American Juggalo, a new short film by Brooklyn-based director, Sean Dunne explores (without judgement or editorializing) the distinctive youth culture of the Juggalos, adoring fans of Christian horrorcore metal rappers, The Insane Clown Posse. It is funny, fascinating and disturbing in turns.
Each year approximately 20,000 juggalos and jugglettes, meet up (usually in campgrounds far from civilization) for the four-day musical festival known as “The Gathering of the Juggalos.” Think of it as a white-trash version of Burning Man, but with a much lower collective IQ, no good-looking people, pregnant drunk chicks with cigarettes, and empty two-liter bottles of Faygo orange soda littering the landscape…
As one participant reflects: “These motherfuckers made me the motherfucker who I am today.” I believe him!
A brief vignette from the “exploitation” documentary feature Primitive London from 1965, featuring London’s beatniks hanging out in their local bar, answering questions on dress, work, idling and marriage. The bar is where Rod Stewart (aka Rod the Mod) hung out, and the featured musicians are Ray Sone, harp (later of The Downliner’s Sect) and Emmett Hennessy, vocals, guitar.
Though some have been dismissive of Primitive London, it’s now a film of cultural importance, which, at first glimpse, reveals a world long gone, but when closely examined, the groupings, motivations and patterns of behavior are still the same today.
Michael Moore stopped by the Occupy Wall Street demo last night to show his support. If you’re wondering why everyone keeps repeating what he says, the protestors are not allowed by law to have any amplified sound. The “people’s mic” is how they get around it—and make a little legal noise—so that what the speakers are saying can be heard in the cheap seats…
[L]ook, we got rid of slavery in 1863 in this country. It wasn’t until the 1960s that you saw the large marches and the voting rights and the civil rights act being passed. Women couldn’t vote until 1920, and then you didn’t have the real women’s liberation movement until the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Things take time. This won’t take that long. This won’t take 100 years for people to respond because Wall Street has overplayed its hand. They have come down too hard on too many people, especially people in the middle class who used to believe in Wall Street.
Forty-six million people living in poverty right now in the United States. That’s an absolute crime, it’s immoral. And these guys are just posting the largest profits ever this year.
You’re right, where’s the rage? Where’s the uprising? It’s starting. It’s down right now on Wall Street. It starts with the young people. But this is going to grow because people watching this tonight, people are afraid that they’re going to be foreclosed on this year, don’t know if they’re going to be out of a job next year, can’t afford the medical bills for their kids. Fifty million people still without insurance. They’re sitting home right now going, god, I wish I could do something. What can I do? Somebody has got to start it somewhere. That’s what these kids have done down in Wall Street. It’s going to spread across the country. And believe you me, I won’t have—it won’t be because of anything I say or you say or this show or those kids down there, people already feel it. They’re sick and tired of it. And I think you’re going to see that happen more and more in this country.
Cop Hard is an Australian-based Internet series that plays like an 1980s-style TV cop show under the influence of strong drugs. Think Hill Street Blues on strychnine-laced STP.
A cop show that pulls no punches and cuts to the very heart of what it is to be good cop in a world of bad crime. Growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn, acclaimed writer director Charles C. Custer peels away the veneer of lies and uncovers a true depiction of crime fighting never before seen. He invites us into a world that is both hard and cruel but has the decency to provide a true hero in the form of Detective Larry Hard, a symbol of hope in these dark times of democracy.
Five episodes of Cop Hard were screened at this year’s Fantastic Fest and I got hooked. So far, there are 15 episodes in all and they can be viewed at the Cop Hardwebsite. It’s some diabolically goofy fun featuring fine acting, great production values and a shitload of dirty bits. Here’s a taste (NSFW):
A short bit of documentary footage of T. Rex arriving in Brussels, some music, and a charmingly cocky Marc Bolan interviewed on Belgium’s Pop Shop TV program in 1973.
Thanks to Spike Priggen and the folks at Bedazzled.
