the MC5 ripping it up at Wayne State University in 1970 is one of the most scorching live performances you’ll ever see. Guitar slinger Wayne Kramer, dancing like a man possessed, channels Josephine Baker while windmilling power chords like Pete Townsend on whippets. Guitar humping Fred “Sonic” Smith shreds like a sail in a hurricane as Rob Tyner, the hardest working white man in rock and roll, shimmies like a frog on a hot plate: a blue-eyed James Brown whose conk job blew out in the blast from the Marshall stacks.

Five years before the second wave of punk broke, these Michigan rockers were distilling rock and roll to it’s primordial essence. Fuck yeah! This is what I live for.

 
Sorry about that, I just wanted to get your attention. Dangerous Minds pal Mark Dery just posted a terrific new essay about Mark Twain’s unexpurgated autobiography, to be published in November. I was salivating to read this when it was in the press earlier in the year and and am now doubly keen to read if after taking in this piece.

Excerpting Mysterious Stranger: Twain Autobiography Reveals Grandpa’s Dark Side, here with Dery discussing how we’ve come to regard Twain as this Will Geer-esque grandpa character and then quoting H.L. Menchken setting the record straight in 1917, seven years after Twain’s death:

“The truth is that Mark was almost exactly the reverse. Instead of being a mere entertainer of the mob, he was…a destructive satirist of the utmost pungency and relentlessness, and the most bitter critic of American platitude and delusion, whether social, political or religious, that ever lived.”

The Twain rising from the grave on the centennial of his death lives up to Mencken’s press—and just in time for our age of Tea Party know-nothings and bible-thumping flatheads, not to mention CEOs like Lloyd Blankenfeld of Goldman Sachs and Tony Hayward of BP, poster boys for unchecked corporate arrogance and greed.

Twain was vociferously opposed to American imperialism, fulminating in suppressed passages in the Autobiography against “the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish War” and pouring scorn on a U.S. attack on unarmed tribal peoples in the Philippines, a “long and happy picnic” for “our uniformed assassins” who have “nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory.” As the Times points out, “[T]he uncensored autobiography…includes remarks that, if made today in the context of Iraq or Afghanistan, would probably lead the right wing to question the patriotism of this most American of American writers.”

The paper quotes a blast of buckshot aimed, from the distance of a century ago, at the pinstriped swine wallowing in the Wall Street money trough today:

“The multimillionaire disciples of Jay Gould—that man who in his brief life rotted the commercial morals of this nation and left them stinking when he died—have quite completely transformed our people from a nation with pretty high and respectable ideals to just the opposite of that; that our people have no ideals now that are worthy of consideration; that our Christianity which we have always been so proud of—not to say vain of—is now nothing but a shell, a sham, a hypocrisy; that we have lost our ancient sympathy with oppressed peoples struggling for life and liberty; that when we are not coldly indifferent to such things we sneer at them, and that the sneer is about the only expression the newspapers and the nation deal in with regard to such things.”

And you wondered where the William Burroughs of “Roosevelt After Inauguration” and the Hunter Thompson of “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved”—not to mention the Matt Taibbi of that joyfully savage beatdown of Sarah Palin and her low-functioning fandom—learned their close-quarter knife-fighting skills.

Read Mysterious Stranger: Twain Autobiography Reveals Grandpa’s Dark Side (True/Slant)

 
After I watched this video, stunned and laughing heartily, I was considering how to best showcase it here. One thought I had was the title: “It’s only 30 seconds long, just watch it first and read this later.” which I thought was a pretty good one, but in the end, I think it’s best to use the text of DM reader Tyler who sent us this link and the following note:

I want to thank you for your article on dangerousminds the other day about the news stories covering i-dosing in Oklahoma. Unfortunately that kind of news seems to be fairly normal here in Oklahoma. So I really enjoyed reading how shocked people were in the comments. If you are interested in some additional Oklahoma scary/wacky things, consider this commercial from an Oklahoma siding and window company. I thought somebody did a (fake) voice over at first but the same video is posted on the company’s website. In the video you will see the company’s owner somehow transition from talking about their windows to how we should end this “secular socialism right now.” Thank you for your time.

No, Tyler, thank you! This could be the next in line as an Internet meme if you ask me. I’m gonna post this one and then email it to Xeni, stat!

What a friggin’ kook!

