A progressive Christian group is pressuring U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann to support President Obama’s jobs plan using the story of the loaves and fishes to demand a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans. Although I think this is hilarious and support their efforts, good luck with this line of reasoning and “Crazy Eyes”. Via the Minnesota Independent:

“Jesus would support this bill,” said Brandon Nessen, the group’s spokesperson. “Ask the wealthiest to contribute so that ordinary families can get back on two feet again.”

The group will re-enact the biblical story of Jesus Christ using either five or seven loaves of bread and several small fish, depending on the version of the story, to feed thousands of starving people. The story is seen as a lesson to help the less fortunate.

The event is being organized by members of the “religious left,” according to a press release. “A group of church-going progressives will descend on her Woodbury office to ask her to support President Obama’s jobs bill, which would use revenue from taxes on the wealthiest Americans to pay for infrastructure projects and other bipartisan policies aimed at stimulating job growth,” the group’s statement said. “The group will reenact a version of the biblical story of Loaves and Fishes to demonstrate that Jesus created abundance from apparent scarcity just as Congress could do with the President’s jobs package.”

The group, calling itself the “Spirit of Truth Faith Community” describe themselves as “a faith community from the Christian tradition that strives to put love and justice at the center of everything we do. We are a group of people who realized we wanted to live out our values of love and justice, and that we needed a faith community to do it.”

The cognitive dissonance that this must cause for Bachmann is funny to contemplate…

 
Noam Chomsky sends a “strong message of support” to the organizers of the Occupy Wall Street protests:

“Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street — financial institutions generally — has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called “a precariat” — seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity — not only too big to fail, but also “too big to jail.”

The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course.”

Professor Chomsky, along with John Pilger, Michael Albert, Johann Hari and Robert McChesney. will be appearing at the Rebellious Media conference in London on October 8th and 9th. Tickets can be purchased at www.radicalmediaconference.org

 
If you’ve ever wanted to see a Christopher Walken doppelgänger make sexy-talk… here’s your chance.

 
(via KMFW )

 
According to a new study from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, apparently stock brokers are more manipulative and reckless than psychopaths! Researchers compared the egotism and the propensity for cooperation of 28 professional stock traders with the behavior of psychopaths. Clearly to embark on such a study, the authors, Pascal Scherrer, and Thomas Noll, a prison administrator in Zürich, must have had an inkling that there would be some correlation between the behaviors of their two control groups, but the results were striking. Via Der Spiegel:

“Naturally one can’t characterize the traders as deranged,” Noll told SPIEGEL. “But for example, they behaved more egotistically and were more willing to take risks than a group of psychopaths who took the same test.”

So I suppose one actually could characterize their behavior as “deranged,” right? I mean, he just did that, didn’t he?

Particularly shocking for Noll was the fact that the bankers weren’t aiming for higher winnings than their comparison group. Instead they were more interested in achieving a competitive advantage. Instead of taking a sober and businesslike approach to reaching the highest profit, “it was most important to the traders to get more than their opponents,” Noll explained. “And they spent a lot of energy trying to damage their opponents.”

Using a metaphor to describe the behavior, Noll said the stockbrokers behaved as though their neighbor had the same car, “and they took after it with a baseball bat so they could look better themselves.”

The researchers were unable to explain this penchant for destruction, they said.

 
I think I can be of help here: Wall Street attracts rapacious, greedy psychopaths! You’re welcome!

Aren’t you glad to have psychopaths looking after your retirement pension? Let’s give them some more control over our lives, why don’t we?

Below, “We appreciate your candor…”
 

 
I don’t speak Portuguese so it’s a little hard for me to tell you exactly what’s going on here, but from what I gather, Brazilian police spell out their departments’ names in acronyms with seized drugs or weapons and then take a photo of it for bragging rights.

Go to Fabio Lopez’s Flickr page to see larger image.

(via The Good Blood)

 
Rather grateful to ace musician Fleabag Jones (aka Woody Mcmilan) for reminding me how well this mash-up between the Sex Pistols and Madonna works.

Called “Ray of Gob” (“Ray of Light” / “Pretty Vacant” / “God Save The Queen”), it was created by Mark Vidier, the Watford based DJ who has produced a whole jukebox of bootleg mash-ups via his Go home Productions.