The Yes Men’s Andy Bichlbaum lays speculation to rest that Alessio Rastani was put up to his nihilistic remarks about the predation of Wall Street stock traders on BBC News on Monday by the Yes Men. In a statement made this morning on their Yes Lab website, Bichlbaum writes:
The Yes Men wish to commend Mr. “Alessio Rastani” for his masterful performance as “trader” on BBC World yesterday. Mr. Rastani’s real name is Granwyth Hulatberi; he once appeared on CNBC MarketWrap as a “representative” of the WTO. Well done, Granwyth! You’re getting better and better.
Just kidding. We’ve never heard of Rastani. Despite widespread speculation, he isn’t a Yes Man. He’s a real trader who is, for one reason or another, being more honest than usual. Who in big banking doesn’t bet against the interests of the poor and find themselves massively recompensed—if not by the market, then by humongous taxpayer bailouts? Rastani’s approach has been completely mainstream for several years now; we must thank him for putting a human face on it yesterday.
If you’d like to see the human face of the human perspective—the perspective of the 99% victimized by our demented and out-of-control financial system—come join the occupation of Wall Street. Michael Moore did so last night, and pointed out that in America, it’s just 400 people who own as much as most of the rest of us put together—and that when we decide we really want to change the rules of the game, those 400 people won’t be able to do squat about it.
So just as I thought, Rastani IS just a capitalist vulture feeding off the carrion that used to be the lives of the middle class!
Good lord, if this is true, it’s absolutely fucking hysterical, but I have my doubts: Reuters, CNBC, Forbes, the Washington Post and the Guardian have all reported inconclusive speculation in the last few hours that the “candid” (some might say “sociopath”) Wall Street trader, Alessio Rastani, who told BBC News: “I dream of another recession,” might be member of the genius satirical activists, The Yes Men!
Rastani’s statement, “The governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world,” has caused his shocking BBC News appearance to become a viral video sensation in the past 24 hours. An BBC internal investigation has concluded that Rastani is who he says he is, a real trader, but not everyone is buying it:
FORBES: Have you heard of the Yes Men?
AR: Heard of it before? Not quite sure why they’re calling me that. I have no idea where that came from.
AR: What? A Dow Chemical spokesman? Have you seen this video? That can’t be right. I’ve never spoken to Dow Chemical before in my life. Maybe it’s a fake. Are you sure about this? Honestly, listen, I’ve no idea where that came from. That interview yesterday was one of the first ones I did live.
I don’t know why they think it’s a hoax. No, I am a trader absolutely. I have trader friends who could back that up. One of my mentors is a bestselling author and trader. Everyone knows me.
Here’s the problem: The speculation seems to be that Alessio Rastani is, in fact, the Yes Men’s Andy Bichlbaum. I know Andy personally—Disinformation published the Yes Men book—so unless Andy has had extensive plastic surgery or gotten into a time machine since I’ve last seen him, I can assure that he’s not Alessio Rastani. Rastani also has a blog, several YouTube videos about trading, he’s on Twitter and has been for two years, etc. IF this is a hoax, it’s either one concocted with a very, very long fuse, or else the Yes Men hired a real stock broker to say the same nihilistic, “fuck the little guy” things that brokers say amongst themselves all the time,
I’ll repeat that: I’m not saying that the Yes Men didn’t hire this guy to say what he said on BBC News—I have no knowledge of this—but the speculation that he’s Andy Bichlbaum is absolutely NOT true.
Still, the fact that this is being speculated about as a Yes Men media prank is simply delicious! I’m sure they’ll keep quiet about this as long as possible. Why not milk it, especially if it’s a freebie, you know? Not sure if I want it to be a hoax or not. Probably not, which means I’m rooting for Rastani to actually be the sociopathic stock broker he represented himself as on the BBC News channel…
Yak nipple dress, anyone? I don’t even think Lady Gaga is daring enough to sport this dud. You’d really have to be a tit to wear this! From People UK:
A BRIT designer has been slammed as “sick” after her show at London Fashion Week included dresses made from yaks’ NIPPLES.
Models wearing Rachel Freire’s creations – fashioned from 3,000 nipples – paraded down the catwalk at Somerset House on Monday.
The 32-year-old designer – who has worked with stars such as Christina Aguilera and Courtney Love – said she was excited about the two dresses and bras made up from body parts given to her by a tannery.