 
I love music collective Die Antwoord, the indisputable kings of the interweb and spirit guides to the land of Zef. The triumvirate of Ninja, Yolandi and Leon Botha (DJ Solarize) make a noise that stiffens my spine and lacerates my frontal lobes. While, artist and shaman, Botha, rarely performs with the group, his powerful presence in Die Antwoords’ Enter The Ninja video has left an indelible impression on all who have seen it.

Leon is one of the oldest survivors of progeria, a rare genetic condition that causes a person to prematurely age. People with progeria rarely live beyond the age of 13. Leon is 25. In his short, but accelerated life, he has created an impressive body of work, as a painter, photographer, musician and writer. Enter the world of Leon Botha.

 
Oh dear me. Hermann Nitsch‘s bloody/Dionysian/biblical/medical performance art rituals have haunted me since I first learned about them via my high school library’s unusually well-stocked art book section (thanks Mr. Allen !) so I’m amazed to finally see great quality footage of an aktion that I’d previously only seen hazy stills of. I think it’s the combination of the studious manner of the participants and observers and the all out bloody fucking (literally) insanity taking place that unsettles me the most. This stuff causes all sorts of conflicting emotions, and that’s probably the point. See for yourself but only if there’s no kids or really anybody with delicate sensibilities around, alright ?
 
NSFW

 
As insane as Utah can seem to be, the Multimedia Production Unit at the Brigham Young University’s Harold B. Lee Library have come up with a pretty good spoof response to Procter & Gamble’s soon-to-be-very-tiresome Old Spice Man campaign. Ad writers will never beat out college-kid smarmy smarts.
 

 
Or HAL64.
 
(via Interweb3000)

 
I honestly don’t know what to make of this!?!  I can’t imagine Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig are too thriilled.

Henry & Glenn Forever is a love story to end all love stories! The premise of this Cantankerous Titles-released comic is explained at the front of the zine: “Henry and Glenn are very good ‘friends.’ They are also ‘room mates.’ Daryl and John live next door. They are satanists.” What follows is ultra-metal violence and cryfest diary entries, cringing self-doubt and mega-hilarious emo-meltdowns. Who knew Danzig was such a vulnerable, self-conscious sweety-pie? Who knew Rollins was such a caring spouse? Who knew Hall and Oates were so infernally evil—yet so considerate? Well, illustrating/writing team Igloo Tornado (featuring super-awesome comixdude Tom Neely) did and they kicked down 66 fully-illustrated pages with it. Genius on all fronts. Terrifyingly cute. Cutely terrifying. As the real-life Rollins says, quoted on the back cover, “Has Glenn seen this? Trust me, he would not be impressed.”

 
Henry & Glenn Forever
 
(via Nerdcore)

 

 
Along with Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson, Vonetta McGee was an accomplished and charismatic Black actress who was relegated to starring roles in Black action films. Vonetta was diabolically seductive in Blacula and brought Shakti balance to Fred Williamson’s hyped up yang in Hammer. A fine actress with untapped potential, Vonetta could not break free of the Blaxploitation ghetto.
 
Though having starred in the genre, Ms. McGee denounced the term “blaxploitation.”

It wasn’t the “black” that troubled her — that was a source of pride. It was the “exploitation.”

Promoting her 1972 film, Hammer, Vonetta, radiates a powerful vibe that has Soul Train host Don Cornelius totally mesmerized.
 

 
Blaxploitation is no longer a dirty word, having informed, influenced and inspired the films of John Carpenter, Tarantino, The Hughes Brothers, John Singleton, Spike Lee, Robert Rodriguez and dozens more. Thank you Vonetta.
 
Vonetta died on July 9 in Berkeley, Calif. She was 65.

 
Paula, who is this Paula, and why do I obsess over her with a white hot heat equal to that of Andre Breton’s obsession for Nadja, Salvador Dali’s for Gala, and Joey Ramone’s for the sublime Sheena? Is it the Mona Lisa smile? The barely restrained suggestion of sexual longing in her eyes?  Is it the intoxicating opium scent of mascara and lipstick? Or is it the hair?

Yes! Yes, it’s the hair, the glorious hair. The beehive of absolute reality, divine in its defiance of the laws of gravity, blossoming as a follicle wonderland where Antonio Gaudi and The Ronnettes sniff hairspray and dream of Mayan pyramids. Paula: woman in all her archetypal majesty - Shakti with a serious wighat. My greaser goddess from the planet Maybelline.