MPB live @ hellfest 04
the dude on drums here quit later that night. i think he was drummer #11 at that point. a few days later we left for australia & new zealand with colin and never looked back. fuck everybody. we roar on. always.
31 July 2007
The Associated Press has written an article about MyDeathSpace.com, which has been picked up by ALL news sources effectively taking down MyDeathSpace.com. The massive amounts of traffic are causing the box to become completely unresponsive. They said they're working on it. Hang in there, gang.
Save The Home Run Apple!
This reminds me of the Stonehenge stage prop debacle from Spinal Tap...
With the new colossal Shea Stadium Citi Field construction making progress towards Opening Day 2009, there's a movement brewing to save the home run apple as it currently exists at Shea Stadium in all its hokey Queens glory.
Let's face it, the thing is like 4 feet tall, John Franco was taller than this thing; it's dented to shit and it looks like it was made out of paper mache for a 5th grade play at a school somewhere in Corona.
SaveTheApple.com has an online petition, currently with 162 signatures (LOOK OUT!), to Mets ownership. Good luck, boys.
MetsBlog says the prospects for the Shea apple are grim. It may be replaced by a more elaborate apple with the current one auctioned off for charity, or perhaps sold for parts to one of the chop shops across the street. I'd love to see a new '09 version of the home run apple, now that would be hysterical. A revamped home run apple!
I'd really love to see that old hunk of spray painted scrap metal in the outfield of this brand new state-of-the-art stadium. It would be SO Queens and SO perfectly Mets... like building a mansion and furnishing it with plastic furniture.
Newsday: NJ body is that of missing NYC artist
July 31, 2007, 2:29 PM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) A body found by a New Jersey fisherman last month was that of artist Jeremy Blake, the New York Police Department confirmed Tuesday. Police believe Blake, 35, committed suicide on July 17 by drowning himself at Rockaway Beach in Queens. He disappeared a week after his girlfriend, filmmaker Theresa Duncan, 40, committed suicide in their East Village apartment. [Newsday]
Ok so this should squelch some of the conspiracy theorists. Honestly, learning Blake has turned up now I feel like everyone is overestimating these two and ruling out love. Maybe Theresa was paranoid about this or that, fact is she took her life and Jeremy couldn't deal with being alone so he walked into the ocean and never came out. Lets not make these two into something they weren't. I doubt either of them were above these simple visceral emotions, doesn't matter how intellectual their "blogs" were or how much Sheldrake and Kafka she read.
The world is on backwards
There is a place where death means freedom or fame, depending on what it is you are searching for. Death is freedom from the shackles of time and money, taxes and tragedy, grief and sorrow, sadness and pain, uncertainty and loneliness. Some feel that real genius can't be discovered until its dead; until its laid before us nice and neat and with finality for us to dissect and discuss as a complete work in our collective rear view mirrors. Think of how many artists have received such impossible posthumous glory, fame and notoriety while they spent their living years struggling and starving in a murky ocean of the unknown and underground; fighting like fish for a ray of light above the pond scum. It's almost a surefire way to be revered these days because it happens almost every time. It seals your fate in a way nothing else can. It puts a period on a life's work that some people need to see before they can appreciate you. They'd rather revere the dead than celebrate the living. They'd rather miss you when you're away than love you when you're here. They'd rather speculate why you did this or that after you're gone instead of asking you while you're alive. They fear clear, black and white; they want mystery, murk and gray. Selfishly they want the mystery; its a hobby, a past time like anything else; it fills their vapid lives with vicarious meaning. They want to long for something rather than have it. They want to miss something rather than love it. They like to play games with it and assume it will always be there. We are nothing without our antagonists. How bored we'd all be if we always got what we wanted. How restless the world would be if we all had everything we dreamed for. The peace we search for, if we had it, surely we'd never know what to do with it. What would we do if all our dreams came true? Is death better than hope?
Love & Fame & Death by Charles Bukowski
it sits outside my window now
like and old woman going to market;
it sits and watches me,
it sweats nervously
through wire and fog and dog-bark
until suddenly
I slam the screen with a newspaper
like slapping at a fly
and you could hear the scream
over this plain city,
and then it left.
the way to end a poem
like this
is to become suddenly
quiet.
One of the co-defendants in the Michael Vick dogfighting case, Tony Taylor, has pleaded guilty. He could face 6 years in prison and fines up to $350,000. Vick, the star QB for the Atlanta Falcons, and two other co-defendants pleaded not guilty last week to similar charges. But we have a good feeling Vick will be spending some time behind bars for this one.
Meanwhile Vick continues to hemorrhage endorsement deals; Nike has put the kabosh on his new sneaker; Reebok has stopped selling & manufacturing #7 Falcon jerseys and now Upper Deck has removed all Michael Vick autographed memorabilia from its online store and will remove the indicted QB's trading card from NFL sets that are scheduled to be released in October. Erase him.......FROM EXISTENCE!
Nostalgic for the Blackout of 2003? I had Dylan tickets and he bailed. Judas! Anyway, Stain is throwing a party that will recapture the night of no lights so we can all enjoy it once again (with reassuring knowledge that our Ben & Jerrys isn't melting back at home).
Stain's blackout party will be complete with candles, canned goods, beer, a battery-run boombox, board games, grilling and other non-electricity-dependent activities. Get Amish! Tonight, 8pm @ Stain 766 Grand St, Williamsburg [Gothamist]
Fired NBC Producer Falls to His Death in the Village
45-year-old Eric Wishnie had been a producer at NBC News, but was either fired or forced to resign from NBC after his bosses found out he was addicted to alcohol and pain killers.
