This is apparently British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Christmas card, which looks more like a wedding invitation from the English Defense League. The image was shared by @VictoriaPeckham, who notes:
There are signs of British isolationism even in the PM’s official Xmas card pic.
This might explain today’s events in Brussels.
With thanks to Suzanne Moore and Charles Shaar Murray
Peter Cushing liked to read - as can be seen from this rather strange sequence from The Skull (1965).
When the Gentleman of Horror wasn’t reading, Peter liked to play with his toy soldiers at his home in Kensington, London, as this British Pathe News reel footage from 1956 shows. This was Mr Cushing before his career defining performances as Baron Victor in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and as Coctor Van Helsing in Dracula (1958).
Previously on Dangerous Minds
“I have breast cancer. A week ago, I had breast cancer, and the week before that, and the week before that. Maybe five, eight, even ten years ago, the first bad cell split inside me, secretly. But I didn’t know. This is how I arrived at knowing.”
If you haven’t read Xeni Jardin’s very personal account of what it was like to receive a diagnosis she really didn’t want to get, I suggest you click over to Boing Boing now and do so. Last week, in solidarity and friendship with two friends of hers who were recently diagnosed with breast cancer, Xeni made an appointment to have a breast exam, and she took photos during the exam which she tweeted. The idea was to show what happens during a breast exam and to demystify the process, but that was it.
I’m not sure that she would have chosen to go through all of this in public if she knew in advance what the results might be, but I deeply admire the fact that she has.
I do not know all of what’s ahead. I know a little. I know that there is a new kind of life on the other side of this thing. A changed mind and body. A new appreciation of time, and breath, and health, and life, and loved ones.
The gravity in this place is different. I’ve spoken to others who’ve traveled out here, too, and returned home safely. When you become one of them, you learn quickly that you share a language others can’t understand.
The trick, these fellow travelers tell me, is to accept the not knowing and find your equilibrium in that new gravity. Calm the mind. Find your balance out on the cold planet, whether or not you know the next step, or the date of the next appointment, or what good or bad news the Technetium-99 isotopes floating around in your blood during the last scan reveal.
You must be at peace with not knowing, they tell me. That is how you get through outer space, and find your way back home.
The thing about this thing, or, at least, this first week of this thing, is how it takes you out there to the cold planet again and again and again, when you aren’t expecting it. Long, undulating waves of fear pull you out to where you are alone and unreachable, even by words sent from the strongest satellite.
The thing that brings you back is love.
As many of DM’s readers probably know, Xeni Jardin is one of my and Tara’s closest friends and favorite people in the world. As a mutual friend once said of her, “Xeni is like a being from an advanced planet or the future who has come to Earth to help us all evolve faster.” If there’s anyone who can beat this, it is, for sure, our Xenorita, and she is in really good hands, which is a real comfort to all of us who care about her. Send some good vibes—and love—her way in the Boing Boing comments, won’t you?
Supervelma’s hand-stitched Kanye West tweets on Etsy are hilarious! Sadly, it appears Supervelma’s shop is sold out of Kanye tweets, but you can message her about special orders here.
(via Boing Boing)
As Redditor tickle-teh-pickle puts it, “I don’t always agree with cabbies, but when I do, it’s for teaching a douchebag a lesson.”
(via The Daily What and reddit )
In the 1960s and 70s, Levi’s promoted their products with a series of offbeat commercials, many of which had a lysergic spin.
In this ad, psychedelia meets film noir when a stranger in a pair of trippy polyester jeans comes to town.
Ken Nordine narrates.
Light My Christmas.
Available now for the first time… The lost recordings of one of rock and roll’s most mysterious bands… In rare Yuletide spirit, The Doors… Light my Christmas...
This puts me in a festive spirit.
A commercial to haunt your dreams.
As if Walmart wasn’t scary enough.
This will be debuting on TV soon. Warn the children.
Via Copyranter
In 1983, KTTV Channel 11 News aired a series of reports on Punk Rock and “punkers” in Los Angeles area. It’s a fascinating over-view of the West Coast Punk bands, people and fashions, though at times veers into self-parody, as reporter Chris Harris pitches his story with all the earnestness of an Alan Partridge, who thinks he’s uncovered a Pulitzer-winning scoop of teenage “violence, abuse and self-destruction”, only to find it’s all just a bit of fun.