“Ray of Gob” is rather special as it was the one which “broke the camel’s back” and allowed Mark to give up the day-job in February 2003. Still sounds as good today.
 

 
With thanks to Woody Mcmillan
 

Revolutions are great places to meet members of the opposite sex… just sayin’

There have been a lot of people wondering why they major media seems to be ignoring the Wall Street demonstrations. Some are calling for the protests to be brought to the media and it seems like a decent tactic would be to take the demonstrations directly to the headquarters of the various networks and news organizations so they simply can’t ignore it. In the meantime, until the networks deign to cover them, you can watch a live feed of the Wall Street protests on the Global Revolution Livestream channel.
 

Above. Madonna and WIlliam Burroughs at his 70th birthday party at Limelight (not in the film).

The new documentary, Limelight; The Rise and Fall of New York’s Greatest Nightclub Empire, which opened this weekend, I thought, was a lost opportunity. Produced by Jen Gatien, the daughter of former Limelight owner and NY nightlife kingpin, Peter Gatien, and directed by Billy Corben, the film takes a “true crime story” approach and focuses too much on the details, giving the audience far, far too much information on legal machinations and the minutia of DEA procedures. They took a story that was positively teaming with sex, drugs and rock-n-roll and managed to turn it into fairly dry “he said, he said” kind of thing. It’s not much better than a standard a TV investigation, truth be told.

I suppose I should tell you that I worked at the Limelight for a little less than a year in 1985, so I’m bringing that to the table.  If you actually care about the details, as I did, then it’s almost interesting, but by the end I’d had enough. My wife just hated it. For someone who never walked through the doors of the club, or who didn’t live in NYC between 1983 and 2002, there is very little to recommend Limelight.

Quizzically, there’s very, very little in the film about the crazy shit that actually went on at the Limelight. Unsurprisingly, since he is her father, Gatien and Corben’s film, concentrates on Peter Gatien, the enigmatic eye-patch wearing nightclub impresario who stayed on top of NYC nightlife for two decades before being hounded out of the country by bogus DEA harassment and the IRS. Instead of giving you any real sense of the “scene” he presided over in an opening montage or something, the film starts straight off the bat more or less as a biography of Gatien. He is an interesting character, don’t get me wrong, but there were so many other (much more) interesting characters running around his clubs that focusing too much on Gatien is a mistake (My own memory of Peter Gatien was that whenever he was around, no one ever said anything and he himself was a man of very few words. There was always an awkwardness—in others, not Peter—when he was in the room. I think he enjoyed being intimidating).

The club’s early success is glossed over in a matter of minutes. None of the characters I saw there frequently are even mentioned (Billy Idol and Duran Duran’s John Taylor deserved merit badges for committing courageous acts of decadence, let’s just say) and even Michael Alig’s dramatic downward spiral into drugs and then murder, is given comparatively short-shrift. Clearly, Gatien’s goal with the film is to exonerate her father’s reputation and on that level it does a fairly good job. Still, outside of the Gatien family, employees of Peter’s clubs, or people who frequented them, I can’t imagine this film will hold that much interest for a general audience.

Bonus anecdote: I could tell you one of hundreds of stories about Limelight and some of the things I saw there, but here is just one: It was 1985. It was late, maybe 2am when this occurred. I was 19-years-old (not old enough to drink or work there, obviously) and standing behind the front desk/coat check area. A very jolly Rod Stewart walked in with two women, one on each arm. The trio was feeling no pain, let’s say. An extremely drunk Wall Street guy saw them and in a very loud voice exclaimed “ROD STEWART! Hey man, I’m your biggest fan!” Stewart stopped, cocked an eyebrow and wryly regarded the drunk yuppie for a moment and then, stating the obvious, whistled “Fuck off, mate” through his teeth and they continued making their way into the club.

I know that sounds mean, but it was laugh out loud funny. “Fuck off, mate” was the only thing to say at that particular moment… Maybe you had to be there…
 

 
For all you die-hard Twin Peaks and retro game lovers out there, Jak Locke created this free Black Lodge Atari 2600-style action game for PCs and Macs. According to all the comments I’ve been reading about this game, it’s damn hard to beat:

A day in the FBI was never like this before! You are Special Agent Dale Cooper and you’ve found yourself trapped inside of the Black Lodge, a surreal and dangerous place between worlds.

