The summer of 1988, I was working as a researcher on a live lunchtime magazine show, shown on the BBC. Its audience was mainly moms, grannies, students and the unemployed. I’d just spent three-and-a-half years unemployed, so was now having a royal blast. Part of the joy was bringing a little anarchy to the show. Each week, when I suggested the show’s guest music acts, I’d slip in a few bands (Die Krupps, Cowboy Junkies, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds) that would be lucky to get a mention on Yoof programming, let alone this anodyne day time chat show.

Two things stick from that summer - Joan Jett judging an air guitar competition; and the day I booked Pop Will Eat Itself to play in front of an audience of the over-sixties.

Each week I had to find one band for a studio performance, the acts ranged from the guff the record companies forced on us, to the mavericks, who mainly came form indie labels.  One week a VHS arrived on my desk, “Def Con One” by Pop Will Eat Itself. Along with Cave’s “Mercy Seat”, it was one of the best things I heard that summer. It was a beaut, with its samples of The Stooges, Lipps Inc., The Osmonds and Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. And the icing was the accompanying video - directed by artist and film-maker Richard Heslop, who had worked Derek Jarman on The Last of England.

PWEI came out of Stourbridge, England, in the mid-eighties, and after a few different line-ups settled on Clint Mansell, Adam Mole, Graham Crabb and Richard March. The name came form an article in the NME by David Quantick. In July 1988, PWEI pulled up in a van at our temporary studio in the heart of a Garden Festival. They arrived with only backing tapes, loud hailer, guitars and drum-riser - to jump around on - went straight into the studio and let rip with “Def Con One” to a stunned silver-haired audience. It was a moment of sheer anarchic delight. Unable to find a video of that performance, this will give you an idea of what PWEI were like in front of an audience, but just imagine it being coffin dodgers in search of a seat on a hot summer’s day.

Pop Will Eat Itself was well-ahead of its time, and its members more talented than we thought them to be - Clint Mansell now writes brilliant soundtracks for movies like Requiem for a Dream, Moon, The Wrestler and Black Swan

Without much ado, here then is Richard Heslop’s original promo for “Def Con One”. Enjoy.
 

 
Wisconsin Tea party favorite, Sen. Ron Johnson, defended his vote against raising the minimum wage on Sunday by suggesting that only “bad workers” earned minimum wage.

From The Raw Story:

“Bottom line: when you’re a good worker you don’t stay at minimum wage for long,” he said. “Trust me on that. It’s not universal, but trust me as an employer, as an employer I certainly didn’t want to lose good employees. And so you actually have a better marketplace. And so if your employer is not paying you good wages and you’re a good worker, you go look for other places.

“Now that’s hard to do, that’s hard to do when we have such high levels of unemployment. But again I would get back to we don’t have a very attractive place for business investment.”

Johnson added that he earned minimum wage while working during college and lived in his parents house.

And then he married a woman from a family worth millions!

Every minimum wage worker should follow Ronnie’s example!

Johnson only spent $8.2 million—64% of total campaign contributions—buying the election in 2010. It’s because of elected officials like Ron Johnson that America is the laughingstock of the entire world.

Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate blasted this pathetic fool with a withering statement:

“We know he doesn’t like workers and we’re not even sure if Ron Johnson supports a minimum wage, but the least he could do is keep his mouth shut on the subject when his fortune came not because of his hard work, but because of a fortunate marriage. Being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple has led Ron Johnson to dangerous ideas that would shred our social safety net and drive wages into the dirt all to appease a master class of people that sees fit to celebrate its riches while the rest of America suffers in rags.”

THIS is the guy who defeated Russ Feingold? Man, WTF was Wisconsin thinking in 2010?

As I was reading that item, an image of Senator Johnson on the ground in a fetal position being kicked about the face and neck by a hostile mob of people wearing McDonald’s uniforms popped into my head. I wonder why?
 

 
The Polaroid Swinger was one of the cutest cameras ever made. It was also the first inexpensive instant camera at only $19.95. Add to this its beautiful, sleek design, with built-in flashgun and its ‘YES’/‘NO’ function in the view-finder, allowing users to know when the exposure was set, all ensured it was one of the biggest selling cameras of all time.

Before finding fame in Love Story, a young Ali MacGraw makes an early appearance in this advert for the Polaroid Swinger, from 1965.
 

 
Bonus poster, ‘Meet the Swinger’, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Neil McDonald
 

 
On every level…

 
Redditor kreaturesleeper points out about the photo, “I like the part where gawd put those here to test us.”

Click here to see larger image.
 