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams dedicated last night's show to Wishnie whose 10-year marriage to "Dateline" correspondent Dawn Fratangelo was in shambles- you may also remember Dawn from anchoring the 6 o'clock news back in the 90's on Channel 4.
"Eric Wishnie died way too young," Williams told viewers, calling him an "enormously talented producer and kind and good-hearted soul."
more after the jump...
The News reports a couple in a taxi heading north on Sixth Ave. called 911 about 3 a.m. when they heard a loud boom and saw Wishnie's body on the ground, a police source said.
Wishnie landed face up on the avenue about 30 feet north of W.10th St., the source said. He was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, where he was pronounced dead.
Police said they were looking into whether he fell or jumped from the three-story building at 444 Sixth Ave. Foul play was not suspected. Inside his apartment, cops found a dozen vodka bottles, a multitude of empty pill bottles and mail that hadn't been opened for months.
An employee at a nearby wine shop said Wishnie had been a regular customer until about a month ago, when he told the newsman he would no longer sell him alcohol.
"He looked really weak like he was giving up on everything," the store employee said. "I told him he looked terrible. He said, 'Thanks for your concern.'"
Frank Antias, a manager at the nearby restaurant French Press, said Wishnie came to the bar the day he lost his job.
"He wasn't upset, but he kept saying, 'I got fired,'" Antias said. He said Wishnie then drank for two hours.
Wishnie, who previously worked for the network news program under Tom Brokaw, was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Award for producing a 2000 broadcast the day after the disputed presidential election.
NBC President Steve Capus sent an e-mail message to employees informing them that Wishnie was "killed in an accident."
Wishnie leaves behind a fox terrier named Lincoln.
Read More
more after the jump...
The News reports a couple in a taxi heading north on Sixth Ave. called 911 about 3 a.m. when they heard a loud boom and saw Wishnie's body on the ground, a police source said.
Wishnie landed face up on the avenue about 30 feet north of W.10th St., the source said. He was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, where he was pronounced dead.
Police said they were looking into whether he fell or jumped from the three-story building at 444 Sixth Ave. Foul play was not suspected. Inside his apartment, cops found a dozen vodka bottles, a multitude of empty pill bottles and mail that hadn't been opened for months.
An employee at a nearby wine shop said Wishnie had been a regular customer until about a month ago, when he told the newsman he would no longer sell him alcohol.
"He looked really weak like he was giving up on everything," the store employee said. "I told him he looked terrible. He said, 'Thanks for your concern.'"
Frank Antias, a manager at the nearby restaurant French Press, said Wishnie came to the bar the day he lost his job.
"He wasn't upset, but he kept saying, 'I got fired,'" Antias said. He said Wishnie then drank for two hours.
Wishnie, who previously worked for the network news program under Tom Brokaw, was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Award for producing a 2000 broadcast the day after the disputed presidential election.
NBC President Steve Capus sent an e-mail message to employees informing them that Wishnie was "killed in an accident."
Wishnie leaves behind a fox terrier named Lincoln.
I'm hardly ever late to anything and if I am you know theres gonna be a great story behind why. So I’m on course to be at my office for say 8 AM today. I got an early start, caught an early bus.
I was reading my Rupert Sheldrake and decided to take a nap as I always do - and as most would probably need to do after a few chapters of Rupert at 7:15 in the morning.
So I missed my stop - 48th and Madison. I’ve done it before and usually I wake up at the last stop on 57th Street. No big deal. A brisk walk over to 45 and Lex.
But today I woke up outside the Jacob Javitz Center! Seems I was on my way to the bus depot! Mr. Bus Driver didn’t realise anyone was still on the bus. This was like a children's book come to life where Lil' Johnny gets left on the bus in the big city!
So I’m on 38th and 11th now. I hail a cab. He takes me cross town and naturally this takes forever because its 9 o'clock now.
My man, the bloodshot eyed Rasta cab driver, gets into a feud with another cabbie, an Israeli guy, and they start gunning after each other, cutting each other off, screaming at each other... it was LUNACY. One of the craziest cab wars I've ever been in by far. The whole time he's got Lionel blasting on Air America which was cool because I haven't heard Lionel since he left WOR. He sounds good.
But I was literally flying all over the backseat of the cab like I was on a roller coaster. They almost killed ten or twelve people in the heat of their feud down 38th street. When we hit Park Ave it was the climax of the feud and Rasta went in for the kill and cut off Israeli guy good and took the checkered flag. Keep in mind, the whole time I'm flying around this dudes backseat I'm thinking to myself "if he crashes, can I sue the city?"
Whatever. $15 later, it's 9:30 and I'm at work with another experience. It's gorgeous out today and I'm happy.
30 July 2007
I'd-Phreak Out !
iPhone enthusiasts were so eager to stand on long lines to be the first to drop $600 on a toy phone. Now the new toy shine has worn off reality sets in.
A man in Chicago has filed the first lawsuit claiming no advanced warning about the iPhone's battery issues. Namely, that the battery is sealed inside the phone and in order to change it one must ship the phone back to the manufacturer - leaving the owner with no phone in the interim.
The lawsuit claims that this information did not appear in the product's packaging and never came up in Apple's promotion or marketing of the device. A group called the Foundation for Consumer and Taxpayer Rights made a similar complaint about a week after the iPhone went on sale.
By the way, if you are an iPhone owner, you should know that your phone's memory, address book, emails, etc., will be wiped clean when it's returned to you. Enjoy your phone!
I hate when mommy and daddy fight
courtesy of NME.com
Ex-New Order bassist Peter Hook, who left the band after New Order's Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris declared him no longer part of the set-up, has declared the band defunct.
He has threatened to sue the pair over continuing under the New Order banner.