The controversial show also included an elaborate bra made from protruding nipples.
As readers of this blog most probably know by now, I’m a massive, massive Bowie head and have been for over 35 years. Although I tend to think I’ve seen and heard about 99.9% of everything relating to the man’s life and career, I’ve been finding that the .1% of the stuff I’ve never come across before is almost always pure gold and that there is also a seemingly bottomless pit of it. Maybe I should revise my total down to 95%? (Let’s hope the real number is actually closer to 50%).
Like I was saying, there is still a lot to discover, such as this, my new top favorite photograph ever taken of David Bowie. What’s more, he’s probably never seen it himself, either.
The photograph above was taken on the evening of Bowie’s first arrival in the United States. It’s on the Flickr account of Michael Olberman, a writer who covered pop music at the time. His brother happened to work for Bowie’s then record label, Mercury Records. This would have been in Jan-Feb of 1971, when Bowie was in America promoting The Man Who Sold the World (Apparently that’s a card or something that he’s holding and not a joint). Here’s the caption Michael wrote:
This was David Bowie’s first night (ever) in the United States. I am the one waving in the photo. David was great. He went to dinner with me, my brother and my parents. This photo was taken in my parent’s living room in Silver Spring, MD. Later that night he came to my house and spent the evening. Incredible memories for me. David, if you flickr—hello again!
Curator of all things weird and wonderful in the world of rock and roll, Mick Stadium, has done it again by unearthing this video of X performing “Blue Spark” on the Jerry Lewis telethon in 1982.
Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?
Just as in Europe, we are seeing the results of colossal social failure. The occupiers are the very sort of people, brimming with ideas, whose energies a healthy society would be marshaling to improve life for everyone. Instead, they are using it to envision ways to bring the whole system down.
But the ultimate failure here is of imagination. What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. There was a moment, after the near-collapse of the world’s financial architecture, when anything seemed possible.
Everything we’d been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses; and debts did not really need to be repaid – in fact, money itself was revealed to be a political instrument, trillions of dollars of which could be whisked in or out of existence overnight if governments or central banks required it. Even the Economist was running headlines like “Capitalism: Was it a Good Idea?”
It seemed the time had come to rethink everything: the very nature of markets, money, debt; to ask what an “economy” is actually for. This lasted perhaps two weeks. Then, in one of the most colossal failures of nerve in history, we all collectively clapped our hands over our ears and tried to put things back as close as possible to the way they’d been before.
Perhaps, it’s not surprising. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the real priority of those running the world for the last few decades has not been creating a viable form of capitalism, but rather, convincing us all that the current form of capitalism is the only conceivable economic system, so its flaws are irrelevant. As a result, we’re all sitting around dumbfounded as the whole apparatus falls apart.
Read more of Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination (Guardian)
I was prepared for the worst but nothing quite as bad as the song “The View,” from the upcoming Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration. If this track is indicative of what’s on the rest of the album, it will end up embarrassing everyone involved. This will satisfy no one…not Lou’s fans, not Metallica’s.
As music, it’s intolerably bad, sounding like some hellish noise cooked up in the basement by a 10th rate metal band and their loony uncle and the lyrics read like something scrawled on the back of a goth kid’s composition book. A sample:
I WANT TO SEE YOUR SUICIDE
I WANT TO SEE YOU GIVE IT UP
YOUR LIFE OF REASON
I WANT YOU ON THE FLOOR
AND IN A COFFIN YOUR SOUL SHAKING
I WANT TO HAVE YOU DOUBTING
EVERY MEANING YOU’VE AMASSED
LIKE A FORTUNE
OH THROW IT AWAY
FOR WORSHIP SOMEONE
WHO ACTIVELY DESPISES YOU
As a long suffering Lou Reed fan, I was hoping that my gut feelings that this project was going to be disastrous would be proven wrong. If the rest of the album is as shitty as this track, it could go down in history as one of the most misbegotten musical couplings of all time.
A BRIT designer has been slammed as “sick” after her show at London Fashion Week included dresses made from yaks’ NIPPLES.