Harris kicks off his 5-part investigation with a look at a riot in Mendiola’s Ballroom, explaining what happened and asking that always pertinent question:
“Did the police use excessive force?”
I think we know the answer to that. Three cheers then, for Harris as he states quite categorically that violence was the exception and not the norm with “punkers”.
Listening to some of these young people talk, one could almost imagine they were talking about current events and OWS, as they discuss hopes for change, and that “the world will get better.” Plus ca change…
The series includes rarely seen footage of many of LA’s punk bands, and has interviews the likes of Spit Stix and Lee Ving of Fear, Keith Morris of Circle Jerks, Nick Lamagna and Felix Alanis from RF7.
Also, look out for a young Flea, seen here just prior to his quitting Fear and joining the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The whole of the KTTV Channel 11 News investigation of Punk, after the jump…
Watch the thin-skinned blowhard—who REGULARLY sends his producers to stick a camera in people’s faces—lose his cool and then try to get the other guy arrested!.
Via Right Wing Watch:
Bill O’Reilly, reportedly walking out of a Newt Gingrich fundraiser held last night in DC (see update below), is asked by Wisconsin community organizer Brendan Lane if he attended the fundraiser. O’Reilly ignores him and then, with no prompting, strikes Lane with his umbrella. He then says, “Hey, sorry about that.” O’Reilly, with Lane following at a distance, then walks with his now-broken umbrella over to a Capitol police officer. Incredibly, you can hear O’Reilly say that he wants to press charges against the man he just struck.
It’s a good thing for Lane that he caught O’Reilly’s temper tantrum on tape, otherwise he could have ended up in prison, falsely accused of assault. As for O’Reilly, it’s revealing that he not only struck Lane – on tape no less – but then sought to press false charges. Will there be consequences?
UPDATE: TPM reports that O’Reilly was staying at the same hotel as the Gingrich fundraiser but did not attend.
I’d imagine that chances are pretty good that this particular video of O’Crybaby will end up on The Daily Show tonight, what do you think?
Style is a weapon! The Occupy Ninjas are “The Blue Man Group” of political protest, making the Revolution look extremely cool.
Coming soon to a bank near YOU...
Via The Punk Patriot
At the height of his drug-fueled insanity, Dennis Hopper recites Rudyard Kipling’s “If” on The Johnny Cash Show, September 30, 1970. Can you imagine seeing such a thing on prime-time television today?
This can’t have been easy for him to do in the state of mind he was in back then!
Thank you, Leroy Chapman!
Andy Cobb and The Second City’s take on Rick Perry’s ridiculously misguided new TV ad.
“I’m a godless heathen and I approve this message!”
Bonus insanity: Rick Perry, Barack Obama and the War On Christianity (Fox News)
I was looking for an image of an old labor movement poster that had the fat cat asking the mouse “You going let that union guy steal your cookie?” which I’ve always thought was the ultimate stick in the eye to working class people who watch Fox News and believe billionaire “job creators” deserve tax cuts, whilst union members and their families—you, know, their actual neighbors and relatives!—should have to make greater sacrifices. Instead of a vintage image, I came across the above illustration, Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt’s “We’re All in This Together,” their contribution to the terrific looking Occupy Comics project (which Alan Moore has just signed on to as well).
Isn’t that just a thing of beauty? It deserves to be a poster/lithograph too. I bet a lot of people would buy them. I certainly would. It’s something that needs to get around. and be seen.
I love the inclusion of the quote from quintessential 19th century “robber baron” Jay Gould, who (in)famously said:
“I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.”
That quote (and Google) in turn led me to stumble across The Punk Patriot, who has been making politically-themed YouTube videos for some time now—that are often quite good—with the aim to promote “life, liberty and the pursuit of a less fucked-up government.” Worthy goals, indeed!
In the clip below, The Punk Patriot takes on the Reichwing echo-chamber. This is a great video to send to that Archie Bunker-ish great uncle of yours who annoyed the shit out of you on Thanksgiving with his Fox News/Dittohead nonsense…
Follow The Punk Patriot on Twitter.
Visit The Punk Patriot’s blog.
Turns out “Jian Sword Dancing” was actually a teaser video for Major Lazer’s “Original Don.” Watch it in its entirety, below:
(via The Daily What)