Previously, Hook had told NME.com that New Order wouldn't be continuing. This prompted a statement from Sumner and Morris declaring that New Order was active, but from now Hook would not be part of the group.
Addressing Sumner and Morris, Hook wrote on his MySpace page: "This group [New Order] has split up! You are no more New Order than I am! You may have two thirds, but don't assume you have the rights to do anything 'New Order-ey,' because you don't. I've still got a third! But I'm open to negotiation." He signed the statement off by writing, "See you in court!"
Whats worse New Order finally disbanding or the fact that MySpace is always somehow involved?
Let me officially go on record and say that I never knew Theresa Duncan or Jeremy Blake and while we may have some mutual friends I never met either of them.
Sadly, I learned of their existence the same time I learned of their untimely demise. I've become fascinated with this story because there is so much hearsay on the net about it right now; so many people coming out of the woodwork and volunteering even more fascinating and imaginative speculation.
I don't know what it is about the story that has struck a chord with so many people in this "blog" culture (BARF!) but so be it. I guess we're all human and seduced by romantic tragedy.
I just wanted to say my peace before I was hauled in for questioning.
I don't know them, I never knew them and I have no inside information on their deaths; how they died, why they died, where they died... Everything I know has either been gleaned from other people on the net or from my wild imagination, speculation and supposition.
I cannot verify any information or ideas suggested here or elsewhere. I am not an authority on this issue.
And I Thank you.
Total Twilight Zone
Go here, now... This is Not a Game: The Mysterious Death of Theresa Duncan
Now there are people speculating that Theresa Duncan never even existed and this is all some elaborate piece of performance art - which I know is BS because there is documentation that she lived & died in New York City, but whatever, let the bloggers, blog...
This is my theory as of 2 PM on Monday:
Maybe Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake were being hounded, stalked & threatened by the CoS. We certainly know the CoS is more than capable of doing this as it has been documented. But possibly the couples' own paranoia became a juggernaut of a self-fulfilling prophecy as they dug deeper into their own suspicions - sort of like e-diagnosing yourself at 3 o'clock in the morning, deciding you have some some rare terminal illness but its actually only a mosquito bite - the internet can really promote that sort of thing, without a doubt it can certainly be a rabbit hole for the insane or the people willing to fall into its depths.
Theresa and Jeremy may very well have been delusional but with good reason. The CoS is capable of this stuff... Still, who knows. I'd never even heard of these two artists and I don't swim in a circle that far from their pond - so what would the CoS or the C.I.A. want to do with two virtually unknown artists? This wasn't like Joseph McCarthy on a witchhunt, ordering movie stars into court; this wasn't the CoS going after some well-known celebs... I don't think they'd be killing people that most wouldn't even have heard of until learning of their demise.
"There is a lot more to say, this is just an interim report. I have to admit I’m at a loss to explain Theresa Duncan’s death and the more I re-read her blog and admire its remarkable elan vital, erudition and excitement about art, literature, love and life, the more mysterious her death appears." Truly.
Either way, this is truly a rabbit hole of a story on the internerd right now; a virtual labyrinth of hearsay and rumours; its literally like a posthumous scavenger hunt or some sort of morbid choose your own adventure game. It's très bizarre and overall it's quite tragic and sad, no matter how you dissect it... whether it is some yet-to-be unraveled conspiracy or if its simply the classic Romeo & Juliet tale of two lovers who couldn't live without each other... I feel a bit guilty being so fascinated with the death of two people but I can't help it.
When you grab that torch you call a mouse, make sure you read all the comments to these blog posts because therein hides a lot of clues; there are a lot of people out there reading and living vicariously who may or may not really know whats up; don't dismiss an anonymous comment, it could wind up to be the only one that mattered.
Theresa's blog has just been updated by Glenn O'Brien. Read More
Oh Elizabeth, whats happened to you? 75-year old L.T. seen here lumbering down the stairs off her private jet just in from Hawaii. Rocking an Ed Hardy cap and enough gold to choke a horse. MC Grandma in your area?
Read More
From Theresa Duncan's Blog: The Trouble With Anna Gaskell
Dead (Wo)Men Do Tell Tales: Clues from Theresa's blog? Foreboding prophecies? Creepy either way. Read on.
From Theresa Duncan's blog The Wit Of The Staircase :
Sunday May 13, 2007
"Children of the Staircase, meet Jim Cownie, above, also known as Des Moines-born, New York local artist Anna Gaskell's (top) legal guardian after the odd and unhappy coincidences of each of her parent's separate sudden deaths.
This would be regrettable, but of no personal consequence to The Wit Of The Staircase if it had not been for the extremely coordinated and professional physical and psychological harassment Mr. Wit Of The Staircase (Jeremy Blake) and I underwent subsequent to Mr. Wit creating an artwork entitled Winchester, a video trilogy based on the violence and guilt in the life of gun-company heiress Sarah Winchester and her subsequent neurotic construction of a house of endless new wings and rooms and doors and stairways meant to accommodate the ghosts of the victims of her family's dangerous product.
More after the jump.......................
The harassment Mr. Wit and I are still enduring featured as its centerpiece an FBI file I earned as an undergrad in Detroit for protesting the plant closings there and doing other labor organizing. I also wrote several eloquent articles for Wayne State University's student newspaper demanding a Federal investigation into the Iran-Contra cover up when I was a freshman.
Wit's family has generations of working class factory workers on my father's side, and generations of academic specialists in radical political movements on my mother's side. My mother, who currently works at Wayne State University and has a PhD in political science that is focused on Black Panther and other radical movements in the Midwest, also recently received harassing phone calls, as did my younger brother.