Try as you might, you can’t seem to find anything but the same room and hallway no matter which way you turn. Worse yet, your doppelganger is in hot pursuit! You have no choice but to keep running through the room and hallway (or is it more than one?) and above all else, don’t let your doppelganger touch you! Your extensive physical training in the FBI will provide you a seemingly limitless supply of energy to run as long as necessary, but running out of breath is the least of your worries!

You’ll find quickly that you’re not alone in the Black Lodge, though your friends are few and far between. Not only that, the lodge itself seems to be actively trying to trip you up at all times! You’ll be dodging chairs and crazed Lodge residents all while trying to keep your own insanity. How long can this go on?

No time to think of that now -here comes that doppelganger again. Just keep on running through the curtains or it will surely be curtains for you!

Go here and scroll to the bottom to download the game for your PC or Mac.

Below, a demo:

 
If you’d like to show some support for the brave and persistent protestors who are occupying lower Manhattan to call attention to rapacious finance capitalism run amok, why not consider sending some… pizza?

Some local pizzerias listed by Get Smart News who’ll deliver to the anti-capitalism protestors. Liberatos Pizza & Parmigiana at 17 Cedar Street are offering a “Stand-Up-for-Your-Beliefs” special, “The Occu-Pie,” but you might want to consider ordering some meatless (if not vegan) options for this bunch—call Liberatos at (212) 344-3464

For some healthier options click here; below, some lower Manhattan pizzerias:

Adrienne’s Pizza Bar Restaurant, 54 Stone Street, (212) 248-3838
Harry’s Italian Pizza Bar, 2 Gold Street, (212) 747-0797
Papa John’S Pizza, 21 Maiden Lane # 23, (212) 608-7272
Underground Pizzeria, 3 Hanover Square, (212) 425-4442
Zeytuna, 59 Maiden Lane, (212) 742-2436
Big Al’s Chicago Style Pizza, 9 Thames Street, (212) 964-3269
Caruso’s Pizza & Pasta140 Fulton Street, (212) 267-2927
Cucina Bene Pizza, 41 Exchange Place, (212) 635-0345
Grotto Pizzeria & Restaurant, 69 New Street, (212) 809-6990
Caruso’s Pizza, 42 Broadway (212) 785-7747
Friendly Gourmet Pizza, 59 Nassau Street, (212) 791-180

Some non-pizza local restaurants that will deliver to the protestors:

Lemon Grass Grill, (212) 809-8038
Toloache Taqueria, 212) 809-9800
Alfanoose, (212) 528-4669

Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination (Guardian)

 
Kiddies, I wouldn’t try making this LEGO bowl at home. Smoking out of plastic and aluminum doesn’t seem too smart. Fun idea. Dangerous execution.

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The Ice Bong
Burnest Hemingway: For Whom the Bowl Tokes
Smoke on the Water: The Porsche Hookah
 
(via reddit )

 
I’m on some sort of David Bowie kick today because I’m lovin’ these David Bowie handmade nesting dolls by Tanja Stark. From her website, Suburban Gothic:

I painted these over several months, and for those of you who aren’t familiar with the images, these are the covers of iconic Bowie albums including Aladdin Sane, Low (my favourite doll - the orange one), Young Americans, Ziggy Stardust and Diamond Dogs.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Ms. Stark’s dolls are for sale.

 
This Tuesday, September 27th at 8:00pm, Cinefamily and Los Angeles Filmforum will be presenting a look at Pablo Ferro’s body of work, with Ferro himself in attendance:

You may not know his name, but chances are you’re already a huge fan of Pablo Ferro’s work. Proclaimed a genius by the likes of Stanley Kubrick, Hal Ashby and Jonathan Demme, Pablo’s career as a movie title sequence designer has brought him mega-accolades within the world of film production, and his large and varied body of work brought titles into the modern era with a style and approach that still ripples through contemporary cinema. From the moving collage of The Thomas Crown Affair to his trademark hand-drawn lettering for Dr. Strangelove, Pablo Ferro is a world-class designer of the highest order. Plus, Pablo also created some of cinema’s most memorable trailers of all time, such as the mindbending promos for A Clockwork Orange and Zardoz! We are delighted to host an entire evening devoted to Pablo’s legacy and historic portfolio — with the man, the myth, the master himself in attendance. Join us for a evening of impossibly cool titles, trailers, rare animations and unscreened shorts, all spliced together by an extended Q&A with Pablo!