(via reddit)

 
SUPERB! Pure class, ladies!

“A lesbian married couple and their two daughters powerfully address Troy, MI Mayor, Janice Daniels, at a city council meeting about her derogatory Facebook posting about “queers” marrying in NY.”

They get a well-deserved standing ovation at the end, too.

This Janice Daniels is an embarrassment to her town, the Tea party and to herself. She needs to resign and crawl back under the rock that she came from…

This clip is destined to become a classic. It’s a blueprint for WIN!
 

 
Via Joe.My.God

 
According to editors at Record Collector magazine a rare recording of The Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” has gone on sale for $16,000 (£10,000).

It is said the A&M recording of the song is the most valuable piece of vinyl in the world, because the band was dropped by the label before the track’s release, and the bulk of copies were destroyed. The disc is on sale at 9991.com, where it is described as:

“SEX PISTOLS God Save The Queen (Well, this certainly shouldn’t need any introduction. Quite simply, a MINT unplayed copy of the legendary withdrawn 1977 UK original A&M 7” b/w No Feelings, in the A&M company sleeve. Obtained from an ex-industry source with impeccable credentials, this is not only one of the rarest records in existence but is certainly the most sought after and no serious record collection is complete without it, regardless of your thoughts on the band or indeed the music itself. A period piece of punk/musical/social/history. I hope this goes to someone who will love and cherish it as much as i would. Be quick before the original reluctant seller wants to buy it back…).”

Check here for more details.

Selling a record for such a large sum of money may go against the popular notion of Punk Rock, but this is nothing compared to last month’s report on The Sex Pistols’ graffiti, at an apartment in Denmark Street, London, which academics, Dr John Schofield and Dr Paul Graves-Brown said Johhny Rotten’s doodles usurped the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Really?

Such hyperbole only confirms The Sex Pistols’ relevance is long gone.

Never mind the bollocks, here’s Motörhead.
 

 
Via Louder Than War
 

 
O, Vincent Price - wasn’t he fab? He had this terrific ability to sound both menacing and amused at the same time. It was part of the reason why his performances were always so enjoyable to watch, he brought a dark humor to the most chilling of horror, as seen in Theater of Blood, Tales of Terror, or House on Haunted Hill. No matter how gruesome the thrill (pet dogs fed to their owner, a puppet skeleton scaring a victim into an acid bath), one instinctively knew that at heart Price was fun, guaranteed to always be good company. As can be seen from this short interview from French TV in 1986, where Mr Price talked about working with Roger Corman, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, James Whale, reminiscing about past successes and unmitigated failures.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
Part deux of Monsieur Price, after the jump…
 

 
As reported by Mary Clarkin in The Hutchinson News, a Kansas Tea party group calling itself the Patriot Freedom Alliance, posted a picture of a skunk on its website saying that the skunk should replace the eagle as the country’s symbol.

“It is half black, half white, and almost everything it does, stinks,” the website captioned the picture.

“It’s satire is what it is,” said Thomas Hymer, who maintains the group’s website, told Clarkin. “Satire in a politically incorrect form.”

Or, you know, a racist form…

Another Tea party supporter, an apparently not very bright fellow named Chuck Sankey, agreed with Thomas Hymer that it’s satire to call a person of mixed racial heritage a… skunk.

“It just makes a point that we’re in trouble and what’s happening doesn’t smell right,” Sankey said. “That’s what it means to me.”

That’s because you’re a fucking idiot, Chuck!

Sankey told The Hutchison News, “Isn’t that the truth? What’s wrong with the truth?”

Obama’s mother was a white American, and his father was a black African.

“It may be offensive to some, of course, but in humor there is always an element of truth,” said Sankey, saying he is neither racist nor bigoted but is concerned about the direction the country is going.

If people are offended by it, Sankey said, his advice is: “Don’t look at it.”

Sankey also said Sarah Palin has been the target of worse insults.

Uh, maybe so, Chuckles, but how many racist insults do you reckon were leveled at Sarah Palin? Wanna hazard a guess?

And Tea partiers wonder why everyone thinks they’re a bunch of dumb racists?

 
Hilarious!

Dig Gretchen Carlson! You know, I’ve always thought she was acting. Look how flustered she gets here trying to wrap her befuddled brain around the latest Fox News poll that shows Obama besting Romney or Gingrich. Maybe she IS as dumb as she seems? Is that even possible? I thought it was an act, like Gomer Pyle?

No?

The other two, for sure, are as dumb as they seem.
 