On the other hand Mr. Cownie--who built a wing on his Des Moines, Iowa home to house the orphaned Anna Gaskell and her younger brothers Jon, Jake, and Zach after their parents' untimely demise--is very generous in looking after his former business partner John Gaskell's children. He recently devoted $1.5 million to build a sports complex in Des Moines (named after himself, naturally) and gave $50,000 to the Des Moines Art Museum after that institution declined to fund a work that Anna Gaskell, who is also an artist like Mr. Wit, has been lobbying to permanently install there.
In addition to this community largesse, Cownie is a major Republican donor with ties to the Midwest's Heritage Groups, founded by the ultraconservative Adolph Coors with money from his brainchild The Heritage Foundation. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Heritage Foundation's support for the Nicaraguan contras and Angola's Savimbi proved extremely influential with the United States government, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council and other governmental agencies. The Heritage Foundation presented its case for armed support for these movements, and United States support soon followed.
According to this website at media transparency.org, "among other Heritage efforts have been the publications Beware of the Union Label, The Case for Plant Closures, Upsetting the Balance of U.S. Labor Law: The Striker Replacement Bill and In Praise of Corporate Radiers: Junking Three Fallacies About Hostile Takeovers.
The site further reports: "The U.S. labor movement is a particular target for Heritage. Ronald Reagan's first appointment to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was Robert Hunter, a conservative activist who wrote the chapter on the Labor Department for the foundation's 'Mandate for Leadership.' In that paper, Hunter called for increasing the use of NLRB injunctions against unions, gutting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and drastically cutting the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
Mr. Cownie is such an admirer of the Heritage Foundation's political program that he apparently went so far as to name the company from which his mysterious fortune emanates "Heritage Communications." Despite Mr. Cownie's funding of Anna Gaskell's Des Moines Museum vanity project and his keen interest in Mr. Wit's Winchester Series, he and now most of the younger male members of his family are professionally devoted to using Homeland Security pork to overturn decades of social progress and subverting values that the art community struggles to represent and uphold.
For example, author Russ Bellant states in his book The Coors Connection that The Heritage Groups "will continue to be a key element in the phalanx of rightist groups with an agenda of austerity for the poor, hostility to minorities and women, upward distribution of wealth for the rich, economic domination of the Third World, with repression and bloodletting for those who rebel.”
In addition to his business bona fides, Cownie also has a more colorful side behind the cryptic Bruce Wayneian businessman front. According to Mr. Wit of the Staircase, a/k/a artist Jeremy Blake, (who briefly dated Ms. Gaskell for a year or so as an undergrad in art school and who as such was more than once a personal guest of Mr. Cownie's in the early 1990s) Jim Cownie has an oddly vast collection of firearms--an entire out building devoted to them in fact. Mr. Cownie also had a Hummer in 1992, way before they were a common sight. Then there were the mobster "friends" in Las Vegas who comped Mr. Wit and Ms. Gaskell with an eye roll and a groan when they mentioned Cownie's name at the front desk, as he had instructed them to do. In addition to the Gaskell orphans, Cownie has four or five children of his own. The oldest male Cownie child, then a teenager, even bragged to Mr. Wit during one visit "My Dad's going to get me in the CIA!"
Once the harassment of The Wits began, these disparate old Anna Gaskell anecdotes, which up to the late summer of 2006 had been completely unknown to me, began to suddenly bob up in Mr. Wit's memory. Mr. Wit's recollection was further jarred after we repeatedly witnessed Ms. Gaskell's brother Zach mysteriously pacing in front of our Venice California home. Then there were the many cars with Iowa license plates following us around Los Angeles at the time. (We took photos of these, naturally.) Mr. Wit during this time also suddenly remembered that busy Cownie often travelled to South Dakota to attend some of the Midwest's more unsavory biker rallies. But I guess being friends with ex-con bikers and Vegas mobsters doesn't necessarily point to somebody who would, like, hire thugs to harass, threaten or--wow--maybe even kill people.
Much of the harassment of me and Mr. Wit was also conducted by the Church Of Scientology in L. A., who Cownie also no doubt also "does business with." U.S. Intelligence "black ops" and "psy ops" have long relied on (or just outright invented) religious cults (including the Manson Family--Charles Manson received 150 hours of in-prison Scientology "auditing"), biker gangs, and the like in Federal Counterintelligence programs in order to disrupt the counterculture since the 1960s. Read more about the CIA and cults here and couch jumping, Katie kidnapping mind controlled movie star Tom Crusie's meeting with Scooter Libby and State Department head Richard Armitage here.
While this ongoing illegal harassment of Wit using Federal employees (or their "cut-out" counterparts) and Federal funding (your Homeland Security tax dollars at work!) is meant to deprive us of work and our livelihoods and even sanity, the harassment also has a curious sexual focus on Wit that mirrors this J. Edgar Hoover campaign against Black Panther organizer and actress Jean Seberg.
Like the Federal "Cointelpro" campaign that deliberately drove Seberg to suicide, the smear campaign against Wit and Mr. Wit uses as its basis pre-existing, completely invented smears started by married art professor Ralph Rugoff and his student girlfriend Hilary Chartrand in order to cover up their 2000 affair while both worked at the California College of Arts And Crafts. This is something that sharp-eyed Wit accidentally discovered during one particularly dreary art dinner in November of that year. Hilary Chartrand is friends with Anna Gaskell, who is also known for carrying on affairs with her married professors in order to have access to ethics-challenged art world log rollers like NY Times critic Roberta Smith and her husband Jerry Saltz.
To add the final dessert topping to this apocalyptic art world sundae, Mr. Wit says that normally dour Cownie frequently made jokes about child molestation as a "training" tool. This wouldn't be so fucking spooky, friends of the Staircase, if Des Moines wasn't the land of the Project Monarch/U.S. Intelligence rumored disappearance of Johnny Gosch and the odd resemblance of poor little Johnny to Bush White House gay hooker-psychological operative Jeff Gannon.