Tickets: $12/free for Cinefamily members
 

 
(via Cherrybombed )

 
Dangerous Minds, reporting from Fantastic Fest in Austin…and loving it.
 
Released last year in Mexico during the country’s bicentennial celebration, El Narco (aka El Infierno) is the cinematic equivalent of a turd in the punchbowl. Director Luis Estrada’s intimate and epic gangster film is a brutal, darkly funny and deeply cynical exploration of the illegal drug industry that is reducing a great country into a decimated war zone. Estrada clearly feels that in 2010 there was little to celebrate in Mexico. And it’s getting worse. This was not exactly the film Mexican authorities wanted as part of its glorious national celebration.

In a resounding “fuck you” to the those who tried to thwart the film’s release, El Narco became a critical and commercial success in Mexico and it is easy to see why. Like the Godfather or De Palma’s Scarface, El Narco tells a story that is filled with melodrama, violence and tragedy and it does so with operatic grandeur and a brash attitude. What separates Estrada’s film from Coppola’s and De Palma’s is in its sense of place, a landscape that can be as unforgiving as it is beautiful, a place where men are dwarfed by forces they cannot control, where stretches of highway seem to go on forever and a dead pickup truck is the only sign of civilization.

With its characters struggling against harsh realities meted out by a ruthless God, man and fate, El Narco occasionally looks and feels like a Sam Peckinpah film. As I watched the movie, I could imagine seeing Warren Oates from Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia walking into the frame holding his blood-encrusted, fly-specked bag.  Estrada shares Peckinpah’s knack for peeling back the facade of a kind of ludicrous machismo that conceals the fear within the gangster mentality. Underneath the bling bling, big guns and bigger talk lurks men who tremble at an unexpected knock at the door, who deceive and are betrayed, who kill to keep from being killed… and the killers can be anyone at anytime. If the drug wars end it may not be because of any political or legal agenda, it may be the result of a bigass, collective, self-inflicted gunshot wound. Wait long enough and these fuckers may end up wiping themselves out. Except, as Estrada sees it, there is a younger generation just waiting to fill those dead men’s boots.

Throughout El Narco a Greek chorus of narcocorrido songs, drug ballads, comment upon and serve as ironic counterpoints to the action. Narcocorridos depict the drug lords as folk heroes, bigger-than-life figures that instill a kind of perverted national pride in Mexico’s youth. The songs serve the same cathartic function as old school gangster rap did for Black kids in the States two decades ago. For many young Mexican men, the choices are slim to none -deal drugs or make a run for the border. Either way, you end up enslaved. The ballads tell the tale but tend to glorify the gangster life in an all too familiar way, the difference lays in tradition, accordions instead of beat boxes.

The drug dealers in El Narco exude the seductive aura of money and power, implacable as Aztec gods, but in actuality they’re just expendable foot soldiers, as easily blown away as a line of cocaine in a sudden gust of wind. Estrada is very good at showing us the sweat beneath the swagger, laying bare just how pathetic and vulnerable these men are.

Although superior to most gangster movies, El Narco breaks no new ground. Its dramatic arc is tried and true, its narrative conventional. There is romance, intrigue, betrayal and cruel justice. It has fine performances, is beautifully photographed and emotionally engaging. It adheres to the rules of the genre. It had to. In order to get his message across, that Mexico is becoming a country run by drug dealing terrorists, Estrada had to smuggle it within a classic form of storytelling much like the folk songs spun by the singers of narcocorridos. El Narco is a song sung with the voice of a man who has seen the darkness on the horizon growing ever closer and who must keep singing.

El Narco has an American distributor and, after some foot dragging, is scheduled to hit theaters soon. Its an important film and a viable commercial prospect. Let’s get it out there.

Luis Estrada discussing El Narco after its screening at Fantastic Fest 2011.
 

 
Trailer for El Narco after the jump…