 
Via Crooks and Liars

 
Just a friendly reminder the Goats in Trees 2012 calendar is available now at Amazon for $11.19.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
A must have 2011 calendar: Goats in Trees

 
Well, when you put it that way… Staggering isn’t it?

Worth it? Draw your own conclusions, based on your own monthly payments, but something tells me that a lot of America’s for profit universities are going to be circling the drain in coming years, as more and more young people see the writing on the wall and ask themselves, “What’s the fucking point?”

Hard work and keeping your nose to the grindstone used to be what it took to get ahead. Now what? The only assured and reasonable way to succeed in America today is to be born rich... or a sociopath!

 
Holy shit is this one effective political ad. It comes to us via the Ron Paul presidential campaign. Regardless of what you think of the messenger —I’m not a Ron Paul fan, to be quite clear on that front— the argument laid out here is a devastating one.

And it needs to be heard.

As Daily Kos blogger “Education Reform” wrote:

The message in the ad resonates and just because this message comes from someone we disagree with on several issues, doesn’t make it any less valid or any less important to get out there.

Ignoring this ad just because you disagree with the messenger on other issues, would be akin to ignoring Barack Obama’s message on the plight of the middle class just because you disagree with his stance on marijuana.

And from a typography/motion graphics point of view, it’s quite well done. (In fact, it reminds me of the opening from my own 2001 UK TV show a bit. No wonder I like it…).

The video was adapted from speech given by Paul on March 11, 2009 called “Imagine.” The original text of the talk is below:

Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of “keeping us safe” or “promoting democracy” or “protecting their strategic interests.”

Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up checkpoints on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence.

Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers’ attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. Imagine if most of the citizens of the foreign land also wanted these troops to return home. Imagine if they elected a leader who promised to bring them home and put an end to this horror.

Imagine if that leader changed his mind once he took office.

The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe-straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment towards us.

According to our own CIA, our meddling in the Middle East was the prime motivation for the horrific attacks on 9/11. But instead of re-evaluating our foreign policy, we have simply escalated it. We had a right to go after those responsible for 9/11, to be sure, but why do so many Americans feel as if we have a right to a military presence in some 160 countries when we wouldn’t stand for even one foreign base on our soil, for any reason? These are not embassies, mind you, these are military installations. The new administration is not materially changing anything about this. Shuffling troops around and playing with semantics does not accomplish the goals of the American people, who simply want our men and women to come home. 50,000 troops left behind in Iraq is not conducive to peace any more than 50,000 Russian soldiers would be in the United States.

Shutting down military bases and ceasing to deal with other nations with threats and violence is not isolationism. It is the opposite. Opening ourselves up to friendship, honest trade and diplomacy is the foreign policy of peace and prosperity. It is the only foreign policy that will not bankrupt us in short order, as our current actions most definitely will. I share the disappointment of the American people in the foreign policy rhetoric coming from the administration. The sad thing is, our foreign policy WILL change eventually, as Rome’s did, when all budgetary and monetary tricks to fund it are exhausted.

Voice and Music was done by Jeremy Hoop. Video animation was done by Nicholas Bozman and MysteryBox.
 

“Christmas has come early for Doctor Who fans. Expect us to tweet some very – no REALLY exciting news in just a couple of hours’ time ...”

Last night in a series of tweets, the BBC’s official Doctor Who Twitter account sent word to fans that two long-thought lost 60s episodes of the show have been recovered.

“Two previously missing episodes of 1960s Doctor Who returned to BBC. Galaxy Four pt 3 & The Underwater Menace pt 2. Details soon.”

“Galaxy Four,” part three (of a multi-part story arc) is a William Hartnell-starring episode from 1965, while “The Underwater Menace” part two, was aired in 1967 and starred Patrick Troughton as the second incarnation of the Doctor.

Both episodes had been thought to be lost—the BBC infamously did not archive its programs until 1978—but were found in the vaults of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

According to The Telegraph, League of Gentleman actor/writer Mark Gatiss, who has both written and starred in Doctor Who episodes, added:

“Christmas has come early for Doctor Who fans everywhere. It’s always wonderful when a missing episode turns up but it’s been years since the last one so to have two is just brilliant. Add to that a proper bit of action from the legendary Chumblies (and the horrifying Rills!) plus the utterly mesmeric Patrick Troughton on great form. Well, what more could we all ask for?”

How about a clip of Patrick Troughton from “The Underwater Menace”? (More here)
 

 
I was really hoping to promote Motörhead Vödka as a great stocking stuffer idea, but it appears that it’s only available in Sweden right now (which you can pre-order here).

(via Cherrybombed)