Anyway, Ms. Gaskell and I don't seem to have much in common besides her very brief intersection with the life of Jeremy Blake, a period about which Mr. Wit says "She was so dumb, so arrogant and so mysteriously smug. She really thought she had some sort of advantage in every situation. I could never, ever figure out where that came from, because it sure wasn't coming from anything she did. But I guess now I know.")
This is a pretty ugly set of circumstances, and a weirder true tale than even Wit usually presents. But, as usual from what I hear, Ms. Gaskell has gotten somebody else to do the work of articulating and then cleaning up her mental messes for her.
If you're reading this, Anna, here's some free advice: Stop accepting payoffs from Cownie immediately, get your younger brothers away from him, get a lawyer using only your own money, and have the lawyer get Cownie to answer a few questions about your mother and father.
If I were you, I'd even take a job in a factory in order to do it.
At this link below are the members of the board of one of the many oddly nondescript companies Cownie is linked with. It looks like a roll call of the unsavories from "Lumberton" in
David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Wexford & James LLC.
Anna Gaskell: artnet.com Magazine News - THE ROYAL FLUSH. "
Where's William Cooper when you need him? Read More
Suicide or Scientology?
There were rumours the couple had become very paranoid, claiming they were being stalked and harassed by the Church of Scientology. It's all very, very labyrinthian and intriguing... but now some new facts are coming to light.
It is fairly well documented that the CoS will go to extraordinary lengths to harass writers, artists, musicians and anyone else who dares to poke fun at or criticize them. Now some are buzzing about an equation involving artist Anna Gaskell and CoS' "fair game" policy involving domestic and international terrorism, espionage, extortion, coercion, blackmail and murder.
Go here and here and read more.
From Theresa's blog:
"Current and former Federal intelligence officers are often employed by the CoS in attacking, researching and harassing their perceived enemies.
I was harassed by the Church of Scientology during and after my boyfriend and I worked with their member Beck Hansen. (Jeremy Blake designed an album cover for Beck)
I have dozens of pictures of this harassment, including a dead cat, graffiti on and near our property, and four of five police reports with the LAPD to bear this out.
Also during this time, someone named Reza Aslan, a Muslim "scholar" and friend of a friend who attended school in Iowa came to my house in Venice, CA and freely chatted about an FBI file of mine he seemed vividly aware of, even though at that time I myself did not know such a file existed. A consequent FOIA filing revealed his "magic" knowledge of these documents to be true.
The overlap of a Muslim American seeming Homeland Security agent from Iowa asking me about my life in Detroit and the large Muslim population there (a population I sadly never mixed with while I lived in Detroit as a lass) during the height of the Scientology harassment, and the continual mention of my heretofore unknown to me FBI file by members of the CoS indicates a blending of the two communities that is borne out in the history of the church's use of current former members of Federal intelligence agencies.
Also, as I mentioned above in the Cownie article, MK Ultra and other Strangelovian secret intelligence mind control techniques often used cults like the CoS, the Manson cult, and the Jim Jones cult to manipulate and infiltrate the left and the counterculture.
This "Cointelpro" program using cults and hypnosis, mind control, etc. is now well known thanks to lawsuits filed against the CoS, the Federal govt. by victims of these programs, and through the declassification of documents related to these Federal programs.
Also, a couple investigative journalists in the Midwest and California have been helping me look into Cownie's many companies' adresses, SEC filings, and other "follow the money" trails that conclusively point to financial dealings with the entities I suggest in the article above. "
Related Links:
Artist Jeremy Blake's Disappearance: Suicide? Scientology?
[New York Magazine]
Bulletin: Theresa Duncan Not Yet Ruled a Suicide [Ron Rosenbaum]
CoS' criminal "Fair Game" policy [fairgamed.org]
Scientology's equally sinister "Volunteer Minister" Program [cosvm.org]
"Outsider" Music
The term Outsider Art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for Art Brut (which literally translates as "Raw Art" or "Rough Art"), a term created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; but Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane asylum inmates.
Outsider music is a form of outsider art.
The term Outsider Music was arguably coined by journalist, music historian and WFMU DJ Irwin Chusid.
Outsider music is music performed either by social outcasts, who have no or few associates in the mainstream music business, or by musicians who choose to live and work in seclusion, often due to compromising behavioral or psychological conditions.
Outsider music reflects these conditions in various ways. Lyrics are often always bizarre or emotionally stark and songs may show a great ignorance or disregard for structural conventions or popular trends in mainstream music.
Outsider musicians also frequently have no formal training and/or significant music skills in the traditional sense. The end result is music that is much stranger and more abrasive than more popular musical styles.
I didn’t realise it had a name or classification but I already love it all. I quickly realised lots of amazing stuff falls under this umbrella; stuff I’m already into but never thought to thread it altogether.
It’s perfect; like a junk drawer of wild music, none of it sounds alike, the only thing stringing it altogether is the fact that it all completely defies categorization. It’s not blues or avant-garde or alternative or anything, it’s just fucked up, weird, insanely unique and therefore brilliant.
By definition, outsider music has very few outlets and most outsider musicians (save those such as Syd Barrett and Skip Spence who became popular before becoming recluses) come to be known through word of mouth, usually among communities of music collectors.
I’d say Daniel Johnston is a good poster boy for “outsider music”, enough people know his deal to equate what the rest of the “genre” must be about.
Only a few “outsider musicians” have achieved much renown outside of a small group of devotees - Tiny Tim and Wesley Willis are decent examples. Outsider music is frequently praised by more well-known musicians with experimental leanings, dudes like John Zorn, or Sonic Youth or for instance, Kurt Cobain. Cobain was photographed many times wearing a t-shirt with Daniel Johnston’s album cover on it; Cobain was a big fan of Johnston and the way most people learned of him. Tragically or perfectly depending on how you feel about it, a random mention or reference in a sidebar may be the only real form of publicity these outside artists ever receive.
Here's some required "outsider music" listening. This is all stuff I own and I enjoy. I wouldn't steer you wrong, IF you think you'd be into some "weird" shit...
This is easily the most wonderful and disturbing CD I own. It was recorded in a school gymnasium in the mid-70's by the music teacher of a school in British Columbia. The students got to pick their favourite pop songs of the time and this genius music teacher gave them each harmonies and parts to sing using ingenious methods created by Carl Orff (the German composer who did "O Fortuna" most notably) and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, the most haunted genius of our time. The result is 60 kids pensively singing choir versions of Bowie, the Beach Boys and more. Its fucking bizarre and beautiful, it sounds ethereal and the kids' shyness comes off sounding like the most sincere thing ever put to tape. Check it out if you have a few bucks to spare.
All Hail Raymond Scott. This is arguably the first electronic music EVER recorded, EVER! Scott started out as a jazz and classical composer. Somewhere along the way he got bored with what was out there and started building his own instruments with crude computers and whatever the fuck was around in the late 50's and early 60's. These were top-secret creations he'd use to create ambient sounding commercial jingles, as well as the odd soundtrack with then budding filmmaker/Muppeteer Jim Henson. My favourite track is "Limbo: The Organized Mind", its so eerie and bizarre and perfect. If you're into Aphex Twin and shit like that, this is the Godfather. A must for fans of electronic music.
Syd Barret. Dude started Pink Floyd and then went crazy and recorded some of the best shit ever. Just his name is legendary and will score you 10 points during any music conversation so find out why!
The ultimate punk: Jandek. No one even knew his real name or what the fuck this dude looked like for about 20 years! Only a handful of people claim to have even contacted Jandek, whose steadfast anonymity is legendary and truly rebellious. He plays awkward folk/blues Texas style. A dude who obviously plays music for the music and because he HAS to play and could give a fuck about anyone giving him praise for it. Amazing.
Daniel Johnston: The alpha and omega of "outsider music". A childish Bob Dylan. John Lennon stuck in arrested development. Heartbreakingly beautiful stuff. Filde Under: ESSENTIAL.
OK, that's all the help I'm gonna give. Go find the rest yourself. Enjoy!
1938 Bugatti goes for $850,000 at Christie's
Christie's sold this 1938 Bugatti for a staggering $852,500 at the Greenwich Concours d'Elegance which is more than twice the highest pre-sale estimate and close to the price of a new Bugatti.
The car was admitted to the Pebble Beach preservation class, and when its new owner gets it up to spec, it'll undoubtedly be the beauty it once was.
The 1938 Type 57C you see here is actually a bit of an amalgamation of two Bugattis that were both owned by the same pre-war collector. The chassis itself belonged to a Type 57 Stelvio cabriolet with bodywork by Gangloff, a coachbuilder based in Colmar near the Bugatti factory in Molsheim in the French region of Alsace. In time for display at the French pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, the body was switched for that of the Type 57C Atalante (not to be confused with the more rare and iconic Atlantic).
But $852,500 for a fixer upper? Wow. And bonne chance finding parts for that thing.
What the hell is a Death Cab For Cutie?
My beautiful friend Marlene D. and I were talking about the band Death Cab For Cutie which got me thinking if people know where their moniker comes from... Well, I happen to know because I am a collector of useless knowledge, and I'd like to share it with you.
The name is somewhat tied in with The Beatles and the infamous "Paul is dead" rumour.
But, it all starts with a band called The Bonzo Dog Band (also known as The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Bonzo Dog Dada Band and, colloquially, as "The Bonzos").
The Bonzo Dog Band was a band created by a group of British art-school denizens of the 1960's. The band wrote "Death Cab For Cutie" as a send-up of Elvis Presley. Like many early rock songs it tells a story of youthful angst. It's the story of "Cutie" who goes out on the town against her lover's wishes and she is killed when the taxicab she's in runs a red light and crashes. Tragic.
"Paul is dead" is an urban legend alleging that Paul McCartney died in a car accident in 1966 and was replaced by the winner of a McCartney look-alike contest.
Evidence for McCartney's death consists of "clues" found among the Beatles' many recordings, most of which are treated as if they were deliberately placed by the Beatles or others—as if McCartney's death was a mystery to be solved by the public. They include statements allegedly heard when a song is played backwards, symbolism found in obscure lyrics, and ambiguous imagery on album covers. It all makes a lot more sense when you're stoned I'm sure.
Though it is often unclear whether proponents spread this story as a joke or as a real conspiracy theory, a few "clues" are well-known, such as the fact that McCartney is the only barefoot Beatle on the cover of Abbey Road. The four Beatles on the album cover, according to the "Paul is Dead" myth, represent the priest (John, dressed in white), the undertaker (Ringo in a black suit), the corpse (Paul, in a suit but barefoot—like a body in a casket), and the gravedigger (George, in jeans and a denim work shirt).
Many fans have claimed that the rumour was a hoax perpetrated by the Beatles, either as a joke, or to stimulate record sales. This was denied numerous times by all four band members.
Sooooooooo anyway...
The Beatles were huge fans of The Bonzo Dog Band and featured them performing the song "Death Cab for Cutie" in their Magical Mystery Tour film. McCartney was known as—and even described himself in an interview as—"the cute one". So people took the song as yet another clue adding to the "Paul is dead" rumour: "Death Cab" referring to his doomed car and "For Cutie" meant "for Paul".
So that's where Death Cab For Cutie got their name from. Ya hurrd? Read More
27 July 2007
Les films fous de Lasse Gjertsen
Run Away Shadow - Lasse Gjertsen - Watch more free videos
Lasse Gjertsen on drums - Watch more free videos
Lasse Gjertsen Daydream Part2 - Watch more free videos
Deep down, we're all teenagers in Idaho who listen to Marilyn Manson
From WitnessLA.com
Kevin Roderick on Blogging Theresa Duncan
News of the sorrow-producing deaths of blogger, writer, filmmaker Theresa Duncan and her lover, new art star, Jeremy Blake, appeared in the blogs way before any of the conventional news outlets managed to be curious enough to write a story.
Kevin Roderick at LA Observed (LA’s primary morning must-read blogger) broke the story on Thursday, July 19, with a fuller story the next day, plus multiple follow-ups. The New York Times and other New York papers didn’t catch up until Saturday, July 21.
The somnambulist LA Times didn’t get around to writing about Duncan and Blake until Wednesday, July 25 —never mind that Venice resident Duncan was a vibrant player in the LA’s new literary scene—thus her death was a story the Times should naturally have covered, (ahead of, say, more idiotic blurbs on freaking Posh Spice).
For the record, WLA even saw fit to write about Duncan’s death three days ahead of the Times, even though it clearly wasn’t a social justice issue; it was nonetheless a story that wouldn’t leave my head.
Continued from WitnessLA.com...
Theresa Duncan was 40….A Talent Removed
Much is being written about the suicide of multi-talented Venice filmmaker, writer, and blogger, Theresa Duncan, who killed herself in New York on July 10, followed by the probable suicide of her longtime boyfriend, rising-star artist Jeremy Blake, 35. The police mention pills and a long explanatory note in relation to Duncan’s death. As for Blake, it seems that a week after finding his lover’s body at the NY apartment they were renting while she worked on a promising-sounding new film, the artist simply took off his clothes, set down his wallet, and walked into the sea.
He too left a note—-saying he couldn’t imagine living without her.
Kevin Roderick at LA Observed has been particularly on top of the story.
I didn’t know Duncan; only knew of her. But it cannot be other than terribly confusing, disturbing and sorrow-producing when two people as gifted—and as physically beautiful, frankly— as Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake decide to precipitously and irrevocably remove themselves from this world.
You can find news stories here and here and here.
But, for me anyway, a better way to apprehend at least a sliver of the creative loss that has occurred is to take a look at these witty and wonderful videos produced by Duncan. I found them posted on YouTube.
They are from her “Closet Cases” series.
Here are the links to the two videos:
The first is Closet Cases: Slice of Bread
The second is called Closet Cases: The Dred Case
The New York Post story quotes a friend of the couple, who explains how out-of-character the suicides seemed for both Duncan and Blake.“Suicide would never be on their to-do list,” he said.
"Suicide would never be on their to-do list," he said. "The narrative of the wallet and the clothes under the boardwalk, it's like somebody writing a cliché, it's not them.
"It would be embarrassing to them. It seems too calculated for the most uncalculated people. I can see some teenager in Idaho who listens to Marilyn Manson doing this, but not them."
Sweetheart, deep down, we're all teenagers in Idaho who listen to Marilyn Manson.
Nuff.
Read More
Live dangerously vicariously ! Tonight & Free...
...The Whitney Live series continues with the music of visionary lunatic Sun Ra. The evening will include a reading of a new opera, Mr. Mystery: The Return of Sun Ra to Save Planet Earth!, with music by Fred Ho and libretto by Quincy Troupe. Guaranteed to be très bizarre and you know the Moore's will be there somewhere. (6pm @ The Whitney 945 Madison Ave (HOLLA!) Pay What You Wish a/k/a FREE!)
After that, run the fuck over to the South Street Seaport...
SUICIDE is playing the Seaport tonight. Need we say more? School yourself here. (SUICIDE goes on at 8 @ Pier 17 and its FREE!)
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PETA's open letter to Britney and Paris
Dear Paris and Britney,
So, you have popped into a pet store to pick up some more doggy arm candy. Your impulse purchases of dogs encourage others to follow suit, no matter how ill-equipped they are to provide a decade or more of care for a little dog who has feelings and needs and who requires patience, veterinary care, and stimulation other than nightclub music and bar laughter.
Also, for every pet store puppy purchased, a pound puppy dies (and a breeder -- probably somewhere in Arkansas or Missouri -- is rewarded for adding yet another litter to the pet overpopulation crisis).
A California bill that would have required most dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered-and therefore would have helped reduce the taxpayer burden for disposing of (killing) homeless animals-was recently defeated by greedy breeders. Perhaps you and other vacuous stars need to tattoo "Don't buy while pound pups die" on your foreheads to remind each other of that home truth.
Very truly yours,
Ingrid E. Newkirk, President
PETA
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Nicole Richie looking deliciously like Mia Farrow at a wake on her way into court today to face charges for her most recent DUI bust -- her second DUI conviction in 4 years. Oh, Nicole, u so crazy! Her boyfriend, Good Charlotte's Joel Madden looks like he's on his way to the funeral for his career. OHHHHHH DIP! YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT, I SAID IT!
Courtroom sketches have always intrigued me; such a distinct style, this one looks like the artist went to F.I.T. though
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A group called Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices.
So the lables on Aquafina water bottles will soon be changed to spell out that the drink comes from the same source as tap water.
Aquafina is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles are now labeled "P.W.S.'' but the new labels will spell out "public water source.''
"If this helps clarify the fact that the water originates from public sources, then it's a reasonable thing to do,'' said PepsiCo spokeswoman Michelle Naughton. Doublespeak damage control is like a natural aphrodisiac to me.
The corporate accountability group is also pressing for similar concessions from The Coca-Cola Co., which owns the Dasani water brand.
Dasani ! Get yo ass in here!
Dasani's website says that Dasani comes from local water supplies and is then filtered. Huh?
"We don't believe that consumers are confused about the source of Dasani water,'' Coca-Cola spokeswoman Diana Garza Ciarlante said. "The label clearly states that it is purified water.''
Right, purified tap water. Got it.
Sympathy for Engines
Every time I spy a fancy sports car stuck in traffic a small part of me dies. What the F are you doing with that car in Midtown? Why do you even own that thing... wait, let me guess.
Do you know that turbocharged engine is totally pissed at you? If that engine was a person it wouldn't be talking to you right now. Do you know how frustrated that Boxster is that you out of all people had to buy it! That Aston Martin engine was made to ROAR on the goddamn autobahn at 150 mph, it wasn't meant to inch down 5th Ave at 5:15 PM.
You don't hear it because you've got the AC and the Steely Dan blasting in that coupe, but outside we all hear your engine and its shrieking in pain; we all hear its muffled sighs under the hood; its crying out "SAVE ME! SAVE MEEEE!... give me bach to someone Yerman!"
These pinstripes buy these sports cars because thats just what you do when you have tons of F.U. money and wanna push it around but these machines were meant to FLY like BIRDS! Like an eagle into the fuuuuuturrrrre. And flying like an eagle doesn't mean that one little stretch of the Taconic when you do 90 for 15 seconds before you get off your exit and go home.
I saw a guy last weekend cruising down the main strip of my neighb pushing a Lamborghini. There is no way this car will ever do what it was built to do, ever. Not anywhere around here, and thats a tragedy and a waste of engineering. What the F are you doing cruising down a main strip with street lights at every other block in a goddamn Lamborghini ?! Yeah, I know, you wanna be seen, but do you understand whats under that hood? Do you understand what that car was built to do? It certainly wasn't built for comfort while sitting in lazy Sunday traffic!
Seeing a Lamborghini waiting at a red light is like seeing some yuppie couple shoving their kids into these new Porsche SUV's like its a fucking Volvo. An SUV made my Porsche is like non-alcoholic beer. I'll tell ya, Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche is rolling in his grave right now thanks to those Cayennes. There is something seriously wrong when Porche's best-seller is a goddamn refridgerator SUV that goes 171 mph. It's like a Frankenstein of everything that sucks about cars today. Not only is it a Porsche, it goes 171 mph and then they stick that in an SUV. If you ever need proof that the world has its head on completely backwards, look into the Porsche Cayenne.
Old fast cars are dope. That's the exception. Even my truck gets pissed at me from time to time because all I can do is gun it down the Belt on a Saturday afternoon once a week. Luckily my truck is old and has Alzheimer's so she forgets that she hasn't gone fast in a while so every time is like the first time for her. But these new sports cars are like spaceships. You wanna gun that thing up the FDR and bust your axle on a 4 foot deep pothole with a racoon living in it?
New York is luxury. You got F.U. money? then buy a luxury car. Get a Maybach and hire your son's friend to drive you around but leave the sports cars to the Euro's. We ain't got the roads for them here!
Salad Days: 8th Street & Oxblood
Does anyone remember the legend behind the lace codes of the late 80's/early 90's? You know, white DM laces meant you were white power while red simply meant you were just a regular old fashioned skin; pink meant you were gay; green meant you were a vegetarian or straight-edge, etc. I'm sure there were different codes in each town or city. I can't recall the full list that I knew around NYC or Brooklyn but my favourites were the rumoured ones like "oooh yeah he has blue laces, that means he killed a cop!" Hahahaha will you just shut the F up?! Let me guess, and every douche with a spiderweb tat on their elbow has murdered someone too, right?
Franklin Evans & The Voyage of the Beagle
I just wrote a few checks my ass can't cash over at my dealer's house, Barnes & Noble. I bought every goddamn Wilco CD I didn't have or had lost; a new book about Warren Zevon written by Crystal Zevon, his ex-wife and mother of his daughter; that book about Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour in soft cover by Ratso; and a few of these little mini-hard covers that look like Torah prayer books except its all famous works of literature in a smaller font for $2,99. HOLLA!
I got my Darwin and my Whitman on. Not a bad score and quite portable. I like my drugs on the move. Everything good comes in hard cover but who wants to lug that around? Yo, these are mad handy. On the mobile. Say whaaaat?
I just had a great idea. I'm gonna dig up some hockey or football pads from high school, suit up and take to the streets of Midtown. And every dolt who walks whilst texting with his head down not looking where he's going and is gonna get CREAMED. I'll be taking sponsors for ad space on the back of my jersey so y'all best holla!
Scott Baio went to my high school
So I was talking to my boy Scott Baio last night and he told me an awesome story... after I asked him if all that mattered to him was looks or if he cared if a girl had a personality or not...
The world-renowned Hollywood ladies man from Brooklyn was driving through Laurel Canyon with a girl. He said the girl was a 15 on a scale of 1-10. So they're driving and "Lay Lady Lay" comes on the radio. Scott turns it up and says "Wow, I haven't heard this song in so long. I love this song!"
So the girl goes "Who is this?" and Scott says "...WHO IS THIS?! It's Bob Dylan!"
She says "Ohhh right right I know him... He was in The Who, right?"
Scott pulled over, reached over and opened the door, told the girl to get out of the car and she did. And he drove away and never saw or heard from her again.
Meanwhile check out this awesome site
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Meanwhile check out this awesome site